Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

has to uh be reviewed by the uh town and the planning commission before they can do it. And then the last amendment is to take all that code section that we had to move and just say we're going to renumber it. So what was 516 to 521 uh yeah it uh what was 516 to 521 will now be modified to 517 to 522. The rest of it is boilerplate language that talks about the the leg the legality of an ordinance. So all we've sort of went quickly through all the um changes. So that is that ordinance there. Um how did we have it in the agenda? We were going to go through them. Yes, you can entertain uh citizens comment

regarding this specific ordinance. Would anyone like to speak this evening? Any comments from the board of commissioners? No comments. [cough and clears throat] Can I get a motion to approve ordinance 2025-03? Motion. He beat you. That's been motioned and seconded. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? I.

Ordinance 2025-03 passes. Do you have ordinance 2025-04, Kelly? Yeah, this one's a much easier one. This is nothing more than changes to the daycare provisions. So, in our community, like a lot of communities, you want to regulate to some degree daycare facilities. And we found that we had some language in our zoning code that was incredibly restrictive against daycarees. And it had dimensions and areas that were sometimes five and six times larger than what the state requires. and the state is the one that's going to give them the license to do it. So, I'm not going to go into all the boring details, but basically what we're doing is changing the language so that it matches what is in the state law. That doesn't mean that people don't still have to come before the planning commission and the board of appeals to get approval for a daycare because every location is a little bit different. So, somebody wanting to operate a daycare out of their home, no two homes are the same. So, the planning commission and board of zoning appeal still gets an opportunity to look at those and set conditions, but at least we're not dealing with ridiculously restrictive areas. For instance, you had to have a thousand square feet per child in a residential home to operate a daycare.

[snorts] So since I've been here for 18 years, we've had like 15 variances issued on that because nobody's going to turn it down. So it's not fair to make those people pay money to come in and get a variance for something that we know is going to be approved anyway. So let's just change the zoning code to make it consistent. So that's the gist of what that one is. All right. And once again, all these ordinance have sat um before they were adopted uh and been posted on our town website. Uh, can I would anyone like to speak specifically about ordinance 2025-04? Hearing none, any comments from the board of commissioners? None. None. All right. Can I get a motion to approve ordinance 2025-04?

Go ahead, Aubrey. [laughter] So motioned. I second it. It's been moved and seconded. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? I I passes. Ordinance 2025-05. Calvin.

All right. I have that. This is very similar to the educational zoning district. We're creating a new zoning district. So all that boilerplate language in the beginning is the same. It's just labeled differently. It's talking about why we're doing it and what we're trying to accomplish. So in summary, what we're trying to do here is we are in discussions with the Plumpton Park Zoo to enter into a public private partnership with the zoo because we think it will create an incredible economic benefit to our community to basically have the zoo come under the umbrella of the town of Rising Sun. That would enable us to apply for all kinds of park and recreation grants with the state. um sustainable community grants, a host of other grants that we could provide to the zoo under our umbrella. And we're talking about creating incentives where town residents could potentially get discounted pricing and admission into the zoo. And the reason why we're interested in doing this is because there's been economic studies that have been done that have said for every $1 of revenue generated by a zoo it creates $7 of economic development in the area because people go to the zoo then they want to go to the restaurants and they want to go to the supermarket. They they want to make a day trip out of it or a weekend trip in this case. So the one caveat note I have up here is if you remember we just adopted 253. And so what's in this document here is saying that all the numbering that I proposed here is contingent upon the passage of 202503. If 202503 did not get passed, we could still pass this one, but I would have to go in and grammatically change the numbering because this keeps sliding all

the language further down in the zoning code. So, if you remember in the last ordinance, I talked about that list of what's in there. Now, you see the other ordinance created the educational cultural. So, it got passed. So, that's technically what the existing code says now. And so it's the same setup. You get into all of the items that are what the purpose and intent is of this zoological district. We're we're talking about improving animal welfare, ecoourism, enhancements of regional character. We just want to we want to bring a lot of amenities to our our town by uh entering into the public private partnership, but we need to create a zoning district for them. Um, so you can see all the natural stuff that would be permitted in there. It's all zoo related, um, and visitor related in here. Um, there's your accessory uses, uh, which means, you know, large scale, smallcale playgrounds, and renewable energy resources available to, uh, to help the zoo be self-sufficient. That kind of stuff would be permitted. conditional uses. So, if they want to put an amphitheater in of more than 200 people, so if you've ever gone to a zoo or a theme park, you might sit in a little exhibit area and maybe they show you the alligators and the crocodiles and stuff like that. So that's okay if they do that on a smaller scale, but if they're looking to do something at 200 seats more, well, now you got a lot of traffic coming in the area and we want to make sure that it's good from a public safety standpoint and and we're aware of everything that's going on. So those are the kind of things that they would come in and get permission for. The type of things that are not permitted are things

that are not related to a zoo. again, we don't want that 123 acres to turn into something that we didn't think was going to be when we bring them into this into the fold. Um there are all the lot um setbacks and coverages and the and the notes on how it explains that they again would create a master park site plan so we can see what they think they're going to do over a two twoyear period, fiveyear period, 10 year period so everybody's on the same page of of what they're trying to do there. Um, here are some performance standards that are built into this one because quite frankly, if you happen to live next to a zoo, you're going to be a little bit concerned about the noise and other things associated with it. So, we have basically performance standards of what they have to meet when they operate that zoo if they're going to be in the town of Rising Sun. The other thing that's applicable here is this could be done as an overlay, so to speak. So although we're talking about having a designated zoning if the zoo annexes into the town of Rising Sun, there could be some other areas where you could do basically an overlay on on on a larger piece of property. So I'm trying to get through these quickly because I know we have other things, but that is that ordinance.

Thank you, town administrator. Does anyone have any comments regard regarding ordinance 2025-05 question if you don't mind coming up what do we supply to the Could you could you name give us your name and your address please turned off a little button on top I got it can you hear me now [laughter]

all right um it's my name is Kristen Shepard and just a a quick um question on what we what do we supply to the zoo now since you say you're annexing it into the town do we supply anything to them now water anything at all and is if we don't is that going to be supplied to them because I know there's a big water discussion with the town the the first question is no we don't provide anything to them the second part of that is if they annex into the town and we enter this yes we would provide them water all right and what does that mean for us as citizens does that mean our taxes are going to go up our water bills are going to go off or do they absorb that?

Um, right now because they have water quality issues, they qualify for MDE grants. So, we've been in the process of writing grants to secure that. Okay. So, all right. Thank you. Okay. Would anyone else like to speak? Hearing none. Any comments from the board of commissioners? None. No. All right. Can I get a motion to approve ordinance [clears throat] 2025-05? Motion. Ma'am, I'm sorry. Did we jump past 04, the daycare? No, we did 04. Okay, we did that one. And it passed.

Okay. Motion was made by Commissioner Kleiner, seconded by Commissioner Pearson. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? I. All right. Can I get I'm going to go ahead and skip uh because I'm assuming the town attorney has not joined us. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay. I'm going to go ahead and adjourn the public hearing. Can I get a motion to adjurnn? I make a motion to adjourn the public hearing. Second. There is a motion and a second. All in favor? I. Can I get a motion to reopen the mayor and board of commissioners town meeting? I make a motion to reopen the mayor and commissioners meeting. Second. There is a second. All in favor? I.

I. All right. With the blessing of the board, I am going to ask to shift 17 citizens input to before the swearing in. We do have a significant agenda tonight along with a ceremonial um swearing in and I know folks have some comments that they would like to make. Sure. Is that okay? It's fine. Thank you. So, we're going to go ahead and shift citizens input. So, if you would like to speak this evening, anyone like to speak this evening about any issue? Yes, I would. Okay. Do I need to say my name again? Yes. Okay. All right. Also, could you give your address?

Oh, okay. Is that gonna be on the public TV where I live? Yeah, it would be. I would rather not do that. I do live on um I do live in town. [laughter]

Okay. All right. Good evening, mayor and commissioners. All right. Rising Sun is a town with a strong conservative values, and we believe in local control, fiscal responsibility, and transparent government. So, that's why many residents, including myself, want to better understand the direction of recent decisions coming out of the town hall. All right. So, we've seen the mayor or actually heard the mayor showing public support for Governor Moore, and that has been a huge topic um with social media. While cooperation with the state is part of governing, Rising Sun is primarily a Republican town and many residents want to know exactly what our community gains from that relationship. So, respectfully, I'm asking, what commitments or resources are being negotiated for Rising Sun in these discussions? How do these development deals protect our taxpayers, our property rights, and small town character? and how will these decisions be communicated so residents can stay informed and feel confident that our town's values are being upheld. We're not we're not against the collaboration. We're just asking for transparency um and knowing going forward what that's going to mean with Governor Moore and our town. Town administrator, is it okay if I uh speak and then if you want to go into the development stuff, you can talk about that because the development stuff doesn't really come before the town board of commissioners. Uh that is primarily handled by our planning and zoning commission. Okay.

Um so we do not have we do not oversee the development. Okay. Uh in regards to any new housing development or commercial development. Okay. As far as um information regarding uh what the the state has provided so far, um I worked with both uh Governor Larry Hogan prior to this and I've worked with Governor Moore. Um prior to the town of Rising Sun um working with Governor Moore, we had a good relationship with Governor Hogan.

Um they provided about $250,000 in Department of Housing Community Development funding. um that went towards a uh a grant uh that went for um what you see at Hatchers on Maine. Um the redevelopment of that building, it was underneath a uh grant called Project Restore. Uh and then when Governor Moore took over, um so far, Tad Administrator, would it would I be wrong in saying it's about $600,000 in funding that we've received or is it more than that?

It's more than that. It's it's a little bit above a a million dollars in in funding in the pipeline. The other thing I would offer under Hogan, we also got the $500,000 grant towards the uh

water. Yeah. Water and sewer line. Um so the grants that we have received um from the state of Maryland. Uh some of them have gone to local businesses. Um one in particular uh was uh Garden Girl. Um that building was completely redone through a grant process um that the state provided through project restore. Um they received about $250,000 uh to redo that building. Uh in addition, we received funding for a new park uh that will replace Diddy Richardson Park. Um and it will be placed at Triangle Park. Um we have also received some funds for uh our water and sewer lines. Um, and as far as my uh support for Governor Hogan, um, first and foremost, I've always seen my role as a, uh, non-political role. And what I mean by that is, uh, I work with both Democrats and Republicans. Uh, I am not, uh, on a party platform ballot. Um, although Rising Sun is a conservative town, uh, and I cons consider myself fiscally conservative. Um, this board has cut taxes three times. Um we intend to also cut water fees as soon as new development comes online. Um I support both um Republicans and Democrats. Uh the support that I have given to uh Governor Moore um goes strictly in line with the amount of help that he has given our community uh in the forms of grants, in the forms of manpower. Um there have been um situations where the town has needed help with uh the writing of documents um the uh all kinds of different things as far as like collaboration with uh the governor's office and our office. Um, and what I mean by that is, um, there are different things that are are that we are getting approved through the

Maryland Department of the Environment, um, through the Department of Housing and Community Development, the Commerce Department. We work in tandem with them. Um, and they provide assistance with grants and writing and all of those types of things. Um, so my support, uh, is primarily in regards to the the, um, support that he has given the town. Does that mean that I believe in everything that Governor Moore does? No, it doesn't. Um, does that mean that I'm going to still call him out when I believe that he's wrong? Yes, absolutely. Okay. And where do we find this um things that you've been talking about? Is it on our site or the things the grants that are being given? Where where as a community do we find these? Because I know like I'm going to give you an example. My mother is older. She doesn't use the web.

So unless she gets on there or I get on there and let her know. So, where is all of this that we can find or going forward to be more transparent to maybe the older generation or people that don't have access to the internet all the time? How can we make this available to the public here? If they request a document or would like more information, we can definitely print the documents out and give them to them if they would like. Um, almost all information unfortunately is online now. Okay. Um and uh as far as any types of grants that we receive, we post out on social media as well as on our website when we receive them. All right. And the social media [clears throat] of Tom Lake um Facebook. Okay. And what is the uh website that we would go to on Facebook? I mean, what's the page? Sorry.

Uh town of Rising Sun official. Okay. Perfect. All right. Thank you so very much. Absolutely. Thank you for coming out. No problem. Did you want me to answer the development? Oh, yes, please, Calvin. Sorry, you did ask that. Um, the other thing I would like to add on that is number one, Jane Belmire is always doing stories on grants that we get. We talk about them all the time at our town meetings and you at the planning commission, right? I know a lot of what you're talking and and and you you remember historically how I laid things out. I actually, you know, the board looks at me a little sideways because I often like to try I look at the audience in the room and I want to bring them up to speed. appreciated that.

So, u from a development question you were asking me um we have changed a lot of ordinances as I had spoken at the last planning commission meeting to protect the town from the old way development used to happen in this community and that sort of manifested itself last night in our planning commission meeting because we did not blink with the development community. We we made changes. They didn't like some of those changes, but we held our ground. And I think it's there's a couple things that are really important to talk about right now. You spoke brilliantly about how conservative this community is. It's a Republican community. Well, along with that is property owners rights, landowners rights. People in this community don't want the government telling them what they can and can't do with their property within reason. And so what gets lost in everything we do is people believe that we just allow the development to come in here and do what they want. We don't. We're limited on what we can uh regulate what they can do and we've made a lot of improvements in our zoning codes to make sure that they're doing what's good for us compared to the way it was 20, 30 years ago. And so because we have to allow them to develop, we um a couple things we're doing is we're charging the developers and you're going to see it come up in one of the or resolutions tonight. We are collecting what are called benefit assessment fees. And I spoke a little bit about it the other night. What benefit assessment fees are is that the town of Rising Sun back in the day was told by the state of Maryland, "Your water system is failing and your water your sewer system is failing and you have to fix it." And they weren't really particularly concerned about how much money it was going to cost because they didn't really

provide any grant money on it. So, as I've said before, the town had to spend $26 million on the backs of basically a thousand rooftops in our community. And that's why the water and sewer rates are so high. But one of the things we did is we invested more money in some of the things like the water line so that instead of our residents being stuck with a high water bill for the next 40 years because we didn't have $26 million in the bank to be able to do that nowhere close. So that would have required us to go out and get financing. And anyone who's done a traditional market finance of a 30-year loan, no matter what time you're talking about, you're still talking about what anywhere from six to 12 13% interest on that. Well, what we what we're able to do is go through the United States Department of Agriculture for like one and 2% loans over a 40-year period. And so it gives you an annual debt load that you can have a better shot of absorbing, but you have to pay it over 40 years. And so let me say it to you this way. Unless the town of Rising Sun won a lottery and got $26 million, if we throw more money at USDA, all it does is lower the amount of years that it has to be paid off. So in round numbers, we pay what, Judy? eight $800,000 a month a year

in all that stuff. We just barely collect that amount of money in water and sewer rates even with the high rates. And so if we were to win the lottery and throw all that money, all it's going to do is pay the loan off in 35 years instead of 40 years, it's not going to change the debt service that we have to pay it on an annual basis. It's not the way the loan works. And so through the benefit assessment fees, we figured out what we had to raise our rates to comply with the government on our failing wastewater plant and our failing water system. And so that's how we established the rates, but we put a little bit more money into it so we could be in a position to be a regional supplier of water. So when you think about us running water to West Ningham Academy and Pluckton Park Zoo, we're passing a lot of properties that have documented water quality issues, septic issues, and we put ourselves in a position to be a regional supplier of those things. In addition to that, with the fact that we have property that we're obligated to allow to develop, we are charging what are called benefit assessment fees. And we are able to recover the money that our taxpayers basically had to commit to at a 40-year loan in chunks of money for each house that they build and sell. They got to pay us. Now, what we're going to do is we're gonna on an annual basis, we're going to take that money once it builds up and maybe we're paying $200,000 of the $800,000 bill so we can lower user water and sewer rates for our residents in real time, not just pay the loan off five years earlier. And so that's how that's one of your questions on how we're trying to safeguard the community. So, you're going to see tonight we're approving a public works agreement and anou that's going to lock these

developers in to protecting the town, protecting our residents. If they're going to build, they're going to build our way and they're going to pay the amount of money they have to pay to reimburse our community for the infrastructure that was put in here that now they are taking advantage of to make money quite frankly. So, we could go on for a long time, but that's sort of a general answer there of what the town has done to protect.

And I would also add, you kind of caught me off guard, so I was thinking about this just for a moment, but you also, uh, we also received commitments for the demolition of a building that is now going to be a parking lot on Main Street. Um, so Main Street parking has always been an issue for us. Uh, and, uh, the town was able to use grant funds to purchase a property. Um, and the state has committed to helping demolish those buildings so that a new parking lot will be put in. Um, and those will come instead of coming straight from taxpayer dollars, they'll come from grants from the state. Thank you. Yep. No, thanks for coming out. Thanks for um sharing your comments. Uh, as I said be

as as I've said before, um, we definitely I I definitely appreciate your comments and uh understand concern. Um, but I think as far as the way that our town is moving forward, we'll continue to do it in a conservative way. Uh, and that means keeping taxes low. That means plans to lower our water and sewer rates. um and to do find any way that we can alternatively um to fund things without putting them on the backs of taxpayers. Thank you. Um would anyone else like to speak this evening?

All right, we're going to go ahead and move forward into the ceremonial part of our town meeting. I do apologize to our clerk um for having to sit through this hole. I know you're used to being able to square them in and head out, so I do apologize. Um, so we're going to go ahead and if you want to go ahead and do the commissioners, you can. That's okay. Emily, do you want to go first? How would you like me to be posed?

Pardon me? How would you like me to pose? Yeah, you just do your thing. Okay. So, we're just we're just might do it that way. That's as good as it gets. Okay. Thank you. Raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, Emily Kleiner, do affirm I, Emily Kleiner, do affirm that I will support the Constitution of the of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and that I will be faithful and I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the State of Maryland. and bear true allegiance to the state of Maryland and support the Constitution and support the Constitution and laws thereof and laws thereof and that I will

and that I will to the best of my skill and judgment to the best of my skill and judgment diligently and faithfully diligently and faithfully without partiality or prejudice without partiality or prejudice execute the office of town commissioner execute the office of town commissioner according to the constitution according to the constitution and laws of this state

and laws of this Congratulations. Thank you. Your name, signature, and address. Thank you. Thanks,

Brent. I, Frank Ding, do affirm I, Frank Dalling, do affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and that I will be faithful and that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the State of Maryland and bear true allegiance to the State of Maryland and support the Constitution and support the Constitution and laws thereof and laws thereof and that I will and that I will to the best of my skill and judgment to the best of my skill and judgment diligently and faithfully diligently and faithfully

without partial partiality or prejudice without partiality or prejudice. Execute the execute the office of town commissioner execute the officer of town commissioner according to the constitution according to the constitution and laws of this state and laws of this state.

Congratulations [applause] Frank, if you'll give us just a moment. As soon as we're done the swearing in, we'll get you up here. [laughter]

We've done this a few times. Just a few. Please repeat after me. I, Travis Marian, do affirm I, Travis Marian, do affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and that I will be faithful and that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the State of Maryland and bear true allegiance to the State of Maryland. and support the Constitution and laws thereof. and support the Constitution and laws thereof. And that I will and that I will to the best of my skill and judgement to my best skill and judgment diligently and faithfully diligently and faithfully Without partiality or prejudice, without partiality or prejudice, execute the office of mayor. Execute the office of mayor according to the constitution. According to the constitution and laws of this state.

And laws of this state. Congratulations. [snorts] Sorry for holding you up. Thank you so much. You're welcome.

She's going to do it. Go ahead [clears throat] and move move the stuff out and get Frank's chair in, Chief's chair in. Thank you guys for coming out. All right. And Commissioner Dowling, there are a few things on the agenda that I know you haven't been here for, so we're assuming that you'll probably recuse yourself, which is completely fine. Um, I also wanted to add that as you can see, we do have an open spot for commissioner. Um the town of Rising Sun will be putting out um bids or not bids, we'll be putting out interest for those that would like to uh potentially become a commissioner. Um and that interest we will post on social media as well as on our website uh and potentially in our water billing system so that those folks that don't have the internet will know. Um, if you are interested, the mayor and board of commissioners make $325 every 3 months, no benefits and no retirement. So, if you are interested, please

contact the town of Rising Sun. We'd love to have you. All right, moving forward into a consent agenda. Um, you will see the approval of the 9:30 2025 town meeting video summary. Town administrator, do you have that? Oh, I'm sorry. Town administer, do you have the consent agenda?

Yes. Um, again, just as a quick refresher and for Frank, there are certain things that are sort of considered boilerplate. So, you put them all together in a consent agenda. The elected body can say, "Yes, I want accept the consent uh the consent agenda and make one motion to approve everything." Or they can request that an item be pulled out and put someplace else. It's done to try to save time on some simple things. So, what you have before you is the approval of the town meeting video summary. We also have resolution 2025-23, which this is sort of a standard process. The town does not buy cash flow vehicles out of pocket. We finance them over a period of time. We find that it gives us uh greater flexibility in keeping our equipment um up to date as opposed to spending all our money on one vehicle and then being done. So we have several of these um um tax exempt leasing programs and every couple of years one will get paid off and then we enter into a new one. So what you have there in that resolution is a standard resolution that we have to pass for the benefit of the tax the the the leasing company that verifies that the elected body has approved it. So basically what we are doing is approving the financing of $143,145.71 cents that includes principal and interest and that is for a uh 2026 Ford Superduty F350 uh fully equipped Kawasaki Pro walk mower with equipment basically a walkbehind

um some various lighting for the public works vehicle. When you drive down the road, you see the yellow lights on it. That's additional equipment that doesn't come from the manufacturer. We also want to replace the roof and the supporting post down at the um Veterans Park pavilion. That's that thing is upwards of maybe 20 25 years of age down there. So, we want to put a new roof on it.

Was the last time that we did work was that when you and I went down there, Calvin, and did that? Yeah, we were replacing trim boards and stuff like that. So, basically what's going to happen is we have someone coming in to jack it up to support the roof to put better post a better post system underneath it because it really is a pretty cool looking structure from the underside, but we need to put a new roof on it because it's rotted away. And then we're also at the dog park. Believe it or not, our dog park is a little over 10 years of age. Um and the uh the doggy turf that's down there is starting to wear out and so we're looking to get a replacement of that turf. Um uh some electrical upgrades at the public works garage and then a uh uh Lenovo Think Center desktop computer with equipment. So again, this gets financed um over a couple of years. The finance rate is 5.19% there. At the end of this, it although it's called tax exempt leasing, we keep the vehicles at no extra charge. So, it's not like if you're leasing a vehicle and you want to buy it out at the end, you might have to pay something. We don't. So, it really acts like a vehicle loan, not necessarily a leasing on it. [snorts] Um, so you have that resolution in the packet and then your upcoming town meetings are December 9th, um, 2025 and then January 13, 2026. And all meetings start at 5:30 p.m. So that's your consent agenda.

And they'll be taped and live streamed, correct? Yes. Thank you. All right. Can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda, please? Motion to approve. I second it. It's been moved and seconded. Is there any other discussion? Hearing none, all in favor? Thank you. All right. Moving forward into unfinished business. Ordinance 2025-06, which is chapter 8, the revision of the proper design of the water and sewer system. Town administrator, do you have that?

Yes, I do. So, as you can see, Zoom is still hijacking my computer here, so we just forget it. Um, so we're looking at 20256. Let me bring that up real quickly. So, this goes to your question about how we try to protect ourselves with ordinance changes. So here you have your same boilerplate language at the beginning of the document that gives us the authority to do certain things. Well, in our town code, we have chapter 8. Um, and chapter 8 is titled water, sewer, and plumbing. And so that's where all the code requirements are for um public water, sewer, uh, mains. And so there's an article in there titled proper design and construction of water and sewer systems. And so basically what the elected body wants to do is uh [clears throat] to establish clear lines of responsibility for the administrative management and enforcement of chapter 8 ensuring that authority to implement oversee and enforce the rules and regulations of this chapter is properly defined and and to retitle certain articles and sections so that their headings and content are more closely aligned with the subject matter and intent of each. So really what we're looking to do here is that we're renaming article one called general provisions and scope of services. Amendment two will be renamed enforcement service availability use and restrictions. Um, amendment three, a new subnote three will be added to read as the town administrator or the duly authorized design shall have the authority and responsibility to administer and interpret and enforce the

use rules and regulations established by the commissioners under this chapter, including but not limited to the issuance of permits, enforcement of restrictions, implementation of operating policies necessary to ensure compliance with the town's water and sewer requirements, Basically, what we're saying is when we're in the land development process, we get to interpret our code, not the developer. And so, it makes it very clear. Um, one of the changes in in section 2011, I'm not a big fan of having a paragraph in a code without a title before it, which means you you're thinking, "Wow, I know that's somewhere in the code, and you have to read all the paragraphs to get to it." So every once in a while, basically what I'm doing is putting a title to what this paragraph is. So the language was already in there. I'm just calling it mandatory connections so somebody can easily find what a mandatory connection is. The other new language we're adding is pointed connection. All required connections to the town's water and sewer system shall be extended from the public main to the structures on the property that are intended to be served. For the avoidance of doubt, the obligation to connect is not satisfied by extending service only to the property line or lot frontage. Each building requiring service must be directly connected in accordance with the applicable plumbing, donating and health codes and such connections shall be maintained in good working order by the property owner. Then we have another another title in here. Um, and the only thing we took out is no sewer or drain connection or water connection shall be constructed or connected to the town water and sewer service unless they have first received a written permit for such connections. This is language from many many years ago when the when the town didn't enforce its own building permits

and you came before the elected body and somebody who got elected to office decided whether or not you could connect to uh the water or sewer. That's not the way good government operates anymore. So you have to get permits. So that's just updating that. Um and and a modification in item six. Um if it is found that an existing water connection is too small, the owner shall be notified of the situation will be required to arrange for the installation of a larger water connection and larger meter adequate for the service needed. If the owner refuses to correct the situation after due notice, it used to say the commissioner shall arrange for the disconnection. So what I'm getting at is the language is only always there. We're just now saying the town is authorized to take abatement actions as defined in the town's code to include arranging for the disconnecting. So we're just cleaning that up. And then we're also saying if we have to take abatement action, there's a cost to the town. And let's remember any cost to the town is a cost to the taxpayers. So, we're basically saying if somebody wants to be defiant, whether it be a developer, a landlord, or whatever, who just doesn't want to do it, and we have to take action for the greater public good, then they have to reimburse the town for that. That's another more modern way sort of going to your question of what do we do to protect our residents there. Um, down here at the bottom, this is item seven. It talked about, you know, water and sewer pipes running. And it's uh it basically said separate connections shall be installed under such conditions as the commissioners may require. Again, we're getting into into a more modern approach of using building codes to determine what those requirements are. Section three, we have a whole category

here about minimum public water main requirements. And basically what that is doing is solidifying the fact that under Maryland law, the town of Rising Sun is looked at as a municipal authority. And as a municipal authority, you have the right to pass rules and regulations regulating your authority, meaning you can determine what pipe sizes are going to be, where they are, how deep they have to be buried. And for the most part, the town basically in the past had said all public water mans installed within town limits or connected to and receiving water from the town of Rising Sun must be designed in accordance with the 10 state standards for waterworks. These standards ensure that the water distribution system is properly engineered to meet the specific needs of the community. So, let me back up for a second. If you go on MD's website to install a a public water man, it will say the water man has to be installed in accordance to 10 state standards. And 10 state standards are nothing more than a nationally recognized standard that engineers all over have said this is the way something should be constructed. And there's other standards like Penn State standards, the American uh AAU of engineers, but 10 states is what the state uses. So instead of us taking all the language that's in that 150 page document and writing it in our code, we're just saying it has to be built in accordance to 10 state standards. Now the important thing about 10 state standards is that to some degree it is a recommendation but that not all jobs are the same job. So it allows the authority having jurisdiction which would be the town or someone acting on their behalf the town's building inspector, town administrator or engineer to look at

circumstances and say you know what we don't need the 10 state standards doesn't really apply here. you can achieve it by doing this. Or you could say the 10 state standards really talks about this. We agree with that and we're going to use that. But we've had some people wanting to challenge us on that and say, well, the 10 state standards is too broad even though we've made it very clear that it has to be built in accordance to 10 state standards. So basically one of the things that we think [clears throat] is very important you see up here is a water supply grid. And we've had water supply grid definitions in our code for about two years now. And water supply grids are important for three reasons that residents can relate to. Number one, when we have a water main break, how often do we have to shut the water down for larger areas because there's no redundancy in the system? And so what that's one reason. The second reason is when you have a large fire, there's only so much water that the fire company can get out of a fire hydrant on a long running standalone line. and the way the fire company gets more water. And when we're talking about water, we're talking about code requirements of having to supply at least 750 gallons a minute of water for a residential home. Well, there are some places if it's on its own line, you might only get 500 gallons a minute. But if you supply another water grid system to it, then you can get up to 750, 1,000, 1,500, whatever. So residential is 750. Commercial buildings are 1,500. So we want to get redundant systems where possible. So it provides for better public safety from a fire standpoint. And then the other thing is

the way the same way you might treat your swimming pool with chlorine to get rid of that anorobic growth. Well, public drinking water if it's sitting too long can start to have problems. So, anybody who provides public drinking water, they used to put chlorine in the water. They've gotten away from that. Now, they use chloromines, but those products only have a shelf life. And they're roughly off the top of my head about 7 to eight days. And so, the good thing is the a good public water system will move all that water through the system in seven to eight days. But if you're on a dead end main in in the case of a couple hundred houses or not a whole lot of houses and there isn't a lot of water activity, the third reason for wanting to have a redundant system is that water can sit in there. And when you have a redundant system, a neighborhood a thousand feet away when they're flowing large amounts of water, they would suck the water from the pipe of the other development. So the water moves. So, we want to make sure that any new developments coming forward are not building what I like to call, you know, a couple hundred houses on the end of a tree branch and when you cut that tree branch off representing a water mane break, then you have hundreds of houses that don't have water and everybody's upset. And so, we just want to make clear although our code already provides us with the ability to do it. we're like, "Okay, you're going to keep asking us. We're going to make it more specific in the code." So, that's one of the things that we put in here. Um, and then the other thing we wanted to make sure is that we require all of our water manes to be 8 in because you won't believe the amount of entities, even some government entities that forget

about fire safety quite frankly and they want to do things like 2in water manes and 4inch water manes. And we don't want to be a part of that. And if we're going to be a regional supplier of water and somebody wants our water, it's going to be done by 10 state standards. And so it's going to be a minimum of an 8 inch water man so that fire suppression is met and then water potable water quality is met also. So we're just strengthening this section of the code to make all of that clear. So that's that ordinance there. Yes, I think you had a question. I actually have two.

Right. Th this now takes a language out of anybody who wants to hook in maintaining either a private well system or a septic system if they're going to hook into our system. Well, let me answer that two ways. This really doesn't address that, but the health department will not allow them to operate those two [clears throat] systems. And then as a water authority to your point we would want to eliminate crosscontamination and under 10 state standards you don't want to have that. So as the authority jurisdiction we would say you have to decommission your wealth.

How will this affect the few properties that we have in town that are water only? It it has no effect on that. No effect. Yeah. So, we're not we're not telling somebody they have to connect to sewer if they're not on sewer now or vice versa. Okay. The second thing is how do we have any idea how many residents have undersized supplies going into their house?

Well, that that's interesting and and I want to make clear that I'm saying we're not we're not going first of all, they're grandfathered if they're under size. But if they have to build something larger, it's not uncommon for a lot of our older systems to have 5/8 diameter service lines coming into their house. Before fire sprinklers were required, it was generally recommended to be on a 1 in service. And now that fire sprinklers are required, if you can't meet the hydraulic calculations that are needed on the residential fire sprinkler, then at a minimum, you have to have an inch and a half in there. But none of that is going to be retroactive on existing property. So whatever they have, they can continue to have.

Would anyone like to add any more comments? Hearing none. Can I get a a motion to approve ordinance 2025-06? Make a motion every time. Sorry, I have a bad habit of turning that off. Uh, ordinance 2025-06 was motioned by Commissioner Kleiner, seconded by Commissioner Pearson. Any more discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? Passes. Thank you. Ordinance 2025-07. Town administrator, do you have that? Yes, I do.

The Zoom finally started working. So, I was sending a text message to the town uh attorney. Um, so, and I'm sorry, I'm trying to not have this freeze up on me here. Um, I've got, if you look at my screen, I've got a thousand windows open here. All right. So, we're doing 07. Correct? Yes.

All right. So this one here is um this is a change to article nine of our current code and article nine is titled finance taxation business and trade and that's basically where everything we do finance financially is all covered in that code section and again you pick the ideal night to come and ask for questions about how we're protecting the residents because here's another example of it. So, um within our uh our chapter nine is that there are provisions in which the town can collect those adequate public facility fees, the BAFS, benefit assessment fees in there. And so when we talk about a a developer or a landowner having the right to develop and we talk about them wanting to get the benefit of the water and sewer that our taxpayers had to pay to get to this point, they're naturally when they want to make big investments, they're they've got to mitigate their risk, so to speak, by saying, "I want to get my investors together to buy this property for 1015 million. I got to get my investors lined up and I want some guarantees. Well, not obviously if they paid the benefit assessment fee, they would have all the guarantees they want on it, but nobody wants to make and in some cases we're talking millions of dollars in benefit assessment fees. So, nobody's going to make those investments when they haven't even come before the planning commission for any approvals. but yet they're at a catch 22 because they want to get their

investors lined up. So what we came up with here is we created a whole new section in this chapter behind adequate public facility fees and we're calling it sewer and water capacity reservation agreement. And so what we basically did was come up with the formula and I'm going to be very blunt is that if you want our signature to tell you that there's enough capacity for you to be able to develop. If you can get all your ducks in a row to develop, there needs to be a price for us to sign something to say that you have that capacity in there. Otherwise, we're making some type of allocation and we can't give that allocation to somebody else. So, we could have our allocations tied up for long periods of time. And so if somebody has a million dollar impact fee that they would have to pay as they build all their locations, if they want us to sign an agreement saying if you pay the impact fees, we will have the infrastructure suitable to for you to be able to develop. If you want us to give you that letter without you having any further commitment, then you're going to pay us 2% of that benefit assessment fee. So, they're going to have to pay 2% of that million [clears throat] dollars just for us to sign that agreement, but they don't have any guarantees until they go through the land development process. And so they could go through the land development process and get concept approval, which is basically where you throw it up on the wall and you get everybody's opinion about it. And if they get that concept approval and they're still worried about somebody

able to come in and take their capacity, they can pay us an additional 5% on top of that to lock up the amount of edus that they want to pay for, but it's only good for five years. So they can't hold us up on a several hundred home subdivision for years and years. And they're not refundable. they will get a credit towards the impact fee, but how many times you go through a community and you see a development that's half done because they went bankrupt. This is going to protect the town because if if you're going to talk a good game about, oh man, we're going to build this amazing development, just give us the capacity, then you're going to pay us non-refundable fees towards that. And then when you finally build all of your properties, then you um can pay the full benefit assessment fee and you're good to go at that point. So all this is doing is giving the elected body or the elected body authorizing the town attorney and myself and as part of the land development to come up with a water capacity reservation agreement. and the and this one talks about all the criteria that has to be in there. You can see here um under um an agreement execution fee that they have to pay the benefit assessment fee, a capacity reservation fee. That's where they got concept approval, but they want to put a little bit more money down. So there's the 5% they have to pay there. If they absolutely want everything guaranteed, then they have to pay the full impact fee. And you're going to see in a couple minutes what that new impact fee is going to be. So here's all the legal definitions. And this is basically just giving us the ability to create this

agreement. So you've had this for a month and a half also. All right. Can I get a motion to approve the uh ordinance 2025-07, which is chapter 9, the creation of the water and sewer capacity reservation agreement? So moved. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Is there any further discussion? All in favor? I. Thank you. Moving forward into resolution 2025-18, which is the fee revision schedule. Town administrator, do you have that?

Yes. So in chapter nine, if you remember the code, the section I just talked about that that lays out the road map of how we do things financially and within that it says that benefit assessment fees or anything related to land development can be done by a resolution. And I think it's important to take a step back and understand this. The charter is something that you don't want to be changing all the time. That's a general foundation of your business or the town. And so you don't typically change the charter, but a charter will give inable rights to the town to do certain things and you adopt an ordinance and that sort of sets it in stone. But sometimes you only need to do things that can change at any given time for whatever reason and you don't want to make it an over complicated system. So you pass resolutions. And so the charter says we can set fees. The town code says in chapter nine what those fees can be and then we set the fees through a resolution and it's a fee schedule. So when I was just talking about those benefit assessment fees, we're basically uh talking about uh raising our benefit assessment fees. And here there are some things that I think are important to cover. So I'm going to get through the first couple couple boilerplate um language here. And I'm going to go to this one here. Whereas because the development community has not previously paid any share towards these improvements that I just talked about for the the last 20 minutes here, the merit commissioners find that the proposed benefit assessment fee does not constitute a double recovery, but rather a fair and lawful method of ensuring that future users contribute to their equitable portion of the cost that have have ma have been made have that have made their

development possible. I think it's important to cover why I said that. A lot of communities make a mistake when they do a when they do a proforma to figure out what their fees have to be. They say, "Wow, we really think we're going to have a thousand homes are going to be built. So, let's not raise the rates as high as we could because our residents are going to get upset. Let's say we're going to have a thousand homes. will bake that into it and you're trying to pay debt service, but what happens if a thousand homes never happen? Then you're going to end up being short on your debt service and you're going to go back to your residents again and have to go through that same painful thing. So, we got very aggressive or conservative the way you want to look at it. And we did a pro-former that said we're not going to count on any new development coming in here because remember the government said you have to fix a sewer plant. you have to fix the water and it's going to cost this amount of money. So, we didn't want to be going back to residents later on. So, early in the way back in the day, I'm dating Auggie and I, we had some meetings and we hired a company back in 2011 that did an impact fee study. It was commissioned by the town and performed by municipal and financial services group projected that the town would need to charge approximately $31,300 per equivalent dwelling unit to fully recover the cost of required water and sewer system improvements based on anticipated development that ultimately did not occur. So, we almost fell into the trap back in 2011 and saying we're going to project 700 homes. And even though we projected 700 homes, it said we would have to charge 313. Well, no, no developer is going to tack on 31,000 additional dollars on the cost of a

home. They're not going to be sold. So, we did not follow that plan. we went with our own plan and we applied for a lot of grant money and got and got very creative about how we got the improvements in there. So now we're to the point whereas recognizing the economic climate and financial constraints of the development community, the town elected officials determined that the full fee was not feasible at that time. And in an effort to encourage responsible growth and maintain development feasibility, the town subsequently lowered the rate to 196 per edu, then later temporarily lowered it to 14,000 peru. And so whereas through these reductions, the town has effectively forgone approximately $19,300 per equivalent dwelling unit in benefit assessment fee revenue that would have otherwise been collected under the 2011 fee study, thereby representing the town's substantial contribution towards fostering responsible growth and reinforcing its commitment to balanced partnership with the development community. But we didn't do any of that and we didn't project any residential homes coming in. So, I'm going to jump down to the bottom. So, basically, when I talked about it being a a recovery or a duplication fee, a double recovery, is because developers will take you into court and try to sue you to challenge you on why you're charging certain fees. So the way I've done this resolution is that if somebody ever tries to challenge us, we can go to a judge and say, "Hey, we had a study in 2011 and it said we should have been charging 313." We didn't do it. We dropped it down to 19. Then we dropped it down to 14 and we said it was going to be temporary. But

now we've redone our study and we've come up with a new rate, which I'll show you in a second. So basically, we're setting this up so it's defensible in court. And so after all the studies that we've done that double recovery when developers have gone to court and I'll say it to you this way. If we would have done our our benefit assessment fee and said that 700 homes were going to develop and 700 homes came in and paid that amount of money, we wouldn't be able to charge this new batch of developers with impact fees. So we want to make sure it doesn't get lost in the pipeline that we didn't account for any development. So that means Mr. Developer, you're getting the benefit and the value of your land because we already paid for the infrastructure. So, we've redone our fee our fee structure to call it a water a water benefit recovery cost of $3,000, a sewer benefit recovery cost of $6,000, and a new development adequate public facilities infrastructure benefit assessment fee of $9,625. And that's based upon all the things we have to do to make sure that we have the capacity that is needed for that development. But our taxpayers are not paying for it. They are paying for it. And so that will bring the total benefit assessment fee to $21,000 um 544 here. Um, and you see the breakdown of what all those fees are going to be in the actual fee schedule here. Now, one of the things that we've also done is Argie, you brought up the question earlier of somebody hypothetically

wanting to connect to our system. If they are town residents are in the town, we don't want to hit them with a $21,544 payment. So, we will allow them to pay us back over a seven-year period on their water bill at a nominal administrative charge. So, we can soften that blow. So, even though they're going to pay the same amount of money as a developer is because they are a town resident or they're going to own the house, then they can pay that back over seven years. That's not something the develop the development community can do. So, that's basically, you know, all that lays out everything I said. You can see the seven-year payment plan. A lot of this was already in our fee schedule. We just had to clean it up to address the uh new fees and how we're doing it. So, that's a crash course on what this resolution is about.

Does anyone have any questions regarding resolution 2025-8, which is the fee schedule revision? I have a question. Um, you said 26544 and in here it's or I'm sorry or you said 21. It says 21625. Yeah. And I noticed that there's a typo. That's what I need to be 21544. Thank you. So, Calvin, does that mean that that the the 9,625 needs to be a different number as well?

No. Because that those numbers down at the bottom are accurate. when I made the revision to the um to the code. So, it's basically 12,000 on top of 9,000. So, that's where you get to the 21544. But, but those three things total 216 25. You got 6 and 6 12 and then the 9625.

So, what I'm going to ask you what what we settled on is 20 uh 21544. So, we'll make the typo changes. And again, when I was talking about all the negotiations we've been doing, this is an example of it getting lost and everything we've been trying to hammer out over the last two weeks. So, 21544 is the correct. Yes. Any further questions? Hearing none, can I get a motion to approve resolution 2025-18? [snorts] Motion. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? Thank you.

Thank you for that explanation as well, town administrator. Moving forward into new business, the amendment to the town trash and recycling contract. Do you have that? I think I'm supposed to have it. If Judy, do you have yours there that I can borrow? Which number is it? Um, it's not a it's not a resolution. It's not an ordinance. It's a All right. I found it. It's buried in my packet. Is this it? I got it here. Okay.

So, basically, in our efforts to work with the other communities, look, you've heard me say this before. We have a great relationship with the states, but that doesn't mean it's a perfect relationship with the state. And we try to have a good relationship with the county, but sometimes we run into a wall at 100 miles an hour to be quite frank. And so we try sometimes we're left by ourselves to do everything that you had asked about protecting our residents. And so one of those is working with the other communities. And the other communities quite frankly look to the town of Rising Sun to borrow from some of the things that we have done. And we have a believe it or not, we have a really good trash contractor right now. And I know when we switched contractors, people were up at arms and they were up in arms at the amount of money that it was going to cost, but it ended up being significantly cheaper than someone who lived out in the county and it was trash and recycling every week as opposed to a lot of the haulers in the county are trash and recycling every two weeks. So we have a really good deal, much better than some of the other communities. So, one of the things I do on a regular basis is I meet with the other town administrators. We try to do it once a month. The last couple months we haven't been able to do it, but they have been saying, "Hey, who's your trash hauler? We're getting rad over the coals." And there would be a lot of value in the towns working together. And the best way I can explain that is 10 years ago, everybody bought fluorescent lights and seafoam paper towels for their bathroom there, but we were all going out and buying it individually. Whereas if we all combined together at a consortium, so to speak, we'd get more bulk purchase power. And

so we've been working with Charles Town Port Deposit in Perryville of trying to figure out how we can do that. One of the things we did is we signed anou that our public works could call their public works guys in the middle of the night and get a valve off their shelf to take care of a water mane break and fix it and vice versa. So we have a lot of mutual operating between us. So what we did is in negotiations or discussions with Charles Town, they said, "Wow, we'd really like to get the kind of trash rate you have." Well, what typically happens is you put it out the bid and you might be lucky if you get that good trash rate. So, what we said is why don't we go to our trash hauler and sort of say, "Hey, you know what? It might be in your best interest to absorb another community into our trash bid as an addendum." And they said, "Sure, we'll do that. We'll charge them max." And we said, "No, that sort of defeats the beauty of it. you know, you will charge the same amount of money that we do, but instantaneously you're getting a client, and you're getting a client that's going to be as dependable as the town of Rising Sun is. So, what you have in front of you is an addendum that the town attorney and I have gone over that basically makes changes to our existing trash contract that does nothing more than to say although we're in the same contract, Rising Sun is not responsible for the billing of Charles Town. So, if a Charles Town resident has an issue with their trash, they're not calling Judy. They're calling their people in Charles Town. And if the trash hauler doesn't pick up trash in Charles Town, that's Charles Town's issue. And if Charles Town doesn't pay their bill, the

trash hauler can't take that on out on us. And so we're not responsible for them and they're not responsible for us. All this is doing is getting them under our contract under the same rules and regulations at the same rate. and we're anticipating that Perryville has been talking about wanting to do it next year also. So, it's a really good opportunity for the towns to work together to get more purchasing power. So, what I'm asking you tonight is to give me the blessing. It is gone to um it our attorneys signed off on it. We were waiting for the trash hauler to say they are good. They had they said they're good with it, but they had some questions for clarification, but they've not contacted me yet. So, I've talked to Charles Town about it. But I want to put a finished product in front of Charles Town because they have to sign off on this addendum also. So all I'm asking you to do is to give me the blessing of if the meat and potatoes of the agreement don't change and it's just some rewarding, can I have authorization to sign it on behalf of the town and send it to Charles Town for them to consider it also? So that's basically the uh requested action that I'm looking for.

Can I ask for a motion for the amendment to the town trash and recycling contract? Make a motion. I second it. It's been moved and seconded. Is there any further discussion regarding this addendum? Hearing none. All in favor? I. Passes. Thank you. Approval of Stevens preserve public works agreement. Town administrator. Do you have that?

Yes. So, I had sent you an email earlier about um as part of our negotiations and the public works agreement and theou of locking everything down, it's a little bit of a formal formality, but public works agreements and anou should be ratified by the elected body. And so, as I've been calling you guys over the last month and a half, as we've been in some intense negotiations, all the numbers are the same. We just needed our town attorney and their town attorney to put it into the legal ease. So, our town attorney has signed off on both of them. He's comfortable with it. He feels we're protected. And we're just asking you to ratify it because the sooner you ratify it, the sooner it locks the developer into what was agreed upon. And if you remember what we were have been talking about over the last couple of weeks, that has been a little bit of a moving target. So, we got what we wanted. We want to lock them in on this. So, we're asking you to consider um I don't want to call it a rubber stamp, but all this stuff is worked out as part of the development process. And I'm going from memory on what I emailed you. One of the really cool things is if you notice in the public works agreement, we don't have all that exposure we had in past public works agreements.

There you have a question. Just making sure the freedom development is the current developer, not the one we had back in 2005. I believe that was Comr. That's correct. Under Stevens Preserve, this is a totally new developer.

Okay. And what I'm getting at is the way because look at that time we all know we we we had some conflicts of interest operating in our town hall and we had the fox guarding the hen house back in the day and as a result instead of us getting if you're seeing that agreement our engineer and their engineer had to come up with what the total cost is going to be to put all the stuff in that's going to be turned over to the town of Rising Sun, the roads, the storm water, the sewer, the um the water, the sidewalks that comes out, I don't have it in front of me. I think it's projected at $5.2 million earlier today. It's

like $5.2 million. We have a 110% shity bonding guarantee that that's going to be good. Back in the day, we only had 10% on there because the fox was gone in the hen house. And you know what happened? The developer, I'm gonna say it this way a little bit arrogant. The developers got bored with the Maple Heights development and they got bored with the Brian's Grace development. They made their money, they walked away, and they didn't pave the roads and so they just walked away from it. Under normal circumstances, we would be withholding a lot of money and we could say, "Fine, we're going to use that money to pay it." We have those types of protections in these agreements. So again, somebody will think I asked you to come here and ask the question that you did, but it's another example of the things we're doing to protect our residents. So that that's what's in those agreements.

And this was prior blessing from the planning commission. This was all the planning commission really has nothing to do with this. These are legal issues between the attorney and the engineers. It's all the stuff that's relevant to the code. Okay. All right. Can I get a motion to approve resolution 2025? Uh, excuse me. The approval of the Stevens Preserve public works agreement. So moved. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? I

passes. Thank you. The approval of the Pawn Valley Farms. Okay, I had a brain freeze. Sorry. [laughter] Um, so we had an interesting situation with the land development process. You technically can't do a public works agreement until you have an approved preliminary plan. So, Pod Valley wanted to get preliminary approval last night, but there were some questions about the benefit assessment. And that's with the planning and zoning commission. Correct.

Yes, that was last night. And so quite frankly, we were not the staff was not going to let them come forward with their requested approvals until they agreed to all the conditions that would normally be in a public works agreement because we were having a some issues with that. So both sides mutually agreed to create anou and part of thatou all that language gets automatically put into the public works agreement that we can now start working on since the planning commission gave preliminary plan approval last night. Now here are some things that I want the residents to understand what we're actually doing. We're collecting benefit assessment fees. Remember I said we those benefit assessment fees are to pay the town back for money that our taxpayers paid. There's a portion of that $12,000 per edu. The other 9,000 is things that have to be done. And here's an example of one that has to be done. We did a hydraulic study and it determined that the interceptor line running down um basically from Buck's restaurant down there along that stream down past Jane behind Jane's Church and Meadowside Apartments. I guess it is all that wetlands area there's an interceptor line. And what an interceptor line is is when you run water down your kitchen sink, it goes down out your drain pipe into a conveyance line, which is what the public sewer main is in the street. And then all the conveyance lines tie into an interceptor line. So the town has two interceptor lines. One drains the east side of town and the other one drains the west side of town. But because that one runs through a wetlands

area, it gets a lot of what is called INI. The water tables go up. Back in the day when they used to build sewer pipes, engineers thought it was a great idea to put 4 foot or six foot sectional terracotta pipe in there because they wanted to deal with flooding areas by allowing the water tables to drain into the sewer pipe. And so it was not a big deal 40 or 50 years ago. Well, what that means is your sewer plant is running high voltage electricity, wearing out seals and impellers, basically treating rainwater. And so the new age of engineering is get rid of your INI. That's called inflow and infiltration which the interceptor line being subject to hydraulic water tables would be an ion an infiltration or yeah an infiltration issue. Inflow is where there's some pumps tied in or manholes leaking in the street. So, we had a hydraulic study that said of all the development again under and I'm using air quotes, we technically have to approve these because landowners have rights. We have to have a good reason for not doing it. Well, we have an interceptor line that when all the INI comes in there during wet weather, it hypothetically creates a question of is there enough capacity for the residential developments that want to develop? But said differently, if no development happens, well, the INI, we can have all the INI that goes in there. It doesn't impact us. So, it's something that the developer has to pay for. So, in the benefit assessment fee, we talked about $9,000 and change for each one. Part of that is to cover the cost of that interceptor line. But here's where

it gets a little tricky. When we grant these approvals that we have to grant, developers want some guarantees that they're not going to be starting a project and then we run into an issue. And so if we don't complete that interceptor line in a timely manner, we can find ourselves in a lawsuit. And all you need to do is think back to the Frapple lawsuit for $120 million and other communities that as we speak are being sued left and right by developers. And so we want to make sure we're protected. And so what we said to the developer is that if you want guarantees that this interceptor line is going to be done, then you build it. Because when we collect the benefit assessment fee, all we're going to do is put that at a bank account. We're going to have the engineer design a line. We're going to put it out the bid. We're probably going to have to go to to uh municipal government financing, which means we have a lot of legal costs. We got to uh pass ordinances and resolutions and then we have to carry that debt on our books. And anybody who's familiar with financials, your financial records look better if you don't have a whole lot of debt load in there. And so the only way we would get paid back is as the developers sell their home and pay us that 215. But that still means we have to go out and carry all that liability and get that financing. So what we said to the developer is instead of you paying us that money, you just use that money and you do it yourself and we'll allow you to get a profit because if we put it out to bid, whoever we're paying is going to get a profit on there anyway. And there's there's a viewpoint that time is worth money. And when you

look at all the wonderful things that the mayor was talking about when we talk about how the state helps us, we have grant money to totally redo the cultural center for close to $700,000 from the state. If we get that award, we'll be able to renovate that church like we want to put a deck on the outside. We can tear the buildings down to create parking lots. We can run the water line to West Ningham Academy, do the Plumpton Park Zoo. We can We have grant money to revitalize the downtown area, make it pedestrian safe. When I talk about a million dollars of grant money, it covers about seven or eight projects. There's only one Calvin. There's only one Judy. There's only one town staff. There's only one engineer. Only one elected body. Why not have the development community come in and use those money they would have been paid us and they get a chunk of those things done in the next two years as opposed to us trying to pick which project we want to do. And when people want to know why the buildings have not come down yet, one, it's securing the money, but two, we the glass is definitely half full in this community with opportunity, but there's so many people to do these projects. So this is a way of basically motivating the developer to do the work on our behalf and they get a reduction in their impact fees for doing that for us. So instead of us being five years from now still working on completing these things and another 18 months they can all be done. And so that's what thisou is is we have locked the developer into they're going to do this work. we're going to set the price that they're going to get the benefit of and they're going to carry all the risk and liability because they're not going to be able to pay their loan off until they sell all their houses. So, what's going

to motivate them to complete the project is selling all those houses because they're now taking the liability on it. So, it's another way of protecting our residents and putting that responsibility on the people who want to get the benefit of what you folks paid for over the last 10 years. So, again, there's a lot of detail to that, but I want everybody to understand the thought. Let me just say this. You asked a great question of how people can find out about this. This is what we do at these meetings. And so, we live stream them. I talk it nauseism nauseium to make sure that people understand what our thought process is behind it. But it's it's I'm the necessary evil I guess to make sure that people understand what's going on.

Just one question. This Pawn Valley is that going to be the name of the development? That is the old Canuten. What we know is Ken. Well, we you and I have been through a few uh other names on that. Yes. So that's what all their plans say. Pond Valley. They got approval last night for Pond Valley. Pond Valley. Yeah. Pond Valley Farm. Yeah. All right. Can I get a resol resolution for the MOU for Pawn Valley Farms, please? Or not a resolution, a approval. [snorts] I make a motion to approve. I second it. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor? I

I passes. Thank you. Moving forward into staff reports. Town administrator. I don't have anything. Really? No, I'm [laughter] good. I'm exhausted. Chief. Okay. First, am I on now? Yes.

There we go. Um, first a report on our newest candidate. He is doing well in the academy. He's gotten through some of the very um difficult portions. Um his spirits are good and I think he's going to hang on and we'll get him through into March when he graduates. Um that'll help us out with manpower. Um speaking of manpower, currently we're at about 12 hours um of police work a day. Um, if we're not here, I urge the citizens to dial 911 and you will probably get a Maryland state trooper to assist um until we are here. Um, the advertisements are still out for uh personnel. Getting individuals that can meet the standards that have been set has been difficult. um the aptitude seems to be one of the uh um more challenging hurdles that I'm coming across with some of these young people. Um so, but I still encourage you to apply and uh we'll try to work our way through it. Um there's no room for shortcuts with us, but we'll try to help you grow so you can become a law enforcement officer. Um, next up, there has been no significant trends in town um, for crimes. I've given you all the uh, police bladder for the last month. You can see a lot of the things that we actually do. Um, second, it's been a little over a month that the speed cameras have been in place. I've also provided you a uh, notice of what, you know, how they have been performing. Um, I've rearranged some of the other, uh, devices around town to try to capture what the speeds are on some of the other roads. And, uh, what I'm finding is a lot of people think that traffic is moving a lot

faster than what it actually is. Um, when you get to some of the side roads, even at 25 miles an hour, people think that those cars are moving a lot faster than what they actually are. So the the uh speed limits the speeds are not as high as you think. Um but we're all out looking and we're still looking to enforce. And lastly, welcome aboard, Commissioner. Thank you. We look forward to working with you. And that is my report in unless there's a question. Anyone have any questions for Chief? All right. Assistant [clears throat] town administrator.

I only have uh one thing. Our audit is complete. If you look in the financial information I provided you tonight, you'll see a copy of the audited financial statements. We didn't have to get any extensions. That's the first time in I think since I've been here that we didn't that we had them done timely and and ready. Also, uh you have um your check register of check all checks in the status since your last meeting and that's it. But uh anything else may there's a lot of little things but I'll leave those for you. Thank you, town attorney. I can't get the Zoom to work. Okay.

But I covered he he was going to speak to the public works agreement and so I covered that.

All right. Thank you. Moving forward into the mayor's report, if you will bear with me. Tonight's a ceremonial meeting. So, I'm going to go ahead and make a brief comment if uh I may. Um, tonight, as I am sworn in as uh my fourth term as mayor of the town of Rising Sun, uh I can't help but think back of where my journey has begun with the town. I was a 24-year-old college kid when I first started. Uh I put my name on the ballot, young, determined, and full of ideas. Uh I never imagined that this moment would lead me to be here tonight being sworn in once again as the longest serving mayor in our town's history. Uh it has truly been the honor of my life to serve uh our community uh and the folks that live here. Over the years as our elected body, we've accomplished so much together. We've transformed Main Street from a row of empty storefronts into a vibrant corridor filled with new businesses, new energy, and new pride. [snorts] We've invested in infrastructure, expanding water and sewer capacity, modernizing our systems that will serve our families for decades. and finally getting long start stalled projects moving again. We've secured grants and partnerships that many once thought were out of reach, proving that rising sun shows up at the table, people do now notice. We've championed community events that bring thousands of people to our town that events that didn't just grow but have become traditions. Our false spooktacular, our winter extravaganza and lighted tractor parade, Sunfest and so many others. We built spaces for our families, expanding our parks, providing new playgrounds and new amenities. And exciting projects are now underway to bring even more recreational opportunities to our community. And perhaps most importantly, we've built something less visible, but even more meaningful. A culture of teamwork, partnership, and pride. A community that believes again, a town that is moving forward, not by chance and not by choice.

This year's election sent a strong message with an uncontested slate and the addition of Commissioner Frank Dallinger Dowling, excuse me. Our our board has was given a clear mandate to keep going and to stay focused, stay steady, and continue the progress and stability that our residents have come to expect. That confidence is earned, and we will honor it every single day. To the board of commissioners, thank you for your partnership, your trust, and your willingness to take on big challenges. To our town staff, thank you for doing that work that often goes unseen but always shapes the life of this community. And to the residents of Rising Sun, thank you for believing in me and taking a chance on me. I want you to know that as long as I am in this position, I will give it all that I have for as long that I am here. Thank you. And let's keep moving rising sun forward, one step, one project, and one win at a time. Thank you. Moving forward into commissioner comments. Commissioner Dowling.

Uh, thank you for having me. I'm excited to um offer my skills and experience where I can where I can and um serve the people of Rising Sun. Looking forward to it. Thank you, Commissioner Kleiner.

Um, I just have a brief report. I had the honor of attending the employee recognition meeting um and lunchon last week and we honored two department of public works employees who had been here [clears throat] for quite a while um working for the town. So um that uh Billy who's been here for five years and Grant for 20. So, um, we commended them and gave them pins and, um, just again so grateful for their work and everyone else on public works and on the town staff. So, thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Kleiner. Commissioner Pearson.

Yeah. Um, unfortunately, Pauline Brawn had to resign her seat on the um, board of commissioners. And even though Pauline and I didn't see eye to eye on everything, she led us in the planning and zoning through probably what was one of the most difficult times in this town's uh history. And I just want to say thanks Pauline and I wish you the best. We you really did us a great service. That being said, it's Christmas time. Remember, be careful with your wallets. Be careful shopping. Um, there are people out there who have no, um, qual about taking your property. Um, that's all. Thank you.

Thank you, uh, Commissioner Pearson. A few other things I just wanted to add really briefly, and I know Commissioner Pearson, you probably forgot to put this, but um the town of Rising Sun uh was honored to attend the uh Chamber of Commerce uh emergency uh management uh I guess it wasn't a management, emergency first responders uh dinner. Uh our honores this year uh were both uh Joseph Cunningham and Steven Moore. Uh we thank you for their service um as well as the service of the Rising Sun Police Department. In addition, the Community Fire Company of Rising Sun honored uh chair chairman Douglas McGee, Captain Chris Kelly, and EMS Lieutenant Just Jessica Buchanan. Uh we do thank them so much for all that they do for our community. Uh, in addition, uh, the artist, you may have seen me checking my phone, the artist just sent me photos regarding our new mural, which is going up, um, along the side of, uh, our community building wall, um, and the alleyway located right next to Rising Sun Martial Arts. He was working on it uh, just while we were going into our town meeting and just recently stopped due to some rain that he said had started. Um, the mural is coming together. It's wonderful to see. As soon as he starts the portraits, we're going to go ahead and reveal those that are going to be honored. Um they will be historical figures um that made significant contributions to our community. So, we're excited to have them uh honored uh in the new mural coming to our town. In addition, Commissioner Kleiner and I along with one of our members of our planning commission and town administrator Bonenburgger attended the soft opening of Tractor Supply. Um, amazingly enough, they uh thought that Tractor Supply was going to be a low volume store and they were very surprised at the amount of folks that are now in there. Um, when the town administrator and I arrived with Commissioner Kleiner, um, they had slated the store to make around 11,000

uh, for that day. Um, and two hours in, they had already made $7,000. Um, so uh, we look forward to that large anchor store. obviously helping with smaller businesses. Uh we want folks that are going to Tractor Supply to say there's a coffee shop here, there's a hair salon there or a pizza place. So, we definitely want them to also visit our small businesses. Um so, we're excited about that and what's to come with um also some other new businesses that are going to get ready to open amongst our community. So, stay tuned for that. and um the town administrator and I along with Commissioner Pearson or not Commissioner Pearson um Chief Peterson also attended the uh opening of a satellite store for Rise and Grind uh in Elkton. Um it was a wonderful grand opening, a beautiful area. Um and we're excited that Elton now gets to have a taste of Rise and Grind. Uh so we wish the owners well uh with that new um second store that they now opened. Um Commissioner Cler, you also attended as well. Sorry about that. Um, as on the agenda, you can see the board of zoning appeals and planning commission schedule as well as upcoming town events. Don't forget our winter extravaganzas slated for December the 13th from 400 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. The upcoming town holidays as well as our trash, recycling, and yard schedule is also posted. Um, can I get a motion to adjurnn?

So moved. Second. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor? Meeting adjourned. Thank you.