City Council - Regular Meeting

Heat. Heat. Good evening. I would like to call tonight's meeting of the Tacoma Park City Council to order. Were the clerk please call the role.

Mayor Cersi here. Council member Lamman here. Council member Dybala. Council member Schlaggel here. Council member Gilbert. Council member Hanzac present. Council member Wesley here.

Good evening. Um we are meeting tonight at 6 PM um to vote and to go into close session. The city council is convening to meet with staff and the city's labor attorney to receive a briefing and legal advice on collective bargaining negotiations with Ask Me Local 3399 and UFCW Local 400. The meeting will be closed pursuant to annotated code of Maryland general provisions article 3-305B9 which permits a meeting to be closed to discuss matters related to collective bargaining negotiations and 3-305B7 which permits the meeting to be closed to consult with council to receive legal advice. After the closed session, the council will reconvene in it in the auditorium at its regular meeting um slated to begin at 7:30. And so with that, um would someone like to move for us to proceed into close session?

So moved. Thank you, Council Member Hanzac. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Council Member Weslech. All those in favor of moving into close session, please say I. I. I. Do we have any opposed?

Any abstain? Okay, thank you very much. We will proceed to close session and we'll see everyone here again at 7:30. Hey,

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Evening everyone. Um, apologize for the later start. Um, the council has actually um been meeting since since um 6:00 p. am um in a closed session. Um and so to receive a briefing and legal advice on collective bargaining negotiations with ask me um local 3399 and UFCW local 400. Um the meeting was closed pursuant to the annotated code of Maryland general provision article 3-305B9 which permits a meeting to be closed to discuss matters related to collective bargaining negotiations and 3-305B7 which permits a meeting to be closed to consult with council to receive legal advice. Um and so now we are reconvening um our close um our open meeting um this evening. Um we've already taken the roll call earlier. Um and so in terms of upcoming agendas I have the right one. All right. Um so this evening we um so because we got off to a little bit of a late start, I will be um providing the legislative um update um as our legislative advocate Anncott um has uh a prior engagement at 8:00 p.m. But no worries, she's given me the notes, so I think we'll be fine. Um the we have three presentations this evening. The first is an update on the mental health pilot program. The second is the police department annual report. Third is the police electric vehicle pilot program.

Uh we will also have um two voting sessions this evening. The first is um the uh second reading ordinance amending Tacoma Park code 8.16 sale of food and drink for the purpose of expanding the types of use agreements the city may use to effectuate the purposes of this chapter. I thought I was done last week. It's the second reading as they relate to Outlook um outdoor cafes. Uh and then the next item is resolution supporting HB142 establishing the task force to modernize county and municipal revenue sources. Um we will also have um a few work sessions this evening. The first is a request to use the city auditorium for a film screening and waiver of associated fees. Um the uh second work session is the state highway administration priority letter and then lastly we will have a work session on the charter amendment resolution. On the on Wednesday, next Wednesday um the council will meet at its regular time of 7:30. Uh we will have uh a legislative update from an Secott, our legislative advocate. Um the voting session that evening will be um will be the resolution approving um highway state highway administration priority letter. Um I will just let the clerk know. I think on our rolling they're showing a charter amendment resolution. We're we're going to flag that as tentative given the cancellation of the public hearing that happened on Monday. Um the budget presentations will begin on Wednesday the 25th. Um the first is the city manager's overview of the recommended FY27 budget. Um the second item is the department budget presentations part one administration city managers office information

technology human resources finance city clerk and communications. And then we will have our second budget presentation um while our third that evening will be um related to the police department. On Monday, March the 30th through Monday, April the 6th, um is Montgomery County Public School spring break. And therefore, on Wednesday, um April the 1st, the city council will not meet. Um on Monday, April the 6th, the council, um will have a budget, um work session. Again, that is a Monday at 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium. We will have two budget presentations that evening. The first is the ARPA fund, American Rescue Plan Act, um the public works department, storm water, housing and community development, as well as the library. Um we will also have the capital budget overview which includes the err fleet procurement and facility maintenance reserve. And so with that, I am going to um cover items for our legislative update this evening. Um and so first I just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you very much um to Senator Smith and our District 20 delegation. We received word today that our LBI request of $500,000 for the Metropolitan Branch Trail um project has been um awarded. So, it is it has been voted on and um it is moving forward and I am super excited about this and that just means you know uh Senator Smith and and D20 you know we are very fortunate to have them in the amount of work that they do um to bring things back to the city because I understand this is a very

tough budget um for the state. And so I just want to send my my thanks um to not only our district 20 delegation but our staff that worked on putting together and making sure that we had all of the paperwork in place to submit the proposal. Um Monday is crossover. Um and so there will be and that's the date when all final uh bills um are are done. And so there will be um well I guess when things switch over um between everybody but um so constant voting um will be happening and so for our work group um I know that we've been tracking quite a few bills but just know things are about to get pretty fast and furious in terms of voting. Um so we'll just be prepared for that. Um and then also um a good cause is still in need of of advocacy. I I want to thank uh Delegate Wilkins for all of her work um with uh working to to be a champion for years on this issue. Um and so um want to encourage those residents that um are um advocates for um good cause to please please please reach out to um your senators and and making sure that this um this important piece of legislation moves forward. And uh so next week Ann will be providing um much um many more updates um after crossover. And that's usually when we learn what what has made it on to live another day and what has um hasn't in terms of the bills that are um in Annapolis. And so with that, as I as I do weekly during this time, because I recognize how much work it is, I want to thank our um working group on council, uh Council Member Weslet, Council Member

Dybala, and Council Member Lamman, um for the work that you all are doing to to make sure that we're keeping track of all of the respective bills, um putting together testimonies and letters in support of bills. Um it is so so so important to have um you all at the table and it really does make things a lot easier um when it comes to making all of these rapid fire things happen. Um so with that uh we are going to move to um

question uh I do not have the uh a summary for that. Oh, there there was a question regarding a summary for the close um session on security last week. Thank you very much. Sorry, I'm not used to dealing with a red folder. Give me one second. Here we go. All right. Before you do any comment on legislation, um, go right ahead, council.

Thank you. Um, so, so one one point for those listening about legislation. I the the governor introduced a bill, a combined energy bill a few days ago. It was the subject of two days of hearings and uh on the House side yesterday and today and I believe it passed the House with a bunch of amendments is going to the Senate. I know our state legislative advocate Anna is tracking it um and will tell us as soon as she has a chance to read it what the changes are. Um but I know there are some residents who are very interested in climate and energy issues. So I wanted to just flag that for everybody because it's it's moving fast. Thank you.

And I just want to so I I I I do want to confer with staff before um the close this close summary is for the close session that happened on March the 11th. And that's um let me it's this isn't for the security item. So um let me just follow up with the city clerk on that um to make sure that we have the the right item and um we'll make sure we we double check that. Okay. I will no worries. I'll I'll read it after um we get through um uh council comments. Um

Mayor Cersei, I just had a quick question about for the legislative working group, the good cause eviction legislation that you mentioned. Is that the the clean version that's not going to bar counties from enacting good cause unless they do not enact vacancy control? So the the issue is that there are amendments that are starting to crop up on the Senate side that are introducing vacc control provisions within the bill, but we at Tacoma Park were asking residents who are advocating to to not couple those couple them. Thank you.

Okay. And so with that, um, we are going to move into public comments. Um, uh, do we have any general public comments this evening? General public comments. Oh, I'm sorry. Comments on voting items. Any comments on voting items? And just as a I'm obviously out of practice. And just as a reminder, the voting items this evening, second reading ordinance amending Tacoma Park Code Chapter 8.16 and a resolution supporting HB 1142 establishing the task force to modernize county and municipal revenue sources. Any public comments on voting items? Do we have any virtual comments on voting items? Okay, we're going to move on to general public comments. Um, just as a reminder, you will have three minutes. We're asking for you to state your name. Um, and your street or ward um, and again, we are asking for everyone to be civil, including no profanity um, or um, disrespecting others um, who are speaking. Council. Um, my name is Elizabeth Wallace, Ward One. On the proposal to extend the length of time in office, no reasons given basically were the time it takes some people to get up to speed and to understand how to review the budget. I say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Instead, I propose city council 101 course, which some cities actually have for any resident as well as those who might be interested in running for office. It could include taking a version Tacoma Park version of the Academy of Excellence in Local Government course at the University of Maryland, a mandatory reading of the

city charter and code, attendance at the Tacoma Park Police Academy, including a ride along, proof of attendance at certain number of city council meetings over time, a review of the city budget line items and rationale behind them, reading an estimate from former council members on the time they spend weekly, amount of time, signing a statement that they understand that the current compensation and there was no guarantee of a raise in the future reading a comprehensive city council transcript of the last two years perhaps what you can do is just create transcripts from the using AI from the TV recordings and then feed them again into another AI to get a coherent history of who said what when and maybe why and most veteran council members nationwide suggest that best pre precandidate class is actually free and monthly the planning commission since a portion of city council's workload can involve land use and zoning. And last but not least, attendance of the Maryland open eating meetings act open meetings act course. Oh yes, and and there could be lots of pop quizzes just to get used to the stress. But while completing these would not be a prerequisite for candidacy, it could set one candidate apart from another, sometimes by a long shot. Kudos to Amy Wesik who came on board in 24 and Kerry Hecker Hansek in 22 who are both currently part of the Academy of Excellence. Correct. Um I don't know how many classes they've taken yet, but Cindy Stbalo is a graduate of the academy. I I don't know the year. They both completed the OP uh those Cara and Amy both completed the open meetings act training at the Maryland Municipal League conference on June 24th and 25 and Mr. Dubala did in 2019 and there but there's no record of Mayor Cersi having taken it nor council members Lamb and Gilbert or Schlaggel though I do think the latter understand its gravitas. So bottom line preparation by candidates

is the key to getting up to speed not longer terms before you take a seat on the council and long before you receive a paycheck. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any other general public comments this evening? Good evening. Yeah, my name is Isaias 124 7710 Maple Avenue is under Mr. Kurt. So let me we have some rumor for a long time uh according to Adventist hospital and some another buildings for future it will be after 10 years will be demolished and it will be have the county have a new plan is it is a real information we want to know because we are in 7710 the landlord He won't sell the buildings. And we have tenant associations and we have also tenant representatives. They have already certified. They get certification from the city and we create also buyers to buy the buildings from the tenants and we have also lawyers and the county also hiring for us a lawyer but uh we don't have some evidences from the landlord according to the city Takoma Park city rules and I don't know how we are going to get from the landlord those documents to get for asked the information uh to access and also the lawyers we have also

according to the Pakoma city parks the payment is it says half of it says totally is 7.5 7,500 and it is half half of the money is around 37,500 the down payment but we got the lender of the money and of course we get some monies but we don't have enough information from the lawyer to the tenants. So when the tenants are the law the lawyers are coming to us, we need a translators in Amharic to communicate most of the our language barriers and uh we have some problems and we need also some basic informations. What we are requested is we never get from the landlord through the city or through the tenant associations. So who can provide us or who can give us this to facilitate our needs because it says on the paper which I have it from the Takoma city park and there is a lot of information but we don't have anything in our hand except the selling uh letters. So I don't know if Mr. cut or the city can provide to us enough information and to know our rightest if you have to buy the houses. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And I just want to um ask the city manager to make note of um Maple View um tenant association needs for translation um services for HCD follow-up. Uh and also uh can we make sure that the closed captioning is on? Do we have any other general public comments? Okay. Do um we have any virtual public comments this evening? Okay. Okay. All right, Mr. Shields. And just as a reminder, no profanity, Mr. Shields. Uh, Mr. Shields. Yes, I am. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you now.

I had asked to uh uh make my public comment as anonymous, but you refused to allow me to be anonymous. You refused to allow me to uh speak under a pseudonym. You all force people to speak out but uh don't really give them the opportunity. How dare any of you call yourself a feminist? There was a 20-some year old girl who was sexually abused in that very building by the police department employees of the city of Tacoma Park. and none of you care. Or you care more about the corrupt police chief who oversaw the sexual abuse of the city employee, the deputy chief Philippos who cut the hours of the victim of sexual abuse. And that's what but what was worse perhaps was the retaliation against half the department took against this victim, telling her to shut up. Don't make ways. Allegedly, the offending officer's former partner used to go in to the dispatch closet right after he would leave and armed in duty, what over six foot, uh, in uniform on duty with a weapon on his side and say, "Don't make waves. Don't say anything to anybody. It's just a joke. You barely had the the hoodbutah to stand up for it for three minutes. This poor woman dealt with it for months. And when she complained, they got uh the offending officer got a a paid vacation. They brought him back on. And then when she said she didn't feel comfortable working with them, Deputy Chief Philipos cut her hours. Not a single one of the people that called her a fat heer that no one would want to

have sex with. Not one of them lost their job. How would that feel for your your uh workplace environment? How would you like to see videos of various sex acts being performed by uh Miss Dala or Rhonda Spirto? Would that make you feel comfort if you made it very com very clear to them already you didn't want to see those videos? What happened in your during your depart uh your off candidacy uh is so beyond the pale. It is disgustingly ridiculous. None of this could even come up in a training video because it is so far beyond belief. Do you think it was right for the offending officer to invite a a child half his age to sex clubs? To be a swinger with him, to see videos of him receiving fellatio? None of you. You all, Shame on you all. Shame on all of you. You're not progressive. You're not feminist.

Thank you, Mr. Shields. Your time is up. Excuse me. The rest of the people are able to Mr. Shields, your time is up. The the rest of the people Mr. Shields, your time is up. Thank you. I saw Mr. Huer. Mr. Huner, you're up next. She's disabled the video and the audio. You're There you go. Uh, can you hear me? Uh, Mayor Susan. Yes, we can.

Oh, thank you very much. I think that we miss Jesse bad, but I'll have to get used to it. All right, I'll start now. I read good uh good evening Paul human 3. I read through this year's annual police report. Since there's no financial data, I'm looking for answers to a few question that questions that the chief may be able to answer. One, why does the city police force have 66 patrol cars listed in the annual audit while we only have 29 officers in operations and 12 in criminal investigations, a total of 41 badged officers, a difference of 25 additional vehicles. I also ask why the police had an average of 57 patrol cars for the last seven years. Next, I asked the city manager why there were what why these very substantial costs are not assigned to the police budget as well as in the ERR. that would reflect more accurately the actual costs of policing in Tacoma Park. In the 2025 projected police expenditures listed in the ERR, there was 1,337,366 in one year for cars and equipment. Should not sub such substantial expenses be allocated to the proper allocated to the proper category, the police department budget? And lastly, if the chief is unable to answer these questions tonight, then the city manager can answer them next week as stipulated in adopted resolution 2022.2. And I will read now from the la from the

years prior to this year's 66. Going backwards, there were 52 vehicles, 57 patrol cars, 59 patrol cars, 54 patrol cars, 56 patrol cars, and 56 patrol cars with a steady uh index of 41 badged officers. Who's driving all these cars? and why are we spending millions of dollars for vehicles that we know who's not using them? Those are my questions. I hope someone will pass those on to the chief. I hope that he can answer these and if he can't, then maybe the city manager will do such. I thank you for your time and look forward to your close attention on this very expensive item. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay, do we have any other virtual public comments this evening? Okay, we're going to move on to Oh, well, actually, let me go ahead and read the close session summary um from March the 11th. On March the 11th, 2026, the city council convened in the community center auditorium at 6:35 p.m. to vote to enter into close session to be briefed on safety protocols and emergency plans. The meeting was closed pursuant to general provisions article 3-305B10 to discuss public security if the public body determines that the public discussion would constitute a risk to the public or public security including the deployment of fire and police services and staff andor the development and implementation of emergency plans. The city council found that discussing security protocols is is essential to the city council to identify and address potential risks supporting the safety and well-being of the community. Because these discussions involved sensitive information, the council in accordance with the Maryland Open Meetings Act adopted and identified potential adopt and identify potential security risk and justifications for the close session upon motion by council member Gilbert and second by council member Dala. The motion carried unanimously. Council member Weslech move to convene in close session, seconded by council member Hanzac. The motion carried. Voting for Mayor Cersei, Council Members Lamman, Dybala, Schlaggel, Gilbert, Hanzac, and Wessle. Present for the closed meeting were Mayor Cersei, council members Landman, Dybala, Schlaggel, Gilbert, Hanzac, and Wesleik, city manager Desperto, city clerk Carpenter, Deputy City Manager Huby,

Emergency Manager Mechanney, U Police Chief Deval, Deputy Chief Philippost, Communications Director Ryan Kelly, City TV Staff Alo Calabaya, uh John Pit, and Benvito Martinez and other city TV staff who regularly work at city council meetings. The council the council was advised about safety protocols and had the opportunity to ask questions and discuss scenarios. The meeting was adjourned at approximately 7:30 p.m. After the closed session, the council reconvened for the public session. Okay. And so with that, we will move on to council comments. Do we have any council comments this evening?

Council member What's Oh, we switched me. That is why I said you have we have to let them know because they have to change it all in here, too. But it's it's all right. It's okay. I thought it was identity. I'll speak on her.

No, it's all good. Council member Gilbert, I remember I will remember that you are council member Weslike today. Go right ahead. Okay. I was going to speak on her behalf, but I'll speak for myself instead. Um, thank you to the commenters. Um, u to the gentleman who's here from Maple Avenue. Um, I was at one of your meetings maybe a month or so ago and really impressed with how fast that you're building form your association. I'm very proud of the work you've done so far um in regards to your uh the process for um exercising your first rights to refusal on the building and I share your anxiety. I understand what you're going through as I went through it at my building um last year. Uh that whole process, I know it's scary and it can be a little bit unsettling. So, um I'm confident that the staff will be able to get you the support you need going forward, but and I'm here to support you as well. So, I'll make sure you have my information and um we'll walk you through this process. Um I had a meeting yesterday with the residents of Park View Towers, which is 7667 Maple. The building has been under construction for a while now. And um the main topic of conversation was the um the um rest stabilization review and um good conversation. the survey that went out as part of the um the the tenant survey that went out as part of this process. Not many of them received via mail um at least at that property. Uh I

received mine at my building. So I'm just curious if u we had some mailing issues. And the one thing I also noted on that survey um was that there was no date that the surveys had to be in. I I completed my survey online and it it it said uh explicit explicitly that the date was March 31st that they had to be done. So I'm not sure if the same expiration date uh applies to the surveys that were mailed out. So, um I've been looking to get those those answers. I don't know, I guess from uh housing community development staff. Um but yeah, good meeting and thanks to the the residents at Parkview Towers for having me. And then a real quick update from uh Council Member Seammons in regards to Joyce. She had her surgery last week. I believe it was a couple weeks ago, the 13th um of March, and she's home and recovering and and the surgery seemed to be a success. So, we're glad that uh that went well for her. And that's it for me. Thanks.

Thank you, Council Member Gilbert. Council Member Hanzac.

Yes. Thank you, Mayor. Um so, various things. First, thank you to those who came out to speak tonight. I always appreciate hearing from you. Um I am sorry, sir, that your young gentleman there had to listen to the words of one of our constituents that were not very youth friendly. We tried to make this a space that is welcome to our young people. It's not every night that we hear that kind of comments, but uh you were you were noble to stick it out, sir. Um and thank you to Miss Nvarte for your excellent support this evening. It has been a big job. Um, happy Eid starting tomorrow night to those who are celebrating. I've got my own St. Patrick's Day green. That's what I was celebrating last night. Hoping for the luck of the Irish. Um, I'd like to I'd like to say I'd like to also congratulate uh everyone who's been involved lately. Um, and particularly our our management and uh Andrew Buldock who have been working hard to fill staff positions. Uh, I'm excited to see our new HR director, which I'm sure she will get recognized in a moment by our city manager. But in the meantime, I just wanted to say welcome to all the new staff that have joined us in the last few months. It's really cool to see our staff getting filled out and um have empty seats filled and feel like we're we're operating at full capacity and able to do the things that our city wants to do. So, congratulations to everyone who's made that happen. Um uh last week I was really pleased by uh the um intensive participation and um excitement of of three uh residents of of Essex House. Everyone knows that I don't have many tenants associations. uh we don't have many tenants associations

in W five and although we have multiple multif family buildings and um and so uh we we agreed that we were going to at least try to stand up some communication so we spent three hours we planned to spend one um and we stood up a WhatsApp group with multiple layers um that they're going to try out we we filled it out for food distribution initially uh got a full roster going as much information as we could and the plan is for now to try to use it um to be tenantled when there's been just a lot of uncertainty in their building about um emergency situations where they don't feel like they're getting maybe all the information at least in the past. Most recently, communications have been a lot better. Thank you Paloma and Devon for that. Um and and the management what what's going on?

Change my mic.

Oh. Oh, not me. Okay. Sorry. I saw movement back there. Everybody hand motions. Um and uh anyway, it was really exciting to see this list get stood up and and uh I welcome anybody working with further from the staff uh with them to really kind of get them going. I don't think they're ready to start attendance association. They're a little intimidated by that. It was really tough during COVID, but but it it was a huge step forward. So excited. Um test center had just reopened today. I just saw the announcement for those who may be dependent on services. It's just beyond the northern border of our city and it's a great place to go for um legal services including related to guardianship if any of your residents need that. Uh also it was it was having a lot of issues after the fire uh and had had closed down temporarily as well. They also work with people on SNAP benefits and all sorts of other county resources. And then finally, um, just a couple days ago, I'm also excited to share that the Long Branch Business League, um, through MHP, we, um, I met with a small group, and they're looking at maybe changing the direction, uh, the one part of the direction of the 5K. If you don't have the 5K on your calendar, it's November 8th. It's in November every year. Um, and the proceeds from the run go to one of our three business associations in the city, the Long Branch. So, we are not without a 5K, everybody. Um, November 8th and it comes through Tacoma Park. Our Tacoma Park city police support the event every year. Um, and it's really a lot of fun. Usually Kate Stewart and Laura Charudian run every year. I like to volunteer in it. Um, lots of people walk with their strollers and stuff. Anyway, it's not going to go Houston Avenue next year. They're going to switch it to Canbec on the on the way through down to Siggo Creek. I think they're working they're going to be working with city staff and county to kind of make that work, but

I'm just flagging that for residents. I'm excited that I live on KBEC and that's going to be fun for me. But there was just a lot of traffic on Houston and it was really pretty hard to manage the last few years. So, uh we're they're hopeful that this is going to help with that. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Hanzac. Council member Dybala.

Yes. Thank you. Very uh very quickly. Um, I spent the last few days at the National League of Cities Congressional Conference here in DC. Uh, we went to visit our state uh our our representatives, our congress member and two senators today to talk about the uh National League's agenda for legislation which amounts to money for infrastructure direct from the federal government to the degree that is even possible. Um and so so that was great. But what I specifically wanted to call out um was the uh resolution that the National League of Cities board passed. Uh speaking of civility um passed a resolution to about to lead with civility, dignity and respect. Uh it goes on for a few where's and it resolves that um that we stand united leading with respect, dignity and civility to reduce polarization and create an environment that we value shared goals, increased empathy and genuine dialogue. And it calls for individual member cities and towns to develop and pass their own civility pledge. And so I am going to ask for uh to propose this as a resolution for our council um at the sometime in the next couple weeks whenever it fits into the agenda. Um thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Dybala. Are there any other council comments this evening? Council member Schlaggel.

Uh thank you. Um just a couple of comments. Um the uh I wanted to register with everybody that the third annual healthy homes fair is happening this Saturday um from 1 to 5:00 pm at Catholic University. Um and it is sponsored by Electrified DC. Thanks to um David Blockstein for for uh letting everybody know about this. it it's a great opportunity to press ahead with reducing the ecological footprints of our homes and of our transportation. Um, and even if you have already done a lot uh with your own home or your transportation, um, it's great to go and become an ambassador for other people to kind of try to accelerate the transition, which is really an act of resistance in the times we're living in. Um they're going to have a variety of things available including um you know you get to test drive an EV and um electric bikes and things like that to try out appliance giveaways. Um I plan to bike down to the fair using the brand new uh MBT that's been built as far as Tacoma. So, if anybody would like to join me, I'm going to be at the gazebo in Oldtown um around 12:40. At 12:30, I'll get there and then we'll head out at 12:40. And uh I also just wanted to thank Council County Council member Kate Stewart who's been responding to the unexpected eviction of the family on Sycamore Avenue. and she's been looking into how local jurisdictions might be informed when a longtime property owner uh misses a tax payment is in danger of losing their home to a tax sale. Um Lisa Boddet helped arrange a meeting where we discussed this issue earlier today. And thanks also to all the Sycamore

residents who've been assisting the affected family. Thank you, Council Member Schlaggel. Um, Council Member Lanman,

thank you very much. Uh, first I'd also like to extend thank you to Council uh, County Council Member Stewart for the legislation that she is promoting to help families who wind up with their vehicles being impounded due to the actions of immigration enforcement to ensure that uh, when that happens to them uh, those families are not disadvantaged by uh, ownership and title issues and unable to get their cars back. I really appreciate her taking that step in response to concerns that have been raised in our community. I want to encourage everybody to enjoy some beautiful free music this weekend on March 21st at 7 p.m. The Arco Voce Chamber Ensemble will be making a will be playing a concert. The music is entitled from Imperial Russia. I'm not sure if they chose that theme before the current political situation uh developed, but in any event, the music will be beautiful. It will be at 7 p.m. It's It's at the Tacoma Park Presbyterian Church on Tulip Avenue, 310 Tulip Avenue, the corner of Tulip and um Maple. And it's beautiful space, so um we could all use a little uh music in our lives. It's Saturday, uh March 21st, 7:00 p.m. And uh the Fix It Clinic will also be on Saturday at the public library from 3:00 to 5 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. Bring your broken stuff and have your neighbors help you fix it for free. And I also want to point out to people that the community conversation is being convened at the library this Saturday afternoon as well by uh the local organizations who are assisting many of our immigrant friends and neighbors uh with the problems that they face and to encourage uh elected officials and others to join the community uh Tacoma Park Silver Spring community safety group um at that at that uh gathering at the public library. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Lanman. Council member Dal is at Oite. Very quickly, I'd like to thank uh Council Member Schgo for bringing up the the fair this weekend and to note that the city is going to have a booth fair. Um and that there'll be information about the green the city's green businesses and homes grant program which is open right now. Um there's also information on the city website about that. So, just to to amplify the comments, thank you for bringing it up.

I'm sorry, I forgot to give the time for the community conversation. Apologies. That'll be at the public library from 12 12:15 to 2:15 on this Saturday, March 21st. Then you can just hang around and have your broken stuff fixed right after that at the fix it clinic.

Thank you all very much. So, I'm going to piggyback off of the multiple piggybacks. Um, also our sustainability office will um is organizing a field trip for residents who want to travel together to the healthy homes fair. Um, they will meet outside the Tacoma Metro gates at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday. Um, so if you want to metro instead of bike, there's an option for that. Uh, I just want to um thank uh the kindergarten teachers at New Hampshire Estates Elementary School. Um, I had the pleasure last week of speaking to about 80 kindergarteners. It was awesome. Uh, they they came in batches of 20. I I learned I learned a lot about uh about the joys of kindergarten and um they learned a lot about uh the city of Tacoma Park and what the mayor does. Um and I will say because I do have the police chief in the back. Um when I asked the kindergarteners what do they want to be, the number of little ones that said police. Um, so I told the the kindergarten teachers, I said, I've got to get our police department out here with the cars because there were so many that said police. So, we're going to have to arrange that when the weather breaks. We got to we got to get the lights going at New Hampshire State's elementary school. Um, I was also invited to a donut party. Um, which made me believe that I did a good job. Uh, I also want to um thank the students at Montgomery Blair High School, the CAP program. Um, last week had a chance to talk to them as well. Um, I was in a

difficult position because I was the last speaker before karaoke. Um, no, but I did stick around to see um what songs they would pick. And to my surprise, the early 2000 pics were met with a lot of I don't know that. And I said, oo, poker face, Lady Gaga, you don't know that. Oh. So, it it did it did make me feel quite old. Um, but it was was was a wonderful opportunity to engage with so many fantastic faculty at our high school and elementary schools. um and the amazing students and parents um that are um uh shephering them through. So, thank you all to to everyone that had invited me out um to speak last week. Um in terms of what is coming up next, um as a reminder for my colleagues, tomorrow is an MML chapter meeting. Um that is at 6:30 tomorrow via Zoom. So, just want to remind folks to check your inboxes about that. Um, on Saturday, um there's a lot of things that are going on on Saturday. Um there is also the Tacoma Park opioid awareness um opioid awareness summit um that will be at 10:00 a.m. um here in the in the um from 10 until 2. Um and then there's uh was already mentioned the TPSSS CSSN um community conversation um that is happening as well as the healthy homes fair. So there's just a lot of a lot of things that are happening and overlapping um either in the auditorium or just across the city. Um, so definitely want to encourage

people to um to um come out and um partake of some of the the wonderful information sharing that's happening throughout the city. And with that, I'm going to turn things over to the city manager, council member Hanzac. I'm sorry, mayor. Thank you. Real quick, if I can just interject, I just wanted to speak. Miss Wallace, you made a comment about um different council members. I appreciate you acknowledging some of us going for the Academy of Excellence, but I want to acknowledge all of my colleagues. I think every everyone that is sitting up here, we are given the wonderful opportunity and thank you Tacoma Park residents for paying the bill for us to go get educated every uh every year a few different times a year. There's the National League of Cities and the uh Maryland Municipal League conference that happens a couple times of ye of year and we get to go to one of these um at least once a year and I think everyone up here has been able to take advantage of that including those who were not named including my my colleague Council Member Gilbert. So, I just want to acknowledge the education that everyone is partaking of and we do appreciate residents for helping make sure that we are able to get that kind of education um whether we've been able to make time for it or have the budget for it before we join council. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Hanzac. And with that, I'll turn things over to city manager to spirit. Mayor, if I if I may, just a quick comment. I just want to publicly wish Jesse Carpenter a birth her birthday. It is a milestone. And I won't say what milestone, but I just want to say happy birthday uh to Jesse, and that's why she's not here. She actually took the some time off, which I'm glad because she's welld deserved. Thank you very much. And but I know that Jesse will likely be watching. So, if everyone will just partake of a quick publicly embarrassing singing happy birthday to our city clerk just to publicly embarrass her a little bit.

Um but also because we know she's watching. Um because Jesse just works like that. It's horrible. She's if she's if she's not going to watch it tonight, she will be watching it eventually. Uh and so with that, one, two, three. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Jessie. Happy birthday to you. Awesome. You sound great. Uh, and so now we will finally make it to city manager Despo for city manager comments.

Well, I can't really top that, but I'll not likely uh from the uh uh just a brief report this evening given uh we got a late start. Housing and Community Development Department reports that on Friday, March 20th at 7:30 uh at the community center here. Please join us for an evening of poetry, music, and spoken word where more than a dozen local poets and musicians will share their talents and embrace a sense of sanctuary and community. This free event is organized by Tacoma Park poet laurate David Alberto Fernandez, the city's Tacoma Park Arts Series, and Vocal Tacoma. Donations will be collected to support We Are Casa, a nationwide nonprofit organization that builds power and improves the quality of life in workingclass, black, Latino, uh, Afro descendant, indigenous, and m im immigrant communities. from uh recreation department. The recreation department's teen program has been very active this school year between after school activities and the teen lounge, trips, classes, and consistent teen nights each month. Teens have had tons of opportunities to get out and have fun. The next teen will be held on April 17th where they will get to enjoy food, music, and an immersive gaming experience with Next Level Gaming. The annual egg hunt is right around the corner. This year's event will be held on Saturday, April 4th at Ed Wilhelm Field. This year's event will have a photo booth, games, roving entertainers, balloon twisters, face painters, touch a truck, and crafts. For more information,

please contact John Webster at johnwacaparkmd.gov. Spring break uh is the week of March 30th. The recreation department still has spaces in their youth basketball skills camp at the recreation center and the teen camp here at the community center. Uh you may register at tacomaaparkmd.govactnet from the police department and uh Mayor Cersi alluded to it. The opioid awareness and harm reduction community event will be March 21st from 10:00 a.m. to 2 pm. Come here to the community center auditorium to engage with panels of experts and advocates to hear what's being done to further reduce harm and what you can do as a concerned citizen to help save lives. Attendees can also learn how to properly administer Narcan and basic first aid. You can also tour McGomery Countyy's COPE trailer. We ask that you register in advance using the link in tomorrow's posted city manager comments. And the next National Prescription Drug Takeback Day is on Saturday, April 25th from 10:00 a.m. to 2 p.m. Turn in your unused or expired medication to the Tacoma Park Police Department at 7500 Maple Avenue for safe disposal. And per council member Hanzac had alluded to uh the exciting news that we have uh started onboarded a brand new uh HR director, human resources director for the city uh Tia Holstead. Uh we welcome you. Uh I'll just uh say uh publicly a few things and Tia, you are welcome to come forward if you wish. I'd love for folks that aren't here in the

auditorium to be able to uh to see you. There you go. Tia was uh selected through a highly competitive recruitment process that drew over 60 exceptional applicants. The interview panelists included city management, members of the senior leadership team, and a union representative. Tia rose to the top uh based on her depth of experience, leadership strength, and demonstrated ability to build effective serviceoriented HR teams. Tia joins the city from Arlington Public Schools, Arlington, Virginia, where she served as executive director of human resources and operations. In that role, Tia led the organization's strategic vision and operational planning efforts that supported the success of students, parents, staff, board members, and the broader community. With more than 20 years of HR experience, Tia brings deep expertise in talent management, employee engagement, employee relations, compensation and benefits, payroll administration, lensure and certification and performance management. TIA has a proven track record of streamlining HR operations, strengthening organizational culture, and aligning workforce strategies with long-term goals. So, um, with that again, I would like to introduce Tia and, uh, once again, welcome you.

Thank you. Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here. I am so looking forward to serving our employees and our community. um we're already getting started with a lot of great work and a great partnership. So again, thank you so much for having me and I look forward to the great work we'll continue to do. Thank you. Thank you very much and we are very excited to have you here in the city of Tacoma Park. Thank you so much. And that concludes my report.

Great. Well, next we're going to move to presentation time. The first item is the update on the mental health uh pilot program. Good evening. I am Can you guys hear me? Okay. I'm uh Zara. I'm the deputy city manager. Um and tonight we're doing a presentation on the mental health pilot program. Uh just a brief introduction. Uh this is a 15minute uh presentation. Uh the mayor is holding me to that and I am uh timing myself. So please hold your questions to the end. Um I also want to uh share that I am joined by um colleagues from the police department. Uh Chief Dval, uh Deputy Chief Philippos and Matt um who is a uh commander of uh support services. Um, also with us, uh, online are our county partners. Um, um, I don't believe Monica is on, uh, but, uh, Dne Hill, who is a senior administrator for crisis intake trauma services. Uh, Beth uh, Tbentek, I'm so sorry, Beth, uh, is a manager, uh, also a licensed uh, therapist. And Lewis Nordon, who is also a licensed therapist, uh, and the supervisory supervisory therapist. Um just a quick overview. Um this presentation is the uh the intent of this presentation is to provide council and the viewing public an overview of the program and data points over the past three months because we have only been collecting data for the past three months. Uh because we've only had the full pilot program um in October. That's when we've launched it even though we've

had an agreement um for some time. Um, so just uh see um Okay, can you guys Okay, I can see it now. Um, so just I'm sorry, Deputy City Manager, is it possible for you to change this into presentation mode? Oh, sorry. About now. There you go.

Is it better? Okay. All right. So, I'm not going to read over this, but essentially uh what we have is a community oriented policing which focuses on building uh trusts between law enforcement and communities. They serve uh it integrates mental health uh professionals uh to respond to crisis um and behavioral um u health. uh this is considered the best practice and it creates opportunity for deeper um collaboration between the community, the police department and um and residents. Um the presentation again will provide an overview of the city's uh mental health pilot program. Um just one uh one more thing. Thank you for the comments that I've received from the council members. I was able to respond to some but not others due to timing constraints, but I will respond uh at a later time. Um these are just some common terminologies. I'm not going to read them because they're on the presentation. Uh we will you will use you will see the words um collateral PD consult and EP in a later um uh part of the presentation. Um just some background, the city and county executed an agreement in 2020 uh 2023 in which the county would provide two clinicians funded by the city for two years. Uh the city also provides office space for administrative work and office equipment. Um as some of you may be aware the city faced challenges in uh in hiring uh as we were not able to find um qualified candidates for for a while. Uh the city hired its first clinician in mid 2024 and a second clinician uh in August of 2025. Um we also had staffing change in 2025 uh causing us another delay another u

delay to the implementation and uh causing due to the vacancy. Um then uh in October we were able to uh identify two part-time clinicians who have since joined us and I forgot to introduce them earlier. Um it's uh Yolanda Pearson is our full-time clinician. Audrey Doug is our clinician who's here part-time and then Karen Ferris who's also a part-time clinician. Back to the program. Um, so once we had the two uh part-time clinicians that allowed us to have an FTE and so this is the first time uh since 2023 that we've had um uh two FTEEs, two full-time uh equivalent and therefore allowing us to launch the pilot program. Uh the city uses both um co-respondent which means clinician and police and clinician only model depending on the matter. Um as far as the um uh access and program structure um you guys saw this in our last presentation a few weeks ago. Uh this here only is meant to illustrate how uh residents who are seeking mental health uh uh services can seek and connect. So some most of it most of the calls come through uh TP police. Uh sometimes they may come through other departments. Um I have uh HCD listed here just because of the social services, social um work uh types of work that is uh that is embedded in in housing. So the calls can come in in any other department uh TPD and then they are connected with mental health uh clinicians though not directly um but again this is just to show how residents

often reach um to uh the mental health uh clinicians. uh the decision tree. Again, this is just meant for internal. Um the idea here is if it's during office hours, meaning uh generally our staff is here from 8:30 to 6:00 p.m. Sometimes they're here as early as 7:30. Um so if it's during normal business hours between 8:30 and 6, uh calls would be directed to the mental health clinicians. If it's after, um it would go to county crisis uh center. And if it's imminent danger, it would uh be it would go to 911. Um Oh, I'm so sorry. Uh this is uh this is a bit hard to read, but I have a different one. Um okay, let me unshare. Just some context on this. uh we were struggling to make it fit to make it readable. So if you have the print copy you can turn it over but this is um just a flow um of how the process works. This is very general um it doesn't cover every scenario. There could be you know I don't know 10 different scenarios but this is meant to be a very general overview of how the calls would typically happen. So where it would start is with a call and calls can be made by the person seeking the assistance themselves. It could be um by collateral which is a family friend or anybody else that sees there is a need for um for a crisis uh call. Um so the call would either go to um would come through the dispatch. uh dispatch would then triage the call and it's important that it goes through dis dispatch um because our dispatchers are trained to uh do this screening. They want to make

sure that they ask the right questions for for safety of uh of the person that is in need, their families and whoever they're with and our staff. So that's why it has to go through the um to the uh dispatch and then from there once the uh dispatchers triage it can be in any one of these it could be uh policeled it could be co-respondent in which police and clinicians join um tackle it together or it could just be clinician only and then depending on that um these other things happen. So if it's policeled, obviously the police would go. If it's uh it's a correspondent and the clinician is the lead, then uh the clinician would take the lead. And if it's clinician only, there's still assessment. There's still back and forth with police because police are an important part. Um from there, um then it goes whittleles down depending on what the clinician comes up with. It could be a decision tree of are there safety uh decisions that need to be made? Does police need to get involved? And then or is the uh clinical decision are they stabilized on site or are they uh sent to a referral for more assistance? And then uh resolve um which means on-site uh stabilization whether it's crisis center or other hospital emergency room. Um and then followup. The follow-up would generally uh consist of followup with family, health care resources, hospitals, uh crisis center, shelter, um and connecting and pointing um the callers to the right service. Um throughout all this, it's important to share that the clinicians are supervised by a licensed um county um county uh therapist. Uh and that is uh Lewis Nordon is the is the

supervisor. Um okay. So again we talked about this earlier. Um so the next uh part is the data uh data facts and figures. Again as I stated earlier um we started collecting data on December 1st. Uh and so the data that you're seeing here is very limited um 20 through February 28th. Um so we fielded 89 calls and if you divide that by the number of days work days there were about 62 days or so. So that's about 1.4 four calls per day during this short period. Um so the what we're collecting what we've been collecting since then is the time in which the calls are initiated, the type and method of contact uh the response model used and the incident type. So with that uh council member Hanzac we added the numbers. Thank you. Um so we have here uh the times of the calls. A lot of the calls seem to come between um 10 uh 10:00 a.m. to 10 a between 10 and 1 we had the highest call volume 37 calls and then uh the next highest call is between 1 and three. So we can say that a lot of the calls are coming between um 10 and 4. Um and then we have uh few calls after 4 7 and then a few calls between uh town calls between 7 a.m. and 900 a.m. Um this graph here is it shows the response contact by type. So um in this um we we show 35 which is the highest one as a collateral call. Um this type of call uh indicates how

clinician interacted with um with the um client or interested parties uh such as hospitals and families or shelter. Um the clinicians log these contacts based on whether they are new client or collateral uh party follow-up. The majority of the clinicians um contacts involve um following up with the collateral which is again 35 to provide assistance and resources. Um and then the second highest contact as I mentioned is the uh our clinicians providing resources and support to PD staff and that is the 24 Um next we have the response model type. Um so of the 89 calls um the majority of our calls uh 51 almost 52% or 46 is clinicians only. Um the next uh highest 27 or 30% is the co-respondent which is police and clinicians. um and 15 calls or 16.9 17% is um not applicable. And then um the green just it's so small it doesn't have a number. Um okay. And then this final graph here is um incident type. Um so follow-up requests were highest uh incident type calls 62 times or 70% um almost 71% uh the clinicians were utilizing um to either were you were used to either provide resources or information after an incident uh conclusion um six or 6.8 incidents were the result of the EP resulted in an EP there were uh six incidents or 6.8% 8% uh incidents in which the clinicians

provided on onseen support, crisis family support. Uh there were four incidents or 4.5 uh where clinicians provided outreach supports and um the clinicians uh logged four training dates. Um we're going to continue. So like I said earlier, we just started collecting the data. We are looking to um and we're exploring at the data points to see if there's more that we need to collect or if we need to refine it with the idea that uh we want to collect data that is going to help inform any improvements to the program and understanding the successes and challenges as we look to improve um program. It's early. Um so then next steps um April 2025 the city uh submitted a funding application for one-year funding through the federal earmark process. We were notified of the ear earmark allocation February 2026. Uh the city anticipates uh connecting with its federal partners um over the next few weeks. Um the county the city we continue to seek funding from McGomery County for FY27 and beyond. Um and the city and county um will tenatively be executing a new uh MOA uh in 2027 which starts in July one. We are currently operating on the um FY26 um MOA which expires at the end of June. And with that I am I went a few minutes over. I'll turn it over to you. Well, um, thank you so much, um, for this presentation and for the the county staff that's available, um, tonight. I know it's a it's a late um, a late hour. Um, a few questions I have are more

technical and I I can send these comments to you later. Um, one of the things that I struggled with a little bit in the presentation is following your denominator. So, um, when we are talking about like the number of reports, um, on slide 13, for example, it seems like we're only talking about those, um, reports that came in that are we saying involved the counselors directly during normal business hours? because when I'm counting up the the hours here, it seems like this is from um like 7:00 a.m. until uh like 700 p.m. So, we're not necessarily talking about a full day. We're talking about um within normal business hours. And I just want to make sure that that when we're thinking through these data um that the right context is provided. So if this is a smaller subset, um so in going back to the prior um a couple of the slides prior when you were kind of walking through the decision tree, um it was really clear that there may be calls that come in during off hours that the police department is responding to. I don't know to what extent um those calls um may need to have some additional followup by our mental health counselors and to what extent we're tracking that and then also for those calls that may be um that happen during off hours and individuals are going to 311 which I'm not exactly sure a separate question is how does 988 play into this right because I'm not seeing that um you know how does all of those different pieces come together. Um because as I'm looking through the the data, I'm a little nervous that we may be under reporting

um the overall breadth of the work that we're doing um because we are limited to such a short amount of working hours when I'm assuming our counselors are also involved after like followup on cases that may have come up during during non office hours if that makes sense. Do you want me to? So this um and correct me if I'm wrong, this data here is we're not yet collecting for uh calls that come in after hours. This is only data during the limited time, I mean limited eight hours or so that we have clinicians on site. That's all this is measuring.

Correct. And what I'm saying is um that we need to be mindful of the fact that that could potentially have a view that we're that the overall work that's being done is less than what it is because if we're only accounting for the reports that happen by the clinicians during normal business hours and I'm not exactly sure if we're also including the coal responses here or just the counselor solo um um reports. I'm just trying to make sure that we're thinking through the full breath of the work that's going into this pro this pilot and that we're not inadvertently selling ourselves short through the data by just honing it in to what is in essence a sliver of the full breath of the work that's being done.

Yeah, Madam Mayor, if I can just you're absolutely correct. The information that's being provided is just for us to understand during that percentage of time what calls could be diverted to the mental health counselors only which calls could be a a co-responder model. We still absolutely capture the calls that fall outside of that zone. So for example during the pilot program there were on average 1.4 uh calls per day but that was only during that eight hour period. So we absolutely so when the final report is submitted or the report is submitted it will have uh hours from within the actual pilot time when the counselors were working but it would also have a comparison of the calls that fell outside of that. They won't necessarily go into the graphs or to the to the percentages of how many calls could be diverted because that's what we really want to know. The goal in this is divert as many calls for service as possible to that that clinicianonly response. So we're absolutely capturing that data as well. That data will be shown. So what you'll see is is is uh the documentation for for this is the time which the counselors were available. Um but we also had this many calls outside of that scope. they won't go into the percentage of calls because we didn't want to skew the the percentages by having uh the 24h hour period there and then it would show that a lot more um a lot more calls for service were handled by police that wouldn't necessarily been handled if we had the counselors

I mean I understand that dilemma but it could also given that this is a pilot if if there are more calls that are coming in during those nonoffice hours um then having that data could also will state the case for maybe having additional counselors that might be able to respond at night or overnight because that's when some of these things may more likely kick up. So, I'm just trying to to to encourage us to um think more about how all of this fits together and not necessarily just kind of compartmentalize ourselves. and the the 988, how I know that one part of the pilot was to really see how to help with um dispatching and coordinating 988 um calls that may come through in addition to the 911 calls. How has that been something that the pilot is is working on as well? And if so, how is that going so far? Uh traditionally the way this this initial pilot is working is calls that come in through the traditional 911 system 988 is set up but that is more of a of a triage. It's not necessarily a response protocol like the this pilot is a response protocol. It is trying to figure out um how do we uh put together a program for mental health response. 988 is a component, but 988 calls for service that are responded to via this model wouldn't necessarily come in through 988. That very few, I don't think any of these calls would. If I can give you an example of how it might come in through 988. Someone calls in um and they're in one of the wards in the city and they talk to a 988 clinician and uh they determine that they're at risk to themselves. Normally that 988 clinician

would call the local 911 and it would be the same kind of triage that we would do for any other service call if it came in from a family member or so on and so forth. All of the calls that come in, all of our staff have been trained, our supervisors and our dispatchers to triage those for ones that can have a co-responder model or ones that need clinicians only. For example, if there's a weapon involved or there's a history of violence, it's going to have a police officer response. But if it's merely a call where my son doesn't want to get up to go to school, um he's been depressed and no, you know, it's going to be a clinician only. So 988 does have a part in the overall mental health scope, but not necessarily directly in what we're trying to gauge in this pilot, if that makes sense.

Yeah. No, no, that does. and and um and again this is just my other life talking so forgive me. Um one of the goals of 988 is to you're right to refer like provide folks with those referrals but it it is also designed to really try to help increase decrease stigma and increase people's willingness to call a number. So, I would I would expect that if you have more folks using 988 just as a more regular aspect of when you're in mental health crisis, then you would inadvertently start to see more um referrals to 911 as a result of 988. And so, that's that's the thing that I was trying to see whether or not this pilot could kind of help us with identifying. And it could just be the case that no, the system isn't set up to where you can compartmentalize those calls that are routed to 911 from 988. We just get them as a 911 call. Um, but my my hope at the time was that, you know, this could also lead to an increase in volume as greater use of 988 increases.

You bring up a valid point. Just just just for background, we can track. So the way the calls come in can be tracked. So the example I gave for 988 being transferred to 911, we could we we can set up a a criteria where it it's it was generated through a 988 initial call as opposed to a call from a resident. Uh that's definitely something that we can set up and it's I I agree with you. It's a critical component of trying to combine the two. uh because the goal in addition to uh taking police out of this is to reduce the stigma for for mental health so people feel more comfortable in reaching out whether it be a family member whether it be an individual who's in crisis. Um so you know it's it's a work in progress. Our pilot is probably what three four months in into uh in you know into fruition. So, we're going to work through and any suggestions that we may have, you can send them to uh the deputy city manager and we can definitely incorporate them into the program.

Awesome. Yeah, if there was a way that we can kind of tag those calls, that would be great because then that way you could also see if you get a bunch of them late at night, that also will kind of help to to identify where the need is. Um, Council Member Lamman,

thank you so much to both of you for this. Um the the I had the exact same uh area that I wanted to explore that I think the mayor has been asking you about and that has to do with when I'm looking at the chart about the times when things are initiated. You know, since this is a pilot, I imagine one of the things we're thinking about is when is it most effective to have our mental health clinicians available? And unless we were to see what's going on during those other hours, in other words, if the if during the other hours when people are being referred directly to the crisis center, it would be extremely helpful to know how many of those things are going on during the non-b businessiness hours. I mean in other words if in indeed we are missing the lion's share of the people who could benefit from this service because those the lion's share of the calls come in during non-b businessiness hours then it would sort of make sense to consider whether in the next phase of the pilot we were trying to staff this in a different way with the timing being different if there's almost nobody calling in during certain hours and tons of people calling in during those other hours. So, I feel as though it would be helpful for a data point that we would include here to be how many calls that that require mental health uh clinician interventions are happening during those off hours that would be within the um four corners of Tacoma Park. Otherwise, we don't really know whether we're aiming at the minor target or the major target really. It may be the cost would be obviously be different to staff it during the middle of the night, but if it's, you know, That's when the the the live issues occur. We should at least know that so that we can make a conscious decision. I I I hope I'm am I being clear about what it is I'm driving at? Okay.

Yeah, I think as I shared earlier, we are still we're in the very early stages of the reporting and we are looking at the data points that we need to collect. um you know, maybe there are more other data uh points that we need to to look into and explore to help inform how to structure or how to improve the program. So, thank you for those comments that you've all provided so far. And

just to be clear, the goal is uh for us with this pilot to provide data to the county for a possible countywide program. The goal is to have these services 247. Um just so so for background if our clinicians aren't working if we do need a mental health clinician there are times that the county clinicians are working but understand they are not in our pilot program so they would be responding in the traditional response mode protocol. Um so as the deputy city manager um said it's very important that as as all of you say that all of the data is collected for a better understanding of the need whether it be from you know the hotspots or from 400 p.m. to 12 or whatever it may be. So duly noted and we can definitely

and we do have county staff I I would feel horrible if they showed up this late and we didn't ask a single question. Um, so do so in terms of the county's approach, are are are do you all have data around peak hours um for your your counselors in terms of whether or not um you're seeing um a greater need um later in the in the evenings, overnight um or not? It would be helpful for me to get a better idea of kind of what you're seeing countywide.

Good evening. Dorn Hill, senior administrator, crisis intake and trauma services. I'm bringing you greetings on behalf of our chief, Monica Martin, who had a family emergency and was unable to attend. Um, I oversee all of um the crisis programs for the county. And yes, our heaviest volume time is actually Monday through Friday 12:00 pm to 8:00 pm. We only have one team overnight uh from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. And we have not seen that um that need increase enough to incorporate another team overnight. Um we are currently we have seven mobile crisis teams across the county right now. Um but we um let me let me rephrase that. We have seven teams during our most busiest times, 12:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Um, otherwise we have three teams and then one team overnight and one team on the weekends.

Great. Thank you so much for that. That that that is really helpful. Uh, Council Member Wes,

thank you. Um, and I I think that my comment question might best be filled by uh maybe you, Miss Hill. Um I I'm really happy to see the uh the response model chart and to see that more than half of the time it has been a clinician only response. Um as but I also I'm a little concerned with the one green sliver of clinician only police added after contact. Um so I guess uh to to ask you Miss Hill or some another colleague there like is this um about a ratio that is common that about half the times it could be a clinician only or I'm I'm just curious.

Council member Wesley can I just interject their pilot only has a co-responder model. We are the our pilot is the only one that's doing the testing. So all of their responses involve police with them. No, no, they actually they actually don't with with your staff or with my staff. I'm sorry. With the Tacoma Park clinicians. Yeah, we were talking I just I think I think um Council Member Weslick may have been asking about countywide and I just wanted to to clarify what your response pro protocol was compared to this pilot program. So, if you can clarify that, that would be helpful.

Sure. Absolutely. So, so our response is um we have a tiered a common triage and dispatch protocol. Um so our goal for our county executive is to have more clinician le. So police only go out if there um is a need for um there's a safety concern, there's weapons um that in the home, is there a history in the last six months of violence, things like that. Otherwise um and Beth can chime in um as well. This is her. She runs this program every day. Um, but we're seeing about a third, a third, and a third, right? A third of our of our responses are without police and we never need them. A third are a co-response where we are going with the police or the police are on scene and call us out to assist them. And the other third is where we go first, which is representative the sli slither that you see, and then we have to call police for assistance. Most of the times when we're going first and have to call police for assistance is because we are doing an emergency evaluation petition and only police officers can transport um those clients to the local hospital for assessment.

Okay. Thank you. That that's really helpful. Thank you. Sure. Uh Council Member Schlaggel

U. Thank you. This is really helpful. I just wondered how the communication um and the protocols are developing and whether there have been any any adjustments that needed to be made like in terms of how if if officers arrive on a scene, how do they make a determination um that it might be uh a mental health issue either at the moment or an ongoing issue? Um, I guess one question I have related to that is if someone seems to be um having a substance abuse addiction problem and officers have encountered them repeatedly, does that become a mental health clinician possible referral?

Not not necessarily. Um, we had uh just just for background, all of the staff involved in the program were given extensive training, our dispatchers and all of our officers on this new pilot program. uh we'd be happy to share those modules with you so you can see specifically the training that they went through. Um but for example it the police officer example if a police officer is in the field and they encounter someone who they believe is in mental health crisis they are going to automatically contact our counselors to come out or if they're not working other counselors. but just merely a a substance abuse program or issue doesn't necessarily automatically trigger. But when there's a combination, normally when there's a substance abuse problem, and I'll allow Dora or someone else from the the county to speak from the technical standpoint, we find that there's also a mental health component, but I'll I'll let one of them speak specifically on on their thoughts on on that particular. Beth,

would you like to speak or would you like me to continue talking? That's up to you. Oh,

we can't hear you. That's okay. I I think her camera just froze. All right. So, we what we do our mobile crisis outreach teams are a behavioral health response. So, anything that's a crisis, whether it's substance abuse, mental health, our we have peer support specialists that are incorporated into the other mobile crisis teams across the county and they do assessments, get people to treatment, stay engaged with them trying to motivate them for change. Um, so we have changed our model. It's not just mental health, it's behavioral health and that incor incorporates the full scope of someone's needs.

Thank you. Thank you. you say is that part of the is that part of the model we're aiming to move towards here with with our program in terms of behavioral health? Absolutely. So so our counselors just for background are actually um McGomery County counselors. So they do work through that. So any response protocol that McGomery County had, our counselors would have the same.

Thank you so much, Dor. And that aligns with what many states across the country and what many counties are doing in terms of how they're addressing um uh behavioral health more holistically because the co-occurrence rate is extremely high and in many cases um in my other life I pres I presented today at the maternal mental health forum um because in many instances people who are suffering from mental health issues often will self-medicate through elicit substances and therefore that's why you have such a high rate of co-occurrence between the two. Um so definitely appreciate um you highlighting that point that behavioral health includes both substance use treatment as well as mental health um support.

Yes. Thank you. Uh council member Hans.

Thank you. I'm going to try to limit my questions. I have so many and maybe part of it is just my confusion over how this works. Um let me start with sort of better understanding the model. So and I I think I I was trying to follow just a moment ago uh Miss Miss Hill what you what you were describing. So but maybe I don't know who to ask this question of. So uh so a call comes in to dispatch. Maybe it's one of our officers communicating with dispatch or or it's a resident. Uh what happens then? Do they are did I just understand you chief to say that all of the all of the calls that come into our dispatch are are always going to be a co-responder model. But then I I I'm I'm super confused where I got lost there when when there was sort of a different there's a third of the cases are are not co-responders. So help me out. I'm I'm very confused. So let me just be clear on what I'll speak specifically to to to our program and sorry if I don't

this data is our program let me speak specifically to our program. Okay.

What happens if a call for service comes into our dispatch center it is then triaged for response protocol. Um if there as Dorn said if there are weapons involved if there's a history of violence it will be a a co-responder model. If it is um an active shooting with mental health it's going to be police only. So, what we're trying to do is is triage the call as it comes in. Um, as you can see by the percentages, a large percentage are calls that we triage and are able to be dispatched with u with just clinicians. And just to be clear, it's not just one clinician. Uh, it's two clinicians that go on calls. It's not just one, it's two that go on. So, there's there's two people on each call. Um, so I I think it would be very helpful um if we provide the training that we provided. and it will show you exactly how we triage calls. So when we trained our dispatchers, it has the specific training so we can get those modules that we can provide to you all and then you can understand exactly what the screening is that a dispatcher will will do when they get a call for service as to whether or not they're going to dispatch it uh to a police officer only co-responder model or clinician only. I think that probably be much more helpful uh to see it visually uh if

No. Yeah. No, that that makes more sense. I found the the decision trees to be a little confusing about sort of who's talking who who's deciding what. But but assuming we're usually talking about dispatch um and and the way that calls come in, I I'm just confused about why for a second there I heard you say, "Oh, all of our calls are co-responder." Can you When when I was referring to that, not all of all cars. I I was under the impression the the formal response model by the county was that for any call for service involving a clinician, a police officer had to accompany them on a police call. It appears that that has now been adjusted and they don't have that. What What does the county have to do with our dispatch? Because don't all 911 calls come into our local dispatch?

Just for clarification, the question was pertaining about the percentage of calls. I thought council member Weslick was asking about the percentage of calls that could be diverted to a a co-responder model or a clinician only model. And I was responding specifically to my understanding of what the county model was, not our model, if that makes sense. uh sort of am I am I the only one who's lost here? So, so the the question that was raised was um whether or not the appro the the split that you see here on the screen in terms of the proportion of the responses that are clinician only versus co-responder um whether or not that aligns with the county and what the chief was saying was oh no they have a co-responder model only but what Dora explained was that actually no they

oh I thought it was in reference to our own department okay no so we are doing we are. So I just want to make sure that this data is really our department. I'm just I got lost there. Okay. So we do do clinician only dispatch right now sometimes. Absolutely.

Just wanted to make sure that I'm really hearing that correctly. Okay. So um and if that's the case, I guess I'm I wonder if you could speak just a little I know this is very early days, but are you seeing a pause a little bit in just kind of um I guess I had always understood that when we did a dispatch that that uh you know pretty pretty quickly because these these calls happen very fast sort of all three arms generally go out on a call you know ambulance um uh fire and and police and maybe I'm wrong about that but that's not how that works. So they have time to to kind of make that clarity and just go clinician only without an additional pause being added. I guess that's an interesting question to me. Or do we know yet?

All of these questions are traditionally asked on all calls for service. Are we involved? That that's your traditional questions before before the service request.

Absolutely. I mean they may be Yeah. Before we dispatch a call for service, whether it be a domestic violence call, we're going to ask our weapons involved. We're going to ask our is alcohol and our drugs involved. Those are traditional call. the traditional questions that are always asked by our dispatchers. So, we're not adding a new component in. What we're adding though is how we triage that. If this, then this. That's the little bit different because before we're still going to dispatch an officer regardless of if a weapon is involved, but now that we're trying to to to to divert the calls, we really want to know the circumstances, but it's not necessarily a change in the questions we ask on the front end. Okay. Thank you. So then can it go the so

I'm really sorry council member Hanzac but we have gone over on this conversation by multiple times. Okay. All right. Can I just clarify on the 988 because I think there was one one issue and I'll I'll stop there. Okay. Um for 988 then did have you gotten any calls that are going the other direction? Um when the mayor initially asked her call I understood her to say that um that uh that it could go the opposite direction from what you were describing. You said it could come from 988. But are you able to dis to triage from 911 to 988? Is that part of your capacity? No. No. Okay. Thank you. Yeah.

Um uh uh Council Member Landon, I see your line. Um I see your hand, but I I want to get Council Member Gilbert and then we're going to have to move on if if that's okay. Is this a follow-up question? Can it be one single question very quick?

Yes. One single question. This pilot was supposed to be unique in that we would have the the two mental health clinicians respond uh and that was going to differentiate it from the county program. So what Miss Hill told us tonight seems like a significant change and I just wanted clarification on that because I mean I'm interested to know the county is now doing that. But has that does that signal a change in the initial plan for the pilot which I thought we were the only ones piloting the two clinicians. So that could be a mistake on my part. That's my question to understand that better.

I I I I don't know what the county policy currently is. It was my understanding as of as of recently that it was a police officer was required. Dorn or someone can touch on what their what their response protocol is. What we're trying to do in this program as I said earlier is with this specific pilot literally come up with a triage program so we can understand uh how many calls can be diverted so police do not need to be involved. uh there's less stigma in in the mental health uh response protocol. So, we're still doing that regardless of what the county is going to do. We were hopeful that our data would be able to provide it to the county for a countywide model. We're still going to provide that information. Uh but I can't speak specifically because I'm not fully aware of what the the current uh county response model is. It seems like it has changed from what my understanding of it was.

Okay. And um Miss Hill, is there a followup to that point? Yes. Our common triage and dispatch dispatch protocol, Beth and Lou. Correct me if I'm wrong. I believe I implemented it with um Mio are union representatives and county council um and HR approval. I believe it was 2022. 2023 2022. Correct. I believe that's correct. Beth, you're muted. I'm sorry.

Okay. Um, and so that would mean that it it came probably came a little after we started this pilot if I'm remembering correctly because we started this pilot using ARPA funds.

Yeah. And and I don't know specifically if the county is capturing data as at the way we are. Um I don't know um exactly if it's it sounds to me like it may be somewhat similar. Dorna can can speak to whether or not they are capturing data. The goal in all of this when we initially started this. Um, as I said, it was at that point it was a police officer had to respond to every case. The goal and if we're piggybacking off of what they're doing, I think our data is still very important. Um, and it can be accumulated with whatever they're uh whatever they're gathering and DA can speak specifically to you if they're gathering the same data we are and so on and so forth.

I think it I think it will be useful. Again, we've gone over on this conversation. I want to give Council Member Gilbert his opportunity. I think it would be really helpful for staff to um to have some communications with the county staff um to just make sure that everyone's on the same page in terms of data that's being collected in the city, ways in which it can be potentially modified as well as how it aligns with the county's protocol current and what we we knew their protocols were at the time in which we started this project. just to ensure that we're all speaking the same language and we end up with data that could be very useful for not just the city and in management of mental health services well behavioral health services across the city but also as it relates to informing the county. Council member Gilbert.

Thanks Mayor. I am going to ask this question for clarification to make sure my colleagues were aware, but since I've been gone so long, I'm not even sure. But do we still have a criteria for um officer only um emergency petitions where they don't use the clinicians and they make the determination themselves and what that criteria is maybe? You can explain that real quick so we understand that there are those responses where just police only.

Abs. Absolutely. We we do have have some that that are police only. Um, some of them are obviously during the off hours when they're not working, but some of them are just so extremely violent that you can't insert a clinician into that. Uh, someone may have a weapon, someone may be actively fighting the police. Um, and that may not necessarily be something that the response protocol would be to have the clinicians respond to the scene. They would still be involved in the aftermath and trying to provide services, but not necessarily maybe the the direct response protocol to the scene, if that makes sense. Makes sense. Thanks.

Thank you very much. Well, thank you all very much for this um great presentation. It's lots of food for thought and um definitely look forward to continuing to work uh with our county partners as we um continue to make progress in terms of our pilot program and hopefully um addressing um providing better behavioral health services within the city and the county as a whole. So, thank you all so much for staying up with us late. I apologize for the delay. Um, and we appreciate and look forward to continuing to work with you all. Thank you so much. Have a good evening every Thank you. You too. Thank you for having us.

Thank you. Um, the next item is the police department annual report.

Uh, while uh City TV is pulling that up, um, I do want to uh just first and foremost uh we would love to come to the elementary school. That is really good to hear that that number of of young folks really want to be police officers. Uh especially in that area during this time. Uh one of the slides that I'm going to show during the PowerPoint presentation was uh one of our um our our community events that we had that you attended and that was our our uh uh winter event with Santa at Chuck-E-Cheese. And uh we had hundreds of families there and I would almost say uh that the vast majority were undocumented families and the way that we did a lot of the outreach to get the families there was through the schools. Um so it just really showed a lot of trust that our community have in our police department that they would come and they wanted more pictures with us than they did with Santa. So that's just one example. Um I did want to touch on Mr. Huner's comment about our vehicles. Uh we do not have that many patrol vehicles. Um some of the vehicles that may have been listed are vehicles that were replaced and had not been sold. So they were deadline and out of service, but we absolutely can get you a full list. Uh just for example, we do have uh we do have our sworn officers. We have 43 off sworn aotment of officers, but we also have vehicles that are parking enforcement utilized. There are two vehicles. Uh we also have our property and evidence van and we also have our emergency response vehicle. So, there are other vehicles in our fleet outside of just patrol vehicles. Uh, but we absolutely could get you a full list of of what vehicles we currently have in operation. Uh, we also have the need for spare vehicles for our fleet. U, so

I know I'm echoing, but uh, so for example, um, when a when a police officer

I'll give it a second. uh when a police officer's vehicle goes down for service, we need to have backup vehicles to be utilized. And that happens a lot whether or not it's PM service, whether or not it's an accident. So, we don't just have just the exact number of cars. Um you know, we want to have extras for spares for the officers to utilize. Uh but we'd be more than happy to provide I think there's a briefing um on uh the ERR and vehicle replacement. I want to say it is April 6, but prior to that, we can give you a full list of the vehicles we actually have the ones that have been deadline. Uh, last year we replaced a lot of vehicles. So, we had a lot of vehicles that were still sitting on the lot that hadn't been sold. A lot of them have, but we just want to uh specifically usually hovers in the mid50 range about the number of vehicles we have for our for our entire fleet. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right. Uh we will go ahead and get into the police annual report. And uh I just want to preface this by the purpose of the annual report is to provide information about the police department, about crime in the city, accomplishments of the police department, and explain how every individual can partner with the police department to make our community safer. And I think that's really important. Uh community outreach. Uh we've continued to cultivate relationships with our stakeholders and help uh held a ward specific meeting. We held a meeting in W 6. We're looking to have a meeting in Ward 2. We also had several community meetings in specific neighborhoods to address specific issues. Uh just so you understand, we we don't necessarily need to have large meetings. We can meet in someone's living room about a specific problem. We met at Montgomery College with a certain group of people. We like to have the ward meetings because those meetings can really touch on crime in the entire ward and answer questions about trends across the city. But we also really like to have the living room

meetings. We haven't had a lot since co. So, if you have a particular problem on your street, uh we're welcome to have those meetings as well. And you can just reach out to me or any of the staff members to have those. And you'll see in this lovely slide a police car, I'm guessing retro 1970s maybe. And it looks like Carol Avenue, Everyday Gourmet. Those of you who have been around, you'll know where that spot is. Uh I just touch on the mental health pilot. I won't get into too much detail, but we do have pictures of our clinicians, uh Miss Du, Miss Barers, and Miss Pearson. Uh they are phenomenal staff. They are really if you look at their bios on our website, they really have an extensive amount of experience and advocating uh for mental health uh uh causes. So we're very very fortunate to have them. Uh Miss Pearson is our full-time uh um clinician and uh Mr. Jay and Miss Baris are they swap back and forth. Uh and I just want to touch on staff diversity. I think that's really really important. Uh we have a picture of Miss Joyce there with uh didn't have her new hip, but uh she looks great. Um our department is extremely diverse. Um we speak six different languages. Um almost uh 40% of our police department are uh fluent in Spanish. We have officers that speak Amharic, Russian, and a bunch of other languages. Um I think it's really important that the department is reflective of the community in which we serve. Um, and I say this every time. It's not about the diversity. It's about the quality of the people that we're hiring. People that come here want to be here. They want to be in the city of Tacoma Park because they like what we're doing. Uh, many of you know that we've also signed the 30 by30 pledge. We were one of the first departments to do that. Uh, that is a pledge that we will have 30% of our sworn workforce uh, be female officers by the year 2030. Uh, we are at about 22% right now. I think uh five of our last eight police officers that were hired uh were female officers. Um and you'll see in the picture officer Sims. You also see our officer of the year,

Officer Ayala, and our civilian uh staff uh person of the year, uh Demetrius White. Uh and it, like I said, community policing is is what the cornerstone of what we do. Um we can't do what we do, we can't be successful without the collaborative problem solving of all of you. Um it is a collaborative effort. We are guardians. We are partners with the community. It is not the police against the community. It's it's us as one team. Um you can see some of our crossing guards and some of our civilian staff. Uh it's really important when we have these community events. You'll notice that it's it's all of our staff there. If you come to National Night Out, you'll see everyone from our dispatchers to uh the chief of police to our crossing guards. Uh we really want everyone to know our community members and I'll get into the the crime in the city of Tacoma Park. I am very pleased to report that we had a 51% um decrease decrease in crime in the city uh last year and I do want to um caution the percentages because we have very low crime in the city. So I just want to give a comparison of the number of part one crimes and part one crimes are the serious crimes, assaults, burglaries, lararsenies, murders, etc. So the comparison is we had 664 part one crimes reported in 2025 compared to about 1,300 in 2024. Uh the decrease uh was mainly attributed to uh a reduction in larsenies, a reduction in burglaries um which were burglaries were reduced by I think uh 59 56% lararsenies by 76% and I'll get into some of the lararseny reasons later on and they're called Walgreens. Um, uh, Ward 6 saw the most significant reduction in crime, once again,

Walgreens with 74% reduction. Uh, the largest reduction again was with lararsenes that went down from over a,000 to 481 in 2025. Many of these lararsenies were related to the Walgreens. And that was a perfect example of a partnership between the police department, uh, city officials, um, and our business owners. Uh, many of you know, we had repetitive problems at that Walgreens. We would answer four, five, six calls for service a day at that particular Walgreens. uh with a partnership from the then ward council member, the mayor, the city manager and the police department, we were able to meet with Walgreens officials and get them to do one simple solution and that was provide armed security at that location. Since that has been done, we have seen a drastic reduction in the number of thefts directly or number of incidents. It wasn't just thefts. It was also violent incidents that occurred there. We had an employee that was struck with a a fire extinguisher. there was just a a kind of a a cesspool of crime around that area and it was resolved by simply hiring a security officer. That was a successful partnership. Getting specifically into breakdown by percentages. Um this is pretty traditional from year to year. Ward one was about 14% of the overall crime in the city. W two was about 20%. W three at about 22% and W four and five at four and 5% respectively. I didn't make that up. Those numbers just happen to align with the ward. Um, and then ward six, which is normally up in the 40s or 50s, is at 35%. Um, traditionally, Ward four, wards four and five have always had the lower crime numbers. Um, and that's pretty much consistent. Uh, getting specifically into Ward One, uh, Ward One, as I said, accounts for 14% of the crime in the city. Um, there was a 13%

increase in Ward One. Um and uh there were so that in comparison there were 82 part one crimes reported in Ward 1 in 2024 as opposed to 92 in 2025. The increase was mainly related to theft from autos that went from 30 to 55. We saw a large increase in theft from autos um in that particular area. And I'm not really sure why uh that area obviously abut DC and Silver Spring. uh we allocated a lot of resources as a result of this and we saw the numbers come down. Uh Ward two uh accounts for 20% of the crime. Uh this would be a comparison uh excuse me accounts for 20 there were 204 part part one reported crimes in war two and 204 compared to uh 130 in 2025 which a 20% decrease. Uh war two in the past has seen increases in crime. So that's a good thing. The significant reduction was related to larsenies which were reduced from 79 occurred in 2024 to 46 in in uh 2005 or 2025 should I say. Burglaries this is a lot of those were shed burglaries which were reduced from 23 to 12 and then we saw auto theft reduced and robberies reduced as well. Uh W three accounts for 22% of the crime in the city. Uh there was an 18% increase in part one crimes in W three. Um I won't go into the numbers but uh the increase uh was related mainly again to theft from autos. We saw a lot along the DC line in areas that abuted other jurisdictions and those went from 40 to 74. We see a lot of crime in W 3 along the New Hampshire Avenue corridor in and around there. And that's also the same with W six. A lot of our crime and a lot of our other incidents, whether they be crashes, occur on that New Hampshire Avenue quarter. All right, there we go. Uh, and once again, Ward 4

accounts for a very, very low number of crimes. 4% of the reported crimes in the city were uh in Ward 4. Uh, just to give you an idea, that was a 54% decrease. So just to give you an idea of the number of incidents comparatively uh there were 63 reported part one crimes in 2024 down to 29 in 2025 which is the lowest number of crimes reported in the city. Uh W 5 has similar uh similar numbers. Uh there was also a 16% decrease in part one crimes in W 5 in 2025. I won't go into the numbers um but W five has also traditionally had lower numbers lower crime numbers than the other wards other than ward four. Uh w six. So this is where the most activity still remains. It accounts for 35% of crime in the city. Uh it has traditionally accounted for the largest number of crime in the city. There was a 73% decrease in part one crimes. And once again, the Walgreens effect, 841 uh reported crimes in Ward 6 in 2024 compared to 231 in 2025. Larsson, this is the main trigger of this were reduced from 662 to 120 or 131 aka the Walgreens effect. Burglaries also were significantly reduced. We had a lot of burglaries at the uh the storage shed site um on Holton Lane the year prior. A lot of them were discovered. They were people that hadn't come back to their their sites for the longest time. So we had a lot the year prior and I think that attributed a lot to that arrest in the city. Uh 109 arrests were made in 2025. The vast majority were adult arrest. Um 95% uh about 5% or nine were juvenile arrests. We really try not to arrest people unless we need to. especially juveniles, we try to do intervention before we actually get to arrest. Um, and going into the emergency petitions, uh, this most of this

information is was when we did not have the the current uh, pilot program, but there were 70 70 emergency petitions. Uh, emergency petitions was were petitions that were done when people are in crisis and they're harm to themselves or others. 59% of those were done by police officers and 41% were done by our mental health clinicians. We did have clinicians at the time that we would utilize to do these mental health petitions if they were available. That was outside of the mental health response protocol. Uh I just wanted to briefly just get into the number of dispatched calls. Uh we had um 8 8,662 dispatch CAD calls in 2025 and we had four about 4,145 self-initiated field activity calls. Just for background, CAD calls are the type of calls that receive through 911 and a dispatcher dispatches a police officer. Self-initiated calls are the ones that an officer may come across something on patrol or they call out with something. Uh so we're looking at uh traffic details and uh officers continue to make traffic stops at problem intersections and roadways identified by residents and also traffic data. Uh we had a large number of people cited for driving uninsured vehicles. We had 53 of those, which is a large number. Um, overall, we had officers issue 70 uh 754 uh citations. Those are moving violations. 212 safety recruitment orders. That's like your lights out, your headlight is out, and uh 1500 approximately warnings. Warnings are really important because they educate people. The most important thing we're trying to do is not just do meaningless traffic stops. We we do traffic stops in targeted areas. And what you'll see uh when we did our our our previous uh data release is you see a drastic reduction in the number of overall traffic stops initiated by the Tacoma Park Police Department. We don't want to do meaningless traffic. We don't have um it in our in our uh evaluation and reward system where you need to have

a certain number of numbers. Um council member Gilbert can remember when we had those monthly numbers. Uh we eliminated those. We want quality traffic enforcement that is directly related to problem areas and that's what our officers focus on. Uh collisions in the city. Uh we had 197 reportable collisions. Uh zero fatalities which is really good. Uh we also had four so we had 44 personal injury collisions. Those are crashes where someone is injured as a result of the crash. And we had 153 property damage collisions. Uh those were just collisions where damage to the vehicle but no injury to the participants. Uh as you can see by this graph, a large number of our property damage collisions have occurred on that New Hampshire Avenue corridor. Uh there if you look at the map, there is that huge cluster. We've also seen a large number of them occur on state roadways that are most frequently traversed throughout the city. Um, and I think we've given some more specific information to council member Weslick about and we can provide that entire area to break down exactly where they occurred. Uh, as we're looking at personal injury collisions, you'll see the same kind of uh narrative. A lot of the personal injury collisions are in and around New Hampshire and University. Uh, we've also see them, you'll see that's Philadelphia Avenue where there's that cluster on the bottom of the graph and then you'll see Flower Avenue at the top. Um, you know, we have done a lot of improvements in our local roadways uh to make them safer for pedestrians and vehicles. We haven't seen as much on state roadways. I wouldn't say that was directly attributed to some of these, but uh just the mere volume of traffic on some of these roadways uh can can be attributed to this. Um our automated red light enforcement technology, we have seven red light cameras deployed at various intersections in the city. There's an example of where they are. Um, we expect

to have two cameras up at University and New Hampshire hopefully uh within the next few weeks and then have a 30-day period of of warnings. It the the site has been approved. We are just waiting for the right weather to be able to install the apparatus that those two lights there at that intersection alone had more violations daily than all of the other cameras combined in the city. That's how bad that intersection is. So kudos to the city manager who worked directly with uh the state highway administration uh director William Pines to get that expedited because there was a lot of hold up in getting that done uh in getting in. This is just some of the numbers. Over 30,000 red light camera uh citations were issued in 2025. The biggest location was New Hampshire and Ethan Allen. That's where we saw about 12,000. Um you can see some of the other intersections had lower numbers. Uh we are hopeful uh that we also can look at with our red light cameras a policy to have um speed on green on some of those cameras because as you know we discontinued our speed cameras uh because we just had a compliance. That's what we wanted. We the these these automated enforcement programs are not are not money makers. They are done to correct behavior. And what our stop what our speed camera program did is over the course of its pro over the years of the program, it corrected behavior and we no longer needed them. But if we can have dualpurpose red light cameras and speed cameras on the same device, it's a win-win. A lot of people, a lot of accidents are caused by people speeding to get through the light. So we're evaluating that possibility. They would go in at any site that we uh that we have red light cameras. Um and the automated stop sign technology which is new and is getting a lot of conversation. Uh we implemented uh the program through a pilot program um early or late last year. There's 17 locations. I think that maybe have updated to 18

now. A list of them are there. Uh we are expecting approval uh for the four that are on state roadways soon and they're listed here. for Philadelphia and Holly, Ethan Allen at Jackson in two location uh Ethan Allen at Jackson, Carol Avenue at Lincoln and Carol Abnote at Lincoln in another part of the intersection. So, we're really hopeful uh that these will educate people. Um there's been a lot of talk on it. I had uh Kathy Pvy, our public information officer, put out more information on that because there are a lot of questions. If you have any questions, please go to our website. There was a community forum which we had which is very informative, but there's also a lot of information on the program. We expect to give an update to council hopefully in uh late May or early June just on an update on the program. Um I wanted to touch on some of our new staff. You'll see the the faces. Uh we hired five new police officers in 2025. Uh officers Pena Brownley, Lopez, De Los Santos, and Lazama. We also hired three crossing guards. Uh Miss Davis, Mr. Navarez, and Mr. Mi Mitchum. You probably see them around. Um you notice the theme here. There's a lot of diversity. It's very important um that we hire quality people and these people are doing very very well. I will say that uh back when we had a cadet program uh officer D. Los Santos was one of those cadetses. So all right and retirements we lost Lieutenant Joseph Butler after 27 years of service. He was a phenomenal individual and we also lost uh one of our captains Michelle Holmes who also had 37 years experience. So, you're talking about combined over 60 years of experience walking out the door. Um, we hate to lose them, but we wish them well in their retirement. Hopefully, the retirement system is good. I I'm looking at, uh, Council Member Gilbert, uh, is good for them. Um, I will going a little bit over on time, so I'll try to quickly go through some community outreach events. Um, Special Olympics Maryland.

One of our lieutenants, Lieutenant Marco Fodle, is one of the most influential people involved in Maryland Special Olympics. He's been recognized multiple times for his efforts. Um he's been involved in everything from the torch run to the Winter Olympics to the polar bear plunge. And this is just a picture of him with several athletes. It's so important. Uh picture with one of our coffee with the cops. We've had several throughout uh uh throughout the year. The most recent ones was a collaboration with the Metropolitan Police Department uh at the Starbucks right there at the right across uh on Maple at uh Carol. Uh just some pictures with our officers. I think this is really important because this just shows our our really our desire to really interact with the community. Uh annual egg hunt picture is there with several of our officers. I did want to highlight the Black History Minority Scholars program because what we had is two of our officers that grew up in the city that are now in the same classroom that they went through that they're talking to people and they can say I was in the same classroom that you were in 20 years ago. And I can say the same didn't have windows when I went there. Piney Branch didn't. It was an experimental school but that's another story. So, a couple more pictures, the Special Olympics, a career day at Tacoma Park Elementary School. I will touch on real quickly, we do have monthly meetings with all of our principles at all of our schools, and that's not just the police department, that's our recck department, that's all of our partners here. That's been very, very beneficial. Um, I know that, uh, several council members have attended some of those meetings. You're welcome to attend as well. I think our next meeting is April 9th, but if anyone is interested, please reach out to me. And last but not least, a huge thank you to Kathy Pleyvy who put this annual report together and all the staff that put the stats together. Uh you can see both Kathy and uh Lieutenant Williams enjoying a swing uh set. I'm not sure if this was at a play day or they just stopped at a park. I don't know how we got these pictures, but they look like they're having so much fun. So, special thanks to Kathy if you're watching and all the staff that contribute to the

report. Uh and that is it. I will open it up to questions. Uh, thank you very much. Um, and I just want to thank all of our police officer, all of our officers and and counselors and dispatchers and everyone that is working collectively to keep our community safe. I know that these are just really stressful times to be in public service and and I can't stress enough how much I appreciate all of the hard work that goes into protecting and serving our community. Um so I just want to start by saying thank you so much to to all of our staff um that have been doing all of this great work over the year. Uh Council Member Hanza.

Yeah, I echo that. Thank you. Um this always I love I love hearing the annual updates. Um just a couple of little things. One is uh I think on slide 24, Flower Avenue in Houston was missing and it's been installed now. So the stop sign. Yeah, that that was the one. That was the one that we didn't add. So that was Yeah, I said there's one addition.

Just flagging that because y'all should get credit for that. Um even if people are complaining as you say or have a lot to say, shall I say? Yes. It's It's funny. It's like it's safer, but I've gotten three tickets. Um, so, uh, no, I don't I'm not talking about me. I'm just making fun of all of us. I'm sure I'm going to get one soon. Um, even though I'm trying really hard not to. Uh, and could you verify on the principal meetings? Do you do you know now are y'all able to invite the Rolling Terrace or the Silver Spring International Middle School principal sometimes at least um when it is relevant particularly in light of some of our our latest immigration related issues? I I will check with Mark to confirm that, but if

if you could if you could send me an email. I know that that has been something on my mind for a long time. Okay. And then um I would love to see you guys at Essex House if you're doing community meetings. There are so many kids in that building who have told me they want to be police officers when they grow up and they loved having you there. So, if I can I'm putting a plug. And then la last thing is um I'm wondering you said the Walgreens effect. It's so amazing and wonderful to see uh the change that has happened the neg you know decrease in crime and I'm sure that indeed a lot of that is the Walgreens effect. Do we though have any um ability to kind of look to look a little bit into the data to look really specifically at some of the numbers to see if by any chance some of the decrease that we might be seeing in some places could be due to fear of reporting. um because I I believe that that's really real. Uh and I don't think it would just be specific to W six, but it could account for, you know, we always have a lower crime rate in W five anyway. But I definitely would think it would be relevant in W five and W six uh in particular.

I I I think just just just for background, crime is down uh across the country. It's not just here. Um, I do think there is obviously that impact across the country by people and that was the biggest concern is that people would not report crimes. Um, I do think that the vast majority of people that understand our police department will still call us. Um, I'm not saying that's universal. I'm not saying there's not an effect, but it's really hard to gauge specifically who does not call. Um, but we re what we really want to continue to do is have the events like at at the Chuck-e-Cheese and continue to uh put out statements supporting all of our residents documented or not. So, continuing to be very public, not only from my platform, but also from the elected officials and all city government. Um, but it does concern me and I've said that publicly. It really concerns me when when you put so much emphasis on targeting people. Um, so if I'm a victim of a a theft from auto, I may I may not report it. Or worse, if I'm a victim of of child abuse, I may not report it. So, it's definitely a concern. And I think that it's something that we as police chiefs that are not necessarily in step with what is being done aggressively from the federal level have said multiple times. So, we keep on echoing that. I wish there was a way to better define um the impact and I'm not sure that we really can accurately gauge that.

Okay. I just wondered if maybe like if we were to be able to look at the Walgreens um data from last year even in a raw numbers and maybe just see what the differential might might be just knowing how many reports came from Walgreens in the prior year before the security if we just took a look at that. It would be an interesting number to see what that differential could look like. It wouldn't it wouldn't be absolute but just an idea

just for background curious the vast majority of calls from Walgreens came from Walgreens came from staff at Walgreens. So it would be hard to kind of distinguish what staff member called and so on and so forth. I I hear what you're saying. We we really if there's a way that we can um document that that's even more important because it it then even more so justifies not taking this aggressive stance. Thank you, Council Member Hanzac. Council member Schlaggel.

Yes, thank you for this report and uh for everybody who put it together. Um I I do appreciate the what you shared about, for example, the Chuck-E-Cheese events and and how they they build that sense of normaly with our local police. And um I I will definitely amplify that with residents to say that that this is an important component of our pro of our program. Um, I was also happy to hear you were be reminded you're a PBS student and was that 15 years ago you said uh um I I it I I was there in the 1970s, just put it that way. So I I won't say when in the 70s, but

um I did have one question about the the option to issue an ecitation or a warning. Um it was interesting that the numbers that the e citations were just about half of the warnings. But how do how does the department train and guard against um you know implicit bias of one kind or another where officers might say well I'm I let this sort of person off and this person I I actually cite them because we want to make sure things are equitable um and fair.

That's a really good point. So so understand uh it all starts with what the philosophy of the police department is. Um, prior to me getting here, there was a very heavy emphasis on just arrest and enforcement, and that's not what our emphasis is. Uh, we want uh quality enforcement um to address issues that impact uh pedestrian safety and public safety. So, the more we stress that, uh the officers don't feel compelled to just go out and make meaningless traffic stops. All of our officers wear bodywn cameras. So any interaction they have with uh the public uh on a traffic stop is recorded on a body warn camera, but it's also recorded in the incar video of the vehicle. Uh we can look at patterns. Um I don't know if you recall when we did the reimagining public safety task force, we looked at all of our traffic stops and we looked at the demographics of who was stopped and so on and so forth. It's very hard to tie it directly to the demographics of Tacoma Park because the vast majority of people stopped don't live in the city. Um but we make a very concerted effort not to um uh initiate traffic when we don't need to. Um if we see a pattern um which we haven't seen of an officer only issuing uh citations to a certain person or so on and so forth, we would obviously address that. Um as I said earlier, officers have the discretion. That's part of what their job is. The most important thing in a traffic stop is to educate people so they do not repeat the behavior and that that's done best through um a citation because a lot of times when we stop someone, we can see how many times they've been stopped previously when we So if they've been stopped five times for speeding and they've gotten warnings every time, it's probably time for a citation. So that factors in. So it's it's more about what the situation is than the color of someone's skin. And and but that also goes to why we're trying to get this all this automated enforcement. If we have

automated enforcement, whether it be stop sign, red light, uh speed on green, it takes away from the need for an officer to interact. It takes away from all of that implicit bias. So the more we can do that, I think as a force multiplier, the better. Um, but I'm very confident that we do not have officers here that are are number one signaling someone out or disproportionately um issuing citations to a certain demographic. If we ever had that, we would absolutely address that swiftly.

Sure. Yeah. I that I wasn't even thinking along those lines. I just wondered how the decision is made in the moment. And I I gather it has to sometimes it has to do with the previous record of warnings or citations and sometimes it may have to do with just the observed severity of the danger that was created. So thank you. Thank you very much. Um just as a reminder for folks, we we have about six minutes left. Um Council Member Dybala,

I'm going to assume that if I ask questions by email, I will get answers and I'd encourage everybody else to do that, too. Um, I wanted to ask crime crime overalls down even after you take out the Walgreens. Um, I wanted to ask about hot spots or trends that you see though, uh, because it it feels sometimes like it's very targeted to specific crimes or specific spots.

It's a really good question. We have a crime analyst on staff that puts out daily crime uh, intelligence and we deploy our officers based off that intelligence. If we're looking at hotspots, the biggest areas of concern uh would be the theft from Autos and Ward three and Ward One because we've seen that increase and that caused an increase um to the crime in in Ward One. So when we when we analyze the data, we look at hotspots and where we need to deploy officers. So for example, if we have a string when we have this string of shed burglaries uh over in in your ward, uh we deployed staff to that area, we were able to make an arrest. So data is really important. We are a data-driven response kind of protocol. Um we know areas where we always have high visibility whether or not that be Oldtown, whether or not that Koma Langley crossroads, we always have high visibility there. But we also deploy resources and that's not only that's not only to address criminal issues, that's also to address traffic issues, whether they be a lot of collisions or citizen complaints or so on and so forth. Um so yeah, it's it's hotspots. the biggest hot spots right now are the theft from autos that are are of concern. Um, and the under reporting. A lot of times we'll hear from people that, you know, I saw someone break in a car, but I didn't want to report it. So, I I want to I want to encourage anyone that's watching, uh, please encourage people to report crime. As I've said multiple times, we don't have an accurate overview of trends if we don't have accurate information. So if if there have been 10 theft from autos along Houston Avenue but only two were reported, we're not going to get an accurate overview of the number. So please please please you're not in you're not inconveniencing us. Please if you are a victim of a crime, please report it.

And my second question is the data request which you would do you would have to do after tonight. So um stop stop sign cameras are new. I understand the numbers of citations are large and make some of these other large numbers look kind of small. I'd appreciate it if you could give us just a sampling of early reporting.

Absolutely. and and and the goal uh usually on the initial what we've seen from the program in Prince George's County is the initial program the initial months there is a large percentage of of violations and then they are drastically reduced over time. So when we're doing our estimates for revenue we look at a 70% reduction from day one to almost nine months in. So we're hopeful we'll see that but we absolutely can give you the numbers up to to to date. Thank you, Council Member Dybala. Council member Lman,

uh, thank you for, um, pointing out the hotspot issue of theft from autos. Theft of autos to a certain extent, but theft from autos, I know has been big in my word, but also theft from construction and and handyman vehicles has been a big issue and and for a lot of those people, this is a really big hardship. And I wonder whether the department has ever contemplated, for example, flying those vehicles in English and Spanish to tell people to keep their vehicles locked and to not leave valuable tools in view. I I feel as though um a lot of residents are are letting me know, at least probably letting I hope letting you know that it's happening to the workers that are working in and around their properties. So, it feels like we we need some kind of a proactive response and I wonder if you might contemplate something like that or have some other thoughts. Yeah, we we've had a lot of the contractors are very transient and they don't work in their area. They may be here two days, they may be doing a roof somewhere else. Uh we try to educate them as much as possible. Uh Kathy Ple, our PIO, always puts out information uh to at least the residents here, but it's it's more difficult for individuals that don't live in the city and that come into the city. Uh that's a good idea. I just don't know that we that it would necessarily um transcend because people are here. I mean, there's there's some contractors that work here pretty routinely, but they they know they know to lock their stuff up. Um, you know, so education. We also want to work with other police departments. So, we're doing the same thing because if we're saying one thing and McGomery County is not consistently saying it. So, I think it's a collaboration across the board uh with our partners with COG to just kind of do all of this educational outreach in every jurisdiction. So, if I work in Tacoma Park, but I live in Mount Reineer, I'm getting the same message about secure my secure my belongings and so on and so forth. It's more difficult with people working because you want to be able to quickly get in your van and take your chainsaw out or whatever it may be. But that will definitely something we can look into. May I ask one quick other question which is I

wonder if you could just um for the vast viewing audience that's with us tonight talk about what people who are um flagging concerns about their particular stop sign camera uh tickets if they want to appeal to the the city people who are doing the reviewing what what ought they to do how they if if you have a a way for that first first line appeal to occur that you could share with people all of the information is clearly stated on the violation they have. For the sake of time, I just encourage anyone that receives a violation to read it. It's very clear on what they need to do if they want to repeal a violation. Thank you, Council Member Lman. Council member Wesle.

Um, I have I have one quick question, and if it's not a quick answer, I I'll put an email, but I'm looking at the the personal injury collision map on slide 21. Um, and and I'm I'm drawn to the fact that there are many on top of each other right around on New Hampshire around Slago Creek and um, Glennside and Erskin. And I my question is because I know it still only represents a a handful of specific accidents, but do you know off the top of your head how much of that is more at the Glenside Erskin intersection or at Siggo Creek Parkway or both?

What we can do is provide specific information if you want that particular area. It's similar to what we provided. Uh you may not have seen the background of what we provided for the stats. We can absolutely break it down and it will tell you exactly where each one occurred. I think the information I sent you this afternoon had um there were 12 accidents. One occurred at Wildwood. So, we can give you that specific information. That's probably something that's better served by just giving you a graph and it can see exactly where each each particular because it's hard when they're overlapped on something like that to understand exactly where it occurred. Thank you. Sure.

Well, thank you again um for um all of the work that you all are doing. And one thing I will say, I know that we're hearing a lot about the stop sign cameras, um, but I have, um, enjoyed some of the back and forth on the various list serves that is reminding us all of the driver's test that we took, many of us, when we were teenagers, about where do you stop? Do you stop at the bar or do you stop at the stop sign? And what does it mean if you don't do it the right way? It means a ticket. Um, so at the I I too am expecting because all of us are having to go back and remind ourselves of of some of those rules of the road. Um, I learned through DC's um two um I paid $200 worth of tickets because their stop sign cameras are $100. So you get a violation, it's a $100 ticket. And I got two of them during a snowstorm a year or so ago. And I have learned I will never not stop at a bar again.

Well, I can tell you we we this the jurisdictions in Prince George's County don't have a speed threshold. If you barely coast through, you're going to get a citation. So we have that four mile per hour grace but still you come to a complete stop and you got no doubt. Every time I come down Lincoln come to Maple I am super aware all of the intersections are have signage that says stop sign automation. So just come to a complete stop and you have nothing to worry about. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Can I ask a quick question then? Is it um I thought it was calibrated anything below six miles an hour was a roll through. And so I've had people say that is crazy. But has it since been changed to 4 miles an hour?

Well, initially uh when we were evaluating it was six and we looked at uh the potential damage that could be caused at 6 miles per hour and we wanted to have give some buffer but we also didn't want people being able to still roll through and cause damage. So we reduced it from four to six. Great. Thanks.

All right. Thank you so much. We're going to move on to the next thing. Um police electric vehicle pilot program. Thanks, sir. All right. Um, so this is long overdue. Um, you have all heard me uh up here just really wanting us to be, um, I lost the screen there. Um, wanting to have our fleet be an energy efficient fleet. So, uh, we're there now. We have the first vehicle, uh, the Chevy, uh, EV that is a pursuit rated vehicle. Um so the goal of this presentation is to provide you all with an overview of our our proposed uh electric vehicle program. So, the topics we're going to cover are what agencies are evaluating the EV patrol vehicles, an overview of the vehicle that we are going to purchase, which is the Chevy Blazer EV pursuit rated vehicle, the lessons learned from peer agencies that we've uh we've heard from, uh the our proposed pilot program, and environmental and fiscal considerations. Um so, why test patrol EV vehicles? Uh the police department is committed, as I said earlier, to to uh improving the fleet while supporting the s the city's sustainability goals. Uh the city

priorities include uh climate change mitigation, zero net emissions by 2035, and energy efficiency and environmental stewardship. Uh all of our patrol vehicles must be pursuit rated. Uh patrol vehicles m must meet rigorous performance standards. This is the vehicles that our officers that are out patrolling the street, all of our mark vehicles that these are those vehicles. And what does that mean? Um, it's related to a heavyduty cooling system, larger alternators for all of the equipment, reinforced suspensions, uh, for the heavy usage, uh, equipment integration for all of the equipment that we need and reinforced electrical systems. Uh, these vehicles are engineered to engineered to handle the demands of police work and high-speed driving. That's what a pursuit rated vehicle is. Uh so the evolution uh evolution, excuse me, of police patrol vehicles. Uh before 2020, gasoline pursuit vehicles were the only pursuit rated vehicles. They were the only ones available. Uh in 2020, Ford introduced the Ford hybrid patrol vehicle, which was pursuit rated. As soon as that was available, we the Tacoma Park Police transitioned to that patrol uh excuse me, that hybrid patrol vehicle. uh we did have to deviate from the purchase of those hybrids as you know I think a couple years ago because of the availability of those hybrid vehicles. We had to purchase some gas vehicles but the vast majority and any of the vehicles that we bought since were the hybrid patrol vehicles and we've had success with those. They've proven very successful. Um in 2024 Chevrolet introduced the Blazer EV patrol vehicle. Um and basically it is a fully electric pursuit rated patrol vehicle. Um, it has been approved as a pursuit rated vehicle through the Michigan State Michigan State Police who do most of the testing uh to certify uh pursuit rating. And

some of the qualifications were 0 to 60 mph and 5 uh7 seconds 0 to 11 seconds, 60 to 100 within 135 ft. And that's the stopping ability. It is the first EV, first and only EV patrol capable uh vehicle that was designated through the Michigan State Police as a pursuit rated vehicle. And I really don't like the term pursuit rated because people envision that of you're chasing a vehicle. It should be a patrol rated vehicle. I think that's a better term, but that's what they call it is pursuit rated. And the charging range for the Chevy uh that we have seen um is approximately 273 miles per charge uh with a level two charging uh device. That's 52 miles added per hour. Level three, the DC fast charging ones, 73 miles added in 10 minutes, 141 miles added in 30 minutes. Uh typical patrol shifts use far less than the vehicle's total range. So, we're hoping that they can get through entire patrol shift without needing to um to be charged. Um everyone's aware we've added two fast speed chargers and two of the slower speed chargers in the police department parking lot. Um they are up and running. I'm driving an electric vehicle right now, the Nissan, and I'm able to charge at those um those charging stations. It takes me about on average about 50 minutes to fully charge the vehicle I have. uh and we had some uh we evaluated some peer agencies and some of the information they had. You can find some extensive information about the peer agency information in the in the memo that was uh accompanying the the the council package. But we looked at agency test agencies testing the Blazer and those were Ann Harbor Police Department, very cold weather climate. Sterling Heights, Michigan, cold weather climate. Denver also cold weather climate, uh, Peele Regional in Canada, which also a cold weather climate, which is really important. And most importantly, a agency really close to

us, the Hyetszville City Police Department, which is, if you're looking for an applesto apples comparison of departments, that's pretty close. We have this about the same number of officers. they have a larger geographic area but basically same uh kind of patrol footprint. Uh common feedback included strong acceleration, smooth handling, quiet operation and lower fuel and maintenance cost. Uh some of the lessons learned from the other agencies. The common challenges identified were cold weather uh reduced battery range with the cold weather. So it's really good that the some of the agencies that are testing evaluating are in cold weather climates. uh the charging infrastructure um you know requires adequate planning. Um right now we're trying to figure out what would be the best way to do that. Our pilot program will not involve chargers at officers houses. It will rely on the infrastructure we have here in the city. Um and that's why it's really good to have those charging stations at the police department. Uh we may evaluate giving officers cars that they can use for charging stations outside of the city. Um but we're not at that point yet. that the pilot program is only going to utilize the charging infrastructure that is here. Um I'll give you an example with my vehicle. Um I charged it on a Friday and I was able I don't drive that much and I was able the whole weekend um the vehicle remain charged. So and that's not even uh the Chevy pursuit one that has more capabilities. That's a a civilian model Nissan. Um the other thing is public charger reliability. Um it's, you know, we need to make sure that we have sufficient charging capabilities. So, right now, uh we're going to have two of these electric vehicles. One is going to be in patrol and is going to be in in our investigative section. We also have two vehicles in our um parking enforcement. We also have a civilian vehicle that is uh being utilized. Right now, I'm I'm driving it. So, as we get more vehicles, we need to make sure we have the charging apparatus to be able to fully charge all these vehicles,

especially when we have uh an entire shift now of five officers that all need to charge at the same time. So, as we move forward and we start purchasing um electric vehicles, we're going to need to make sure we have the apparatus here. Uh long-term disability of the vehicles is still being evaluated. Um Hiville did have to replace one of their batteries for their one of their brand new vehicles. Uh, fortunately, it was under warranty, but within the first two years of the program, they did have to replace that battery. Uh, just something we're evaluating. Uh, so we're proposing a 12-month uh, evaluation pilot, and the key elements obviously are when we're talking about patrol, this is the patrol pilot, one uh, Chevy uh, EV assigned to patrol operations used in normal patrol duties. We're not going to alter the patrol duties. Some agencies have had electric vehicles, but they don't assign them patrol responsibilities. you're not going to get a good idea of the actual charging capabilities and and usage capabilities. Uh like I said, there'll be no operational changes to their patrol assignment. They will do exactly the same responsibilities as they would with a gas vehicle or a hybrid vehicle. Uh like I said earlier, the charging will primarily be at the city facility. Uh we're confident we can do that considering we don't have 20 electric vehicles right now competing for, you know, four or five chargers. uh local 400 who represents our police officers has been consulted and supports the pilot. Uh so data that we will evaluate during the pilot the department will monitor real world vehicle range. It's important to know exactly how it works here. Um we're going to evaluate charging downtime. We're going to evaluate battery performance. We're going to evaluate officer feedback, maintenance requirements, fuel cost savings, and operational limitations. We expect reports to be made at the six-month interim uh report and a 12-month final report. These reports are going to be dependent on when we are able to acquire the vehicles. Once we're able to acquire and outfit the vehicle, we will start

the pilot and we'll let you know. But, uh, as of right now, the vehicles would be purchased next fiscal year. So, the earliest they would be purchased would be July of of of uh this year. Um obviously the environmental benefits are the potential um you know for reduce greenhouse emissions, zero tailpipe emissions, improve urban air quality, reduce reliance on fossil fuels, reduce noise pollution. Um and electric motors obviously are significantly more efficient than gasoline vehicles. I or don't need to say that and even hybrid vehicles. Uh fiscal considerations, electric patrol vehicles may have provide more long-term savings, potential cost benefits, uh 40 to 60% on lower fuel costs. We're hoping reduced maintenance requirements on with electric vehicles, fewer mechanical components that need to be repaired. Uh potential federal and state incentives. I don't necessarily know with this current administration that that applies, but I'm envisioning this program going more than three years. So hopefully if there's a new administration that's much more receptive for providing those type of federal and state incentives um we can evaluate those. Uh upfront vehicle purchases are comparable to the hybrid vehicle. Uh the cost of the actual purchase of the vehicle and the upfitting is comparable. Um so that's not going to there's not going to be any additional cost. There was additional cost when we when we moved from the gas vehicle to the hybrid vehicle, but we not we're not seeing that necessarily from the hybrid to the uh to the electric. Uh in conclusion, uh uh the EV program will allow Tacoma Park to number one test emerging uh uh PPV technology, collect real time operational data, uh evaluate infrastructure needs, support sustainability goals, and inform future fleet decisions. Uh, future fleet decisions will be based on operational evidence, not assumptions. And I just want to say if you're looking at the long-term outlook, we're assuming that

this vehicle will work. So, I think there's going to be a presentation on um the fleet and uh the ERR coming, I believe, April 6. Uh, and you'll be able to see long-term we're envisioning uh this to be successful and that we will be able to move on transitioning. So you'll see a transition over the years where eventually within a certain time all of our vehicles are going to be electric and you'll see that in the transition uh director break will be able to give a direct overview of that. So the goal is to to hopefully get there during that certain period of time. A lot of it will come from the test and evaluation. A lot of it is going to be I I'm pretty confident the vehicle is going to operate the way we want it to. I think the biggest question is going to be charging infrastructure and how do we accommodate that? Uh so with that I will open it up to questions. Great. Well, thank you so much. I know that this has been um a a council asked for quite some time and I'm I'm grateful that the police department and um director Braithweight and public works have been able to come up with a solution to to kind of help us with um fully transitioning um our fleet. Uh and so with that, council member Dybala, do you have a question?

Yes. Thank you very much for this and and for working out all the details. um the the experience of the other communities is really instructive and I'm glad you were able to to research that. Um my questions are the obvious. Uh why not try to uh we don't need to talk about that tonight. I'm just putting that out there. Um, I'm wondering about uh purchasing the year after and if the sixmonth report is enough to feel confident with going into the purchase the year later or do you need a nine-month in there so that everybody can feel secure about that? I I I feel more confident in these early on vehicles and purchasing them uh because the data we collect about the specific vehicle I think is going to be important but more importantly in the broader scheme of things is the charging infrastructure.

Yeah. So that was my next. So I'm not overly concerned if we if we get um another one because we still have sufficient char when we get to a certain point. We're going to need more charging two. I think there's room. Right. Yeah. So what so so what our goal is is not just to purchase one. We're doing one that's going to be in patrol and going to be utilized specifically for this program. We're also purchasing another electric one that is going to go to our investigative staff so we can evaluate that. That's much different. It's a different kind of animal. We really want to know how these perform in a patrol capacity, but we're purchasing two,

right? Okay. Thank you. And then um just asking you to uh think whether about whether the card would work. Just think, you know, as you get into this whether the charging card would work that that relies on there being places you can go to do that. And that that's you know we have dolies but a lot of other places don't have a dolies. Um it's my understanding doies is shut down. That's what I was advised that it's no longer they no longer have the charging stations there. Oh wouldn't do that. Okay. Anyway um but thank you uh council member Lamman.

Um I was thank you. This was great. Um and I think it's great that you're preparing in a stepwise fashion to introduce these. I was surprised by what you said the savings were on fuel that they were only 40 to 60%. Um so can you do you have a sense at this point of how much it cost to fully charge uh um a vehicle versus filling it with gas? I mean uh where does that number come from? I I don't. That came from our public works department. I don't but I can get you an answer. I I don't I wouldn't know the the ins and outs of of of that number but we can get that from Keith Perry. He was the one that provided. I'd like to absolutely it seems like a high I didn't think was that

and some of these numbers also come from from other peer experiences with the vehicles. Um but we absolutely I don't know how much exactly it would cost to charge it because I don't know I but we absolutely can provide that information. Thank you very much. Council member Michel.

I guess some of that would depend on um how much of the power our city is generating from rooftops and things. Um, so what we're actually paying out per kilowatt. Um, I just was wondering like for the short term with limited charging capacity, has the department considered um issuing early, assuming this pilot works out, issuing um early purchases of EVs to officers who live fairly close to town or in town.

Yeah. I mean it that's that's problematic too because people like the one officer that one of the officers lives in the city is looking to buy a house. So um we we we we really want um the answer is yes. We've considered where what we would purchase where it would go to. We really want to get someone that lives outside of the city to the news test and evaluation. Um we we we as we as we navigate towards getting them obviously we're going to look at various we right now we have I think three officers that either live in the city we have one that his backyard is in the city his house is in purge Georgia. So we've we've we've looked at that. Um the goal is um some of those people already have vehicles. So that's so it's a matter of what needs to be replaced because as we purchase a new vehicle we deadline another vehicle. So there's a a kind of a cause and effect on how we do things. So we don't want to take a brand new vehicle that someone just got issued and Yeah. So it's there's a lot of different components that go into it.

All right. Seeing no more lights. Thank you very much. All right. Thank you. Have a good evening. All right. We're going to move into our voting session this evening. The first item is a second reading ordinance amending Tacoma Park Code Chapter 8.16, sale of food and drink for the purpose of expanding the types of use agreements the city may use to affectuate the purposes of this chapter as they relate to outdoor cafes. Well done. Is are there are there any changes to this item to report? No changes from staff.

Thank you very much. Would someone like to move this thing? So moved. Thank you, Council Member Weslect. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Council Member Schlaggel. Any points of discussion? All right. Given that this is an ordinance, would the clerk please call the role? Mayor Cersi, I. Council member Landman, I. Council member Davala, yes. Council member Schlaggel, I. Council member Gilbert, I. Council member Hanzac I. Council member Wesley I.

Great. The next item is uh a little bit of a last minute ad. Um MML, the Maryland Municipal League, um has pushed for um it has one legislative priority and that one legislative priority um is to um establish a um a task force HB142 um to establish a task force um that would consist of municipalities, counties um as well as state um reps to look at the current structure for municipal revenue generation um and to basically make recommendations. Um this priority was something that was noted in our prior um resolution to district 20. um MML is asking for all um municipalities to support um HB142 in a more stronger way just so that they can get this thing over the finish line. Um so I just want to pause just so that everyone knows um we have already submitted testimony in support of um HB 1142. I've testified in Annapolis regarding HB142. Um, so this is us um going that that last step that MML is requesting um in terms of moving forward with a a resolution. Uh, council member Lamman,

should there be a corresponding SB number to go in here with the HB number or is it only referring to the House bill? So the and I think they they are supporting the House bill because we have that language and we don't know what may ultimately um shake out. So the the the language that they provided only referenced HB11 um 42. I'll just add in the the draft resolution uh the resolve clause is to urge the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee to issue a favorable report. So, there is that mention, but there's no bill number.

Bill number, did you have a question? Um um yeah, I just was wanting to make sure I understood that how that question plays out because if it is action asking for action on both sides of the assembly, then should the title of the resolution be changed? Perhaps resolutions supporting um House and Senate action.

Yeah. Um, I I will say that that this there was a draft resolution that was submitted. Um, again, I think that they um from what I can I can glean, we testified before um the House Ways and Means Committee, MML and myself, but I I don't believe there has been a corresponding um uh Senate. I don't I'm not sure. I don't believe so. Um and so at least I don't believe I no I have not testified in in support of it. So um so I think that is why there's explicit language regarding HB142 is mentioned in terms of the specific bill language um moving forward with House Ways and Means. And I'm not exactly sure if there would be a corresponding Senate bill or if it's at this point given it's so close to crossover that is just about having the um the budgetary arms, the House Ways and Means and the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee to review. What is HB142? There was no cross file. Okay. Yeah, because we we never got an asked to testify before the Senate.

Yeah. Okay. All right. Any other questions or points of discussion? All right. So, um would someone like to move the resolution supporting HB142 establishing the task force modernizing county and municipal revenue sources? So moved. Thank you, Council Member Lanman. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Council Member Weslech. Any other points of discussion? All right. All those in favor of the resolution supporting HB142 establishing the task force to modernize the county and municipal revenue sources, please say I. I. I.

Do you have any opposed?

Any abstain? All right. So, um, MML has already been made aware that this is on our agenda for tonight. Um, city clerk, if we could just make sure that once this um is done and posted, then I can that way I could share the link with MML. All right, we're entering into our home stretch, people. We're almost there. Uh the next item is uh another last minute addition is the work uh request to for use of the city's auditorium for film screening and waiver of associated fees. Um and with that um city manager desperado, do you want to kick us off on that one?

Sure. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Uh yeah, just re recently uh it it had come to my attention that uh there was an interest on the part of uh some Tacoma Park residents that have produced the film. Uh the representative is uh Jamie Cppel or Capel Capel. Thank you. Okay. Um she had uh initially made a contact with a council member for request of use of the city auditorium uh for the screening of a film. Um and according to the production website uh it refers to um firsthand migrant testimonies, investigative trips uh to Mexico and so forth. um they'd like to have an opportunity to uh utilize this uh venue, this auditorium on either March 30th or March 31st. It's available on either night for approximately a two-hour window that would include the screening of the movie and subsequent question and answer session. Uh, Miss Capel as I understand is available online or we had sent a link anyway and if uh city um assistant city clerk could uh confirm whether she is online but uh yeah they would start approximately 6:30 or 7 and what's being requested is a you know permission of for use of the case but specifically also waiver of any attendant fees associated with this uh production. Uh normally there is a

minimum 4hour rental at 22 $220 per hour for just use of the venue. Uh there would also need to be at least one AV employee uh to help set up uh you know get the screen down, run the movie, and uh break it back down again. Uh that would be $50 an hour fee uh for two hours uh minimum and staffing fee potentially if it went after nine o'clock. uh we have uh wreck employees who uh secure the building, locked doors and so forth. So, uh, in total approximate the the facility rental and staff time costs would be approximately $1,000 um, onetime fee. And, uh, the request is for mayor and council to respectfully consider waving those fees and allowing this uh, film to be shown to the community uh, free of charge. Uh there will also be representatives of various organizations um that would be available for a question and answer period though the film's about 90 minutes and the question and answer period uh according to Miss Capel was approximately half an hour or so and uh staff is uh not opposed to the request uh but per the city's administrative regulations questions on facilities. Um the u process is such that the mayor council would need to be uh the body to authorize a waiver of fees and grant permission for use of the auditorium.

Great. Thank you, city manager Desperto. Um so I just want to check to see if if she's not okay. Um, one of the uh, so I will say I am in support of of this showing. Um, one of the things that um, we have talked about as a council is our um, approach to um, engagement as it relates to um, immigration um, support or immigrant support. And I think part of that also relates to community outreach and education. And so I think that having um particularly for um I know um that Jamie's a part of some organizations that really are doing a lot of hands-on work um to help um immigrant families. Um I think that um this is a good way um to

I know that Jamie's a part of some organizations that really are doing a lot of

um I I was just singing your praises Jamie. um but um doing a lot of work on the ground. And so I I do think that um as we are thinking about community outreach and um community education. Um this is a type of event that is a little different from a know your rights or your bystander training. um but also kind of works to give that um real life story um that many um members of our community may be facing or may have faced um to really try to help um bridge the gap of understanding that some members of our community may have. Um, so I will say I'm I'm in support um of us moving forward with um with this showing and um the discussion that will happen. I I think that this is um these are the types of events that as we're moving towards trying to figure out um ways in which the city can be in um can truly be in support of our immigrant population. I think that this is one of um the many ways that we can we can do it in an innovative work with um our nonprofit partners and organizations in a in a meaningful way to kind of help with resident education. Uh Council Member Dala.

Yeah, I'd like to give um Jamie a chance to talk about her personal connection to this group because it's there is one. Um and I would also like to say I think that I agree. I think we should do everything that we can do to help educate on this issue and this would be one easy entry for people who who don't know a lot about the issue and want to learn. Thank you. And Jamie, if you want to come off mute to just kind of introduce um yourself and um this this um effort.

Thank you very much uh Mayor Cersi and Council Member Dybala. Um, and I appreciate the the council taking this request under consideration. Um, I'm Jamie Copel. I'm a war two resident and I traveled as a part of a group of residents from the Tacoma Park and Silver Spring communities to uh Aua Prieta Sonora me Mexico in September of this past year as a part of a group really focused on um getting to know the work that is happening on um on the border of US and Mexico. Aua Prieta is is a town that is just on the other side of the border from Douglas, Arizona. And during our experience there, really the purpose of our trip was to understand life on the border and the work that folks are doing to build bicultural by national connections in support of folks not only migrating but folks who are working to establish their lives um in in those border towns. And as a part of our experience, we were invited to help raise awareness of the work that is happening on the border. Um especially as um our as our friends there had us uh shared with us um the understanding that you know many people believe that uh border towns are places that people simply pass through when in fact there is a vibrant culture of connection um in in those places. And that was what we had an opportunity to experience. And in a place like uh our city and in this region that is within a 100 miles of a border, the the the ocean most specifically, we too can be considered um by the by the terms of the government, uh a place that is within

reach of a border. And so there's a lot that we can explore and learn from this film. Um, the filmmaker really is helping to tell the story of migration and the work of the communities that I mentioned, Agua Prieta and Douglas, Arizona. Um, the work that those communities are doing to welcome migrants um, in many cases to help those migrants create a home in those communities um, and to explore what is causing them to migrate. So, it helps us just to develop a more uh complete and full understanding of what it means to be a place that welcomes folks who are traveling. Um, which is also something that I know Tacoma Park proudly considers itself to be. Uh, so I'm asking that the city consider this request and we very much would look forward to the opportunity to screen in the in the auditorium. Uh the Wii just very briefly is again as I mentioned a group of citizens. We are not um ourselves an organization. We are a group of citizens but we would be joined at the screening um by folks who represent one of the organizations the Centro Attention uh de Migration Exodus the um one of the migrant shelters uh that is based in Aua Prieta. They will be here for the film screening. These are folks who are featured in the film that we hope to show.

Great. Um, Council Member Schlaggel. Um, thank you, Miss Copel. And, uh, I might reach out to you separately about this topic because we we do it in my class that I teach. Um but uh I wondered if you could because it is unusual for us to grant these waiverss if you could say a little bit more about how um beyond the educational aspects of the film and its obvious relationship to us wanting to be a community of belonging and our council priority. I wondered if you could say anything about how you see this event um potentially bringing together people in Tacoma Park uh or creating some new connections and and networking opportunities.

Absolutely. So the I think one of the things that we are excited about is that the folks who are coming for the film screening from Aua Prieta from from Mexico um the timing of this screening would would coincide with spring break um for Montgomery County public schools and so we're hopeful that um many students and families might be able to attend the screening um as a family and Um, having the screening available, the film available to be shown within our city limits is just another way to kind of say this is this is an issue uh that matters to folks and we want families to be able to come together um as a group and and really explore the topic of migration. Um and so you know the timing of the co coinciding with spring break is just one thing that we hope would really help to bring people out. Um and also because you know it is an opportunity to think about um migration in a way that is is different than uh exploring what we you know that this is the film covers a time frame. Uh 2019 is when the film was shot. Um so it kind of helps folks to understand that the the issues that our community members are experiencing right now with the um ICE uh enforcement efforts in particular um that there isn't this is not a new issue alone. You know this is not something that is kind of just happening in this moment. Um so just really helping to folks to expand their thinking about this issue both beyond the borders of our city and this region. um in in ways that we hope will enliven further discussion and understanding of the choices that folks

make around migration um and what does it mean to be a welcoming community. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Schliggo. Council member Hazac.

Yes. Good evening, Miss Copel. Thank you. Um, I was just wondering if you might be able to speak a little bit more to community members that are listening and again kind of in the spirit of uh what Schlaggel was asking about some of the uh groups that you are related to because this for one thing you will only have about a week to you know get some of the communications out. But I think just kind of speaking a little bit how you you as a group of community members versus being part of a formal um organization in our city and us granting a waiver, if you could speak to some of the connectivity that you have with some of those groups so that people can understand better how this relates also just to to being a part of our community in addition to sort of the um valuesoriented issues that are related. Thank you.

Thanks for that question. Um while the group that traveled to the border and um would be hosting this delegation uh is is a group of citizens many of whom are involved in the efforts that I'll mention now. We're not necessarily representing these efforts explicitly. Um but I in particular am a part of the Montgomery County Immigrant Rights Collective as well as being a part of the Tacoma Park Silver Spring Community Safety Network and um a leader within the efforts of Blair Unidita. All three of these are efforts that fall within the category of mutual aid, neighbors helping neighbors um that are working to ensure that our our immigrant neighbors in particular have the support of those of us who are in a position to provide support. Um so it is a ready audience of thousands of folks within this region who have said we care about our neighbors. We want our neighbors to know that we care about them. Um, and so the opportunity to screen a film like this is an opportunity to come together to learn. It's a form of popular education, if you will. Um, so personally for my part, I would hope to share the news of this screening um, across those networks, as well as being a Montgomery County Public Schools parent, I would hope to share the screening with our local schools uh, with an encouragement for families to consider attending with their children. I know we've been grateful to the city for the support um that you've offered and will be offering of the work that we're doing with MOCO IRC and with the community safety network uh as well. And so I would hope that we would see a robust turnout from from those networks because certainly we know these are folks who are showing every day with their volunteer labor that they want to make certain that our neighbors who are at risk know that they have our support and that we are here for them. So the opportunity to come together to learn to explore and to be in discussion with the filmmaker and

those who um who wanted this story to be told who will be here from Awa Prieta feels like a perfect opportunity to do all of those things uh all at once. Thank you. Thank you council member Hanzac. Council member Wessle. Thank you so much. Um I just wanted to ask who who are what's the name of the filmmaker or filmmakers? Um, and I'm wondering if they are affiliated uh connected in any way with Tacoma Park.

Uh, the filmmakers don't have a direct connection to uh Tacoma Park. Again, these are folks who have been working with folks in in uh the U on the US Mexico border in Aua Para and Douglas, Arizona um for for quite some time. Um and so the there will be a series of screenings that are happening um over the course of a month um featuring the the folks who are coming again from the border to be here. While they're here, they'll be doing some work to visit with folks on the hill um and really seeking to to raise awareness of the specific challenges and opportunities that are faced by people who are living in those border towns. Um but they are really working hard to make sure that in the in those travels they're connecting with folks who have visited their border towns um so that they're building greater awareness across the country of the the realities of life on the border.

Great. Thank you. But do you actually have a name of the filmmaker or filmmakers?

Yes. So the the film maker so the there's a journalist and sorry I'm just pulling it back up to remind myself so I don't misspeak. Um so the the name of the filmmaker is um Dr. Paley who worked with uh Dr. Avenia. Those are the um the two folks who kind of told the story and I can get you the specific name because my notes are uh are not opening right now, but I can follow up and share that with council member Dybala and Mayor Cersi to pass along.

Great. Thank you. All right. Are there any other questions about this item? Okay. I would like to um because of the scheduling and I know that there's been some some additional um questions for information. Um but given the scheduling, I would like to get a little bit of a of a hand vote to see where the council is leaning in terms of approval of this item. um so that staff can be um given a bit of a heads up in terms of how to proceed. Um can can I take a quick hand vote now? All those in favor of supporting um this movie showing and the the waiver of the fees. Okay, it looks like it would be unanimous. So um so if we can um Jamie, if you wouldn't mind still just um providing us with that additional information. So, my colleagues, if there are any additional follow-up questions, we can we can um address those and then um Rob will work with you and staff in terms of logistics because I understand that this is a a bit of a tight timeline and we want to try to make sure that you you can actually market your event.

Thank you. Yes, I will send that as followup this evening and I'm deeply grateful to you all for considering the request and it sounds like potentially approving it. Excellent. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Okay, next item is the state highway administration priority letter letter. Poor Devon. And we don't even have a table out here for you this time. Good evening, mayor, members of council. De McN here with the Housing and Community Development Department. Um he uh tonight we're talking about the Maryland State Highway Administration priority letter. Um so a little bit about kind of what this is. Um, so I'm going to start at a high level. Um, the Maryland Department of Transportation has what they call their consolidated transportation program. Uh, what that is is their CIP of investment in kind of roadway maintenance infrastructure. Um, so we are at the start of their process um, looking ahead. So they start in April, they go through September, and then this time next year is when they're actually going to be talking about the the process that we're kind of starting with. Um, and so the priority letter is a way for the city to communicate kind of our priorities related to specifically the consolidated transportation program. Um so what they

ask us to do is provide our top five uh priorities um through a letter and then also an online form submission. Um and these are projects that would either require significant funding or construction by the state or would be major projects that could have impacts on state highways. Um so we have as staff quarterly meetings with our local district three um uh office and so that's where we deal with kind of smaller scale projects. So these are the larger scale projects that we are either requesting state dollars for or that we anticipate major state highway impacts. So, our top five, and we'll go through each of them, is the New Avenue bikeway, uh, the sections A and B that run along New Hampshire Avenue, um, the Flower and Carol Avenue intersection, um, signalization at Piney Branch and Richie Avenue, um, the extension of their pedestrian safety action plan down New Hampshire Avenue, and then a citywide safety action plan and mobility study. So starting with the new avenue bikeways. Um so what you see on the right is a map of the whole proposed construction. Um we have uh started we have completed designs on the section A and section B which directly run along New Hampshire Avenue. So this is something where we are hoping to work with SHA to either get significant funding to construct it or for them to uh take on the project. um and the design and construct it themselves. So, this is one of our our top priorities. Um we are currently uh just got awarded funding to do the connector portion at the very top. Um and then the district connector at the very bottom is kind of

in early design uh stage for Carol Avenue. Um this is really focused on that intersection with Flower. Uh there are significant issues with ADA compliance. Um that photograph on the uh right is a great example where the crosswalk button is up uh three flights of stairs or three three steps. Uh so we want them to go in there and uh really just improve the intersection, make it um compliant and accessible for all of our residents um so that uh people can move. And we know that this is a really critical infra uh piece of infrastructure for the city. This one is the traffic signal at Piney Branch and Richie Avenue. Uh we did get a stop sign, a flashing stop sign there, but we are looking at signalization uh given the proximity to schools, uh the traffic speed moving down Piney Branch, um and then the curvature and topography. Um in speaking with the administrator they recommended that we include this as a priority um so that they can go uh get additional funding for it. So currently um north of University Boulevard there is a pedestrian safety uh action plan along New Hampshire Avenue. Um however it stops at University Boulevard. What we are asking them to do is uh include New Hampshire Avenue to the south um in in this uh pedestrian safety action plan. Um we want to make sure that all improvements and and thought is given because yes, we realize that there are people traveling uh to the north of us down to the future Purple Line stop, but there are also residents that will be traveling up to the Purple Line stop. and we want to

make sure that any sort of um improvements to New Hampshire related to this project uh include our residents. And then finally um looking at a safety action plan and mobility study. Uh we had originally uh wanted to use uh safe streets for all funding to to do this work. Um we unfortunately uh given the current administration were uh had to decline that funding. So we are looking for ways to eventually address this. Um as you saw in the kind of annual um report by the police department. Uh there are some significant concerns about pedestrian safety especially along some of our state highways. And so any efforts that we would take would significantly look at those specific um uh stretches of roadway and ideally propose some uh interventions there. So the deadline to submit all this is April 1st. Um so we are pulling this together. Um and so we are asking that uh the council approve the resolution directing us to kind of put in for these five priorities. Um and then we'll be submitting it along with a man uh a letter from the city manager um through an online portal uh that will start their kind of process. So, with all of that, I will take any questions you might have.

Great. Uh, Council Member Dybala.

Yeah. Uh, good evening. Thank you for hanging in. Uh, two quick things. One is maybe there is some information that was presented in the police report, uh, such as crash data that might be useful for the letter. Uh, so you might want to take a look at that. Um, you know, one or two sentences that make the case. Um and secondly on the rehabilitation of Flower and Cav Carol Carroll Avenue intersection. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It really needs to be done. Uh given the history of trying to work on this intersection, I might be a little more comfortable if we added an associated measures because I have visions of of them paying for crosswalk for for handicap ramps and not doing anything else. So, I would feel better if we made that edit. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Dybala. Council member Lanman,

uh, thank you very much for including the Richie Avenue Piney Branch uh, traffic light. I I realize it's a relatively expensive thing and that and and that's why you had to put it on this list and not just rely on jaw bon, but I just want to note that it is actually not one of the bullets on the front on on the resolution itself. I think that change was made after this resolution was initially drafted. So, um the language does not include the Richie Avenue. Uh so please um that's probably something that can be just corrected by using the language that you used in your slide before we leave here this evening without too much trouble. Um and I just wanted to also flag that I think that the the one that is listed here that you did not mention in your talk just now is the evaluation of lowering speed limits along state highways and I would encourage us to make that part of the overall action plan. It seems like it would be um the speed limits would be a component of that.

Yeah. So, so that that might have been an earlier draft that was circulated. Um, over the weekend we we um had to make some changes. So, we only get five. Um, so in order to put in the signalization, we had to drop the evaluation of lower speed limits. Um, it still would be something that we certainly will raise. Um, but in terms of kind of doing this, we know that um that would probably be bolstered by a traffic and safety study. And so in in thinking through kind of this request and this is an annual letter that we can put in for um we we decided to drop that request and put in the signalization at um Piney Branch and Richie and I'll I'll make sure that the updated resolution is um sent around just in case.

Thank you, Council Member Schlaggel. Uh yes, thank you. Um and I had one question about um how this actually becomes actionable. Did you say a year from now their um their consolidated transportation program begins to get underway in terms of construction or other studies happening? And so this is a year-long process leading up to that.

Correct. So, so they're looking essentially this is like a a five a rolling five-year plan. Um and so they are always looking essentially starting if you think about like um they need to have everything buttoned up and squared away for the legislative session. Um and so they are thinking not about this legislative session but next year's legislative session. Um and so it's yeah it's a little bit of like we have to think almost like a couple years down the line with some of this stuff. um because that's just they need time to go in, take in feedback, put it through their process, and then bring it forward to the legislature.

Okay. Thank you. And um obviously I'm pleased about the the idea of extending the New Hampshire Avenue safety piece and and that being tied to the bikeway construction potentially. Um I'll just mention it. I don't know where it would ever fall in terms of negotiations or requests to SHA, but the loss of that lane by the fire station um you know, it's something to continue looking at and to see whether the the work they did uh that led to the loss of the lane might at some point be be um reversed or something. I I don't know whether is that a is that a dead issue. And now I see the city manager shaking his head. Yeah, my my guess is this is the one on Carol Avenue, right?

So, at this point, it's just motorists are making their adjustments and maybe choosing other routes or whatever. Yeah, my they they've spent a lot of time at Carol Avenue and and kind of the the message they have given us is uh for the moment they they want to let things uh play out and and not revisit it until some time has passed. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Hanzac.

Yeah, thank you. Um I just had two two little questions. One is um on the the item that uh Council Member Dala brought up. I know that at that same intersection that Carol and Flower on the opposite on the southwest corner, I I don't know about the other ones, the button is like placed on the wrong side of the pole. Okay. Yes. So I I would either support what council member Dybala suggested or um I I'm going to send you some language just Okay. So um and then secondly I'm uh so this is maybe a curveball you can say placeholder could we talk later off off the dis but I am wondering have we ever considered uh putting into one of our SHA requests something about that northern stretch of Piney Branch um from like the new Arless station is is going to be there from from Piney and Flower down to Siggo Creek where I assume that we might like to see SH HA put some emphasis on either like whatever the long-term vision is for uh bikeways on Piney Branch or uh improved pedestrian something or slowing down traffic on Piney Branch. I'm not sure why the the police I just noticed that the police report that we just received doesn't actually have crash data there and I don't actually think that's reflective of the number of or the lack of crashes. I for some reason I think that may have been accidentally left off maybe because the county tends to respond to those calls

the city limits I think. Well, but it's no different actually than uh University Boulevard in terms of I I don't think it's on the border. Boulevard the the the line is in the middle of University Boulevard. So, um our maybe our police doesn't it is the craziest thing known to man. Um but the city border on University Boulevard is um up to Carol and um just past New Hampshire is kind of in the middle of the New Hampshire but it's closer on our side and that is why the

So do we get crash data on the other side of New Hampshire and University then into our maps because when you go into the interactive the reason I'm asking the interact yeah so that would I mean are we getting it on our maps though when we see these because it is important for for lobbying for SHA support which directly impacts on our well-being and our our pedestrian crashes and all that. I would think it would be I I know it may not a lot of the crash data is also available at the county level. So,

right, that's what I'm talking about. So, when I look at the county crash data, which I happen to have looked at today, and then I was looking at the police, you can see that there are crashes of course all along, you know, Piney Branch in that stretch and and it's a it's been a common complaint among W five residents. I'm I'm sure others too, right? It's not just W five, but but because that's a real fast area that people travel. Um, and there's a lot of pedestrians there and there's going to be a purple line station and it's on our northern edge and yeah, I guess we don't maybe officially take the data there. I I would imagine our police sometimes might might respond right in that cross jurisdictional area as they do on Flower, but I may be wrong. I I won't I don't want to speak to that. I'm just saying the data is important for that. And is that something we would consider because the sidewalk is is I think maybe it's in our borders even if it's on SHA public rightway or shared rightway.

So so we can clarify what what we control in terms of the rightway on Piney Branch. Uh what I can say is we can also uh reach out to the county. I believe they have some plans for Piney Branch and bikeways specifically. That's what I was wondering cuz I haven't seen that portion that I'm talking about. And I mean since we have the Richie uh one that that council member Landman was referencing. It's the same piece of road. Right. Right. They will but it would be in terms of a request and it sounds like it's not a request for this this year's request.

Well, no because I would have brought it forward sooner, but I'm just asking if that's on the radar for for the future. Yeah, we we would want to kind of constrain ourselves to what's within our kind of like city. Yep.

Um but certainly we can have some conversations with the county about what their long-term plans are and and provide those. I believe they have quite a bit planned for the Piney Branch area. I just don't know the status of if it's in early design phase, if it's waiting, you know, they they've designed it, they're just waiting for the purple line. And we can get that information to you. And it may also be helpful um because the county also submits its um uh SHA priority letter. And so um you know it it is a bit of a delicate dance specifically for those um projects that are within the county's jurisdiction. um especially if we have very limited number of ask to use our ask for something that is in the county's domain and they're not asking for it and they're using one of their items. So like you know

yeah the Richie the Richie stop intersection though is is very very similar to

the Richie Well actually it's it's a little Richie is different in that there has already been lots of coordination between the county um and the city on that particular item. So, um, Council Member Stewart, delegate Charudian, um, we have been beating, um, the Purple Line folks over the head about doing something rela over the head about doing something related to a signal, um, at Richie. Um so so that one is a little bit different and the reason why that item is being asked as asked for is because um in a more recent conversation that I've had with Secretary Pines um they have already evaluated Richie um have identified it also as an a problematic area for them. It's a matter of cost. And so if we are able to include it as a priority, as one of our priorities, it gives them a little bit more ump to be able to go and say, "We think this is a really important thing. The city has included it as one of its priorities. General Assembly, give us the money." Um, so so this is one where it's a it's a little bit more because there's been so much back and forth on it. um that it's more of a lobbying piece, not just for us, but also for SHA to get the funding.

Okay. Well, well, thank thank you for allowing me um the indulgence of that. I I wanted to put this into the public um dialogue in front of all my colleagues as well. I think it's a a part of town that uh it it's coming now to a head because the Flower Avenue Bikeway is well on its way. our list station will be up and running soon just like the other crossroads area and I'm eager to see us maybe now and I and I'm in my fourth year and I have SHA stuff moves slow so so I would love to you know start putting this more forcefully and help help get help from my colleagues on how to navigate on that issue. Thank you.

Thank you council member Hanza. Council member Dyala. Yeah, I was thinking more about the junction study and the part uh the the followup that the original junction study did had two parts and part one was the short-term stuff which they did and part two is the long-term stuff which they didn't do. But as I look at this list of priorities and knowing that we can only have five, I am having trouble figuring out what should bump. But I I don't want to lose the thought that we still need to return to the bigger picture and maybe there's another way to get at it with SHA than this priority list. Thank you.

All right. Um well, thank you so much. Um definitely look forward to seeing the revised um resolution. Um but um really appreciate all of the work that staff has been doing. Um not just to identify these top priorities, but in order to identify these types of priorities, um I really think it's important for people at home to know that there's a ton of work. Like you just got a little bit of a window into the amount of work that has to happen before you can even get to the point where you can defend a priority. Um, and so I'm really appreciative of all of the staff work that has gone into all of these initiatives thus far so that we're able to push it forward with SHA. All right, thank you so much. Okay, last item, and I know it's late, so I don't want to belabor the point. Um, so the last um item tonight is the charter amendment resolution. And so, um, because of the weather cancellation, um, of the public hearing that was held on that was supposed to be held on Monday, um, what I've learned, um, in, um, conversations with, um, uh, city clerk Carpenter, and our city attorney is that, um, to have another or a a rain day, so to speak, for the um, for the next public hearing, it would require us to um go through the process of notifications again. So, it would be additional um 20ome days that we would need to do ahead of time and the like. And um so what what came to mind for me was the fact that we have a couple of items on the table that I think it would be

helpful at least for us to um acknowledge these items that have been on the table. I've introduced a new one um as a way for us to determine what is the next step um and whether or not a public hearing is is necessary or not. Um, so just for for folks at home, um, one item on the table, Council Member Dybala um shared a uh a resolution to just kind of put pen to paper on um what would be uh a voting item should the council decide within its authority to um move forward with voting for um for your terms after a that would require a public hearing that would require us to go through the full process. It would also enable a petition. Um and so that that's one item that's on the table. Um the other item that's on the table, Council Member Landman had submitted um a resolution um regarding a referendum. Um so basically um requiring um us to put this on the ballot um making it an advisory item on the ballot um would not require um a public hearing. Um and so that's one item. Um what I have introduced in um a resolution um is for me the issue is I feel like one there is a need for um more time um to have um meaningful exchange with

residents. And while a referendum is a is a good way to um get uh the voter feedback, I am concerned about the impact of people who may not vote and and what their thoughts are. Um so our non US citizens who may because of what's going on in the world just not want to touch um a city election right now. our youth that are not technically old enough this time around to vote um but maybe are looking or were looking for were looking forward to being able to vote in the future and wanting to make sure that we could give ourselves a little bit more time. Um, another concern that I had was the fact that um, even if we were to vote to say to move forward with a referendum item or um, using our authority as a council to push forward for a four-year term starting in say 2028, that still to me wouldn't really get at the core issue that our board of elections has, which is staffing and resources that they need for this election cycle. Um, so I wanted to make sure that we could have a resolve clause that addressed it, that addressed that, gave ourselves more time um to work with the board to do some education, to do some um community outreach um and the like, and then have that information come back to the next council, giving everybody some time, the next council in 2027 in terms of lessons learned. And then from there that council could decide, yes, we want to move forward. We feel like we have enough information and education and everybody kind of understands what's happening um to move forward with um uh a vote for term lengths or vote towards um the the cycle

of the elections or um move forward with a referendum. But it it wouldn't be this rush over the summer into the fall to try to do all of that when we already know that our board of elections um is asking for additional support. Um so that these are the three um options that are on the table. Um I I'm going to pause to see if folks have any initial thoughts. I will say for each item it would be a little different followup. Um if folks are leaning towards um uh the first item um which would be changing the terms that means you know our city clerk would have to go through the process of um revertising and putting forward a um uh uh for a public hearing. If we go forward with the referendum, we would need to work with our board of elections, make sure that we're all in agreement on the language of the referendum, and then also talk about education that would need to start happening over the course of the of the summer into the fall. Um if we deal if we go with the last option then the followup would be with the board of elections around trying to get a better understanding of their um the financial needs that they have. Um that would be in the 27 budget that we would need to vote on. um as well as any thoughts that they have around um education and other um methods that we should consider in terms of outreach over the next year um in order to make sure we're able to get that report um sooner um in terms of lessons learned from the 2026 election that we're able to make sure that we're able to gather information needed for

specifically those target populations and then that the next council will have that information enough time to make any decisions that they need to make um sooner. Um and so with that, I don't know if there are any initial thoughts um around um options and next steps. Council member Hanzach,

I just want to uh thank the mayor for putting this together. I think this is I I think this personally I think this is the best course of action to move us forward um from where we've found ourselves the last several months um there have there have been concerns as all of us know on list serves at least um because folks don't listen to our late night council meetings very much and probably missed also the board of education uh I board of education board of see I'm tired the board of elections having put forward um their report even uh last year. I I don't know that we were able to get that narrative out to the community adequately um and in a timely way for people to be able to focus on the current discussion and and think think about it um at the pace that might have been helpful. So I I think this is a good way forward and um the board of the board of elections actually asked us to do something like this. So, I think this will help us move forward. I might um having not had a chance to fully absorb this, of course, I might like to um make some suggestions with a clearer head um about how whether we've got the right um the best components here to to get at some of their asks, but I think it's the right direction of travel. So,

thank you, Council Member Haz. Council member Lamman. Uh first let me thank you madame mayor for doing this. Um I just want to uh say that with respect to the draft resolution that I had circulated um that would have uh would would call for a um an advisory referendum item on the ballot in 2026 to ask the general public what they think about um changing the uh term lengths. that I offered that as an alternative to the idea that we would actually amend the charter, not because I was enthusiastic about moving forward with doing that, but because I thought that it would at least give the voters a chance to weigh in since that is in the what we've we've done in the past when charter amendments affecting key elements of democratic process about voting has been put to the voters. But I actually think that the approach that you're taking in this draft um which I do want time to review and comment on before it moves forward is actually more in keeping with what the board of elections asked for. Um and that it puts front and center uh addressing the concerns that they have about the upcoming election. And to me that was the emergency or the if there's an emergency the more critical priority to address right now. And so taking a little bit of the pressure off the question of the term lengths and focusing on the immediacy of the need to meet election um kind of uh procedural needs is uh a better approach. I do think um that their their solution that they proposed kind of like what to do in in in the event of how difficult this is which was to put it back on oddnumbered years and stay away from the um the years that uh where there's the joint pressure of the two sets of elections. We have rejected that idea I think handily there seemed to be unanimity on that. So that just makes it all the more important that we address our other

concerns. So I would you know if it if it's useful uh if we move forward in this way I would happily withdraw my proposed uh resolution because that it served its purpose if it if it uh created an alternative that is more putting forward the needs of the election board as a priority. Thank you.

Thank you very much Council Member Schlaggel. Um I I have appreciated the discussion that um Council Member Dybala's proposal has engendered in the last several weeks and I think it's been very helpful to in um uh casting a spotlight on underlying issues of like sustainability for the council, challenges for new members. Um and so there's definitely work for us as a council or the the next council to be doing in terms of um thinking about how this priority we have of engagement. Part of engagement is having people who are so engaged that they're familiar enough with city processes that they're ready to stand for election and and step in and serve well. And so that that wouldn't be a board of educa board of educa uh elections issue themselves. Board of education maybe. Uh so I I am I am um pleased with the idea of the third resolution. Um it's my first time seeing it. So I um I um the fourth whereas I just wanted to comment that um it wasn't clear on page 22 in the report whether they were they were identifying that medium priority as them doing some evaluation of election cycles and term lengths or whether they were asking the council to evaluate that because then at the end of the at the end of the report in appendix six there's a little bit of a discrepancy. Appendix six, um, it calls, it has summary of critical priorities, immediate action. It's on page 36. And in in their immediate action required, as well as medium-term planning, and ongoing monitoring, they do not mention

any any call for doing anything about term lengths. So, there certainly are lots of other things that they were asking for us to do sooner.

Yeah. And um and I appreciate that point and and just for everyone's notice like I just need to know whether or not we if if we're not going to go down the path of needing to to schedule a a public hearing um or deal with a referendum then it that's awesome. We would have time to go through and words smmith run this by the board of elections have another work session to make sure we're all on the same page in terms of the final language in the resolution. and then move forward with the vote. Um because I I saw that as well. I saw that that wasn't included in the appendix, but in the main body of the report, um they did did note it. And council member Landman, to your point in in the board of elections, their last set of meeting notes, um it seemed as if they also were not willing to take it to the odd year, but maybe consider moving it earlier in the year so it's not an alignment. I mean, it's like in the spring versus putting it at the same time. I think we as a council um have said, "Hey, we really want it to be um during

at the same time

at the same time um and but we also recognize that it is it may be a little bit more labor intensive. So I kept the um the cycle in the resolves because I I I I wanted them to at least be able to say, "Hey, we've we've gotten this extra support. We've ran the 2026 elections. We've done our report. Great. We have learned that if you just shell out a little extra money, we're fine with having it happen at the same time as the federal and the state elections. Or they could come back and say, you know what, you've shelled out some extra money and it's still not fine. Right? So, I I wanted to kind of still leave that window open for them to come back with a recommendation like that. Um but we can and I did talk to um uh to to Jesse about this as well that if this is um seems more in line with where the council would like us to kind of finalize um then we will follow up with the board of elections and have them take a look and make sure that there's some points that if needed to be clarified and if we need to get some cost estimates particularly for the 2027 budget for us um then that would be really helpful and a good way for us to move forward. And of course, I know it's late. Um, edits are welcome. I I I just sprung it on everybody because I just wanted to get what was in my brain in terms of what I felt like the concerns were on paper. Um, and so if you take a look and you see some things that are a little off or you would like to to edit, please just feel free to send me those edits. So, I just want to make sure I'm clear. So, it sounds like um folks are leaning towards uh the the option um that I've put

forward and um then that way we can move forward from there. Um and um then move forward with this next option and not have to um move forward with a referendum or um a public hearing on on changing the terms right now. Could I just thank the National Weather Service for their extremely bad uh forecasting that gave us the opportunity to rethink this in the way that you that you have done, Madame Mayor? No worries. I I think we're good. Council member Dala.

Yeah. Um I I think this makes sense. Uh it it's not feasible to do the process that we need to do and still um and still make a make a short-term change in election um in timing. And as we discussed last week, 2028 has a lot of merit anyway. Um, so I'm I I think this is a a good a good way to proceed. Um, I would like to see a little bit more and hear about the kinds of questions we still need to answer related to that we would like them to address related to um election uh related related to turn term lengths. Um we but that can be flushed out later. Um I I think that's all I have right now. Yeah.

Great. Thank you, Council Member Davala. And and I just want to thank you so much for for bringing for raising the issue. Yeah. Um sorry. So close.

It's late. It's late. Um and I even wrote it down. See right there. Um the other the other part, so there were two reasons why I brought it up in the first place. And one is is the concern about elections. And there is also the concern about uh council members being as effective as possible in representing their their um their uh res representing our our our our constituents. And in both cases, there are other solutions. They cost money and they take time. And I'm fine with pursuing other solutions, but I don't want to lose those e those two problems that need to be addressed. Thank you. Thank you.

Uh, Council Member Mahazak.

Yeah. I just I I Well, no, I think it's just important that on the closing note, if I happen to be the last one, that um that we keep center of mind that this is going to cost us money. Okay? I mean, I we I just don't want us to disagree later. This is going to cost us some money, like a substantial amount. we must support because appendix six at the very top has only one critical item and it's a staffing issue a volunteer and staffing and we also haven't solved and aren't planning to it sounds like because we don't have any great ideas for it and we're not willing to go there to move the cycle to a different time. So, we're going to be competing for election workers. Jesse's um team has been taxed heavily. We're going to need to figure out how to help her not be struggling. the election the board of elections team has said you got to do this before the next election. So I hope they will agree that money will go pretty far to solving the problems but um but we're not only going to need to do money for that but this in in its current redition will require some money for education and engagement will require um money then moving into the next year. And then one more thing that I want to flag as a sort of a warning even though I'm supporting this is that last last election uh it it it was they were so overstretched the team that they they weren't able to produce the report until about a year after the election was finished. So if for example we want this stuff to all happen um you know like next summer not this summer but the next summer then that would fall within the time period that last time they were still working on their report. So again, money, money, money. Um, and just we need to prepare. We need to start preparing the narratives for residents. And I ask for my colleagues to help with that to

prepare people to say, "Hey, we got to put our money where our mouths are if we don't support moving forward with a council referendum right now, then we need to be ready to put a fair amount of money behind it. Thanks. Thank you, Council Member Hanzac. Council Member Wesler.

Thank you. Um, and I'll keep it short and and closing minded. Um, I just I I just wanted to say thank you, Mayor Cersi, for putting together this proposal. I I agree with my colleagues. I think it makes the most sense of how we can move forward. Um, and I I really wanted to publicly thank Council Member Dybala. She put so much work into this and with so much good intention. Um, and I think it's a bit unfortunate. I think that the public perception got kind of warped on that in certain ways. So, and I know that she's kind of taken a lot of the the heat on that. Um, which I don't think is deserved. So, I just wanted to thank her for trying trying out this thing that could have been unpopular and we heard ways that people weren't into it. um but keeping uh try trying to make change that you thought would be better for the city. So, thank you.

Thank you very much, Council Member Dal. All right. And y'all, we we we made it before midnight. Hot dog. Everyone have a fantastic night. All right. The only