Commissioner - Regular Meeting

The light is on. We're going to bring this meeting back to order. All right. Good evening everybody. Welcome to the Queen's County Commissioners meeting. This is a public meeting that is being aired live on our local cable television station QACV7. These media broadcasts provide county citizens an opportunity to watch and review our scheduled public meetings. In addition to our live audience this evening, we are providing remote options for citizens to watch and participate in county commissioner meetings. Citizens may watch our meeting live on our website at qac.orglive or on our public access governmental television channel provided by breezeline cable services. Citizens may also participate by joining the live Zoom meeting by going to qac.org/public org/public comment and citizens may also email comments directly to the commissioners here at public commentac.org. Comments received will be summarized during the press and public comment period on tonight's agenda. We acknowledge everyone's participation and by attending you acknowledge this session is both recorded and aired. Press and public comment will be taken and is limited to three minutes per person. If you do care to speak, please sign up at the information table in our lobby. We will now stand to be led in the pledge of allegiance by Commission President Jim Moran. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right, commissioners. Um the agenda for today's meeting March the 24th along with the regular session minutes the close session minutes from the March 10th meeting have been circulated for review. Do we have any additions or corrections? Yes. Wanted to make a motion to add two additional action items to the agenda tonight. Second. Have a motion second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I opposed. So moved. Like to make a motion to accept the agenda as amended and the minutes as submitted. Second. All those in favor? I.

All right. Thank you, commissioners. Okay. So, we just held a close session under the general provisions article section 3305B1 for boards and commissions and section 3305B7 to consult with council. Uh then we have uh some board appointments to make first.

Yep. So, for the Council for Children and Youth, I move to reappoint Doug Bishop, Dorene Facet, and Stacy Woodworth, whose terms will um run till 12:31 of 2026, and then appoint Nicole Chase Powell, Joan Taylor, Colleen Williams, Daira MGA, and Melissa Lujian to terms that will expire on 12:30. 31 of 2027. Have a motion in a second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I move. And if I butchered their names, I apologize.

Yeah. I move to resend the um the decision to donate funds to the Maryland State Firefighters Association for the presidential campaign of Billy Fast. Second. We have a motion in a second. Any discussion? You like to explain that what we're doing? Oh, yeah. I messed up. Well, no, you just So, uh, I had I made a mistake and with that and I made a motion to support, uh, the Slersville, Billy Fast, who is going to be the president of the Maryland State Fires Association, and I should not have done that.

Very good. Thank you, Patrick. All right, moving on. Okay. Uh, all in favor? I'm sorry. No, no further discussion. All those in favor signify by saying I. I move. We're not used to making mistakes. All right, commissioners. Thank you very much. Um, next next we have press and public comment. Okay. And first on our listing. Oh, we got somebody. We got three. Four.

All right. Uh, we appreciate all citizens for taking time to express views to the county commissioners. Comments are limited to three minutes per person. Comments longer than three minutes can be submitted in writing. This commission respects your desire and right to convey your message freely. When you come forward, please speak clearly at the standing microphone. State your name, your address, and your topic of interest. And in keeping with the dignity of our office, we ask that all views be expressed in a respectful and civil manner. May I start? Yes, ma'am. Yes.

Okay. Good evening, commissioners. I'm here today to talk about a new campaign that PlasticFree QAC are taking on. I think you'll like it. But first, I just want to say thank you for the bags. I mean, they're going like hot cakes. People love them. They're so pretty and you know, we're distributing everywhere and it's really a big success. So, thank you. So, the new campaign that we have decided to take on is we have we make these frames and we're going to give out to restaurants. Basically, we're asking them to skip the stuff. And that means when you do a takeout, you don't need all the stuff they put in, all the plastic forks and spoons and napkins and straws because most of the time, about 95% of the time, you take it home. So, you put it in a drawer because you feel guilty about throwing it out. And you think, "Oh, maybe I'll use it in the future." And you never do. So, we're asking them to simply skip the stuff unless people want it. Unless people are going to eat it in the car or have a picnic or something like that. So, I'm going to give you each of these f each one a frame so you can give it to your favorite restaurant because we're trying to hit all of them and it's a lot of work. So, I'm going to give it to you Stephanie and maybe you can distribute. So, I have my um partner in crime, Brena. She's with a high school and they're signing on to this. They are partners in this project. So, I think it's a win-win situation.

Look at that. I have a minute and a half. Hi.

Um, I'm Brena Peterson and I've been working with plastic free QAC and I also work with the National Honor Society. I'm next year's president and I am the leader of the environmental advocate subcommittee and we support this too. We've even talked to Mr. Hazy at the high school ourselves and all of my classes have been worried about this. everyone I've spoken to. I did a survey throughout everyone in each of the environmental science classes, the AP environmental science classes, and I so shockingly, I didn't even expect this, got 100% everyone was on board. They were like, "We don't need those extra things." And the biggest issue with this is the convenience. People love the convenience of having these extra things. And so, the only problem people can think of is that adjustment period, people knowing they need to request it. But this helps the business, this helps the consumer, and helps the environment. How many times have you driven on the road and seen napkins flying, seen those plastic forks, everything just out and about in our beautiful county? I mean, look outside, the trees are blossoming, everything's beautiful. You don't want to see trash everywhere. And this is such an easy fix. This not only helps the business because this is a net profit, the amount of times that they will not have to buy these huge bulk shipments because there 75% I think food and wine um.org stated are meals taken off the premise which means these meals are taken home. So that is so much less orders of these bulk items that these restaurants do not need. You can still request it. It's not a mandate. It's not necessary. It's just if you don't need it, you don't have to harm the planet and get it. And if you do, you do. It helps all of our ecological footprints one by one. It helps these restaurants keep down their net cost in our area so these local businesses can help thrive. And on a bigger scale, it's the first implementation of an ideology we all need to work on where we don't just need that convenience. We need to really

think about what's around us. The future generations, my entire apes program was behind this idea. We all want to help the environment. We don't know where to start. This is one little thing we can all do where we can still get what we need, but if we don't need it, we can just say skip the stuff. She had me at when she introduced herself. Y great job. Congratulations. Good job. Boy, there's no replacing passion. If you want to you want to get a camera shot for everybody for the bags you were referencing earlier. Yeah, there you go. Go ahead. Do a plug for it. Perfect. Yeah.

And you keep that bag. You keep that bag. Make sure to bring these into grocery stores. Next up is Shelley Grossade. Yes. Yes, ma'am.

Good afternoon. I'm Shelley Gway with Bay Crossing Consulting and I am pleased to be here this evening to present a summary of our Catalyst Q program that was administered by Bay Crossing Consulting. I think I'm making a presentation with Heather. Yeah. Yeah. And I think you can just wrap it all up into that if you want to from here or I would do it when you do the presentation. I appreciate that. Thank you. Perfect. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. That's all the sign up. Would anybody else like to speak? Seeing none, we'll close press on public comment.

All right, commissioners. Next on the agenda is legislation. So, if you want to turn to tab number seven. Tab number seven, item one, pages 1 through 7. This is a citizen sponsor text amendment 2512 for the Gunston School. This is a growth allocation non-adjacent adjacency alternative standard. This amendment was introduced by the commissioners on December 9th. It was conceptually approved and forwarded to the critical area commission and the planning commission for review. The CAC has approved this ordinance and now the commissioners um the next action is to schedule and hold a public hearing prior to voting on this amendment to section 14-1 of the county code.

So the action tonight is to um the to have a public hearing second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I opposed. So moved. All right. Thank you, commissioners. Item two on pages 8 through 10. This is county ordinance number 2601, a bill entitled an act concerning traffic control signal monitoring systems red light cameras in Queen's County. And this is uh eligible for a vote tonight if you so choose. We're going to defer both these, right?

Yeah. Yeah. We don't have to table them. I just uh we take no action. We have some amendments to work through um and come back in a couple weeks with the amendments and then if we so choose to have another hearing we'll decide then. Okay. Was that for both ordinances county ordinance 2601 and 2602? The second bill was for speed monitoring systems in Queens County. So one is for red lights and one is for speed monitoring systems. So is that motion for both? Yes, for both. Yes. Okay. Just so people know, we've received some feedback on both of these ordinance following the hearing from the last meeting. So, we're trying to take those into consideration with potential amendments so that we can have a vote on it reflecting the input we got from the public.

And we do have some public comment that came in via email that'll be read in read it now. Uh, let's read it in now because when it comes back amended, they may have further public comment. So, yeah. All right. And, uh, Bruce, do it with a Rody Dangerfield voice if you respect this.

All right. Our first comment is going to come from Elizabeth Strater. She is in support of both of the ordinances. Good morning. I would like to add my appreciation approval for the consideration of speed cameras and school zones as well as red light cameras. I will include residential areas as well as we have communities in the county like mine and Marlin farms that have children and adults walking and biking being out in the yards and folks do not observe the speed limit. Residents and business traffic alike. The posted speed limits in these communities should help provide a safety net. However, it is my experience in many places that posted speed limits are not observed. I could add more about safety being passed in the community, etc. If there is more relevant place for those, please let me know. Thank you for your time. Our second comment comes from Sharon Newsbach, who is against 2602. I'm hoping for a no vote on speed cameras off Route 8. From last meeting, it looks like you all are going to vote for it. I figured would still I figured I would still let you know I'm against speed cameras. And that's all I have. All right. Thank you, Bruce. Commissioners, that's all we have for legislating legislation this evening. We can move into the presentations portion of tonight's agenda.

Before I do, I just want to make a clarification for those who who didn't see the hearing last time, just so people understand the issue with the speed camera. It's not just sort of speed cameras anywhere in the county. It's speed cameras Monday through Friday in school zones to catch people who were doing more than 12 miles over the speed limit. That's it. Right. So people understand I I think there were some misconceptions people thought there came everywhere. It's just don't speed around kids in school buses is kind of the the idea behind it. Sorry about that.

And only adopted on the state roads still the county roads still don't have right from the state. We don't have the permission to move forward with them. So right. Okay.

Any other comments commissioners? All right. All right. So, we have uh presentations next. So, uh tab number six, item one, pages 1 through 33, we have Miss Heather Tanelli, our director of economic development and tourism, uh for her departmental update. So, and her presentation is also up on the screen as well for our viewing audience. So, Heather, you want to bring your team up? All right. Welcome.

I promise we'll keep it within the 10. Wow. This is the brain trust of the county. We are so blessed. Did you say intimidating? Yeah. Do you all want to sit up here and we'll sit down there?

Make a motion we take a recess. Commissioners, thank you so much for your time today. We are here to give you an annual update from the Queen's County Economic and Tourism Development Team. Um, as you all know, but for uh public's information, we manage economic and tourism development for the county and also have a focus on workforce and community development. Our team staffs the economic development commission, the economic development incentive fund, the travel and tourism advisory commission, the historic sites consortium, and the A&E district um monthly meetings. I did list our our whole team there. The only reason why I'm on top is there wasn't enough room to to stretch out to get us all in there. I promise. We have four full-time and two part-time um staff. All of them work really hard in moving forward the objectives and focus for the county and you'll hear from them today, some of them today. I just wanted to point out a few stats when looking at our our economic um focus or scorecard for 2025 and then point out a few things that are new in 2026. some information that we just got. Uh when looking at our unemployment rate, which we check as frequently as possible, um the last posted rate was at 2.9% which was in for December. We have consistently at least over the last three years remained the second lowest in the state. So that's a good thing. Um it's good and bad. It means that we have low unemployment, but also means that uh there's not a lot of people within our community that are looking for jobs because they are um gainfully employed, which is a good thing. Uh deals closed last year. We participated in about $22 million in deals that were closed and currently in process. We have about $86.1 million

deals that we are working with in conjunction with companies and lenders. um there's a couple big ones in there and so that's why the number's so high. Um and we'll continue to work on those. We expect that a good portion of that will close in 2020 um six calendar year 2026. Uh when looking back at last year, we saw about a hundred million in uh commercial property investment and about a 10% increase in the commercial um property tax value. Uh, one stat that I did want to point out that we saw this year was um, gross domestic product is about two years behind when you get to see what that is, but it is something we track closely. If you remember when we were coming out of the pandemic, we saw the greatest growth in in the county. I mean, in the state, I'm sorry, our county did. Um, and over the the years since that 2020 2021 growth that we saw, we've seen consistent growth. And this year uh or in 2024 we saw $2.8 billion dollars or an 8% increase and that is the third highest in the state. The only ones that were higher were Y ComicCo at 8.6 and Somerset at 13%. So um I felt pretty good about that. When we looked at why we saw that increase um you can see the stats in your presentation. These are the um some of the the growth that we saw in different industries. I I need to look more into what was behind the finance and insurance growth, significant growth, but that was pretty great. And the last thing I wanted to share before I moved it over to Debbie is the objectives of the economic development commission. Uh they had a strategic plan in 2025. And what you'll see from that is the objectives of the commission as well as our staff don't just focus on tax growth and job creation, although those are important. It's really a holistic look at community

development. um you know a sense of community looking at quality workforce housing and transportation um and of course tourism and uh economic development, business growth and attraction. So, uh we're just starting to get into that. We have subcommittees that are really working hard to move some of those things forward. We have five years to make progress and we're already seeing some movement. Next, I wanted to hand it over to Debbie Gil, our economic development coordinator. She's new to the team. she started in July one and just to give you a brief update on some of the projects we're working on.

Thank you. Um, the first one I want to talk about is our Catalyst Q program that we're going to actually be speaking about later. And so I'm not going to steal their thunder, but I wanted to just um let you know that we partnered with Bay Crossing Consultants, the Maryland um Small Business Development Center, Chesapeake College to um bring this cohort this year. This is their second year of doing this um different different program this year, but uh it is the second time they've done this program. Um it's a 12-week program. Uh they met with consultants and mentors and all those things and to just talk about how to grow their business and how to get money for their business and legal challenges and all of that. that was um funded by the community reinvestment repair fund um and our LMB. So, we're very thankful for that program and you'll you'll be hearing from them soon. They're graduating this evening. Um we do hope to have another session of that later this year. Uh we also worked with the town of Southernthersville recently and adopted their economic strategy. Um that will allow them now and we're going to work with them to get their sustainable community designation. That opens up a big pot of money with the state to do uh different projects that they can do such as um the Maryland facade improvement program where they'll redo exteriors of the of the um existing businesses there and kind of try to incentivize new growth in the town. So that's just one of the benefits. So we're excited about about that and I think they are as well. Um we just finished up our microag um grant application process. We reviewed those thankfully with Jenny Rhodess and Lee Bridgeman with the

Maryland Extension Office. They helped us with those and um going through I think we got like 28 applications. So, it was really um a a great process and took us a little bit of time. Um that is funded through the partnership of Upper Shore Regional Council and a huge thank you to our commissioners for matching those funds. That's fantastic. Um, we're m we're funding 21 projects either in full or partially with those funds and I just wanted to share a couple really neat ones with you. Um, one is we're purchas they're purchasing a no till drill for farm for a farmer here in the county. And basically what that does is instead of going in and tilling up the property and then the land and um it actually drills a hole, puts the seed in the hole and it doesn't disturb the the the soil there, which helps everything with, you know, water retention, that sort of thing, as well as not killing the earthworms, which are super important. Um we have a small flower farm here that we're purchasing um compound or they're purchasing compound microscopes to kind of look at the different insects and you know different um funguses and that sort of thing that might be growing in their fields. And then uh they want to help educate the community about those things. Um, and another one that's really neat is they're we're uh helping replace the two there's two pedestrian bridges um on trails at the Tuahoo Equestrian Center that currently do not support the weight of the horses. So, those riders have to go out into the main road instead of staying on the trails. So, they want to build they're going to be building two new bridges that will also support horses, bikers, hikers, everybody. you'll be on the same trail and nobody's going to get run

over. That's a good thing. Um, and I guess the last thing I want to talk about, and we're really excited about this, we um are in the process of getting signed with a small business development center where we'll have an on-site person representative from the small business development center here in our office uh once a week to meet with small businesses to kind of like go over they they provide one-on-one free uh consults for small businesses. So, we're really looking forward to that. that we're going to try and do some programming and that sort of thing. So, now gonna hand it over to April Plamer, our uh destination marketing administrator.

Um, so I just have a couple of tourism stats to share with you to start. Um, so our hotel uh tax increased uh 3% from FY24 to FY25. Um, and we had an increase in visitors. This is 2024 stats. Um, 3.8% 8% increase in spending and a 2.7% increase in visitors. Um 2025 stats aren't out yet, but it looks great and we should we expect increases in both again. Um and then we had visitors from 14 countries that visited the Ches Heritage and Visitor Center. Um and our shoulder season video that we put out, you can see a a screenshot up there. Um reached almost a million views. So that did really well for us. Um 2025 visitation, we have uh some of those numbers already. So you can see on the left that there's a heat map of kind of where our visitors come from um that are near us. So the DC um Northern Virginia area and then they spend an average of 4 days in 20125 here and a daily time average of 307 minutes uh which is great. Then if you remove the um heat map on the left and look at the one on the right you can see that circle is open and it shows a few more of the hubs that um come into play. You can see New York, New Jersey, Virginia Beach, and you can even see like Chicago, Atlanta, and some of the airport hubs that um come into the county through the year. This mobile visitor center uh is a project that we were awarded grant funding from the EDA and um OTD pass through grant. So, this is the trailer that we ended up getting. Um we partnered with parks and they're helping us maintain the trailer and do the setup. So, that's been great for us. Here's the outside of it. And this is what it looks like when it's folded down into a stage. So, this will make rounds this year at um some of the events and you'll you'll see this out and about.

Um the Shore Pores tour is another project. So, this was another uh grant that we were awarded. It's the Maryland Alcohol Manufacturing uh promotion fund or the MAP fund. So, this came through OCD through some of the tax sales money that funds that. Um and we were awarded for the Shorepores tour which involves all of our breweries, wineries, and distilleries are all participating. It tells an overall story. um in a video which will be the main attraction piece to bring uh web traffic in. And then there's going to be podcasts that uh allow the people behind the businesses to tell their story and what makes them all great and different. Um and then we're going to connect that to the visitors and then do a retention campaign towards the end of this year. Um and there's an educational component that's fulfilled within that grant. Our spring summer campaign is launching in the next uh two weeks. Um, this will start to roll out and it'll roll out through the summer. Um, we had, uh, Schoolhouse Farmhouse do the creatives for this and Casey worked hard on this project as well. Um, this video doesn't play. You'll have to come back to our socials for a sneak peek in two weeks. But I got you just a few thumbnails that you can see. So, that's kind of the fishing one. We have a crabs focused and then an overnight stay um, with the views that we highlighted. So, um, thank you for your time. I'm going to pass it over to Penny.

Okay. Hello. Um well, the Queen Ants County Maryland 250 committee has 20 active members. Um we meet monthly. Our first event was March 7th at Historic Christ Church. It was Music of a New Nation, which was a very cool colonial performance. Um we received a $15,000 grant from um the Maryland 250 Commission to promote uh Queens County Maryland 250 historic trail. So, I'm working on the brochure now, which will guide people to the various historic sites, but also it's helping to fund two events. One is the expanded Fourth of July event here in Centerville. Um, we're working with Queens County Historical Society, who has brought in Mary Margaret to help since she had started the declaration reading. And the other is a Slersville vintage baseball showdown. Um October 10th, which is the birth month of Jimmy Fox. Because July 8th, let me move along here. Um because July 8th, 1776 was the actual date that the um Declaration of Independence was first read in Philadelphia. There's a national initiative called Sharing the Spirit of America where people from across the nation are going to gather and celebrate and read the Declaration at 6 PM on the 8th. So, Queenstown has volunteered to do this at the Colonial Courthouse there. So, more to come on that. Um, some really exciting news is that the American Discovery 250 relay will run from San Francisco to Delaware carrying a copy of the Declaration of Independence and they're coming through Kent Island and Queenstown. Um, more information on that. We'd like to join some runners here. Um, so we'll have more information available. Um, our upcoming Queen's County, Maryland 250

event is this Saturday at Colt Classic Brewing. It's called Revolutionary Spirits and it's a screener of um part of the Ken Burns documentary um the American Revolution and then afterwards we're going to have a talk on the role of taverns in the Revolution. Um I know what role they played.

Well, actually the woman is giving the talk has named it drinking and thinking. So, um on Saturday, May 16th, the Kent Island Kent Island Heritage Society is hosting Kent Island Day with the Maryland 250 theme. And then with the Historic Sites Consortium, the first Saturdays open on Kent Island, April 2nd, and they open throughout the rest of the county on Saturday, May 2nd. Um there's going to be more information on our website and on social media. um historic Stevensville Arts and Entertainment District. We have a new board chair named Tom Brady, not the football player. Um and we have 10 members serving on the board. The district's signature event, Arttoberfest, was a huge success last year after a hiatus the year before, thanks to Parks and Wreck, who has taken over managing the event with the help of the board. Um, so the next event is O Saturday, October 3rd. Um, lastly, we're looking at creating a community engagement event in historic Stevensville in the spring of 2027 to engage business people, people living and working both in Stevensville and outside. And that pretty much wraps it up.

Thank um I'll keep mine as brief as possible. Um, the workforce development end, you'll see up on the screen. Um, it's a two-page piece that I'm going to give you a couple highlights though. Before I actually before I highlight a few things you see, I just wanted to point out a few like I consider four components that have really come from a lot of these things. And one is that we continue to build new partnerships between local businesses and the school system as well as strengthen the partnerships that were already in place. Um, the career coaches are truly the contact person at the schools now for career programs. That's something we know we really needed in the from a long time ago. And then new um there's a new middle school career coach now that just started in January. Um so she's managing all the things that are happening in the middle schools. Um and then career coaches are now what I consider a regular part of staff in the high schools and they have regular programs that everybody's expecting to see every year that are getting stronger even the last couple years. So on this slide here it's um focusing on the career programs. I just wanted to point out the senior career unit for all seniors just started last year. Um it's an awesome opportunity for we have 61 businesses come in. Um all the seniors in their senior English class have a unit that the career coaches do with the English teacher and we bring in 61 businesses this year. They work on resume writing. They end up with their resume. They have career assessment updates. Um businesses do mock interviews. They do networking with the businesses and then business presentations. That's just a piece of the whole unit. So that's become part of the curriculum for a senior index which is a big deal. Um 25% increase in the number of career uh building internships just from last year to this year. U we're focusing really clearly on that the internships have to be career-based. They're really looking for what students are looking to do in the future and there's a formal curriculum that the career coaches manage for each of the um

internships. um virtual reality. I'll mention that quickly through the grant we had done through upper shore regional council and your approval which has made a lot of this all happen. Um are able to make it happen. Uh they have been able to we purchased virtual reality goggles and that's been really popular and helpful in the middle schools and also the high schools. We had 492 middle school students using them last year. 102 high school students. It's really key this in this world in technology where we don't realize just how much in the work world today the virtual reality piece and the skills involved with virtual reality are are big. And so it's like giving these kids an opportunity to experience that and also learn skills that might help them figure out what career they want to be in or not want to be in. Um on the career awareness events, I'm just going to point out one quickly that the sophomore career awareness event, it's our third annual. This year we had 32 businesses there, 352 sophomores, 23 instructors from the college. The main point of this is helping students learn about careers they may or may not have known about to help figure out. They can't choose what they don't know about. So the more they learn and see and then I bring businesses in now to team up with the instructors at the college to show not only what's involved in this career and how to get involved, but then if you do it, here are some actual job opportunities in our area with our local businesses. so they can see the connection very clearly. Um, and then under our this is an op a form that I use for lots of places to help everyone know what the different programs are that we have going on. Um, a lot of the ones I mentioned, there's tons more. I could talk for another half hour, but I know not to do that. I'm trying to talk fast and I'm good at that, too. Our last week, we did our our first trades con actually construction trades roundt. Um it went very well. We had 49 participants who'd signed up which is a

good amount because we had people from carpentry, masonry, HVAC, electrical, architecture, engineering and a few others. Um Dr. Coppersmith and Jason Mullen will stress the their uh we gave them the opportunity to stress their desire to work with businesses and help businesses. um and also updates about the skilled trade programs we have, but also what Chesby College is doing in the future with the updated approval for the new skilled trade program there that's expected date to open 2029. So that's exciting. Um and then we had um as part of that we also had our CT instructors where a lot of them were there so that the businesses got to meet them directly and we had a roundt discussion with three experts in the field with Jack Wilson our own Jack Wilson done an excellent job moderating. Um and then we should I'd like to mention the people there but I don't want to overdo my time. We had some cool people. We had people from American Builders in Construction. um also CEO of independent electrical contractors and then Adam Tally from CTE. So we tried to help spotlight everything going on and help the businesses not not only know about current and talk about topics that are current to them but also helping them see ways to find and help develop more workforce. So we have a lot of them have called and contacted several of us since then already about wanting to get involved with some of the programs that we already have in place.

Um just I want to thank you for your time. Uh I won't go through the rest of the slides. We did show our objectives for 2026. We have 26 things that we hope to accomplish or continue on. U many of them you've heard highlighted today and or we will be covering. Um and we did highlight for those that want to read later some of the things uh and events and highlights from 2025 and we hope to have just as many if not more than in 2026. And just wanted to say thank you to the team. They all work really hard to make Queen Ans County great as I'm sure all the um county employees do and we're here to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you.

Thank you. I just want to say uh what a great team you have, Madame Director. On last Saturday night, I was in Easton and I walk into this fire hall and the first person that greets me is one of your employees. and uh I've seen you in College Park and I don't think the public knows how much time you folks put in during non-working hours and we're very grateful for all the work that you do. Good job. Thank you very much.

All right. All right, commissioners. Our next presentation uh also with Heather Tanelli is uh Catalyst Q closing reception and I think Shelley Gway is going to come up and join her for that. So that's item two in your book uh pages 34 through 40. She's showing this way. You get to sit down too. I look out for you. I I want you to have to stand up there that whole time. Thank you. Welcome very much. All right. Please continue.

So, commissioners, we have with us today um the participants of the Catalyst Q, which is our second minority entrepreneur accelerator program and Bay Crossing Consulting was the the leader of uh that cohort that is finishing up today. We're lucky enough that they get to graduate here before us and I wanted to hand it over to Shelley to give you a brief update about what was accomplished during the program. Thank you, Heather, and thank you commissioners for the opportunity. I am indeed um proud and privileged to have been selected um to facilitate this training. It is something that is near and dear to my heart as I've spent about 40 years a 40-year career developing financing and technical assistance programs for underserved businesses. So being able to do that here in my home county is just an awesome opportunity that I get goosebumps every time I think about the fact that Bay Crossing Consulting is delivering this. You probably already know this. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, over 20% of small businesses fail within the first year after they start. Only 35% of private sector companies established in 2013 continue to thrive in 2023. That means approximately twothirds of those businesses failed during a 10-year period. So we also know there is no prescription for being an entrepreneur. Some of us are learning it as we go. We are successful based on the experiences that we bring to the table as well as our um education and our family resources in the minority business community. Those things tend to be lagging behind the rest of the population. So I want to commend Heather and the commissioners for making this program a priority here in Queen Ans

County. Again, we were delighted to be selected to develop and implement the catalyst for minority business excellence in clean ass county. It represents a public private partnership that I don't believe today has existed before. Now it is with Bay Crossing Consulting taking the lead. Chesapeake College and the Maryland Small Business Development Center partnering with Queen Anne's Economic and Tourism Development to deliver what we believe to be a comprehensive program to effectively align with the program goals and to enhance the value and overall experience of the cohort participants. We took a page from creativity and innovation to say that this will not be the same as it has been and it will not look exactly like it's been done in other communities. And so we take pride in knowing that we've addressed key barriers faced by minority businesses, including but not limited to access to capital, business knowledge, legal and regulatory compliance, marketing and networking, and legacy wealth that we rarely have to draw from. Our project team is represented tonight by Dana Ule with 3E Ventures. Stand as I call your name, please. Shauna Payne with Be Academy and Scott Hines with the Maryland SBDC. Additional subject matter expert expertise was provided by K. Bowser, Maxine Whitelock with Max's Taxes, and April Richardson with Dirty Girl Legal. In addition, I am pleased to report that generous space was provided at the YM Mills campus of Chesapeake College by Dr. Cliff Copper Smiths who saw the overall value to this being housed on the college campus. I am pleased to introduce the Catalyst Q cohort number one participants who accepted the challenge and have successfully completed 12 weeks of intensive training and mentoring. As I call your name, please stand so you can be recognized.

Alicia Boyd with Humble Hearts Creative Catering, the sales ward with a garden warrior, Janelle King with King Beauty, Jean Pier Jean Pierre Lawrenelle with Intercultural Solutions, Kashara Brooks with Mentally Evolved Therapeutic Services, Monica Richards with Harbor Light Assisted Living, Sha IA Johnson with Tips and Toes and Toa Graves with Crafty Babe Creations. You may be seated. I am so proud by the challenges that they each brought to the table. None of them were um consistent across the board. They all presented their own unique challenges and experiences which we had to draw from. The 12week 2 and a halfhour workshop series ran bi-weekly from October 2025 through March 2026 and was comprised of in-person training. The workshops required these individuals to have an 85% attendance record and consisted of lectures, PowerPoint presentations, handouts, and an assignment to align with the complex presentation topics they received. Each participant was required to meet with a mentor bi-weekly to ensure comprehension and applicability of the training topic. Through this innovative approach, we've successfully delivered the required and yet critical optional services required by the Queen Ans County Economic and Tourism Development. In addition to the six months training, the cohort participants were reminded of the eligibility requirements and encouraged to apply for the sustainable mini grants

of up to $5,000 offered by economic and tourism development to support the next critical steps in their operations. They were also encouraged to participate in high-profile networking events in the county and region to pitch their businesses. And I do believe several of them will be competing in the start one up that will be held at Washington College within the next 30 days. So tonight culminates um the 12week curriculum culminates with tonight's presentation to you as well as a graduation ceremony and reception which will be held for the public tomorrow evening at the Kennard African-American Heritage and Cultural Center. While I've asked two of them to present tonight to give you a testimonial on their experience and how their businesses have been impacted, you'll get to hear from the rest of them tomorrow evening when you join us. So, as I conclude, on behalf of the Catalyst Q cohort number one participants, thank you each for your bold leadership in making this training and mentoring program a priority in Queen Ans County. Your continued support is required to maintain the momentum and level of of success that is represented here tonight. So, I'm going to step out of the way and allow our two stars to shine tonight. Here are two shining examples that represent minority business excellence in Queen Anne County. First, you will hear from Dales Ward, a garden warrior, and second, Pashawara Brooks with mentally involved Therapeutics. Thank you again for your support. Thank you.

Yes. So, my name is D. Sales Ward and my company is Garden Warrior LLC. As a minority, small woman-owned business in Graysonville, Maryland. We were very excited to learn about this opportunity last year and even more enthused by being selected to participate in this Queen Ans County program in September of 2025. We are a team of garden and lawn technicians comprised of 80% women focusing on residential environmental stewardship in our own backyard to protect the Chesapeake Bay, our community, the wildlife that drink from our waterways, and marine life that call the bay their home. We promote chemical-free hand weeding of gardens and lawns. Our service has expanded from basic weeding into garden design, garden installation, and custom customized lawn treatments. We started in July 2023 and hit the road running by implementing a variety of marketing strategies. In spite of the fact that we missed the 2023 spring business opportunities, we garnered sales of $12,000. In our second year, at the end of 2024, the business experienced a 400% growth spurt over 2023 sales with sales of $48,000. In 2025, it was as if someone applied a massive amount of organic fertilizer to the company as sales catapulted an additional an additional 300% to $122,000.

Wow.

The timing of this program was quintessential for the business. We had a sufficient client base and proved that there was a need for our services and a niche that we could fill. Small businesses have many challenges, many of them financial. To say that this program and program benefited the company sounds trivial. Quite the contrary. The benefits have been enormous and extraordinary. The guidance provided by the contracted facilitator Bay Crossing Consulting and its partnering leaders of the program, the subject matter experts, the mentors and the small business development center was consequential to preparing our company for growth. Armed with the right tools and information to protect this fast growing company. The financial investment that Queen's County dedicated to this program for this company was invaluable. Small businesses are faced with many challenges that require access to resources, including money to succeed in order to navigate and stay on a steady course. The company devoted the entire amount of the $5,000 grant funding to vital business missions. The expenditures included partnering with a law firm that fine-tuned client contracts, assisting in development of the comp company employee handbook and standard operating procedures and created a solid confidentiality non non-solicitation and noncompete agreement. It was also used in obtaining a Maryland home improvement contractor license, a requirement to put a shovel in the dirt in someone's residence, believe it or not. Also obtaining a shity bond, which was required by the Maryland Home Improvement Commission. The funds were also used to obtain a business license as a Maryland certified professional

fertilizer. uh also used the funding to purchase QuickBooks software which allowed me to be more efficient in my bookkeeping and to use up the last little bit of that funding purchased a back backpack leaf blower to add to our equipment inventory. So heartfelt gratitude is expressed this evening to the county commissioners, the team at Queens County Tourism and Economic Development, Shelley Gross Wade, CEO of Bay Crossing Consultants, Scott Hines, program manager at SBDC, and all the leader entrepreneurs who assisted with this irreplaceable program. This lineup of skilled guidance was the catalyst that will propel our company to success for years to come. Catalyst Q was the perfect name for this program. Thank you for supporting business excellence in Queen Anne's County. The knowledge, experience, and grant funding gained from Catalyst Q ensures our company has a solid foundation for sustainable growth. So, how many employees do you how many folks do you employ?

Eight. Eight. Full-time. No, they're all parttime. Parttime. Not Not to that point yet, but we just put them on W2s. Very good. Yeah. Uh, so I was glancing while you were doing your presentation. I was glancing at um the curriculum, but you guys weren't messing around.

No, it was fantastic. I mean, understanding the critical components of strategic business planning, legal advice services, accounting and bookkeeping services. Where's Jeff? Is he leave? Human re human resources and payroll, marketing, communications, sales and marketing, access to capital banking and education. Wow, it was fantastic. Outstanding. Invaluable. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you. All right.

Hello. I am Kashra Brooks and I'm a licensed mental health professional and I'm the founder of Mentally Evolved Therapeutic Services. It's a holistic and integrated remote wellness practice. At Mentally Evolve, we help adults and adolescents go from just surviving the day to become balanced through every part of life. We work with individuals who are always in motion, balancing responsibilities and navigating constant stress, still showing up for everyone else while feeling overwhelmed. My approach brings the mind and the body back into alignment. We help you understand your nervous system and recognize stress and learn how to regulate them in real time so you can move through life with clarity, control, and intention. We meet you where you are and equip you with the tools that you will use every day with mentally evolved. From the catalyst Q program, Mentally Evolved has grown. It has grown in its confidence in the way business is approached. The program catalyst Q has strengthened my foundation by evaluating what's working, identifying the gaps, and moving an intention instead of just operating from a day-to-day business. The program has allowed me to get into schools and provide services and just let the community know what I offer. The program has also given me clarity in my brand and my vision and I have refined how I communicate my services and confidence and I express it with a holistic mental wellness approach. The most benefit of the program was the

practical actionable tools. Everything I learned from uh business planning to marketing I was able to apply in real time. Most importantly, Catalyst Q shifted my mindset. I operate with um confidence in my decision- making and value the direction the the direction my business is going into. Lastly, the mentorship, the professional consultants created a space where I felt I could ask questions and gain insight and I truly appreciate that. I thank the economic development economic development tourists. I could thank the Queen Anne County Commissioner um Bay Consulting, Bay Crossing and Consulting and I thank the mentors in the program for helping me. Thank you.

Thank you. So, if you guys could give advice to somebody who is considering joining the next session, what would be the attend every session? No. Don't miss one. What about you? Really listen to the information that's being provided by the mentors and the consultants um that really guide it and stare at the direction. Awesome. Now, let's talk about this whole stress relief thing that you don't have any cards on you, do you? I do. That really caught my ear. Just a sec. All right. It's a stressful It's a stressful time for a few of us up here.

We will talk. All right. Picture. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, yeah, absolutely. Before we do, I'm sorry, Heather. Do you want Are you passing something out? You want to Yeah, we have the Oh, yeah. Give them to them so they can have the picture, right? Yeah. So, you'll pass that out and we'll get a photo. Okay. Patrick's got a question. Go ahead, Pat. Michel, could each uh each of the folks just give us a 30 second for the television? Sure. uh on what their specialty is. Yes, they'd be happy to do that. Yeah. Elevator pitch. We're put on the spot. I know you learned marketing in there, right? That's got to be one of the shark take this. Let's Who wants to go first? Okay, let's go. 30 seconds.

I'm going to bring the mic up. Going to bring the mic over. Stand up. Yes. Where's And you have to tell us how much homework Miss Shelly gave you. Work. Where am I looking? Right up here. Oh, to you guys. Okay.

My name is Shawia Johnson. I am the owner of Tips and Toes, a nail salon located in Chester, Maryland. I specialize in medical pedicures and structure structured manicures. So, anybody dealing with any type of foot trauma, brittle uh fingernails, I help restore your nails. So, I also consider myself the nail doctor um of Queen Anne County. Um, and that's all I have. Thank you. Nail doctor. I think that that sounds like a vanity tag for a vehicle. Nail doctor.

Hi, good afternoon. My name is uh Lisa Boyd and I'm the owner farmer of Humble Hearts Catering and Events. Um, we are a community food food food system that um, sorry, we're a community food system that helps operate and um, provide food services for local businesses, local events, and um, different things like that. So, that's what we are and and the food's really good. Thank you. Anyone else? Yeah. No, there's plenty.

Right down the line. Right down the line. Hi, I am Janelle King. I am the owner of King Beauty. I provide natural hair care services and bridal services to women and all families, showing them how to care for their natural hair and feel confident with wearing their natural hair. Awesome. Well, that ship sailed. Don't be a

Good afternoon. Good evening. Um, I'm Dr. Jeanpierre Lawreno and I'm the owner of Intercultural Solutions LLC and it's a business that focuses on bilingual communication as it relates to Spanish English, excuse me, Spanish English interpretation um also teaching conversational Spanish um and basically helping people communicate across lines of difference. Thank you. Okay, well done Jean Pierre. He's French.

Good afternoon. My name is Monica Richards and I'm with Harbor Light Assistant Living. I will be the ones that you guys will call when your loved ones need help 24 hours a day. I have a small house up to 15 people and I chose small community so that everybody can get the proper one-on-one care and everybody can get the love and everything that they deserve. So, I love my seniors. That is my passion. Awesome. Awesome. That everybody if I may please have two more minutes. Sure.

I'd like to hear from my two mentors um that did this journey with me. I'm going to ask um Shauna if she would go first and then I'm going to ask Dana if she would close us out with um remarks on their experience in the program. Come on up, Shauna. Thank you. Let Shauna see if she wants to see. She may want to stay right. She may want to just give her the mic. Too much.

Um, first of all, I want to say thank you um, Shelley for even entrusting me to be a mentor in this program. It was such an amazing experience being able to see these businesses come in and may not even know, you know, have a vision, a clear vision for their businesses, but just to see how far they have come over the last 12 weeks. Um, I am filled with gratitude. It's been a great experience working with them, mentoring them, and just seeing them grow over the last couple of weeks, working with the other mentors and consultants as well. It's actually helped me to continue to refine my business during the program. So, I really appreciate it and um I really enjoyed myself. Thank you to um you all the commissioners for supporting us in this initiative. Thank you to Heather Tanelli and economic tourism and development for their support as well. very very um necessary program in the county and I just hope that we can continue to um grow our cohort as time goes on.

Shauna, thank you for everything you do for our county. You are uh just a gift from God. I appreciate that.

So, I'm going to read from a paper. My name is Dana Ule. Um, and I just wanted to say as far as Catalyst Q, I was in this room a couple years ago, um, a part of the first accelerator program. So to be a part of the mentorship of this Catalyst Q, it's a it's a elevated elevated program, um, is just an honor. But when minority businesses succeed on Main Street in Queens County, it sends a powerful, inspiring message throughout every layer of our county. And that is opportunity lives here. When that happens, we're not just growing businesses. We're building economic diversity, resilience, and long-term prosperity for our entire community. And as the owner of Ule Enterprises or 3E ventures and Onyx Salon and Barberhop, I'm living proof that training accelerators like Catalyst Q level up entrepreneurs, develop their potential, and then give back because now I get to mentor the next generation in our county. Thank you.

Awesome. To the mentors, thank you very much. Thank you. Yep. Heather, you want to give out your Yes. Certificates, diplomas. the sales board.

Shia Johnson, Janelle King. Speaking

everybody needs to kind of shift this way and get you centered in the room.

That's good. That's good. Yeah. Heather, get in there. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Well done everybody. presentation. I know.

Hey, that's a quick Okay, thank you. All right. Ready.

Thank you. Good evening. Great job. Great job. See you tomorrow night. Oh, this guy's up. Yeah,

we're gonna have a hard time topping that presentation, but uh this is uh item number three in your books. uh also on the screen um and the feature presentation for tonight. This is the FY27 proposed county administrators FY27 budget. And uh let me first just say that this is a um culmination of a lot of hard work from all of our department directors and their teams outside agencies that have uh participated in this process which started back believe it or not in October of u of last year. So we've been working on the budget for quite a number of months. Um it ramps up in early u early January and we've we've put this together in a summary format for the commissioner consideration and review. So I'm going to go through the highlights of the operating side of the budget and the capital side and then we have our work sessions this week and next followed by our public information meetings you know in in May. So, um, kicking right into this, um, we have, um, the first slide shows our projected revenue for FY27 as 234.5 million, which is about a 12% increase over the budgeted amount for FY26. Our income tax and property tax obviously make up the line share of our revenues, 86.1%. And these tax rates are proposed to remain the same as the current fiscal year at 83 cents per $100 of assessed value. and 3.2% on the income tax rate. Next slide. Some of the budget uh highlights for the operating side of the house. Uh first up, board of education. We funded at 9.3 million above the FY26 appropriation. That does include a potential state pass down of an additional $644,000 for teacher pensions. Additional state pass downs we anticipate include um office of the assessment at $73,000, Chesapeake College pensions at $47,000. Those are pending.

I funded um new positions in the proposed FY27 budgets of seven new positions I've included. We'll get to those when we talk about the enhancements. We potentially have an additional seven new positions to support the circuit court second judge, which we don't know if that's going to pass the general assembly in Annapolis. But the good news is we will know by end of session, which is April 13th, and the commissioners be after that. So, more to come on that.

For our employees, I funded uh employee recruitment and retention actions, including a 3% cost of living allowance and pay for performance. And we've included 7.7 million in the capital program as PEGO funding for our capital projects which we'll get into as well. Uh the next slide is um we we've had these typically over the past few years. This is a a summary of the state funds uh that the board of education gets from our the state of Maryland for um education. And uh the state funding for next year is 45 million and change. And they are about three and a half million behind their projections uh for FY27. And over the past six years, you can see in the chart the red numbers at the bottom there through FY22 through FY27, we're about 12 million less than was originally projected from the state cur funding plan. So the state's not keeping up, but the next slide shows how uh the commissioners have been keeping up. The county funds for the board of education and our public schools uh for next year is proposed at 91.4 million, which is 8.86 86 million above MOE for next year. That does not include the additional 1.3 million to fully cover the state pensions for the teachers which we anticipate we're going to get this year. Notably here you can see we were above maintenance of efforts commissioners funded above the last three years uh starting in FY24 at 6.3 million 7 million and then 7.6 million uh this current year and now up to 8.6 million above.

So Ty, real clear while we're on this point to clarify for the public. So they really understand the significance of what we're doing here. The Kerwan funding formula, the end all be all, greatest education funding system in the world, would have the school system getting a million 1,100,000 less than last year based on the Kerwin funding because of student enrollment. That's right. That's right. So we're basically funding them almost $10 million over what we have to Yeah. And that's actually um and that's four million less than what they were asking for in their budget. So they typically wanted 15 million over what?

That's correct. Commission required by the state. Required by the state who said that this is the end all beall and this will fund every school fully. But as you stated already, and I can't bring this up enough because the public needs to know, 3.5 million of it sits in the state coffers. And if anybody was watching TV recently, the state budget since 2017, the year before CR went into effect, has almost doubled 41 billion to 72 billion this year. And yet, we continue to have costs shift down to the county. And we continue to have to fund these kind of uh increases. And and if another thing, if you look at FY20 versus FY27 and the amount of the budget, right, how much it's increased, almost double.

Almost double. So like basically, if you were to go back just a couple more years and just imagine that you put your kid in school at first grade and by the time they graduate, the county budget for education has doubled. Yep. But the amount of students who are going to class with your kids has not doubled. It's actually been flat or down. So, I mean, that's when you put that into perspective. It's an incredible amount of increase in funding, but it's not because there's more incredible amount of more students. There's less students now than we had several years ago.

And this is not a knock on our teachers or anything else. This is just a a reality check for not only Queen Ans County, but the state of Maryland and every other county in the state that how to to Commissioner Corkino's point, how long can you continue to double every six years your budget? I mean, it's impossible. And, you know, I feel like change has got to come and it's not coming this year. Everybody knows that's election year. Nobody's going to make any drastic changes, but I feel like in the future there's going to be uh changes coming. So, it's going to have to be. Let's face it. My first term, the entire budget back in 2012 when we worked on it was almost 100 million.

Education alone is 91. I I mean it's just unbelievable. That's just the operational. Lot lot of folks don't realize that doesn't count the capital. That's just capital. So that's right. All right. Ready to move on. Now we pass it down. Go ahead.

We have one more slide that depicts kind of some points that you made. Commissioners have made here. This is the uh from Department of Legislative Services. The red box is Queen's County. This shows what the state projected what our share should have been from FY25 through FY34. The star there is between FY31 and FY32. So we're at a funding level at the county at the county's um portion at about 2031 and FY27 at 914 million. So we're um several years ahead of the curve there ahead of the schedule based on the lack of or the depletion of the state funds. So okay moving on and we'll have uh our first work session is on Thursday and that's uh front and center will be board of education. So for that work session uh this is our pie chart that we do each year. This is a proposed revenue uh source pie chart summary. No no no surprise here. Income tax and property tax the line share at 45% and 41% respectively. So um go to the next slide. This next slide is the matrix of values that u we used to generate that pie chart that we just looked at. And you can see the real and personal property taxes and income taxes at the top there. The the big revenue sources followed by recordation taxes. Uh transfer taxes which continue to be strong due our housing sales and home sale markets that are strong. Interest income is is down a bit but still good at at 5 million. So those are the primary sources of revenue that we anticipate receiving uh this year for FY27. Uh the next slide shows our expense pie chart. Similarly, uh just shows how the uh the pie is divided. Board of Education gets the lion share at 42.8% followed by public safety, which is Department of Emergency Services, detention center, the sheriff's office, and our volunteer fire organizations. Uh those are the two large expenditure

sections of the overall budget, followed by the public works and other expenses that we have. Then we have the next several slides. We have all of the county agencies by division and department showing the uh the allocations for FY27. Again, the matrices that's uh produced the pie chart. Generally, uh departmental increases are up by somewhere between five and 7% primarily for uh staffing, salaries, and benefit increases for uh for health health care and OPED. I'll highlight a few increases that are above that. Uh first um from um our finance department budget and finance a bit higher there due to um additional accounting support for the town of Southernersville. Human resources uh is now covering new expenses for the new peer-to-peer counseling program to help our volunteer service providers and our public safety providers. The public housing authorities up a little higher than that. That reflects a new staff member that we have for the public housing authority included in the budget. On the next page, we have public works and parks and recreation. We have a bit of an increase, a larger increase for animal services, for kennel equipment and emergency lighting and other safety features. Some good news, uh, our airport and golf course. You'll see a decline there. Um, they're down as a result of lower general fund transfers to those agencies that are largely uh, enterprise for loans that have been paid off and um, increasing revenues from the golf course. They're doing very well down there. Uh currently on the next page uh we have the board of education. You can see 11.2% increase for them at the $9.3 million allocation. And I will say that um that allocation does keep the board of education whole. They don't have to make any other staffing reductions. That does give them exactly what they have currently to maintain their current programs. Um

so the additional 3 million times, what was that going to cover to get to the 12 million? you know, that would be the additional and they'll I'm sure they'll get into that a little bit more, but that included u additional teacher specialists for math and reading and other administrative costs. So, it'd be it'd be replacing positions that they they had originally funded with grant dollars that they had to reduce the staff force. And they're all part of Kerwin initiatives though, those those positions or are they I mean are are those positions required to meet the Kerwin uh edict in the future or No, I I don't I don't believe just back filling. That's just the teacher specialists are the first ones that they had to um a couple years ago couple years ago.

And how many was that total? 36 or 37.6 36 or 37. Yeah, we have those those numbers in your binders for Thursday's meeting. Yes, it's about 36 or 37 positions. We'll talk some more about those with our partners at the board of education. Yep.

Okay. Uh moving on. Um we had some increases uh above that 5 to 7% threshold for the state's attorney's office. That was due to conversion to a new case management software system for the state's attorney. Um I did include in the circuit court one additional position for a jury commission position they need now that's not in addition to the seven positions that we may have to add for the second judge board of elections um is up due to leasing of the pole book equipment and um soil conservation service you can see they're down 43% due to staff reductions uh one and a half FTEES due to federal and state cutbacks over at soil conservation On the next uh slide, we have uh some of the other expenses and debt and transfers. You'll see that intergovernmental is up due to increasing funding for the assessment office estat and town tax offsets and additional fees for the state pension administration that we have received. Insurance is up due to higher premiums obviously for healthcare and inclusion of the public housing authority and our capital fund transfer is higher due to additional PGO support for capital program uh proposed for FY27. Okay, so this slide just generally shows what the big changes were or the changes overall in revenues and expenditures from the current budget year to FY27 proposed. FY26 again was budgeted at 209 million and we have a total change of 25.1 million in revenue uh comprised of property tax income taxes and transfer recreation taxes and that money went to the majority of that money went to the board of education at 9.3 million uh transfer to capital for capital projects miscellane miscellaneous departments including elections health department

state attorney Ches college and uh 1.7 million for public safety increases Uh here's our um real property tax rate by county statewide. Just a summary, this is where the rates are currently. Uh Queen's County is now the fourth lowest property tax rate in the state. And as you can see, I've got some stars there above a few of the bars. Uh they indicate counties that have a AAA bond rating by all three rating agencies. And you can see we are the lowest uh tax rate with the best bond rating out there that you can get, which is better than the state of Maryland currently. So, we wanted to highlight that. That's quite an achievement that we um reached this year, a pinnacle for for our bond rating agencies.

Chris Chris sacrificed a shirt for that. That's right. That triple triple AAA. Yep. Would you do that like run around naked with like the soccer after you score a goal or what? No. Never helped. Yeah. Yeah, I don't want to know now. And then I thought, hey, wait, what happens on tour stays on tour, right? That's right. Say you lose your shirt in finance, sometimes you do, you know. That's right. That's right.

But it's it's a great thing we our team that went up there in New York to get that AAA bond ready from all three agencies. A very very very good uh tip of the hat there. So, uh, next, uh, the next several pages are the enhancements that were requested by the various agencies and departments, and I'll run through the ones that we included, uh, in this draft budget. Uh, first was for the Department of Aging, a new uh, nonCDL bus driver. For the board of education, we have the $9.3 million allocation above uh, last year's uh, budget. uh Ches College 190,000 to increase their increase their local allocation and community college retirement for the state mandate circuit court the position for the jury assignment commissioner one position there you can see there's two other positions there that we have not included yet but we may have to add those in based on that for for a bail in the court recorder uh for department of emergency services they um asked for a number of positions but the the top one that director hos uh requested that we fund would be for a new dees communications captain which I included at $110,595. Uh on the next sheet uh we included uh salary increases for the board of elections uh the extension services and these are all consistent with what the county workforce would be receiving as proposed. Uh for the fire EMS commission, our volunteer fire companies, uh we have increases for training expenses, radios for the new apparatus, uh the accessible base allocation increase uh and ambulance allocation, so 311,000 for the FEC and for our public housing authority, one additional position. Uh they asked for two actually, but they the highest priority was for a new assistant property manager to assist with their property management at the housing authority. Uh on the next sheet we have um some intergovernmental expenses statemandated

for the uh uh assessment office at 73,000. The library included uh one new position for an outreach library associate for the public library in addition to some part-time youth services uh in the state pension shift. And for our parks department, we had one full-time, excuse me, part-time to full-time conversion for a park technician and additional coverage for their invasive weed management program at $99,530 for the parks department. I believe this is the last sheet of the enhancements and we'll have an opportunity to work with commissioners on all these with the uh departments and agencies during the budget works work session. So, there may be some changes obviously uh for the sanitary district. Hey, hey, talk. Hold on a sec because I was writing some down. What' you say the 99,000 for parks was?

That was for uh conversion of one park technician from part-time to full-time at 49,000 and additional coverage for the invasive weeds program at 50,000. Okay, those two. So on on the charts there, you can see what was requested on the left and then the funded uh CA funded uh column on the right, which is the ones I've selected for the budget.

Thank you. You're welcome. um sanitary district for a new chief wastewater operator primarily to help with the uh the new plant in Sersville and that is an enterprise fund. So that really doesn't come out of the general fund. Uh for the sheriff the next two the sheriff I just want to highlight sheriff and state attorney here are five additional positions that we would need to include if we are to get a second circuit court judge. Uh so that's pending. So overall the enhancement um requests included 28 positions. I selected seven of those for funding. The total requested enhancements was 16.2 million and I funded 10.8 million of that which the majority goes to our public school system 9.3. All right. That's uh the operational highlights. Uh capital. Any questions? We go to capital. All right. On slide 21, we have our budgeted highlights for the capital program. Again, front and center, board of education, we have funding for the design of the new Centerville Middle School, HVAC replacements for Canard, Centerville Elementary, roof replacement at Canard Elementary, and a paving repaving project at Ken Island High School. We have a bus replacement, furniture replacements, and uh several other um maintenance projects. That does not include uh 7 million from the state, but uh some of those projects are state shared revenues, but we have 16.4 for Board of Education, Ches Peak College. We've included funding for the new Queen's Tech Center, which is uh should be in design now. That is a total of 56.4 million project, which our share is about 4 million. Other funding from the state will be included and along with our other uh counties in the Chesapeake College Arena. For emergency services, we've got funding for the Motorola console upgrade. Um two ambulances, one of which has been ordered already. Radio

subscriber replacements for um volunteer fire companies, public works, DEES, and other agencies that use the radios. and uh the public safety network the annual allocation for life cycle replacement and modernization of our comm system at emergency services. Lastly on this sheet we have 1.25 million slated for the uh regional hospital which is also is under construction. This is the third year of a 4-year commitment at 1.25 million for the uh hospital. Next sheet we have housing authority. Uh we have major repairs and maintenance planned for Fisher Manor, Riverside Estates, Graysonville Terrace, Terapin Grove, Foxtown, and the various scattered sites. Um we do anticipate receiving some CDBG grant funding. And I believe there's some action item another action item this evening for um for some grant applications for some paving projects. For our volunteer fire companies, we have 835,000 funding for purchase of apparatus and facility construction at the nine local volunteer fire companies. animal services, we've included funding 250,000 for planning and design of the new animal services shelter and adoption center. And we have um for roads, we have funding for a new pedestrian bridge overpass across the US 5301 on Kent Island. 85% of that is anticipated to be funded by a grant, 3.1 million overall. We hope to get notice of that award by June of this year. All right, continuing on slide 23. For our parks department, we have uh additional funding for the uh South Island Trail extension, capital equipment, athletic field work, uh primarily for White Marsh, White Marsh Park field lighting, and other playground equipment projects associated with the parks department. Uh 2.7 million for the recreations division. We have funding for land acquisition, design, and construction, excuse me,

contract development of uh the new recreation center at 10.5 million. For general services, we've included funding for the renovations of the historic courthouse and other renovations to county facilities, including uh new roof at the health department and renovation of the exterior um skin of the EMS station 400 out at um Safety Drive. information technology. We have um funding for infrastructure and other technology projects including uh replacement of computer hardware, software and operations of our county data center and continued uh fiber line redundancies to prevent outages if we are to unfortunately get a fiber line cut at one of our fiber branches coming into the data center. Uh the next sheet uh the final highlight sheet for capital. For roads we have 5 million for system preservation including asphalt overlays, bridge maintenance, rehab and capital equipment. This also includes about a half million dollars for special benefit assessments for primarily uh roads in Kent Island states that are ongoing. There's our user fees that come back in. We're continuing and wrapping up our southern Kent Island uh sewer extension project phases three and four. We have 4.8 8 million. We should be complete with phase three in October of this year and uh should be wrapping up phase 4 by January of 2028. Southernersville, we have a $3 million BNR grant to um install a post anoxic reactor to uh tank to meet the nitrogen discharge permit goals at the new uh at the existing wastewater plant in Sersville. And for Marlin Farms and Dominion, our next big sewer project, we have funding for the planned connection uh of Marlin Farms and Marlin Farms and Dominion subdivisions. And that is for design efforts. We did receive some concept design work this past week, but that'll be continuing at no

construction. This is all for design activities and uh working with MDE to get um the through the smart grid coordinating committee process. So and and you want to take a stab at when that process is actually going to start where the systems will be installed and the the design will be FY27 and 28 largely and then probably into FY 2930 would potentially be the start of construction. Okay. So we're still a few years after that. Takes a while to get that teed up and uh and through the state process to extend those lines outside of designated growth zones. There's a lot and we're going to start where Dominion first and then I haven't made that decision yet. Okay. So, we'll be working through that as we uh do the planning and design the next couple years.

All right. Did you say Billville 3 million was a grant? Yes. BNR. BNR grant. Yeah. BNR grant. Yeah. Mhm. Okay. Okay, this next sheet um just another pie chart that kind of shows uh pictorial um view of the capital budget by the funding sources that we have including bonds, grants, PO and capital fund balance and of course we have some loans for the Southern Can Island Sanitary Project 8.4%. So that just gives you a pictorial per perspective of how that uh looks. Uh 62.8 8 million as our total uh FY27 capital program uh with those revenue streams that I just mentioned. And

where's our bond fund balance sitting right now? Bond 113 million. We can get you the history on that too. That's close enough for right now. Okay. Thank you, Jeff. What was the question?

What our bond fund balance is? Uh the next slide, slide 26 is our another slide showing the capital budget by function. And this just breaks down the capital budget by general projects, board of education, roads, and sanitary. So, uh public housing authority kind of gives you a picture and some numerical matrix values of the their various capital dollars allocated by function in the county agencies and departments. And then lastly wrapping up, uh we have a whole series of slides. This is our six-year capital budget as proposed currently. We have, as always, one funding year, FY27, followed by five planning years, FY28 through FY32. This includes all the agencies and departments that we oversee and fund. So, we'll be going over these with the um the agencies and departments over the next couple of weeks. We can dig into this a little bit more, but the key the key year obviously is FY27 and we use the the planning years to make sure we're um setting our spending limits and our bond capacity at the appropriate levels and our our our friends at the New York at the rating agencies like to see this because we try to manage you know our funds and our growth and how we manage our long-term uh planning for capital projects. So this is an important document but it does it is subject to to change you know each year we adjust this. It's It's always a work in progress, but it provides a good planning document for our uh financial future. So, uh there's several slides here and if there's any specific questions you have about any of the projects, we can certainly get into those. We have a uh a capital projects book uh that we sent electronically to the commissioners. We also have those over here in paper format and that outlines every capital project and gives you a little brief description of each of those. And you can see um there's a a summary page in the front that shows the page number. So, particular project you're interested in, learn more about,

there's a summary sheet in the books that you can review that and understand. Are are they in order for the in order the departments that we're going to see or they are in order? Okay.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. There's two the one capital book is um a summary for all the departments and then the uh the other larger bonding will include the agencies that we'll be reviewing. Okay. uh with meeting with uh Thursday starting Thursday and then next week and the following week and they're they're in order. If there's other departments that we haven't um asked to come in or haven't scheduled a meeting with some of the smaller ones we we haven't we didn't feel like they really need to, but if there's others that you would like uh to visit at the third meeting, let us know and we will invite them in. They're on standby on the ready. So that's what this last slide shows. Our work sessions over this week and the next two um county commissioners official budget release would be April the 29th. We have our public information meetings, our hearings. Um traditionally we do Stevensville on the 18th on the Monday, Centerville the 19th, Sersville on the 20th. Then we have a final work session to make any last adjustments and then we would adopt the budget potentially at our meeting on uh June the 9th. That was a lot and I hope I didn't take too much time but it's a big high level summary. Again I want to thank uh our director of budget and finance Jeff rank. He's put a lot of time into this as well as our other departments but he's uh he's done wonders to make this summary look good look presentable and it's it's a lot of it's a lot of number crunching and um so it's it's a good starting point for the commissioners to make suggestions modifications for their uh final budget. Well, speaking of starting points, uh, Commissioner Corino and I myself sit on the spending affordability committee as you know, and we've seen this presentation now. Uh, this is my third time, I think. Uh, and, uh, I think the thing that strikes me the most is how our revenues have really climbed and, uh, that's a good testament to the economy in Queen Ans County and who's

living in Queen Ans County, I guess, and it's driving that number up. Um, but with that being said, I'm going to make a motion that we reduce our uh property tax from 83 cents to 80 cents uh on the revenue side. Uh I think it's time we give some of this back to the public uh in a balanced way. Second that. I'll second that. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion?

Yeah. Um so I agree um with your motion. Um, and just so people have some um, perspective on this of where the county was back when Phil first came to office, he was handed a big mess um, of a budget and it's taken a long time to rebuild the county out of that with county boys not getting raises, people being cut off. Um, slowly through fiscal constraint, we have we've gone from bonding cars to be able to pay for cars Um, we've built up the rainy day funds so that if there's ever another sort of economic downturn, we're not going to be laying off citizens who work for the county. Um, we have gotten to a point where we've we got our parks up to where they should be. We've built the new buildings that we should have. We've replaced roofs. We've got the roads on a regular uh pattern so that if there's an economic downturn, you can say, "Well, you know, we don't have 18y old ambulances. We can maybe push off another year if we need to. If we if we can't pave the roads this year, we can push it off another year because we've used a lot of fiscal constraint to get to this point. But we're in really good shape now." Um, and I think you're right. And the citizens are taking just tremendous amounts of hit from the ridiculous electric bills,

electric bills, groceries, other things. uh we can't do anything about those, but this is something that that we can do. And yeah, and just to like add some context to that, and I was that's why I asked what the bond number was. Now, when I came in in 2015, the bond was 125 million um countywide and Jeff saying it's 113. So, we've been able to build the courthouse, fund all of our road projects, board of ed,

board of ed building. We've done a lot of work and we've reduced the bond debt for the county. Um, which lends itself to a lot of the reason that we're AAA bond rating right now is because of the fiscal constraints over the last 15 years and 10. Yeah, 15 really now. Um, and you know, you look at the rest of the state and I will tell you from what I know, the other 23 jurisdictions in the state of Maryland and probably most municipalities are going to be raising taxes this year. Um, because of u we discussed earlier some of the the stuff coming down from the state. They're balancing their budget on the backs of the counties. Um, you know, we've funded our board of ed uh extraordinarily well. So, we've checked all the boxes. Our public safety is probably one of the best funded in the state of Maryland right now. And we're looking to add another paramedic unit hopefully this year once we get through this budget cycle. Um, as part of that, and you know, I think overall, if you look at it, now's the time. We we've got the boxes checked. Like Chris said, our rainy day funds are in good shape. We've got a good six-year outlook on the capital budget. Um and and now now better time than ever I think in my 12 years to

make a series and and love the idea. I mean I just did gas is 379 a gallon, right? We have we have a lot of seniors. Yeah. I mean we have a lot of seniors fixed income people in this county that are not see and that that own houses here that are not seeing that kind of money coming back through their fixed incomes to cover groceries and electric bills and things like that. this this will be for a lot of people this will be at a two to300 dollar at least minimum a year uh savings. So I mean I know it's not the world but it it does help. So

um does how how's this affect uh our AAA bond rating? Are there concerns with uh reducing the property tax down to 80 cents? Interesting. But you guys don't want to touch that one. No, we we we talked about that. We had we, you know, we we definitely talked about that and I don't think it's going to affect us. You know, we're we're in good shape as this reduction this reduction still puts us ahead in growth from the last budget cycle. Meaning that we're not we're our revenues are not lower now than they were for the 26. They're still above it. It's still

stillove still above 10%. So, you know, and we've always been cautious with this. So, I think the three cents on on the property tax uh is a good thing. And you know, I mean, I'm sure people will clamor and want us to take the uh, you know, the income tax and and again, next year if we have another 25 $30 million, we probably will look at that. But well, fiscal constraint as quantitative easing is what they call it, right? As you're

in. Yeah. I mean, and plus the income tax can be the most volatile. I mean, property taxes other than when the state gets their hands on it, are typically pretty steady that you can budget off of, income tax becomes can become very volatile in a in a up and down economy. I do want to say that I think we're going to have to update that one chart. Which chart would that be? I think it's that one that had the stars on it with us. Go back real quick. Let's show That's right. We will have the lowest property tax rate in the entire state of Maryland. Well, that'll make us lowest. I don't I don't know of any other county that's Everybody else is going up that's below us. So, I think that's going to slide us below finally. But the lowest property taxes in the state. Yes, that's true. That's a proud moment. Yeah.

But to answer your question directly, Commissioner, it's not going to affect our bond rating provided we just continue the same fiscal stewardship and uh and we got to keep doing what we're doing. Jeff, do you remember we did a tax reduction back in 2023 as well, right? Do you remember what that was ago? That was one penny and a half. Penny and a half. Okay. Yeah. We were at 847 took us down to 83. 83. Yeah. Yep.

Well, I I just I'll be last, I guess. Um, I just couldn't think of a better time to do this. Um, with ESAT increasing people's tax assessment, the highest I've ever seen in 30 years of living over here. Uh, this is the right thing to do at the right time. And you know what's exciting about this is that people want to live here. People are coming over here. They're escaping the the larger counties. They don't want uh, you know, they're leaving the crime. They're leaving the high density and they're coming to the greatest county in the state of Maryland. And we are the greatest county in the state of Maryland because of you guys and and and you folks and our our employees throughout the county, our volunteer fire department, our our veterans, our farmers, our watermen, and it truly is the best county to live in. So, I'm This is my most exciting vote, and I'm just happy.

It should be. I'm just happy to be here. It should be really good. So, with that being said, yeah, for everybody's done, I guess we'll take the vote. All those in favor of lowering the property tax by 3 cents per 100 say I. I I opposed. So moved. There you go. So, we have a new starting point for the budget, but I think that uh get to work. Sharpen those pencils. Sharpen those pencils. As you did before, it's time to get back to it. Get the money, boys. Two days. Two days. Thursday's first uh budget meeting. So, okay. So, the rest of the people, we don't have any more money. Is that what we're saying here? Oh, no. I do. No, that's that group. I We got something.

We still got We got money back there for that group. That's my group back there. Have fun, Jeff. You got some Anyway, Mike, you already got yours. I saw yours up there. All right. Thank you. Thank you. What do we got? Tab. So Jeff, we Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, that's somebody else. Hey, Patrick, everybody else going the other way. I know. I know. Well, the two went this way. Nothing. Last year we were second. I think Talbert's going to raise their time. COVID's got to go up. They don't have a choice. Schools. They're getting hit hard on the schools this year because they were in a different situation everybody else for some reason where

their five and six for them were just horribly high. Um, I know Dorchester settled out because I talked to them. They're in pretty good shape, but it's, you know, all right. Sure. Ready to go? Yeah.

Okay. Commissioners, we have four action items and two desk items. So, if you want to turn to tab number three, uh, first item, tab three, page one, items one or pages one through nine. We have an amended deed of open space for Robert and Teresa Smith, the Hopeland's subdivision. Um, previous ownership of the subject parcel received planning commission approval to create 13 lots. Uh, consequently, the owner placed a 35 acre uh, protective open space easement to support the development. Current owner received planning commission approval to create a slide lot 14 uh, at 1.25 acres and reduce the existing building pad by.18. As a result, the open space requirements on lot one decreases from 35 to 34.6 acres. So that's the amendment for that open space.

I move to execute the amended of open space easement for the Robert Teresa Smith Hoplan's major subdivision plan. Second motion in a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Absent. One. Okay. Absent. Ready.

Okay. All right. Item two on pages 10 through 19, we have an amended and restated perpetual protective agreement deed of forest conservation easement. Easement and release. This is down at the RB Baker and Sons uh property in Queenstown. Uh this was for a major site plan to create two new industrial buildings on the subject lot. 2.12 acres of existing woodland where it put it into a protective forest easement. Uh so now we're anticipating some future development on site. The owner is now seeking to increase the net track area for development from 14 to 17.9 acres and the mitigation for forest conservation requirements increases from 2.12 to 4.2. 27. So, the owner is proposing to terminate the current protected forest area of 2.12 acres and provide 4.27 acres of forest protection in a new location on the same site. So, this is good news. There's, you know, the little industrial area building complex right there AC same side where the rubble fill is. So, this provides some additional uh business opportunities on that site

on the site where they already had the commercial on that site. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I move to execute the amended and restate a perpetual protective agreement deed of forest conservation easement and release for the Baker and Sons Incorporated amendment and to forest conservation plan. Second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I opposed. Absent one.

All right. Thank you, commissioners. Item three on pages 20 through 63. This is a community development block grant application for uh approval and signatures and our department of housing and family services. Mr. Mike Clark is here. He's requesting the commissioner's approval and signature on the various documents to the community development block grant application that was awarded. Um this completes the process and we must obtain the elected official signatures to move this forward. Uh this is for uh request of 136,000 in CDBG funding uh for paving projects I believe at uh Fiser and Riverside states.

I move to approve and execute the statutory checklist request for lease fund form and public facility agreement of the community development block grants environmental review process for the department of housing and family services. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I opposed. So moved. All right. Do you want to say anything? It's It's just that being ominous out there, Mike, that we're going to approve it. It's just you're like you look very ominous there when you're sitting there waiting for us to approve it. So All right. Thanks, Mike. We'll see you Friday. You guys haven't caught up yet. See you Friday. We're going to meet him Friday. Yeah. Better early than Mike.

All right. Uh our last action item in the book. That depends on the subject matter. At least you're better than and our parks director. You bring us something to look at versus just asking for I'm going to need $250,000 for a car. Commissioner Duven is going to actually demo this model. Who wants Who wants to Who wants to be the guinea pig, right? Not me. We're going to shock him. Actually, when he saw the demo before, he shocked Zack. So, he's not allowed to shock Zack tonight. We're going to shock you, Phil. No. No.

We do the depend how deep we want to get. Actually, I had stopped in at at DEES for something completely different and managed to catch the uh manufacturers representative doing a a pitch and presentation to the team at dees and uh it was amazing. What did you just left with, you know, when is this when is this going to be available? When do we get to, you know, bring it in? And it was very very impressive and I just got lucky by stopping in that day. So, um, pretty cool stuff.

All right. When your book's on, uh, tab three, item four, pages 64 through 66. This is from obviously dees. They utilize the ZO X series monitor defiill for advanced life support uh, and patient care. Um, the current systems do remain operational. However, we're ready to replace them and upgrade them to the new systems. And this is an example where we've um accelerated the funding or proposed to accelerate the funding for these over a 5-year period at a 0% financing rate. So, it's a it's a great deal to get these uh units replaced over the next five years. So, I I I commend uh you know, Scott and his team, you know, Zach for taking advantage of this opportunity to generate, you know, savings of about a quart million dollars over the time horizon to replace all these units and allows us to modernize this critical life-saving equipment for the uh for our departments. I move to authorize director of department of emergency services to purchase 19 Zenenix cardiac monitors at 0% financing for 5 years totaling 219,75572 per year.

Second. Got a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by saying I. I opposed. So move. And Bruce, you want to be the guinea pig for the demonstration here? Hold on. Can I push the can I push the shock button? Yeah, you can. All right. Come on, Bruce. Get up here. Let's see how much. Gentlemen, thanks very much and appreciate your patience today. Mr. Director, are there any departments that have any of those now in the county? Yeah.

So, Goodwill is currently in the process of purchasing one50 grand. Is that correct? And then is piggybacking off the deal that we're doing and upgrading their monitors to the same thing. The entire fleet of monitors across the county are all monitors. Now everything that is old, still my cloud base is still usable on on the system we're using. The the defib pads that we want to demo on on Bruce are universal for ads and any monitor that we have in our system. Right. reason Zach really pushed to to do this is like every manufacturer when they upgrade they change all the bells and whistles on it.

So a lot of the components are not compatible with old monitors. So we had a choice of either stocking two different things over a course of several years or switching all the monitors at one time and and just keeping stock of one one type. So you gentlemen can say you are the first EMS agency in the state of Maryland to have this monitor fleetwide. No, you're the person warranty. Yep. Warrantied for five years, which is consistent with a lot of the things you guys do. Just fix it. So, basically what if there's an issue that comes up with a warranty, then we can just take put it in a box and they'll ship us one over like 24 hours overnight.

So, there's limited down time of any of it. And eventually at some point, this is has a modular pod design that you'll be able to warehouse pods and then either a service tech will come to you to install it. Hopefully down the road, we can train house people on our own logistics section to just do that ourselves. So you're talking from what was a day down to hopefully less than an hour time on a unit. Cool. Very good. To cover more than an an infar. Mhm. Yeah. So it'll monitor all in the in the unit to the ER.

It'll monitor. It'll transmit. We actually have the ability now with this one to compare dynamic uh 12 leads to static 12 leads what we've previously taken all on one screen. Um, there's actually an ability in this that it connects to a tablet so that you can have the screen in multiple places in the ambulance. So no matter where you are, you can see what's going on with a patient. Uh, that tablet will eventually have the ability to talk back to that monitor and you can just enter in demographics and it go to the ER. Yep. The ER will be able to see it. Really? Yes. Edge stuff. Whenever you have four hours, Zach would like to demo every component of this with you. Whenever you have four hours, I would like that.

Only if you bring Bruce so I can light them up. QACV. We'll just do it in the QAC TV right there. We can I would I would like that. Okay. Any Thank you. All right. Thank you. Welcome back anytime, Phil. I want to see the new striker beds, too, for for the 400 pounders. Or is it 500? Really? Wow. of course. How do you get there from a lot of manower? Yeah. Thanks for all you do, guys. Thank you for your support. So, thank

All right. Thanks, gentlemen.

Yep. You're welcome. Thank you. Commissioners, two desk items to wrap up the uh items for your action tonight. Uh desk item one. This is um the Maryland Science Center is uh celebrating their upcoming 50th anniversary and advocating for an opportunity to reflect on the science c center's meaningful partnerships with student educators and families here in Queen's County. And they are uh seeking financial support for recognition of their services and any financial assistance that could have a direct positive effect on the county's students by underwriting field trips uh for our students. So um over the past five years they've said that about 1,700i citizens have participated in a fe free field trip to the science center. So um just a request for uh funding support for their 50th anniversary if you you're so inclined. You got to pick a number.

I move to contribute. How much? 2500. 2500 to the Maryland Science Center for their 50th anniversary. Got a motion. Can I get a second? Second. Motion and a second. Any discussion or questions on that? Seeing none, all in favor? I opposed. row one. All right. All right. Thank you, commissioners. We just reused that $2,500. That's right.

Uh desk item two. Uh we received a variance request uh for the Bay Bridge uh boat repair storage building from um Hink BB Holdings LLC, which is in compliance with the requirements of resolution 2603, which was adopted by the county commissioners at last meeting. And um at this point the commissioners um can request comment and recommendations on granting of the waiver. I would suggest we uh forward this to the airport board for review.

So I uh I move that we uh convey uh the variance request over to the uh airport board for review and comment um and ask them to our next meeting is actually three weeks away. So let's ask them to get us to review and comment within two weeks. That way we have in time for action at the next meeting and if they need a little bit of buffer in between it gives us some extra time but okay second. Got a motion and a second to convey to the airport board the variance. Um any more discussion? Seeing none all in favor? I opposed. 40 and one.

All right. Actually I want to raise one more thing on the actions. Um if we can I there's the um tonight they're having um a town a open meeting on this solar uh field that's down Kenpoint Road where they want to cut down trees to put in solar panels which seems really backwards. Um

that's an area that prior to the state legislation would not have been allowed for solar under under county zoning. Um and I and for those who are watching don't know you know there was some legislation at the state level last year that basically basically did it took away local control. So the county commissioners have no vote on whether or not that solar uh field goes there. But um and we knew this was coming and that we would get them in locations we didn't want them. I think this one is particularly bad considering Queens County is one of the locations counties the least amount of tree canopy coverage and now we're going to cut down more trees for the solar. Um I think we should uh send a letter um I make a motion that we send a letter of opposition to the public service commission for this project.

Yes and I agree and also and we we really need to highlight the issue with um and you did it with the tree. There's no mitigation um program with this per the state. they can cut trees down and there's no requirement for mitigation anywhere else. Whereas anywhere else you deforest for any kind of development. You then have to put that somewhere else in the county. No requirement for that. So, a lot of bad stuff came out of that bill. Um and and again, um I don't know. That's that's commissioner. We were asleep at the wheel too long ago, sadly.

Can we request um POS and metal testing on the panels before they go up? through an independent lab, not through the state. The federal we're not allowed to put up any obstructions to it. We can oppose it. I didn't say it's an obstruction. It is an obstruction. Yeah. You're you're you're putting requirements on what they can EPA is concerned about pollution. Exactly. That the EPA should has to look into that. The the state legislation takes a lot of that away from us is the problem. Understand? We're preempted. This is a kind of a

This isn't the last one. It's the It's And it's not the first one. We had one right here in Rootsburg, but nobody cared about that one that was actually larger than the one they're putting down there. It's a It's a It's not a bad idea, Patrick. I think that's something that we need to go to the general assembly about for them because they're learning about what was wrong with their bill as they're going along and that is something they should have. Can we put that in your letter? Our letter asking for them to quantify that. Quantify what? what I just said, you know, to the PSC to say that we just Yeah, that's a that's a different one of the reasons. Yeah, but that'll be a different after 10 20 years, you have runoff.

This is this is only to the PSC on this particular project. I'm just throwing in an idea. Yeah. Put some together that next time that we can bring forward, just put like your ideas together so that we can say, "Yeah, we'll send that letter to the delegation or whatever foration." But I agree. We just need to leave this at high level just saying want to keep it cleaner so it has a better chance of getting resonation with the PSC. DNR has also clear cutting trees with more schools. Honestly, clear cutting trees in a wetland, right? With anywhere. Clear cutting trees anywhere in my life. How many schools do they have for solar? Yeah. Yeah. What's that? Call vote. I have a motion that I

All those in favor of letter of opposition for the solar field. Okay. All those in favor signify saying I. I opposed. There you go. Okay. We have someone who wants to say something public. We're getting ready. We're getting ready. Press in public comment. Yeah. Bring it on. Press in public. Who do you got? We have Jay Paul update from he's our our correspondent coming live from the town hall. Southern Island 45 report. Chris Pap's up there on the screen there. Can you guys hear me? Okay. Yes, I got you.

All right. Well, commissioners, Jay Falset from Cleanance Conservation Association. Uh thanks for the press and public or thanks for the opportunity to speak uh for press and public comment. I'm down here in Baltimore at the community firearm and I've just been listening to this um meeting for the past I don't know hour or so. Commissioners, all I can say is that you ought to be extremely disappointed um for a variety of reasons. The first of which this is an out of state company. They're from Connecticut. They don't know anything about Ans County. Uh they came in here tonight making all kinds of promises. I felt like they were very misleading.

But the thing that really frosted me the most was that they scheduled this meeting on the same night as a county commissioner meeting preventing all of you from hearing what they had to say and asking questions. Um, I asked the presenter to reconsider uh another meeting where um you all would have the opportunity to come out and question them just the way that a lot of other citizens did. I can tell you firsthand the citizens down here do not want this project. Um, if you could just give me one more minute. Take your time.

Say no. I've been following the solar project solar projects in Queen Ans County for years and back when Mike Wnowski was planning director. Uh I was very involved in helping to comment on Queen Ans County solar policies. I can tell you both at the county level and at the state level, if there was ever a plan to cut forested land for solar panels, it would have been laughed out of the room. The fact that this out of state company has come to Queens County and somehow believes that this is a good idea is just is a joke and that's no other way to characterize it. So, um I reassure the people here tonight that this is not a done deal. This all has to go to the public service commission for a final review. Um I urge the commissioners to submit a letter letter uh objecting to this. This is a bad plan. It's a bad plan for Kent Island. It's a bad plan for Cans County. And we should all find a way to be unanimously opposed to Thanks for the time

down there wants to sell. Anything else, Bruce? All right, we'll close press some public comment and we'll scroll right into round table. Uh, who wants to go first? I'll go first. There you go.

So, yeah. Um, as we get closer and closer to their voting season, folks, uh, there's a great piece that was, uh, sent out by the county that I encourage everybody to read. But I'll just do a brief um, bring you up to date. Uh, we need more uh, marinas and community members to get involved. But just in the projects um last two years, we've taken over 12 tons of shrink wrap plastic uh was recycled instead of went into our our landfill. So, we're looking to have another successful season in um recycling the shrink wrap. Um I suggest you uh find out some of the best places that you can pick these bags up. I know if you go to the Queen's County Commissioners website, there's some information about that. So, it's for the marina managers. It's for the folks that have their own boats that are winterized with shrink wrap. It's a great program. You get the bags for free. Um, compliments of the Queen's County Commissioners. Um, so get involved and um, let's just do something great here. That's all I have.

Thank you. Patrick, you want to go? Um, just to add to what everyone else, Mr. Fstead was talking about, it's important for the Queen's County people to know that the commi the the commissioners unan and the county unanimously was against this SB931 and and uh, Commissioner Wil Jack Wilson literally lived there trying to stop this bill. And I know Commissioner Moran testified and I believe uh Commissioner Duml and Corkerino did as well or we sent letters but it we were there at every turn trying to stop this.

Hold on.

Sure. Um so to kind of piggyback on where Patrick left off, one of the biggest problems with this and Jay started to allude to it is when this came into creation, right? This is the state saying we want this green energy. Um that I'm not even going to go down that rabbit hole with what a debacle the whole energy uh plan is in the state of Maryland right now. But specifically the solar when it was sold as a bill of goods um six seven years ago now 2018 2019 time frame and looking ahead in the state on the flip side used to give us millions of dollars for farm preservation here in the county um to preserve farmland for perpetuity. So, in my mind, it's in its simplest form. What you have is our state of Maryland with two competing goals that run head into each other that ultimately what is going to be your what do you want? Do you want to preserve land or do you want to put solar over top of the land you're preserving? And that's that's the crossroads we're at. So, instead of that, they're going to go cut down trees, right? I mean, one of the finite resources we have, Commissioner Corkiner's point, in Queen Anne's County, and we're going to cut that down in Queen Anne's County. Um, we've got rooftops. We've got school parking lots that and people say, "Oh, it's so expensive." Washington or Ches Peek College did it and they don't have billions of dollars laying around, but they found ways and they could their whole parking lot be. It's great for keeping the cars nice and cool in the summertime when it's hot outside and they're sitting under them and you're harnessing the energy. There's better ways to do it for the little bit of gain. This is a 1.85 85 megawatt solar farm. That doesn't even that is and I'm not going to I could say a lot of nasty things about what it isn't. But it it doesn't even make a blip on the radar for the the energy problems we have in the state of Maryland right now. Um but it's a huge inconvenience to the folks down there. And we'll continue to fight it. We we just got to we got to make the state know. Make some calls to people we all know over there. Then just make the case what what are you doing cutting trees down? Let's get it on Fox

45. they'll come down there. Um, they'll blow it up and and that's the kind of stuff we're going to have to do with it. So, what I worry about is is doing that and and this is all part of the state. I don't want to say they're that, you know, they think that far ahead, but if we go out full force against this, cutting the trees down and putting here, does this give the governor and his clean energy uh agenda to say, "Well, you don't want it where the trees are, so let's go for the farms." I I agree with you and I don't think they're thinking that far ahead, but I agree with you that that could be the next argument. But again, we we're throwing out all these other spots that you could do it, right? That that school the school parking lot at Queen Ans High School is as big as the area they're about to clear cut,

right? And that has no solar panels on it right now, right? So I Yeah. Well, I say it's worth, you know, if you had to pick between the two, you you keep the forest, right? Exactly. I mean, so but it's just a shame that this is, you know, why can't I don't know. And there's bald eagles down there. Yeah. So, so yes.

So, that we could go on for for hours. So, I did want to announce and it looks pretty good right now and I don't care what people think of speed zone cameras quite frankly at this point coming from North County and uh but right now it looks like we have a bill that may make its way through the del uh through the has made its way through the house has a good shot at the senate that we will create a speed zone in the 405 region of 301 that will encompass almost 2 miles. So speeds will be coming down there as soon as it's about a six to eight month I think turnaround time to get something up and running there. But um you know we we I want to credit Todd and Shane everybody. We we got on a call with Will Pines at the state came up with a good program. It will have a sunset on it which I think is fair because we want to slow people down. Once you slow people down you don't need to find them anymore. Um and that's just the way I look at at these things. You create you create a safe situation. Um it's like putting somebody in prison and hopefully they get reformed and they come out and they're a safer person. But and my thing is if you don't speed, you'll never get fined. It's very simple. Um also I I as Connie mentioned, I was at the um trades round table this past week or last week and uh so we got an update on the uh career center. Um it's full steam ahead. U matter of fact, I had the architect and engineer there that day at the uh career day to talk about some of what's going to happen. Um, and right now they're saying January of 29 it will be open for business. So, um, yeah, that's great news.

Mhm.

So, before 2030, that's awesome. Um, they're about a year behind based on how the funding had to work out for them. But at the end of the day, gentlemen, we we all pat ourselves on the back. We're the reason that happened over there. The Queen Ans County Commissioners were the leaders in getting that done over there. And believe me, the college appreciates it, too. So, um, because it's given them capacity, and that's the one thing they're looking for over there right now. they're turning students away or they're weight listing students in the trades programs because they don't have the physical room to put them in. Um, they could double their electrical and HVAC classes tomorrow if they had the room. So, yep, good news there. Um, and I just wanted to say, I can't remember who said it that you had to take the MHIC I've taken a lot of state tests. The MHIC test is one of the harder tests that I've ever taken at the state level um to pass because it's a combination of not only the trades and all that stuff because MHIC covers a whole wide array, but it's also a lot of legal mumbo jumbo in there that you got to know all the

I took it before they changed all that minds from way back.

Oh my gosh, it was it was it was like 100 questions, four hour test. It was as long as my electrical masters was. That's why I sitting there. That can't be that bad, right? Wow. I'm telling you, sweating it right there. Down to the three and a half hours in got 20 questions left and you're like, "Uh oh, start doing the ABC ABC." But that's it. It's all I got. Um just to piggyback on Jack's comments on on 301, we've also um senators also Brooks and Van Holland were in Queens County recently, so we they weren't here to talk about 301, but we turned into a conversation about 301. gave him a lot of information about the accidents and the citizens who have died there recently. Um that led to a call with the staff for both the senator's office and we've submitted for some grant funding uh for some of those at at grade crossing uh improvements and they said you know like keep putting in for a little bit every year so you can get all of them all the way up. no guarantee that we're going to get any of that grant funding, but um between uh I mean everybody up here and Todd um pushing on the state and on the feds trying to get as much money as we can and being creative of what solutions we can give for the citizens in North County because um it's unacceptable that lives are being lost because of people who decide just to speed down from Delaware to get through Queen's County. Just we we got to do what we can to help them.

Absolutely. Very good. I'm good. I'm good today. So entertain a motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor? I. Thank you very much.