Mayor and Council - Regular Meeting

Let's give them a warm clap in. Thank you, troop three thousand three and forty nine. You have made our day. And I think we could hear the hope and optimism in your voice. We really appreciate you being here with us today.

We're now gonna move on with our agenda. I'm turning over to city clerk's office for agenda review, miss Penny.

Mayor, there are no changes to this evening's agenda.

Thank you very much. Next, we have our city manager for the city manager's report, Jeff Mihalik.

Mayor Ashland, members of city council, ladies and gentlemen, good evening. We expect a very long meeting tonight, so I'll be super But I do have three things that I wanna point out on your consent agenda that are noteworthy, and I think they're kinda cool. First of all, I wanna note that we are moving forward with the design and construction administration for Red Gate Park. I know this community has been talking about Red Gate Park improvements for a number of years, and this is a big step in the right direction to award the final design and construction administration with, hopefully, the opening of the park into not too distant future. Secondly, I wanna acknowledge the city's, contribution of program funds to the Rockville Housing Enterprises for their youth build project.

That is really to help at risk students earn a high school degree, occupational skills training, and leadership development. There's folks from RH here here in the back. Excited to see them. I'm really excited to support that program. And lastly, and we're gonna show an image, but we gotta do the kind of the fireworks thing. I think we're taking our public art to the next level by doing a brand new public art display at Dub David Skull Park. It's called Shared Passage. There it is on the screen. Go ahead, everybody, with me. Pretend it's fireworks.

Oh. Right? That really is a beautiful, concept design for a new archway with stained glass, and we're really excited to award that to the artist today. I do wanna stress that there are additional opportunities for community engagement as that moves forward the final design process. So really excited about that. That's all I have, Mara. Thank you.

Thank you so much, mister Mihaelic. Very exciting. This is part of a number of artistic elements we're putting all across the city. I want to thank the team for that. I have a couple of quick things I wanted to add. Your team has done a fantastic job with the principals roundtable that was in this room last week. We convened principals from all across Rockville, both public and private, to share their feedback with us, and I want to thank the Education Commission for their leadership on that. It was fantastic. I say that strong cities are anchored by strong schools, and I really believe partnership is what's going to help us to continue that work. There was a wedding expo yesterday.

Folks worked very hard, and one of my colleagues had a chance to experience a wedding. I want to say congrats to Councilmember Van Gragh. We're excited for all of you. There is some sad news with someone in The Rock that has been allotted to people in the Rockville area. Mister Harry Gazanian from Los Delices passed away in the past month or so. He has been making French bakery items for people all across Rockville, and I think there's been an outpouring of of love and concern for his family. So I wanna thank the community for that. And there were also that was a pedestrian fatality. Fatality. There were there was also a crash yesterday that resulted in two fatalities.

I wanted to just also note two things that are coming a couple things that are coming up this week, mister Mihaelic. The Twombrook Neighborhood Connect is this Wednesday at the Twinbrook Community Rec Center at 7PM, and then the housing needs assessment, which is very important. We want everyone to come out, is on 05:30 at Rockville Memorial Library. And those are things that you can do to get involved. Learn more

on our city website and on Engage Rockville. Alright.

We'll now move on to agenda item six, boards and commission appointments and reappointments. We have appointments for the Community Policing Advisory Board, the Cultural Arts Commission, the Education Commission, the Human Rights Commission, and the Recreation and Parks Advisory Board. Do we have a motion for the nomination for the Community Policing Advisory Board? Councilman Valeri.

Yes. Madam Mayor, I move to appoint Latrice Ware Allen to the Community Policing Advisory Board to serve an expiring three year term until 02/01/2029.

Do we have a second? Second. If all those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Thank you. And I believe miss Latrice Michelle Ware Allen is here today. Thank you. Thank you. And if there are any other appointees that were saying your names, please feel free to stand up. Next is the Cultural Arts Commission. I'm the liaison here, but I can't make the motion.

Council Member Bolton. I move to appoint Francis Bevington to serve as chair of the Cultural Arts Commission for a one year term until 03/01/2027.

Do we have a second? Second. Councilmember Jackson seconds. All those in favor, please raise your hands and say aye. Aye. Thank you. Next, we have the Education Commission. Councilmember Miles.

Thank you, madam mayor. Move to reappoint Edward Reed and Wendy Whitaker to the Education Commission each to serve a two year term until 04/01/2028.

Do we have a second? Councilman Fulton seconds. All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Excellent.

We have miss Whitaker here.

Yes. Thank you. Thanks for all your work. Human Rights Commission, council member Shah.

I move to appoint Emily Stevenson to the Human Rights Commission to serve an expiring three year term until 10/01/2028. Excellent.

Do we have a second? Second. Council member Jackson seconds. All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Excellent. And next, have the Recreation and Parks Emily, up. Hey. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have the Recreation and Parks Advisory Board, Councilman Van Graig.

Madam Mayor, I move to appoint Marsha Doma to the Recreation and Parks Advisory Board to serve an expiring three year term until 07/01/2027.

Thank you. Do we have a second? Councilmember Shaw seconds. All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Thank you to all those who stepped up to serve and we look forward to your work.

Okay. Alright. Now we'll move over to community forum. This is the time to share your ideas and concerns with the mayor and council. Please address the mayor and council in a civil and courteous manner. Let's be respectful to the audience members who are with you. If you have anything to provide to the mayor and council, please pass it on to the city clerk represented by miss Judy Penney. Each person will be allowed three minutes, and we ask that you stick to that time. There is a time clock in front of you, and you'll hear an audible beep. When you come up, please state whether you are living in the city of Rockville or working in the city of Rockville.

Okay. So we have several comments. We've received a lot of comments that are in writing. I'm gonna move first to the ones that are here and signed up in person, and then we'll go to anyone else who signed up after. First, Alex Bellita. Please join us at the podium.

Thank you very much, Madam Merritt and members of the council. I'm Alex Bellita, and I'm a resident of Newmark Commons. And if you're like me, there are all too many days when you probably wake up in a state of rage over what you've read in the news, And it's unhealthy, as I'm sure you'll agree. So where do you find some sense of relief? Well, fortunately for us, we live in Rockville.

And here we have diversity. We have amenities. We have friendliness. I'm fortunate to live in what is arguably one of our city's islands of tranquility, the community of Newark Commons. It's a nationally recognized historic property cited for its architecture and, importantly, as a symbol of community planning and development.

So let me ask you this. Unless you have some personal animus towards Newmark and its residents, why would you allow anyone to take a 9.75 acre wooded plot of land marked by wetlands that is next to us and throw up incompatible high rises and flood our streets with more cars and destroy a peaceful oasis. Let me recall some of the observations that were made from Newmark's historic designation. It was promoted as a twentieth century village that's one foot in the future and a step back to a better time. Edmund Bennett, the developer, said Newmark avoided both the sterile planning and visual pollution of suburbia and the growing pains of the big new towns.

Today, we have a diverse group of residents, young and old, a mix of freestanding homes and townhouses, a lake that collects city storm water, communal spaces, cul de sacs, a renowned tree canopy. My house, known for some reason as the Nantucket model, doesn't look out over the ocean but over a terrain of trees and greenery, and it gives me much needed peace in these troubled times. Newmark has been recognized by the American Institute of Architects and the Urban Land Institute. It was supported for its historic designation by the Maryland Historic Trust and by the city's own historic district commission. This is a neighborhood that should be preserved and protected as part of Rockville's heritage.

So let me ask you again. Why would you allow any developer to threaten it? Thank you.

Here we are.

Thank you very much. Next, have Susan Knowles.

Hi. I'm Susan Knowles, a resident of Newmark Commons. And I'd like to follow on Alex's comments because it seems the Planning Commission is sensitive to the threats by potential development on the Tower Dawson plot next to Newmark. First of all, let me note that the planning staff did not once mention to the commission that you expressly directed them to consider RMD infill and other options to replace the original recommendation of RMD 25 for the plot. We are, however, pleased the commissioners heard our concerns during their work sessions and insisted on replacing some of the concepts staff left out of their recommendations.

Critically, these include the reference to compatibility as a consideration for any new development vis a vis an adjacent existing residential neighborhood. Yet another restored passage notes that despite what staff repeatedly suggested, there is no legal obligation to approve the RMD 25 recommendation in the comprehensive plan. Finally, the Commission's report reflects testimony from our community that we were not engaged in the comprehensive plan process about this plot until last year, while the developer has been able to work with planning staff since 2015. An attempt was made by the commissioners to alleviate our extreme concern about a huge increase in traffic through our neighborhood if high rises are built. This is contained in their footnote about RMD 25 that would lower density on the plot to 10 units an acre if there is any vehicular access through cul de sacs like Don Mills Court.

However, that could still open the door to a massive surge in traffic, not just from the 10 acres, but also from towers connected 20 plus acres to the South and its plan for building hundreds of new townhomes there. Visualize this. Any access through Newmark for hundreds of new vehicles would create a parallel route to I-two 70 from Tower Oaks Boulevard through Newmark and Markwood to the already overburdened and arguably dangerous Falls Road interchange. Interchange. As we have said before, we do not oppose the city's desire to create more housing.

But we are asking you for two things. No access to Newmark Streets from this parcel. And if you cannot preserve the current R90 zoning, then compatible development at most at the RMD infill level. Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome Steve Plotkin followed by Patricia Reber.

I'm Steve Plotkin. And like the preceding speakers, I live in Newmar Commons. I've actually lived there for fifty two years. And I'd like to offer a flashback as a follow-up to Susan Knowles' assessment of our concerns as they stand today. I wanna take you back to 1984.

And no, I won't ask you what you were doing back then. But I do wanna refer to a city document from that year, which also dealt with that pesky 9.75 acre plot of land next to Newmark, whose future you're now tasked with deciding. In 1984, the city was considering whether to annex it for use as a park and recreation site. After a careful study by representatives of the planning department, public works, recreation and parks, and community development and housing assistant, The city decided against it. Their evaluation made these points, and I quote, development of the site for residential purposes may be difficult may be a difficult undertaking considering its close proximity to I 270 and potential unsatisfactory living environment.

And I'd add also, it's nowhere near any transit access whatsoever. Under no circumstance here's another one. Under no circumstances should vehicular access be permitted from this site via the residential neighborhoods to the north. That is Newmark Commons and Markwood. And finally, one section contains an unrecorded number of unmarked graves which must be relocated by any developer.

Mayor and council members, the city didn't want it then as a park, but maybe you ought to consider this option now, particularly when Tower Dawson puts close to 400 new townhouses on this on the site just to the south of this plot. Surely, the residents residents of that new development deserve some additional green space. Thank you.

Thank you. Pat Reber? Patricia Reber followed by Michelle Ware Allen.

Hi. Thank you. I'm Pat Reber. I am also a resident of Newmark Commons since 1985. We have considerable number of people behind us, if you wave your signs, that are here tonight to to, observe the proceedings and, before council.

I'll keep this short as I know you have a long session ahead of you this evening. Right now, there is no alternative North South route through Rockville between I 270 and the Rockville Pike. There seems to have been a good reason as the city has, for example, consistently resisted the idea of connecting the two segments of East Jefferson. If I remember correctly, the reasons varied but included, one, the need to protect commerce on the Rockville Pike, and two, the need to protect neighborhoods. It is clear that two major residential developments are on the horizon for the 10 acre plot adjacent to Newmark Commons and Markwood and the connected 20 acre wooded plot to the south.

The number of units could exceed 600, all told, maybe up to 700. If vehicle access is allowed through these 30 acres, and that is tradition in Rockville planning that the neighborhoods are seamlessly connected. If this is allowed through these 30 acres from Tower Oaks Boulevard, that is Montrose, through Newmark Commons and Markwood, the city would have created an alternate North South route through Rockville, and you can imagine the amount of traffic that would use it. We're talking about more than the vehicles that would be connected to the homes on these 30 acres. Is that really something the city really wants?

In one of the recent options offered by the planning commission, we are being asked to accept the density of high rise apartment buildings which are incompatible with our neighborhood in order to protect our neighborhood from destruction by heavy traffic. This seems to be a trade off that's being offered in one of the four acceptable changes. And we feel this is an unacceptable bargain. Thank you for listening to me, and think about that North South route. Thank you.

Thank you. Michelle Ware Allen, followed by Kathleen Kelly.

Good evening, mayor and council. As I was introduced, my name is Michelle Latrice Michelle Ware Allen. I'm a seven year resident in Rockville, and I've spent a lot of time in the city, from renting a condo in the town center to my home in King Farm to running up and down the pike, getting my kids to Bell Elementary, then Julius West, and finally, Richard Montgomery, where two of my daughters have graduated, and my son is now a freshman. But one of the most rewarding moments that I spent in Rockville was at 5601 Fishers Lane where I worked as a federal contractor with the National Institutes of Health, building bioinformatics infrastructure in training at universities in low and middle income countries. And today, as I'm making a pivot from fifteen years of public service and entering the climate tech space, I'm now proudly a startup and incubator at BWTech.

And we are now state funded to produce an AI research pilot, which is why I'm here. On April 24, as a part of DC Climate Week, we will be working with UMBC students to launch a live building energy audit. It will be a competition, and the students will be validating our software and using, a real life case study. Students who win this competition will continue that work through a paid fellowship program where they receive training certifications and coaching with the goal of creating a workforce pipeline of civically minded tech specialists who cannot just support clean energy initiatives, but also lead them, helping Maryland not just meet its sustainability goals, but exceed it. So I have three asks.

The first is we would like a letter of support from the mayor and city council supporting this as a city of Rockville activity for DC Climate Week. Second, we would like to use a city of Rockville building for our pilot case study. And third, we would like to partner in publishing those results in a documented case study. In closing, I just wanna say that two weeks ago, I had the honor to meet with mayor Ashton. And in twenty minutes, I received advice that helped us build this workforce pipeline to build a cleaner Maryland. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We have Kathleen Kelly. Please come up. And then we have Anusha D

You're a very kind group I can say that It's my second time here and I'm grateful to be here again. The passion that I have in my heart really comes from King Solomon when he wrote, Without a vision, the people perish. It's in Proverbs 29. And I see the Marlow Building and when I pass by I think what an opportunity to convert that to be a rehabilitation center with the goodwill next door to it, the police department not far in case we have problems, worked in a rescue mission, I know that can happen. So this would be again appealing to us, to you all about making that a useful place for rehabilitation, not just a place to sleep, but a place to get back on their feet where they can have training.

We've done that. We did that in Atlanta, Georgia And that would be my deepest concern because I'm reminded by Jesus telling us, love thy neighbor as thyself. And so I just see them when I see them in the bus stops, when I see them making tents behind the bus stop, we have to do something that can help them to rehabilitate and become what they can become. And I thank you very much. God bless you. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Ms. Anusha, please join us. After that, have Diane Fuchs. Welcome.

I'm from Sri Lanka. My name is Anusha Damasena, and I live in the city of this beautiful city created by the mayor. Thank you. Every opportunity we get in life is is an experience for us to become the light that we are meant to be. And I enjoy living here.

I live in the city, and my relationship goal should be to meet folks who motivate us to become better and show us the potential we don't see in ourselves. I live I love living here and volunteering because I get the opportunity to do just that. So we make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give, said Winston Churchill. So I look forward to volunteering in the city of Rockville to make this place shine.

Any which way I can help, I'm happy to do it, and I thank you all for working hard to meet the goals of all these people. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Miss Diane Fuchs? Followed by Anna Ashford Molina.

Mayor Ashton, council members, city staff, my name is Diane Fuchs. I live on Carnegie Court in College Gardens. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you about the villages, the village movement in Rockville. I am an officer of the West Rockville Connects Village Board of Directors, but I do not come here alone. I speak on behalf of a collective of Rockville Village Leaders.

You are well acquainted with the village movement and the tremendous progress of developing villages in Rockville. Thank you for your continued support. Thank you for attending our events, especially the January. When you hired Trish Evans in 2017 to be the first Village facilitator, you found a gem. She is passionate, motivating, and skilled at leading and connecting us with helpful city resources.

The growth of village activity has been remarkable due in large part to the addition of a part time assistant to Trish Evans. West Rockville Connects Village is one example of a developing village. We have our own website, board of directors, and bylaws. We recently received five zero one c three nonprofit status. Our village has initiated or participated in over 40 community activities since our first meeting in late twenty twenty one.

Each of the activities we initiated took time to plan, prepare for, carry out, and debrief. We would not have been able to achieve all this without Trish's help and her leadership and the help of a part time assistant. But we're just one of 10 villages in Rockville. Imagine how much support they all require, particularly the ones just starting up. And there are Rockville neighborhoods yet to get started.

Without more support, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to maintain Rockville's progress in growing the village movement. The amount of work it takes to sustain this momentum is not sustainable with one full time staff person and only twenty hours of a part time assistance time. Villages the Rockville villages provide neighbors with a feeling of being connected, protected, and respected. Thriving communities attract small businesses and corporations. Investing in the village movement is an investment in the city's economic development and the city budget should reflect this.

We ask that you modify the proposed FY twenty twenty seven operating budget to create a full time position for the assistant to the village facilitator. And please add another part time assistant. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Do we have Anna? Astrid Molina, welcome.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Anna Astrid Molina, and I have lived in Markwood for thirty years. I'm thankful for your time tonight. While I appreciate all the extensive work on the 2040 plan, I must voice a little bit of disappointment with the process that I have, excluded Markwood because we do not have an HOA. Our voices are missing from the conversations that are deciding the fate of our doorsteps.

The current recommendation for the Parcels Store ID 17 in Planning Area 12 reflect the input of the owner and the developer. Such plan promises compatibility, just this RMD 25 proposal places a 75 foot high rise building in the middle of R90 single family homes. I believe that if the city is determined to increase density, it must do so with respect of the existing neighborhood scale. A lower density designation like R and D infill would allow for growth while maintaining the look and feel of Markwood and Newmar Commons. Because of the nursing home on Potomac Valley Road, we deal with a steady stream of daily vehicle, such as visitors, three shifts of medical personnel, trash removal, and 18 wheelers and other kind of trucks delivering food, medical supplies, and more.

Most critically, fire engine and ambulances stop on the road at the nursing home two or three times daily. On the other end, traffic is also affected by Julius West Middle School. Adding an estimate of 200 plus private vehicles to this specific bottleneck isn't just a traffic inconvenient. It's a public safety hazard. Every second counts for an emergency vehicle, and we cannot afford a gridlock this density will create. We welcome the opportunity to host you for a site visit and explore more compatible solutions. We ask you to reject the RMD 25 recommendation and uphold the city's commitment to neighborhood safety and compatibility. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Welcome Nancy Picard followed by J. D. Kumar.

Good evening, madam mayor and mayors of members of council. Sorry. I'm here with an announcement for Peerless Rockville tonight, and I just before I did that, I just I think I haven't sat in on community forum for some time. And I just wanna thank you all for this time you're taking to listen to everyone. There's been really fabulous testimony here tonight.

And, of course, I'm partial to all the Newmark Commons. You guys are doing a great job working to preserve your community, but the other heartfelt things, and it's a great space. And I just wanted to share that kind of positive feedback. With that, I'm going to pivot. I'm here tonight just to make an announcement.

As part of our community grant this year, we have some additional funding to go specifically to activities that will support two fifty years of history as it's taken place in Rockville and in the county. For those of you in the audience who maybe have been under a rock, because I'm sure you all know this by now, it's not just the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the nation, it's also that for Montgomery County. And being the county seat here in Rockville, it's rather a special year. So, I just wanted to share a few words about some upcoming things that we have going on. We are launching a program to commemorate the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary with special programming of Rockville two fifty: our American story.

And together with the Rockville community, the city of Rockville, and our business partners, Peerless Rockville will explore how national themes in American history have unfolded right here in Rockville over the last two and a half centuries. Rockville two fifty will tell the stories of the people and places in Rockville that trace our nation's history. Join us as we look back to the founding of Montgomery County in 1776, through time, to the vibrant, diverse community of the twenty first century. Beginning in spring twenty twenty six, the historic Red Brick Courthouse will host an illustrated exhibit showcasing two fifty years of Rockville's history with additional lectures, tours, and special programs to follow throughout the year. These will offer residents and visitors opportunities to engage with our local and national heritage, and we hope that you all will take part in upcoming events as well.

Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome, JD Kumar.

I'm gonna watch the clock on you. Alright. City of Rockland, Maryland government, CRMG, thank you for this opportunity, this open democracy forum. My name is JD Kumar, Democrat candidate, US Congress, House of Representatives, Maryland district eight, a long history of humanity as a twenty first century leader. You all know.

My background, two undergraduate degrees, international biz finance, Spanish language, and literature, Mexico history, culture, political political science studies, graduate MBA studies, founder, PhD, uni relational linguist also. My website, votejdk.com, Twitter Twitter x at vote j d k, and at make basics cheap. So much policy details, etcetera. Now this info not necessarily for all of you individually or a CRMG. Please note, me and my family are advanced civilization and ancestry lineage, founder investors, founder emeritus of the original American colonies.

Not an arrogant statement, but well researched eighteen hundred years, another hundred and fifty years as a British colony. Well, now not a failed Spanish crown Christopher Columbus intention destination, ignorance calling natives here Indians. Now I pledge allegiance to British America, USA America everywhere, rule of law rule of law. I do not pledge allegiance to the allegiance to Latin America, Central America, Montgomery County, Maryland Government, MCMG. All their policies, acts, trust acts, ICE out acts for the Latin America, Central American illegals, undocumented community only to ignorant abuse more and no protections for legal residents and citizens, diminishing nonexistence.

This is a problematic callous group, PCMG. They're emboldened. New new abuses this past week, so this info today from me. Warning all again, all of you. They feel they have built this country. This is reason for their abuse and false strangers manipulative abusive lawfare, F d m a l, f d mall. Not so. It is the India, British, European associations for more than one thousand nine hundred and fifty plus years direct also. And, again, this tech era, huge reason for USA wealth. When will this affect all of you and how?

When Central Americans started coming here in the eighties, USA already top human development index country. I remind Home Depot not built in a day. 35,000 products in store over a million online decades ago. USA top economy, approximately 30% global GDP in '80. 1980, today, 22%. Huge decline due to an ugly, dirty, skanky society. Huge decline coming. Believe me. More info. Manifest destiny complete.

Ocean to ocean, coast to coast. Not just Ivy universities, but thousands of colleges, other universities, a modern Renaissance society, and more. Variety of free speech, including Spanish TV. We already sent a man to the moon and women further beyond. African American black men and women on the Supreme Court, advanced country, major highway systems built, ports all built, skyscrapers coast to coast, north and south also. Latin Latin America, Central America, you did not build this country. Spanish crown, yes. Their empire lasted only one sixteenth century. All your country countries achieved Bolivarian freedom as colonies by 1825, two centuries ago. India 1947, same as state of Israel establishment.

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that's that's that's that's that's that's

appreciate that. Alright. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? I see some other folks have joined. Okay. Thank you. There will be another chance during our public hearing. I appreciate everyone sticking within time frame. We would love to hear more, we do have a long night and we want to make sure that we can also get to our public hearing. I also want to acknowledge that there are many people who have sent feedback in writing. We've all had a chance to review that and appreciate all the written commentary as well. We now move on to our consent agenda. Sorry. Hold on. Hold on one minute. We may have some virtual. One second. Miss Penny?

Yes. We do. Okay.

Perfect. One by Jackie Shin. Do we have Jackie Shin?

Yes, hello. I'm here. Can you hear me?

We can hear you very well. Can we adjust?

Great.

Please proceed.

Okay. Good evening, everyone. My name is Jackie Shin, and I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself to Mayor Ashton, to the members of the council, and to the resident I'm sorry that I can't be there in person tonight. I'm a consultant hired by Peerless Rockville to work on the project AAPI in Rockville, Chinese immigrants, and Chinese Americans. As you likely know, the current population of Rockville is close to 25% Asian, making up the largest racial minority in the city.

Yet the history of Asian settlement in and around the city and the development of these communities over time has not yet been thoroughly studied or documented. A recent report has laid the groundwork by exploring the history of Asian American settlement in Montgomery County, but until now, we haven't had a strong sense of why Rockville has drawn so many Asian immigrants and what places and individuals are most important to the history of its Asian communities. For the first phase of this important work, Careless Rockville is focusing on the city's Chinese, Chinese American, American, and Taiwanese communities, which formed the largest segment of the Asian population in the city. The earliest documented Asian individual in Rockville was a Chinese immigrant who operated a laundry across from the courthouse beginning in 1894. As part of this project, I'm writing a context statement that ranges from the eighteen nineties to the present.

This report is based on intensive archival research as well as on interviews with members of the community. I identified business and commercial patterns in Rockville, important cultural organizations, community leaders, and property ownership, and settlement patterns. For this first phase, I'm also compiling an annotated bibliography, writing a few blog posts, and giving public presentations. Peerless Rockville is fortunate to receive operational funding from the city of Rockville, which they leverage into the grants that fund this kind of work. The grants that are funding this project come from the Maryland Heritage Area Authority and the Miller History Grant from the Maryland Center, for History and Culture.

I'm hopeful that continued support from the city will permit Fearless Rockville to leverage more outside grants to continue future phases of this project so that we can more fully understand AAPI history and culture in Rockville and all of its complexity and richness. As an Asian American myself, I can attest to how meaningful and necessary this kind of work is. Finally, if anyone in the audience now or perhaps watching the recording is part of Rockville's Chinese, Chinese American, or Taiwanese communities and would like to reach me, please do reach out to the staff at Peerless Rockville, and they will give you my contact information. I would love to hear from you, and I want to thank you all for your time and support. Have a good evening.

Thank you.

Thank you. That exhausts the list of those who have signed up in advance for community forum. We will also have an opportunity for a budget hearing. Is there anyone else who is intending to speak for community forum? Is it for community forum or budget hearing? Please come come on up, mister James Hedrick.

Good evening, everybody. My name is James Hedrick. I'm the interim executive director for Rockville Housing Enterprises, the public housing authority for the city of Rockville. I just wanted to come up and speak at community forum tonight, because on the consent agenda, you'll see item number three, which is a $30,000 reallocation of funding for Rockville Housing Enterprises YouthBuild program. If any of you are unfamiliar with the YouthBuild program, it is a program for, students ages 16 to 24 who are not very well served by traditional school systems. They come into our program. I think, Jeff mentioned a little bit of it, earlier. They come into our program. They're able to get their GED. They're able to get their certification for various construction, jobs, and then they're able to go out and get employment in the community.

They're able to do such a good job that I've hired a couple of them myself at Rockville Housing Enterprises. If you come to our front Kimberly will greet you and welcome you in. But, the new administration has delayed a lot of funding, has refused to give extensions on funding as well, which has caused us to have a gap in our funding. This $30,000 goes a long way to us being able to do a new cohort, before the next round of funding is available without having to wait for nine months, for old core for the for a new cohort. So I wanna say that I appreciate that.

In the six months that I've been on this job, including this 30,000 for YouthBuild. We've raised over $95,000 for the YouthBuild program from different foundations, including the, including the Allison Eugene, Ford Foundation, Basudo, and a couple of other partners that we have as well. And, if anyone from the county is, watching this right now, we'd appreciate y'all, getting back to us and letting us know about the application we put in for y'all to be as generous as the city of Rockville has been. But I did wanna come up and say thank you. We appreciate it.

The youth build program for Rockville Housing Enterprises is a real crown jewel for what we, what we do at Rockville Housing Enterprises, and I think for the city of Rockville and Montgomery County as a whole. I wanted to come up and say thank you and say, I appreciate it, and I will now go and sit in the back and await a vote on item c. I did also want to mention the very beautiful art will be put up very close to David Skull Apartments, which is also part of Park Rockville Housing Enterprises, our public housing. It's gonna look very nice over there. And I would like you to, all keep your calendars clear for the first or second week in May.

We will be doing a ribbon cutting on David Skull for approximately $900,000 in exterior renovations, including siding, repaving, stairs, some roofing that you probably won't be able to see from the ground, but listen to look very nice. But I would like you to all, you should be getting an email or should have gotten an email this afternoon inviting you all. So thank you very much. We appreciate it, and we appreciate the youth build program going forward. And we'll let

you guys know when we

have a new cohort ready to go. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Alright.

Alright. We appreciate everyone participating in community forum. Will now move on to our consent agenda item. We have several items. 9a, authorize the city manager to execute the City Of Rockville Cooperative Agreement with Montgomery County Roadrunners for the twenty twenty six Suds and Souls five ks Race and Festival.

Next, we have b, approval of the public proposed artwork to be installed at David Skull Park and granting the city manager authority to approve the final design in alignment with the community engagement process established for the project c, reallocation of undistributed FY 'twenty six community services and enrichment grant program funds to support Rockville Housing Enterprises Youth Build program d, award and authorize the city manager to execute a contract with LSG Landscape Architecture of Tysons, Virginia, for a negotiated value of $775,000 for Red Gate Park improvements, concept design and construction administration services. And then lastly, E, approval of minutes for the dates of 03/02/2026, and 03/09/2026. I want to first see if my colleagues have any questions. Councilmember Vollary?

Yes. I'd like to pull Item B for further discussion.

Do you want to just ask your question, Councilmember Vollary?

Sure.

A lot of my questions are about item B for the public is the public artwork for the David Skull Park and for that community. So I'm not opposed, and indeed I really support public art. And I think that this is a beautiful project. The artist selection process itself looks solid. A lot of my questions and my concerns were around the community engagement process that preceded it, specifically whether the right community was actually engaged and whether the upcoming engagement process is actually targeted to the people who live closest to the park.

From the staff report, I was concerned to see that both East Rockville Civic Association and the Lincoln Park Civic Association, which are both wonderful neighborhoods I used to live in East Rockville they were consulted on this, even though it's an amenity for and is a wonderful addition to the David Skull Park community. I really wanted to understand more about the decision making that went behind that, and whether that is going to be baked into the future engagement commitment and how we could maybe look at engagement going forward. So that very long winded way of asking the question of Mr. City Manager around the engagement, I just want to make sure that the residents of David Skull are engaged in meaningful way, akin to how the East Rockville and Lincoln Park communities were that are not the recipients of this art? Thank you, Mr.

Mihalek.

Yep. Thank you for the question. We did do a robust engagement process. It did indeed include East Rockville neighborhood, Lincoln Park neighborhood, and the David Skull community as well. We also have opportunities as we continue final design and moving forward with the installation of the artwork. If there's an appetite to further engage David Skull's neighborhood in a more robust way, we're more than happy to do that.

So to that point, and I appreciate if it's okay if Madam Mayor, I think that that should be the standard, frankly, for any of our public art. There needs to

be

meaningful engagement of the community that this is going to live within. This is very intentionally for the David Skull community. So while I appreciate wide net, and I understand that over four fifty postcards were sent out. That is well above the number of housing in David's Skull, but still we only got three responses out of that. So maybe this is an opportunity to kind of take a step back and look at what our engagement strategy is.

Because I appreciate that both East Rockville and Lincoln Park, again, awesome neighborhoods. But this is particularly for the Davis School community, and I don't it seems it may have gotten lost in this round. So I'm hopeful that would you say that this would be part of future engagement, specifically for the David Skull community?

Just to be clear, engagement with David Skull was not lost in the process at all. We did reach out to the community in advance of this solicitation. We did receive some feedback. Of course, we would expect to have more from that community. But moving forward, we'll try even harder in the community, and we expect there to be some advanced participation. Thank you.

Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you, madam mayor.

Thank you. Councilman Bershaw.

Madam mayor, I wanted to make a motion.

Thank you. Please proceed. Oh, doctor Miles.

Something very minor.

I just wanted to be mindful of this project. I was it being Women's History Month, I was excited to be a woman actually working on the project. That's all. Looks pretty cool.

Thank you, Doctor. Maas. And I believe that it might have one of the options is to have an illumination via solar.

That's correct.

Yes, which is also pretty cool. Thank you. And I see mister Hedrick is here and can see that we would love to have more, feedback from the Davis Gold community, and we welcome it. Thank you. Council Mershaw.

I move to approve consent agenda items a, b, c, d, and e. Thank you. Do we have a second?

Thank you. It's been seconded by Council Member Jackson. All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Excellent. Thank you all very much. So we'll be moving on to our budget public hearing, which is Item 10, y 2027 budget public hearing number three. I would like to ask our city clerk's office, has this hearing been properly noticed?

Mary, the hearing has been noticed in both Washington Washington Post and the lawful reports.

Thank you very much. And I'd like to welcome Daniel Chambers as well as Stacy Webster and Kim Francesco to prepare a brief presentation, and then we will hear from public.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and members of the council. This is our third public hearing scheduled for the FY 'twenty seven operating budget and capital improvements program. There will be one final public hearing three weeks from today on April 13, which will also be the close of the public record for the budget. In addition to speaking at these hearings, the public may submit written comments directly to the mayor and council via the city clerk as well as submit responses to our community budget priority survey at rockvillemd.gov/budget. And, again, the public record will remain open through April 13.

Included in your packets this evening is a summary of all public testimony on the f y twenty seven budget as well as an interim report on the survey, which currently has over 450 responses. This public was here this public hearing was advertised in the Washington Post as well as being posted to the city of Rockville's website, social media accounts, the channel eleven bulletin board, and Rockville reports. Again, there will be one final public hearing on this budget three weeks from today on April 13 with the public record remaining open through the same date.

Thank you very much. We appreciate all the work on preparing our budget as well as doing community outreach. I will note that, again, April 13, you have another opportunity to testify if you haven't signed up today. Also, we have a budget survey that's still live and online. You can just look up City of Rockville survey. We'll now open up the floor for folks who have signed up in advance, and then we'll go to folks who have not yet signed up but would like to speak. The same comments I made during community forum apply. Please watch the clock in front of you. Please be respectful. We look forward to your ideas. First, we welcome Karen He. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor Ashton and council members. It's my great pleasure to be here today. And first of all, I would like to express my gratitude to receive the funding because we are very, very, very happy that this will be the second year. I would explain to you what we have done for the first funding we have received because the robotic center has expanded tremendously. So the funding has support us to rent, you know, another unit so students can work there.

So as this season, students have achieved a lot of they have done a great job. They have we have 13 teams advanced to the world championship to represent the whole entire Maryland. So this is the biggest achievement among Maryland, Virginia, the DC area. So this is a big achievement. So as a fund receiver, we don't want to just keep the money.

We want to give back to the community. So I would like to take this opportunity to share with our plans. So we want to give free classes to students in the in this neighborhood to express to let them to experience what is the STEM, what is the robotics. Because a lot of kids, they are scared of the STEM program and a lot of families are afraid of the budget because they may not afford to do it. So we want to open free classes to the students in this neighborhood.

So students there are Rockville residents. We welcome we will open the door to our center for them to, you know, to experience our robotics program. And, also, we would like to organize a robot robotics day for the city of Rockville because we have the science day with robotic Rockville Science Center. In addition to that, we want to organize a robotics day. So we want to recruit a lot of, you know, robotics teams in this area to showcase the robotics.

Because some teams, they can advance to the world championship, some team do not do not. However, each everyone's work is very validated. So we want to give the opportunity to those students to shine and to to showcase their work in the community. And this can empower a lot of inspire a lot of young kids. And, also, we would like to we have a goal. We have a dream to let a lot of students to consider robot is like the future. Robotics AI is the future. So we want them to start at a very young age because when we have students in in our center, when they are, like, tenth grader, they came to our robotics center. They said, oh, I do not know anything. They are very scared because they did not start young enough.

So that's why we want to, you know, to reach out a lot of young kids in this community to let them to experience robotics, the science, technology in young age. So that's why we are receiving the fund. But within all those projects, you know, ahead, we would really appreciate if we can, you know, still receive some additional fund to support those ideas, those projects so that can benefit the Maryland residents. Thank you

very much. We appreciate your testimony. You. Diane Fuchs followed by Sarah Stewart Chapin. Is Diane Fuchs here?

She may be in overflow. So I will just call the next three names in case folks are in overflow. So we have Diane Fuchs, followed by Sarah Stewart Chapin, then followed by Eric Bernard.

Okay.

I know that at least Eric Bernard was out there. Ms. Fuchs spoke about the villages, I believe. So if we could add that to the public hearing notes just to take her commentary. I appreciate that.

Okay.

And then do we have Sarah Stuart Chapin? Welcome. Please state your name, whether you live in the city of Rockville.

Good evening. My name is Sarah Chapin. I work in the city of Rockville. I'm the managing director of Adventure Theater MTC here in Montgomery County. We are the longest running theater for young audiences in the DMV.

We reach 30,000 people a year, and we have been active in Rockville since 1998. I'm here today to request much needed financial support for the local arts community to preserve our community art space in Wintergreen Plaza. I also represent the Greater Rockville Arts Collective or Grace, which adventure formed with a dozen other arts groups to share our studio space in Wintergreen Plaza at reasonable rates. Members include the three resident theater companies, some who are represented here tonight, and other arts and cultural groups, Best Medicine Rep, Vessel Inc, Matuva Dance, Zhaorong Dance, among others. Our studios at Wintergreen are completely booked and busy, as we actors like to say, with classes, camps, and rehearsals.

While the city has dedicated resources to performing venues, like the beautiful new Fitzgerald Theater, spaces like our studios and arts community center doesn't exist anywhere else in Montgomery County. We have been able to fill a need we see from our fellow nonprofits and have also brought new artists and groups to Rockville, making the city a destination for new and diverse arts groups across Maryland as well as a vital resource for the established resident companies. It is well documented that access to the arts benefits a community socially, emotionally, and culturally. Our Adventure Theater Academy director, Lisa Carrier Baker, will tell you more about that in a little bit. However, investment in arts groups is also immensely financially beneficial to the community.

In a financial impact report created by Theatre Washington, the data shows suburban Maryland theaters inject nearly 32,000,000 into the local economy. And while most of our Grace members have budgets under 100,000, those nonprofits have a whopping 350% return on investment for every dollar received from government sources. If Grace left Rockville, our absence would drain the city's economy of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, which is a level of magnitude higher than the amount we are requesting tonight. I was pleased to hear the mayor state that supporting arts and culture in the city is a priority this evening. However, leadership at Adventure has been meeting with leaders from the city and across Montgomery County for the last eighteen months and have been told time and again that elected officials can't help us.

We've been directed to other nonprofits and have taken that partnership as far as we can, but all of our members are in a similar financial position. We have a fantastic relationship with the city of Rockville's Parks and Recreation and have been asked to add programming each year due to demand. Our summer camps sell out in under twelve hours every year, and we were thrilled to learn from the mayor that her daughter was a camper at one of our camps. We are clearly valuable to the Rockville community, and to continue this important work, we need your help. I ask you to consider earmarking 75,000 for the next fiscal year to save our studios. Thank you.

Thank you. President Bernard? Welcome.

Thank you, madam mayor. I appreciate it. We're thankful to be here before you tonight. I am Eric Bernardin, the president of the Rockville Volunteer Fire Department, and then I'm an almost forty year member. With me, I have our fire chief, Craig Lazar, our vice president, Ian Weston, general counsel, Stan Soya, deputy chiefs, and board members, Tom Kavanaugh, Tyler March, Nick Pangmeth, Tom Musgrove, Chris Hallock, and Paul Quigley.

And on behalf of our department, we thank you. Our department represents the both of what Rockville and the county has to offer. We are here tonight to say simply thank you. We thank you for supporting the Rockville Volunteer Fire Department in previous years' budgets, and we ask for your help this year. Now we're not here to argue that we are any more deserving than anybody else.

Our ROI, don't think I can show is, 345%. I will argue though that we are in an industry crisis, not just here in Rockville, but in the country. Since COVID, the rapid use of funding in emergency services has caused a consolidation of manufacturers. People make our fire trucks and our ambulances. The entire US fire service is struggling to buy fire trucks, fire engines, and ambulance.

Indeed, the New York Times did a huge expose last year, and the research has shown that in the last four years, the cost of a fire truck has increased 68%. Let me repeat that. In four years, the cost to buy a fire truck has increased by 68%. It's the same with ambulances. Not only has the cost increased, but the time to get a fire truck has gone from a year, fourteen months, to four and five years.

So the fire engine that we are asking for assistance today, the ambulances that we came to you last year, are going to take two and a half times longer to re be received here in Rockville. A private equity group has taken ownership of a majority of the manufacturers of fire service equipment. They reported last year having a $4,000,000,000 backload in manufacturing. Most of our trucks are custom made by hand. They are not mass produced.

We are competing with the city of New York, LA, Metro Dade. We're buying one engine, two aimlesses at a time. They're putting contracts in for ten, twelve, 15, and more. This has gotten the attention of the federal government, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Jim Banks have recently held hearings on this. We don't expect the problem to change.

If we just included inflation, the cost of this apparatus is going to exceed our ability to purchase it. So what are we asking for you is a guaranteed or a regular annual revenue to help us to purchase a piece of equipment. We have other revenue sources. We're not asking you to buy one entire piece in a single year. I'll give you an example.

The engine that we are buying this year that we're gonna put a contract in is gonna cost close to $900,000. The previously previous one we bought ten years ago was half that cost. So, this is where we're at. That is our need. We will accept whatever you can do. We will, thankfully, take the support that you can give us this year. If you understand our ask, that's where our numbers come from, and that's where our need is. I'd like each of our members. I said their names. You you know me.

You've seen me. My story is not compelling. The people to my right and my left, their story is compelling. So I'm gonna ask each one to please briefly introduce yourself and give us something about you that mayor and council may not know. And I'm just gonna move or we're gonna shuffle down.

Yeah. We have

42,000. I'm Stan Soya. I am the general counsel for Rock of Volgere Fire Department. Thank you. I'm a life member, joined in '74, grew up here in Knoxville right down on Lynch Street. I'm semi retired from practice. I'm still the general counsel for a defense contractor. This is my application to continue this work department. Thank you.

Nick Bamman. Been a member for about

eight years, member of president.

Tyler March. Nine years, and I live in West End.

Tom Musgrove, a fifty nine year member of the department and, a life member at the department and born, raised, grew up in Rockville. What a change.

If I can, I know I know our time is up, but I do wanna take a moment to, a, thank all of you guys for all your continued support, throughout the years and in many years to come? And I'd be remiss if I didn't at least say congratulations, Councilman Van Gruyk, on your recent nuptials.

Please proceed. It's okay. Don't worry.

Good evening. Ian Weston, vice president, member of the department for ten years and almost thirty in the fire service.

Mark Deputy. I'm the board secretary, life member, forty five years.

I'm Tom Cavanagh. I've lived here in the city of Rockville for the last seventy five years. Been a member for the last fifty seven years.

So this is our department. We thank you. I'm going to call our members to attention. Hand salute.

Thank you very much for all of your work and your service. We appreciate you. Next we have Michelle Joseph. Michelle Joseph, followed by Wendy Whitaker. Wendy, I see you're here. We'll proceed. And then if we can find Michelle Joseph, we'll allow her to speak after.

Great. Well, that one's a tough one to follow. Thank you to all of those amazing group. But good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Wendy Whitaker. I'm here representing the Rockville Education Commission. As Mayor Ashton mentioned earlier, last week, our commission hosted a principals roundtable here in the building. It was a really great event. And, we couldn't have done it without the support from you all. Many of you attended.

Thank you for that. And really made connections with some of our school leaders. We also couldn't have done it without the city staff that support us on the commission. Not easy to put on events, but really made it possible and made it a great event. But most of all, the principals I hope it's not a secret, but we have the best principals in the county.

So being able to spend an evening with both private and public school principals was amazing. They are incredibly engaging and committed to the lives and success of our children. Very thankful to them. So the least I can do is highlight for you all some of the important things that they're raising up. I submitted a full summary of findings to you, but tonight I wanted to come and just highlight a few of the on the ground on the ground insights from our front lines.

Our principals are seeing significant academic growth and staff stability, but they are sounding an alarm on a widening gap between student needs and city resources. So let's talk about what's working. Excuse me. We heard powerful evidence that peer to peer mentoring and the Latino Youth Development Program are transforming the school cultures. We also heard from school leadership about the value of revitalized safety and prevention models, like restorative justice, which are showing promise in building early connections between students and law enforcement.

To support this, in your budget considerations, we recommend that you scale proven safety and mentoring. Ensure the budget allows for expansion of the youth mentoring, as well as the Latino youth development program, and evidence based safety and restorative justice programs so these resources are accessible in more schools. Importantly, we heard a call to start the mentoring efforts earlier at the elementary level to build foundations of support before the middle school transition. And train for relationships. We appreciate the proposed increase in Rockville City Police Department personnel for a new community engagement officer at Rockville High School.

We recommend earmarking funds to ensure that all school based officers and roles are trained in restorative justice and relationship building models, scaling the successes we are already seeing at Lakewood and Frost. Second, we must address the barriers that keep families from accessing existing city resources. Principals reported that families are doubling up in housing but are too afraid to fill out city forms due to documentation fears. To bridge the trust gap, we recommend presence to partnership outreach. So transition city outreach for Rockville emergency assistance program, recreation vouchers, to a pop up model at school events, like back to school night and PTA meetings.

We need to meet families where they feel safe to hear the information and resources available to them. Also consider a navigator, a type of city human services liaison, someone who can shake things loose with housing or utility crises in real time, a confidential liaison who can bypass bureaucracy without triggering fears that keep vulnerable families in the shadows, and close the language and therapy gap. So we have a critical unmet need for Pashto language navigators and bilingual therapeutic services. Our Afghan families in particular need targeted support navigating their transition and learning to utilize city facilities. Finally, we cannot ignore basic safety.

Principals are requesting the city address cell phone tower and Wi Fi gaps on campuses to ensure that emergency communication is reliable, And they are also asking for mobile health clinics and the integration of virtual telehealth visits to bring vision, dental, and diagnostic care directly to families without requiring them to miss a day of work or school. Mayor and council, our principals are asking for a shift from crisis management to sustainable support. Let's ensure the fiscal year 2027 budget reflects the reality of the hallways our children walk every day. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I will just note, given the importance of this topic, that Rockville does not collect information on immigration status. We do not collect information on immigration status. You are safe to receive service and support from the city. Next, welcome Michelle Joseph. Do we find Michelle? Rebecca Murphy. I believe she's said that you all are going to represent her from the Human Rights Commission. Thank you very much.

Rebecca Murphy is ill tonight, but the rest of us are here. Honorable mayor and members of the city council, the Rockville Human Rights Commission respectfully submits the following budget recommendations for your consideration. The Commission's mandate to advise the mayor and council of matters of human rights, foster mutual understanding among all community members, and work towards the elimination of discrimination requires sustained and strategic investment. The recommendations outlined below reflect pressing community needs identified through the Commission's direct engagement with Rockville residents, and each request is grounded in measurable indicators of demand, documented gaps in existing services, and alignment with the city's stated commitments to equity and inclusion. We ask that you consider these requests not as isolated line items, but as an integrated framework for strengthening Rockville's capacity to serve all of its residents.

Honorable Madam Major and members of

the

city council, good evening. I'm Magda Brown, and, it is an honor to be here. So we recommend funding the Latino Consul Youth Development Program to support students qualifying for the free and reduced price meals, something that we know as farms. So in Rockville, schools represent about 30 to 45% of students who qualify for this program. And these are key indicators of systemic barriers to academic and professional success.

Targeted support is absolutely needed for access, long term opportunities, and early intervention in this program, such as this one, represents an investment in the city of Rockville's future workforce and housing. So we really need to tackle this at an early age. And so while Hispanic individuals make up 19% of The United States labor force, they remain underrepresented in higher wages, occupations, leadership roles, and including the federal service. So according to the civilian labor workforce data, it actually shows that Hispanics in general are very underrepresented. And actually, data shows that Hispanic males are even that much more underrepresented.

So it just again, tackling this and supporting these youth programs at an early age are an investment for the city of Rockville. Also, recent challenges at Wooden High School, highlights the need for fortifying these youth support systems. So thank you so much for your support. That's number one out of four items. Thank you.

Nice to see everyone. I'm Dominic Risselli, the vice chairman of the Human Rights Commission. We are seeking additional funding for Rockville Pride because of several notable changes. There has been a significant decline in sponsorship this year, which is likely attached to our current political environment. The reduction is external support the reduction in external support has created a financial gap that threatens the scale and quality of our event.

Yet the reduction does not change the number of residents we expect to see at this event. At the same time, operational costs have risen with inflation. Despite these challenges, community attendance continues to grow, and we aim not only to sustain the event but to expand and reach inclusivity and impact. Your additional support will help ensure Rockville Pride remains a vibrant, safe, and accessible celebration for all.

We have recently heard, Gabrielle's sweet third item. We have recently heard concerns from students in Rockville who are seeking channels for meaningful conversation around the issues they face. The Rockville HRC used to hold a high school leadership training event every year, typically running from 9AM to 3PM on a Saturday. I had the honor of leading some workshops at these events on my first few years in the commission. And we would like to bring that back kind of, but as an annual two to three hour Rockville youth forum with a short advocacy training component at the beginning, we wanna use the council chambers and provide snacks for the students, so very low cost but potentially high impact.

Emily Stevenson, I don't know if I can do this in thirty seven seconds. HRC outreach table supplies. We are requesting funds for outreach table supplies to enhance visibility and engagement at key community gatherings including Rockville Pride. These materials are essential to maintaining a high quality professional presence aimed at sustaining and growing the events reached despite reduced sponsorship. These supplies will also support the relaunch of the Rockville Youth Forum, facilitating meaningful advocacy and training for students. By investing in these materials, the HRC can provide the resources and environment students need to address critical issues within the community and to enhance pride and sense of belonging.

Thank you to the Human Rights Commission. Well done. We appreciate you. We appreciate both of our commissions speaking forward today. Thank you very much.

James Hedrick spoke earlier. Just wanted to see if there was something else. Okay. If we could please include the comments of mister James Hedrick in community forum for public hearing. Thank you very much. Elaine Quebec, welcome. Representing the Rockville Commission on Aging.

Yes, good evening everyone. Good evening Madam Mayor, members of the Rockville City Council and Rockville staff. My name is Elaine Kubeck and I am honored to speak, to you as the Chair of the Rockville Commission on Aging. I'm representing the full commission in support of additional full time staff for the growing Rockville Village program. Village networks in Rockville are truly beginning to thrive.

What started as grassroots volunteer led initiatives has grown into a meaningful and impactful system of support for our aging residents. I need my glasses. That's why. With that growth however comes an increasing need for coordination, structure and sustainability. Success we are seeing today makes clear that additional support is no longer optional. It's really necessary. Villages are at their core powered by volunteers. That is one of their greatest strengths. They reflect neighbors helping neighbors, building trust, and strengthening community bonds. But volunteer leadership alone cannot keep pace with the administrative and organizational demands of a program that is expanding both in size and impact.

As a commission, we view village programs as essential to our mission. As a commission, they provide a vital channel to reach residents directly, helping us better understand and respond to the evolving needs of older adults in our city. Through villages, we are able to enhance communication, deepen engagement, address isolation and loneliness, and ensure that the voices of our aging population are heard and supported. Rockville is an outstanding city, one that prides itself on connection, support and engagement. The village model reflects these values in action.

But to sustain and build on this success, we must invest in the infrastructure behind it. An additional support person would play a critical role in several areas. Strengthening communication between villages, the city and its residents, supporting volunteer coordination and reducing burnout, expanding opportunities for socialization and community engagement, helping address key needs such as transportation, safety, health, isolation, and housing, as well as assisting with the launch and development of new village networks. This is about more than administration. It's about enabling connection, ensuring access, and improving the quality of life for our residents.

The Commission on Aging strongly advocates for this very unique investment because we see firsthand the difference these programs make. We also see the strain that comes with growth without adequate support. Providing additional staffing would ensure that Rockville Village networks can continue to expand thoughtfully, serve effectively, and remain sustainable for years to come. We respectfully ask you consider our position and our strong support for this request. Together, we can continue to build a Rockville that is rich in community involvement, connection, and care for residents of all ages. Thank you for your time and for your commitment to our community and to the Commission.

Thank you very much. Next, welcome Kathleen Kelly, followed by

Thank you. Y'all are very kind. I thank the Lord for you. Just one more scripture to share about my vision that I have for the people that are out on the streets, don't have homes, that are not associated with anything, is that we're reminded that what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? That's what I'm concerned about.

I'm concerned about the souls that are out there that don't have anybody to care for them. And a building, as I say, that I know that's vacant at this time, I see as an ideal opportunity to once again take those scriptures, that scripture I just mentioned, that was mentioned the Gospel of Mark. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? So we have to be concerned about the souls of people that are not attached, that they've somehow gotten detached from society to help them to come back. So that is a deep concern on the Lord's heart, but on my heart, and many of you I think feel the same way.

So I just want to put that again for you. This is my third and my last time to appeal, to see what you could do for the the Marlow Building. Again, they would have job opportunities next door at the goodwill. And, if there was any difficulties, we'd have the police department not far. So I make this final last appeal. Thank you so much. Appreciate Thank you.

You. Welcome, Lynn Harris.

Good evening, Mayor Ashton and members of the Rockdale City Council. My name is Lynn Harris. I use sheher pronouns, and I'm here tonight representing the Interfaith Works Board of Directors to express our deep gratitude for your committed support for Interfaith Works programs and partnership in helping us to serve some of our community's most vulnerable residents. You know Interfaith Works. We are a Rockville based nonprofit who, for the past half century, has served a mission to support our neighbors by providing vital services and a pathway to greater stability.

We serve over 35,000 Montgomery County residents each year and thousands of Rockville residents who are dealing with homelessness, food insecurity, the threat of eviction, un- and underemployment, and other challenges that affect their ability to thrive. We are particularly appreciative that this year, in the city of Rockville's FY '27 operating budget proposal, you have provided dedicated funding for two of our Rockville based programs. $60,000 for the Interfaith Works Clothing Center, which is a large scale distribution center for free clothing, co located with our food pantry and our connections program at the Essential Needs Center located on Twinbrook Parkway, and $65,000 for the Interfaith Works Women's Center, which is the only year round shelter for women in Montgomery County. My colleague, Terri Blandin, is going to discuss with you some of the specific impacts these programs have, but I wanted to highlight the fact that these programs located here in Rockville are pivotal components of the interconnected web of services that help Interfaith Works serve our overall mission. Our approach is multifaceted, meeting people where they are as they get what they need.

For example, our clothing center, co located in the Essential Needs Center with our food pantry and connections program, is often an entry point for residents who have a need. They come to the center to shop for clothing, and in talking with staff and looking around and talking with other residents, they learn about our food pantry. And perhaps they are also experiencing food insecurity and can take advantage of that resource at that time. Maybe they are in arrears on rent or utility payments, something that our Connections program can help them with, with some emergency financial support. Similarly, our women's our women's center, the residents there are working to identify and address the root causes of their housing instability, working with our case managers, our vocational services programs, and others to help them become financially stable through gainful employment.

I believe deeply that the $60,000 for the clothing center and the $65,000 for the women's shelter have a you will receive a very good return on that investment, and I strongly and encourage you to include to include that funding in the final, version of the budget when you get to that point. And on a separate note, I wanted to once again express Interfaith Works' deep, deep appreciation to this council and mayor Ashton for your advocacy last fall when our essential needs center was threatened by, a potential loss of county grant funding, a loss which would have caused that center to close, and required residents of the city of Rockville who need those services to go to only. And your effective advocacy ensured that, Rockfilians can continue to receive clothing, food, essential services in an accessible location, and I thank you.

Thank you. Welcome, Terri Blandin, followed by Lisa Farhi.

Good evening, mayor Ashton, city council members. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I am Terri Blandin. I'm the director of development and communications for Interfaith Works. I'm also concurrently a, University of Maryland master of social work intern at the IW Women's Center at Taft Court.

I wanna thank you

for your steadfast partnership over the years. Your support helps our organization provide essential programs to assist our neighbors experiencing homelessness and poverty, including many Rockville residents. We are very grateful for the funding that's included in the city Of Rockville's f y twenty seven proposed budget, which we ask you to support. The proposed funding will provide resources to two important Interfaith Works programs, as Lynn Harris mentioned. $60,000 for the Interfaith Works Clothing Center, a large scale distribution center free clothing, and $65,000 to the IW Women's Center, Montgomery County's only year round emergency shelter program serving all women.

I would like to describe the impact these programs have had on our neighbors, particularly Rockville residents. The IW Clothing Center located in Twinbrook served more than 15,000 people last fiscal year, including nearly 1,200 Rockville residents. Our support for the Rockville residents, however, goes beyond individuals and families who come into the center to select free clothing and home goods. Last year, the center distributed new filled backpacks to more than 5,000 young students. This total includes students attending community schools like Meadowhall and Twinbrook Elementary.

The IW Clothing Center brought backpacks and winter coats directly to these schools to get them in the hands of students who needed them. We also provide help at to those served at the Avery Road Treatment Center in Rockville. Avery Road staff come to the center once or twice a month to select clothing for their clients. And in addition, the Pre Relief Center at Neville Street sends their clients weekly to select free clothing items and hygiene products. The IW Women's Center with sites at Taft Court and Krebs Branch serves women experiencing homelessness.

Now these programs served 304 women last fiscal year, including 30 from the city of Rockville. The Women's Center program provides clients with shelter, meals, and case management services. Supportive services include vocational training, mental health, physical and legal services to ensure that they can pursue a positive transition to secure housing. We thank you for the consistent support of programs serving our neighbors, including our neighbors in Rockville. And working together, we can ensure our neighbors connect with the vital services they need as they seek their pathway to stability. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you. Welcome, Lisa Farhi, followed by Lisa Baker.

Hello, madam mayor, city council. I actually am the cochair of the education commission, and I was very proud and happy about the principals roundtable because of our attendance and the help that we got, and we kind of upped our game from the first time, which was last year, around this time. I really am here to second everything that Wendy Whitaker said to you very eloquently. And I wanted to let you know that one of the challenges that we have is that we are not in charge of Montgomery County Public Schools. We work with them.

And

so anything you can do to fund some of what you heard, Wendy Whitaker say today would be help us with our bridge from city services to those in charge of Montgomery County Public Schools and the additional, you know, wonderful aspect of this year's principals roundtable is that we had many more private and parochial schools join our group. So if I just wanted to take my own perspective, and I'll just leave you with this, it's a short moment here, is that mental health was the largest concern across all schools. The pressure that children felt. So, you know, I have to say private parochial schools use different programs than the, Montgomery County Public Schools use, but the Rockville City Police are trained in a lot of those, and I believe continue to be trained, and, fit themselves into both of those sort of arenas very well, and we're grateful for that. So thank you.

Thank you. Welcome, Lisa Baker.

Hello. My name is Lisa Carrier Baker, and I am the academy director for adventure theater MTC in Wintergreen Plaza here in Rockville. In 2019, the academy was listed in your arts and culture study as an organization that has a, quote, long standing tradition, a valued community member, and is an integral part of the quality and character of life in Rockville. While we are pleased and proud of that statement made, unfortunately, our time in Rockville may be limited to due to our funding. 2026 is our seventy fifth anniversary, and I could tell you about our countless alumni and teaching artists that have gone on to Broadway and local professional DMV theater careers and all of our Helen Hayes award winners and nominees, but I would like to start by telling you about the children we are teaching now and how they benefit from theater arts education.

As a lifelong educator, I can tell you that children today are not like they were pre 2020. As our teachers can see, due to lack of socialization and isolation at that time, we can clearly see children struggling with ADD, ADHD, and anxiety at a much greater rate. In the current loneliness epidemic, arts education and engagement is linked to reduce that loneliness and form stronger social connections. Studies show that exposure to the arts at a young age can set children up for success with higher test scores, better soft skill development, and lower dropout rates. Adults who attend live arts events are nearly twice as likely to report feeling lonely, only rarely, compared to non attendees, and these habits and benefits begin in childhood.

So many of the issues we currently face can be mitigated by early exposure to the arts and humanities, which is exactly what Adventure Theater and Grace are doing in Rockville. Investing in local arts groups and helping fund the places we meet and build community is treating the source of issues that persist in our society rather than just treat the damaging symptoms later in life. We are proud to employ several of our alumni as teaching artists, directors, music directors, choreographers, and administrators. We are a small business. Yes.

But our summer camps alone employ 35 staff members, a feat almost unheard of in today's economy. A venture theater and the art sector at large are an economic driving force for Rockville and the entire region. And yet, like so many other arts organizations, this supports our programming. But as nonprofits in the current economy, we find it nearly impossible to keep up with rising expenses. We are here to ask for $75,000 fiscal year 2027 to save our studios in Wintergreen Plaza. Thank you for your time, and I appreciate the chance to speak with you this evening.

Thank you. Welcome Nancy Picard followed by Jim Gilchrist.

Good evening once again, Mayor Ashton, council members, Nancy Picard for Peerless Rockville. I'm here tonight to make an appeal to all of you for increased funding for our community grant. I'd like to begin first by thanking all of you for your past support and also to recognize the long standing, mutually beneficial partnership between our organization and the city of Rockville. The relationship has allowed us to serve as a steward and the storyteller for of of the city's memories for over fifty years, and we would like very much to be able to continue to do that. The current proposed grant of 50,000 is a dramatic funding loss that came as a surprise to the organization, and simply put, is unsustainable for our operations.

I'm looking to you tonight to be a champion for Peerless, for history, for diverse voices, for art, for culture, and for the humanities, which are all state at city values. Please voice your support for the value of our work because each dollar that is invested in Peerless Rockville is a dollar invested in the past, present, and the future of Rockville. To better enhance your understanding and a value for our work and what we do, we have a lineup of speakers tonight to speak more directly to our work and our achievements. We know some have questions about why the city invests in Peerless Rockville, and we hope to address some of those questions this evening. You already heard from Jackie Shin, who is working working to uncover and share Asian American Pacific Islander stories.

Following me this evening and on April 13, additional board members, staff, and volunteers will share how they are a part of the Peerless umbrella and what about our work they most value. We are prepared to show you how every dollar of this grant is maximized to protect Rockville's heritage, and we are confident you will see that our services are not just beneficial, but irreplaceable. We not only amplify fifty years of research, collections, and community relationships to deliver place based heritage services that celebrate Rockville's journey to today's diverse modern city. But we do it with a very lean staff and conservative fiscal management that keeps overhead very low and multiplies the city's dollars. Peerless Rockville is navigating a national landscape where federal support for accurate, inclusive history has almost disappeared and has led to steep increased competition for private funding.

Without operational funds that can pay staff, cover rent, printing, and special program development, we fear we must trim or even eliminate essential services. Please consider funding us at 2026 levels, and that will be a vital investment in Rockville's cultural infrastructure. We seek a champion tonight who understands that inclusive history is more than a phrase. It's not a phrase. It's our all of our shared and collective reality. So thank you.

Thank you. Welcome Jim Goldcrest followed by Kathy Rogers.

Welcome.

Good evening mayor and council. Jim Gilchrist who walked over from the Americana Center as resident of Rockville. I appreciate being here tonight and I appreciate you holding this hearing on the budget and as a new member of the board of Peerless Rockville, I wanna thank you for your long standing support of Peerless Rockville. You know, in my own tenure here, I have gardened with Peerless Rockville. I have done house tours.

I have moved refrigerators around offices and, I'm very impressed and always have been with the relationship between the city of Rockville and Peerless. I wanna thank you all for your long standing support. When you look at the website, you'll see a long list of events around the city that between you and Peerless were able to do around the city. I just want to be very thankful for everything you've done. Thank you very much.

Thank you. We welcome Kathy Rogers followed by Margaret Magner.

Good evening, Mayor Ashton and council members. My name is Catherine Rogers, and I'm the collections manager at Peerless Rockville. I'm speaking to you tonight to acquaint you with our collections and the services we provide to the community. Peerless Rockville has over 15,000 items in our collection. I'm going to admit that's a rough estimate because collections require a lot of record keeping, and I'll speak more on that shortly.

About 10,000 of the items are photographs. We also have archival documents ranging from the records of local businesses, personal papers from city officials, blueprints of homes and buildings, oral histories of residents, and the archives of some of our little local theater companies. We have a smaller number of objects related to events and locations in Rockville, such as signs advertising housing developments, a voting machine, and models of buildings. Collections like those at Peerless Rockville serve multiple purposes. They preserve items and make them available for anyone who wants to learn from them.

We respond to inquiries from people who are writing books, students researching history, city staff, and people researching their family or their home. The material from the archives are frequently used by our staff to provide our free guided walking tours, self guided tours, exhibits, and other programming we offer. Maintaining the archive requires time and materials. The materials include special folders and boxes to protect the items from deterioration. Anyone who has ever looked at an old family photo album knows how they fall apart as adhesives fail and pages crumble, and that's how many of our items arrive.

Handling these items requires training to understand the best method for stabilizing and storing the objects. More significant is the time spent cataloging. If we don't know what something is, what it represents, and where it is stored, it's not a useful part of the collection. We also digitize items, both to preserve fragile items so they can be viewed without handling and increase accessibility as this information can be viewed online. There is a backlog of items waiting to be fully cataloged and digitized.

We know what we have, but maintaining the archive takes a lot of time. I'm a part time employee working eighteen to twenty hours a week. I do educational programming, design exhibits, give tours, respond to requests for information, do research, help manage our historic properties, and write grants in addition to managing the collections. We have some wonderful volunteers who assist with this, and they give us hours every week, and some have been coming for years. But, honestly, that's a drop in the bucket.

We were once able to have a trained archival assistant for a hundred hours as part of a digitization grant, and that was one of the most productive times I have ever had working at Peerless. Our volunteers are smart and dedicated, but they are not trained to do everything an archive needs. You will hear from one of our volunteers involved in a special project about how her work is progressing. The archives of Peerless Rockville are created from donations of Rockville residents who care about the community they live in and want to share their family history, whether the family owned a business, taught school, or just lived here. Donors will often tell us how special Rockville is and how glad they are that Peerless Rockville is here to help preserve the memories of their community. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Welcome, Margaret Magner.

Good evening. Thank you, mayor and council, for the chance to talk to you briefly. My name is Margaret Magner, and I live in Rockville. And I'm here tonight to talk about work I'm currently doing as a volunteer to peer in for Peerless Rockville, digitizing, transcribing, and cataloging oral histories about Rockville in the time immediately following the Brown versus Board of Education decision in 1954. The Peerless Rockville collection includes dozens of oral history interviews of Rockville residents through the years.

Within that collection is a set of interviews that were taped in 2004 to honor the fiftieth anniversary of the Brown decision. In these tapes, African American residents who were young students or teachers or a school administrator in the 1950s recall their lived experiences as some of the first people to integrate schools in Rockville in that interim period following the Brown decision. Hearing these stories teaches the listener about important experience in the history of this area that many of us didn't know about and we didn't learn in school. As these brave individuals share their oral histories, the listener hears about a time, for example, when the courthouse in Rockville had water fountains and bathrooms labeled whites only, when the buzz was all over town about a new restaurant called the High Boy that opened on North Washington Street. But a black child and his family who went there to try it were told they couldn't come in.

It took sit ins at the restaurant to change this. And you can hear the courage that it must have taken in your ear, as someone speaks it must have taken, in 1957, for a young child to leave the school friends and teachers they knew to become one of the few people who looked like them in a sea of white students and teachers at Broome or Julius West or Richard Montgomery. These voices deserve to be preserved, to be heard, and to be made accessible to the public, to scholars, and to Rockville residents. Peerless Rockville's small staff makes this possible by providing the archival materials, the coordination, and the framework for this effort, and making use of volunteers like me to stretch every dollar that they receive. I volunteer because I feel passionate about preserving these tangible first person stories that let you experience and feel the resilience of the people who changed our community for the better.

This work is done out of love for our community, and I'm grateful that Peerless provides an umbrella to house and make these important stories available to everyone. Please fund Peerless to the greatest extent possible in the FY 'twenty seven budget. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Welcome Ralph Buckles followed by Dick Stoner.

Good evening, mayor and council. I'm Ralph Buglis, a Rockville resident, longtime volunteer for, Peerless Rockville. I give a number of talks for the organization. I give, walking tours of Rockville, and I authored, this book. It's part of a series that you see all across the country, pictorial histories of various localities.

I first got interested simply by attending peerless programs. I think the first one was on coincidentally enough, Newmark Commons, part of a series on Rockville's neighborhoods. I driven by that modern totem pole on Maryland Avenue many times, but confess until attending that program, I had no idea of the uniqueness of that neighborhood. Same with Lincoln Park through a peerless program. I got to know Sharon Duffin, the late unofficial historian of that neighborhood.

You might say it was ultimately a transformative experience working with her to highlight Rockville's black history in this book. Of course, black history, all of a piece of our collective history. And so I think that shows how Rockville helps to build community and partnerships and reflective of Peerless in another way being inclusive. And working on the book, I spent a lot of time in Peerless's office and saw firsthand all that the organization accomplishes with a bare bones staff. In my career, I actually worked in a number of nonprofits, and I know that people in nonprofits do a lot, certainly for not a lot of money, but I was truly impressed how much the Peerless staff does.

One other thing about the book, I was first approached to do one on our neighbor to the south, Potomac, but I soon realized that I would much rather do one on Rockville because Peerless has such a vast photo archive. Potomac doesn't at all. In this case and in fact many others, Peerless and Rockville had it all over the vaunted Potomac. So in in my mind, Peerless Rockville is one of those things that makes Rockville what it is, a special place. You might even say a peerless place, truly unequaled.

And that, in fact, is how the then town of Rockville was originally marketed and how Peerless got its name. And now Peerless keeping that history and so much more of the the city's history alive. Thanks very much.

Thank you. Welcome.

Okay to submit written Yes. Testimony?

Paraphrase and be a little bit quicker.

I'm Dick Stoner. I'm a forty plus year resident of Rockville. And, as you might guess, I'm here to testify on on behalf of Peerless and explain more about the volunteer, experience here. I volunteered within the city in my forty years here in economic development with with rock what's now called Rockville Ready, and I've spent, a lot of the last twenty years, volunteering with with Peerless. To summarize and keep my story short, in 2008, I was fortunate in retrospect to have been laid off from a corporate position and found myself able to volunteer with Peerless, which at that time was in the throes of trying to save the Chestnut Lodge property.

I assume everyone here knows about Chestnut Lodge and it being an eighteen eighties hotel that later became a mental hospital. And, of course, it's been lost to fire since that time in 2008. But, but it it was during that period that Peerless worked with the developer to be sure that at least two of the buildings, two of the homes that were built in the earliest early twentieth century were preserved. The prominent Cape Cod that you all see, from West Montgomery Avenue, and in fact, every resident driving down West Montgomery sees it, was empty and it was unused, but it was intact with most of its nineteen thirty seven components when we started in 2008. Peerless was able to convince the developer to donate the cottage on its land, and the first 100,000 to restore it, rather than have it torn down.

Another 100,000 was negotiated by Peerless through the Maryland Historical Trust. And under under Peerless's leadership, a wide group of community volunteers helped with cleaning, exterior clearing, painting, and as part of the restoration, Frida's Cottage, as you probably know, is now a national historic landmark. Because of its connection to doctor Frida Fromreichmann, a woman who came to Chestnut Lodge to escape Nazi Germany and became a world recognized leader and innovator in the treatment of people with mental disorders. The home is now rented at an affordable price and can be enjoyed on the outside by all residents of Rockville who visit what's now Chestnut Lodge Park. Once at least once a year, it's open for interior tours as well.

Grants secured by Peerless and rental income provide the resources required to preserve the property. And without Peerless, that property would have fallen into disrepair and probably abandonment and and may have become a burden to the city. So I'm here tonight to bring attention to the good work that Peerless Rockville does, which is Peerless, which is restored, renovated, and preserved buildings like Frida's for all residents to enjoy at very little cost to the city, other than the annual grant, which is what I'm asking you to support tonight. So I ask you to con to consider maintaining the previous funding levels for Peerless and not accept the budget proposals, large cut in this year's proposed budget. As as you know, Peerless runs programs at Glenview Mansion in Town Center and online for residents to learn more about Rockville's expansive history going back to the eighteen hundreds and before when it was simply known as Hungerford's Tavern and then Montgomery Courthouse.

Peerless provides important services for all residents and works closely with the city's preservation planner to be sure that our city's historic resources are recognized and respected as we move forward. Thanks for your time.

Welcome Eileen McGuckian followed by Paul Hillstrom. Hilstrom.

Good evening. I'm Eileen McGuckian, a long time supporter and member Peerless Rockville. I moved to Rockville in 1966. I absolutely fell in love with the city. I worked and volunteered here for more than fifty years and my heart remains here even though my address is just South of Montrose Road.

I still keep asking you all to annex. Previous mayors and councils have understood the value of Peerless Rockville. In the 1970s, they cheered when Peerless led the fight to save the Rockville Railroad Station. In the 1980s, they arranged for Peerless to take off the city's hands, a little farmhouse they arranged, a little farmhouse once owned by the Dawson family. Peerless found new owners who were willing to repair and restore it and everyone rejoiced when all loans were repaid and the house was lived in again.

In the 1990s, Peerless again stepped forward to purchase and save a beloved Rockville landmark, Wire Hardware store near the metro station. At that time of high interest rates and economic uncertainty, a deadbeat Montrose School tenant drained all Peerless resources and the city offered a loan to keep Peerless afloat. That loan was converted into the initial grant in recognition of Peerless Rockville's great value to the city. Today, we're at a similar juncture of Peerless needing adequate support from the city. Only in 2026, Peerless Rockville's value to Rockville has been proven over a span of more than fifty years.

So why should the city invest in Peerless Rockville? Peerless is a resource for Rockville citizens, nonprofits, students, businesses and city staff. Peerless Rockville maintains a Rockville Visitor Center in the handsome Red Brick Courthouse. This service is free and open to the public with maps, brochures, information, exhibits and more. Peerless maintains a Rockville History Museum, a reference library and archives also at no charge.

In addition to the finest staff one can imagine, these two large rooms have files upon files of information about Rockville neighborhoods, events, buildings, churches and synagogues, families, cemeteries and any Rockville related topic you can imagine. Thousands of photographs and documents round out the collections that are used by all ages. I hope you will take an hour to visit and look up your neighborhood history or any topic that interests you. Peerless Rockville provides exemplary programming virtually and in person. This includes the popular Glenview series where a huge crowd including myself recently enjoyed a Rockville citizen speak about baseball in Rockville.

Programming for this semi quincentennial year features themes that relate to 1776 when we became known as Montgomery Courthouse through the next two fifty years and of course they give great tours. Peerless Rockville maintains three historic properties in Rockville, a nineteenth century cemetery, the only historic elementary school still standing and Rockville's only national historic landmark, Freda's Cottage. Peerless is also a guardian of Montgomery County's eighteen ninety one Red Brick Courthouse. To drastically cut funding now in the middle of both special programming and a construction project during an uncertain economic time and to deprive Rockville of using the past to understand the present and help to guide our future would cause major damage all around. Our history and the physical evidence of that history are major elements of Rockville's arts and culture.

The benefits of today must be allowed sufficient city support to continue into the future. Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome. Hillstrom followed by J. D. Kumar.

Hello. Good evening. My name is Paul Hillstrom on behalf of Peerless Rockville. In my sixty seven years, I have not ventured far from Rockville. I currently live in Potomac. And I know that Rockville is a great place to live and has been home to our family real estate business since it opened in 1978 at 15 West Montgomery Avenue. Currently, serve as a treasurer for Peerless. I do this because I believe that Peerless brings a wonderful cultural value to Rockville that makes it a recognizable place, not just another example of suburban

growth.

So often with growth and expansion, there's a loss of the heart and soul of a city. Peerless is there to remind us and share why Rockville is special. As treasurer, I am keenly aware that this is a very lean organization with a small and amazing administrative staff that serves as a glue that holds together an organization sustained by grants and volunteers. Everyone is very appreciative that the city of Rockville has helped the organization fund this key administration administrative function, but was surprised but was surprised by the drastic cut in funding proposed for 2027. In recent years, cuts in the city's grant have already impaired the organization and do not come close to meeting the increased cost of professional staffing.

You've heard from other board members and speakers tonight about the scope of work and services offered by Peerless, and we hope that you will consider revising the proposed funding. If helpful, I'll be glad to provide financial records that show how we leverage this very small administrative staff into an organization that offers and returns so much to the city. Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome, JD Kumar.

This is only three minutes. Okay. City of Rockland Maryland government. Thank you. JD Kumar, US Congress Maryland district eight candidate of jdk.com. Now budget issues. Social Democrats wanna defund the police. I agree with many of their policies, but not discrimination, religious, ethnic, and jealous hate methods. My proposal's balanced for safety and against new minority majority minority, reverse discrimination. I have a concept called ZCPC, zero confinement policy college, policy concept.

I will seek 50,000,000,000 from congress to start with nationwide use to reduce, eliminate confinement over the next many years and decades. How? An example. I wanna I want to expand to a plainclothes, diverse by age, background, no weapons, society, safety, and decency guard. That will be their specific mission.

Please consider a budget for this along with Montgomery County, Maryland government and the state of Maryland. A society decency guard, behavior guard, investigate discrimination, other problem behaviors at source instead of allowing this to fester for years, whereby we have a problematic, criminal, false, lawfare society requiring military or aggressive traditional weaponized methods. Research this at source and solve with pro programs like this. I built a multi billions dollar industry model, awesome twenty first century diversity company from six employees to almost a thousand, from a small Montgomery County, Maryland, Rockville, then Potomac office to over 20 countries globally. My direct and indirect mentor tree of employees are leaders and part of innovative, advanced economies, several multi billions of dollars to trillions of dollars valuation companies.

So why do you allow FDMAO, FDMAO, false dangerous manipulative use of lawfare against me? Montgomery County, Maryland government council makes almost 200,000 based on many factors. Their pay package is over 2 and a half million dollars. You can set up a meeting with me, and I can explain. I have been complaining for a while now, a victim of discrimination.

Consider a budget with Montgomery County, Maryland, and state of Maryland for a society decency guard. Investigate businesses and their rogue hate employees. Produce and install nondiscrimination rights, information poster boards, like employee poster boards at businesses that talk about minimum wage rights. I have been victimized again by problem callous groups, Latin American, Central American illegals undocumented last week. They should not enter our private areas without credentials during late hours, and, also, you should have this at local retail locations.

They violate my free amendment, free speech protection now as a political candidate also. Now now you gotta know about TU and S visas. Montgomery County just passed the trust act. Look into that. Really, seriously, look into that. Now let me expand office of human rights here, racial equity, and social justice with fees from this. Now Jurassic Raskin

Thank you

very if he built a 550 people lawyer company, 7 and a half million dollars.

You very much.

500 nationwide testimony. $5,000,000 for Jurazic Raskin.

Virtual testimony by thank you to everyone who testified. We have some virtual testimony as well who I want to honor that time. We have Tara Owens and Deborah Moore. Tara Owens, if you're on the line.

Yes. Hi. Good evening. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Oh, yeah.

We can hear you.

Great. Well, good evening, mayor and council members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Tara Owens, and I serve as the executive director of Main Street Connect. I'm honored to speak in strong support of our f y twenty seven funding request to the community service and enrichment grant program.

Main Street is an inclusive community model that was launched in 2020 in response to lack of housing and social opportunities for community members, which has since become a vibrant hub in Rockville. As many of you may know, Main Street is three things. We're an accessible apartment building with seven units, 75% is affordable, 25% are reserved for adults with disabilities. We're also a community of over 280 members of people of all abilities and an inclusive employer. The grant request before you supports one of the most essential aspects of our mission, which is our social mainstays, a series of weekly staff and community facilitated programs that offer safe, affordable, and inclusive social opportunities for adults of all abilities.

These programs help participants build relationships, engage with the community, and grow in confidence and independence. The social mainstays include community partnerships with many local raffle organizations, facilitated discussions on civic engagement, health, and community issues. We have structured engagements focused on relationship building and guided conversation, theme community engagement, incorporating arts, culture, music, and collaborative activities. One of my favorite is the eating out, getting to dine locally in Rockville restaurants, also has a direct economic benefit, providing consistent businesses to the restaurants in the city of Rockville and also bringing in members of the community who might not otherwise visit the area are now dining and shopping locally and frequently. These programs fill a major gap for adults with disabilities.

After leaving the school system, many lose access to their regular social opportunities. These mainstay programs bring back that connection. We had requested $28,214 for the FY '27 grant funding, and we were recommended for an award of $25,000, which we are incredibly grateful. And, you know, the best way to understand that the impact of this funding is to directly hear from some of the people that it serves. One of our members, Jesse, recently was capturing the spirit of what we have built at Main Street and stated that there's no judgment here.

Everyone is welcomed, and it helped me feel more open to being myself. A father of a new member commented that after his son joined as a member this past year, Main Street has been the foundation of his son's community engagement in Rockville Town Center. Many community members often refer to us and mentioned as the hub, and that is what we are all about, bringing the community together. And we are so grateful for your time, your support, and your commitment to Rockville. Thank you all.

Thank you. We'd like to welcome Deborah Moore who's also on the line.

Good evening. Can you hear me?

Yes. We can.

Good evening, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening. I my name is Deborah Moore. I am a proud citizen of the Twinbrook area of Rockville. And even though I am honored to serve as one of two consumer representatives on the city's Human Services Advisory Commission.

Tonight, I'm speaking as a citizen of Rockville who is a person who is advocating for continued robust funding for the caregiving organizations of Rockwell. And, I have to be quite honest and transparent. It's a little interesting to me that someone who has been a recipient and a blessed one at that of these services is one of the last to speak. But be that as it may, I'm happy to speak. And I basically just wanna continue to advocate for the funding of these services.

Usually, when I testify in front of you all, I have prepared written remarks, but I decided tonight to just speak from my heart. And to first of all, thank you for your history of being fierce and forward in your funding of these caregiving in the agencies and looking forward to that fierceness and that forwardness to continue. We're living in a climate now where the support of those that are often referred to as the most vulnerable need support more now more than ever. And I chose not to specify any specific area of that support because it is all needed. As a beneficiary of these services, I have benefited from medical services.

I have benefited from services that have given me food security. I have benefited from services that provide me housing. And these services need the most robust, the most courageous funding that Rockville is able to give. And as I have watched the funding down through the years, I have kept in mind a goal that has always been out there called the 1%. Those who know what I'm talking about, you know what I'm talking about.

If you don't, I'll be glad in some other forum to educate you. But I am very happy to see that as a city, that funding is getting closer and closer to that 1%.

Thank you very much. We appreciate your testimony.

Alright.

That exhausts the list of those who have signed up in advance. Is there anyone else who would like to speak from the room? I also want to acknowledge again the written comments that folks have sent forward. Thank you to our commission testimonies, our many nonprofit organizations for the work that you're doing, and all the residents who have spoken today. We appreciate all of your feedback, and we will be having a dedicated work session to discuss them. Again, this is not the last public hearing. We'll have another one on April 13. I want to turn it back to our finance team to see if you have any additional remarks. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you very much. You can always fill out that budget survey as well. Come and join us on April 13 in person. We look forward to hearing from you. We're going to take a very brief break.

Good evening, Rockville. Welcome back. Today is still 03/23/2026, and we're reconvening Meeting seven-twenty six. We just completed our public hearing, and we'll now be moving into our Work Session two. I'd like to welcome Kim Francesco and Stacy Webster. We'll be focusing on operating expenditures and grants. Welcome.

Thank you. Good evening, madam mayor and members of the council. This is the mayor and council's second budget work session related to the FY 2027 proposed operating budget and capital improvements program. During this work session, we will review the revised fee schedule based on the discussion during the first work session and cover operating expenditures, including proposed allocations for the community service and enrichment grants. Many of the items we will discuss tonight might seem familiar from the last work session, but tonight, they're organized by department rather than by guiding principle.

The objectives of the work session are to finalize the fee schedule, discuss the proposed funding allocations, and obtain direction from the mayor and council on any requested adjustments to the operating budget. At the final work session on April 13, we will review the capital improvements program budget along with final balancing of operating changes between the proposed and adopted budgets. The more specific direction you can give us tonight on the operating items, the more efficient we can be with that final balancing activity on April 13. Before Ms. Francisco gets into the bulk of the work session with the operating budget, I'd like to address the development and regulatory fee revisions as a follow-up from the last work session.

The revised fee schedule was prepared in response to concerns raised during the first work session on March 9. The modifications maintain progress toward aligning fees with actual service delivery costs while providing a more gradual transition for stakeholders. On March 13, the mayor and council received additional fee details, including percentage increases and jurisdictional comparisons. A full listing of fees recommended for revision is also included with this report as attachment two, which starts on packet page three eighty seven. As a reminder, the city has established financial management policies related to regulatory fee compliance.

These policies state that despite having a cost recovery goal of a 100%, fees could be established below this policy goal for reasons such as benchmarking surrounding communities, the ability of the community to pay, and the level of compliance with regulations. In all instances, fees established below the full cost recovery goal of a 100% imply that there's a level of community benefit to that service. Based on recent permit activity levels, we estimate that the revised fee schedule will generate approximately 685,000 less annually than the cost recovery model originally proposed on March 9. We are able to absorb the decrease in revenue from the revised schedule without the need to cut expenditures due to the fact that the proposed budget contained in addition to reserves of $600,000 meaning that the revenues in the proposed budget exceeded the expenditures and the fact that we are recognizing additional tax duplication revenue of approximately $318,000 that was made known only after the proposed budget was prepared. There was some discussion at the last work session about the city's fees and the selection of comparable jurisdictions.

When evaluating the city's fees and charges, comparisons were made against jurisdictions that operate within the same regional economic and regulatory environment. The jurisdictions used in the fee analysis included Montgomery County, Frederick County, Frederick City, and the city of Gaithersburg. It's also important to note that not all of the fees can be compared on an apple to apple basis. Future studies could include other geographical areas, and staff will consider developing a peer cities list that could be used for benchmarking comparisons for things like fee surveys, ordinance updates, salary and benefits research. There are over 60 fees that staff revised downward as a result of the last budget work session.

Some of the specific fees that were mentioned at the last work session and in the budget Q and A that have been revised downward include the solar panel fee, EV charging fee, new construction multifamily residential fee, automation fee, sprinkler fee, ref wiring outlet fee, and preliminary sediment control plan fee. Moving forward into future fiscal years, we'll evaluate the need for fee adjustments as part of the annual budget development process. This analysis will include a review of inflationary trends, cost of service considerations, market comparisons, and cost recovery goals. We'll also consider policy objectives, including maintaining affordability, supporting economic development, and ensuring that fees remain predictable and reasonable for residents and businesses. Rather than establishing an escalation schedule that's fixed, we recommend we might recommend phased or capped increases to avoid significant year over year impacts.

This approach allows for us to respond to changing economic conditions, align fees with actual service costs over time, and balance revenue needs with community impact. Now before I end the fee section, I'd like to thank the budget team and the Departments of Public Works and CPDS for their timely analysis and revisions of the fee schedule from March 9. Their teamwork and collaboration was outstanding on this project. Now I'll turn the presentation over to my colleague for a review of the operating budget highlights. Thank you.

Can I just check with you? Are you going to do the whole presentation or would you like to get some feedback throughout?

We would like to get through the operating departments and then we'll pause before we transition into grants.

Okay, please note we'll request you to go back to the slides so you have a heads up. Thank you.

We will transition into taking a focused look at operating expenditures. There are nine categories of expenditures that make up our budget. These total 185,300,000.0 for FY 2027, an increase of 7.1% from FY 2026. Personnel is the largest expenditure category citywide, totaling 90,300,000.0 or 48.7% of the operating budget. Operating expenditures totaled 34,300,000.0 or 18.5% of the operating budget.

Commodities contract services make up this category of expenditures. Other expenditures is the third largest expenditure type citywide, totaling 23,500,000.0 or 12.7% of the budget. This is the category that includes depreciation within the enterprise funds and grant expenditures within the general fund. The CIP transfer is made solely from the general fund and represents the pay go portion of taxpayer supported capital projects. This expenditure is budgeted to increase by 2,500,000.0 up to 12,300,000.0 for fiscal year twenty twenty seven, a demonstration of the city's commitment to maintaining and enhancing its capital assets and infrastructure.

Capital outlay, administrative fees, principal and interest categories collectively comprised 19,100,000.0 or 10.3% of the citywide operating budget. The city's total regular staffing levels show an increase of 6.8 regular full time equivalent positions from the f y twenty twenty six budget to the f y twenty twenty seven budget. The table on this slide details the added regular FTEs by fund and by department. In addition to the new positions shown, the emergency manager moved to the police department from the city manager's office. Citywide expenditures by department are shown in this graphic.

Internal service departments are grouped together and include the city attorney's office, communications and community engagement, finance, human resources, information technology, and procurement departments. I will take us through each department slide. We have 13 departments to get through, and we have a discussion on grant allocations. These slides present highlights and are not intended to be an all encompassing narrative of every activity underway or every service performed. Many of these highlights were also noted in our first work session on strategic initiatives.

The mayor and council department, which also includes the city clerk and director of council operations functions, has a proposed f y twenty seven expenditure budget of 1,400,000.0. Major changes to the expenditure budget include increases for onetime costs associated with the November, the majority of which is postage. The mayor and council will continue to evaluate annexation opportunities in the coming year and will review chapter 18 of the city code on rental facilities and landlord tenant relations. The city clerk and director of council operations office will be implementing approved changes to the city's election code and will be making preparations for the next election. The office of the city attorney has a proposed f y twenty seven expenditure budget of 2,000,000.

Major changes to the expenditure budget include increases for an additional one point o FTE assistant city attorney and for software associated with NPIA and legal file management. The department will continue to provide legal support to help advance city priorities, support revisions to the city code, and execute contracts and agreements. The city manager's office has a proposed f y twenty seven expenditure budget of 4,400,000.0. Major changes to the expenditure budget include decreases associated with the relocation of the emergency management functions to the police department and decreases for MPIA management software that moved to the city attorney's office. These decreases are offset by an increase in funding for Rockville Economic Development, Inc.

Looking ahead into FY 2027, the department anticipates finalizing the JEDI strategic plan and the economic development strategic plan. The department will continue to advocate for mayor and council legislative priorities, support the Rockville Volunteer Fire Department in their planned relocation, and implement the pilot private mural development incentive grant program. The department will also work collaboratively with IT, Recreation and Parks, and Public Works on the deployment of the asset management and customer relations management software. The communications and community engagement department has a proposed FY twenty seven expenditure budget of 2,900,000.0. The only significant change to expenditure budget is for copier leases.

Highlights for the department include efforts around community engagement, way finding signage using the city's new brand, development of the city's mobile app, and neighborhood connect events. Community planning and development services has a proposed f y twenty seven budget of 8,900,000.0. The significant changes to the expenditure budget include funding for the new senior enhancement codes inspector and increased for planning and permitting soft software. Highlights for the department include continued efforts around annexation opportunities, updates to two neighborhood plans, launching a next day residential inspection program, and implementation of the new zoning ordinance. The finance department has a proposed f y twenty seven budget of 4,100,000.0.

The significant changes to the budget include funding for software that supports AMI deployment and budget and financial reporting software. Looking ahead to FY 2027, the finance department will collaborate with Public Works and engage a consultant on the next water and sewer cost of service study. In addition, the the department will assist in performing financial analysis for any potential annexations, lend support with the AMI deployment, and with housing strategies. The department also looks forward to launching the city's first financial transparency portal. The Department of Housing and Community Development has a proposed f y twenty seven expenditure budget of 5,400,000.0.

The significant changes include increases for community services and enrichment grant awards and increases for REAP, Rockville Emergency Assistance. Expanded use of the opioid settlement funds are also included in the HCD budget. FY twenty seven highlights for the department include code revisions on NPDUs, implementation of housing strategies that previously came before the elected body, continued provision of human services, financial empowerment, and emergency services for those in need. The Human Resources Department has a FY twenty seven expenditure budget of $2,700,000 Significant changes include increases for AED replacements, organizational development, and employee benefits management software. Highlights for the department include efforts around employee training, planned process modifications for onboarding and performance evaluations, employee wellness and recognition events, and collaborating on public claim features within the new customer relations management system.

The information technology department has a proposed budget of 8,800,000.0. Major changes include added costs for year two of the planned CCTV upgrades and increases for software contractual services, including additional cloud storage. These increases are partially offset by decreases for software maintenance. Looking ahead to FY twenty seven, the department plans to complete the CCTV upgrades, implement the asset management and customer relations management solutions, and collaborate with departments on opportunities for AI pilots and process automation. The police department has a proposed f y twenty seven budget of 18,600,000.0.

The significant changes to the expenditure budget include increases for three new FTE positions, the transferred emergency management costs from the city manager's office, increases for revenue supported overtime coupled with decreases for mental health contract services. FY twenty twenty seven highlights for the department include deploying a new street crime special unit, providing a community engagement officer to Rockville High School, and efforts aligned around community engagement and public education. The procurement department has a proposed budget of $1,800,000 The only significant change is for temporary personnel funding to help the department accelerate key projects. Procurement looks to continue implementation of their strategic plan, enhance the MFDV program, and implement a vendor self-service solution to help streamline processes for vendors who work with the city. The Department of Public Works has a proposed f y twenty seven expenditure budget of 42,900,000.0.

The significant changes associated are associated, I'm sorry, with vehicle and equipment replacements. This is a schedule that varies by year, and projected increases for electricity costs and vehicle leases. The department will manage a range of construction projects in fiscal year twenty twenty seven, continue implementation multiple plans, and install new signage within town center as part of the wayfinding initiative. The recreation and parks department has a proposed budget of 32,800,000.0. The significant changes include an additional point eight FTE preschool teacher, costs associated with the new $18 per hour minimum wage, operating and personnel costs for expanded programming and one time funding of a school pathway lighting feasibility study, and expanded community gardens.

The department will manage a range of construction projects in fiscal year 2027, begin a park's recycling program, install security features for park pavilions and bathrooms, and coordinate a range of special events, including activities to commemorate the nation's two hundred and fiftieth anniversary. The non departmental expenditures represent a significant portion of the budget and includes items that are not tied to a specific department. This includes debt service, transfers between funds, depreciation, and citywide insurance policies. Now before we move on to grants, I wanted to pause to take any questions on the operating items we've covered so far.

Thank you. Can we go back to the top on the slides and then we can move through? I know that my colleagues have several comments on fees, so we can go there. Doctor Miles. We'll go down the line.

Thank you, madam mayor. Thank you, staff, for the presentation so far. Thanks also for answering the litany of questions I and my colleagues sent that are posted online. So I won't belabor the point, but with, regard to well, first off, I just wanna also thank y'all for including a summary of the oral testimony. I think was packed page one fourteen in the budget or from the previous public hearing.

That was super helpful to consolidate and remind me of things that I may have missed in real time at the time. Thank you for also taking feedback with regard to the fees. I I think this is a reasonable start, and I I'm hopeful that the concerns raised by me and some of the colleagues with regard to the impact that the increase in fees may have on stifling development. Hopefully, those will be addressed. And I'm I'm also thankful or am happy to under or realize that you all figured out ways to make it work financially. That's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Council member Bolton.

I agree with my colleague. Thank you for hearing us and some of the testimony last time around making adjustments and making it work financially. I'm comfortable with where we landed. I mean, I will say it is true that this this body really wants to not stifle development, and and that's a priority we have. I also don't think I've ever heard from residents that that they wanna subsidize developers. Right? Like, that that's a that's a that's a step too far. So I don't wanna be overcompensating because that is what ends up happening here if we're not paying, like, cost recovery fees. So I appreciate your thoughtfulness in trying to walk that line, and I think you landed in a good place. Thanks.

Thank you. Councilmember Vallari?

Yeah. I have a couple of questions. Ditto to everything that my colleagues said, as well as thank you for my extensive litany of questions. I know it was a lot, but I appreciate the intel. So my first question is around the water and SEER authorization application fee.

It represents in the the new revised proposed increase of over 1000% and was wondering what the cost recovery basis was for that application fee. It seems to still be an outlier. It went from $250 to $2,920. Anybody?

We may have to circle back with you on that one.

Okay. Thank you.

I'm I'm happy and I'm happy to follow-up too with just my quick one based on the revised that was put out. Similar to that is the stormwater alternative in lieu fees. It's an increase of 132%. Again, I'm curious about the cost recovery basis on that as well. I think these are just a few that, like, that specific analysis wasn't included in the revised agenda packet, so we need to just put a pin in that one as well.

I'm cool with that. Two more, and I'll be brief. Preliminary sediment control plan review, an increase of eight seventy one percent. It went down a bit, but it's still nearly 10 times the current fee, and it's something that more likely homebuilders will feel that impact and did not see a cost recovery analysis on that. And then the last one, I think, which will really impact homeowners in particular and still puts us ahead of more expensive than Montgomery County is the fencedmall accessory structure fee.

It was proposed for an increase from $40 to $100 so an increase of 150%, rather. And Montgomery County currently charges $78 for this. And I know that you mentioned that you don't like a phased in approach, but I would just be curious if that's something that we could consider seeing as that's a significant jump for something that people, single family home owners or people that rent out those homes, would be bearing the brunt of. So those are my top ones. I can email those as well, But honestly, my concerns really just it might just be an oversight.

It doesn't really matter how we got there, but I just didn't see the cost recovery basis like I saw for other things.

We'll add that to the question and answer portal, if that's okay with Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. I just want to say thank you for taking I know I raised this whole issue about how much we're increasing fees, and I did so in the sense that we have established two priority goals, among others, but economic development opportunity and housing. And I just feel in the landscape of where we are with increasing tariffs and affordability concerns as well as, you know, a lot of uncertainty, I didn't feel like some of the increases, this was the the year to do it. Also recognizing that we increased fees in 2023 and in 2025. Last year, we increased we added five new positions and increased fees in our budget with the idea that that would support permitting and licensing.

So I'm cautious on this one because I think it could send the wrong signal. I do appreciate the adjustments that have been made. However, in general, I also recognize that every fee that's increased, there's an additional automation fee on top of that, which is over 10%. Montgomery County got rid of that fee. Gaithersburg still has it.

But I just that is as we increase these fees, we also still have that. And so that does increase the overall cost, and I'm concerned about the signal that it sends. In general, I'm supportive of increasing the fees with CPI to keep up with inflation or phasing them in, but I'm not comfortable with double digit increases for generally any of them. So that is a general comment. I know I've made it last time we met, and I I stick with that.

There are some fees that, you know, 800 you know, going from a 100 to inflation over a thousand. That's just a big big time increase. And then others that have a 150% increases. So in general, I would like to see them below double digits and when possible to align with CPI so that we're not sending the wrong signal. I know that we're getting some additional tax duplication money this year.

Hopefully, that can help, but I I just generally think this is still a concern. So we're getting closer, but for me, still need to look at the message that we're sending to the public. That's my general commentary. Thank you. Oh, and I also appreciate keeping the green fleas almost flat. Councilmember Jackson.

Thank you, Mayor. I'll be brief. I associate myself basically with the comments my colleagues have made, but especially with councilmember Fulton. You know, we don't need to be subsidizing developers. And I think this represents a good attempt to do cost recovery but with an eye towards how much we end up charging.

So I thank you all for taking all our comments into account, coming back with this fee schedule. I think it it represents a good, fair fair fair effort by by staff to take this into account and recognize in the time that we're in where, you know, yes, cost recovery is important, but, I mean, we're going through a time where developers and other people have increased tariffs and inflation and everything else. So I think this is a good compromise. The one thing that I just have a question on, and you guys kind of touched on it before, but will you be phasing this in over time? Because, I mean, the original fee estimates that I saw were what you had anticipated and what your consultant said was a cost recovery effort.

So will you be phasing this in over time? You're gonna come back to the council, or this is the baseline going forward?

I I think we are we are now facing it in based on the feedback we received from council. Every time we will make a recommendation on any of these fees, we'll we will show you the cost recovery number. That's what council member earlier was asking. We'll always try to get you there, but we also understand if we have to phase into that, like this year, we'll continue to do that. We understand the philosophy.

Just just to add to that answer, we'll look at things like the inflationary trends, the cost of service consideration, how much it costs on our ends, any other market comparison changes, and, the cost recovery goals. All that

goes into it. Thank you. You. Council Member Shah.

I want to echo my colleagues. I greatly appreciate the very thorough review and what you came up with. It's it's a compromised approach. I did wanna ask for the zoning ordinance waiver request. This is under miscellaneous. Is this a common request that you get? I'm just curious.

It's very rare, actually, that we get that zoning ordinance waiver request.

Okay. Alright. Thank you.

Councilman Van Gruyk.

Much like what some of my colleagues have said, thank you so much. This is really what we look for. And I know that when I was talking to some of the organizations, developer organizations who had concerns, one of the major concerns they had was not necessarily about the spot individual fees, but some of those broad fees, like the per square footage fees, which could compound compound dramatically. When looking through what you put together, that's where you focus most of the reductions. So that that wouldn't necessarily be a massive increase to someone looking to do a large development.

But instead, it seems like some of the ones they didn't reduce as much would be spot fees that would be individualized. That seems and I know that some of the data wasn't there. That probably was cost recovery because it's a onetime necessarily fee. But when you have these scales that could dramatically increase, we see that, even some of the first two items that were close to a 100% increase, we've reduced it down to 25. And some of those large scale development problems that I know I heard immediately when this came out was problematic.

You addressed it. I think what the staff has done looking at this as a whole was tremendous. I think it was a really good compromise to say, where can we reduce the fees so it wouldn't be as problematic while also knowing that there's some type of cost recovery that city needs to address. So I don't really have any questions. It's more complimentary about, appreciative of the staff, and I know the work and the detail that came into it because you got, a lot of feedback from the mayor and council. So it's more just thank you so much for working on it.

Thank you. Can I ask a quick question? Because my colleagues may think of something, and I'll just see if anyone else has a follow-up. Do you have a sense of I saw you lowered some of the fees, but are we doing things that will help support small businesses? So are any of the fees that as you look at this will impact small? Because small businesses do generate jobs and we need more jobs. So I just wanted to have them look at that. And I also had a specific question about the water and sewer application authorization fee. That one was an increase of a thousand percent still. So I just wanna better understand some of these larger increases.

So, Cameron, let us add those to the same list with council member Valeria. We'll provide you with a more detailed answer to those two questions.

Okay.

Thank you.

And Montgomery County got rid of their automation fee, which is most people assume that you are doing things in a more automated fashion. Is there philosophy that staff has on that going forward? Is it a particular time to pay for a software? Are you gonna phase it out over time? If you could just give us a sense of your philosophy.

The philosophy around the automation fee is that it's intended to help the city provide more online self-service type of opportunities for permitting and licensing. In addition, it also covers things like credit card fees. And oftentimes,

there are other

organizations or jurisdictions that will apply a credit card surcharge or a processing fee. This is this is covering that as well. So that's not something that we're charging anyone who is choosing to, like, pay by credit card or transact online efficiencies. So it's dealing with the software in that platform, but also those credit card processing fees.

Okay. So credit card fees are about 3%, our fee is 10.25%, so just assuming that the technology that we're using is costing us about 7%?

That would be the gap.

Okay. Thank you. Any other final questions on this? Okay. I just note, I know there was a comment about housing and development. It gets passed on to whoever's buying or renting in the future more than likely, so it does also impact the resident.

Are there any particular departments that the mayor and council wants to ask questions about? I could just go directly to those.

Let's just flash through and I'll say does anyone have questions and then we'll start with Councilman Fulton. I think this overall slide is good. Let's move on from that one. Mayor and Council? I'll give you the first opportunity if you have any questions on Mayor and Council. Was Mayor and Council before this? Oh, sorry. It's okay. No worries. He says defund it. I

don't have any questions on this. All makes sense to me.

Thank you. Okay. I have just a few quick questions. Boards and commissions. We received commentary from boards and commissions. Would that go under DCO or mayor and council?

Each board and commission is managed by a different department within the city, Those departments provide that respective board or commission with the resources that they need. I

don't know which department each one is in, but I have a sense what the staff liaison, but that would be a lot of parsing out. I'll just say in general, we've heard feedback from HRC and the Education Commission, so I wanted to flag those listening to the testimony from them. Some commissions have a little bit of a budget and some don't. But I will say that the Education Commission is, you know, used funds from the city clerk's office this year to get things done and just wanna make sure that we're being fair with commission. So that's just a broad comment for me.

And some of the the HRC one, I guess I can address that one during rec and parks. The other thing that comes from our strategic priorities, and you may have this under planning, is the Rockville Pike plan and the East Rockville Pike plan. That will be under planning? Yes. Excellent. Okay. Because you have landlord tenant here, so I just wanted to make sure that we were considering the difference. Alright. Next. Questions on city attorney? Councilman Rolera, you have the first opportunity. Okay. I'm good. Okay. Next.

City manager's office. Mine are very brief. The arts plan is something that has come up on the Cultural Arts Commission. I know that we did a 2019 study and called for an arts plan. I know that there may not be a consultant budget for it, but I'm assuming that you will be working working on that this year?

That's correct.

Okay. Thank you. And then we, last budget, talked about the CRM for customer relations when people are emailing us or things that are coming in through report a concern. Is there additional funding needed there? Are you implementing that this year? What is the status?

No additional funding is needed. That's being handled on the CIP side, and that is in the works.

Okay. Thank you. Anyone else? Councilman Van Gruk.

Thank you. I guess this question is for the city manager. I know that when we were talking about economic development, when the presentation was here there, and addressing some of the questions. One of the things we were talking about, was infrastructure development, of beautifying the city. I know the mayor, council member Valeri, council member Jackson have really been great about talking about the wayfinding and really focusing.

Know we've got that in the budget, but when hearing from miss Verrardi, Rivardi and talking about what really would be good, there's really an expansive need for it. I know that the city obviously can't afford just to do everything and beautify Rockville. Piggy peeking back to what you had said when we had that conversation with regard to how we might start the process of integrating some of the wayfinding that I know, the mayor has talked about, and we've gotten the budget. Is there something within the city manager's budget? Because I know that we're increasing some of the funds for the city manager's office with regard to economic development.

Is there some way that we can integrate kind of the start of that process through some type of either plan, process, or support that might be able to be funded through the city manager's office? And if we did, how would that look in what we could do within the budget?

So let me back up just a little bit. It is a little surprising to me how much our community really has, share with how much they really appreciate all the place making, is what I would call it categorically, in and around the city, whether it's the murals or the signage on the bridge, etcetera, etcetera, some of our projects. To your point, though, I think we need to take a more long range citywide look at it, whether it's entrance corridors, underutilized pieces of property, things of that nature to really create not only a theme, but also what is the right piece of place making given the location. That could be art. It could be signage.

It could be lighting. It could be landscaping. It could include monumentation, all of those things put together. So that's a long way of saying we need a master plan. And I would call it a beautification plan more than anything else. I would we would I would use a team like I do with a lot of things to manage that whole initiative. It does make sense to have it in my office just so I can kinda oversee it broadly, But I also think we need consultant studies because it needs a lot of graphics with it. If you're gonna do something in this space, I would add money to the budget this year. It's not being contemplated right now, and I think it's probably along the lines of a $100,000 to develop that plan over the next year.

So then I've got two follow ups. Number one, is this the same type of plan that I know that you, me, and, Reddy was talking about when we were talking about economic development?

That's correct.

Okay. And number two, if we were to do that, is that gonna have a significant impact? Is that something that we could afford, or are we gonna lose money otherwise? I just wanna make sure that we're not making an impact, and this is something that you foresee is affordability within the current budget within your office.

It's it's a it's a go ahead.

As part of the next work session, we will go through a balancing just like we did last year. And right now, we have some general fund capacity of about 275,000. We still need to do a final personnel balancing and take into consideration any other feedback received here this evening.

Well, I mean, to that extent, madam mayor, to the extent we could have even just a straw poll to see if this is something that we could at least see as part of the balancing effort through the city manager's office.

I think I have under city manager. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Can I ask a question? We did fund some signage and wayfinding in the FY twenty six budget. Can you just, the listening public, describe what you have done with that money?

I think we had something in in the Q and A on that. All of all of the wayfinding is funded. The installation is expected to happen in f y twenty seven.

I'll I'll also add, I would include neighborhood signage as part of the that as well. Phase one, we're doing right now. Phase two is part of this budget.

Thank you. And then the art plan that you have, an economic development plan, will they also include sections on place making as a way for art and economic development?

I would say they're all interrelated, Mir. I'm not trying to avoid the question.

Just wondering.

They should all be connected.

Thank you. I'm just trying to understand to what extent we're paying a consultant and then another consultant.

The consultant name will be for the graphics portion of it.

Okay. Thank you. I will also note that the city did a wayfinding study before. I know some people have a long history with that, and then it didn't quite produce exactly what we were looking for, and there was a pause. So I just wanted to make sure that as we if we go forward with this, that we look at that history and designs so that we get something that everyone is happy with.

But also just to clarify, I don't think this is just wayfinding. This is about kind of the infrastructure areas

Sorry. I just I wanted to just see if if you had a comment from finance I saw. No? Okay. Alright. Thank you. Go ahead.

Erin, I just want to clarify. We're not this isn't a wayfinding study. Right? This is a global kind of entrance area, shared use area around the city that kind of I mean, potentially, in the future, we're talking massive, like, kind of review, but we have to start somewhere to understand the areas, whether it's way finding, whether it's entrance areas, that could be improved for kind of just general economic development, kind of like what, mister Vardy was talking about with the in the ready presentation.

That's an accurate description.

Thank you. Does anyone have comments on this? No. Not on this. Okay. I will just do finish the city managers, then we can drop all on wayfinding Okay. And placemaking. Go ahead. Councilmember Vallarty.

But again, it's not wayfinding and placemaking.

Understood. We will get to that.

We'll we'll strap all on the name of it. I'm I'm a fan. So I've been thinking a lot, and thank you, Jim, as your city manager, on kind of your thought process around the cultural arts strategic plan and how we're going in that direction. And so I've been kind of pondering through that the cultural arts are so much more than art in public places, than murals and so forth. So I would love to see.

I I believe our history is part of our cultural arts. I believe that capturing for the city, getting a sense of, you know, working with similar to how we were talking about, to a certain extent, economic development. I think that there is a portion of it that can be a bridge between the city and perhaps another entity. However, you know, we have a staff person that kinda oversees this, but I think very tellingly resides within community planning and development as opposed to cultural arts. And I think that that's a little bit of a difference with an important distinction.

So I would be really interested also as well, in addition to the role of history in our cultural arts strategic plan, and how what we can do as a city to take that sort of ownership on the issue of capturing history. So I just wanted to flag that. I presume that and I could be wrong, Mr. City Manager I had that Wreck And Parks was the point on the neighborhood signage. Am I wrong on that, or was it DPW?

I'm sorry. Public public works. Okay, is public works. Okay, cool. I just wanted to make sure, because I think that that is, you're right, they are intertwined. But if we are going to look at a strategic plan around the cultural arts, I think it needs to be expansive beyond the fine arts and art in public places. I would be interested in exploring that.

Are you looking for poll on that as well?

Yes, please. Madam Mayor, I would like straw polling on this to see if we can explore shifting staff to the cultural arts office to oversee and work on Rockville history.

You repeat city manager, go ahead because I see you have some questions.

Yeah. Can you repeat that again? Make sure I understand. Shifting staff resources?

So right now, there is a staff person who's point who also works really closely with the historic district commission, and that person lives under community planning and development services. And while I think that preserving buildings is a part of history, it's much more expansive than that. So to me, it would make sense, since we have a wealth of that knowledge, but is existing in community planning space. Why would we not shift that individual to within the cultural arts umbrella as opposed to hanging out and planning a development?

Yeah. We're we're starting to get into the the why and the how piece. I would here's the three big initiatives that we have to undertake.

I I sorry. I didn't understand the first part.

My apologies. So there's three big initiatives that we have to undertake, and I sent this note to Cultural Arts Commission, and I copied the body. An arts and culture strategic plan citywide, an updated art in public places master plan, and there was also a request for an art district plan. All three of those initiatives are somewhat mutually exclusive, they're yet they're all latched together. It's all a big body of work. I think we can get through that with the resources that we have. I would not move any staff from one department to another to support that. I think that all belongs in the city manager's office with the arts and culture manager, and then she can make recommendations to me on how she thinks she needs to to resource that out.

Thank you. And I have it's okay, madam mayor. And I appreciate that completely. What I'm looking at is actually it's a bit of a shift in what we consider when we talk about cultural arts. Up until this I mean, I've been watching for a little while now Cultural arts has always been shorthand for the Cultural Arts Commission who does phenomenal work, right?

But we're talking about fine arts and murals and art in public places when cultural arts also includes the definition of history and historical representation and programming. We're missing that, and we have some of that expertise in house. That was my point too. We have an expert, a very, you know, and we've had a dedicated person looking at historic preservation of buildings, but this person also has the ability to look at history as a whole. So why why wouldn't we consider the history of the city?

Because that is part of our cultural heritage here as part of our cultural arts strategic plan.

We'll consider staffing resources as we go through these initiatives, council member. Thank you.

Okay. I'm happy to also follow-up on this because I think it also does dovetail into a a discussion that we will be having later this evening if it's not midnight. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. I just wanted to note, I'm wondering if you're looking from the past, in the past the word history was included as part of arts and culture of that position. So I think it's just as we look at the arts plan that we'll be weaving in the history part of it again.

I agree with that 100%.

Okay. All right. And then Mr. Mihilek, just before we go to straw polls, will you automatically include the arts plan in the FY '27 piece? I don't think that it's in the narrative. Or do you need us to straw poll whether that's something to put in?

Don't need to straw poll that. I talked to our staff about that today. We're gonna try to do everything we can over the next year with existing resources. And if we needed additional resources, we'll either come back or we'll come back next year to talk about additional funding, but not this current not this budget that we're building right now.

Okay. If we could at least note that work in the the next budget narrative that comes out that we're marking that that's something that we're working on this year, that would be helpful. Okay. Any other questions? Alright. Next we have to straw poll. I think this is something our body discussed during our strategic planning session. We heard it from Reddy. Many of us have talked about just the overarching looking at entryway beautification, wayfinding. It's a mixture of place making. So mister Mihel, like I said, you have a thought.

Yeah. I was just gonna I I saw some of the faces. I would recommend that you call this initiative a citywide place making plan.

I'm fine with that. Colleagues, are you good with that? Okay. Thank you. Alright. So all those in favor in supporting this, please raise your hand. Okay. Perfect. Then, mister Mihilek, as you guys do the arts plan, I I know that we can't do the arts district this year because it takes a lot of resources and funding, what you've noted. The comprehensive plan does call for looking at it in the future. Over this year, as you're looking at the arts plan, will you be incorporating what it would take and how you can potentially look at an arts district?

Yes, we will.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. Next one. Communications and community engagement.

Councilmember Jackson, you have the first opportunity to ask questions if you would like.

No, I'm fine.

Anyone else have Councilmember Shaw.

This is this is something that I'm particularly interested in and wanting to know how we are measuring our community engagement. Are there metrics? Who are we reaching? Demographics? We talk about being inclusive, but we have to actually measure that going back to our JEDI plan. And so is there data being collected to evaluate this investment?

So those are all excellent questions. We've done a lot of changes in communications and communication over the past couple years for sure. I think it is time for us now to test, how we've done in that space. I don't wanna just wing it right now and give you some of those answers, but let us, meet with the team, talk about what we can do for, measuring for success, and see if we hit it.

Thank you, councilor Mishaw. Please continue.

Thank you. And then I know we also had that community engagement spectrum that we talked about and moving towards community ownership, community agency. So when we're collecting information on the metrics, could you share also where we would be on that spectrum and more of a plan on how we can get to a community agency?

We can do that.

You. Councilmember Valeri?

Yes. Okay. So I had two questions on this particular Larry? Slide. One is, and I appreciate my colleague bringing up kind of the metrics, but I'm interested in the current staffing levels on the community engagement staff.

I know that we had authorized a single position two budgets ago, thereabouts. I cannot remember. Anyway, at the time, I know that we were talking about because I think we want to have this kind of investment in it that let's see how bringing on one FTE, how that works, and if we're getting good results, or I can't imagine that wouldn't be good results, that we could look at expanding it. Because at one point, the city had four community engagement staff. So I think I'd like us to get up to that point because, to my colleague's point, know, efficacy are we just dooming ourselves to not being efficient because we don't have enough people because we have a city of 70,000 people?

So long winded way of saying, one, do we have timing on the recruitment of new staff and if there's somebody coming on board for the existing position? And then two, what sort of pathway forward to scale that back up to where it was historically?

Councilmember Vallari, there is a new community engagement manager who just came and started with

the city just this week.

Oh, wow.

And they will be working closely with the director of communications and community engagement to begin the recruitment on that second position. Okay. I think once we have that group fully staffed, then the mayor and council will have an opportunity to see what impact they make.

That's fantastic, and I swear I didn't tee that one up. I really didn't know, so I appreciate. That's extremely exciting. I do want to also flag, too, that I don't know if it's a fiscal year twenty twenty seven outlook to establish Neighborhood Connect events because we kind of started that already. Maybe the continuation of Neighborhood Connect events, but extremely excited to hear that about community engagement. Thank you so much.

I appreciate it. Thank you. Councilmember Jackson.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. And I thought of my question a little bit late, so thank you for indulging. What do we mean by, community engagement strategy?

I think we talked a lot about it in a work session a little over a year ago. It's really how do we wanna engage the community, how deeply, using what forms. Is it in person? Is it via survey? Is it small group discussions? Is it focus groups, etcetera? I mean, that's really the whole spectrum that council member Shaw mentioned before. That really is our our approach and our strategy. I've heard others say go to where people are for that quite a bit. So that's really the strategy. What is it? So hopefully that helps.

Yeah. And that's what I was getting at because, you know, I think that maybe we've gotten away from the in person strategy, you know, going to HOAs, going to civic associations, being there, being present as a city staff. I mean, I know me and my colleagues are out at associated events and others. But it seems like we have put our eggs maybe too much into the digital engagement, the surveys, and the like. And so, you know, I'm just putting in a plug that, you know, when we're talking about community engagement strategy, we actually have staff get out to civic associations, HOAs, and the like, and really start reengaging on the ground, because I think that's important as well.

It isn't a substitute for everything else we're doing digitally, but I think it's really crucial that we have a personal presence as we go forward.

Thank you. Thank you for the work on getting a new staff person. That's gonna be a critical key role. I know that's been a strong point in the past and really appreciate the team's work on that. I also want to echo and support the colleagues.

The comments of my colleagues comes from Jackson, Shah, and Valeri. I do have small questions. One is some dedicated work to supporting the enhancement and updating of our outreach list. We used to be able to send kind of a quick summary for HOA and community association meetings so they had a push communication on what was going on with the city. On occasion, I will get messages or calls or saying what's the city update.

So I I try to do that, but I just would like to see how we can support that systemically, and I imagine that the new hire will help us in that regard. The other ones are very minor, but I and I apologize. I didn't send these in advance. Some jurisdictions put their Mayor and Council meetings on YouTube, and we do have a YouTube channel. Know there is a resident who takes time to put out meetings on YouTube, but the benefit is that those can be translated in other languages.

It's not a direct request, but just see if there is a benefit to doing that for the city of Rockville. We do have nice, incredible videos that the city has done on our events and some of the interviews. I I really support that work, but you have channels for RCPD and events and a couple of things. But I was just thinking it might be one category for mayor and council meetings. The other thing is minor because I know the but it's important.

We've talked about trying to support ADA access, and so I just wanted to see if my colleagues support just updating these chambers to be more ADA friendly. We have a podium that is for standing. Some jurisdictions have a podium that can rise up and down. Just a very simple thing. But I think we've seen some folks come in and, you know, they're holding their paper. Someone's trying to hold a mic. It just I just wanna make sure everyone can testify with integrity and the support they need.

I think we actually have money in the current budget to be able to do that, so we'll push forward on that.

Okay. Thank you.

Was

all. Councilman Fulton, you good? Okay. Alright. Thank you. Looking around? Looks like we're good on this. Oh, Council Member Shaw. I

guess I would just add to the accessibility. Just thinking about several different populations we have around the city and getting more feedback on how it can be more accessible from the community and which can help to inform the greater plan.

Councilmember O'Leary?

Super quick to this point. I did hear from some members of the community that they would like other options, perhaps more Bluetooth enabled options for those with any sort of hearing loss that need amplification, and that many of those systems also allow for live translation so that it's real time and not kind of after the fact and doesn't, you know, it just generally makes it more accessible. So I think that there's that, and I absolutely appreciate, and I would like to see the change in the podium as well. I think these are some easy things that we should be able to do.

Thank you. I think MCPS has been rolling out to schools. Look like cell phones almost, but it just does auto translation without a large cost. But I appreciate you raising that. Mr. Sittabandre, you good with our feedback? Do you have any questions?

No, absolutely. No, I'm good.

Okay.

Community planning and development services. First option for questions, councilman Bershaw.

Thank you, madam mayor. I don't I don't have much here. This looks this looks great. I did just wanna uplift and the update to the Rockville Pike neighborhood plan and the East Rockville neighborhood plan. I'm glad that we are moving forward with that. And just a question. So we have received the the delegation of the transit oriented delegation, and I just wanted to see if this was included in this plan as

well. This the is TOD announcement.

So, yes, police said I should have said something today. We did receive TOD designation from the state, last week. We're excited about it. What that does more than anything else is it tees us up one for the East Rockville neighborhood plan for sure. And the second thing, it does open us up for additional grant funding in the future. Those are the two main things. But in terms of the impact on the budget this year, it really doesn't have any impact on the budget other than we could receive additional revenues in the near future.

Thank you. You. Councilwoman Van Grecke.

I don't necessarily have any questions, but just to note, to the extent you need more money for the annexation opportunities, let us know.

It will pay for itself over time, right?

That's the plan.

Doctor. Miles, anyone just checking down the line here, anything on CPDS? Councilman Vallari.

Super quickly on this. I just want to make sure I know that doing two neighborhood plans simultaneously is that is a huge lift on the best of days. In addition to all the other stuff we're doing, I want to just make sure that we have enough staffing to be able to do that simultaneously? And are there any I see the two major changes, and thank you to staff for answering my questions on kind of what that additional code inspector will do. Do we need are there any other gaps that would set us up for success on these two neighborhood plans that we're missing.

We added $150,000 of consulting funds on the last budget amendment, and staff believes that that's adequate to get these processes underway. Okay.

Cool. I just wanted to check-in on that. I'm very excited. I just know that they're super heavy lifts, so thanks.

Thank you. I will echo my colleague, councilman Van Gruk, on annexation. I will also say another economic development driver is the Pike Plan, and obviously, we all supported the East Rockville Plan. I just wanted to say those are really critical for supporting our goals. I was also wanting to check and see we made some changes this past year on enhanced code inspections and adding five staff. So just wanna get a general sense of how is that working over you know, as we look into this next fiscal year. Are there any lessons learned? Do you need any more support?

I think for the enhanced inspection program, we had a good work session about that a little while ago. We're launching that enhanced inspection program right now, like, currently, so we're excited about that. I promise an annual review of that, and we'll we'll provide that to you. I do have a long list of all the things that we've accomplished with new staffing and CPDS. I'll just go really fast.

As you know, we relaunched the quick start program. We, now have an express permitting program, which allows online same day processing for certain smaller permits like fences, HVAC, furnaces, things of that nature. We have a new solar app plus program, which is one day turnaround for solar projects. We have small accessory structures. We used to take twenty eight days to get those done.

Now we can do it in three days. We are benchmarking our permitting process, and that was very important to this council. Pleased to tell you that our intake staff are processing 95% of the applications at or better than our published time frames, and our plan review staff are completing 90 of all the reviews at or better than the published timeline. So those of you who are doing the math, yes, that's an a grade on those things. We're excited about it.

And we are gonna be launching this next year. Sergeant say that. Within the next six months or so, our next day inspection program. So all of that are examples of how we've used previous staffing resources approved by council to improve and streamline our process. And I owe you owe you a more robust review of all the FAST initiatives, which we'll put on your six month at some point in the not too distant future.

That sounds like a great Rockwell Reports article.

I don't disagree.

I say that only because I have encountered a number of they have these permitting accelerators and they don't when it says, does Rockwell have a FAST program? They're not even acknowledging. I think we need to get the word out a bit more about it, but just want to say a huge thank you to staff. That was something that this council came in and really pushed hard on, and you guys are working in that direction. I greatly appreciate it.

The one thing I mentioned, I saw it in the IT department. I don't know if this will cross over, but there are some city models on tracking complaints for building inspections, looking at permitting processes that are using AI to do data analysis on performance and effectiveness and opportunities for improvement. I just wanted to flag that again. Is that part of the AI look that you're looking at optimization in the IT department?

The IT department is actively collaborating with different departments on different automation opportunities, and I don't know that that's necessarily on the short list, but they're they're exploring all kinds of things.

Thank you. Please keep us posted on that. Next. You guys are doing great. Any questions? Comes from McGrack, you have the first opportunity to speak.

No specific questions. As we talked about before with regard to what finance is doing with

the data and the income, I think you guys did a great job. And I have no specific questions regarding the expenditures.

Thank you. I'm excited about the Citi's first financial transparency portal, so I just wanted to really highlight that. That's a big I know we recently did results for Rockville and now kind of rolling with that transparency and showing people the opportunities that we are moving forward. And also, thank for moving forward on the AMI, which will also help save us money over time. Doctor. Miles.

Thank you, madam mayor. I got an evil look from my colleague here.

It's like,

how dare you raise

your hand?

You're free to ask you a question.

Yes, ma'am. And just a quick comment. I just wanna thank you all for the five year outlook. Looks like we're looking good through f y twenty thirty one without any significant change in staffing or property tax rates. I do recognize this is all subject to financial headwinds, but I appreciate putting that out there and being sober. And if in the future, things need to change, we I I I wanna say I'll speak for myself, perhaps for my colleagues as well, that yeah. Just be honest with this, even if even the bad news. It's much easier for us to plan and manage our expectations when we know potentially what's around the corner. So thank you for that. Thank

you very much. We appreciate all the work. Housing and Community Development. Doctor. Miles, do you have any questions? You don't have to. Anyone else have questions on Housing and Community Development? Councilmember Vallari.

I do and I hope my colleague doesn't give me the dirty look now that I She is. She is

not. I'm

I'm teasing.

Teasing. I promise. No. So I'm very appreciative to mister city manager for I can't remember what email it was, but I'm giving you all the all the kudos for the info that we got around the opioid settlement spending. I it's a personal I think I think you all know me by now, is a personal passion of mine that we use those funds in a way that is recommended by the state.

I know it is not prescriptive. Totally get that. We've got the flexibility, but there's actually some really good ideas. And so I'm happy to send a follow-up email on this to kinda go over some of the, maybe, the gaps in things. We hit a lot of the bullet points, and thank you again for that.

But I think probably the one aspect of this that we could probably do more is about increasing opportunities and access to resources for the recovery community. And from the of, you know, from the city's perspective, how can we be a more welcoming city for those who are in active recovery? Whether it's a day or ten years, I think everybody should feel welcome. So I'm happy to follow this up with an email that then, of course, would become part of our Q and A. But I just wanted to flag that because I know that I talked to a lot of folks in the city who are part of the recovery community, and I think that that's one gap area that we might be able to be a little bit more inclusive of.

But thank you.

I'll echo the comments of my colleague on that one. Is something that I the next two things I want to say is something that I've been thinking a lot about. And I think it would fall into DHD, but please feel free to clarify. So DHD has done a lot of great work. And over the years we created this department and really emphasizing all the plans we're creating.

So I've just seen such a tremendous growth and really taking a proactive look in supporting all of our residents' quality, affordable housing. One of the things I'm seeing is a gap, and it's not anything that staff is doing. It's just the changing nature of, you know, how the needs of the city, so I wanted to raise it. Some of the projects that we've worked on to help support affordable housing, we are seeing a need for support and wraparound services. And it's having an impact on school retention, on other it's bleeding into other areas beyond the city.

And I just wanted to say that housing is important, and we wanna continue to support that. But I just how can we do better by the residents that we're trying to support to help uplift them? And I think this may take a more detailed conversation, but I just think what's happening now is not enough based on the increasing needs. This is not unique to Rockville. I'm seeing it in the county and other places, so I want to recognize that. But we can't just provide the the room. And I I will send more information, but on on the symptoms and impact. I know, mister city manager, we've talked about this a little bit. But I just wanna see what can we do better here. Is this a conversation with the county?

Is it things that we need to be doing more to provide social services? Is it really leaning on a nonprofit partner? But it's it's not quite getting there yet, and I wanted to see what we can do.

I can only answer it generically, Mayor. I think that, you know, housing community development, well, we've been giving them a lot of work over the past couple of years. I mean, and they've been producing outstanding product. And I think the feedback we've been getting from from you all in work sessions has been really good. Strong team all the way across. You guys, team, etcetera. I think once we get through a couple more things, landlord tenant act, monthly repriced dwelling units, etcetera, then, yes, mayor, I think it would be good to have a work session just to kind of frame that idea to talk to some of the partners. And then to your point, we might need to come back and actually do a gaps analysis on wraparound services to better know what the county is providing, other providers, and then how we might potentially get underneath and catch the rest of it. I just don't know what it is. Okay.

We can have smaller conversations with specific symptom areas that we're hearing people need help on, and then maybe look towards a strategy. I appreciate that. Thank you. The other piece here, and it might be a bridge between DHDD, RCPD, as well as Rec and Parks, is potential expansion of programming for at risk youth. Where do you see that falling? Is that Rec and Parks or DHDD? So I'll hold my comments.