Veterans Advisory Council - Regular Meeting

One of the legion's seat of the bag 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.

I believe we are able to establish a quorum. Do I have a motion that we have quorum?

We don't need them. Okay. Then we

have enough people here for quorum. Fantastic. Approval of the agenda. We have the agenda here. If you need a copy of the agenda, it's outside on the table. It's a fantastic agenda.

Sorry. There's two mistakes. One, Stan Seidel is here from the deflection steering committee. And then I left the W off of the women's CVEB. So that should be women's serving together women's CVEB.

Perfect. Aside from those two changes, do we have a motion to approve the agenda?

So moved.

Do we have a second? Any discussion? Any discussion? Hearing no discussion the agenda is approved. We'll go into old business approval of the previous meetings minutes. They are also available. I think we also had them sent to us. Just kind of goes over what the meeting was last time. It's a fantastic meeting. Do we have any comments, suggestions, thoughts after we approve the previous meeting's minutes? Do we have a motion? Have Sounds a like we have a second. Any discussion? Fantastic meeting minutes as always. Mikaela, thank you.

Any other discussion? Any other discussion? Hearing no discussion. Meeting minutes are approved. Chair comments. I last week got to go down to, our, federal congress and senator folks to talk legislative things through another organization and I was blown away by the fact that didn't get to meet with too many of the elected folks but I got to meet with their staffers and their staffers they know the ins and outs of every single thing we're talking to them about. It was it was amazing to me. I thought I was going in there to take pictures and hobnob and rub elbows and be like, hey, look at us. We're super cool. It wasn't like that at all.

It was it was talking legitimate issues that affect every single veteran in our country and trying to get Maryland, Congress, and senators to support it. And again, while we weren't meeting with the individual person that was elected, meeting with their representative, one one of their staffers for for congressman Delaney, I I forget her name right off the top of my head, but her father is retired colonel, is 100% disabled. She knew every single thing we were talking to her about. The ins and outs on it saying, I'll make sure that the congresswoman is aware of this, probably support all these legislative issues that we're talking about. It was just super fantastic to see like the level of knowledge that the staffers have of these things where you're expecting to go into this talking to the person that was elected into that role, but you're talking to someone that really knows that stuff.

And I

I just wanted to bring that up to say it just it was very mind opening for me to to see eye opening is probably the correct word. Eye opening to see, like, there's there's that level of dedication even at that level. Very, very fantastic, very awesome experience. Can't wait to do it again. And that I say all that to say we submitted our legislative priorities to the county executive and sure it's not federal priorities, it's Frederick County priorities, but it's just as important.

The things that we submitted to the county executive from our group here affect Frederick County veterans. So fantastic work on our side, fantastic work on the county side to say, look, these are the priorities that that we see are legislative things we need to talk about.

That actually leads me to what I wanna bring into new business of why I was gonna be on the board to begin with or the council to begin with. So when new business comes around, I'm gonna bring that back up. Alright. Perfect.

Let's get right into presentations. Stan, please. Yeah.

You for the opportunity if you don't mind.

Sure. Thanks.

So I'd say everybody knows me. That's not true. I'm currently here working representing the the Flex and Steering Committee, which was a presentation you had received several months back, if I'm not incorrect, from a gentleman named Matt Knight Correct. Who was a corporal in the VA police. So I'm not gonna go through that whole presentation.

Two, because I don't wanna put you asleep because I'll probably fall asleep on it. And three, more importantly, this is just an update. And that's the crucial part. I wanna update where we're at. So I talked to Matt and I've been we've been together for about a year and a half, not quite, continually trying.

And

I'm gonna give you a real quick explanation what a deflection steering committee is. We are pre, pre veterans court. We want to intercede on behalf of individuals who served prior to them going through the criminal justice system. That's our focus. We want to be able to have law enforcement, hospitals, mental health counselors, county to say, okay, If this person hasn't done something egregious, I e a felony, violence, something to that effect, is there a chance we can refer them for services, whether it's counseling, drug, alcohol, mental health?

If that's appropriate, then why don't we do that? And then we can, quote unquote, have a great return on investment. I'm gonna let you know my background. I was with the US Department of Labor Veterans Employment and Training Service, and I've worked with homeless veterans programs since the nineteen eighties. And I started a program well, I didn't start it.

I was told to start it, called the Incarcerated Veterans Transition Program. And I can say to you, the return on investment was tenfold. And the expression I used when we were doing that was we can take people from tax taker to taxpayer. That's the bottom line to me. People who are willing to serve, spend time, put their lives on the line, should be given an opportunity to move forward, especially if we know sometimes the alcohol, the drugs are part of what happened while they're in military service.

And I can tell you, that could have been me. I could have been a homeless veteran if I gotten caught in some of the stupid things I did when I got out. So that's why I'm part of this, and I will stay a part of it. As somebody once said, what's my mission? My mission is to be the only unemployed veteran, and I'm still working hard at it, and I'll work hard at it until the day I move on.

So what I have here with you today, one, Matt and I said to tell you that so far we've touched lives of 50 veterans since this program started. So what has happened is I've gone to law enforcement in Montgomery County. I've gone to law enforcement in other places, and now they are starting to refer individuals to services rather than for putting them through the criminal justice system. Now that's great. Glad to hear it.

We're real cool. But reality is the word hasn't gotten out as as well as we'd like. So I gave you a documentation called a veteran's reentry simulation event. That's going to occur on October 17. What we're going to do is have 15 different stations and people who are attending, and we're trying to get people who have influence on policy and procedures like a commissioner, like an individual, a county executive, or their staff to allow them to say to the law enforcement in their area or fire department personnel, hey.

If there's an opportunity to refer them to these services, let us do that. And the concept of the simulation is we want individuals to walk in the shoes of someone who's getting out of incarceration, to make them aware of what are the steps and what are the problems when you're getting out. These 15 states will say, okay, you're getting out. Where are you gonna live? As an individual, now I'm a participant, and I'm gonna have to feel what is it like for me to get out of incarceration and find some place to say.

How am I gonna find transportation? How am I gonna find a job? How am I going to take care of get my ID? Those are all those steps people need to take in order to get out. So what this is is sort of like an empathy training with individuals who can impact.

I am looking at all of you and saying, we'd love to have you come and be part of this day. We actually got Mission Barbecue to pay for so there is a free lunch if you come with me, and I'll be I'll be at the station unemployment. So that's part of what we're trying to do. That's why I came in here to urge some of you to take the time to come to an event because my vision is not just my friends in the VA, have their vision. I have my vision.

My vision is to take this simulation and then expand it to homeless So then we can work with individuals in counties and continue of cares and say, hey. You're a landlord. You're law enforcement. You're a parole or probation officer. Let me tell you what some of these homeless people have gone through. Why are they homeless? It's not sometimes there's no fault of and I see this as being the direct next step, and it should be done almost on every county because we wanna build empathy towards individuals. We don't wanna say do this because it's the right no. Here's why you do it. So I say a return on investment.

When I was working in incarcerated administration program, it was normally costing about 40 to 50,000 just to house somebody in a federal correctional facility. So if we can avoid that, think what the return on investment is. Last but not least, I also put a document there, which is a referral form for and I'm giving them out to law enforcement. And like I said, law enforcement's nice, but they're gonna have to go through their procedures. That's why the simulation event and we're trying to get in touch with people with influence that can actually have procedures and say, yes, it's okay.

So that's why I came in here today and I wanna thank you for the opportunity to talk with you all. And I'll be available. Michael has my information. I can give you more information if you want to, but reality is this is where we need to go. And I'm gonna tell you, I've been seeing some horrifying information about what's gonna be happening with Department of Labor and the cuts that are gonna be coming through.

So let's start being prepared and not put our heads in the sand and pretend something something is happening right now. I know Montgomery County is already having an increase in homeless because of people chasing the homeless out of DC. So be aware. It's coming up here too. So any questions?

And you oh, so you just said it's coming up here too. Is is this simulation coming up here?

No. That's unless you guys wanna talk to my friends over at Martinsburg. And Jennifer Kelly is your connection in Martinsburg. She's part of that. She's Jessica is my I say my boss, but she gets me when I say that. And she's her counterpart. So you will see her information in our passouts. And she's with Martinsburg. So I'm not trying to steal come in here and take Martinsburg thunder, but we wanna see this statewide. We just don't wanna see it in Baltimore. Or I'd also wanna say I'm going in Montgomery County. And don't tell them, but I think Montgomery County needs a lot of work, and that's why I'm doing what I'm doing.

Well, that's

a And where's the event on the seventeenth?

It's at the Cadenceville College.

Sorry. I'll make sure to email out this information to everyone so that everyone gets a digital copy.

Right. Thank you. That's why I

said A lot of times these are down in Baltimore and we want to bring stuff up here.

And that's why we need to start talking to Jennifer Kelly and say, hey, Jennifer. Her name is on the original documentation. So if somebody were to send an email and say, hey, I heard all about what's going on deflecting the senior committee. They claim they have one too, But you haven't heard about it. So maybe it's time for you, I. E, if I were me, I'd be sneaky and send a little email. You know what's something interesting?

Are you

saying I should be sneaky?

No, no, no. Be Stanley. Be Stan. I call myself the chief of PITA. You know what that means?

Yes, do.

That's who I am. And I'll keep nudging until we get what we need to get done. And I do, for all for your information, I attend the quarterly meetings of the homeless Martinsburg programs. And it's kind of interesting that I'm one of the few people that actually attends it, and I learn from them. So we can bug people if you want to, and I'll give you the right names. Any other questions?

You have more information about that quarterly meeting?

I'm sorry. What's

that? Have more information about that quarterly meeting?

I will send it to Mikaela. There's a quarterly meeting. It's by Michelle Cook, I believe her name is. And she holds a quarterly meeting for homeless programs. And what was interesting the first time I went, I was the only one who was not a VA employee. And I go, that's weird because you have a lot of not for profit that are doing things. So why aren't you connecting with them? All of a sudden I noticed a few more not for profits were coming into these meetings. So like I said, you've got to nudge in order to get what we need. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Yeah. Appreciate you. Thank you. Great information.

Doctor. Mandel, if you don't mind. Good to see you again.

It's good to see you.

So it is my pleasure, and I have no handouts, so don't worry. It's my pleasure to talk about the Women's Community Veterans Engagement Board. I was called and contacted about three months ago, four months ago from Serving Together, Every Mind. They were looking to start a women's focused CVDB for the DMV, which is a lot of abbreviations and letters, but you guys know what it is. This was the first in the country.

Nobody has done this before. So we started thank you, Fred. So we started planning because I was asked to be one of the co chairs. We have three co chairs representing Baltimore and also Northern Virginia and Maryland, Frederick County specifically. And we launched in July. We had our first meeting in August. We have another meeting, monthly meeting, coming up next week. And why don't you go ahead and flip the slides? So same thing that this CVEB does. I mean, we want to strengthen our communities.

We want to make sure people have access to resources. EveryMind was the one who started this with Serving Together, they're our backbone. They're our administrative people. Okay, go ahead. It's meant to focus on women's issues, but everybody is welcome to participate. There are certain things, unfortunately, that are kind of women specific: access to health care, military sexual trauma, etcetera. So even though we're working for veterans issues in general, we know that there's definitely a focus that we need on these particular issues. Next. Can skip that one. Go to next.

The reason why you're thinking, why would we even do this? Well, right now, in terms of women, it's about 10%, and it's growing every year. We know that there are gaps in care. We know that there are issues. We know that there's definitely access to care issues. There might be a clinic at Martinsburg where they're seeing patients, but what's the qualifications of the person who's seeing those patients? What's the backlog? How easy or how hard it is to get into that clinic? You can just imagine. We know how those systems tend to work.

So really, the intent is building a dedicated space for women veterans and military connected. So we're also talking about family members as well. And we want them to feel empowered and supported and make sure that they get the resources that they need. So again, there are three co chairs. And Amy Stoddard of EveryMind Serving Together is our Executive Assistant and Jennifer Watson, who's also with them, is our Secretary. So you can flip through. These are just their bios. Okay. Amy, Jennifer. The goals are, of course, a collective voice.

That's really important. Connecting them to the resources like you guys do, advocating for the unique needs, and fostering that community and support. Getting together. It's going be hard because it's the DMV to get together in person, so a lot of the meetings will be virtual. We are going to try and do in person meetings periodically because we think it's important for people to have that kind of connection. And this is just, you know, common things that we do. How are we going to connect? How are we going to advocate? How are we going to celebrate what's going on in the community? You guys know all about that because you're doing it here.

So we're just going to extend it. And again, everybody's welcome. It doesn't matter who you are, what gender you are, you know, where you come from, all veterans, all military adjacent individuals who are interested in this topic, nonprofits, etcetera, support services, we welcome everybody. And again, we're doing our monthly meetings. We'll be getting our bylaws done. We'll be doing some strategic planning. There's some contact information. And I think there's a QR code coming up to sign up for the next meeting. Yep. You can use that QR There you go.

So the next meeting is September 23. And, again, that one's virtual, so people can come and attend. We're really excited because, again, Frederick County, first in the nation. There we are, tip of the spear, moving forward. So, we're excited. Yeah. We're really excited about it. Any questions?

Oh, good. So that gave us the the Zoom link.

Yes. Okay. Thank you for your time.

Appreciate it. That's fantastic.

Okay. I wanna add a comment. So I was able to join virtually for her your first meeting. Yep. You have some very impressive woman on that committee, and I think you're gonna get things done. I think you're gonna get some problems solved.

So, I mean, I made the same presentation at the CBEP in Frederick County. And Nan Mann was virtually. And she was like, it's behind you on the screen. And before I started, I said, Nan, you're there. She said, yes. I said, we'd like to talk to the senators. And she said, okay, just let us know, and we'll we'll make that happen. So we wanna make

sure that we do

similar to what you're doing is to get their their attention, make them aware of

of Yeah.

Of what we're doing, and then try and get some advocates and some support. Fantastic.

Kathy Hello. Troxell.

I'm not sure if anyone from No Citizens is

worries. Okay. Let's go right into public comment. Anyone, this is an opportunity for the public to bring up anything there. Please sir, yes. Please take your name.

This thought struck me as Stan was giving his presentation. The transition assistance program at Fort Detrick has now gone virtual, which I don't think is a very good method to teach the soldier departing his service on all the services available. Here's an idea. Talk about being tip of the spear and being first in the county and first in the country. Why don't you have a simulation for the soldiers departing the service just with all those things that Stan said?

Because, yes, they've been in prison, but they've also been in service. They need to find housing. They need to find employment. They need to find where to purchase food. All those items that Stan talked about, you could host that here in conjunction, obviously, with Fort Detrick and have it like, this is your day that you're discharged and go to all the stations.

Do

you know why they made that decision by any chance?

Money. Money. They fired excuse they released the two transition counselors at Fort Detrick. And it's just a question of resources and funds.

All all the installations are cutting back on their TDA for the people that they can hire, and they're shrinking money.

And those are the type of things that led to the cancellation of the retiree appreciation day, which was scheduled for September. The post was looking forward and thought that we would not have the personnel available to assist in that effort and said, no, not this year, in 2025. But it's an idea.

That's a

disservice to the active duty that's you know, I mean, it's

don't

I

don't go out there when you when you get out.

I remember when I was getting out and I'm sure this is a lot of lower enlisted had the same thing where it's you're just ready to get out. You go to CIF and you expect they're gonna kick back a couple items and you're just like, I'll go to the local pawn shop and and buy a new item and then I can turn that in and it'll pass. But I'm confident the VA talked to me. I don't remember. I was just ready to sign everything and just move on with my life and it was twelve years until I actually put in a claim and even talked to the VA.

Had I listened twelve years earlier, would have probably been a little more helpful. But I I can understand that going virtual that that little e four that's just ready to get out, they're not gonna listen. They're gonna put it on play, put their put their microphone on silent, and play video games while somebody up gets up there and talks.

It's still congressionally mandated. Right? The time passes? Yeah. Congressionally mandated. Yeah.

Yeah.

In order to do that, they they will not do it. That's why they're going virtual. I'm an old person, so I'm going to say it right now. I was there when the TAP program first started at Fort Bragg. I used to evaluate TAP programs in Maryland.

Recognize you. You kicked back my helmet.

Exactly. You you found out about it because you weren't listening.

You were playing video games. I know.

But remember, you have Department of Labor Less regulation, and you have veteran staff. Again, that's up to you to connect and ask them to help put together a program, and there are programs available. So that's what I'm suggesting. You also connect with Department of Labor election regulation. But I'm giving you a fair warning. I just got data that shows Department of Labor is gonna be cut almost by 30 to 40%. So you see all these individuals now? We're not gonna have as many. So as much as we can do, that's what I would suggest. Sorry.

I'd like to see what organizations provide that TAP covers in the area. Does that make any sense? TAP

was normally covered by Department of Labor, Department of Defense, and the VA. And the VA would do two days of what services were available for you to get out. DOL would hire a contractor, believe it or not, to go ahead and do a transit program. And I used to observe them, and I hate to say this, but the younger people would basically attend, but they weren't interested. They were more interested in what was gonna happen when I got out. Exactly.

Right.

So that that becomes a challenge. How do you get them to be interested? I always felt if they did tap with a job fair slash employer component, that makes life a lot easier.

And resume writing and Oh, yeah.

Exactly. Well, you got you've got right now, you can go to Easter Seals serving DC, Maryland, Virginia, and they actually will help individuals with their resumes. No charge. That's just not veterans, service members, and military spouses. That's already there. So all you gotta do is ask them how can we work this out together.

That's why I was saying that

wanna know what It's been six years since I did my TAP, and I did it down at Meyer Henderson Hall. And they did bring in people to help you with your resume.

They

did bring in people to coach and teach you on how to leverage LinkedIn and other online platforms to get your resume out there. And there were a lot of help. And there were specific classes, like if you're interested going and looking for usajobs.gov on how to craft your resume to put it into that system, if you're interested in going to corporate. I mean, was a lot of help. And I remember being sort of a three day seminar, at least a two and And a there was also even a little bit of dress for success on what to wear. And it was very helpful for people that do twenty plus years in the military on how to make the transition. You know

And I always found if you did it more than once, you got a benefit. Sure. But for the first timers getting out, you were sort of like giving them a drink of water at a fire hose. That was just so much information. It was going way beyond their heads if they even cared. I would suggest you look at a thing called National Resource Directory. How many people know about the NRDs? Yeah. Again, a good opportunity and we have Jonathan Morris who will come to any of your meetings and talk to you about what the NRD does. So there are there are it's just putting all these resources together that becomes the hard part, But it can be done.

Thanks, Dan. Just trying

to identify the gap and fill it with the nonprofits around here so that way somebody's covering something.

Sure.

Danny Rodriguez. I'm with the DFW Thrive USA. I'm a accredited service officer also. So it's funny that we've mentioned all this stuff. One of the I'm at the Veterans Services Center, over here, and actually some of the staff from the tasks that have been laid off have actually been hired at the Veterans Services Center by Goodwill.

Oh, wow.

And so this is still in its infancy, but exactly what you're mentioning is something that is under under works right now. As a service officer, I had access to the DOD database that I would register for TAPs classes. So I would go on bases and give TAP's classes. They're still gonna be offering TAP's classes in person. It's just gonna be at the larger installations. Right? So Mead is still gonna have an in person TAP's. Right? You're gonna still have some most likely a Bragg and Lejeune and those other bases. Dietrich's a little bit smaller.

So the staff, as as, Fred had mentioned, is is is cut down quite a lot. So the idea is going to be sort of what you mentioned that we could probably do taps multiple times. I I definitely think that that'd be very beneficial for individuals. But not only that, taps could also happen after incarceration. Taps can happen after you got laid off from, employment.

You maybe you got out and you were doing a federal employee job. You got riffed, now you could you don't know how to transition out. Right? So the idea about this, that is still in its infancy, and it's being spear spearheaded by goodwill, is going to be that these TAP counselors are gonna actually have different TAP focused type of trainings throughout the months at the Veterans Services Center so that a veteran at any point can come by. They can come by three times.

They can come by four times. And they can come into maybe they're in a point where employment is their preference or their their requirement. They can come to those employment classes, or maybe they're there for VA benefits. So they'd come to one of my briefings where I'll be talking about veteran benefits or spousal benefits. Right? There could be a TAPs class for, when your veteran passes. Right? What does a surviving spouse have to deal with? Right? That is a a huge turning point for an individual, to handle, and that is a gap, I would say, that our current TAP system doesn't have.

So I think lending itself that even though it's obviously, I think, a loss for the individuals at, Fort Detrick to not have in person, if we do this right, we'll still be able to achieve all those goals that we're we're trying to get from TAP and and and more so, by being able to provide these services regularly and, accessible for for veterans.

So state approach, colonel Chung about TAP before and an evaluation Exactly. Of it.

But what Danny mentioned, interestingly, it's a question of putting the resources together. At Fort Detrick Retiree Council, there's an individual who was the survivor spouse liaison and it's chief warrant officer Kay's widow. What better person, but how to get that information out to the community is the question.

I think I think maybe having standing classes that people can sign up for that they can see on an outward outward calendar might be the the solution to that because it taps itself was five days long. You may not be for everybody. You don't need to go through the whole five days all over again. But, if you go for what your need is, you meet the veteran where they are. Right? And so it could be housing. It could be employment. It could be benefits, it could be mental health counseling. Right? I mean, there's the Veterans Services Center. The the Martinsburg Vet Center has counselors there. So I think it just gives veterans access. And that's really the big the big thing.

What if we do, like,

a series of videos that talk about each subject too that they can watch on YouTube at any time?

And see which one's most yeah. That's great. That's a great idea. Right? And because they can see which one is what what they're gonna cover in those classes. Right? So to see if it's worth their time

to go there. Okay. Absolutely.

Great idea. Fantastic. Any other public comment? Sure. Sir?

Keith Midbury. I'm representing two organizations here tonight, embed post two and VVA chapter three thirty four three thirty four. I can't speak on behalf. I'm not here to talk anything about Citizens Rehab because we are blessed in this county that there as a facility that the county supports as a senior living facility, that is allows individuals to transition and pretty much spend the last days of their life in a facility that's funded by the county. It's managed by a private company called Aurora, which does, great health care down there.

Most of you don't know that there are many other senior living communities here in Frederick. Now most of them, it takes some money to get into. They there's an endowment there, and anywhere from 6 to $10,000 a month to stay in many facilities. So many of the veterans that are at Citizens do not have those means to ever qualify for these other places. So, however, in order for the county to support them, there are certain things that they have to forfeit, Social Security, VA disability, checks, whatever.

So they are left with a very small stipend per month. I I don't know the number, but let's just say it's a $100 a month. Okay? But they do, at that facility, have an auxiliary that manages a veteran's fund, and I'm just gonna talk about one thing that that fund does, and it may sound crazy, but it's haircuts. Alright? It costs approximately $1,800 a year to provide haircuts, and the veterans like to get their haircut every four weeks. Okay? I mean, we're used to having haircuts short. You know what I mean? There were several organizations here.

The KWVA, the Korean War Veterans Association, was a big supporter of them. Unfortunately, due to their aging out, they folded a while back, and they received donations from other VSOs. So when we when these two organizations I belong to heard that the fund was essentially done it's almost bankrupt. Okay? And we made some donations that will at least get their haircuts and I I think it costs $15 to get a haircut or something like that.

And so just to make you aware that there are needs of about anywhere from 25 to 30 veterans there at any time. Some are going through rehab that that do stay there for a short period of time and then move on, but there are many veterans there. They're going through a or a rebuilding down there of the Montevu assistance center, and I'm not real familiar with how that's all working out, but again, there are 25 to 30 veterans, and some of them have families that support them, and some have no families. And so that's where that veterans fund. So all I'm encouraging is that other VSOs, Legion, Amvest, whatever, can contribute to that fund there.

And not in addition to haircuts, it's other things. It's it's a pizza night. It's to get all the better it's it's little groups where they get together, you know, just as the veterans away from the rest of the staff and eat other than institutional food, and not that it's bad. It's really good food down there. So again, Frederick County is is unique. Montgomery County doesn't support any one facility where a veteran can qualify to get in. And like I said, if these folks weren't in these facilities, they'd be in their homes with cobbled together care. So they're very blessed to get in there. So they're not no one's complaining that they have to forfeit some of their, you know, their Social Security and things to be in those facilities because they couldn't afford to be in some of these higher end, you know, facilities. They just you know?

So, again, maybe at some point, someone will will come and talk a little bit more in-depth about the about the facility, because I think it's a a wonderful thing that Frederick County does support a facility. Years ago, I believe the employees there were were all county employees, and I don't know when it switched over, maybe ten years ago, something like that, And even some of the other assisted livings, there's management companies that run those because it's just the way the business works today. So just keep in mind that there is a facility that Frederick County supports heavily. I mean, taxpayer dollars are covering the delta between what the cost of these pensions and stuff, but there still is is a need down there. And anybody that wants to volunteer down there, they welcome volunteers.

There's veterans there that love to have a visit, and there are some several organizations, several people I know that go down there on a regular basis and and and go down there and visit some of these veterans and find out what they need and even benefit wise also. They've gone down there. We I'll just say Paul Kelly is a great guy. It takes Luke down there, and he said, hey. I got this guy. I think, you know, he's never applied for VA health care or he's never applied he's a Vietnam veteran. He's got cancer, he never applied for a disability. You know? So those kind of things are all are are there. So I wanna applaud the fact the county supports a facility like that, but there's still a need there to help those veterans because most of them, like I said, are are gonna be there till till the end of end of life.

And so anything that just keep that in mind that there that there was a facility here that we the county owns and does a great job providing the health care, but there's still a need for those veterans there. That that veteran fund that I believe is managed by their auxiliary helps, you know and it it could it's other things at Christmas time. It's it's a it's Veterans Day programs. It's the little extras that just that just mean a lot. Everything from, you know, toiletries and and really basic stuff that just isn't provided.

It's not and nor should it be. It's not required to be, you know, anything you so if anybody wants to know any more about that, please let me know. But I think it'd be nice to to get a more in-depth presentation of what how good the county does take care of these veterans, but what the needs that are are still there. So thank you.

Was the name of the water facility?

Pardon? What

was the name of

This is Citizens Montevu Citizens Rehab Facility. It's on Montevu, On Rosemont. Oh, yeah. Right by the the the back gate of Fort Detrick. And there's been good support from the fort there over the years. Know the American Legion has helped out there a lot, especially Veterans Day programs, Christmas, and things like that. So I just wanna put in a plug that there's always a need really close by here, you know, for people that are at at at end of life, approaching end

of life.

Thank you. Thank you.

So when Golden Gears was a Yeah. Golden entity, would hold that bingo over there at the elf's club and distribute some of that funds to about three BSOs. The KVA would get 1,800. I guess everybody get it at least equally, but the KVA would donate that money straight back to Aurora, Missouri.

And over years, it's fallen. Now they

need some assistance. Any other public comment? Staff report, please.

Okay. So we are coming to the end of our terms. So we will be saying goodbye unfortunately to two of our members and bringing in two new members which we'll be discussing in our closed session. As far as ex officio, we do have a new member coming on, from Frederick Health Hospice. So as soon as that gets what's the word? By the county executive Appointed. Appointed. Yeah. We'll make an official announcement for that. And I have reached out to the VA again, formally requesting an ex officio to be appointed.

And I've also reached out to the Maryland Department of Veteran and Military Families because now that our new bylaw updates have been approved, that's a new ex officio position. That would bring our council up to 15 members, adding that new position there. And then the next thing I wanted to talk about is sorry. I didn't put this on the slide. So was is the new or next year's upcoming Veterans Appreciation Day twenty twenty six.

So we we did we were able to book May 2. So we've we've moved it from the summer to the spring, and we were able to book Frederick Health Village again. So same location that we had it just this past July. So we had talked about incorporating the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary into the theme. So I came up with, like, four kind of ideas that I wanted to present to see if any of these spoke to you.

And you don't have to decide tonight. Sure. And I can email them out to everybody if you want some time to think about it. We could try to incorporate some sort of living history project if and I guess that's a big if there's enough interest to because it would be an additional element that we'd be adding in. So we'd need people to really be able to support that.

But the theme sort of lends to it. So I guess the one thing I would say is, like, if we pick something like, for example, the last one, our veterans, our history, our story, it kind of I think people would probably sort of expect some sort of living history. So if we don't think we're gonna be able to do a living history project, we probably wouldn't wanna pick that theme, I guess. So if we wanna leave it a bit more open to where we don't sort of commit ourselves to living history, then maybe something like the second one kind of is a bit more

What if We don't exactly commit to that, but engage FCC's art program to see if they can come up with something that they can put together for that.

Yeah. Yeah.

If we could find, like, a community partner.

Yeah. Or a double plane or whoever.

Yeah. Like, it doesn't have to be us necessarily, but, like, you know, it does kinda add another element to the event. So Sure. Just something to think about.

Yeah. The other thing I threw in there, since you're bumping it up to spring, all the schools are still in session, you know, and as he was Garth was saying, maybe that means ROTC at Hood College Mhmm. Before they disappear for the summer, kids in FCPS before they go on summer break. You know, maybe it's an art contest or something that involves the community and brings them in before. It's just always hard in the summer with youth and kids and schools because of break. But with May, maybe there's an opportunity to have more community involvement.

What we did with the Human Relations Commission is we actually asked students from around the county to write an essay on, human rights or human relations that they thought and that we we had an award ceremony for that group. So we had, like, a dinner. Mhmm. But we could ask them to do that, they can read it in front of everybody and be videotaped for that message or something.

Yeah. Yeah. I know there there is a film and media program at the CTC Center, and some of those kids are looking to get into broadcasting. So maybe they'd like to try out their interviewing skills. So Yeah.

Great. Another thought, and it's just a thought at this point, but, you know, some of the feedback we had was that the event was kind of long. Sure. So potentially, maybe we think about doing 9AM to 12PM and sort of it be more of a breakfast. And maybe we look at getting donations and having the back table be like a breakfast table, and maybe we could approach some businesses or organizations to see about getting coffee, donuts, and bagels. And maybe we could have sort of a vac slash coffee social corner something. I don't know what you guys think about that idea.

Could work.

Because I know some of the feedback too was kind of like, you know, you know, it would be nice if there was some sort of free lunch or something, which I don't know if we have the budget for that. But maybe if we could've sort of push it more to, like, a breakfast, we could do bagels and donuts

or something.

Or even just coffee. Like, even you know

what I'm just thinking, how many people came through the doors, though?

So this year, we had 450. Yeah.

So I'm just thinking, like, planning to have enough free food

Mhmm. For potentially that money. Mhmm. That might be that might add up. Yeah. Which is which is fine, but just in the sense of, like, keeping that in perspective. Yeah. And I think this year too, we're looking at, like, maybe some different registration pricing schemes and maybe how we can increase a little bit of the budget this year because I know, like, you know, adding a nice, you know, free snack or something. Like, again, like, don't think we have the budget for a free meal, but maybe if we could have the budget. And maybe if it's a combination of budget and donation, you know, So, again, just a thought.

We don't have to commit to anything right now. But I

don't think it's tricky when you have dietary needs and stuff on people. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So I came up just with a oops. Something just an example of if we did wanna think about changing the time to a shorter event. You can't read that, can you? It's better. Maybe try to do, like, a shorter opening ceremony, briefer remarks because I know that was a lot of the feedback was the opening ceremony was too long, you know, too many speakers and things like that. And then, you know, again, maybe potentially adding in a coffee social, coffee corner, potentially having veteran storytelling When interviewing.

When should we create a subcommittee to figure all this out?

Now? Okay. Yeah. Please please email me.

Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah.

Please email me if you would like to start meeting. Yeah. Or we could need to start nailing down some of these things. So Yeah. And I will email this out to everybody probably tomorrow morning when I when I email out the other information and and resources that were presented tonight. So, yeah, I think that's it for me from sorry. I have Yeah. But I think that's it for the

staff report. New business? Yep.

Can I make a motion that we move or enter into a closed session? Second.

Before before we do that, because I don't know if these guys are gonna come back. Yeah. And I'm one of those that roll off, and I just wanna say how much I've been I've been honored and appreciated being able to serve with all of you. And I wanna say thank you, Dave. What we get out there in the audience and the participation is just second to none, And I appreciated that as well.

Absolutely. Thank you.

I also wanted to talk about

the Sure.

We have

a have a motion and a second to move into closed session. That closed session is for voting on On new

members. Excellent.

All those in favor of going into closed session say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Fantastic. We will go into closed session. Anyone that is that we interview will kindly it's looking like everybody Yeah. They'll Yeah.

They'll stop

recording here in a second whenever IT is ready to do that. Fantastic. Alright. We are back in open session. The committee voted unanimously.

We have we are going to present Danny Rodriguez and Susan Fondy as our recommendations to the county executive to be appoint was easy. Other new business. Garth.

Yeah. So when I applied, talked about this in my interview, was talking about a legislative forum or at least the meet and greet or something like that where we'd have an event and sit around the table. We talk about events going on either inviting the federal, the state, and the local levels together and see what's on their minds and then they can see what's on our minds and inviting the VSOs out to talk about what they want for this area as well. And know that some of the VSOs send up their packets and stuff like that through their through their chain of command and all the way to the headquarters, but still wanna see what they talk about about the local level because that's what we're focused on. So I'd like to have an event where we can have a legislative session with them or a forum of some sort to bring everybody together.

Thank you. Mhmm. We could probably get work on getting contact information for all the VSOs in the area, all the nonprofits. I'm sure the CVEB would would be an interesting group also to include in that. Maybe we we call it the Frederick County legislative Veterans legislative session.

Just invite everybody that's

We don't necessarily if

we if we

have something that we wanna vote on, we could we could talk about it or we could just table it and come back next month with additional thoughts and put together something a little different.

So do you want me to put together an idea or how I think it should go and then Yeah. Do okay. Then I can do that and table it and Yeah. Vote on next month.

Sure. Alright. Any other Reach out if you need

Could I make a comment on First that to of all, it's a great idea. Mhmm. But what I should strongly suggest is you get your group together, the Veterans Advisory Council, the Community Veterans Engagement Board, platoon twenty two, Goodwill together, and then you form what you're gonna talk to the legislators about as one voice for the veterans of Frederick County. Because if you get those diverse groups together, you're gonna have fifteen fifteen different things presented to the legislature and maybe you're gonna agree with maybe two of them. Okay? Sure. I What you need to get is a roundtable of the veterans organizations first and then you bring your legislators in.

Or we bring them all in together? No. No.

I know. I strongly would strongly recommend against that.

Oh, okay. We'll we'll figure it out. We're gonna put a table this guys. We'll figure it out. I I'm confident even though we'll all be on different pages still getting the organizations together. I mean, it's the CBAB gets together every every month and they're not screaming at each other. So, you know, we're getting all these organizations together. No,

it's not the Yeah.

Totally hear what you're saying.

You've got a legislative focus.

CBAT has

got a charity focus.

I understand. I I hear exactly what you're saying, and I I understand that what I'm saying isn't sounding like I hear what you're saying. Trust me. I I 100% agree. I'm I'm just a fan of getting everybody together and and speaking. But like I said, we're we're tabling it. Garth's gonna come back with an idea. Definitely talk with Garth because because I'm I'm charging I'm charging him with with coming back with with the full details on it. Any other thoughts, comments, questions about new business?

I was

gonna share that I do

definitely see value in being able to hear all of the perspectives. To me what I'm

hearing is there's a difference in an order

of events, but I think Garth, what I heard

you bringing up was to get those different perspectives is one of the probably most valuable pieces. To to be able to synthesize what goes forward Yeah. Completely makes sense, but I think placing an emphasis on the value of getting those different perspectives is important.

You may want to consult with the county executive's office to make sure that the county exec because the VAC is the purpose of the back is to consult and inform the county executive.

You might want to

consult with the office first before

you go.

Absolutely. I

just sent I received. I don't know why people send me stuff. But there's a fourth annual listening session put on by the Maryland Military Coalition. So I sent that to Mikayla. Okay.

And

I would suggest you invite someone from the Maryland Military Coalition to talk about what are they promoting on a statewide basis. That to me would seem to be, at least I tried to get involved because I'm a Blodensky and I can't really tell them why. I think it's great some of the things, but I think there's other things. Like I said, somebody talked about employment is going to be a real hard thing in the next few years.

I'll give you a course of

action brief.

Perfect. Any other news?

I have some so on November 19, the Veterans Services Center is having the third anniversary and open house of the center from three to 6PM. I wanted to discuss if we were interested in potentially hosting our meeting over there on that date.

The Wednesday?

Yeah. It's that same Wednesday. I did discuss it with Goodwill already. They're in support of it. Just it's kind of up to us whether or not we want to go on a field trip for the meeting in November.

Sounds like it might be a motion you're making.

I motion to move the meeting to the Veterans Services Center on nineteen November.

Is there anything that would preclude that from happening?

No. It just wouldn't be able to be televised that night.

But other than that, it's

I would just need to let them know by October that they need like a month's notice, I think.

If we have a second, let's get a second and then we can discuss. I'll

discuss it. Okay. I'll second it.

Second. Perfect. Any discussion?

No. I think we already

did it.

Yeah. It just can't be televised. We need to let make sure I let them know it with enough notice.

Sure. I thought it was televised

at Hood. Wasn't it televised when you're at the Hood?

Mm-mm. They just have the same cameras in there.

I know that I know that in the past we've talked about we've struggled with getting off-site participation and all that. I'm excited to give this a try just on the sheer fact that it sounds like we've got some coordination. Not saying that previously it wasn't coordinated. Sounds like Goodwill's on board. We've got two months to advertise the bejesus out of this and maybe we'll get a good turnout because it'll be in conjunction with the the third anniversary.

Think the timing will go nicely too of like those events are supposed to wrap up at six. We start at 06:30, you know, and people just wanna stick around for a little bit.

That's okay. That was it was well attended the last time we had. That was the only one that was

well attended.

Yeah. Exactly.

Out of

all those off campus sort of trips that we made, that was the one that that's

what did. I mean, like,

all that folks showed up to. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay.

Okay. Any other discussion? Any other discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Fantastic. The ayes have it. We will have our meeting at the VSC in November. Any other new business? Going once, going twice. Any announcements?

I do have an announcement. Speaking of employment, our office has been developing new programming to be responsive to what's happening in the federal space and adjacent positions. Not just those who are losing federal employment, but those who are contractors or even secondary to any of those adjacent positions. We've been developing additional program. We have some full day workshops that bring in other resources to be able to address questions, talk about career pathways, and then make some of the connections to the other programming that's available in the community.

So I just wanted to put that out. I know that employment is always a hot topic, but we do have some additional resources that we're building and delivering. Did pretty quickly when we started to see those things happening. Any

other announcements?

Just a quick thank you to the board. I along with the colonel. This is my last meeting. So I know I had option for two more, moved out of the county. So we'll go over and cause havoc in Carroll County.

See what

we can do over there. Congratulations to the new board members. Thank you to the county executive for the opportunity. It's truly been an honor with all of you. So thank you.

And for the record, we are replacing you with an army person.

Well, you guys are gonna need a ride somewhere sometime. So I got some navy guys somewhere. So

Alright. Any other announcements going once, twice?

Can I just say that we're really gonna miss Sharon? Are you one of the original?

Yeah. Yeah.

One of the the last original member. Yeah.

You mean a plank guard?

Last man standing? Yes. I trust you.

It's Thank you

for your It's tough. It's it's gonna be I I just thoroughly like Brian said, just I'm just so honored and thankful that I would be able to do this. And congratulations to both of you. You're you two are are exactly what this council needs. What are you doing? I'm glad you're doing it. I'm just so excited for the council to have you guys. I

think I can speak for all of us and say we will definitely continue to make sure Frederick County veterans are taken care of given Oh, I know. The the expertise that both of you have provided us. More so you than him just because

got my say. Because that's the original doesn't make it any less important right here. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, hope you a mind. What you created is. Yep.

I'm proud. It is Fred. Yeah. We're we're just proud of what this this council has turned into.

Grown. Yeah.

Yeah. How it's grown. Yeah.

Yeah.

Do we have a motion to adjourn?

So moved. So I

don't do that sound like.

All those in favor.

Aye. Aye.

Thank you.

That's enough for me. We have somebody very meet today. As we get things kicked off this morning, please give a Frederick roaring welcome to the one, the only county executive Jessica Fitzwater. Come on down.

I

I can't say that's how my normal intros go, so thank you very much.

Also, by the way, if you are a Literacy Council board member, it's photo time. So come and lurk around the stage. All yours, County Executive.

Alright. Well, morning, everyone. My name is Jessica Fitzwater, and I have the honor of serving as your County Executive. And I'm really excited to be here today. We are celebrating two excellent celebrations in our community, arts and education week and read a book day.

And I know that we have a lot of student artists here today with us. And hopefully, on your way into the park today, you are able to admire the incredible talent and expression that our students have to share with our community. If you are one of our student artists who are here, can you guys wave so we can clap for you? Wonderful. Well, this year, we decided to do something a little bit different for arts and education week.

Over the past several years, we have gone to visit the youth art month exhibit in the Della Plain each year and selected a diverse group of artwork to display in Winchester Hall, which is our county government's main building in Downtown Frederick. And we've had a great time inviting the families in to see their artwork hanging up. But we wanted to make sure that more folks in the community had a chance to see this beautiful artwork and so we decided to join in collaboration with our incredible partner, the Literacy Council of Frederick County and have the artwork out here on this beautiful day in Frederick to recognize our student artists, to celebrate arts and education week, and to lift up the arts and humanities in our community, which are so critically important for each of us to to really be able to meet our full potential, but certainly also for our students as they are learning and growing and getting more comfortable in all the ways they can express themselves both in school and in our community. So I have two important pieces of paper up here, and the first one is my official proclamation for arts and education week.

So I'm going to read this proclamation, and then I'm gonna invite all of our student artists who are here to please come up to the stage with me so we can do a picture together after the proclamation. Whereas arts education has a positive and profound impact on students' lives, yet can be among the first programs to be cut in difficult funding environments. And whereas 92% of American adults believe that it is important for students to receive an education in the arts, including dance, media arts, music, theater, visual arts, and literature. And whereas Americans believe that the value of arts education is not limited to the in school experience and where nonprofit community arts providers, teaching artists, and museums contribute to a quality arts education. And whereas arts education prepares students contribute to their community and the workforce, helping to cultivate skills that employers are looking for in professionals, including communication skills, problem solving, creativity, and teamwork.

And whereas the arts are a fundamental component of a healthy society, one that provides benefits to the individual community and our nation. Therefore, as the county executive of Frederick County, Maryland, I hereby proclaim September 2025 as arts and education week and commend this observance to all of our residents. I am so proud of our exceptional students in Frederick County and the art that they bring and the beauty that they bring to our community every day and especially our student artists that we're able to recognize today. So if you are one of our student artists, come on up to the stage with me. I'd love to get a picture with you.

Lastly, before I know there are other folks that are going to be up here to speak, I also truly want to recognize one of our nonprofit partners that does incredible work in our community, the Frederick County Literacy Council. Can you please give them a huge round of applause? I know that you will have the opportunity to learn more about their mission throughout the day, but this amazing group of staff and hundreds of volunteers give so much time to our community from our youth all the way up to our seniors doing everything from activities like this to help folks really embrace a love of learning and a love of reading, but also helping people who are going into new careers that might need additional skills. Folks that are learning English as a second language, helping people to access resources that might be challenging for them. The Literacy Council is everywhere and is truly one of our incredible partners in county government and works so much with our other nonprofits as well.

So we are so grateful to them and really excited to be here with them today. Today is read a book day and that's what a reason why many of you are here. There's gonna be so many readers today reading some wonderful, wonderful books to you, and I'm so excited that we're able to proclaim today as read a book day. And I'll read a little bit of the proclamation, and then I'd love to have all of our literacy council staff and volunteers to join me for a picture. Whereas reading enriches the lives of individuals of all ages, providing a gateway to knowledge, inspiration, and adventure.

And whereas books have the power to foster empathy, broaden horizons, and create a more informed and engaged community. And whereas literacy is a cornerstone of education and personal growth contributing to the success and well-being of our residents. And whereas libraries, bookstores, schools, and community organizations play a crucial role in promoting reading and providing access to a diverse range of books including the banned books. I had to add that in. Whereas, we are grateful to the efforts of the Literacy Council of Frederick County for hosting today's event in honor of National Literacy Month and for all their efforts every day to lift lives through literacy.

Therefore, as the county executive of Frederick County, Maryland, I proclaim the September as read a book day and encourage all residents to take the time on this day to read a book, explore new genres, and share their love of reading with others, presented this sixth day of September. Thank you all for being here, and I'll ask the literacy council to come on up and join me for a photo.

The Latino, Caribbean, and Spanish speaking population of Frederick County, Maryland is rich in diversity and culture and continues to grow steadily each year. This diversity strengthens the local economy, brings a greater variety of flavors and foods, and makes cultural celebrations possible, gathering people from many different cultures across the region. The art, music, and dance of Latino, Caribbean, and Spanish speaking communities reflect a blend of ancestral roots and modern creativity. These expressions cross borders, generations, and styles to share stories, convey emotions, and celebrate cultural identity.

Through Central America, South America, and Spain, you you hear salsa, you hear merengue, you hear bachata, you hear so many other rhythms, but they all have that same percussion. It all comes from that African percussion. So those are the roots. Those are the roots of salsa. It's what brings it all together.

But every country has their own variation. They have their their own flavor of music. So it becomes a fusion. It becomes a melting pot of all this rich diversity of different rhythms of the whole world, which is something so fascinating about Latin music and Latin culture.

So our organization, does fundraising through a performance group that we have. We get hired to perform at festivals, and then we take those funds and we reinvest them in the community. We pay for public spaces where we invite the community to come in, and experience the Puerto Rican culture. The traditions in Puerto Rico are very similar to traditions in other places in in Latin America, but they are, distinct and unique. For example, Dominican Republic has mangu, which is made with plantains, and we have mofongo.

So it is special and unique but relatable at the same time. The same thing happens with the arts, and the same thing happens with historical, characters. We have very similar histories, so we can kinda recognize in ourselves things that are similar, like the Cuban flag, which is almost the same as the Puerto Rican flag, just different colors, and there's a historic reason for that. Right? And and when we go into spaces, we acknowledge each other and we recognize the differences and celebrate what's what's similar.

Good morning and welcome. I call to order the 09/17/2025 Frederick County Planning Commission. I am your chair, Tim Davis. For those of you in attendance, if you care to join me, please rise for the pledge of allegiance. Thank you very much. I am going to call the roll, but first up regarding the roll, miss Nicholas will not be joining us today. Signify simply by saying I or here. Mr. Renzberger? Here.

Mr. Long? Here. Mr. Hicks? Here. Mr. Tressler? Aye. Ms. Pesserb?

Here.

And Chair is here. Our schedule for today, unless anything's changed, I don't know about, we'll just kind of roll with the 11:00 break and we'll have lunch at 12:30. And if by some strange occurrence we're running still at 05:00, we'll have to have a hard stop because of conflict with the room. We do have May to approve and we will be needing to vote on these. So if anybody has any comments on the minutes. Mr.

Chair, I move that we approve the minutes of 05/21/2025.

Second.

Motion by Mr. Long, seconded by Mr. Tressler to approve the May. I'm going to call the roll. Mr. Renzburger?

Abstain.

Mister Long? Aye. Miss Passerb?

Abstain.

Mister Hicks? Aye. Mister Tressler?

Aye.

And the chair votes aye. Motion passes four zero two one. Next meeting, next item on the agenda, the Executive Committee report. Do we have nothing at this time, gentlemen, unless you, Mr. Long or Mr. Tressler have anything?

No. No, sir.

Thank you very much. Planning Commissioner comments. I see Mr. Hicks followed by Mr. Renzburger.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to comment on our upcoming hearing on the CDI map, October 15. I wanted to note that I believe scheduling the hearing for the daytime was wrong. And Planning Commission superfans may recall that I asked whether it was a day or an evening hearing, I think at our last meeting.

But I, at the time, trusted our system to correct this error. And I now believe that this trust was misplaced because we're now boxed in between advertising requirements and the council's scheduled hearing. The county council will be will be hearing on this issue. And for this, I'd like to apologize to people who may not be able to attend the hearing because of the schedule. And in future, I am going to strive to be more aware and engaged with scheduling decisions and promote discussion about them in our public meetings.

I just also wanted to mention for people who are interested in this issue that the Planning Commission is not the final decision maker on the map. It's the County Council, and they have a hearing that will be scheduled for the evening. And, I'm not trying to discourage people from, phoning in or providing email comment for our hearing, but I do want to make it clear that the council is the ultimate decision maker here, not the planning commission. And so I suggest that if you're going to attend a hearing that that might be the best one to attend if you can't come during the day, where your input will be ultimately probably more impactful than it would be in front of the Planning Commission. Thank

you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Hicks. Mr. Rensperger?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to bring some awareness to a conversation that's happening about rooftop solar in the county, and it was shared with me that the perspective of policymakers is that it's one of their perspectives is that it's a building code matter, which it is. But I wanted to also share that that opportunity, rooftop solar, can be in two places at the same time. And it is, in fact, a land planning matter as Frederick County approaches like all other counties are mandated renewable energy generation requirements.

Buildings over 25,000 square feet, nongricultural, with mandated rooftop solar can be a contributor acre per acre for saving forests and farms from ground based solar. For example, this planning commission approved a zero five million square foot building in the last couple of months. That is 11 acres of missed opportunity for forest and farm preservation. And I just wanted to help bring awareness to that. Thank you very much. Also, for those of you who don't know, Mr. Davis casually supervises the ties that the gentlemen wear at planning commission meetings, and I wanted to point out my Maryland tie. Excellent.

Thank you. Treasurer of the treasure of the Chesapeake.

Yes, sir.

Thank you. Mr.

Chairman, if I could

And aviation.

I could

tag up on Mr. Renzberger's comment.

Yes, please, Mr.

Chairman. I think that the same thing is true for parking lots in addition to building rooftops. And there are a couple of places that that mister Renzberger and I have seen one is a federal agency near Baltimore and the other is the Volvo plant in Hagerstown where there are solar panels over parking lots that not only generate electric electricity, but also protect vehicles from from the heat and this rain and the snow. So I think that there are a lot of opportunities. Again, it might be it might be technically a building code domain situation, but I think that there are there are direct implications for land use as well.

So thank you, mister Renzberger for for bringing that up.

Thank you.

And thank you, mister chair for

allowing

Both

of gentlemen. And I'll add that the new police station in Downtown Frederick, their parking lot has a solar roof as does the Department of Public Works out on Montevu has a solar parking lot too. And agreed. But basically, I think I think as as we all know up here, eventually everything comes down to land use and even transportation oddly enough. But moving right along. Oh, mister Long.

Just a public service announcement, so to speak. If anyone is interested in data centers, I'm not sure that anyone is, but there is a public meeting taking place on September 25, that's next Thursday, being sponsored by the county executive's office to discuss the overlay for critical digital infrastructure. This isn't a hearing. It's not a counts county council meeting. It's not a planning commission meeting, it's just an informational meeting for folks if they want to learn more. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Long. Moving right along to agency comments and agenda briefing. Ms. Gaines?

Bell and Longview rezonings that were before you recently were before the council for a decision last night. So both of those were approved. Longview, you all did not recommend, any conditions on that. So the the council also did not, impose any conditions for Bell. You had recommended four different conditions, and those were were carried over and and supported by the council and included in their ordinance.

So, again, both of those rezonings that you, saw recently were approved. In terms of your, agenda briefing, you have three meetings in October. So your October 8 meeting will begin with election of officers. Then you have a site plan for raising canes. And then the investing in workers and workplaces plan will be back before you, and we're also planning on having the housing element on that, agenda.

So that's on your agenda for today. We're planning on bringing some maps to you on the eighth for you to review. On the fifteenth, that is your public hearing on the comprehensive plan amendment and the comprehensive rezoning for the critical digital infrastructure overlay zone. So the plan is for you to first have your public hearing and then for you to go into a workshop where you'll discuss what you heard at the public hearing where we'll discuss the state comments with you, any comments that we receive from adjacent jurisdictions from any of our municipalities. It's been sent to all of them for review, so we'll have all of their comments ready, for you to consider and discuss, and then ideally make a recommendation to the council on the fifteenth.

If you're not able to do so, we are meeting again on the twenty second. Also on your agenda for the twenty second, we'll have the housing element and the green infrastructure plan. So the next couple of chapters of green infrastructure.

Mister chair, may I

have it?

Mister Renzburger followed by mister Hicks, please.

Miss Gaines, I think I heard you correctly on the by the fifteenth, you will have solicited feedback from the municipalities

So when

of Frederick County?

The when the amendment, was sent to the state, we also sent it to all of the municipalities, and we sent it to all of the adjacent counties, and that includes the counties in Virginia and Pennsylvania. We send it to everybody that touches us.

Would the would you be willing to make a point to if you don't have feedback from one of Frederick's municipalities to reach out to them and request it so that we don't have silence?

Mhmm.

Mhmm.

Okay. Thank you.

Mhmm. Hicks?

I wanted to know, Gaines, if you could you or other staff could help everyone understand the scope of our hearing on this issue because much of the feedback that we're receiving by email relates more generally to whether or not data center should be in Frederick County in the first place. And I believe that that not only is beyond the scope of the issue in front of us, but it's also it's also that ship has sailed, basically. The council has enacted enacted legislation and it's it's it's a law now that there are going to be data centers somewhere in the county.

Right. Right. That's a very good point and I'm glad you've brought that up. You know, And mister Long mentioned the meeting that's on that's that's being hosted by the county that's on the twenty fifth. And that I mean, obviously, we'll be there to answer any questions about the comp plan amendment about the comprehensive rezoning, the overlay.

But, I mean, as you all are seeing from the emails that are coming in to you, there are a lot of questions about the construction activity that's occurring on-site now, the the generators that are being used as part of construction activity now. So so you're seeing comments from both both that are more future oriented and also about about what current conditions are. And for the meeting next week, there'll be people there to address all of those things. But for your public hearing, that is really just the properties that I mean, for the most part yeah. Well, entire none of the none of the properties that they're properties that don't currently have zoning, and we're not proposing changing zoning.

So it's just kind of what's the outline of that overlay area going to be? What are the boundaries going to be? And some of the properties are properties that are currently being developed. But as you all know, there are other properties that have been proposed for inclusion that don't currently have zoning, are not currently under development. And we've a map that we'll have at the meeting next week, and I'll also bring it to your public hearing that shows these are the areas where you all have already approved a preliminary plan. You all have already approved site plans. So those areas are already spoken for, and then we'll show in a different color the areas that are really in play and up for debate. Yeah.

Thank you. It's it's clear that you and and other staff have been very thoughtful about this and I appreciate that.

Thank you.

I think

those maps will be available at the next Thursday night meeting.

Will be. Yes.

Mister Ansberger.

Just a question to my colleagues about the elections. I believe the chairmanship, what we've done the last few cycles, is November through October. So even if our elections are on the October 8, I think our expectation is to seat the new chairman at the first meeting in November. Is that right? Okay. Alright. Thank you.

That's that's what I understood.

We should double check to make sure it's consistent with our with our rules of procedure because

You were the only one that ever did the power grab thing.

I'm trying to see if I can claw some power back for Tim too. I don't know. No, but I'm what I'm saying is we used to vote in September, right? And did we did we do the handoff in September? I don't know. Anyway, we can we can look at that.

I have the rules right here, but Yeah. Kind of Okay. Carry on with the meeting and we could check those

check that later.

Okay.

Sorry for the distraction.

No worries. So Ms. Gaines, I think you got ahead of my question, which was and this is not for the Thursday meeting, but for our meeting on the fifteenth. You're saying, just so I understand and misunderstood, if please correct me, you're going to have an exhibit that shows this preliminary this area, a preliminary subdivision approved or what have you, has been approved within this big area that we're looking at for the overlay. And right now, here's another area where a site plan has been approved and a building is being built and a substation is being built and that sort of thing, so that we can look and we can say, well, we've approved four or whatever things for data centers and they're taking up this much space.

So the map that I was describing, I mean, we've tried to make this kind of as user friendly as possible. And so we've it's it's green, yellow, red. So the green area is the area where you all have already approved the preliminary subdivision plan and you've already approved, in some cases, you've already approved site plans. And this area already has zoning. So these are the projects that are moving forward. And when you drive down there, you see them under construction in in some cases. The yellow area is the area that's being considered for inclusion in the overlay. So it it does not currently have zoning. But

So the yellow is the non Eastalco properties.

In some cases, they're properties that they do own, but they don't currently have zoning. And then the red area is the area, if you recall from the maps, there is area on the east side of the railroad tracks that has zoning, but we did not include that in the overlay area. And for the most part, they've not that's not been shown on plans that you've approved.

Very good. Thank you very much, Ms. All right. Well, we'll continue then with our agenda for today. And as we rainy have late September morning, we'll do summer cycle for 2025 water and sewage plan amendments. Miss Phong and Mr. Stein, welcome. Good to see you

all. Swear.

Do you got to swear? Yeah. Okay. I got to find my card. Thank you, Miss Phong. All right. If you plan to test testify on this item, any of these items within the water and sewage plan amendments, please stand and raise your right hand. And do you solemnly swear or affirm under the penalties of perjury and the testimony you're about to give the whole truth and nothing but the truth? If say so by saying I do.

I do. I

thought you were just waving at me.

In retrospect, that was not the best hand motion for Good morning, members of the Planning Commission. My name is

principal planner with Liberal Frederick Planning and Design Office. And before you this morning is the summer twenty twenty five

Planning cycle of water and sewer amendments. So for new Planning Commission members and members of the public who are here, the water and sewerage plan's primary purpose is to establish areas that will be served by public water and or sewer. This is a document that applies to municipalities as well, which is a little bit different from a lot of other documents that the Planning Commission works with. For what we usually talk about in water and sewer amendments, properties are classified according to when connection to the counties or municipalities water or sewer system is anticipated. A three classification, so W3 or S3 is the nearest term, generally about one to three years.

And plan service is the longest term, whereas a one means that there's currently service to the property. And when we process map amendments, those can be either initiated by a property owner or a developer to sort of move it along in the connection process. And in some cases, those reclassifications are initiated by staff in the event that the property or properties no longer meet the current criteria of that classification. The role of the Planning Commission is to determine a finding of consistency with the Livable Frederick master plan or a municipal plan. And if you have that finding of consistency today, those get forwarded to the County Council for their own public hearing.

And the county council is the body that decides whether or not the class the property meets that classification criteria. Today's hearing is for seven amendments. Six of them are reclassifications and one of them is a text amendment. So we'll start off with WS2510, which is located at 7131 Fish Hatchery Road. It is a 0.57 acre reclassification request.

The applicants are the property owners Pat and Ty Quinn. The property is currently approved with residential outbuildings including a garage and shed, but there is no primary dwelling. And the property owner's intent is to construct a single family detached home on the lot. The property has a land use designation of rural community and the property is zoned r one low density residential. The current classification is no planned service for water and planned service for sewer.

The requested classification is s three dev with no change to water. Staff recommends a finding of consistency with the county comprehensive plan for the request made in case WS2510 as the subject property is located within the Lewistown sewer service area and has a planned service sewer designation. Thank you.

Any questions of staff from the Planning Commission? Seeing none, the applicant can come forward.

I believe the applicant signed up for public comment, but I would invite them to come to the table at this time if they would like to speak on behalf of their application.

Thank you, Ms. Plum. You can come sit at the table. So more comfortable than the podium.

Yet the middle button.

You have fifteen minutes, but you know.

Good morning. I am Pat Quinn, the owner of 7131 Fish Hatchery Road. I also own the adjacent parcel 700125 Fish Hatchery Road. And I basically just want to say that my husband and I and family have been investing in the Lewistown community for over thirty five years. It's been a long tedious process to get public sewer to Lewistown, and we want to thank you for serving and the community as you do and thank staff for a favorable recommendation of finding of finding of consistency for this request. And that's it. Other questions for me?

Very good miss Quinn. Are there any questions for miss Quinn up here? Seeing none, I would just check with miss James to see if there are any calls or anything on this this matter. Then we're back up here. If we agree that this is a finding of consistency, then we can move quite quickly. I'm looking at mister Long.

I'm prepared to make a motion. I recommend that the Planning Commission make a finding of consistency with the county comprehensive plan for the request made in case WSDash25Dash10.

Second. Finding

of inconsistency motion by mister Long, seconded by mister Renzberger. I'm gonna have to do this, I didn't use my chart. Ms. Pisserb? Aye. Mr. Hicks? Aye. Mr. Long? Aye. Mr. Renzburger? Aye. Mr. Tressler?

Aye.

And the chair votes aye. Matter passes six-zero-zero-one. Thank you, Ms. Glynn.

Thank you. Thank you for your patience.

All right, moving right along. WS two thousand five hundred eleven is located 6002 And 33 Yeagertown Road as well as four adjacent unaddressed parcels which are also along Yeagertown Road. It is a 23.47 acre reclassification request. The applicant is the contract purchaser, Better World Builders LLC. The address property is improved with a single family detached home built in 1968 and the other four lots are unimproved.

The proposed development includes the construction of a single family detached home on each lot and the existing dwelling would be demolished and replaced on the improved lot. The properties are designated low density residential and the property is zoned agricultural. The current classification is planned service for water and sewer and the requested classification is S4 dev with no change to water. Staff recommends that the Planning Commission make a finding of consistency with the county comprehensive plan for the request made in case WS2511 as the properties are located within the Linganore community growth area, a sewer service area and meet the criteria for service to a property zoned agricultural in the water and sewage plan. Thank you.

Mr. Rinsberger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Fulham, I have no objection to this reclassification, but I have a question. I ride that road often, and I know these lots. There are steep slopes, 25% or greater, and ephemeral waterways crisscrossing three out of these five lots. So they don't appear to be developable for environmental reasons. Are we as the Planning Commission, if we grant a reclassification, are we in danger of misleading the applicant?

I believe the applicant is well aware of those environmental constraints and the purpose of their application was to work with the Division of Water and Sewer Utilities on the sewer connection concept. So as you mentioned, there are those environmental constraints that make septic a little bit difficult there. And so I don't I think the applicant is going in with eyes wide open about the difficulties here.

Okay. Thank you.

It's a very informed question, Mr. Renzburger. Thank you very much. I had is there anyone else? We don't need to have a separate motion for exception, do we?

No, That was just we generally say that it's within a community growth area has the land use and zoning, but that doesn't imply in this situation. So it was just being very specific.

All right. Okay. Then I would at this time invite the applicant to come forward and discuss this matter. Please identify yourselves. You have a clock over my left shoulder of fifteen minutes. You can take as much time as you want within fifteen minutes.

My name is Mike Swanson with Terra Solutions Engineering.

My name is Mike Miren. I am representative of the contract purchaser and would be the developer builder. You want to intro or?

Yes, do you want to start with what you're doing?

Yes. We're aware of the other environmental concerns. I mean we developed a preliminary concept plan that would allow us to sort of zigzag around and avoid almost all not all, but almost all steep slopes and flooded soils and so on. And that's the primary reason we're not seeking to subdivide these further. I mean they're parcels and by right, you could subdivide them, but for environmental concerns, really can't. So the existing house that's on the property is near falling down. There's no value to it. So we just want to replace that one and construct one single family home on each of the parcels.

You know, we recognize that there this plan and surveys continuing to evolve. They did have an environmental scientist out there to identify some of the the flooding soils and waterways out there. But there's some additional studies that have to occur, some additional survey on the actual location. There's several challenges of tying into this sewer out here out there. One of the challenge is the sewer in general is very shallow.

And there's a lot of undulating topography out there between the lots. So you will see with the layout, we'd have to propose some grinder pumps for some of the lots for portions of the sewer. But we will continue to make some tweaks to the layouts, the homes, the driveways, and the sewer lines to minimize the environmental impacts to the flooding soils and waterways and stream buffers.

Actually, piggybacking on that, the existing sewer line that was constructed when Summerfield was constructed runs diagonal through the northern lots. And the seller has explained to us that his recollection of when he granted that approval is that he could then connect to the sewer for his lots. I don't have that in writing. It's hearsay. But that's his recollection.

So it's going back twenty or thirty years. Who really knows? But the design that we have then has a private easement for the individual laterals to run to that sewer line. And the primary reason for that is to avoid additional disturbance to the stream and the buffer around the stream. It would make a lot more sense to cut across our own property outside of those environmentally sensitive areas than it would be to catch the sewer line running down Yeagertown Road and do five individual stream crossings.

So our first stop was MDE regarding the existing bridge, and are we permitted to use that? Is it up to snuff? It is. The second step was MDE saying, please don't disturb it in any way if you can help it. So here we are, step number three, trying to get permission to connect to the sewer and not cross the stream with additional sewer connections or electrical connections.

Very good. Any questions for the Mr. Murren or Mr. Swanson? Seeing none.

Any public comment?

No, sir. No public comment.

Okay. And I don't see anybody coming forward either. Then we are back up here.

I'm prepared to make a motion, Mr. Chair. Mr. Long? I recommend that the Planning Commission make a finding of consistency with the county comprehensive plan for the request made in case WS-twenty five-eleven.

Second.

Motion by Mr. Long, seconded by Mr. Renzburger. I will call the roll. Ms. Vasserb?

Aye.

Mr. Hicks? Aye. Mr. Long? Aye. Mr. Renzburger?

Aye.

Mr. Tressler? Aye. And the Chair votes aye. Finding of consistency passes 6,001. Thank you, gentlemen. You.

Good luck. Thank you to staff for helping with their guidance.

Thank you, Mr. Swanson.

All right. Good morning, members of the Planning Commission. For the record, Andrew Stein with the Livorf Frederick Planning and Design Office, and you'll be with me for the next four cases. The next case up for consideration is case WSDash25Dash14, the property of James and Nancy Lilly. This is a developer owner initiated request for property located at 17 East Main Street in the town of Newmarket.

The reclassification involves 0.51 acres. The property is currently improved with a residential dwelling constructed in 1860 per tax records and several small accessory structures. This property was historically comprised of two lots, nineteen and twenty, on the plat of the town of Newmarket that were combined into Lot 20A prior to the acquisition of the property by the current owners. The current owners intend to resubdivide the property to create two residential lots, and reclassification to a three is a necessary precondition of the recordation of that plat. The comprehensive plan designation for the property is historic district residential merchant in the town of Newmarket.

The zoning is residential merchant in the town of Newmarket. The property currently has a designation of w five dev, and the proposed classification or designation would be w three dev with no change to sewer in this case. The property is currently s one and is connected to sewer. A water main is located in East Main Street within the public road frontage of the property, and, staff would note that the existing well would need to be abandoned in accordance with Frederick County Health Department requirements following connection to public water. The staff recommendation in this case is for a finding of consistency with the town of Newmarket's comprehensive plan as the property is located within a community growth area and a water and sewer service area. And that concludes the staff presentation.

Thank you, Mr. Stein. I do not see any light slit from the Planning Commission. I did have one quick question. I didn't see anything from the town concurring with this finding was that I assume you've had communications with

Yeah. The we have had communications that we have seen emails from the town indicating that water the reclassification will be necessary to record the plat, but Newmarket is unique in this case because the county provides water and sewer service. So it's not necessarily a letter from the town demonstrating that they have capacity, but the town does support and has required this reclassification.

And there's been communications with the applicant in the town that you're aware

of as well as the applicant surveyor, I've been copied on those emails.

Thank you very much.

Just to add one quick note, when there is a request within a municipality, we do send those notifications of the hearings to the elected official.

Thank you, Ms. Fulham. That's helpful. Well then, seeing no other comments from the Planning Commission, I would invite the applicant to come forward. Welcome. Please state your name, and you have fifteen minutes over my left shoulder timer to present your case.

Thank you, commissioners. Appreciate the service of the commission, and thank you for considering this case. I'm James Lilly, homeowner, along with my wife behind me, Nancy Lilly. Yes. We are excited to be part of the town of Newmarket for the past few years, and we desire to subdivide and to build up an appropriate home on the the lot that was originally there and understand that we need this reclassification to allow that to go forward.

Do you have any questions for me? I have nothing else.

Thank you, Mr. Lilly. That was very concise. Appreciate it. Any questions from the commissioners? Seeing none, do we have anyone in the audience that would like to comment on this item? I don't see any. Ms. James, anyone on the line?

No public comment.

Then we are back up here for discussion amongst the Planning Commission or a motion. I see Mr. Long's light

is lit. I'm prepared to make a motion.

Thank you, sir.

I move that the Planning Commission make a finding of consistency with the town of Newmarket's comprehensive plan for the request made in case WS-twenty five-fourteen. Second.

Motion by Mr. Long, seconded by Mr. Rensberger. I will call the roll opposite of what I've been doing. Mr. Rensberger? Aye. Mr. Tressler? Aye. Ms. Pesserb? Aye. Mr. Hicks? Aye. Mr. Long? Aye. And the Chair votes aye. Motion passes six-zero-zero-one. Thank you, Mr. Lilly. Welcome to Newmark.

Right. The next case for consideration is case WSDash25Dash15, which is for property located along New Design Road. This is a staff initiated amendment for county owned property at 5301 New Design and for one unaddressed parcel to the immediate south and east, and it involves reclassification of 19.1 acres. The subject properties are not occupied by structures but are improved with trail segments of the Ballinger Creek Linear Trail. The smaller of the two parcels, which is 5301 New Design, was acquired by the county in 2010, and the larger, which was formerly part of the Westview Subdivision, was acquired in 2015.

Both properties are actively maintained as park facilities and, are included within the planning area for the South Frederick Corridors plan, and they were both assigned the open space form designation with the adoption of the South Frederick Corridors plan in 2024. As noted, the comprehensive plan designation is the open space form designation. The zoning is ORI, a mix of ORI and MXD. The properties are currently classified W1, S1 and or S3 dev, and the proposed classification in this case would be no planned service for water and sewer. Neither property is currently connected to water and sewer, and the fact that they were mapped or are currently mapped as connected for water or sewer was brought to the attention of Livable Frederick by division of water and sewer utility staff.

As with spring twenty twenty five cycle case, w s dash 25, I believe it was o six. It was the case for the South Frederick Corridor's planning area. That case also included a text amendment to make properties with the open space form designation ineligible for the planned service w five or w four classifications, thereby prohibiting them from connecting to public water and sewer. Additionally, per page one twenty four of the water and sewage plan, the no plan service classification may be assigned by staff as part of a piecemeal amendment application if a property no longer meets the requirements of its current classification. So this amendment request is really two part.

One, we identified it was a mapping error. And then two, because of the changes that are pending to the water and sewage plan rather than take it back to a different classification, we're just taking it back to no plan service to be in compliance or in agreement with that pending application that's with the state right now. The property is located within a community growth area but is precluded or would be precluded under pending amendments to the water and sewerage plan from being reclassified for service. And the staff recommendation is that the Planning Commission make a finding of consistency with the county comprehensive plan for case WS-twenty five-fifteen. And that concludes the staff presentation.

Thank you, Mr. Stein. Any Mr. Hicks?

Mr. Stein, thank you. I understand that sort of the gist of this application is to correct a mapping error, slightly beyond the scope of today's decision, but something that we may want to put a pin in. I'm wondering if the zoning for this parcel is appropriate given that it's we're talking today about changing the designation to no plan service to correct the mapping error and it's being maintained as a park. Is the zoning ORI and MXD appropriate for this parcel?

I would argue that the or not argue, but I would agree that the zoning does not necessarily support the current use.

So

it may be something that could be looked at in the future as part of a separate planning item.

Okay. Again, understand that's beyond the scope of today, but I I just wanted to like, ask about that. So thank you.

And just just so you are aware, you know, off often when when plans that you recommend to the council, often when they're adopted, there are zoning changes that go into effect at the same at the same time. They vote on the plan, and they vote on the same the zoning changes the same day. That didn't happen, as you're aware, with South Frederick Corridor. So we are going to be, coming forward to you to to review zoning changes with you in the South Frederick Corridors planning area, both, Euclidean zoning changes and then also the application of the form based overlay, where where that would be put in place. So we'll workshop that with you, and then you'll need to have a public hearing, before it can advance to the council for their consideration and a decision.

Mister Stein, you used the word intangible. What what precluded that? What what why is this property not intangible?

There would be the the intent of the open space form designation under the the South Frederick Corridors plan. It indicates that the properties that have the open space form designation are generally intended for set asides for natural resources or scenic or recreational resources. I would note it's not visible on here, but much of these properties right now is currently located within the FEMA one hundred year floodplain as well. So the likelihood of some structure needing to be served by water and sewer being constructed within the floodplain. There's a significant amount of it is pretty unlikely.

And just to add, we have that similar provision for our Euclidean Resource conservation open space zone. So this is just sort of carrying that same intent over to our now form based design designations. I

see no additional comments. Just some won't be surprised, but I'm going to ask the question. No negative impacts by this on the Ballinger Creek Trail? Everything stays the same? Trail is fine? Affect operations and maintenance?

Okay. Yes.

And there are no structures currently connected to water and sewer.

Thank you. Well, given that this is a staff initiated item, you are the applicant. Mr. Stein, Mr. Flom, you have fifteen minutes in which to discuss Alright. Your Seeing that you're going to let this go move forward as is, I would look to see if there's anyone here in the audience that would like to speak on this item. I only see two and I believe that they are both active participants in our staff. So miss James.

No public comment.

Very good. Then we're up here. Mister Long is ready to go.

I move that the Planning Commission make a finding of consistency with the county comprehensive plan for the request made in case WS-twenty five-fifteen.

Second. Motion by Mr. Long, seconded by Mr. Renzberger. I will call the roll. Mr. Renzberger. Aye. Mr. Tressler? Aye. Ms. Vassarb? Aye. Mr. Hicks?

Aye.

Mr. Long? Aye. Motion passes six zero zero one. Thank you very much, Mr. Stein.

Long?

The next case up for consideration is w S dash 25Dash16, which is for several properties located along Main Street in Libertytown. This is also a staff initiated amendment for properties located 11932, 11930, and 1126 Main Street. It involves the reclassification of 2.5 acres. The area is comprised of three residential properties, each improved with a single family dwelling constructed between $18.40 and 1,900 per tax records, and several of them have one or more accessory structures. No development activities are proposed on these properties at this time.

The comprehensive plan designation for these properties is VC Village Center. The zoning is VC Village Center. They are currently mapped as W 1 with regard to water, and the proposed designation would be W 5 Dev with no change to sewer. These properties are currently classified s one with regard to sewer, and they are served. This case represents another mapping error that was noted by the division of water and sewer utilities that incorrectly depicts these properties as being connected to public water.

The proposed reclassification is intended to correct that mapping error, and the w five classification would allow for potential connection to public water in the future if conditions should warrant. And, of course, the property owners can continue to use their private water wells. The staff recommendation for this case is that the Planning Commission make a finding of consistency with the county comprehensive plan for case WS-twenty five-sixteen as the properties are located within a community growth area and a water and sewer service area. And that concludes the staff presentation.

Thank you, Mr. Stein. Any questions from the Planning Commission? Seeing no questions from the Planning Commission, you all are the applicant. So you had anything additional to add, you don't have anything additional to add and there is no one in the audience that's going to speak. And Ms. James?

No public comment.

Very good. Any further comments from the Planning Commission? Otherwise, I'm looking at mister Long, and I believe he's ready to make a motion.

I move that the Planning Commission make a finding of consistency with the county comprehensive plan for the request made in case w s dash 25Dash16.

Second. Motion by mister Long, seconded by mister Renzberger. I will call the roll. Miss Pacerb? Aye. Mister Hicks?

Aye.

Mr. Long. Aye. Mr. Renzburger. Aye. Mr. Tressler. Aye. And chair votes aye. Motion passes six zero zero one.

Thank you.

Okay. The next case up for consideration is case WSDash25Dash17. It's associated with Cloverhill. This is also a staff initiated amendment involving 150 properties located in the unincorporated community of Cloverhill adjacent to the city of Frederick. These properties have addresses on Clearfield Road, Cloverhill Drive, Edgewood Farm Road, Fieldstone Drive, Old Or West or Old West 7th Street, depending on the database, Runnymede Court, Runnymead Drive, Summerfield Drive, Sunnybrook Court, Sunnybrook Drive, and Vista Drive, altogether totaling approximately 92.38 acres of land.

And each property is more specifically listed in the staff report with address information. This case is also a staff initiated amendment intended to correct a mapping error, and these properties are all improved currently with single family detached homes. All properties within the amendment area have the land use designation of low density residential, and all properties are zoned R3 low density residential. The current water and sewer classification, jump to the that slide. Yes.

The current water and sewer classification for 149 of these properties is W5S1 and W1S1 for one property. While certain portions of the Cloverhill community are connected to public sewer, many are not. And as with the case from the spring cycle, w s dash twenty five zero seven, which was intended to address mapping errors related to water. This particular case is intended to, amend additional mapping errors with regard to public sewer. The w one and or s one classifications where they are found are intended to or for existing structures or properties with structures that are connected to a public water supply.

And therefore, the 149 properties mapped or a 150 properties mapped as s one, and that one property mapped as w one represent mapping errors. Reclassification to s five dev will not affect the residents' ability to continue to use on-site septic disposal systems. Additionally, it allows for future connection to public sewer service if that should be warranted either on the sewer side or on for that one property on the water side. I would note that staff did send letters of notification for these staff amended cases, including 150 letters to the residents of Cloverhill to notify them of the case today. So and we did have an opportunity to speak with a number of those residents.

I don't

know that anyone made the trip with the rain, but, they were notified, and we have spoken to residents about, the implications of the letter and their future options. The staff recommendation is that the Planning Commission make a finding of consistency with the county comprehensive plan for case WS dash twenty five seven dash 17 as the properties are located within the city of Frederick's community growth area and a water and sewer service area. And that concludes the staff presentation.

Thank you, mister Stein. Any questions for staff? Mister Hicks?

Not a question, but a comment. I just wanted to acknowledge my appreciation for your attention to these mapping errors. And it's it's clear that you and and the water and sewer division have been on the case. So thank you.

And my only comment would be I'm sure you had communications with Ms. Wakasono and Ms. Collard about these matters, the planning and engineering departments of the city.

Yes. We confirm that we confirm with the city in case any of them happen to serve any of these properties just to make sure before we go ahead and move forward and amend the water and storage map and in case the city is covering them. So, do coordinate with the city to make sure that we're not changing the category for anybody even it's not warranted.

Very good, mister Stein. Any other comments from the planning commission? We won't go through this again. Is there any matter anybody in the audience that would like to speak? I don't see anyone. Miss James, anyone on the line?

No public comment.

Thank you. Then we're up here for a motion.

I move that the Planning Commission make a finding of consistency with the county comprehensive plan for the request made in case WSDash25Dash17.

Second.

Motion by mister Long, seconded by mister Frensberger. I will call the roll. Miss Pacerb? Aye. Mister Hicks? Aye. Mister Long? Aye. Mister Renzburger? Aye. Mister Tressler? Aye. And chair votes aye. Matter passes six zero zero one. Thank you very much.

Alright. Just to close us out this morning with case WS twenty five eighteen. This is a staff initiated series of text amendments to chapters three and four of the water and sewage plan to reflect updates that have been made to the infrastructure maps. So the water and sewage plan, the narrative itself, it guides the provision of public water and sewer service. It provides policies and procedures for amending the plan and provides narrative detail on the water and sewer systems and capacity planning.

But the plan also includes the water and sewage plan maps, which is what we've all just spent the morning discussing. And this includes both the regulatory maps that depict the service classification of properties in Frederick County, as well as the water and sewer infrastructure maps that depict those components that are defined as major water facilities or major sewage facilities. So you may recall in the last cycle, spring twenty twenty five, there was a staff initiated amendment in case WS 2,509 to the infrastructure maps, and those were made to reflect the current status of constructed and proposed infrastructure. There were 48 changes to the water map and 12 changes to the sewer map. So I think as the Planning Commission is aware, when we have the staff report prepared, we send it to the Maryland Department of Environment and Maryland Department of Planning just sort of for a cursory review prior to, you know, the the final hearing and decision of County Council just to identify any issues.

And in their review, they noted that there were some changes on both the water and sewer infrastructure maps that did not appear to have corresponding discussion in the narrative document. And that affected 12 of the 60 changes. And so this staff initiated amendment WS2518 has been prepared in response to those comments by MDE just to ensure consistency and clarity between the plan document and the infrastructure maps. So happy to answer any questions that you may have on any of those specific changes, but otherwise staff does recommend that the Planning Commission make a finding of consistency with the county comprehensive plan for the request made in case WS twenty five eighteen since the purpose of these text amendments is to improve clarity and consistency between narrative and the maps. Thank you.

Questions from the Planning Commission, Mr. Hicks.

Yeah, this is in some ways a minor issue, but perhaps a significant one, I don't know. Throughout, I noticed today when I was focused on the amendments that you recommend that throughout this document, you refer to the city capital C. Which municipality is that supposed to refer to?

Sure. And which page are you referring to?

Well, I see it in a number of places.

Mhmm.

So remember, these are these are the excerpts from the larger plan Mhmm. But

okay. Let's see.

The the technical the technical name of the city of Frederick is capital t capital c lowercase of.

Okay. I don't know if it's I don't know if it's if it's Frederick or if it's like Brunswick or that's my issue. So for example, on threethirty eight, it's the Kellerton residential project. About 38 is 18 inches raw water line And there are other places too throughout, but

And 338 was the city of Frederick. But if you go to Page 49, it lists the affected pages. And if you look to the left, it says the system. So if there was a specific system name, like the county typically has individual system names. And then it lists the city in that column just to provide some additional clarity.

I would like to suggest that you consider naming the municipalities instead of just saying the city. If you're talking about different municipalities throughout the throughout the document just for for clarity and context. Sure. Okay.

It certainly will be a while before we kind of open this document up do But you know, we can certainly keep that in mind when that's time.

Okay. Thank you very much. I think it would be particularly helpful if people are like citing or referring to specific sections of the document. I appreciate that.

Any additional questions from the commission? Seeing none, we won't go through the whole applicant thing again. Is there anyone from the public that would like to speak? I don't see any. Miss James?

No, sir. No public comment.

So we are back up here for any further deliberations or a motion. Mister Long? I move that

the Planning Commission make a finding of consistency with the county comprehensive plan for the request made in case w s dash 25 dash 18 as the proposed text amendments will improve clarity and consistency between the plan narrative and infrastructure maps. Second. Thank you, Mr. Long.

Thank you, Mr. Renzburger. I will call the roll. Mr. Renzburger?

Aye.

Mr. Tressler? Aye. Ms. Pacerb?

Aye.

Mr. Hicks? Aye. Mr. Long? Aye. And the Chair votes aye. Motion passes six-zero-zero-one. Thank you very much. You guys do great work and make this really easy on us. Thank you very much. And it's Dennis' walk up music.

It's kinda reminiscent of the Hunger Games, the scene where they all the people rush the big pilots. 1973, I can't remember the artist's name, but they used a very specific electronic music for that. So just to creep us out, right, before