Mayor and Council - Regular Meeting

O'Rockville, today is 03/02/2026. We're be beginning meeting six dash '26. Please join me as you're able in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We have some very special proclamations and celebrations for this month. I'm going to ask my colleagues to join me at the podium.

Good evening everybody. I never get that response. That was awesome. I am very honored and privileged to be giving the proclamation on Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Week. I am actually extremely honored for a variety of reasons, but first and foremost, my father had chronic progressive multiple sclerosis and died right before COVID.

And so, my family and I all throughout the 80s, we did all that we could to support, MS research and awareness and I think that I will urge anybody who is currently going through the challenges of having multiple sclerosis, take care of yourself, engage in self care. If you're the primary caregiver, please do what you can to get respite care because your health is needed to help your family and your loved one. Multiple sclerosis does not have a cure as of yet and scientists don't know the exact cause of multiple sclerosis, at least not yet. It affects women more than men and actually affects black women more than white women at up to forty seven percent of a higher rate. And in addition to taking care of yourself, I will also state that if you or a loved one have a family history of multiple sclerosis while there is not a direct inherited genetic risk, please get an MRI, talk to your primary care provider, and ask them to order you an MRI.

I know I did recently, within the last year, and it's a good thing and they'll understand why you're asking for that. That's just my 2¢. Alright. Whereas multiple sclerosis, MS, is a neurological disease of the central nervous system affecting nearly one million people in The United States alone. And whereas the City of Rockville recognizes the importance of finding the cause and a cure for MS and expresses its appreciation for the dedication that the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and NIH have shown toward creating a world free of MS.

Now, therefore, the mayor and council do hereby proclaim and recognize March 2026 as Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Week and we encourage all Rockville residents to learn more about MS and what they can do to support individuals with the disease and their families. Madam Mayor, I move the proclamation. Aye. And we have joining us Doctor. Sadana Jackson Bibbens.

And Doctor. Jackson Vibbins is with NIH, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the surgical neurology branch, And hopefully, she will tell me that it was okay to say the part about MRIs. Do want to say

a few words?

Sure. Thank you so very much for allowing me to accept this proclamation in honor of Multiple Sclerosis Week. So as a physician and as someone who takes care of patients with various neurologic disorders, yes. The big thing is advocacy. So one of the main things that will happen at the initial diagnosis of multiple sclerosis is just overall weakness.

And so these patients will present to their doctor or to their family member with just weakness. And so, yes, I agree with you in terms of advocating for yourself as well as for others that you should go to the doctor, but also just be communicative about what's going on with your body. You know what's going on with it baseline, but then also what different things are happening. So that's just one of the main presenting symptoms. So, just great to just be able to be here and accept this proclamation on behalf of the patients who currently have MS and us as clinicians and as researchers working towards improvements in the care for these patients. So, thank you.

Thank you.

Nope, you guys stay up here for a picture. I also want to give a shout out that you are at NIH and I have to say, as anybody at NIH right now, thank you for sticking in there and advocating for science in everything that you do. So, you.

Thank you. Alright.

Good evening. Thank you, madam mayor. Thank you all for coming out. Thank my colleague for allowing me to say a few words about the next proclamation. It's so fitting to commemorate Harriet Tubman. She represents both black history, a month that just ended, women's history. She's a veteran. She served in the civil war, and she's from Maryland. I encourage everybody if you get the chance, if you're heading to Ocean City, stop in Dorchester County. Check out the Underground Railroad Museum. It's great. You can even bring your electric vehicle out there. They have chargers. But more so than that, they have a great history about one of my heroes. And with that, I'm gonna step aside and let one of my present day heroes say a few words. Alright.

I appreciate that. Also, just wanna add Harriet Tubman was also a nurse and an advocate for the right to vote for women. And she had direction and she was inspiring and she led hundreds of people to freedom. Whereas Harriet Tubman was born around eighteen twenty twenty two eighteen twenty twenty two on a plantation in Dorchester County, Maryland, and she had eight brothers and sisters. But the realities of slavery eventually forced the family apart.

Now, therefore, the mayor and council of the city of Rockville, Maryland do hereby proclaim 03/10/2026 as Harriet Tubman Day and call upon the people of Rockville to observe this day and help our families, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and leaders to understand the value of Harriet Tubman's service and life to Maryland and to America. Madam mayor, I move the proclamation.

All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye.

Aye. Miss Anita Powell, we have if you'd like to say a few words.

Good evening, mayor and council. Thank you for the opportunity to accept this year's proclamation declaring 03/10/2026 as Harriet Tubman in Rockville. It is an honor to take part in the city of Rockville's history, particularly as we recognize Harriet Tubman's birthday during Women's History Month. General Tubman's legacy continued to be formally acknowledged, most recently in 2024 when she was recognized for her civil war service by governor Wes Moore. On Veterans Day, veterans, on 11/11/2024, he stated, I could not think of a more appropriate day to lift up one of the greatest Marylanders and patriots we have ever seen.

Today, we honor her legacy by putting it on paper what we have always known in our hearts. His words reflect the enduring impact of her courage and leadership in shaping our nation and our state. This evening, I would like to also acknowledge that Montgomery County is home to Harriet R. Tubman Elementary School in Gaithersburg. It is my hope that in Rock in the future, Rockville will also commemorate her legacy with a historical marker, bus, or statue honoring her contributions as a black woman whose story is integral to both Maryland and American history.

Thank you again for the opportunity to participate in the city's recognition of Harriet Tubman's birthday on March 10. I would be remiss if I did not mention last weekend's production, Harriet Tubman on the Run, which chronicled her extraordinary journey from enslavement to service as one star general in the union army. The production highlighted her impact across the 10 states she influenced through her bravery as a conductor on the underground railroad. I would like to recognize those who brought her story to life, doctor Cheryl LaRoach, narrator, Emma Smith, who portrayed Harriet Tubman, Jill Henderson Brown as Amenta Ross, and the director, coach Veronica Thompson, director of Diamonds Dance Unit's Dance Team. In performance, we depicted passengers on the underground railroad, miss James, miss Wilkerson, miss Dorsey, miss Davis, miss Twyman, miss Wolfe, miss Jackson, including Brittany Walker, and Sheila Bell, whose song and spiritual captured the spirit of the journey to freedom.

Lastly, we'd like to thank mister Tommy Davis the fourth as the historical conductor and the volunteers who participated in the performance by waving a flag or touching a lantern to indicate that they were safe. They were in a safe place. February 28 marked the end of Black History Month, and today, March 2, begins Women History Month, an ex an especially meaningful transition. Again, we are pleased to accept this proclamation on behalf of the residents of the city of Rockford.

Good evening. I think I may get I might end up getting voted off. I'm kinda calling all types of audibles today. This time, I'm gonna bring up another one of my colleagues, Versa Valeri, because that shirt and those boots, I cannot outdo that. I mean But

I'm happy to be I'm happy just to be up here.

So we're gonna do the Veterans Day, Vietnam Veterans Proclamation. Do you wanna say a few words about your family members or Go for work.

Super super quick. Just super quick. My dad spent all of his, service. He was in the United States Coast Guard, Semper Paratus, and I just wanna give a shout out on on that. We have a lot of in the city, and he, ended his career up at Curtis Bay, which folks learned about, during the the horrible, bridge collapse. They did a lot of great stuff and my heart is always with veterans in particular the Coastie veterans, but everybody for sure.

Thank you. Thanks for tolerating the audibles. The proclamation reads as follows, whereas in the Vietnam War was one of the most brutal wars. Over three million people were killed during the twenty years it went on, and National Vietnam War Veterans Day was created to honor all the men and women who fought and served during this time. And now therefore, the mayor and council of the city of Rockville, Maryland do hereby proclaim 03/29/2026 as Vietnam War Veterans Day in the city and encourage all community members to honor all war veterans and to thank them for their service.

With that madam mayor, I move the proclamation. Gentlemen, can can we have y'all come up and say a few words, please? I'd put y'all on the spot too. But y'all's outfits are way better minds.

Great.

So I'm a step aside and let you do what you do.

Good evening, everyone. On behalf of all the Vietnam veterans and all veterans who currently are serving in the military today to include our three veterans on the councils. We wanna thank the mayor and the council for presenting us with this honor. It was years and years before we would acknowledge as good soldiers, airmen, marines, sailors. In 2017, our president proclaimed this to be a proclamation on the March 29 of each year honoring our service as Vietnam veterans.

I wanna thank the mayor and council again for presenting us with this honor. We are very, very proud to receive it and very grateful that you took the time to do it for us. For God and Country.

So it's my honor to proclaim March 2026 as Women's History Month. I won't read the entire proclamation because that is in our style, but let me just say, go and read it online. There is a list of women, honestly, about half a page long, who have been important to Rockville, important important to the state, important to our nation. And it's really, really impressive starting with Susan b Anthony and then, Harriet Tubman following up to, the women, who are on this council right now. Kate Fulton, Zola Shaw, Marissa Valeri, and, of course, mayor Monique Ashton.

I'm pleased that I serve on a council as diverse and as accomplished as this one. So now I will read the plaque proclamation. Whereas women of various backgrounds have been leaders in movements in that include the fight for your imagination, women's suffrage, civil rights, and peace, and whereas women have contributed to the arts, sciences, the military, medical fields, teaching, and politics, while in many cases maintaining the balance between womanhood and employment. And whereas, women have played and continue to play a critical economic, cultural, and social role in every sphere of life locally, nationally, and worldwide by constituting a significant portion of the labor force. And the 2026 theme for Women's History Month is women shaping a sustainable future.

And now, therefore, the mayor and council of the city of Rockville do hereby proclaim March 2026 as Women's History Month and urge everyone to honor and celebrate the women in their lives. Madam mayor, I move the proclamation.

And do we have anybody to accept?

Oh, how are doing?

Introducer is Machina Foster.

Oh, thank you.

Chair of the Montgomery County Commission for Women and President and CEO of the Montgomery County based Crittenton Services of Greater Washington.

Hello,

everyone. Hello. Oh, goodness. Hold on. My notes went away.

On behalf of the Montgomery County Commission for Women, I extend our sincerest gratitude to the city of Rockville for declaring March 2026 as Women's History Month in Rockville, Maryland. This proclamation is more than a symbolic gesture. It's a powerful affirmation of the countless women, past and present, who have shaped our city, strengthened our families, and led business led in business and public service and paved the way for future generations. By recognizing Women's History Month, the council reinforces the importance of equity, opportunity, and the continued advancement of women and girls in our community. As chair of the Montgomery County Commission for Women, I am deeply grateful for Rockville's partnership and shared commitment to uplifting women's voices and honoring their contributions.

Together, we can, continue to work on building a stronger, more inclusive Rockville and Montgomery County for all.

Thank

you. We will take a brief break, but wanna say thank you all for being a part of all the proclamations and celebrations here in Rockville. Good evening, Rockville. We're reconvening meeting six dash twenty six, and today is 03/02/2026. I'd like to begin with agenda review. Miss Penny. Madam mayor, there is no changes to this evening's agenda. Thank you very much. And now we have the city manager's report.

Mayor Ashton, members of city council, ladies and gentlemen, good evening. I only have two things tonight, and one is to introduce our new community planning development service director who may just walk in the room at any second. I was hoping he was going to, but he may just wave later on. But his name is Evan Johnson, really wonderful guy. I know a couple of you got to meet him, but not everybody.

Evan has his master's of urban and regional planning from Florida State University. He also is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners, and he's also a LEAD certified professional. So he comes with some really good credentials that fit in really well with our community, and he was formerly the planning director of Tampa, Florida. So we're really excited to have Evan Johnson join our team. As you know, we did a nationwide recruitment, got a lot of great candidates. Couple of you were part of the review process and provided some feedback, and Evan is the last man standing. So we are very happy to have him join our team. So if you get a chance to see him, please give him a little wave, and you'll see him in front of this body at some point in the not too distant future.

I think he's here. Maybe miss Moran or someone would be possible just to bring him in so we can formally welcome him. Okay. Please continue, Mr. Mihelic, and we can come back and give Thank him a clap

you. The next thing is we have some really good news about some federal funding. Now we can finally initially announce to the public and to the council, that's no longer embargoed that we're very much the fortunate recipient of some money through the minibus spending bill. This was for three, infrastructure projects. One is to provide lead service investigations.

The second is to provide sanitary sewer lateral replacements, and the third is to provide some additional wastewater collection system rehabilitation. We're talking about a lot of money, folks. $2,600,000. So we are really excited to see receive that funding. Secondly, we were made aware of another opportunity to pursue federal earmarks.

We thought the original deadline for the senate was March 15. Received a bit of a curveball late Thursday afternoon that actually the house wanted those recommendations to them this week. So sorry for the fire drill, but we do have a couple of what we think are outstanding projects for federal earmarks, both infrastructure related. Let me describe those briefly. One is a proposed project that we're calling the disadvantaged community wastewater collection system rehabilitation.

This is a project that requests funding to rehabilitate one point four one one point four miles of critical wastewater piping. This is an area located West of Huntington Hungerford Drive, includes Rockville Town Square, College Square, and the surrounding neighborhoods. This really will provide us with a lot of opportunities to, do some replacement of those lines, which would prevent sewer backups, overflows, and any future environmental degradation. We're asking for a fair amount of money with this project, $443,000 We think this, is a really good project that plays well for earmarked funding. The other one I'm excited to suggest to you is what we're calling the Stone Street Corridor Improvements, another large project.

It is a complete street project along Park Road and North Stone Street. It would include street, sidewalk, bicycle facilities, and traffic signal improvements in and around the neighborhood. Really vastly needed area in an area that needed a lot of improvements. This is a big ask, $3,500,000. But, again, we think this is a project that is well into design and and we think would garner a lot of support. So those are the two projects we're recommending. Couple of you have sent in a couple questions. We've responded to those and happy to answer any additional questions that you may have. Just a note, again, we gotta get this letter out before the end of the week. That's all I have, Mara. Thank you so much.

Thank you. And if I could ask, we'll hold questions until all new business, if that's okay. Excellent. Alright. I just want to, acknowledge Ramadan for those who are celebrating and also to recognize that this is a difficult time given some of the news that are happening in the world and families who are worried about other relatives and just overall quest for peace in our country as well as overseas. So I just wanted to acknowledge that moment. Does anyone have anything else they wanna ask or say? Okay. Thank you. We'll now move on to community forum.

All persons, please address the mayor and council, and we request that you speak in a civil courteous manner and be respectful to the audience members as well. Each person is allowed three minutes. There is a time clock in front of you. You will hear an audible beep when your time has expired. Please state your name and whether you live in the city of Rockville for the record. I will call on those who have signed up in advance and then allow others to join from the floor. I'd like to welcome David Hill, president of Rockville Sister Cities Corporation. We welcome you.

Well, the mayor just mentioned my title and connection, and I am a city resident, although I'm speaking you on behalf of an organization. I have the interesting assignment of reading to you a declaration from our sister city in Germany that just came from us. They passed it, as a resolution of their annual meeting of the Citrus City organization. So jumping into it. The Citrus City partnership between Rockville and Pinnaberg was established at the initiative of the American government as part of its people to people program.

And the nearly seventy years of its existence, this official partnership has led to many personal friendships between people at each end across the Atlantic Ocean. And we, the German American Society, Rockefeller Pinenberg, are proud to stand in this tradition and friendship of mutual enrichment and continue to expand it. Today, relations between The United States and Germany are experiencing challenging times. These challenges are appreciable for our partnership. However, throughout our history, we experienced this relation from perspectives which are very different from the ones that currently dominate the news.

And especially now, we wish to recall their story. It is a story of great hospitality and of wonderful, generous people, a story of communities helping one another, of proud and selfless citizens with the courage to do what is right even or especially in the face of adversity. A story of family friendliness, of commitment to environmental protection, of self reflection grounded in deep ethical and religious convictions, and of humor and likeness that makes life's challenges more bearable. These are better, nay, the very best angels of our America. And we pray and firmly do we believe that in the end, these characteristics will prevail.

For our part, we will continue to work to do our share to contribute to that. The general assembly of the DHARP, Pinnenberg, 02/18/2026. Very quickly, I suggest some takeaways from this declaration. Our sister city colleagues are concerned, motivated enough to make such a declaration. The chill occurring in our international relations and diplomacy with European countries does not arise from our level of governments.

They understand that and hope for a better future. While we were in Pinnenberg last September, I raised this verbally with the Burgermeister and other city officials present that our federal government isn't changing in ways we do not always understand and is confusing to us too. Meanwhile, we are not changing our values in Rockville to the extent that we control what happens here. We are just as proud of our sister city relationship, and our esteem remains for our related colleagues as always. Therefore, we are on the same lay wavelength with our sister city in Germany.

Next year, 2027, is the seventieth anniversary of our sister city relationship with Pinnenberg, a long municipal touch point that the city should celebrate with that sister city. Short of more draconian visa and entry requirements for Germans, our SCC intends to move forward with planning that we typically do for decennial anniversaries, including official delegation exchanges and other visitations. Next next week in the budget testimony and the grant cycle, I'll speak to this a little bit more work for what comes up next year. If you have any questions, I'll answer what I can.

Thank you. We appreciate sharing that with us, and we appreciate our colleagues in Penoburg.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We now welcome JD Kumar.

City of Rockville, Maryland government, mayor and council, thank you for this opportunity, this open democracy forum. I recently requested people to refer to me as James Dhruva Kumar, Drew or JD Kumar. They asked me, what does this hat mean? It can mean anything. But today, it means talent, and, I've made my decision. I wanna take my talents to South Capitol Street, the US capital, Washington DC. For all of you here and beyond, this is the desire. Thank you. I'm registered as JD Kumar in the Democratic primary for United States Congress, Maryland district here. My website is votejdk.com.

Please note, should have a right to discuss this here because there are so many sanctuary policies, protections, billions of dollars of budgets dedicated to the Latin American and Central American illegals, undocumented community. And I continue to be the hardest working man in anything and everything. So my few minutes here to protect seniors, USA colonial Americans, other other thousands, millions, and and billions of vulnerable humanity here and beyond should not be an encumbrance should not be an encumbrance. Now today, also based on my many divine rights, I declare Urban Malik Johnson Day and Karen Abigail Jabbar Day. I also wanna establish a British Americans Day, a British Empire and British Commonwealth, American Veterans Day.

Me and my family, we belong to all this. More on all this later. I must remind again that I'm explainer in chief, EIC. I'm educator in chief, EIC. I coined the term established immigrants, migrant communities, and recently improved it to married communities, EIMC.

I'm now referring those of Latin American and Central American illegals undocumented and others as LA CALIS. LA CALIS for those that have not achieved EIMC status. EIMC status is those that have established themselves here for years and not just based on traditional work. If I go to congress, I will get fast fast track citizenship for those noncriminal EIMC here more than fifteen years, fast track permanent residency for those EIMC here more than ten years, Fast track work permits for those EIMC here in nine years or less in descending time priority order. I will use all my negotiating talents, sincerity to do this.

I have articulated this to so many. We must have a cohesive, nurturing, happy, encouraged all to thrive, safe, not living in fear community here and beyond. Misdemeanors are just misdemeanors. You should not live on the edge. This will cause mistakes and make come on, mom.

You you you should not make solvable situations worse. As of 01/20/2025, we must enforce our immigration laws 100%, thousand percent. We must differentiate between asylum and refugee seekers also. Montgomery County, Maryland government, and refugee seekers also should issue credentials to LA CALAs that have not achieved EIMC status, but they have to pass my civil rights and constitution protection certifications. Are you aware that our citizen questionnaire has nothing about civil rights, nothing about MLK, nothing about not very much. Or Harriet Tubman.

That's

it. Please change our citizenship questionnaire and add this. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Thank you. That exhaust list of those who have signed up in advance. Thank you. I don't see anyone else looking to join community forum. We appreciate all comments. We'll now move on to our special presentation. We have our biannual Vision Zero update. There is a dedicated city webpage to Vision Zero, and we had the last one September 2025. We welcome Brian Barnett Woods as well as Ahmad Al Shaifi, and I know Jim Woods is here as well.

Good evening, madam mayor. Good evening, council members. Thank you for the introduction. Again, I'm Brian Barnett Woods with the Department of Public Works in the Traffic and Transportation Division. I'm joined by Yamal Shafi, chief of traffic and transportation, and Jim Woods, director of public works. Tonight is a special presentation on the progress of the city's Vision Zero action

plan. So

a quick agenda. What is Vision Zero? Where are we? What are we working on now? All in a nutshell.

So a quick refresher. Vision Zero is the city's comprehensive transportation safety Its ultimate goal is to eliminate serious injuries and deaths that are caused by traffic crashes. This program is for everyone, and that's what we mean when we say multimodal. It's not just pedestrians. It's not just bicyclists, but it's for motorists and transit users. It's for everyone in the city and everyone who visits the city. The program is also more than just building things. We work with the Rockville City Police Department, for enforcement. We participate in encouragement activities throughout the year, such as walk and roll and bike to school days. We look at city policies to make sure that we're creating a new system that reinforces kind of a safety mindset citywide.

In 2020, the mayor council approved the vision zero action plan, which had 30 action items, which kind of guides program implementation. Where are we now? In 2025, in Rockville, there were two fatal crashes and sixteen serious injury crashes. Since 2015, there have been an average of 14 serious injury crashes per year and two fatal crashes per year. If we look at all crashes, so all modes and all severities, there's an average of 893 crashes in Rockville.

Last year, or I guess in 2025, there were 868 crashes of all modes. The caveat with this data that I'd share here is that if we kind of look at the middle, there's the COVID years, which is 2020 to kinda 2022. Travel patterns were very different. There was a lot more telework in Rockville. So those years have fewer serious injury and fatal crashes, but we're also seeing a lot less driving, and I think that's something we need to keep in mind.

But I also would point out that that trend isn't across the board all over the county or the region or the country, so something is for Rockville. Our high injury network represents streets that have had four or more serious injury or fatal crashes in a five year period. We updated this network, last year, to use the 2020 to 2024 data. All roads on the city's high injury network are state owned and maintained roadways. So here's a map that shows that high injury network so you can kinda visualize it.

I also added the crashes that happened in 2025 that were fatal or serious injury crashes. Those are the the triangles on the map. Not all of those crashes were on state roads, but many of them were, so that pattern continues to happen. I also wanna take a moment to call out the two fatal crashes that happened last year. One crash was on Frederick Road or Maryland 355, north of Watkins Pond Boulevard.

The second was on East Jefferson Street at Rollins Avenue. Both crashes involved pedestrians. After a fatal crash, the city conducts what is known as a post crash inspection, whether it's a state road or not. And we evaluate the existing lighting. We look at pavement pavement surfaces, the quality of the sidewalk, whether the signs have the right retroreflectivity, making sure that the signals are operating as expected.

When doing this inspection, if we find any deficiencies and it's a a city maintained road, we'll just take care of it right there and then. If it ends up being on a state road, we'll share that information with the right agency, So, Maryland Department of Transportation, State Highway Administration. We do this, because when a fatal crash occurs, the Montgomery County crash reconstruction unit handles the investigation, but this can be a months long process. And so this is something that the city can quickly act upon and see if there are any improvements we can make. We also prepare excuse me.

We also prepare a report, discussing our findings, which is then posted to the city's website. The Frederick Road crash inspection report is online now. Only recently, the city was notified by county police that the crash on East Jefferson Street was a fatal crash. It was originally recorded as a serious injury crash, and the victim later died from their injuries. We are in the process right now of preparing that crash report, and it will be posted online when it's ready.

Also, unfortunate, we learned of another fatal crash that happened last night, on Norbeck Road, another state road, and we've just initiated the inspection process. As we continue with Vision Zero, a huge part of this is sharing information with the community. We regularly participate in city events. So over, I guess, the second half of last year, there was Family Bike Day, the police department's open house, the Rockville Pedestrian Advocacy Committee, hosted two events during Walktober, which was a candlelight vigil to remember victims of traffic violence and a community walk and roll. And then we also do what we can just to share what information that we're working on.

And, also, if there are anyone who's watching this and would like to learn more about the city's Vision Zero program or what other safety projects we're working on, please feel free to reach out to us. I'd be happy to talk and come to one of your meetings, and talk about safe transportation. My contact email and our contact email is on the Vision Zero website. Additionally, the city's communications and community engagement division does a great job sharing articles, things that are about safety projects and and what's happening ongoing, but also walking tips, bicycling tips, driving tips. It's also shared in Rockville reports too.

So they're doing a really great job and kind of a hat tip to them. Over the July 2025 period, they shared 58 different posts that were viewed by over 1,200 people. And that doesn't include what was in the printed Rockville reports. That goes to everyone in Rockville. Also, the Vision Zero dashboard is now linked on the city's website, and it shows a quick snapshot of individual action items from the Vision Zero action plan.

So if residents are interested, they can go to the Vision Zero excuse me. The Vision Zero website and then get the link for the dashboard to kind of see where we are on each action. So there's a lot of other things going on. There are almost 80 projects ranging in size and scope that are happening ongoing right now where they were completed within the past six months. These include new sidewalks, bicycle facilities, looking at studies, doing engineering designs, so we're we're keeping busy.

For reference with this map, complete streets projects is kind of a fairly broad term, and I'm using it to include also a combination of, like, bicycle and pedestrian projects. So for instance, on North North Stone Street, we're doing design project that'll include sidewalks and bicycle lanes, but we're kind of showing in this map as a complete street. Also, if we look West Of I 270, the Scott Vere's shared youth use path project is to design a shared use path, which will be for pedestrians and bicyclists. And so this is really just to say that we're trying to think about all modes for all people in all parts of Rockville. So traffic calming refers to improvements that are designed to help motorists travel at the posted limit or or below.

This is good for bicyclists who might be traveling alongside motor vehicles. They're good for pedestrians who are crossing the street. It's good for motorists because if you're traveling slower, you tend to yield more to other roadway users. You tend to see more. And if there is a crash, traveling at a slower speed means there's less of an impact.

Last fall, in winter, we constructed several traffic calming improvements, including pedestrian refuges, curb extensions, and a raised crossing. Some of these projects are from residents, and they're submitted to us through a report of concern. And after city staff go and evaluate the concern or the the request, they identify these kinds of traffic calming improvements. And others are kind of part of larger projects. So if you actually see on the slide here, the raised crossing and curb extensions on LeMay Road and Ridgeway Avenue was originally part of the Twinbrook Safe Routes to School, study project that was completed, I guess, two years ago, and now we've finished completion or construction of this improvement.

Similar to traffic calming, crosswalks. Crosswalks are really helpful. They help direct pedestrians where the best place is to cross the street, and help notify motorists about the possible, presence of pedestrians. Here are some on this list here that we installed during the second half of last year. Some crosswalks also include traffic calming, so there's a little bit of overlap.

I mean, you can see in this picture here, I guess, the top crosswalk. It's right outside Falls Meade Elementary School, but it's a crosswalk, and it also has, curb extensions, and so that crossing distance is reduced. And then because of those curb extensions, it helps motorists who are who are turning at that point to take it at a a little bit slower clip, and then also it visually narrows the road. So if you're driving along the street, you tend to drive a little bit slower. Similar to crosswalks or traffic calming, again, these can come to the city as requested reporter concerns, or they're parts of other kind of ongoing projects.

PRORAG stands for the public right of way accessibility guidelines. And a couple years ago, these guidelines were approved and published at the federal level, and they include, standards for making sure that sidewalks are accessible and meet ADA accessibility requirements. Once the guidelines were approved, the city kind of developed a program to work within the existing concrete rehabilitation program to fix curb ramps and driveway aprons to make sure that they were accessible to people who were using wheelchairs or other mobility devices. Between July and December, we were able to retrofit and reconstruct 99 curb ramps and 322 driveway aprons to make sure that those sidewalks were accessible to everyone. If we look at all of 2025, that's 211 curb ramps and 625 driveway aprons.

So that's a lot of really good work there. I do wanna extend my gratitude to our construction management division. This is a really big project, and they've done a great job taking it on, incorporating it into our kind of ongoing sidewalk program. Speaking of sidewalks, we're also building new sidewalks. Five were completed since July.

Altogether, it's about 2,900 linear feet of sidewalk. There's another six sidewalks that are in the in the design phase now, or they're about to start design. We plan to construct some of these over the next fiscal year. We're also making a sidewalk inventory to complement our current sidewalk gap prioritization policy. The inventory will help track and measure the level of effort needed to build the sidewalk as well as to understand how much it would cost.

So while the prioritization looks at the surrounding destinations and connectivity, the inventory will look at things like slope, right of way, utility impacts. And the idea is that both will be used together so that the city can help identify those future gaps, for for sidewalk construction. We anticipate the sidewalk inventory will be completed within the next six months. We're also keeping things rolling for bicyclists. In the top left, you can see a fix it rack.

There are now five total in the city. A quick shout out and thank you to the recreation and parts department, for installing four of them in December. We've already received positive feedback, even though for me it may be too cold to bicycle. People are using it, so it's great. And as we look to the future, we kind of have the idea that we can kind of map them out and make sure that we have good coverage across the city for providing these facilities.

We're also designing shared use paths on Veres Drive and Scott Drive, as well as Fleet Street and Monroe Street, excuse me, to help kind of extend our bicycling network. And soon, we'll be starting to study and do study and preliminary design, for the Research Boulevard shared use path and the Maryvale Park to Redgate Park shared use path project. So we are continually doing what we can to kinda implement both the projects that are in our bikeway master plan and pedestrian master plan. Let's see. Complete streets projects.

Similar to kind of where we are with bike projects, the design for the the Stone Street corridor project is ongoing. We expect this to be completed in 2027 or or the design to be completed in 2027. This will have multimodal facilities on North Stone Street, a shared use path on Park Road, and rebuilding the intersections on Park Road at both North And South Stone Stone Street. We also have an ongoing study to look at Rollins Avenue between Evelyn Drive and Rockville Pike. We wanna find out, are there opportunities for traffic calming?

Are there ways to improve pedestrian and bicycle travel? Are there ways that we can look at the signals to help help facilitate travel for motorists? This study also includes the East Jefferson Street and Rollins Avenue intersection where that fatal crash occurred, and so we wanna see what kind of things and changes we can make there as well. This study will be completed in by the June. I also wanna take a a few moments to talk about a few specific projects.

The first one is the Red Lynn Boulevard demonstration project. We conducted a road repurposing demonstration project last fall on Redland Boulevard between Gaither Road and Elmcroft Boulevard. Essentially, we repurposed the outside lanes for parking, and then we wanted to kind of measure and see what the impact of that was over a course of a few weeks. There was a substantial reduction in the number of speed citations that were issued by the speed camera and a reduction in overall travel speeds. There was also a lot of traffic congestion that was created by this, and the on street parking that we thought was was desired by many in the community was actually not very well utilized.

So everyone's learning. The summary of our findings are on the city's website, and they were also shared with everyone who provided public comments during the course of this demonstration project. For now, we're not gonna move forward with this lane configuration, but we will continue to evaluate possible pedestrian improvements to help people cross Redmond Boulevard. Boulevard. The next project is the Twinbrook pedestrian and bicycle bridge study.

As a reminder, this project is to study four locations for a railroad track crossing in the Twinbrook neighborhood, which will include kind of a feasibility study, a cost benefit analysis, which we'll need to secure any kind of external funding for construction in the future if it's feasible, and then also to continue work with residents to make sure that this crossing is kind of what is expected and and kind of ideal for the community. Last week, the request for proposal was closed, and we have four submissions. We're now working with procurement to select a consultant, and we're hoping to keep keep this project moving and get started quickly. Once the contract for this project is executed, we expect the time line for the project to be about thirteen months. The first steps in the project will include data collection, for that cost benefit analysis as well as the feasibility study, and then starting to prepare, public outreach excuse me.

Starting to prepare public outreach materials. The last project I wanna talk about is the s s four a project, and that stands for safe streets and roads for all. It's a federal grant program. This project will study 30 intersections in the city and propose improvements, and this includes city owned as well as state owned intersections. We've already gotten the crash reports from the state, and we're collecting traffic data.

This project has been a long time coming, and I am super excited for it. The contract for this project was approved last week, and we're now working to schedule a kickoff meeting. So we're hoping to get started. And then once it goes, it should only take a few months for everything to complete. Lastly, I wanna talk a little bit about coordinating with the county and the state.

We regularly meet with the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration and Montgomery County Department of Transportation to let them know about our high injury network, crashes that happen in the city on their roads, issues we receive from residents about state roads and intersections. We wanna learn about their ongoing projects and for further coordination of our projects, kind of like getting the crash reports for the intersection safety audits that we'll be doing soon. We also worked with the Maryland Transit Administration on a grant, to study an enhanced pedestrian bridge and train hall at the Rockville Station. That application was submitted at the February. And then we also received from the county an audit of bus stops.

The county evaluated accessibility for bus stops throughout the county, including those in Rockville. And so we're using the data they shared with us to identify how we can incorporate, opportunities for accessibility improvements into other ongoing programs so that we're consistently making progress as we're working on other things in the city. And with that, and on behalf of the department and the traffic and transportation division, I thank you for your time.

Thank you very, very much. I know this is a special presentation and that some of us have sent some questions in. Mr. Mihalik, my understanding those responses will be posted so the public can see as well.

That's correct.

Okay. Thank you. Just thank you to the entire department for all the work that you're doing. I know that it is a lot of planning and work, and we greatly appreciate not only the work that you're doing, the vision that you have, as well as the tracking so that we can be accountable to achieve what we said we were gonna do. So I just wanted to say thank you. And I saw that you have implemented a variety of ideas and things that my colleagues and I have shared. So kudos, and we welcome you back. I think we'll have another biannual in about six months, and we do every other on special presentations. So we look forward to continuing discussion and keep up the good work.

Most definitely, thank you very

much. Thank you. Okay. So we have several items on our consent agenda. We have the nine a, authorize the city manager execute a contract with Espina paving with M.

T. Laney and Manuel Lewis construction for asphalt maintenance responsive to IFP eight-twenty six and the amount not to exceed $6,000,000 b, authorization for the city manager to execute amendment one to the grant between the city and the Maryland Energy Administration for streetlight and outdoor lighting efficiency, f y twenty twenty four grant program C, authorization for the city manager to execute two easements for public improvements and water meter on Parcel A1 And Lot 2 Metro Place at Twinbrook. Saw that there were some questions responses received. Just want to ask my colleagues if you have any further questions or if we can move forward with approving these. Alright.

Do we have a motion to approve? Doctor. Miles.

Thank you, madam mayor. So moved.

Do we have a second? Councilwoman Jackson seconds.

All those

in favor?

Is there discussion, or do wanna do that later?

Or do

wanna say a few points?

Well, go ahead. Do you feel free.

To you. Do do you wanna

We're say open to have discussion. Go ahead.

The points that you want to make about property?

No, that's coming up.

Okay.

You. Any others? Since you opened the floor and asked a question, I will just say for the lighting efficiency, that's the LED lights, if we could also just make sure we're updating the environment commission because I know they're really tracking our efforts and have been asking about that. So I think this is really just to help us move forward on phase three. So we'd love to make sure that they are updated, then we update our results rock full tracker for climate change as well. All right. All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye.

Aye.

Excellent. Thank you. Next, we'll move to Agenda Item 11A, which is introduction of an ordinance declaring 5,867 square feet of property located at 301 Frederick Avenue to be no longer necessary for public use and authorizing the conveyance of said property to the 715 Douglas Avenue property owner for nominal consideration. I'd like to welcome Andrew Lutmeyer, Jim Woods, and Amadel Shafi. Welcome.

Thank you. Good evening, madam mayor and members of the city council. I'm here tonight to introduce an ordinance that would convey a portion of a city owned parcel to the property owner of the adjacent property at 715 Douglas Avenue. The agenda for this presentation includes an explanation of the background and purpose with information on the subject city parcel with exhibits, photos, and plats for a visual depiction of the property, the property conveyance procedure and next steps, and lastly, a suggested motion. The city currently owns a 7,340 square foot parcel with address 301 Frederick Avenue.

It is located at the corner of Douglas Avenue and Frederick Avenue in the Lincoln Park neighborhood and is directly adjacent to the property at 715 Douglas Avenue. The city acquired the property in 1964 when it was conveyed to the city by the property owners at 715 Douglas Avenue for a nominal fee. The current owner of 715 Douglas Avenue, who is family to the property owners who conveyed the land to the city back in 1964, has requested the city's consideration to convey the unused portion back to her family's property. City staff approached this request like we would for a right of way abandonment by coordinating with various departments in the city to identify the current and future public need of the parcel. The parcel is currently improved with a sidewalk and ride on bus stop.

The city has plans to reserve enough space to expand the bus stop to accommodate a concrete pad for a future bus shelter. Aside from that, there were no other public needs identified for the parcel. In addition, city staff inquired to private utility companies about the existence of utilities parcel. No responses were received, and no public or private utilities are known to be present on the property. After this analysis, it is staff's opinion that the unimproved portion of the parcel can be deemed no longer needed for public use and can be conveyed to the property owner of 715 Douglas Avenue for a nominal amount, mirroring how the property was acquired by the city in 1964.

The city hired a professional land surveyor to conduct a field survey and prepare meets and bounds and plats for the division of the parcel. The area to be conveyed to the property owner is the southern portion of the parcel measuring 5,867 square feet and containing no public improvements. The area to be retained by the city is the northern portion adjacent to Frederick Avenue measuring 1,473 square feet and containing the existing sidewalk and the ride on bus stop with enough space reserved for a future concrete pad for a bus shelter. The city charter gives the mayor and council the power to convey any real or lease hold property when no longer needed for public use after having given at least twenty days as public notice on the proposed conveyance. Therefore, staff has identified the next steps to be as follows.

Tonight is the introduction of the ordinance to convey the unused portion of the property deemed to be no longer needed for public use to the owner of 715 Douglas Avenue. Assuming there is an approved motion to introduce the ordinance, city staff will proceed to provide a public notice of the property conveyance. Following the required twenty day notice period, staff will return to the mayor and council with an agenda item for adoption of the ordinance. The city manager would then convey the identified unused area to the owner of 715 Douglas Avenue for a nominal consideration by executing a deed of conveyance in a form approved by the office of the city attorney. The suggested motion for tonight to introduce the ordinance is on your screen, and that concludes my planned remarks for this evening, and I appreciate your attention.

Thank you so much for bringing this forward. I have a quick statement to make about this property, but I did wanna just ask one question. When you say nominal amount, what did you what is that amount?

We were proposing $1

Okay. Thank you. So I see Ms. Anita Semma Auer here, and I wanted to just thank you and your family. There's a long history on this property, and I think a lot in in our city's history.

This represents an important part of Lincoln Park community, one of the main roads in Lincoln Park community, and the family stepped forward to say, we want a paved road, and we want a sidewalk, and we're willing to help our community and convey that land to the city for $10. And so what we're trying to do tonight is to convey back what is not being used by the city. And so I think it recognized an important part as I know we get through and celebrate black history, but this is part of history where a part of the community did not have a paved road as other parts did. It was finally done with the help of miss Summer Hour's family. But this to me is also about equity and living our values, and so I just wanted to thank staff for working on this as well as thank the Summer Hour family.

I believe it was Alice Mason and Mabel Hill who were twins who stepped forward to make sure that Lincoln Park had that paved road and and allowed for land there. And I believe it was miss Summer Auer's grandmother. So I just wanna say thank you. And I think that at the time, the city only paid $10. So I think this is a great day. I know there's gonna be more to come before the mayor and council, but I think this is the first step. Thank you. Does anyone have any questions or comments? Doctor. Myles?

Thank you Madam Mayor. Was just going to introduce the ordinance.

Let's do it.

I introduced the ordinance.

So introduced. Thank you. Can you read it, if that's okay?

Yes, ma'am. Let me find it.

Alright. Okay.

Oh, there we go. Look at that technology. I

moved

to introduce an ordinance declaring 5,867 square feet of property located at 301 Frederick Avenue to be no longer necessary for public use and authorizing the conveyance of said property to the 715 Douglas Avenue property owner for nominal consideration.

Thank you very much. I saw eyes peering for us to actually say it, so I appreciate you doing that. So this will come back to us, and I know we have that already scheduled. So thank you. The only other thing I would just note is when we're looking at that bus stop, if we can coordinate with the family, to let them know, as well as let the family know, when this will be coming before mayor and council again. Thank you. Mayor, can we have a second on that motion, please? We don't need a second for the

is the introduction.

Thank you very much. It's just an introduction for this one, but we'll come back and do a full motion when it's brought back again. Okey dokey. I'm going to move over to the next item, which is our JEDI strategic plan. And welcome Jean Booth. Jean is going to be joined by Doctor. Patricia Morgan, CEO of the Executive Learning Lab, TEL. And I would like to welcome you. I know that we've been working on this coming to life since 2020. And with the joining of GARE and creating this position, And I know the Department of Housing and Community Development started some of the work on this in the past, you are helping to carry that torch.

So welcome. We look forward to hearing more about this plan.

Thank you very much. So good evening, Mayor Ashton and Council members. It is very exciting to be here this evening to print present to you an overview of the JEDI strategic plan process and approach. I'm joined by doctor Patricia Morgan. She is online, and she'll introduce herself in just a moment.

Okay. So this evening, we will be discussing a brief background on the purpose and objectives of the JEDI work. We will go over some requested feedback. We will discuss the project methodology and approach, the project timeline, review of the deliverables. We'll talk briefly about next steps and future mayor and council meetings, and also circle back to requested feedback to gather your input.

So before we dive into the strategic plan and as a brief background, we want to acknowledge that the mayor and council recognized that inequities can be embedded in policies and practices and sometimes government practices. These inequities can create disproportionate barriers for many residents, And oftentimes, these fall on communities that are traditionally disengaged from municipal government decision making practices. So in order to address these realities, the mayor and council affirmed that equity must be approached proactively and intentionally in city decision making to improve outcomes for all. On 07/12/2021, they adopted resolution ten twenty one that committed the city to policies and practices that reduce implicit bias and advance fairness, inclusion, cultural competency, and equity across all areas of municipal government. Additional resolutions have followed that and include resolution twelve twenty one, hate has no place, resolution sixteen twenty three, resolution against antisemitism, and resolution seventeen twenty three, rejecting anti Palestinian, anti Israel, anti Arab, anti Semitism, anti Jewish, and anti Muslim hate in the city of Rockville.

The Office of JEDI was established to provide administration, services, and programming that specifically promotes justice, ensures inclusion, and supports belonging for all who live, work, and visit in the city of Rockville. The JEDI office objectives align with the mayor and council's priorities, specifically your investment in public services and infrastructure that ensure community that ensures community well-being. Programming is expected to serve the residents of and employees of the city of Rockville, including members of all identities, specifically people with varying abilities, ethnicities, sexual orientation, and gender expressions, as well as religious affiliations, ages, and much more. So in order to create a thoughtful and comprehensive strategy that's rooted in best practice, a solicitation to engage qualified firms to conduct a comprehensive assessment and analysis of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion programming and to develop a comprehensive strategic plan to guide policy and procedures that also includes metrics, for accountability of progress towards the goals was executed. A national search was held.

We had over 20 applicants on submissions and selection concluded, and the executive learning lab was determined to be the best consultant for this particular body of work. Primary components of the scope of work focus on conducting the assessment and analysis, a review of existing policies and procedures, and engaging a comprehensive engagement plan to gather feedback from stakeholders both internally and externally. The development of a strategic goals and action plans with those before mentioned metrics for accountability will also be included. The request the RFP was published in July 2025. Tell was selected in October, and in January 2026, a kickoff meeting was held.

So this evening, we're asking for feedback on these three areas, on the engagement strategy, the community involvement plan, and engagement focus areas. So for this strategy, we're asking if you support the proposed assessment and engagement framework. For involvement, we would ask that you if you support the proposed community sectors involved in that plan. And for the focus areas, we are asking if you support the proposed engagement focus areas. And I'm happy to introduce doctor Patricia Morgan, who's online, to take it from here.

Good evening, madam mayor and members of the city council. I want to thank you for having me this evening, and I want to first start by talking about our methodology, our proposed methodology. So the executive learning lab, also known as TEL, is rooted in comprehensive assessment, collaborative engagement, data driven decision making, and structured facilitation, ensuring that the city achieves clear, actionable, and measurable JEDI strategic priorities. The outcome will be a comprehensive understanding of the city's JEDI organizational landscape as well as community environment, setting the foundation for strategic alignment across all leadership levels and the department with targeted strategic goals and metrics to follow.

Next slide.

All right. So why does this matter? This strategic planning process will provide a comprehensive assessment of where we are right now so that we can chart a clear path forward. We're not just looking internally. Even though we are looking, we're gonna talk to staff. We're talking we're doing surveys. We're doing focus groups and interviews. We're also doing a three sixty degree view that includes our workforce experience and how the community experiences the city services and responsiveness. The goal is to create a living document that guides decision making, resource allocation, and continuous improvement over the next five years. So think of things like, learning and development, additional programming, suggestions for how

we

should give leaders suggestions for budget. This plan will establish performance metrics as well so that we can track our progress along the way and hold ourselves accountable to meaningful change.

Next, please.

So our key personnel that we will have for this project will be Jean Booth, our JEDI office, our JEDI director, and she will provide strategic oversight. But we will also have meaningful participation from across the organization and the community. We had both Jeff and Barack attend our first kickoff meeting and gave a warm welcome to the Equity Champions Group as well. Tell and myself and our team will serve as the lead consultant. We're bringing in experience and expertise in organizational assessment, strategic planning, and JEDI implementation.

The JEDI Equity Champion team will serve as our core decision making body. We will meet regularly from February until June, and we'll engage employees at all levels through surveys, focus groups, and listening sessions to ensure diverse voices are heard. Externally, we're reaching out to community partners who can provide critical perspectives on service access, trust, responsiveness, including local nonprofits and other equity focus groups. And we'll share the groups that we've identified. Your role is going to be crucial at three checkpoints.

Today, to see if you approve our engagement strategy, in March and April to participate in your unique focus group that we have just for you, and in June for the final plan of approval. Next slide, please. We're using the plan, do, check, act model. This is the continuous improvement model to ensure that we structure this work correctly and that we're continuously learning and adapting based on what we hear. We've recently finalized the plan phase, and we held our internal kickoff meeting where it was Jean, myself, Dolores, Barack, and Jeff as well.

So we had our first kickoff meeting internally to set the stage for our work, and then we held our kickoff meeting with the equity champion team in mid February, I believe February 17. And we finalized our role, and they provided input on the staff survey as well as recruitment strategies. So which focus groups we wanted to focus on, and we'll share those with you this evening as well as JEDI themes. The due phase with your approval will begin in March with comprehensive debt collection from employees. So we'll be doing, surveys as well as focus groups and community partners.

During the check phase, we'll analyze the findings and facilitate and co design sessions with our equity champions to co create and co develop the strategic priorities. So we want to make sure that this isn't something that's coming from TEL. The equity champions are committed to this work, and they are committed to helping us flush out a plan that is feasible and that we can implement year one starting in July. So as you can see from this plan do check model, we are continuously learning and adapting. So sometimes we'll start off proposing 12 focus groups, which you'll see.

But if we need to interview additional community partners, we have room for that as well. Next slide, please. Here is our engagement framework. Our assessment approach is designed to be comprehensive, and I want to stress inclusive. So when we met with our equity champions, we were strategic about thinking about the groups that we always hear from and the groups that we never hear from, and how can we carefully embed their thoughts into this plan.

Internally, every city employee will have the opportunity to participate through an online survey, and we're also printing paper copies of that survey as well that will capture both quantitative and qualitative metrics, open ended feed feedback about our JEDI efforts. We'll supplement this with focus groups organized to engage diverse representation across departments, across job levels, length of service, and various demographics. Externally, we're conducting interviews and focus groups with community based organizations and hosting those listening sessions and focus groups with residents, business owners, and advocacy groups. This all comes together for one combined approach for a comprehensive understanding of our JEDI efforts, our culture, and suggested actions to move forward. Next slide.

So here we have our Equity Champions kickoff recommendation for the focus group and listening session groups. So based on the feedback from the equity equity champions team at our first kickoff meeting on February 17 and our assessment of city operations and community partners, we've identified 12 focus groups that will give us a comprehensive perspective of both internal staff and external stakeholders, as well as other key stakeholders. This streamlined approach is going to ensure that we balance thoroughness while being logistically feasible. Let me walk you through our structure. So on the left hand side, you have the internal stakeholders.

We've set up six focus groups representing about 60 to 72 city employees. It may be more depending on our recruitment and our engagement. So we are welcoming more. If we have more that would like to come logistically, if it gets more than 12, we'll shift to a listening session so we can capture more of their thoughts. We deliberately separated, as you can see, our supervisors from their direct reports.

So if you look at groups one through four, they include non supervisory employees, while groups five is exclusive for supervisors and team leads, and group six is for senior leadership. This creates psychological safety and honest feedback where employees can speak freely without concerns about supervisors being present. That is our idea from best case and past experience. Second, we have clustering some employees who share similar work experience. So you'll see in group one, we focus on public works and field operation, those who maintain our infrastructure, parks, provide essential field services.

And we're probably going to schedule this during their lunch hour to accommodate their early start times, and we'll also bring food. Group two brings together our recreation and parks frontline staff. So think of the counselors, the coaches, instructors, and community center personnel who deliver programs directly to residents. Group three is our police department staff. Given the unique nature of law enforcement work and the importance of building trust, we're keeping this as a separate group.

This survey will be mandatory for all officers, but the focus group participation is volunteering. Well, we strongly encourage them to take the survey. For group four, we consolidate our internal and administrative support staff, the behind the scenes employees who maintain operations and keep things running smoothly across all departments. So this include administrative assistants, customer service, grants administrators, and other specialized support roles. Group five is exclusively for our senior, supervisory staff and team leaders, the first line of supervisors, coordinators, and program managers across all departments.

Critically, we're making sure that none of their direct reports will be in the session with them. In group six, we have our senior leaderships. This is department directors, division managers, and assistant directors. This executive session will allow them, allow us to hear from them setting the stage for strategic directions of what they need help with, what they've done so far, how they've implemented, JEDI in the past. And Group 7 is reserved for you all, the mayor and council members, to get your unique perspectives on the future JEDI efforts.

And now I want to move over to the external groups. We've identified five external groups representing about 50 to 60 or 80 community partners, depending on how many stakeholders we have engaged. These groups will reflect a comprehensive list of external partners that the champion team identified during our planning session. So we held a long planning session to discuss which groups we traditionally hit and which groups we needed to reach out to more. So in group eight, we have our housing and economic development partners.

These are organizations and individuals working directly with affordable housing, any type of economic opportunity, and community development project. This includes any housing initiative partnership, Economic Development Corp, Renter United, Community Reach, Main Street, and any of those other organizations that

deal with housing issues. Group nine will be for faith based and community organizations. And we

think during this time, that's especially important. This group will help us combine Reach, not just the faith based organizations, but also the human rights and advocacy groups so we can bring together, for example, Action Committee for Transit, Neighborhood Connect, the Human Rights Commission, and such. These organizations are often the first responders to community needs, and they have great insight into service gaps as well as systemic barriers. Group ten is our education group, and this is the group that will represent critical voices across the spectrum. So we have both education and youth and senior services.

So in this group, can have students as well as PTA representatives that can speak to educational equity, while the senior leaders and youth program representatives can bring perspective on some of our most vulnerable population. Group eleven, we have this distinct role for this is a dedicated space for residents who face some of the greatest barriers with civic engagement. We're specifically recruiting residents that represent diversity among demographics, neighborhood, limited English speakers, which we'll have translators for that session. And we'll provide multiple language translations if needed, as well as any type of accommodations request that they have. It will also have transit dependent residents in this group and specific neighborhood neighborhood representatives.

And lastly, we have the business and civic economic group. And these are our chambers, our trade associations, and local business owners, and civic engagement organization. So as you can see from this structure, altogether we'll be meeting with over participants and maybe more depending on the engagement that we get for when the focus group's recruitment is released. This structure gives us a comprehensive coverage while maintaining something that's logistically manageable. And so the team spent a lot of effort thinking about how to group these teams together.

So we want your support on this as well as your feedback. Next slide, please. Next we want to talk about the feedback on engagement focus areas. So based on the JEDI champions team, we structured our entire engagement around four core focus areas. It's important to note that these four themes are guiding everything that we're doing.

It's like our lens that we're using to draft our staff survey, the questions for our focus groups and listening sessions, as well as our stakeholder interviews, both internally and externally. Theme one is around the theme of understanding awareness of JEDI principles and practices. First, we need to understand what people actually know about JEDI. For staff, asking, how well does your department communicate about JEDI? Are you aware of current efforts?

This is this is baseline information, and it's critical because we can't advance what people don't understand. If awareness is low, we need stronger communication strategies. If awareness is high but impact is low, we're talking about JEDI, but we're not translating that into action. Theme two will look at effectiveness and impact of existing JEDI practices. So we're looking at, what do we need to know, what's landing, and what's falling short?

So internally, for example, are city programs serving diverse communities effectively? Is your department making progress on diverse hiring? Are language services and disability accommodations being provided? Externally, do city services meet diverse populations' needs? Are there gaps in accessibility or cultural responsiveness?

This directly informs our strategic priorities. For example, if language services are strong but disability accommodations are weak, we know we have to focus resources there. Next is confidence and preparedness. So this leadership capacity is a theme that came directly from our champions meeting. We emphasized during that meeting that leaders need to support this work in applying the JEDI lens to their work.

So we're asking supervisors and managers, as I stated, not just in the surveys, but also in the focus groups and interviews, how confident are you in creating inclusive environments and addressing JEDI conflicts, holding others accountable? What barriers are preventing you from advancing JEDI? Is it lack of training? Is it limited resources? Is it unclear expectations?

Or do you have competing priorities? So the survey results will tell us what training resources and support system leaders need. And then lastly, we have theme four, personal feedback on experiences. So for the fourth one, we're looking for individual experiences of belonging, respect, and equity. This is where we are going to pose those harder questions. Do you feel valued and respected regardless of your identity? Can you be your authentic self at work? Is your voice heard? Do you have equal access to opportunities at work? We're asking about their negative experience.

Have you experienced or witnessed discrimination, bias, harassment, or microaggression? This just this isn't just about collecting stories. It's about understanding patterns. And if certain departments or demographic groups report significantly different experiences, that tells us that we have some underlying issues that we need to address. So these four themes will give us a complete picture.

Awareness tells us what people know. Effectiveness tells us what's working. Confidence tells us if people feel equipped to do this job. And personal experience tells us if JEDI is in our real life experience when we come to work and when we stay in the community. So every question on our survey, as well as our focus group, will map back out to one of these four themes.

Next slide, please. And lastly, this is a visual representation of how this all works together to provide a final assessment of our engagement report. So earlier, we showed you our assessment and engagement framework. This provides a visual representation of that. As you can see, we're looking at multiple perspectives, both internal and external community assessments and focus groups, while ensuring that our data collection process is completely confidential and voluntary, yet strongly encouraged. So I want to thank you for the gift of your time. Now I'll toss it back to Jean to discuss what to expect next.

Thank you, Patricia. So just a few more slides to talk about our immediate next steps, which will involve reviewing and incorporating the feedback we get from you tonight. We will then turn to finalizing our engagement plan, launching the internal staff survey, conducting the focus groups and listening sessions, both internally and externally, facilitating community partner interviews, analyzing the feedback, and drafting circling back to make sure that we're updating you. This is our plan to come back to before mayor and council. After tonight, on May 11, we hope to be back to share progress on the project and some preliminary findings.

And then mid June, we hope to be back in front of you to discuss the initial five year plan with the one year road map and present this strategic plan for consideration and adoption. And next, we will go to our requested feedback. There we go. You'll see on this slide the three questions that were posed earlier. Additionally, we have, for ease of access, the bulleted components to each of the questions. So the first question, I believe I ask you one at a time. For the engagement strategy, do you support the proposed assessment and engagement framework?

Can we ask just can you reread the requested feedback in full? And then I'm wondering if we can ask any overarching questions and then come back to the specifics. Is that Okay?

Yes.

Okay. All right. Thank you for the wonderful presentation, by the

Thank you. So I will read Yes? Them Okay. Engagement strategy. Number one, do you support the proposed assessment and engagement framework? Question two, regarding community involvement, do you support the proposed community sectors? Question three, engagement and focus areas. Do you support the proposed JEDI engagement focus areas?

Okay. Thank you. I will I just wanted to say thank you again for developing of this framework. I know this is not quite step one because you already been doing a lot of work, but we're still early in the phase of developing this. So as I've noted, this has been long awaited, we so appreciate the movement that you are making on this under your leadership.

So thank you. I just had one broad question, and then I'm going go to my colleagues and move from there. We've had multiple resolutions and there have been matrices developed in the past as well as former previous employee surveys and the Human Services Advisory Commission Human Rights Commission did a survey in 2022. I just want to make sure you guys have all that body of work because there may be some interesting things to compare, like questions. Obviously, you'll want to create new ones as well, but just to see how we've shifted from some of the baseline data and where we still need to improve.

Thank you for that question. Yes, we have shared a lot of data. We have a shared folder that we have provided to TEL. But I will confirm that we have all of the things that you just mentioned in that folder.

You. So if you need help digging out old documents, happy to help. Know we've had some staff shifts. Okay. I'm gonna go to council member Jackson first because we started this line last week. So Thank

you, mayor. First, let me just say thank you for the work. I know this has been a long time coming, and my colleagues and I have been kind of chomping at the bit, wanting this for years now. And so it's really great to see the progress that you've made, and I look forward to seeing continued progress. I think you have a good timeline laid out, and I think you have a good plan, especially with all the engagement that you have mapped out that you want to do.

I think it's a good strategy, internally but also externally. So just, you know, you requested feedback. Yes to all of them. I mean, I support the proposed assessment and engagement framework. Number two, yes. And number three, yes. The only thing and maybe it was just included in there, but I just want to tease it out a little bit. You said the youth and family advocacy organizations, do mean like schools, or how do you anticipate engaging with youth?

Yes. I anticipate that it would be schools and any community groups, but I'm going to let Doctor. Morgan also respond to that question, because she looks like she wants to say something.

Oh, yes. I was pulling up our focus groups composition. So we've identified for the youth. Actually, we wanna break that into two groups because we think that there may be a safer space if we have the older population in a different group with senior services. For education and youth group, we're looking at school PTA representatives, senior center program participants and leaders, youth program representatives, any grant recipients that we have that are youth, any type of community center advisory members, as well as any education advocacy organizations that focus on youth development. That's who we've identified.

All right. No, thank you. And actually, that was a good setup for my next question, and that was with the aged population. And so I'm active, as you know, in the villages. And so engaging with those people is, I think, another crucial demographic that we want to kind of get their involvement, engagement, and answer their issues in the JEDI plan. But, no, I I think it's an overall it's a it's a good start, and I'm really happy that you guys are doing it. So thank you, mayor.

Thank you. Councilmember Shaw.

First off, thank you, director Booth and, doctor Morgan on this. I I have a few questions around data. I know that we already have a lot of baseline data, and so can you talk a little bit more about your process with data collection? And I know you mentioned disaggregating the data, which is really needed. But can you talk a little bit more and provide a little bit more details on data?

Where we're gonna be gathering the data from?

Yes.

Okay. So the new data.

The new data. And, also, can you talk just overall just about data collection? Collection? Okay.

Yes, I will start, and I will turn it over to Doctor. Morgan. So when we do the focus groups and the survey data so we'll be collecting it and analyzing it for themes trying to parse out if there are common identified areas that we need to focus on. We are using this really strategic approach to making sure that we widen our lens so that we're asking a fairly robust section of the people that we engage with, both internally and externally. And so we have an expert in the consulting firm that will be helping us analyze the data.

And Doctor. Morgan can tell us what the platform is that she's using, because it's escaping my mind right now. I apologize.

Yes. So we we are using a a survey development software. We just launched the test survey items that we are going to send to the equity team. We're so we're using Sawtooth software, and we'll be able to disaggregate the data, by multiple identity groups. I think that's that's a really important question because oftentimes lived experience experiences at work and in the community differs depending on your age, your ethnicity, if you have a disability, one that is maybe unseen sometimes or not visible.

And so we are looking at the data. When we when we do the surveys, we're asking demographic data so that we can break it down and see, okay. Are you experiencing microaggression because of any particular background that you have? For example, we even have a breakout question on if you are a staff member with disabilities. So that's just an example of how we're gonna get down into it.

We have information, for them to drop down, not just your division that you work for, but as well as your, your current role. Are you, frontline, mid level, specialist, supervisor, team lead? So we can probably drill down and tell you, okay. Overall, we see that managers and directors are saying that they feel this way about JEDI implementation, but frontline, our entry level staff are saying they feel this way. We break down the, employment in Rockville to time.

So we have less than one year, one to three years, four to six years, seven to ten, 11 to fifteen, and 16 more. And we also have age ranges as well from 18 until 65. And we also have prefer not to answer, because we do find that in order to create a safe space that we need to have that question. And there's also, for some of the survey questions, unsure, because there are some people that are unsure about our JEDI efforts in their departments. And that's also important to note. But when we talk about disaggregating that data, if we see that a whole group of supervisors or team leads are unsure, then that's gonna tell us a different story.

Can you also provide more detail on data based on our residents? There are stark disparities in housing and income just across the board. And I know I saw that we had a mayor and council focus group, and I'm assuming that would be more on the policy level. So can you share a little bit of information on the data of our residents and how you plan to approach that.

So we are still in the process of finalizing those questions for the public. Tell will be sending out a proposal to the equity champions this week, actually, and they have until Thursday to give us some feedback on that. So that's why I think we're pause we're hesitant to give you the the exact details because we're still hashing that out. We're hoping to be have everything ready to launch by March 16. But we are being very mindful

Mhmm.

About the questions we ask, the safety that we provide so that people can feel to give to feel comfortable giving us real candid responses to the questions. I know I'm a new part of of the city government, but I'm not new to Montgomery County. I'm a longtime resident of the county, so I I do have some relationships. But we are being very mindful of how we approach people and making sure that we are letting them know that their feedback is given to us anonymously not anonymously, but privately, and that we will protect them with whatever information they give to us. So it's hard for us to give you the exact answers.

Appreciate that. And I know we've been focusing on our housing priority. And within our past few work sessions, there has been a lot of data. Like in our last work session, I believe 46% of tenants are in their home for, like, just one lease, which is a lot of instability, and our our evictions are increasing. So data like that and I know that we have gotten into disaggregating some of that data and who's impacted the most.

So that kind of baseline information will help to inform policy making in the future, to help to address and get to equity, and to find out where those gaps are. But I greatly appreciate this work, and I'm very excited and wanna support you as much as possible.

Thank you. Councilman Van Gruk.

Thank you very much for this presentation, and I know the significant amount of work that went went into this. I know it's a long time coming. You're going to hear from all of us how much we appreciate it. First question I had, and I know you went into this a little bit, but I was wondering if you could explain a little bit more. With regard to the external shareholders, how do you propose reaching out to the different external shareholders to ensure, as you've presented, that we really want to have a diverse areas, diverse stakeholders, whether it's religious, nonreligious, nonprofit, different sectors of the community, who really want to be engaged and wanna help guide both how the city deals in things internally and externally?

Thank you for that question. So we are going to leverage our existing relationships. So we have the the very widely diverse equity champions that represent all different sectors of the city organization. We are also going to it went right out of my head. So we're gonna leverage those existing relationships, but we are also thinking through historical information about partners that we have. So we have, from my predecessor and other people, we have lists of community partners that have been forthcoming in the past, and so we will use that as well.

So the oh, go ahead.

I'm sorry. I was also gonna mention because we mentioned this before. A lot of our grant recipients over the years, if you think about it, are groups that are very deeply engaged in this space. We have relationships with them. We know that when we have partnership and relationships and we both have skin in the game, there's more likely an opportunity for folks to provide candid feedback. So we're gonna use all those experiences and past relationships to try to, gather data.

So another question I had, and I didn't really touch on this, but I didn't know if it's something we can maybe either talk about in the future if you want to share a few words because I know there are certain one of the reasons I think everyone here on the day has really appreciates this is there have been some lack of getting this out and some in the past fumbles with regard to communication to different areas or groups, sometimes even promises to certain groups or sex that have have little been years, and we've kind of either forgotten about them. How how can we engage with those either groups or those different sects of society that really have been looking to us and there hasn't been a communication? And then we're looking to bring them back into this communication, whereas there might be some hesitance based on the fact that they've been waiting years to hear from us?

That's a great question. And my answer my initial answer is that we are partnering with our communications and community engagement office who is expanding their the the team, and we are utilizing their expertise at ways at which to get just to what you're saying about how to reach those folks that have traditionally been disengaged from from city actions. And so we're working with our partners here in the city at CCE to help us develop a plan. So that's it we started working with them. Well, we've always worked with them, but we reached out to them, and they were starting to build that plan starting last week. So we have a, like, a six step process for that.

Great. Do you want us to go through some of the feedback or wait for the specific feedback at this point?

Feedback on these three? Yeah. Yes, please.

Oh, okay. Alright.

Councilman Jackson did, and I think you were supportive as well. Okay.

Okay.

So my request feedback on one, two, and three is yes. I think how you've described this direction is excellent. The only thing kind of similar kind of my comments, especially with regard to the community involvement is casting as wide a net as possible. I mean, sometimes I think I mean, even looking broad to some areas that we even haven't engaged with. And just one example, I know that some of the different groups and individuals with regard to service dogs and how they are involved within the city and within some of our pedestrian access areas feel in my conversation with them, they haven't really been involved with Jedi.

And even when we're talking about some of the religious groups, making sure we're casting a wide net with the religious groups because I think with regard to Jedi, I don't think we can catch too too wide of a net because there's so many different groups that really want to engage with us in both how the city engages outside to the public, how we do the things that we do with regard to our infrastructure, with regard to our city services, but also how we do things internally as well. And I don't think the community involvement and how we reach out to these external share shareholders could be broad enough. And the more outside of the box thinking we have during those meetings that I know you're gonna be engaging with the city and the shareholders, It's one of these processes that the more we do engagement, the better it'll be.

Thank you. Miss Mihalik.

That's really good feedback from us. That's exactly why we're here, and I will just take it a step further. If any member of the body wants us to reach out to a particular group, large or small, and just say, hey, let's make sure we touch them, especially if there is history that Gina or I may not know of, that they feel like they've either been marginalized, ignored, or we promised to include them when we didn't, which is the biggest sin, in my opinion, just let us know, and we'll make sure to reach out. Okay? Thank you, Mayor.

Great. Thank you so much.

Thank you. On that note, since you're on that topic, is it possible I know I heard the consultant rattling off. Can you send that to us so we can see who's missing?

Absolutely.

Okay. Thank you. That'd be helpful. Doctor Miles.

Thank you, madam mayor, and thank you all for thanks also city staff for the presentation and to the presenter for the information as presented. Overall, have no major comments in terms of the feedback you're requesting of us. I have no major edits to the proposed assessment or engagement framework, number one. Number two, the proposed community sister sectors, they they make sense to me. I support that. And number three, the proposed engagement focus areas. Yep. Nope. Nope. I think you all covered it all.

I think my colleagues have added some nuance and things to follow-up on. So again, thanks again for for your time and presentation.

Thank you. Councilwoman Fulton.

Thank you, and thanks for this. I do have two general questions to make sure that I'm thinking about this right and approaching it the right way. One, it seems like there's two related but very distinct components to the strategic plan. It sounds like there's a workforce plan and there's a resident plan. And we're gonna kind of try to make them one thing. So

I'm gonna take this one just because Jean and I have talked about this a lot over the past six months. So I think you guys know that I've been involved in developing, JEDI strategic plans. This would be my third city. So and there's there's to get success in this space, it can't just be you hire a JEDI director or coordinator and say, go get them, Gene. It's not gonna work that way.

Right? I say there has to be the little c, the big c, and then partners for this to be effective. So the little c is the 600 member organization that we have, all of our city employees. And we have to absolutely lead by example to show other, large employers, small employers in the city how to go ahead and and address this work, identify shortcomings within the organization, and have all of our policies and procedures make sure we have that feedback. Right?

That's the small c. The larger c is making sure that in our larger community, for our residents, for all visitors and everybody, that no matter what people's standing is in life, that nobody feels marginalized and everybody feels welcome. That's more of the policy work. That's council's work more than anything else. And then the last piece of it is when we identify where people are being left behind, and people will share this through this process, there are gonna be things that the small c city, the large c through policy, we can't address. It could be health care. It could be schools. It could be things of that nature. We don't actually directly touch. That's gotta be part of this plan as well. So there's a role to play. There's swim lanes for all of us, but we gotta make sure we capture all of that.

That makes sense. Thank you. I appreciate that. My my second question, as I look at this, yes, I agree that broad engagement, broad getting feedback is important, and you have a great plan for that. But I'm wondering, and I'm wondering, is there also an aspect of the strategic plan that is case studies, peer benchmarking, literature reviews?

Like,

that takes us from, okay, do we do with this feedback? What do the experts tell us we should do to address it? Does that come in as well? Absolutely.

I'm, like, nodding. Yes, absolutely. So it starts with a review of our policies and procedures. It starts with the gathering of all this information, and it also includes a review of best practices. So what our consultants know from experience, but also what the industry. There's a lot of folks doing this work across the country, and we are definitely tapping into that. We're engaged in different groups and organizations regionally and then nationally. And so yes, absolutely, best practices are a part

of that.

So thanks for

your question.

Figured as much. You're gonna get a wealth of things on, like, what we should address, then it's the how do we address it part that I wanna make sure that we've got two. Awesome. With that, my feedback on all of these is yes, yes, and yes looks good. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Councilman Vogtle O'Leary, you're up.

Yes. Thank you. I love this new system. I know when I can speak. It's very orderly. I'm really appreciative to both of you for pulling together. This is a great presentation, and I really appreciate it. It was very easy to kind of understand the assessment engagement framework. Going in, was familiar with that, so when I opened the agenda, was like, Oh, I know this. I've done this before.

So that was actually extremely helpful. I am supportive of all three, so I don't get in trouble with Madam Mayor and Mr. City Manager, I approve. But I do have some random, know, off the top of my dome, Marissa thoughts here. The one

thing

and Councilmember Shaw and I were both on Charter Review Commission. That was there was a census based demographic analysis that was in that report. Prior to that, before the Charter Review Commission started, there were the inklings of a similar analysis that I'm happy to share. I pulled it together because I'm a data nerd for the community association that I was president of, and it kind of told a very stark tale between two cities, not in a Charles Dickens sense, but it actually really interesting to pull together. So I did want to throw that out there.

And I think I'm, like, looking at Council Member Shaw. That was using the last census data, the most recent census data along with the American Community Survey. So that might be helpful. I'll throw that out there. For going back, group 12, I noticed let me pull it if I had it in front of me.

Group 12 was business and civic organizations, I believe. Under civic organizations, because I heard businesses and I heard the chamber, are you thinking about including neighborhood community organizations in that second space? So businesses and neighborhood associations or HOAs? Because I was trying to kind of figure out where those folks would be slotted into in terms of how you're going to connect with them?

Yes. And so they would either slide into group 12 I'm sorry, my numbers are different or the faith based and community service organizations, which I believe on your deck of slide is Group nine. So one of those two spaces, yes.

Yeah, that's what I was kind of when I was looking at the presentation, that was the only thing I was like because some organizations will fit very neatly in one or the other. But you know, nonprofit life, we all wear 500 different hats, and so depending on the day. I did want to also put a plug in for we have a youth commission, and those are some phenomenal young folks, and they have their own networks as well. So I think that even working with the Youth Commission to build out the spaces for young people to share their perspectives and their input, I would definitely you know, I'm not going to speak on their behalf, but I am the council liaison to that group, and I just know they're a phenomenal group of folks, so very good people. Same with the Education Commission as well in terms of just knowing how to connect with folks.

We have sitting here going, Okay, we got a youth commission, education commission. We have our commission on older residents. We have neighborhood school reps, too. And I know Ms. Booth, because you and I have talked about linkages to learning, the neighborhood school reps for both Meadowhall and Twinbrook are other, I think, really good resources in terms of really getting the input from some of our most marginalized communities.

So I'm sitting here going, you know, and I appreciate what you said about, you know, we're going to be very cautious with your feedback, you know, it's not completely anonymous, but you know, we want to reserve your right for privacy as a resident. But we also have that other layer right now where there are many communities that engagement with anybody on any level of government is a nonstarter. So I just kind of wanted to get a sense from you or the doctor as well. What is your plan to kind of because you don't want to lose those voices in this moment because probably more so than ever, we really do need to hear from communities who are truly living in fear right now. I would be you don't have to answer it today but if you have a thought today, I would be really interested in how your approach will look around

that. So I really appreciate that question. And I know that we are going to be sensitive of the reality of that fear. So we have to start with acknowledging the fact that those fears are based on experience. And so we will be very mindful of that. Again, it is finding those formal and informal leaders in those communities so that we can then try to tap into them in a way that they recognize that we are honoring them, we're valuing them, we're trying to be responsive to their fears, and also wanting to elevate their voices so that they know that we're committed to it. That's why we're trying to connect with them.

Absolutely. Yeah, no, it's definitely, I think, it's a challenge on a variety of levels. I will say that our community center supervisors are just, I can, you know, I'm a big fan of all of them, and I think that they have found a way to kind of they have that community trust, and I think that's a huge part. Because you can come along and be like, no, trust me, and You're not going to maybe at the end of the day. So that was that one.

Oh, I did want to note and I appreciate all the providing us the agenda item materials, but I know that ten-twenty one resolution was very specific in terms of looking at racial justice and equity. And what I noticed in looking through the other resolutions on that one slide that maybe I'm just going throw this idea out there maybe we are looking at more of a comprehensive or, at the end of this process, coming out of it with a resolution that captures all of the pieces leading up to today. Thinking about it, 10/21 was a while ago. It doesn't feel like it was, but it was. Maybe we're looking at something more expansive because ten-twenty one is phenomenal but, for instance, does not speak specifically to the issues within the disability community on issues like accessibility and equity there.

It does not speak to the issues, Again, talking about some very real fear as well in the LGBTQI plus community. I saw it noted in the presentation, but I know that we look at ten-twenty one as our framework a lot of times, and so I just want to make sure we're capturing the totality of, you know, what does it mean to feel welcome and included in Rockville, and I think maybe it's you know, I don't know, maybe it's a summary, maybe it's just cross referencing, but it's something that I thought about on this piece. I am extremely excited about this. The other good piece about working with the neighborhood associations in particular is that I think there's a two way benefit as well. You'll hear from the neighborhoods and the people who are most engaged, but they really want to know how to be more inclusive themselves.

So it's like there might be a mutual benefit there on some shared challenges and trying to get to voices that we don't always hear. So I think that is it from me, and I just thank you both. This is really great. Looking forward to this.

Thank you to my colleagues for your very thoughtful feedback. I also want to thank Doctor. Morgan and Jean Booth for this work. I do have a couple of questions, no surprise. I wanted to ask about the lenses of some of these aspects as well.

Really appreciate the framework. I support one, two, and three. When you look at disparities and you look at how you're gonna approach equity, I wasn't sure if you had mapped out the focus areas, like the interfaith aspect, the racial ethnic aspect, disability community, which is about 10% in Rockville, socioeconomic. There's at least a 6% poverty rate as as noted in the disparities data on the city's website, age, gender. And then apart from that and language, and I would say also adding our immigrant communities who are feeling very vulnerable right now.

So I was just curious if what is that list of lenses that you have that you're bringing to the table of looking at how you're going to splice the data and how we're going to look at how we can improve areas for those populations?

Thank you for the question. I'm looking at Doctor. Morgan just to see. And I'm going to have to flip through my pages to get to your answer. But Patricia, do you have a Yes. More readily available answer? Thank you.

Yes. We also follow the GARE racial equity framework. As you know, it's not just as as a member, you know, it's not just a a process. It's also a product. And so we are very intentional as not just gathering the data from residents for the strategic plan, but using this as a build bridging opportunity. We understand that some people sometimes are invited to give their participation or to give their input and to participate in these types of things. And it doesn't go anywhere. So we're using this as an opportunity to say, hey, we're listening to you. We're building this for you. And we're communicating.

We've worked on the first draft of the internal staff communication. We'll work on the external next. But what we've done is we've been intentional about mapping out the staff communication, so both posters and emails, as well as why they should participate, what's the benefit for them. And we also have a closing survey that says a closing communication that says, now that we've ended, this is how we're going to stay in touch with you. This is how we're going to continue doing this work.

So it's not a surprise when they get the when your road map or the five year strategic plan. And we'll do the same thing for the community members. We and this also connects to your earlier question. We recognize that during this time, we may have groups that are afraid of coming to in person events. So when we broke up our focus groups, we actually recommended different formats. So we say, for example, for some particular groups, this may need to be a virtual event in the evening so that we can participation and ensure a safe space for them to participate. So we're intentional about how we're getting that feedback and how we're communicating to them about the importance of how we want them and why we want them to participate.

Excellent. Thank you. I appreciate you sharing the GEAR framework, which know mayor and council pushed to be a part of in 2021, I believe 2020 and 2021. I I did wanna also ask about the lenses from another perspective on and I this may be be a byproduct of what you hear, but it it may also needs to be intentional about what we ask. So you already heard some of my colleagues talk about housing, socioeconomic opportunities, as well as, like, public safety.

Those are some areas that we've previously explored in the last majors, but there are likely other areas that we have to see. And I understand that it may be different for the public versus employees, right, in terms of what they are seeing internally as an organization. So I wanted to just flag that as another area to sort of bridge what are the areas we might be improving. Some we might start with, and we might hear from the populations that you're reaching out to, there are more to consider, but I do think some prompts to help us think through the the key areas would be helpful, and I appreciate that. I love that you're taking the employee approach.

I know that we did that sort of starting before of, like, an employee survey, employee focus groups, as well as residents. I think in the PLAS employee surveys, there have been some things that says there needs to be some improvement, so I'm curious to see how that has changed over time. And we can't develop the programs we want to develop if we're not doing well internally first. So I just want to say thank you for that. When you looked at the internal stakeholders on that chart, I just wanted to flag, and it's probably already in there and I may have missed it, the I see you have rec and parks and DPW sort of frontline workers. Do you have housing and community developments as frontline workers? I didn't see it on the list, I just wanted to make sure we have them.

Yes, there definitely are. There are layers, and we try to consolidate them to get onto this slide. One

That slide, but makes sense.

In group one and in group two, there are subsets

that That's include fantastic, because I know that particularly the community development side too, they're hearing about a lot of the social service needs of our community, and I want to make sure that they're included. So thank you for clarifying that. There are also some things that I'm hopeful that we'll learn, or that maybe through the recommendations that will help us with our approaches. So for example, when we're doing surveys, how are we asking about racial and ethnic data? Having a standardized approach, I flagged last week?

This week? I can't remember. Across three surveys, went three different ways. But so that we can sort of create universal ways of where we're asking questions about different areas, making sure we're including indigenous populations, making sure we're including Latino populations. I think that is just one area, but there may be other areas that through this process, we'll be able to improve our protocols and approaches so that it's somewhat consistent across departments. Is that part of the strategy? Yes. Excellent. Okay. Will this be on Engage Rockville as well? Yes. Excellent.

Okay. Have my thing on. Yes. Both yes to both of those questions.

And then are we planning to do any updates? I know that things have changed with census data, but are we doing any updates to the disparities page in the future based on you have a really good page on data. As my colleague mentioned, it includes census data. It includes the American Community Survey updates, and it really has a nice interactive mapping. I'm wondering if part of the byproduct of this will include additional information that we can add to that page.

Yes. Okay. Excellent. There are also things that I think, when I first got on council, I felt like, I'm hearing from some residents that we need to be more equitable across neighborhoods. So it may not be even racial equity lens, but there's like a a geographic equity.

So I'm I'm hopeful that that's part of the process as well. I mean, and it it It also relates to our purchase. For example, in the past the city was excellent in terms of responses, but there are some neighborhoods who are less likely to ask, and so over years and years and years, those neighborhoods might have less service because they're not proactively asking, and we've been working to change that culture of proactively going out and reviewing. And so how would that fit into how this might improve our approaches as a city?

We are very mindful. This is not the first time I've heard that statement, and so that's something that I've been considering since I got here last summer. And so we are being mindful with the work that we do with the consultants to make sure that we're we have a wide map and that we are going out and finding those pockets that are traditionally disengaged and trying to engage them. So yes, geographical, mapping out, looking at census tracts, looking at all of the things, that's a part of what we're doing.

Excellent. Thank you. And I will note that some people are survey takers and some are not. So I love that you have focus groups. And that you can intentionally reach out to some organizations because sometimes you have to kind of say, be more take a friendly, interactive approach.

Yes. I am interested.

And not just a build it and they will come approach. So, thank you for I the thoughtfulness on did want to note a couple of things. One is, there is a principal roundtable that the Education Commission is organizing. The principals know so much about our community. What are some of the social issues people are dealing with? What inequities? They they just see so much. I wanted to flag that in addition to my colleague mentioned the villages, some of those built in networks that are there. My colleague mentioned the youth commission. I love that you're talking to grantees.

There's some things that I also thought we could look at and see, is this city doing all that it can? So we have a fantastic Asian Pacific task force. We a fantastic Latino youth development program. Is are we missing something there? Like, do we need to add to build on some of that great work?

We have seen in the past month some challenges that have resulted in public safety issues and and youth who are at risk. So should we be doing a African American cohort of doing more to reach out to Asian community? I just I wanna think about all of our populations, and is the structure we have in place enough? And if not, what do we need to do? And sometimes it's not us, but it's connecting the partners.

I just wanna have that that discussion. And and the same thing when on our public safety workshop, we talked about sometimes the police know who's at risk. And maybe to prevent crime in the future, prevent things from escalating, we could be better connecting to community development. We can be better connecting to recreation and parks and leadership and job opportunities and things that help people, grow and thrive and be their best selves versus at risk behaviors. So I just wanted to note, I'm hopeful, very hopeful that we can create real community change with some of the things that you're hearing, but I wanted to flag some of those areas that I've been thinking about as well.

Thank you. We've also seen some issues with boards and commissions task force and varying understanding of disparities and inequities. And so I know my colleague, Doctor. Miles, and I have been talking about, and I know the rest of my colleagues are fully on board as well, is just how do we train boards and commission members in terms of diversity and equity. Doctor.

Miles, did you have anything you want to say? Okay. So that was something that has come up in the past, and I know that it has created tension sometimes, and so helping to support those important bodies. And how do you plan to share what you're doing with the boards and commissions? I know that HSAT, Human Services Advisory Commission, and Human Rights Commission, have played a leadership role in looking at surveys and providing input. How are you involving them and others?

Thank you for that question. They are in one of the external groups. So we will be reaching out to them to elicit feedback from them. And as far as communicating out, we are communicating through a number of different ways, including Engage Rockville, our internal IIROC site, as well as just working with CCE communications and community engagement, and making sure that we're getting the messaging out through a number of different ways. We will stay in touch with everyone.

Okay. Thank you. According to our disparities data, 50% of Rockville residents speak languages other than English. So how are we treating this from language access perspective?

Well, we have four languages that we typically translate information into. And so when we go out and we make plan for community engagement, we will make sure to be responsive to the linguistic needs of who we're engaging with. So we will use translation services to make sure that all of our communication is done appropriately reach the communities we're trying to reach.

Okay. Then how will your recommendations ultimately, I imagine you're going to share findings, then that will lead to recommendations. Right? Is that what I'm hearing?

That's the plan, yes.

And as my colleague noted, you'll do some research based on, like, here's what other places And have done that we can be doing I would just say be open to all things. Like, for example, some of us have talked about accessibility in this chamber, where some chambers have, like, rising and lowering community forum opportunities so people with wheelchairs that don't have to hold a microphone while they're trying to testify. I I just I wanna be flexible and open our minds to all kinds of things. I know that some jurisdictions post their meetings on YouTube because it can auto translate. We don't necessarily have that.

Some are also MCPS does a really good job about language access for communications with staff, principals, and in their meetings, they have, like, these devices that will help auto translate. So I I'm looking forward to a robust, you know, how do we really move the needle in the areas to make our city better? When you do outreach groups, I just wanna be remind remind that we are a nonpartisan city, and so, you know, we're we're not overly politicizing issues. We are really trying to focus on the depth of that. So and if we start to get into political groups, then we have to open to all political groups.

So I just wanted to say that as a baseline. And then lastly, I wanted to share something that I've heard from some of our principals, and I've seen is as we work to improve housing affordability and and have some great properties across the city that we're trying to improve the quality of housing. The other thing that's not talked about as not enough is also the wraparound services to help lift people up. And I don't know how you would define if this would be part of that or how you could look at that, but I'm seeing a lot of inequities in some of the communities that I want to make sure we're really serving them well and helping people reach their highest potential and that they feel fully included in our community. So I wanted to also note a potential focus on some of those communities that don't feel as well engaged.

They might not be connected to organization. And they have really important needs to be addressed. That is what I have. Thank you. I want to ask you a question. I think you've heard from all of my colleagues about the three. Is there anything else that you need clarifying comments from or polling? Do you feel like you have what you need?

I definitely have what I need to move forward, and I'm just looking forward to your engagement with the consultant in your session.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah. I'm just gonna look at my colleagues to see if there's anything else that has been unsaid that we need to say. I know we'll follow-up with you and city manager directly. Alright. Doctor Morgan and miss Booth, thank you for your time, your thoughtfulness on this. This is so critical. I know we're tackling big things from zoning to election codes and this, so I I just appreciate the work that the team is doing. And I know my my colleagues do as well.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

We're now moving on to mock agenda. We had a brief leadership planning team meeting that will be online. I wanted to see if anything anyone has any follow-up questions or comments about mock agenda. Okay. Thank you very much. I wanted to raise old new business. Councilmember Vallery.

I believe this would be the time that we could have the earmark discussion, if I remember correctly. So I'm grateful to be having this conversation available and accessible to the public. I'm having trouble putting kind of two pieces together. I'll start with my first comment, and that is on the first item that you shared, Mr. City Manager, the disadvantaged community wastewater collection system rehabilitation.

Could you share or have a larger map? I saw what was shared with us. I think it would be good for others to see, but it was very hard for me to see it even when I blew it up. So a slightly higher res version of that would be helpful. That's my first point. My second point is I know that you had shared before that to be eligible for an earmark that it would have to be shovel ready project. Is that correct?

Yes.

Okay. So we heard in the Vision Zero update that the Stone Street corridor design is planned for completion in 2027. How is that shovel ready?

If we're at a level of design that we know we can finish up very quickly and get it done to meet the requirements of shovel ready, that's what we're talking about. Shovel ready is more of a term of art than it is definitionally. What happens with a lot of the earmarked projects is when we put them forward, the legislature wants to make sure if it's funded, that we can immediately get to award and then construction within a reasonable amount of time. If there's zero design as part of it, then it's not gonna be shovel ready. If it's far enough along in design where we just have a little bit of a phase to finish up, then we're comfortable putting forward with it. So hopefully, that gives you enough

information No. On A little bit. No. And I I appreciate it. The RFP for Stone Street closed last week. Correct? When did when did that RFP close? I'm trying to figure out, essentially, design hasn't begun on Stone Street, has No.

We're

well into design for Stone Street.

Okay.

Yeah. But we're a little ways away from it completely.

Like roughly percentage? Because I'm trying I'm basically trying to figure out where kind kind of the rationale behind a lot of this, because I think a project struggling with delays, like some major CIPs that we do know we're going to need a significant amount of money, that would basically mean that that project will continue to not be eligible for a federal earmark or a state LBI, sorry, legislative bond initiative. And I've got to tell you that that is extremely frustrating to me to continually be missing out on some of these opportunities. So I'm trying to figure out, you know, at what point of design completion, because that's not an insignificant amount of money that we're asking for for Stone Street. I'm comparing that to what we'll need for the Twinbrook Bridge.

And I haven't, you know, and I appreciated that that was included in the Vision Zero update, but the delays are causing that particular project to keep kinda missing the mark as far as being done so we can start looking for the money for that second part that we no longer have because of federal decisions.

Yeah. Let me so let me back up and try to give a broader perspective on our grants approach. And I think I've talked to most of you guys about this. So we apply for a lot of grants. We are not bashful while applying, and we have some really I don't mind telling you. We have some very gifted grant writers in the city. It's shocking to me how many grants were awarded

Mhmm.

To the point where we get so much grant award that we actually don't have enough staff then to implement it, or it takes us much longer to implement the grants than we thought. So then we have to make a choice. Right? Do we continue to apply for grants, get the money? And, no, sometimes, believe it or not, it actually takes longer to implement. But the advantage of it, we can get hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars of other people's money to do the project. Mhmm. Right? So when we're looking at a at a particular earmark, we know we have to have enough design that we can go to award and construction within, let's just say, a year or two and get it going. Right?

But if projects haven't had any design to it whatsoever, it would be really hard for us to make an argument to our delegation that it's shovel ready. So again, it's a bit of an art to it. But if we're talking about the Thunberg Bridge itself, there hasn't been any design on that one.

I'd love No. To be able to

I'm very aware that we don't have design, and and we don't have to get into why we're not at that phase of it yet. But, no, I appreciate it and I appreciate my colleagues. I just want I want to share particular frustration

Yeah.

In the lack of movement on this project, and I think I have stated it now, I have heard from community members, members who come up to me at the grocery store or at the restaurant situations occur, asking me why, where is this, nothing seems weird talking about this, this, and this. So I'd like to just have that kind of information to share, and I think that that's a good part of why this conversation is good to have in public because people can hear the rationale. And we can look for other opportunities.

Can I just also interject one thing? I do think it will be helpful just I'm hearing discussion about the Twinbrook Pedestrian Bridge in particular, which is a longer term project. I think that's the one that the RFP just one of those that just Correct. Wasn't That's right.

Which means awards right around

the corner.

Yeah, awards around

the corner.

Okay. I just want to clarify point. Secondly, I'm just wondering under Vision Zero, if we can have a more robust update on the timeline for that project from a pedestrian bridge on what we're doing, just because I saw that it said next steps, I know you're going to post some of that, but I just wanted to help get to resolution on that particular question.

Happy to do that.

Thank you. That way we

can just point people to that. No, I appreciate that. So then I guess the second part of that is and again, folks did raise this particular concern about where we are at with the Red Gate design and whether or not that would be eligible for consideration as a project.

Not yet. We aren't far enough in design. If you remember, there's two phases to that. There's phase one. There's phase two. There's two grants, each for 1,500,000. Mhmm. Our goal is to do design for the entire project, then apply for grants. I think this would be I think both King Farm Farm said before somebody else asked that and Reggate would be excellent projects, for earmarks, but we're not far enough along in design. Okay.

Thank you for that. I believe, hopefully, by next year, we might be at least on the Red Gate part. Right? Because that I know that the design project started a while ago.

I hope so.

Okay. That'll be a good aspirational goal. I just wanted to follow-up on a couple of questions. First of all, I wanna thank staff for pulling together the recommendations that you did. I know that the the public works team has been working on that and and being very thoughtful so that that was ready.

I I like that we are working on really core infrastructure work like Vision Zero as well as the wastewater. I think particularly in times like today when we see the importance of infrastructure given what's going on with some of the the sewage issues on other infrastructure that I think people underestimate the the value of investing in infrastructure until there's a problem. So thank you for thinking ahead so that we we don't have that kind of problem. I on that note, there have been some bridges that the city has had on our list as areas of concern or that we'll be needing support in the near future. I know my colleagues and I have talked about the Hurley Bridge is one of them, and there's, I think, one or two others at least that we know are going to be coming up for serious renovation and replacement.

Have we looked at any of those projects? I just don't want to think about it from a public safety perspective, and I know those are infrastructure expensive. But are those any of those something that we should be looking at as well? And if you don't feel you don't have to answer right now if

you want No. Let me talk a little bit. Thank you, Fair question. Yes. Bridges are always on our mind for a number of different reasons. One, they're critical pieces of infrastructure. Two, people take them for granted until we have to close them close them down. We had that situation over the past couple years. We have put some of those bridges forward for other opportunities for funding like LBI, and we've been successful. We'll continue to do that. But for this round of funding, I don't know that we have bridges ready to go, but we'll do an update on where we are with some bridges, and we'll continue to look for additional opportunities to grant those. I think those are good projects, Mayor.

Thank you very much. And then two final questions. If we put Stone Street in here, I know Stone Street has been in a variety of budget books year over year, and I know it takes a lot of steps and it's actually very expensive. But will that delay the city's current planned implementation of that? Because I know East Rockland and Lincoln Park have been looking for a long time to see that be done, and I wouldn't want that to put like three or four years out. So I'm just trying to balance of bridges moving forward on something we already have planned. I know that's a delicate thing that you also have to think about.

Yeah. All very fair questions. As I mentioned when I was, answering council member Valery's really good questions, it sometimes when you take on federal grants, it means the project goes slower. It just does, but you're using other people's money. If for some reason we were able to get an earmark for the Stone Street corridor improvements, we would talk about a construction start in July 2027 and a completion of October 2028. So I still think that's a reasonable construction period. And, again, we'd be getting $3,500,000 of other people's money. So I think it's worthwhile.

Okay. It might be worth also checking in where we were in the timeline without that.

100.

As as we look

at the

other projects. Thank Yeah. And then I have one one and I know we said King Farm Farms is gonna take a long time, but we have a the house that's there is in pretty good shape. Have we thought about executing the early part of at least the building that is for that we were looking at the childcare facility as a potential? I just wanted to flag it because I know childcare has been an issue. It's related to economic development, supports our goals. I know we've been talking about Telco for a long time, so I wanted to at least mention that one as well.

Yeah. I think that's a great project in terms of need in our community. It's why, as I recall, you all said, hey. Let's move out to phase one, which it is phase one. I think the challenge here is to getting enough infrastructure work done in the whole site to accommodate phase one. Arguably, you could use the parking lot that's close to it to get in there. But, boy, I'd hate to have a bunch of kids using that building for a day care only for us to rip it up to make future infrastructure. So I think it's a good project, but I think it belongs in in phase one of the whole whole initiative out there. Okay.

Thank you. I appreciate that feedback. All right. Can we approve the two proposals to go forward? I know it's due March 6. Yes. Thank

you, Mayor. So I guess what we need to do is approve the two proposals. All we need is a motion?

Yes. We've done that in the past. We just approved the proposals and then staff submits.

All right. So I will approve I mean, I'll move to approve the two proposals.

To submit for your mark. Okay. Thank you. Do I have a second? Councilman Villarney seconds. All those in favor, please raise hand and say aye.

Point of order, just to clarify. I just wanna make sure from the city attorney that language is all that we need for the approval.

It probably would be helpful to have a little more a little more to it, but I'm sure staff would go back and and and and watch the entire video. But I think it would be better to explain what the motion is.

So just to state, it would be the disadvantaged community wastewater collection rehabilitation system as well as the Stone Street project. Improvement. Corridor improvement. Friendly amendment, would you be open to saying that?

I would. Yes. I don't.

Yeah. Okay. And you are open to that,

I'm open.

Okay, alright, thank you. All in favor? Aye. Okay, perfect. Thank you very much. There's just one other piece that I just wanted to flag to our team. We received a letter from the Human Rights Commission about mental health aspects for the students at Wooten, and I thought it was a very thoughtful, well written letter. Just think that we should forward that to MCPS to share what we're hearing from student members of that community. So I just wanted to flag that as a follow-up and to let them know that we appreciate their thoughtfulness and that we'll share it with because MCPS has authority on the kind of social services that are in the school system.

I think we already did, but if not, we'll do it immediately.

Excellent. Thank you very much. Councilmember Poehleri.

On that note, and I spoke to a couple of people about this, is that this would also be a possible space between the Education Commission, Youth Commission, and the Human Rights Commission to have a dialogue. I know that one of the points raised by the Human Rights Commission was about creating dialogue space. And while perhaps we can't do every component of it, if we were able to be the convener of a dialogue space where young people and students felt that they could speak and be heard, I would be very much for it.

Thank you for that feedback. Is there anything else by other members of the body? Do we have a motion to adjourn? Councilman Van Gruyk.

Motion to adjourn.

Thank you. Do we have a second? Councilman Valery seconds. All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Thank you to staff. Very important items today. We appreciate all of your hard work.