Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. Good morning everyone. We're going to call the Montgomery County Planning Commission monthly board meeting of July 9th to order. Let the record know that we have a full board in attendance in the room. That's great. No absentees this month. So, I appreciate everybody showing up today given the agenda and emails back and forth earlier last week. So, thank you. Uh, with that, I'm going to see if there's any board comments. Any board comments from board members. Seeing none, I want to take uh Is there is there a motion to approve the Montgomery County Planning Commission's regular monthly board meeting minutes of June 11th, 2025? Move. Is there a second? Moved and seconded. Are any comments or corrections on the meeting minutes? Seeing none, all those in favor. Any opposed? None opposed. Scott, did you have an announcement for me? Yeah. Um, may I do this from the record? Um, but we have a new staff member who won't be here at that time. So, I want to introduce Russell Levulki. He is a transportation planner. Uh, comes to us from Temple University. Uh, and also intern at DVRPC as well as MCPC if anyone remembers back in 2021. Um, so, uh, we saw the inside, still wanted to come. I know. No, it's great when you ask. It's great for us when we know someone and then they come through and it's welcome. Make them to the Temple Fight Song. You give us a good football team and I may be able to do it. There you go. That's make more. We'll never hear this. Okay. Are there any uh we're going to

move on to public comment or any public comment from anybody in the room started? How you doing? Hi. Welcome. Oh, thank you. Shall I talk from here? Uh you can talk from wherever you want to. Sure. Just give us your name and the municipality you're from. My name is Steve Tovic. I'm a member of the resident of Montgomery County, upper Marian Township, Navy veteran, and avid bicyclist. And that's why I'm here to talk about the missing link in the Skooko River Trail. Okay. Um, we have proposed, it's been a number, Shall I go on? Yeah. been a number of years, maybe five or more, where um Montgomery County has not completed or far as I know done any work to uh complete the trail from where it now currently ends in Chester County over the 422 bridge with a bike lane. Uh and it ends there. Um, we recently found out that the planners for parks and recreation have signed a contract uh to complete the trail. uh but it won't be started until January and uh it's been any number of years maybe five when it doesn't seem like anything was done in Montgomery County to complete the link that the Skookum River Trail runs from southwest Philadelphia all the way up to Reading and beyond and it's completed except for here in Montgomery County and um I've sent letters through um uh state representatives office. Um I know

um Pottstown the burrow would like to see something happen. Uh they've complained or ask for information on how long it's going to take. uh they have u shop owners and businesses that have been losing business I think and they want to state representative to talk about that but nothing is happening so it's going to be it's going to be several more years maybe in my view before the current plan for the link is actually completed so what we have proposed and kind of very much back from parks and recreation is that um a temporary uh detour being installed which is uh we use part of um um the 422 exit ramp up to Arman Boulevard um wide shoulder there um and it could easily be used as a temporary fix to get people back into pot snap area and complete the link. But PennDOT would have to come in. Uh it's and it's a limited access highway and uh people have said, well, Pendot don't allow bikes on the limited access highway, but actually it's uh been done a number of times. There's a bike route J out of uh Harrisburg that goes the longest designated bike route. It's on limited access highways, US 11 uh and other roads that uh that are limited access, right? Uh they don't have should they have

shoulders, but they don't have and maybe rumble strips, but they don't have any other um protective uh support. And that's what we would like to see happen. Uh so that another few years doesn't go by before the link is completed. Let me let me try to get you an answer because Yes. Here. Let me let me try to get you an answer since our our the head of trails is Bill. You want to address this? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'm actually going to stand at the lect turn here so everybody can see me. Steve, thanks for coming in. Um, I trust you got my email response. Yeah. Which is it? Did you get my request for more information? Well, I frankly I don't know what more information I could provide. I thought it was pretty detailed in the response, but let me just address a few of the things that you brought up. Bill, let's let Bill address it first. So, I just want to address a couple things. Um, in terms of what you just said, uh, including that we haven't done any work on this over the last several years. That's just not true. We've been working on this literally since the day that I arrived at the county. It's not a simple engineering solution. There are environmental constraints including a endangered turtle that we need to work around. So we've been working very actively with this. There were also cultural things that we needed to work around with PennDOT and PA. Um there was uh Verizon lines that we needed to have relocated up to Industrial Highway which we did. Um so I just want to assure you that we've been doing plenty of work on this and it's ongoing actually to this day. I mean, we were just talking about it yesterday in terms of your comment about it taking several more years to happen. That's not true. Um, the we awarded the contract this past winter and we had to delay it because there was an issue with our NPTES permit which delayed it from starting in the spring. So now we're going to start it next year because starting it this fall would

cause us to take a winter break which you don't want to do in construction. You don't want to start moving dirt and then stop and then restart in the spring. The turtle restriction goes from April 15th to October 15th, meaning we need to put our silt fencing in for that job either between October 15th and April 15th. That's a very limited window. And when we missed it in the spring because of the complications with the permit, that automatically pushed the project to this fall. And that's when we had to make the decision whether to start in the fall or push it to the spring or early winter, I should say. And that's why we chose that route to start it then. In terms of um responses, I did just mention that I responded to your email about the proposed um alternative to provide a temporary route up to Armanham Hammer Boulevard. And I was very detailed in that response. And some of the things that I put in there, which I'll just reiterate, is that there are a number of factors that would uh that uh have informed our decision not to pursue that. And I'm going to list them. Number one, PENDOT is never going to allow bikes on their roadway. They're just they're not going to do it because it's dangerous. And you know, our transportation people can weigh in on this, but even if there's precedent for doing that, the process of trying to get their approval to do that would literally take months. And by the time we pursue that route, we're already going to be starting the project that we're going to pursue. Now, secondly, um there's private property that that temporary route would need to go through on the other side of the guard rail. That's one solution. Right. Let me let me finish. Sorry. We work through there. There's a there's a give and take here. You've given your comments. Bill is responding and I would like to continue to respond to your questions. It's private property. So, if you're on the on if you're on the uh the nonroad side of the guard rail, we would need to gain rights to that private property to build the trail, to build this temporary

fix. That would require a temporary easement or something like that. Again, time, months, negotiation, money, just not worth the effort. Um, and then just from an engineering standpoint, to try and put the a temporary trail on the non-road side of the guard rail, it would require engineering. It would require permits. It would require construction, and it would require an immense amount of time to make that happen. Again, given that we're going to be starting this in a few months, it just doesn't make fiscal or logistical sense uh to do all of that. So, I know your argument is probably going to be that let's just put it on the on the road side of the guardrail, then we don't have to deal with all those other issues. I just don't think that that's going to happen. And if and and you're you know, you're welcome to pursue it, but our opinion was that that wasn't a route that we wanted to push. And honestly, if that was an interest of political uh leaders such as representatives of the area, they could address that and uh and go that route if they if they so choose. We're happy to meet facilitate talk, but Bill's ration are 100% real. They're using it now by cyclist. There's no way. So, prior to this, there was no connection, but people would use the kind street bridge. Yes. Which was illegal. That was not an open bridge. So, in reality, there's been no change or reduction of access. people who were using it before. I understand um that that took place and that was convenient for those who did it, but it also wasn't something the government could could put anything behind or or be liable for or uh you know, I don't understand. Hold on a second. How long when they're going to start uh doing things like one calls and the preliminary work at the end of January. We think this is probably going to take six to eight months to build. So by the fall next year, we think that it'll be done in like August

next year. So okay, that's an estimate when it will be completed. Well, I'm sure there's a lot of factors that go into That's right. Well, nothing about those factors. So I was a planner and work for the federal government. I'm a recovering federal employee, right? So when I had to come up with an estimate of when something be completed, I pulled it out of my ass. Well, I can assure you I can assure you I'm not pulling that out of there. So appreciate your comment. Appreciate you coming in. Bill has responded to you by email. You responded to him. There's not He hasn't answered my email about why we can't Yeah, Steve. I I did. Okay. I did. Bill was responding. There was an open invitation. If there's there wants to be a conversation between the elected officials in that area and discussing a alternative or a temporary alternative related to being on a pendot road, the county planning commission is is welcome is is has offered to be involved in those discussions, but we don't control the pendot. We don't control state roads. So, but that would be something that would have to be brought on by either elected officials in that area to discuss with PENDOT. Is what you're telling me is this planning commission would not be willing to approach PennDOT for a temporary? No, because as Bill said, he he thinks the time is his and the transportation section. So wind up finish. We ask you questions. Please help me finish. I thought you both. They they have made the estimate that and I think they're right that working through PEDOT would take longer to have that happen between now and the actual time that the construction would actually start on the project that's already been left. Am I correct? Is that

what that's our thinking? even if they were to consider it to be several people on this board have dealt with pendot and there's no doubt in my mind that getting a pendot highway occupancy permit whatever it may be to get on that road to put temporary bike lane would be a longer process I want to iterate that's a limited he's call limited access highway it is technically an exit ramp the highway and show me an exit ramp with a shoulder that bikes are allowed on and then then that'll be precedent but I don't think so there if there's conversation to be had with pendot and you can you and we can alter that if the elected officials in that area we the planning commission sounds like would be happy to be involved in that conversation. Is there any other public comment agenda? Thank you. So with that I would agenda item which is community planning assistance contracts and I'm going to call on Mike Marowitch in Eric back to today to discuss Bridgeport Burrow and Red Hill Barrow. Morning, Mike. Okay. Good morning, Stephen. We are proposing approval of three-year planning assistance contract renewals for those two burrows which are managed by Matt Lubis. Uh the Bridgeport contract renewed on July 1st and will expire on June 30th, 2028. contract involves continued comp plan implementation including updating the bureau's subdivisional land development ordinance preparing specialized land use studies uh developing guidelines street guidelines for horse street and any other council directed work. The Red Hill contract uh will begin on August 1st and expires on July 31st, 2028. Work for that contract focuses on council directive services. Um, the bureau is currently considering an update to off- streetet parking standards, development of requirements for green parking, development of main street design guidelines, and a sidewalk connections plan. Contract costs including the

municipal and county sheriffs are detailed in the proposed resolution. Mike, who's the planners for Bridgeport and who's the planner for Matt Lubitz and Matt Lubitz? Anything else, Mike? That's all to take any questions or comments from board members on the we got the motion in the record. So before us we have MCPC resolution 25-7.1 community planning assistance contract resolution of Jan of July 9th 2025. It includes the two contracts 676 Bridgeport Burrow and 695 Red Hill Barrow. Um as Michael had had uh talked about the length of contracts and also the cost um is in is in the agenda. Is there a motion to approve? So move. Is there a second? Second. Any comments or questions from board members? Seeing none, are there any negative votes in approving community assistance community planning assistance contract resolution? Thanks Mike. Appreciate it. Next up is our open space grant program. I want to call Bill and Ellen. Good morning. [Music] Uh good morning. Um, thanks for having uh me and Alan this morning to talk about uh some exciting news that has

been a long uh effort and um I think we're almost there and uh we have a name for our uh upcoming open space grant program and we're calling it Montgome MCO Forever Green. That's very intentional. Uh the MOCO is pretty self-explanatory. It's open space preservation in McGomery County. Forever uh is a nod to the perpetuity of permanently protected open space, which is what this program is focusing on. And green is talking about open space and green uh spaces around the county in all different types of settings. So, this is something that we've been actively working on for the last several months. And so I'm going to describe to you and then Ellen's going to come in toward the end and uh do a little bit more of the presentation, some of the basic structure of the program, a little bit of history of open space in the county and then we're going to show you some of the materials that we've developed as part of it. So I guess I can hold this. So everyone knows, especially Dulce, um that Montgomery County has a great history of open space preservation over the last uh three decades really. Um, in 1993, between 1993 and 2003, we had the 10-year $100 million open space program. That was important not just in terms of the amount of open space that was preserved as part of that program, but it also created a culture of open space protection in the county that was carried forward after that initial effort. And that energy and culture was uh certainly instilled in the county leaders, but it was also something that the public became aware of and started to understand the importance of protecting open space around the county. That effort was followed up with another 10-year $150 million program called called Green Fields, Green Towns, which you've probably heard of. Um and that

carried on the tradition of the 93 program and again uh scores of open space projects um established around the county immensely successful and uh just really sort of cemented McGomery Countyy's reputation as a leader in open space preservation and its commitment toward it. Since then and including today, uh we continue to provide open space funding, but uh it's not, I would say, as robust as it was during those two uh initial efforts during that 20-year period. Um we provide open space grants to nonprofit land trusts and conservation organizations as well as municipalities who come to us to ask for a grant. And it's funded through the capital improvement plan or the capital budget every year. And typically that budget ranges from $2.5 million to $3.5 million each year. I will say that typically we don't spend all of that money and um and that was part of the reason why we started to think like what could we do to get more interest in this program so that we could get all that. We want to if we have the money allocated we want to give it away. So a few of the issues that we've identified about the current way we provide these funds is that there's a general lack of awareness around the county that this money is even available to them. Now there are certainly people around the count the county including our land trust uh universe of the whist and trails and uh Penny Pac ecological restoration trust um heritage conservancy they and natural lands they all know we have this money. There are a handful of municipalities who also know we have this money and they've come back they've come to us and come back to us to ask or to us for grants, but I would say the vast majority of our municipalities don't even know this money exists. And so we think that's part of the reason why we don't spend all the money every year. And so there's a general lack of of widespread awareness. And we think that that's

resulted in uh in inequitable distribution of our open space money. We also think that our definition of open space might be a little bit too narrow. We typically look at open space or people commonly perceive it as large expanses of undeveloped land. Well, open space does include areas like that, but it also includes that vacant building lot in the middle of Norristown where if you were to uh clean it and plant it and put benches there uh and plant trees, that could provide a place for real respit for someone living in the middle of an urban environment. So we wanted we think our current definition might be a little bit too narrow. So we want to expand it. And then our current program doesn't have an official match, but we have an informal request when people come to us for funds where we say if you're going to ask for $100,000 of of open space funds, you need to show us that you have a match equivalent to that. So it's a onetoone match. That's a very ownorous burden on municipalities that might not have a big operating budget or have reserves or the ability to partner and raise funds. It's fine for people who know how to raise funds and find that extra money, but it's hard for for uh organizations and municipalities that don't. So, we feel that those are some of the core uh issues that we're currently facing. And that's part of the reason why we move to to formalize the program. Just a quick snapshot. I know you've seen this map before, but this is a map of all the uh permanently protected open ground county. It's just over 43,000 acres, which is a lot. Um, and that pie chart in the bottom left shows how that uh uh protected open space is distributed in terms of ownership from municipal through county, state, federal, land trust owned land. And of course, private conservation easements are considered permanently protected. And this also includes our uh protected farmland. So it's a nice mosaic. You can see that a

lot of it's in the western part of the county. That's for obvious reasons. Um but you know there are certainly opportunities in other parts of the county and we want to tap into that potential. So the core tenants of MCO Forever Green are what you see on the screen right now. We want to create a more structured and manageable program. We want to get the word out. getting to that issue that I was talking about earlier of how we don't feel like people know this money is available. We want to make our municipal leaders, our nonprofit partners aware that this money is available. And Ellen's going to talk about a couple of the ways that we're going to do that. We uh we're going going to require a lower match than we have historically and a lower match relative to the other primary source of open space funds in the Commonwealth, which is DCNR C2P2 program. uh DC&R requires uh a onetoone match. $100,000 request show us that you have $100,000 in your pocket for the match. We wanted to lower our required match so that uh it was more these funds were more manageable uh and that match was more obtainable by some of our municipalities and as I mentioned a few minutes ago we want to expand our definition of open space to include more areas. What was the match for the space program in Detroit 2013? I don't I don't know that. Dulce, do you know hand? It was at 10%. And uh when we did the green fields green towns program, we took a look at the need of communities and there was some fluctuation there. Um but it was a very generous match both times. I think it was like 10 or 20% because I remember we bought some property in Abington during one of those programs and can't remember but it was like 10 or 20%. Yeah, which is obviously much more manageable than a than a higher match. I I'm I'm I'm sort of holding back what our match is going to be till I get to that slide. So what's that?

What's the match going to be for the new Hold on. So um so in terms of eligible projects for this program again we want to hit rural, suburban and urban settings. This can include natural undeveloped land, nature preserves, public parks. It could include a vacant lot in an urban setting or even in a suburban setting. Um community gardens where, you know, you have to broaden your thinking of what open space looks like and feels like to people. Someone in Pottstown or Norristown is going to view open space very differently than someone who lives in uh lower Frederick, for example. So, we want to make sure that we're capturing that full perception of open space. So, that includes things like urban green spaces. In terms of uses and activities, of course, it will include passive recreation. We're saying limited active recreation. We don't want to be funding softball complexes, um, which although they're important, but that's not where we want to direct this money. But, you know, if there's some limited active wreck on a piece of property, that would certainly be considered. Ecosystem services, things like flood mitigation, carbon sequestration, wildlife habitat, uh improving water quality, all of those uh environmental services are uses that we want to promote on the land that we fund with this money. And then we put respit too because we think that providing places for people to go and get away and um feel better and clear their heads is really important as well. What do you what do you mean by limited active recreation? How do you how do you envision that? Well, it's a great question. This is something that we wrestle with literally every time we get a request. So, you know, um it well, first of all, it all depends on how you define active wreck. So which is a debate that many people love to have. So you know we consider active wreck as um recreation that

requires the development of like facilities. So a baseball field um a playground probably or could be argued that it's active. Um a tennis court, a basketball court, um things where you versus a green field where you it's just grass and you can go out and kick a soccer ball around casually. That's what um the difference between passive and active wreck would be. We initially had in the guide book for the program, we said passive and active wreck and we kind of were like, do we really want to be supporting like full-blown active wreck and our decision was no? And so we added the word limited so that we had the discretion when these grant requests come in to assess the degree to which uh the request um is really going after um active, you know, a piece of land that's going to be used for active recreation. I think the short answer, Steve, is that I think we're going to use our discretion what that might look like, right? And I and I by far not person here but limit is limited to the activity or is limited to the amount of space that it takes up. Uh both. It could be both. Like intensity of use is Yeah. I mean look, if you have an open piece of grass and there are 200 kids out there playing, you know, and people put up cones and they're playing soccer games, does that suddenly become active wreck? I I mean some could argue that it is even though it's not technically an official lined soccer field, but that's where it gets just a little gray. And I only bring that up because I remember in the debate we've had when when I was on the board in Abington about piece of land we got there that was across the street from Abalor that at that time it could only be passive recreation. Um, and there was talk about why couldn't they put maybe one small ball field on there which would be right

across the street and leave the rest of the property which portion of it was a flood plane anyhow wasn't we developed it regardless um and that was just not possible at the time which is why I'm trying you know if there's some rationale to making it a connection to something else is there a way to integrate some of that active recreation within it not necessar I agree with you we don't want to start building softball complexes or ball field complexes or football complexes. I get that. So, but there is the integration of two would also allow would also invite more use of the passive recreation areas. But the other thing is I think the balancing of our TW our implementation grant program does look at functional um activities on open space and that is a way to do it. I mean when you look at the context I mean is frisbee golf with those cones that that might be but it's going to be the context of it and the other thing is when you are using those fields for active rep recreation that we think of as soccer fields or uh baseball fields there's often stuff put on the land or it's compacted so it kind of balances the natural infrastructure of the land versus the use of the and and it just creeps into the next level of you know a change and we want to avoid that because that once stuff move starts moving that way it's really hard. Agreed. Yeah. At a minimum it should always that active use whatever that might look like or as proposed should always be secondary I would say to the passive or traditional open space use. That's that's a really important that that's a very good u way to message it. Yeah. Yeah, maybe we should think about that, too. You good?

He lives in the He's waiting for that percentage. He's waiting for you. I have a It's a good It's a good question. It's a great question. I mean, I once again, I don't want to see us I'm not looking for us to be funding, you know, large plots of land that are created into these sport complexes, out of those sport complexes. That's not my opinion. I think there was a there's definitely something to be said um for combining uh some some activity with a passive open space. Um, we've also talked about some of these areas like Narstown, Pottstown, or I would even say some of these, you know, a lot of the eastern county, eastern municipalities because they're more developed that having pocket parks that have a playground in it or pocket parks that might have a small ball field or a basketball court has a small portion of it has some merit because it does does invite um activity that would also bleed into the passive portion of it. Absolutely. the massive portion that much more viable and these areas have limited property opportunities. So if they're not doubling up on uses then they're probably underutilizing the limited space that they have recognizing that the two the two places that I know of in Abington I go back to it is they're very rarely used one of them I'm sure is not used at all the one across from Apple because there trails put in there it's just it was a preserved piece of land the other one is in the middle of a affluent neighborhood in Metobrook it connects you know two sides of two roads um but no trails have really been cut in there. It's a great I think people use it because they they cross between it. Um but still I mean that's you know any you're you're targeting a really important question that we've been wrestling with and honestly I think there's going to be a little bit of a learning curve on our part as these applications come in to start weighing some of these issues and we're going to have to make some decisions uh about it. So you're right on

Okay. So here's the basic uh program structure. The application is going to be form for formalized with uniform requirements and uniform criteria to review them. The applications are going to be accepted on a rolling basis. We decided against a you know a May one uh application deadline because the nature of open space is that it can urgency can crop up im you know suddenly and imminently you know something's uh proposed for development. We wanted to give applicants the ability to apply at any time. As I said, all 62 municipalities can apply in all conservation uh nonprofits. The grant amounts will range from $25,000 at a minimum minimum to $500,000 max. Here's the match. 25%. Um and uh so it'll be 25% of the grant award 100 $100,000 request, $25,000 match. The applicants will be able to use eligible costs to meet that match. So if they need an appraisal or something like that, that can be used toward the match. Um the use of funds, fe title and conservation easement acquisitions, all of them must be in perpetuity. Um the source of the grant funds, as I said, is the capital budget for the county. We're going to start initially with a $2 million pot of money for this. Public access is generally required um because if it's public money, the public should have the ability to access the property. If it's a property that's being preserved for some sensitive ecological reason, like there's a sensitive plant habitat or something where, you know, having people on there might threaten it, we would rec we would consider that and whether public access was required. That's rare. We've had one of those since I've been here, but we want to leave that option open if it's appropriate. Can the can the match funds be public private? Sure. Yeah, they can be private donations to other public funds. So, in terms of process, this is not radically different than what we do now,

especially in the back end of it, but there's going to be a preapp that um all interested applicants will submit. We'll provide feedback based on some of the basic information that they provide. If they decide to move forward, there is a formal application letter that requires them to include a narrative, maps, photos, the appraisal, um and um all the other things that are required in our guide book. Um, we will review that application and it will be introduced to the open space board at a public meeting. We there will not be a situation unless it's very urgent, not be a situation where a project is introduced to the open space board and then voted on by the board for a recommendation of the commissioners. We want people to applicants to come in, introduce their project, get feedback, leave, and then come back at a subsequent meeting with an ask that the board would act on. Once uh the board uh makes a recommendation for the commissioners, it would go to the commissioners for their approval. Um typically, they approve uh uh recommendations the open space board um at their meetings. And if they do, a grant agreement between the county and the applicant will be put together and then the open space purchase will proceed towards settlement and then the grant funds will be dispersed, which is very similar to what we do now. But Bill, previously they there was a require wasn't there a requirement that the municipality had something in their planning documents, whether it be a open space plan or a part of their comprehensive plan that was required as a prerequisite to being able to put an application showing that whatever property you're you're after has some some connection with that plan. The first year, the first program had a whole emphasis on what is the right land to protect so that you weren't getting

some person of affluence backyard. Okay. So there was not only did we want planning for everyone with 16 municipalities, we funded it. We helped fund it with a very very generous match for every community. We have an open space plan, burrows and townships that they had gone through a process either either through uh partnership with the county as planners or with a private planner and when they came in for their open space generally it needed to be in that plan. So I think it was a 25 they only had half a 25% match some of these match numbers u but it was a very very generous match and sometimes we already had contracts with them. So what happened was everyone had a match in those first years in the 90s. The second time around when we're only 10 years later into 203 when they every community had an open space plan they might have had to update it. Some properties were sold. Some of their connections may become more evident as more as the momentum increased the awareness of how to plan and what they wanted also changed. So the issue is this time around 30 years later how do we address the requests that come in to make sure that they are um the best use of money. Now the municipalities have their different evaluations than maybe the county but that will be very interesting and some have have already done open space plans after that. So some of them are up to date. They have. Yeah. And typically comp plans include information about open space uh objectives or people understand this. Yeah. So the appetite we're hoping has been u moved along. Yeah. Through the community. That doesn't sound like it's a that's not a

prerequisite. It's not a requirement, Steve. But I will say, so these are the grant evaluation criteria. If you look at number four, we want to make they need to talk about compatibility with local plans or county plans or whatever. So they're still looking for that integration of a network, some rationale for them to not and not what said, which is just some isolated piece of land, whatever it may be, selling it off doesn't really have a benefit. So you're still looking for the same criteria, just not looking for them to mortalize it in some type of plan or anything they might list down before it. Okay, so these are the evaluation criteria. Um, I'm not going to go into detail about these. They're pretty self-explanatory. You know, they need to talk about what the proposed project is, how it's going to be protected. They need to talk about the lands characteristics, um, scenic features, ecological features, recreation, and so on. you know, what does the proposed future use of this piece of land look like? How do they intend to steward it, if they do at all? Um, sometimes people just protect open space and leave it alone. Some would argue that's bad. I would argue that it's better than the housing development, but you know, they need to talk about that compatibility with uh other plans, which we just talked about. Applicants ability and experience with open space acquisitions. We don't want, you know, if we don't, they need to know what they're doing. um and they need to know how to get it done. We will provide of course any support that we can because you know some organizations don't do this on a regular basis um and so we want to provide that support as needed. Um they need to talk about the project cost obviously and what their matching funds are. They need to also address how this project might uh address disparities in access to open space. You know is this in a community that just does not have any open space available to its residents. Um and if that's the case and they think this is really important for that reason, they need to talk about that. And then lastly, the vulnerability of the land. Um how imminent um or subject uh to

development threat is this piece of property. Is there specific language that I think that particular criteria is very important? Obviously, you know, I think you would want to prioritize projects that have can demonstrate that there is active, you know, work trying to acquire it to develop it. Is there specific language about what they need to include to demonstrate that? You know, people can tell you something, but you know, the documentation is important to make sure that that is indeed accurate. Yeah, we we do ask is the land currently protected or preserved in any manner? Have development proposals been made for the property proposed for preservation? So, we asked them to elaborate a bit. Yeah. Thanks, Ellen. Okay, I'm going to throw it to Ellen. Um, before I do that, because I'm not coming back up here unless you have questions, I just wanted to thank Ellen and Doug Maisie for all their work on this. It's been a real team effort. I I can't take credit for everything in here. Scott's been really helpful in formulating this. So, I just wanted to acknowledge them before. So, just and good morning everyone. Um, just super quick as Bill was explaining a really important aspect of this um grant program. We'll be getting the word out. That's kind of one of the main points of it really. And so this whole effort towards marketing, branding, getting that word out is extremely important. So I'm just just super quick. Um some of the elements we have developed this program guide book and I also want to tell you a little bit about where some of this all comes from. We modeled some of it off of the 20 240 implementation grant program, also our past open space grant programs. looking at all that detailed stuff. We also

looked at DCNR, their C2P2 requirements, looked to them specifically in terms of cost eligibilities, things like that. So, we pulled from a lot of different sources to come up with this, but we tried to keep it pretty concise. It um it still is a number of pages, but um we tried our best and any comments are totally welcome. So we have this um Anastasia Summers will be giving it a pretty cover. Um so we look forward to that. Um so the nuts and bolts, the grant agreement, the declaration of of covenants, all of that will will be a part of things too. We have developed Anastasia Summers has developed this flyer. I'm going to pass these around. Um, and we're going to we're planning to send both of these items out with letters to all 62 municipalities as well as the land conservation organizations that we are known to us as many people as we can think that might benefit from this. So that will happen in July, August. Bill mentioned the September 1 roll out. So prior to that, um, so the the idea of this flyer is just to catch people's attention and to kind of go through a little bit of the history, the basics of the program, the process, and then on the back painting a picture um trying to expand that definition of open space. Um, so I'll actually um pass these around. You guys can have have a little look at those. Um, and what else? Oh, we would very much like to develop a logo, but we haven't been able to do that. Um, our graphic staff is very busy with 2050. Um, and so that will be a

later roll out probably in the fall. Maybe even u magnets or things like that to kind of spread spread the word a little bit more. um social media roll out. Our communications team internally as well as the county will rely upon them for helping us to get the word out. Um Doug Maisie and Farita Ahmed have been busy at work developing the program web page. Um I think that's really everything and I guess um next slide. Um just what's next. We have presented to our open space board. we're presenting to you guys today. We'll go to the board of county commissioners next week and get everything together and open the program come September 1. So I think that's it. How did the open space? They have reviewed it. Space board react to it. I'm sorry. How did the open space board react code? I guess they've been involved positively. They reviewed the um draft guide book and we actually had an a couple outside reviewers as well in including Dulce Drew Gillchrist um Mike Stokes gave it his eagle eye. So, we've had some really good feedback and um yeah, I just want to add um when you look at the county's investment in open space since 1993 94 we're talking I don't have the exact numbers you we have $100 million and $150 million underneath that there's a certain amount that was spent. It is an extraordinary amount of money. It went to every one of 62 municipalities. It is one place where every citizen in

Montgomery County can see a concrete investment in their tax dollars. This is the members of our community seeing where their money goes. And that from a county is really unusual. They don't get to see it. We need to explain that this not only is for recreation, for respit, for health. Our trails and our open space in all of our municipality, pocket parks, large uh conservation areas allow people to be outside and be healthier in every municipality. It's an extraordinary investment and we want to continue that and have it as a culture that is valued and respected for the different choices people make in every one of our 62 municipalities. So, I'm I'm extremely pleased that the countyy's putting their toe back in. I'm somebody who's never, as Bill knows, I'm never embarrassed to ask for something that's really good when I want a second helping. I think the municipalities with a 25% match this time around are going to see that to get a lot of these projects, they need three legs to their stools. They need the county money, they may may need state money, and they're going to need local money. Maybe that will encourage them to consider developing their own funding sources, which we have, I don't know if there's seven or eight municipalities who went and did that over the years. So they have this money back thanked for what they want to use it and can be for this program and it will make our um our investment even more valuable. So thank you for the county. Thank you for the staff spending the time to get this going again and I think we're really thinking very green and I think it'll come in many shades but it's going to be beneficial for all citizens. Um thanks.

I u I think the program is well thought out. Bill and Melan did an excellent job, but I'm really wondering why we're not thinking bigger. Um, I'm I'm I'm really stunned that we have $2 million a year and we can't give it out. And I think that's a marketing problem. Not anything to do with the lack of interest, but a marketing problem. Um, my areas in 2050 are conservation and land use. lots of county will promote, county will support. I might have a question mark after each one like how the heck do we do that? How do we support? How do we promote if we don't have some money or skin in the game? So, I'm sort of wondering why this isn't a lot bigger of a program. The last time we had a lot of money was over a decade ago. Like, why are we thinking bigger? Is it and and really it's a question. Is it not popular anymore? Do people not think about open space or parts? Is is it not popular? Um, is there no places left to buy or, you know, partner with people? I I just don't know. I'm really asking a question. So, I think the last the the open space program in the '9s was funded through a bond issue, wasn't it? Two of the two or three was a bond. First one was just operating expenses for good government. But I think the problem and I don't know suring that probably the the county's debt service part of the budget is probably not in a position to take on a addition capital fund a bond funded cap program like this. So I think they're trying to take it out of available funding. What was it back back in the 90s and early 200s? Was it put to a vote? What a number of you guys. I mean everybody as such

it was. We did a we first we did polling. We did polling. Um it was Montgomery County Lands Trust. We raised private money. We did polling. We used a politically focused polling agency which was Republican polling agencies so that no one could say that it was one because we had Republican uh elected officials and we got a number back from the polling and survey that um 72 no excuse me 72% of the people in Montgomery County uh would say yes to raising their own taxes to do this. We had to re we had to um establish a program to do a referendum. We had to do the marketing and all the outreach and we went to referendum and it was 76.8% above what the survey said. So then the county commissioner said after hearing lots of people say we want it, we want it, we want it, they also had surveying that said we'll pay for it. So they did. They bonded for it. Steve, I think Steve hit it right on the debt service in the obviously the county campus is taking up a lot and my my opinion is there's not room or appetite. It's not it's not a priority in front of trying to put this much money in front of anything. Um but there are other interests I think that would also be considered if there was a large bond issue. And this by by reestablishing this I I'm optimistic and I'm glad that that puts this in conversation for future uh larger motives or larger programs. But um I think a lot of political my would be that the marketing that you guys are doing which seems great. I like that little flyer um because I have the attention span of an ad. So I look at

this and I think I like this. So the marketing program is established, excuse me. Then more applications than your $2 million comes in. And now you can say to people, elected officials, hey, we got a backlog of projects. They're all good. They're all timely. Some go away if we don't act soon. We need we need the capital to start promoting, supporting whatever the 2050 plan is going to say we're going to do. So I think that's great. I look forward to seeing the results of the marketing activity. Other comments from board members? I know we're up against time. Just a quick one. So the the $2 million is out of the three and a half that you currently get out of the operating budget and the remaining one and a half it says is toward the county's own fee acquisitions to supplement current open space inventory. Is that and I'm sorry if I missed it, maybe I did. Is that something you do a lot of right now? Do you utilize that 1.5 out of your current 3.5, you know, right now? Or I guess can you just talk about that 1.5 piece? Yes. Um we do we do use that budget that $3.5 million budget for county acquisitions. It might be an area that's adjacent to an existing county park or just a area that may be good for a county trail head. I did the math yesterday. I think we've spent about $700,000 over the last four years or so on county acquisitions. So again coming up way short. County acquisitions are kind of like, you know, we're not out actively looking for them. They're more like, oh, this property flooded and the property owner wants to get rid of the property and oh, by the way, it's adjacent to the Perky Trail and it'd be perfect for a parking lot. So, those are more like opportunistic uh expenditures of that money, but again, way below what the potential and what we have in our purse for it. And if you It sounds like both sides then are kind of undersubscribed right

now. But if you're super successful in your marketing campaign and you get overs subscribed from the municipalities on the 2 million 2 million do you have the sort of bunchability? That's a great question. We have flexibility and it's capital budget not great that's a good question. Any other comments from board members? Quick comment. I I notice it's 25% match. Now I can't remember the program but we had a sliding scale for like the municipality have a lot of money for something. So is that something that we could could integrate in this particular situation? We talked about it um and we decided against it. I don't know what the I don't know what the reason was why we didn't go with that. Scott, do you remember what? Probably more so simplicity to start off and I don't think we had established well yet. Well, I think we still the idea here is to have hopefully have the same progression back for 20 240 which is we started with a basic set of pools that we that we administered the diagram program. It grew in in size and far as far as funding is concerned. Then we manipulated or not manipulated but we changed the the requirements to you know to have multi-municipal activity. We changed the requirements for you know lesser advant lesser or more disadvantaged municipalities to be part of the program. So I think to Jonathan and to some of these other comments I think we got to take the first couple steps see how it goes and then hopefully it can grow like the 2040 plan. Hopefully, we can see how the reaction is from some of these municipalities that may not be able to hit a 25% max. We have to adjust that and you know, I think there's going to be a process of seeing these guidelines changing and adjusting um to meet the demand and how we see the program being

utilized. So I just point out super quick that we did include we did discuss that whether we would follow that same path as 2040 and then what we did is included that criteria that if it could give a bump in the project if it's addressing access disparity. Um so we put that criteria in as a way to help address providing openness. Is that right? I think the match also is um let's additional items come into that match than we did the first time. So the groundwork that goes into these projects, you're going to get a little bit more of a match to help you reach that 25%. because that was all when people did this projects these projects they didn't realize what the other costs were besides just acquiring the land. Any other comments from board members before any comments from public? Anybody online public or staff? Thanks. Thanks. Appreciate it. Look forward to seeing good results. I know it was it was a great thing and a lot of counties took advantage of it. So I hope I hope to catch fire not we don't want to burn it to the ground. Okay. Our next uh agenda item is the Monaco 2050 public input summary. I'm going to call on Austin. Um this good morning everyone. You're cognizant of time. I know you're pushed on the back end. So kind of being Austin and David instead of time try to move into these discussion groups and get set up for the rest of the meeting. Okay. Sorry. Yes. Yeah, of course. Good morning everyone. Um I'm Austin Mosby for anyone who doesn't know me. I'm a planner with county planning. This

is my first time up here actually physically presenting so that's exciting for me. Um, we're going to be talking about our public engagement for MAC 2050, a comprehensive plan for a changing world, where we've been across the county and what we've heard and what lies ahead. So, a lot is going into the comprehensive plan. Um, conversations with the public, our advisory committee, staff input, our board's community leaders. Today we're going to home in on what we heard from the general public both in person and online and our community leaders, our stakeholders. So why do we do public engagement? Public engagement helps us learn what the community thinks. We get to know our residents. We get to educate residents about planning and local issues. We inform residents of the facts and issues in the county. It shapes the themes and the goals of our plan and it builds support for the policies. that um shapes um our decisions. I'm going to pass it off now. Should be moving pretty good already, right? I'm going to pass it off to my colleague David Greenberg. Thank you, Austin. Uh and so, yeah, I'm going to go over just uh our overall engagement strategies. When we started the process three years ago now, as you can see, we really wanted to make sure we're hitting as many different communities as we could. So that meant, you know, reaching as going through as many different methods and channels, um, as possible. As you can see, we've built surveys, popups, uh, stakeholder groups, focus groups, uh, interactive platforms, and we're still working on these today. Um, so that the engagement process is still ongoing. We received a grant from the state from DCED to help with our engagement process and we also partnered with connect the dots to help bolster some of our our engagement into the communities. So just first off going through each platform. Survey monkey is one of the early forms of engagement online survey that was available for

almost two years received almost 900 responses a lot of in-depth questions uh about major topics there and uh Padlet was another early platform that we adopted kind of a digital similar to the whiteboard function allowed for uh open-ended comments on the major topics. We received 181 responses from them and engage Monco which is still up today. This has kind of been our our main interactive platform that allows us allowed us to administer surveys on the major topics but also allowed participants to create their own forums and topics and posts and they could comment on other people's posts and uh comment on maps that were online. It was really kind of an all-around interactive uh platform that got about has about 200 participants currently. We also gave presentations to a number of different groups and boards, authorities, obviously this one you've seen us up here talking about the comp plan um community groups like the NAACP school uh school action network and of course the county commissioners staff um among others. And we did many different popup events. These are just an just a snippet of some of the ones we did. We did over 40 of them throughout the county starting last really last year or a year and a half ago. Um this was a great way to just engage with the public face to face. Uh and it was also in keeping with reaching different members of the community. It was a great way to engage with children. We had boards for them as well because you know they're the ones who are who are going to be you know living here making decisions in the future. So that was important as well. And we uh like I said earlier, we partnered with connect the dots uh to help out with doing some stakeholder interviews and focus groups. And this is really where we targeted a lot of groups that are historically underrepresented,

marginalized. So we had about they helped out about eight stakeholder interviews uh that we met with different community spaces um to basically touch on transportation, housing, safety, access to food, and things of that nature. And um the focus groups were another key portion. This was a little less unstructured, more more of a roundt discussion where we gathered folks um and they could you know we would listen to their issues and their concerns. And as you can see we had touched on a number of different communities in this method including online uh for a couple of the sessions as well. And here's just a overall snapshot of where we went throughout the county. So, as you can see, pretty um pretty good coverage, but you know, like I said, we're still continuing some efforts today, which you'll touch on a little bit in a couple minutes, and Austin is going to go over what we heard from the community. Yes. And quickly, just going to go back to that slide. We drove to all these places. It is worth a little That's a lot. I think that's really commendable. Uh all that work we did over the past few years for that coverage. So, now going into what we heard, this is the meat and potatoes. the presentation. What did we hear from the public? I broke this down into four categories. Community, housing, transportation, and conservation of the environment. They're not one to one with the themes of MAC 2050, but for the purposes of this presentation, it was a really easy way to kind of broadly categorize what we heard. So, for the next 22 slides, you're just going to read with me all No, I'm just kidding. Um, this slide is just a great way to kind of show everybody the monumental task of sifting through everything we heard across our online platforms and on the ground. Um, talking with people in the county against with our focused groups. It's a monumental task. We sorted through hundreds of comments. You don't have to read them all because we did.

Um, but I'm going to just highlight a few that generally speak to a lot of the things we heard. I can get the animation. There we go. So, for this in community, we're going to be talking a lot about third places. We heard from people about what do you like about living in Montgomery County? What do you do to socialize? How do you connect with your neighbors? Here, we heard a lot about people really like the parks in the county. And they like the um restaurants and things to do. They want more of those. Am I pointing in the right direction? You're fine. Yeah. Okay, there we go. Just to highlight where we're going. People want more third places. We heard about, you know, we need more community centers, more places for young people to come together. It's in May. It's not that crazy. I'm going to the next slide. There we go. Okay. So, we got a sense of how people Why is it so hard to We got a sense of how people feel about living in Montgomery County. Generally the in the the the impression that we got is people like it here. They like living in Montgomery County. I know I do. I did growing up. Um we have it was surprising to hear how many people know their neighbors. Um very like 62% of people said I know my neighbors by name. 32% said they can name at least one person in their neighborhood. That tells us that people feel really connected where they live here. Did you ask if Did you ask people if they don't want to know their name? You didn't get it like I was going to say there's that little line there. Someone commented this way. Okay. Point it at Is there another way to smack it against? Okay. So through as we go through this

presentation, we're going to touch and go on a few different graphs that kind of we we we pulled all the comments and the online surveys and we tabulated them. So for community here you see at the top most responses from our popups and online people knowing their neighbors. That was really cool. Having a favorite um having a favorite park place of worship, having good friend within five minutes, all good signs of community life in Montgomery County. If it doesn't work, just let me know. I'll turn it for you. Okay. Let me turn it for you. Oh, there we go. In Survey Monkey, we asked, "How important is it to address the following issues?" First thing I'll point out, the colors show you um what's somewhat important, very important, and essential across the board. People think all of these issues are very important. Um the mustard colored green is not important, just for reference. Um number one though is retain the businesses already here. And the next one down, revitalize our older burrows and downtowns, reinvesting in those town centers. All of this is important, but that's what they feel is most important. Was it specific about what type of businesses or was it just businesses in general? Businesses in general. I don't think we uh got any deeper than that. always curious to ask that question because if you got down to it and asked about retail then you follow question how many of your people how many of you order versus local things that you could buy locally. So the the takeaways for uh the community park residents care about where they live and they care about the businesses here. There's a need for more free events. We heard that a lot. We need more free activities in our parks and community centers. Um third place is need to feel safe for atrisisk groups. Um talk to some people who particularly like in the LGBTQ community um wanting to feel safe in our public spaces and on our trails. Um public spaces need to be

accessible or a lot of that needing more um accessible facilities for people of all abilities and the community resources and activities need to be available for people of all age groups. Um people were saying, you know, I don't have kids or we need more things for kids or what about, you know, single people? This is more geared towards families. Um and um people who are limited English proficient, they face unique challenges in the community that we need to be aware of as we move forward with the plan. Yes. Next slide, please. We're we're going to we're going to put that down. Housing. We heard a lot about housing in relation to affordability um over and over and over again everywhere we went. And I'm going to just highlight a couple things that I picked up here. Rob, could you click for me? This one. My wife and I are trying to buy our first home and the prices are insane. So many of the homes on the market are huge with giant lawns. All we need is a cheap townhouse, but there are so few of these that they get snatched up immediately. Thanks for me, Rob. We need one-bedroom, oneb apartments costing $1,000. We cannot afford $1,500 apartments. So, stop building luxury apartments. We need fewer affordable housing. We We need newer affordable housing for 55 up fixed incomes, also for first-time home buyers. So, those are just three I picked out that we heard over and over. Thanks, Rob. The landlords charge even more if you are undocumented. We heard that. and and and concerns about people um being discriminated against from our LGBTQ um focus group. We asked which policies do you support to address housing affordability? The number one answer had to do with um

income restricted housing wanting more of that. Um ADUs, there was interest next one down. more than half of people uh supported ADUs, backyard dwelling units. Um and building smaller houses because the houses are so big. That was another popular one. Build smaller houses that could generally cost less. Um and then the next one, build more housing of all types was the most popular, more popular than breaking it down to build more apartments, but not single family homes or build more single family homes. Build more houses of all types. Another example of everything being important. How important is it to address the following issues? All of it is important that Bustard Green shows not important and they're in the minority. Of of these important things, the very most important was encourage housing affordability and encourage a variety of housing types. Following that, to sum it up, the key takeaways of housing, we need more affordable housing for buyers and renters alike. We heard we hear a lot from housing and buying being too expensive, but we also heard in our focus groups the rent is high and the application fees are high. We often forget about that. Um homelessness and housing insecurity are growing concerns. We've heard that a lot. People want more opportunities to own homes. Um residents, as I mentioned, some residents did express concerns about discrimination in housing in the county. And people need options to keep their family members nearby. the adult children in your household, can they afford to stay in the community or do they need to move some other part of the region? Um, your aging relatives are there is are there options for them to stay close and have the space they need like with ADUs could be helpful with that. And family members with disabilities too. Um, if they they can stay close that would be great. So, ADUs would be a great solution for that. Next is transportation. My personal

favorite. What did we hear about transportation in the county? We heard over and over people want more options to get around without having to drive. They want more walkability. They want more sidewalks. They want more transit and regional rail. We heard a lot about wanting 15inut service and interconnectivity within the county without having to go to center city. I'm going to highlight just a couple more sidewalks, more destinations to walk to. I would love to be able to cycle safely out of my burrow or use or or to use buses or trains to get around Monco. And these two were about bus stops. We heard complaints about bus stops. Many bus stops are nothing but a sign stuck in a patch of dirt at the side of the road. Transit riders deserve a safe place to stand. And the other one is also about having like what transit riders deserve. The bus stops um should be better. They shouldn't people shouldn't have to suffer in the elements. Deserve better. They want better. Let's try to keep moving. Let's change our car centric mindset was the overall piece. Yeah, we'll move it forward. Try to wrap up the next one. Yes, we're good. Sure. um pedestrian safety and trail system were the most important when we asked people to prioritize out of six options the top three trails. We heard a lot of great feedback about our trails. Um the top response on our popups was I would support a trail proposed in my community. That was really great. Another one, if I had the option, I would use a trail instead of driving at least some of the time. That was great. Our least popular response was actually a great one. I have not used a trail within the past 12 months, meaning everybody there except those folks had used the trail that year. Would you use trails for daily

activities? Majority of people said yes or maybe they would. The takeaways for transportation, people want more sidewalks, more walkability, more public transit. Um the people love our trails. They want them to be safe and accessible. And we need to prioritize safety for all our road users. We are going to breeze through these. If you hit next, Rob, it'll just highlight one or two. Um, people had concerns about losing open space. Um, people have concerns about there being too much development, too much cluster housing, which contradicts the housing comments. We need more housing, but stop building housing. But this section yet is about concerns about the environment, environmental hazards, um, and maintaining open space. Suburbs are turning into the city. That's not why we wanted to live here. From our popups, which of the following do you think are the most important benefits of open space? Once again, we asked six, we asked them to highlight six topics that are most important on number one, two, and three. ecosystem preservation, storm water and flooding, and having more places to come together and recreate. It's rough. Oh, was that different one? Yeah. Did I miss it? Just the the water and air quality one. Oh, yeah. Just keep moving. Yeah. Um Monkey, how important are all the following issues? Once again, everything is very important to people, but the most is addressing aging water and sewer and mitigating flooding and other hazards. To sum it up about conservation and the environment, overall residents feel conservation, environment protection, environmental protection are very important. Residents cherish the county's open space and they have a lot of concerns about losing open space to new development. And the trail system is how the county residents connect with

nature and that's why they love them so much. I think you uh we were just talking I think you summarized one of the contradictions in all the information you just gave us which is there's a need for housing of all types but then there's also people people want to preserve open space that development and how do you rectify that I'm going to hand it off to for uh the wrapup my colleague David take it away oh yeah and we're just uh we are not done Yeah, sorry. Thanks for doing that. Oh. Oh, yes. Uh, and we are so next steps, we are, you know, working on the draft, crafting the vision, goal, and recommendations still, but we are not done with our engagement. Uh, we still have five more events planned. And of course, engage Monco is still uh open to use as well. But over the next couple of months, we have um our pizza with a planner uh theme here. We have some events at Hatboro uh in Pottstown at Troubles End Brewery in Brewing College in a virtual session and then capping that off is at September 30th at the Amler Theater. County providing beer at the Troubles. No. Yes. We are not here. I'll have a beer with Steve off the record. Um but yeah, so that's our um our final engagement steps uh to really just kind of cap off what we've been doing for you know three years now. Um so yeah, any questions, comments, any comments from board members? Good job. Yeah, thank you. Good to see all all the work that's going into it up until now. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Um Scott report

I'll keep this super brief. Um just some upcoming things. Uh next week uh contingent of board members will be joining us for the board to for the Montgomery awards tour um for nominations. Um they did that Stephen Jonathan Bob and uh the north uh our board tour for October. Um we are planning right now uh we have settled in on the north pen region as being the local. So, we've got lots of great projects and sites we're lining up for that. That will be in October. Um, we'll be on assuming it'll be on our Monday. Correct. Uh, and then the uh August typically we don't hold a meeting, but I'll I'll leave that as Steve's announcement in the future. Um, the last thing again with events, the September 30th town hall is a big deal. We're also going to be celebrating our 75th anniversary uh at that event. and uh like the planners more coming up sooner on July 31st is our plan smarter event let's get energized u real excited I wish we had more time to give you a little more advance on this but so we're promoting and talking about essentially three model ordinances EVs u building energy sustainability and solar power um and some related energy transition and renewable talk around so that's in lane sale 4 to 6 on July 31st. U we'll go to the end of the meeting. August the August meeting. I don't know. Do we have any pending? Yeah. Pressing issues that we have to address in August. I mean, I know that's usually our our rationale for having a meeting. Anybody any of the section chief know of

anything pending that's going to come in front of us before we get to September? I'm sure. Thank you. Besides Chloe, we try we try to leave that open and right now I don't see any. I I I'll talk to Joel and Scott and get back to but I think at this point I would think we need to cancel our August meeting. Although I would love to spend more time with everybody. Same here. Thanks Patty. Um with that then we will be uh then we will uh adjourn the meeting and I once again I appreciate I know a bunch of you are if not all of everybody in the room is going to be involved in these discussion groups rel related to the mon 2040 um recommendations and and um so I appreciate everybody's commitment to the time and being here in person. I wish I was. Thank you.