County Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, let's go ahead and get started. We'll go ahead and stand, please, and we'll say the prayer and the congratulation of the flag.

Heavenly Father, we just begin today by coming to you in thanks. We thank you for all of your blessings upon Talbot County. Thank you for your wisdom for this council. Thank you for your love, your grace, your mercy on our citizens. Father, thank you for our country as we appropriate. As we begin to celebrate here our 250th anniversary of your country here, we certainly appreciate you keeping everyone safe. We hope for wonderful times with friends and family across the county, across the state, and across our nation, Father. We appreciate everything and all that you are and all that you do, and we also appreciate this rain for our farmers and our harvest here over this past week. In Jesus' most precious and holy name we pray. Amen.

OK well, thanks for everybody coming this evening. So we'll go ahead and start off with the agenda is before us. Is there any additions, deletions, or corrections to the agenda council?

No.

OK. Hearing none, the agenda is accepted as unanimous consent. Next is the minutes of May 12th, May 26th, and June 9th. We've taken a look at those. Are there any additions, deletions, or corrections to the minutes, council? Okay. Hearing none, it's accepted as unanimous consent. Next would be the disbursements of June 16 23rd and the 30th. We've had time to take a look at that any additions deletions corrections to be dispersed with Council. OK hearing none. The chair moves that that disperses big except as unanimous consent. OK. All right, starting off tonight on the first on the agenda is an update of Maryland Environmental Services. Tim, you want to come on up? Yep.

Where's my clock? Right there.

OK. No, Gary likes to talk a lot. That's all right. All right.

All right. Modern wonders. Well, thank you all for the opportunity to address the council once again. It's been six months now? Six months since the last one?

Maybe a hair longer.

We missed you. We missed you. Can you hear me? No, you don't. Nobody loves my voice. There you go. We can move on to the next one. So we're into the new fiscal year. And once again, like most of things in this world, we do have an increase to talk about. So our gate fees are going up. In FY27, trash will be 74.50 a ton. That includes the recycling surcharge of $5. So that $5 is what pays for the, we'll call it MERP, but the recycling program. Unlike the midshore agreement that we have with y'all, for the trash operations, the recycling operation is still a county partnership, four county partnership, and we're just the operator for that. But we do collect a surcharge to help pay for the cost to administer that, and that's that $5 a ton. Brushes at $49.50 a ton, and that includes a surcharge of $2.50. And then we had talked when we last met about a sewage sludge surcharge at $5 a ton. We backed way off of that from what we originally proposed. Thank you, Clay. It was your concern on the impacts that would have to the county, and we listened. And then mattresses are at $30 each. So that is new. At the transfer station here, that's $85.50 a ton. Brush would be $60.50 a ton. And at the homeowner drop-off, $5 for single-use fee, $10 punch cards, and $20 punch cards for 10 trips. So that is unchanged, correct, Gary? Correct. Yeah.

So go ahead, Gary. All right, sure. These are just some recent statistics on the transfer station in Easton. As you can see, over the last year, we've taken in about 42,000 tons of trash there and about a little over 4,000 tons of brush, both beating on a rolling 12-month basis, beating what we had budgeted for FY26, this fiscal year ending today. and our projection for the end of the fiscal year also beats those budgeted tonnages you can see we had a little bit of a slowdown in the third quarter which would have been january through march as you all well know we had several weather events that quarter and in fact a couple of closures of the transfer station which is a rarity over the past you know five to ten years really And then, you know, scale house transactions and homeowner drop-off visits, they kind of trend just like the trash and brush that we have coming inbound. And, you know, the scale house transactions there of almost 40,000, it just shows you how busy of a place that transfer station is. And then just quickly this this graph kind of shows the seasonality of the waste that we get in at the transfer station. Generally, we are slower in the winter, kind of that November through March time frame and much busier through the summer. And and this depicts that. And then if you look at the the bar graphs all the way on the right for each of these quarters, which are in blue, you can see that we We've had a really good rolling 12 months here, beating most of the prior periods over the last seven or eight years.

All righty. One thing I did want to bring up about the fees. I mean, we are cognizant of the fact that those fees impact your residents. They get passed along to your residents, but through the private haulers. We also know that businesses have to pay that fee. So we want to be competitive. And those rates are very competitive in the marketplace. We're not higher than anyone else in the region. In fact, if you look on the Western Shore, the price per ton over there is about $125 a ton. And we do our best to remain competitive. recognizing that that impacts businesses and residents in the county. With that said, we are in the middle or finished up actually, construction of cell five. This is all part of the agreement to extend the landfill and the construction schedule and part of the bond funding we talked about last time. This is part of that project. We only have one more cell to build and we'll start the planning on that in about a year. Go Gary, you can jump on that that slide.

Not sure that I can go back on this one is fine.

Alright, so jumping over to the Mitchell Regional recycling program, which Tim mentioned earlier. Again, this this program is one you know that really the hallmark of it is our resident drop off recycling program where we have all these locations distributed through the four counties that residents can come and deliver their source separated recyclables. We send trucks around daily over hundreds of miles a day to pick these recyclables up. That program is primarily funded through that surcharge that Tim talked about earlier of $5 per ton for trash, $2.50 per ton for brush. But the balance of it is made up through the sale of those commodities that we collect. And that really drives, the value that we get out of these commodities drives what that surcharge will be, whether it be $5 a ton or perhaps more. So we market the commodities, try to get the best prices for them, try to deliver them to local markets like Creafell and Chestertown, things like that. This chart is just a display of our monthly commodity revenue for that program over the last approximately six years. And you can see, if you just compare kind of FY20, FY21 to where we're at now, we're doing quite a bit better. And that's really, Primarily, the revenue's primarily been buoyed by our metal and plastic products. Although those have kind of come down over the last two years, we're still seeing better plastic prices than we did five or six years ago. And again, that allows this program to remain solvent, generate a surplus with a surcharge of only $5 a ton.

And this is generated by commodity prices, not by volume?

Correct the volume. That's that's a great point. Councilman, the volume for this program is pretty flat. It's been pretty flat for 5 to 10 years. We collect about 3000 tons a year, 303300 tons a year. So this is really the only variable play here is the commodity prices.

Aluminum cans and in plastic bottle will be in abundance this weekend. Yeah.

All right. And just with that program, we were working with Ray and Josh and the folks here within the county to service the St. Michael's Market site so that we can kind of continue to keep materials moving through there and also look at kind of potentially reconfiguring that site on behalf of the owners there. And just to note, there is a new resident recycling drop-off location in Centerville that is now up and running.

That's it? That's it. Okay. Sorry, we're a little bit over on time. It's fine.

You're good. You're good. You didn't call the team anymore.

Any questions, council?

No, very thorough report.

Okay, guys. Well, good job. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Go ahead. Mr. Council President, I'd just like to thank the two of them for your cooperation. You do an outstanding job for the partnership between the counties with our effort, and we certainly appreciate it. Thank you.

And we love having you as a client.

Thank you, guys. OK next on the agenda is update on the airport. How are you guys doing?

Good evening, Council. Good. Get our presentation up here. Take that. I'm Mike Arisher. I'm your airport manager. I brought along reinforcements today. Okay. This is Jeff Langford, our business manager.

Nice. And it'll be your PowerPoint presentation opener as well.

Hey, do I need to discuss the clock with you? How much time do we have?

We're going to keep it moving. I'll let you know. Okay. All right. All right, so Council, again, Michael Risher, your airport manager, thank you for having us out. We have an exciting update, lots going on. If anybody's driven past the airport within the last three years, you can definitely see that things are changing out there. Start with the goals of what we're doing, increasing safety, modernizing our systems, integrate technologies, achieve environmental benefits, and really ensure the future of aviation in Talbot County for the next 100 years and beyond. We're building the airport that meets our needs for today and tomorrow. We're currently in our third year of major construction. We are finishing up package two, which was the demo of the former Black & Decker in the business center area. That site is coming up to final grade. Package three is underway, just finishing up that. That is a major electrical system upgrade and we are preparing to build the new runway within the next 12 months and I'll talk a little bit about that towards the end. But we figured we'd make this very visual for folks to kind of get a bird's eye view of what's going on out there. That's the former business center site that you're looking at, looking to the southwest down the parkway. You can see the new stream relocation that enters the property on the left. meanders through and it'll exit via what's currently the pond out to the west. That area is essentially gonna be green space. It's gonna be beautified with some shrubbery and things of that nature. That's the safety area that we've always talked about, so that's what you see coming into picture there. Another photo of the stream. As you can see, meandering along the parkway there. And like I said, that'll be beautified once it's all said and done. This is a great picture. This kind of shows you the current approach end of runway four looking back towards the town of Easton. You can kind of see everything taking shape there. You can see the service roads that were installed and they'll remain. You can actually see kind of running down the middle the electrical infrastructure that's been installed. Everything is, all the conduits been run for the existing airfield configuration and the future airfield configuration. And everything as of today is actually being powered off of our new electrical vault as well. Nice higher altitude picture of the airport. This is looking a little towards the east. You can see the 15N. You can really see the work that we did on 1533 this spring. We put a million dollars of rehab, repaint. We filled all the cracks. We seal coated it for 1533. We also did a little bit of work to the Alpha Bravo intersection. You can see all of the infrastructure work. You can see the scale. of where everything was installed over the spring for the major electrical infrastructure. And the reason we put so much focus on the rehab of 1533 is in expectation of the closure of the big runway next year for probably at least four months. So the smaller runway will have all the traffic for the majority of that timeframe. It's a picture you can see of our control tower. And to the right of it is that new electric vault that I keep talking about. Like I said, everything is now transitioned to run out of that new electric vault. And that is hardwired with fiber to the air traffic control tower. So they literally have direct control to turn all the lighting systems on and off at the airport. Just another view of it being co-located. And that vault, we definitely built it to meet the need for whatever technology changes over the next 100 years. And this is just an example of the scale of the work that was done this spring. And really, we didn't have too many disruptions. We only had four days of total airport closure, and our large runway, 422, was only closed a handful of days. And we accomplished this with working directly with the contractor to cordon off areas and allow access for them to get in there and keep the project moving, but also keep the aircraft moving as well. And with that being said, I don't have the final total on our fuel sales. Today is the last day of our fiscal year. But if everything held steady, this was our fourth highest year ever of fuel sales. So even with the economy, with some challenges, and through the construction, we still set a record for fuel sales. In our modernization program, this is kind of like looking forward. What are we going to do next? We actually just submitted grant applications today for a $7.4 million total project cost. $6.7 million of that's coming from the FAA, so they're covering 95%. MAA matches 2.5%. The airport pays 2.5% of the hard costs. And we pay 5% of all construction administration. All that funding has been included in the fiscal 27 budget that goes into effect tomorrow. We actually put $1,450,000 set aside in there for the project this year. And currently, our share of what we applied for today is not even $200,000. So we potentially put extra money in there for flexibility. There will be things that come up that we have to move quickly on to purchase and we'll need that money in the budget to do that. The asphalt index being one, you know, construction costs or, you know, we need that flexibility to move quickly to keep the project moving. And we did also receive favorable news on our congressional community project funding. Approximately $3 million is being earmarked and it's moving its way through their appropriations process and we should hear about that in the next federal fiscal year. Again, if you look at that, approximately $7.4 million we're about to receive from FAA by the end of this fiscal year, and that $3 million earmark hopefully over the winter, and then we'll be here in the spring submitting the next batch. So a lot's about to happen out there. Mr. Richard?

Yes, sir. How does that community project funding, is this for projects that weren't otherwise in the airport modernization program? Or does it take the place of what we would have had to get through grants from FAA and MAA?

So it'll supplement the modernization program. So essentially, what we did was submit the scale of what the existing need was. We had approximately $26 million of work outstanding to get us through our major milestone. Knowing that the FAA really could only come up with seven or eight million a year, they suggested that we submit through the congressional program as well to identify the entire need to Congress. And I'm happy to say that the entire congressional delegation from the state of Maryland, both the Senate and the House, supported it and ran it up their perspective change and are supporting the extra money.

So that effectively accelerates the- Yes, sir. Modernization program.

Yes, sir. That's exactly right. And the last slide there that I'll talk about, you can really start to see the new airfield configuration starting to come into shape. You can see the former business center site is down to the bottom right. And you can see the only thing we're missing in there is that new runway in those green field areas. So we're really excited about it. Like I said, third year of construction. A lot of work has gone into it. And we're getting close. Like I said, we're 12 months away from putting asphalt down. And fingers crossed, the way it's looking, we're about 18 months away from opening that new runway. So after 20-some years, we're almost to the finish line. I'll take any questions you have on the project before I turn it over to Jeff to talk about some other cool stuff we're doing.

On that picture there, how far this way does the runway come?

Okay, so if you look at that picture there, and you can kind of see where the grading is for the old Black & Decker site. Yep. Yeah, Jeff had it right. Right, just in there. Yeah, so the actual runway and the parallel taxiway alpha, it really fills in that grass area. I got you. Yeah, it's a 1,900-foot shift to the southwest. And then, of course, up at the north end, the north end of the runway will be removed back down to Taxiway Echo, which is the first taxiway down. So I always say it's a shift down to the southwest. Yep. Thank you.

Mike, one more question. So I know there's a bunch of crushed concrete from old Black & Decker site there. Do we have all the material we need for the fill for the runway on site already, or are we expecting more traffic?

So we'll need more, but we're going to use everything you see on the old Black & Decker. And we've been stockpiling some other material. Where's that new stockpile? Yeah, it's up there. just beyond the mistletoe. But all of that crushed concrete is going to go to actually build taxiway alpha. The FAA requires a higher quality of stone and concrete underneath the runway surface. But it's all going to be used for taxiway alpha and topping off those service roads. So basically, everything we did recycle from the old Black & Decker is being used on the existing airfield. Good questions. Thank you. Now, we actually gave a version of this presentation at our board meeting a couple months ago, and Ms. Mielke pointed out, you know, this is good information. We should put it out there for everybody. And I agree. So I want to turn it over to our business manager, Jeff Langford. He really runs point on a lot of cool stuff we do with community outreach and education. And I'm amazed every month when we sit down and look at, you know, the impact that Eastern Airport is having in the community. So I wanted to have Jeff talk for a few minutes. Thank you, Micah.

Kudos to you. That was a brief rundown. When we were at the Eastern Village in March, that took about two hours. Thrilling stuff. They were really captivated. But that's just an example of all the different events that Micah and myself attend to spread the gospel, to tell a good word about the airport, the history. the project. You can see we attended as exhibitors the NBAA's Schedulers and Dispatchers Conference just a few months ago. I had the honor of being a panelist at the Maryland Regional Aviation Conference in Ocean City. The topic was hosting events at airports. And then we've also been a part of several of the career fairs around Talbot County. You can see students were taking advantage of our mobile flight simulator, having a good time trying to land at the airport. So you can fly over the bypass, you can see the lows, and you can make your approach. It was really fun for them to have to experience that. So we're really proud of getting out there in the community to do these things. We were also really excited to announce that we've used online services, remaining the the standard bearer in the Maryland aviation community when it comes to being a presence online. We have a new reporting hotline that if there's issues at the airport after hours, you can call that number. You can submit your information online. We will receive those in our inboxes that moment, and we will get back to you within the next business day. That's great for pilots. It's great for folks at the airport. It's great for folks in the community that maybe have noticed something, they have a concern. They can call that number or go online to that hotline. It's a resource that we identified that sometimes we're not there at midnight, for example. But we'll get that message at 6 AM, and we'll address it right away. Gate access requests are also online now. We can take that information. It actually involves a small training for folks to sit through. There's a quiz. If you don't answer the quiz correctly, you've got to do it again. So again, just trying to get that out there to the community, make them aware of it, and make them participate in that process. then even our hanger wait list is now an online intake form several improvements to our public spaces and several communications via newsletter and social media and on this slide here i did include some statistics that i'm very proud of you can see our webpage this was an early june uh over 15 000 total page views that's a big number what does that mean um Every user that comes to the page is interacting with about two pages per visit, which means they're not just going to the page and clicking back out immediately, they're actually engaging with the content and getting more information, which is right there at the industry standard of 1.5 to 1.8. Social media, we've had 63,000 content viewers this year. Our view rate, as you can see, is 4.92%, which is above industry standard. And that metric is important because it's not just pictures that are being put out to the community that people are liking and moving on. They're actually visiting the page. They're coming for more information. They're engaging with us again. Very proud of those efforts and then last but not least is our newsletters and our text messaging. This is our snow Closures, this is our construction notices over 1,100 subscribers 46,000 messages sent this year and almost half of those messages were actually open which is actually a huge metric for us because that's not the norm the norm is barely a quarter of messages open so again We're active sending the message, but also thank you to the community for actually receiving the message and participating in the process as well. Shifting now to the Aviation Career Education Fund. We're very proud of our efforts here. As a reminder, this is provided to local students where they can learn about aviation career pathways, which include piloting, maintenance, air traffic control, and more. And you can see we invite the public to come participate. We interact with the local students. We connect them to resources, and we launch workforce development. And what do I mean by workforce development and regional economic impact? The numbers speak for themselves. Maryland benefits from airports. You can see the state numbers right here, but Easton Airport itself contributes over $90 million in business revenue, 542 jobs attributed to the airport. Soaring business revenues lead to employment and job creation, boost personal income, increases tax contribution. And these numbers are provided as an independent study from M.MAA. And you can see every year they've done the study, the numbers go up. So we are a big driver for workforce development, but that only works if we get the next generation involved. So you can see our ACE Center is a big part of that. It features seminars. It's guest speakers. We have model aircraft photos, archives, resources, you name it. And the space itself is very flexible. You can see we did a community food packing event this year. We have held several field trips, seminars, Radio Engines 101, and we have a very robust flight simulator and ATC experience. One of the programs we're championing with FAA is the Airport Design Challenge. Students can take Minecraft and build an airport. So if a student in Talbot County wants to do that, we'll help with local resources to do so. And we challenge them to do that. It's a great resume builder. Just in a couple weeks, we're going to have our summer learning activities. Students can join us for free, ages 12 to 16. We have activity one is aircraft characteristics, cams and cranks is activity two, and they'll even build and launch a model rocket. We appreciate Civil Air Patrol for running these for us and providing their expertise to educate the kids. Really quickly, some other highlights here. We mentioned and we have done numerous tours, field trips, and career fairs. Our goal was to increase that. Where is the F-104? Big question. It's not at the terminal right now. It is now down by the tower awaiting its final home, which will be a major component of our field trips. And there's actually a restoration effort happening, volunteer-driven. New tires have been put on. Struts are going to be taken care of soon and a fresh paint job. I have aspirations to have Santa visit the airport and get in the cockpit because if you're from Taubet County, you'll remember about a decade ago, Santa ran into that plane on St. Michael's Road. So we're going to bring him back in there. We're going to recreate it. I don't know. We're going to try and make it more safe this time. He's not going to run into it this time. But more on that. And then really proud of this one. Through the ACE Fund, we were actually able to help by getting the students that have come to the airport for field trips from St. Michael's and Easton High School to the Air and Space Museum in D.C. to tell that broader story. Yes, the jobs are in Talbot County, and we have everything here, but if you go to D.C. and you see NASA and you see the bigger aircraft, you can really connect that dot that these jobs are in high demand. They're really, really cool, and you can do it as well. And last but not least are Discovery flights. Since 2024, we've done over 25 of these flights. This young man's name is Tyler. He came to an event. His mom reached out to us. He did some tours. But essentially what we did with our local flight school is he went up for a 30-minute flight, which included a 30-minute pre-flight ground school. There's a really unique video that his mom put together on our website that shows the entire event. As it says right here, sometimes the first flight is all it takes to inspire lifelong interest in aviation. And also a shout out to the 99 women's flight organization. They've done something similar two years now at the airport where they've invited women to go flying for their first flight to try and encourage them to become pilots. so that's that's the that's the the big picture of everything we do there but like i said about every week we're doing something to get the word out to the community and so i appreciate the community joining us and appreciate your time yeah hearing about it that sounds great all right thank you good good good

Well, I really appreciate the connection with the future generation and the workforce and the community outreach. That is very important to growing our next generation that's interested in either being a pilot or in aviation. So kudos to all that you're doing. And I love the slides with the economic impact as well. So thank you for all that you do and continue to keep up the good work.

Thank you. We appreciate that.

I second that. Also, I wanted to give you kudos for handling that emergency yesterday.

Oh, thank you.

Well done.

It's always something, but, you know, it was, again, a team effort like everything else at the airport. We had several businesses spring into action. It was a small, you know, single-engine aircraft that caught on fire on the ramp, part of the powered flight program. They hit it with extinguishers, pushed it back out of the way, and we let the Eastern volunteers come in and, you know, mop it up. So... Nobody was injured is the important thing.

Well done. Well done.

Thank you. Thanks a lot, guys. Thank you. Thank you, council. Thank you for your support. OK. Thank you. OK. Moving on. Next on the agenda is introduction of legislation. Madam Secretary, when you get straight, could you go ahead and read that to the record, please?

A bill to amend Chapter 190, Zoning Subdivision and Land Development of the Talbot County Code for the purposes of authorizing the planning director to grant a waiver from the requirements of 190.61.2c for a bona fide non-profit entity subject to certain conditions and amending the criteria for evaluation of waiver applications.

How's it going?

Good afternoon, Council. Thank you. With me here is Elisa DeFlo, Planning and Zoning, Bryce Yelton, Planning and Zoning. Elisa, you want to introduce it?

Yes. This is a text amendment to allow for the Planning Director with the Planning Commission recommendation to waive the surety cash bond associated with developer agreements. And we're here to answer any questions.

Just one. Looking at the text change, the first one in section 62C2 that simply allows the planning director this discretion, that's clear.

The one in the second change in Section 62.4 is a little bit more opaque for those of us who are not planning professionals. Can you explain why that part is necessary? Because the types of things that we're getting out of look like desirable things. We don't want the waiver to have the effect of nullifying the intent and purposes of the chapter, et cetera. We don't want it to be detrimental to public health, safety, welfare, or injurious to other property.

Are you speaking specifically to section 61.2 in the code, or specifically to 5?

I'm looking at 62.4, criteria for evaluation of waiver application.

i think i can clarify that um that was really intended to just clarify with these criteria it wasn't clear whether one or all of them would apply to a given any given project so this language was just proposed to clarify that one or more is applicable would have to be considered because it may not not all of these may apply in every instance i mean obviously some of them Some of them will, but not all of them.

Okay. And so if any one of them applies, the waiver is not granted? Is that the way it is?

So it sets forth the criteria that the planning commissioner and the planning director have to consider when reviewing the request for a waiver. I see. And just clarifying that one or more is applicable as opposed to all or one. Okay.

Okay. So this in and of itself is not really related to the first change? This is simply a cleaning up? It's more of a clarification. Okay. Thank you.

Okay.

Do we need any other questions, counsel? Nope. So introduce us, raise your hands.

Introduced by counsel.

Okay.

This will be known as bill number 1651, and the public hearing will be held on Tuesday, July 28 at 5.30 PM.

OK. Thank you, guys. Thank you.

We're also next on the agenda. I don't know if you want to stick around.

OK. So yep, we're in good shape to go ahead and start the public hearing. Madam Secretary, could you go ahead and read Bill 1627 into the record, please?

Bill number 1627, a bill to amend Chapter 190, Zoning Subdivision and Land Development of the Talbot County Code for the purpose of providing for the partial or complete release of a reserve land agreement or a reservation of development rights agreement if the parcel is subject to an option contract with the State of Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation, MALF, subject to certain conditions.

Okay. Council, thank you. I know we're here for the public hearing and we'll step aside in just a second. Just wanted to say that we're here if the council has any questions. This is the second time that this has been here before. I do also want to say that the applicant's attorney is in the room and hope that he'll speak on this application and hear if you have any questions.

OK, good. Just one. The question I'd asked before, and I just want to clarify whether this has changed or it doesn't appear to have changed this part, the applicant received a benefit by getting a subdivision for which they then granted the reserved lands agreement. They don't have to give that benefit up in order for us to pay them to protect property now that's already protected from further subdivision. Is that correct?

That's correct. So the reason for the reserve land agreement was because of the density calculations in our zoning districts. And so the applicant previously had subdivided their lot, which then necessitated the set aside reserve land that was done through the reserve land agreement. And so the mouth agreements in the past, when people have gone for mouth easements, The state has not required that those be extinguished in order to pay out for the full amount of the acreage. That policy recently has changed. And so I think we've got examples of other malfeasance in the past that have actually been granted over existing reserve land agreements. The county is that is held and still holds that policy is unfortunately changed from the state. So now they are requiring us to release this one. think with this change it only stipulates from the Planning Commission that it's only a specific date range this is the only application that we currently have that fits that range and so that that's all that we would say on the application thank you

Okay at this time I'll go ahead and open up to the the the public hearing. If anybody wants to come up 3 minutes for individual 5 minutes if you represent an organization so anybody here over here to my left want to come on up and talk about it. 1627. Anybody over to the right, yeah.

Good evening Council, thank you for the record. Zach Smith on behalf of Robert and Althea Doolin, a local Talbot County farm family. They have their own farm on Church Lane in Cordova. We are the ones that requested this amendment, this text amendment, and so we're here tonight asking for the Council to support Bill 1627. And so for the Doolins, you know, this story really begins in 2017 when they wanted to provide a building lot for their daughter and her family from their farm. So they created, through a subdivision process, a small parcel that they could then give to their daughter and her family to build a home, which they did. And to be clear, no money changed hands. This was an absolute gift, just something that farm families often do to keep their children home at the farm and to provide for them. and so that all went well and then fast forward to 2024 the dual is applied for a malfeasance intending to subject their entire property their entire farm to a preservation program and so through that it was clear to the dual ends that you know they wouldn't be the the land around their home would not be eligible and certainly their daughter's lot would not be eligible but all of their remaining farm would be eligible for the program, including the land that was subjected to the reserve lands agreement as part of the 2017 subdivision process. And so based on those assurances and in reliance on those assurances, they prepared their application and submitted their bid based on their entire acreage, which the county staff at the time indicated that was correct and appropriate and that it was all eligible. And in fact, even the state confirmed the same. That bid was ultimately accepted and approved. And as they moved through the process, at some point, the state notified the Doolins that there had been a policy change at the state level and that the land that was subjected to the reserve lands agreement was no longer eligible. And I think the state was sympathetic because of this predicament that the Doolins were in. They were sort of caught in the middle of it. And they encouraged the Doolins to come back to the county and try to work with the county to release that reserve lands agreement. and so based on that we met with mr charlton and mr thomas and i think they too were sympathetic and supportive but it was clear that the current code as it's written doesn't allow the county to release under those circumstances and so for that reason we prepared this amendment that if approved would simply authorize the council to consider a request to release a reserve lands agreement under those very limited circumstances so if it is approved we would then come forward with with such a request and hope that the council would grant it I think it's important to note that, you know, I think we have the support of the county staff, but also the unanimous support of both the Ag Preservation Board, the county's Ag Preservation Board, and the Planning Commission. And also this amendment was supported at both of those prior public meetings by the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy. So we think there's a lot of support for this, and we would ask the council to support it as well and to approve Bill 1627. Thank you. Thank you.

OK anybody else would like to come up and talk about 1627. At this time, I'll go ahead and keep the public hearing open on this and we'll go ahead and this will be eligible for vote. The the 14th of July. OK next on the agenda, madam secretary. Bill 1626.

Bill number 1626, a bill to amend chapter 190, zoning subdivision and land development of the Talbot County Code for the purpose of exempting corporate flags from the signed permit requirements and other requirements set forth in section 190-42 of the county code subject to certain conditions.

Council again, thank you. Bryce Yelton, Lisa DeFlo, Talbot County Planning and Zoning. We're here today. Is this eligible for vote? Just answer any questions. I know this has been reviewed by the council before. Again, this is essentially just an exemption in our current code. The way that our code currently treats anything that advertises your business or industrial use on your site, it considers them part of our sign ordinance, whether they're traditionally thought of as a sign or not. That's an issue when it comes to corporate flags, things that might advertise things that coincide with your business. And so that's what this seeks to address. The maximum amount, essentially, would be a 40 square foot flag. That could be something like an 8 by 5 foot flag. And it requires that it can't be flown more than 30 feet in the air. I'll hear if you have any questions.

OK. Any questions, counsel?

Mr. Yellen, would you like to address the amendment and its origins in the discussion from the Planning Commission?

Did you have any of the planning commission notes, Alisa? I think generally this comes from the IFROG customer. This was submitted by them. This is not a council or planning commission or planning director related tax amendments. This is from one of the applicants. I think the reason for wanting to do this was that they had had a Signed for one of their nonprofits that they like to fly on one of their properties in the county When they came in for a pre app and when we had determined that this was a sign they were looking essentially for relief of that and so this was what they come up with to essentially to allow for things like charitable flags, but also Stuff that relates to your business name trademarks and logos. And so that's that's really the reason that they submitted this Okay Council any any other questions

Yep.

No questions. I guess at this time, Madam Secretary.

So we do have an amendment that was introduced.

Yes. So at the group, per the direction of Vice President Lesher at our last meeting, I did prepare an amendment which further clarifies that the size limit, despite what the size limits say, the flags can't be any larger than the governmental flags flown. So, for example, I think it's I think that states the maximum area of any corporate flag is 40 square feet, and that the amendment would clarify or the square footage of the largest government flag flown on the property, whichever is less. So it wouldn't be any larger than 40 square feet. But if the governmental flag was, say, 30 square feet, then the corporate flag would have to be the same size or less.

Is that something we need to vote on first, the amendment? Yes. Okay.

So we need to be introduced and voted upon before acting on the bill.

You can answer for a show of hands to introduce.

Introduce.

Introduced by counsel. Then you can call the vote on the amendment first.

Yeah, right. Call the vote on the amendment, Madam Secretary.

Mr. Callahan?

Aye.

Mr. Stepp? Aye. Mr. Lesher? Aye. Ms. Mielke? Aye. Ms. Haith? Aye.

Okay. So now we can go ahead and vote on the bills. Okay. All right. Madam Secretary, on Bill 1626, can you call the vote, please?

Mr. Callahan?

Aye.

Mr. Stepp? Aye. Mr. Lesher? Aye. Ms. Mielke? Aye. Ms. Haith? Aye.

Okay. Sounds good. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. OK. Next on the agenda, we've got some play things and play stuff. County manager report.

Yes, sir. There you go. We have board and committee appointments this evening. And I have a fairly extensive list of other items, about 11, that we need to go through this evening. OK. No problem. The first item under county boards and commissions, asking council permission or support in appointing the following individuals to the Economic Development Commission. Mr. David Montgomery for the Town of Easton, Ken Kozell, at-large member, and Jackie Wilson.

Motion to approve.

Second. Okay, Madam Secretary, we've got a motion and a second. Can you call the vote?

Mr. Callahan?

Aye.

Mr. Stebb?

Aye.

Mr. Lesher?

Aye.

Ms. Mielke? Aye. Ms. Haight?

Aye.

The next council asking your consideration to appoint Mr. Paul Davin to the Ethics Commission.

I also move.

Second.

Okay, we've got a motion and a second. Madam Secretary, could you call the vote?

Mr. Callahan? Aye. Mr. Stepp? Aye. Mr. Lesher? Aye. Ms. Mielke? Abstain.

Thank you, Council. Ms. Hayes?

Aye.

Thank you. And, Council, asking your consideration to appoint, or actually a reappointment of Sharon Nash to the Historic Preservation Commission.

Motion to approve.

Second. Motion and second. Madam Secretary, could you call the vote?

Mr. Callahan? Aye. Mr. Stepp? Aye. Mr. Lesher?

Aye.

Ms. Mielke? Aye. Ms. Haight? Aye.

And finally, counsel, your consideration for the reappointment of Mr. Chris Agarabi and Harold Klinger and Jessica Bellis to the Tourism Board. So moved.

Second.

Okay, we've got a motion and a second. Madam Secretary, could you call the vote?

Mr. Callahan? Aye. Mr. Steff?

Aye.

Mr. Lusher? Aye. Ms. Mielke? Aye. Ms. Haight? Aye.

Thank you, counsel. I'd like to invite our Director of Corrections, Joe Hughes, to come forward. He has a request, actually two requests this evening. I'm going to let him start, and I'll fill in where necessary. Good evening, Joe. Good evening.

I'm Joe Hughes, the Director of Corrections. My first would be for the extension for... The medical contract, this will be the last one year extension. We're going out for bid next year. I also would like to thank the council for approval of the extra hours for mental health. That's really big for us. My inmate population, those incarcerated in the detention center with mental health issues, is the highest as I've seen in my career, especially with serious mental health conditions. And then the state hospitals don't have beds, so we're holding on to them longer. because of that we're waiting to get a bit of so the officers this this forty hours of mental health helps the inmates but it also helps the officers that are dealing with a lot of issues with that so I appreciate the council

So, Council, they're requesting approval to renew the contract with WellPath to provide inmate medical and mental health services for a one-year cost of $743,887, included hours for mental health services, as the Director just shared. There are sufficient funds in the FY27 budget.

So I'm second.

Okay Madam Secretary we've got a motion second can you call the vote?

Mr. Callahan? Aye. Mr. Stepp?

Aye.

Mr. Lesher?

Aye.

Ms. Mielke? Aye. Ms. Haight? Aye.

The next one is for the food service contract this is another one year extension with will for agreement from 2019 so this will be the last one year extension that will also go out for bid this year This will actually help us with food services. We didn't have food service in the morning as the company would come in. They came in before lunch, so the officers had to deal with getting the breakfast and stuff ready, where this will now allow the food service provider to handle all that.

And specifically, council, the department is requesting council approval to renew the contract with Trinity Food Services Group to provide three hot meals daily at a cost of $450,000. There are sufficient funds in the FY27 budget.

So moved. Second. Okay, we got a motion to second. Madam Secretary, could you call the vote?

Mr. Callahan?

Aye.

Mr. Stepp? Aye. Mr. Lesher? Aye. Ms. Milkey? Aye. Ms. Hayden? Aye.

Thank you, Director.

Thank you. Thank you, Jim. Appreciate it.

And I'd like to ask Sheriff Gamble to come forward. The Sheriff's Office is here this evening, and we'll be discussing with you, assuming responsibility for law enforcement within the town of Oxford, effective July 1, 2026. And requesting council's consideration to sign into a memorandum of understanding between the sheriff and Oxford and, of course, the county for supplying fiscal support to the sheriff's office.

Good evening. Good evening, Mr. Stamm. Thank you. Thank you, council. So during the last five or six months, we've been meeting with the town of Oxford about police services there. We've actually entered into agreement with them until July 1st that they're paying overtime funds for us to supplement their force, which is one. And what we would like to do on July 1st and entered into an agreement with them is to tomorrow swear in their one remaining police officer as a sheriff's deputy. The town of Oxford is going to pay the full cost of that employment. And then they will provide us funding during the course of the year for overtime to fill in gaps. So since I don't want to take a check from the town of Oxford and put it in the sheriff's office, I would like your permission to use and be a signer in the MOU to use our finance department to do the billing and handle that funding. That's why we included the county in the in the agreement, in the MOU. And if approved, we would like to have it signed tonight because I have to get it to the Maryland Police Training Commission. I have to fax it or email it up tonight. So this transfer, they're very technical about these, that he can be an effective sheriff's deputy on July 1st. And I just, President Greer is here from the commissioners of Oxford, as well as Holly Wall, who's the town manager. You guys can come up if you'd like, if you want to come up. Because we're going to grab their signatures, too, so we can get all this stuff up to the training commission. I'm the one who has to start. Please, President.

Thank you.

Welcome. You can just tell us who you are.

I'm Katrina Greer. I'm the president of the Oxford Commission.

Okay. Okay. So I'm assuming that you guys are on board with all this?

We're absolutely thrilled. The sheriff's deputies have been very professional, whereas we love our single cop. A single cop does not make a police force.

I got you.

Just a couple of details. So as we hire him and make him the sheriff's deputy. His salary would still be paid for the town of Oxford. He'll become the resident deputy for the town of Oxford. So we won't be using him outside of there unless there's an emergency situation. So he'll be a steady face for the residents of Oxford to that they can relate to. And then we're hoping, over time, maybe we can identify a second deputy that might want to concentrate in the Oxford area as we go forward. But this agreement would be good for this year.

So just just one question. So so so does he answer to you?

Yeah. So right now in the agreement we have up until July 1st, we've been supervising him. OK. And then July 1st, he'll be sworn in. We'll have him come up and get sworn in as sheriff's deputy. He'll totally answer to us. OK. But we work with Holly. Right. And the president. OK. What hours they like to see. Gotcha. Different shifts that they would like to have covered. It's worked very well. Good.

isn't it does an excellent job for the town of oxford and coordinating that with lieutenant dobson from my office okay great that's great does does this agreement then extinguish or moot or replace any mutual aid agreement that we've had between the county and the town of oxford

We really don't have a written and a mutual aid agreement with the town and we've always handled the most some of the few very few serious things that happened in the town of Oxford just with a handshake but the current MOU or the current agreement that we have would change at midnight on July 1st. But we've always backed them up, handled cases that might not have been the best for them to handle with more experienced detectives and whatnot in our office.

Okay. Thank you.

I'm good here. This one seems pretty cut and dry. Seems like it would make a big win-win. So that's it. I'll make a motion to approve it as it's presented.

Yeah.

Second.

Okay. We got a motion and a second. Madam Secretary, could you call the vote?

Mr. Callahan? Aye. Mr. Stepp? Aye. Mr. Lesher? Aye. Ms. Mulkey? Aye. Ms. Haight? Aye.

Okay.

And we have it here for Chuck's signature. I signed off as a witness to Chuck's signature, so we'll have that for you. Great.

Thank you, counsel. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Council. Next, I'd like to invite Josh Elliott up, and Ray, are you coming up on this as well? This is Department of Public Works requesting Council approval to enter into a five-year intergovernmental agreement with the Maryland Environmental Services for the management of recycling sites in Talbot County. I'll hand it over to you.

Good evening, Council. Josh Elliott, Assistant County Engineer. the purpose of this yearly agreement is for mes to provide the staff and equipment to remove waste from the seven designated county recycling locations and along a portion of dover neck road these collections will happen on as needed basis During the midshore one transfer stations normal operating hours that we can authorize outside hours if needed. All collected waste will be hauled to the midshore one transfer station in Easton. The county will cover all associated tipping and operational fees on a per ton basis. Billed under our current intergovernmental agreement and the estimated budget for this is $42,450. Okay.

Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Okay. We've got a motion and a second. Madam Secretary, could you call the vote?

Mr. Callahan? Aye. Mr. Stepp? Aye. Mr. Lesher?

Aye.

Ms. Mielke? Aye. Ms. Haight? Aye.

Okay. We got it. Thank you.

Thank you, gentlemen. Next, I'd like to invite Jeff Harrison and Jeannie Attaway-Rieker, who are coming up. Talbot Watermen's Association is here requesting a letter of support for a grant application to the Rural Maryland Council's Rural Maryland Prosperity Investment Grant Fund to support the Waterman Resiliency and Nutrient Credit Pilot Program. The county has committed $125,000 in county funds for this project. Mr. Harrison, Jeannie.

Well, good evening, members of the council. Thank you for the opportunity to come before you and request this letter of support and also provide an update on the program so far. The Talbot Waterman Association did apply for this grant and made it through round one and has been invited to uh submit a full application and you know we just wanted to mention that the last work session that we had with you you encouraged us to look for additional grant funding for this program and we took that to heart so um so here we are and uh we greatly appreciate the support that you have given us so far and would appreciate your your letter and i'll turn it over to mr harrison yeah i'm jeff harrison president of the water association

i just want to thank the council for this uh for standing up for the watermen of talbot county uh the last check uh 2025 it was 555 individual licensed watermen uh in talbot county 470 of them had made a sale of some type of either fish, crab, or oyster. Somewhere between 250 and 300 do oyster every year. So from all of them, thank you for this. And we also want to thank Jeanne, too, with R&R Solutions for finding this grant application and filling it out and us proceeding along and doing pretty well with it so far. So, well, I just want to thank everybody and hopefully we make it through this process with your help.

Questions, council? Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Motion second. Madam Secretary, could you call the vote?

Mr. Callahan? Aye. Mr. Stepp? Aye. Mr. Lester?

Aye.

Ms. Mielke? Aye. Ms. Hayes? Aye.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Okay, thanks for coming.

And for this next item, I need to recuse myself.

The next item, we'd ask Mr. Pete Lesher to come forward. On behalf of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, they are requesting a letter of support for their grant application for the rural Maryland Council Rural Maryland Prosperity Investment Fund grant to improve accessibility to waterfront. And he'll explain the rest. Need an acronym for that.

This is one of the museum's top priorities, which is to simply make accessible what is now gravel or grass, areas around the museum, accessibility around the museum, that's hard for somebody just with a baby stroller to transit today. And ultimately, this is part of our resilience plan because these boardwalks would be elevated to... help people when when we have some tidal flooding and and therefore improve the experience of all those those visitors coming to the museum regardless of when they come or what their levels of ability are okay good any questions council i have about 16 questions pete if you don't know

Just kidding.

I'll make a motion to approve it as presented.

Second.

OK, we've got a motion to second. Secretary, could you call the vote?

Mr. Callahan?

Aye.

Mr. Stepp? Aye. Ms. Mielke? Aye. Ms. Hayden? Aye.

There you go. Thank you, Mr. Lesher. Yep. You can come back now. Yep.

Next, I would like to invite Ms. Christy Morrell to come forward. Good evening, Christy. She's here this evening with a request of counsel.

A request of counsel.

Hello council, thank you for having me and thank you for your continued support of Critchlow Atkins Children's Centers. You've been so generous to write letters of support for us in the past for what feels like a never ending litany of projects. This one happens to be for a playground renovation in St. Michael's. It's a necessary project, the surfacing is damaged, the play equipment is aged. and where we will be starting our accreditation process and things like that get evaluated in regards to childcare safety. It'll help us maintain accreditation and our excels level five, which is the highest quality rating from Maryland State Department of Education. And we would appreciate your support. It is not the same grant that they're applying for. They are all room for Mayor Duff, and so it's a different bucket. So that's a good thing for this county.

Good, good. Any questions, council?

Motion to approve the request.

Okay. I have a second. Okay, we've got a motion and a second. Madam Secretary, could you call the vote?

Mr. Callahan? Aye. Mr. Stepp? Aye. Mr. Lesher? Aye. Ms. Mielke? Aye. Ms. Haight? Aye.

Okay. Thank you.

And hopefully this will be the last project for a while.

Thank you, Christy. Thank you.

Okay, next item I have, I will be representing. Chesapeake College is requesting letters of support from Caroline, Dorchester, Kent, Queen Anne, and Talbot County for their grant application to the Rural Maryland Prosperity Investment Fund Infrastructure Program grant for the Queen Anne's Technical Building. The college is seeking $112,875 to offset the county's cost for the design phase of this new building.

Motion to approve the request?

Second. OK, we got a motion. Second. Madam Secretary, could you call the vote?

Mr. Callahan? Aye. Mr. Stepp? Aye. Mr.

He's back. Aye. Ms. Milkey?

Aye. Ms. Hayes? Aye.

Thank you, council. The next item I'll be representing, Mr. Brian Moore, our roads superintendent. Our roads department is requesting council approval to award bid number 2605 as follows. New pipe LLC, $62,756.80 for pipes on the Chilcutt Road, Dover Neck Road, Manadeer Road. and to Premier Service Group LLC in the amount of $30,015 for two pipes on Dover Neck Road. There are sufficient funds in the budget for this project. Additionally, the roads department is seeking permission to establish the contract with both companies for future projects at that fixed pricing.

Motion to approve bid 2605.

Second. Okay, we got a motion second. Madam Secretary, could you call the vote?

Mr. Callahan?

Aye.

Mr. Stemp? Aye. Mr. Lesher? Aye. Ms. Milkey? Aye. Ms. Haight? Aye.

Council, I'd like to invite Bryce Yelton up, Assistant Planning Director, who has a request for you this evening to extend a contract with the current software vendor.

Bryce? Council, again, thank you. Bryce Yelton, Talbot County Planning and Zoning. We're here tonight. Brendan provided you a brief for the extension of our contract with our permitting software, OpenGov. So I just don't want to take up too much of your time today, but just want to provide you a little history on OpenGov. We've been with them for four years now. It's the entirety of the time that I've been with the county. When I first got here, we used to do permits in paper. So everything was in manila folders. It would get passed along by the different offices one by one, and there was no collaboration until you got to that file. OpenGov really takes a lot of that out of it and makes it more collaborative. We are able to accept fees online. We're able to process everything collaboratively so that each department kind of reviews everything at the same time. And it's really cut down on our overall permitting timelines. It's also allowed for further accountability from our office and different offices in the county. And so tonight we're hopeful that the council will approve the three-year extension that we have requested tonight. The money is currently in the FY27 budget for next year. And again, we're just hoping that you will extend that contract for the next three years.

It'll be the three-year contract will be at a cost of $178,539.09, and there are sufficient funds in the FY27 budget. So moved.

Second. Okay, Madam Secretary, we've got a motion and a second. Could you call the vote?

Mr. Callahan? Aye. Mr. Stepp? Aye. Mr. Lester? Aye. Ms. Mielke? Aye. Ms. Haig? Aye.

Thank you, Brian. Thank you, Council.

I'd like to invite Ray and Josh back up. Ray, you're County Engineer. Josh, you're assistant county engineer, soon to be county engineer. They're here this evening to request council's permission to enter into a memorandum of understanding agreement with the Maryland Department of Information Technology with regard to a future placement of a public safety tower in St. Michael's.

Yeah, so the purpose of this MOU is to authorize the Maryland Department of IT to use a portion of the county property at the St. Michael's wastewater treatment plant to construct and maintain a safety communications tower, public safety communications tower. This project is fully funded, operated, and maintained by the state at no cost to Talbot County and will significantly improve emergency communications for our first responders. The county will have the right to install and operate its own public safety equipment on the tower at no additional cost, with our only operational responsibility being routine access road maintenance.

And council, if I may, putting on another hat, I sit on the state's radio control board, which manages and oversees the state of Maryland's Maryland First radio system for all public safety users across Maryland. And it's been a real success story. Many rural counties have joined that system. And this is one area the state of Maryland provides that service at no cost to county governments. And it's a success story. Instead of replacing a system a number of years ago here, we saved millions of dollars by getting on this system. We have an area in the St. Michael's area where we have dead spots from time to time. So the placement of this tower actually is critical to cleaning up those dead spots for our first responders. And the beauty of it is that it's going to be no cost to the county other than supplying the property for the tower. And the equipment that goes on the tower largely will be provided by the state of Maryland. So this is something that our public safety community is very interested in.

And just to add on that, one of the other interesting things is once they completed this project with the road, that'll actually be the new recycling site for the area.

And there'll be space for a pad for a single garage EMS station to be able to free up space in the St. Michael's Volunteer Fire Company as well.

Okay, that's great. Any other questions, council?

No questions. Motion to approve the request.

Second. Okay, we've got a motion and a second. Madam Secretary, could you call the vote?

Mr. Callahan? Aye. Mr. Stepp? Aye. Mr. Lesher?

Aye.

Ms. Mielke? Aye. Ms. Hayes? Aye.

And finally, Council, Josh and Ray are here to ask your consideration to approve a change order on the Preserve at Y Mills project, and they'll explain the details relative to this.

Yeah, so this will be the first construction change order for the Preserve at Y Mills wastewater treatment plant. This change order captures the pricing increase incurred by the contractor for the MBR system due to the delayed start of the project through MDE's extended review period. And the equipment Price increase is $146,500, and that would bring the total construction contract price to $2,056,500. And we do have room in the capital enabling legislation for that. Any questions, council?

Just a quick comment. I got to get this one off my chest. I know the delays are on MD and the cost went up because of that. You know, if you need our help as counsel to if you're you guys are in a spot where you're not getting the response that you need to and you just to help push a little bit so we can save our taxpayers. you know this these increased costs just due to their delays uh just let us know we'll try to help get push that along for you guys certainly thank you i will just give a point that the secretary of mde has been very very helpful so i think she is helping us in this area so yeah i mean maybe it held it to 140 000 average you know but uh you know it's it's still we shouldn't we shouldn't have that so you know whatever you guys need in the future if you guys are getting a roadblock let us know hopefully we'll help press for you

Can you get a question to get to. So moved second that a motion second I'm secretary could call the vote.

Mister Callahan I Mister step by Mister Lusher I is no key. I say I can't thank you.

Council is complete your County manager for for this evening as always thank you for your support as always good job.

Ready.

All right, next is public comment.

And we have one person who signed up for public comment, and that is Mr. Phil Riggan.

Thank you, Mr. Lesher. A pleasure sharing a chair with you today. As you take off one hat and put the other one on. And thank you Mr. Stepp for not asking your 15 questions. Mr. Haithee, I agree with you entirely that to the extent possible that the airport staff make itself available for community outreach, education, whatever it may be. I don't know how many future jobs are going to be created by the airport, but my purpose here today is to talk about the airport for a couple of minutes. You may have seen me stop those two representatives on the way out of the room. I asked them to come over and make a presentation to the East and Club East, or we would go over there. And gladly, they said yes. As I thought I heard or read or whatever, saw from the presentation, $6.7 million in FAA funding is expected to be made available in FY27 for the airport. And another potentially $3 million directly from federal appropriations through the transportation appropriation. That's a sizable chunk of money. You may remember most people didn't bother. I mean, as a public citizen, I did make one point when I presented a budget statement on your proposed budget for FY27. It had to do with the airport. And it specifically said, there's no reason to wait until FY38. We're prepared to do things before that. And my recommendation is to go back directly to Congress. And I think that can be done. And obviously, it's been done to some extent just in the last few months based upon what was previously stated today. The pace of funding. I've been led to believe that every project that is going to use money as it moves along in a given appropriation year has been ready to go, which is the meaning of shovel-ready and you spend the money right away and get it done. That's not always the case with other similar large projects of that nature. So if, in fact, There is, and I personally believe there should be, an acceleration of the funding schedule to get this thing done more quickly. I strongly support that. And we certainly are equipped in the Maryland's congressional delegation with several people who can make that happen. Obviously, on the Senate side, you have Senator Van Hollen, who's moving up the ranks in the Appropriations Committee. We saw what Barbara Mikulski could do when she was chairman of the Appropriations Committee. She treated Maryland very, very well, saved many, many military facilities in this state. We were on the receiving end rather than the giving end of those things. to include Goddard Space Flight Center. So a senior member of the Appropriations Committee in the Senate is a good thing to be. I do hope, and I certainly would expect based upon the normal planning process here in the county, that there will be revenue sources or revenue enhancing opportunities when the airport takes on its larger status, if you will, specifically to if there are vendors that need warehouse space or whatever those things may be, support activities for the airport, that the county would be in a position to jump right in and and create those long-term revenue sources. And as a taxpayer, I would deeply appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay. Anybody else like to come up and say anything? Okay. All right. Council comment. You're first. Yep, you want to go first?

Yeah, just happy birthday, America. We've got a big one coming up this year. Just wishing everyone and their families a joyous, safe, and healthy fourth weekend.

Yeah, okay.

Enjoy. Enjoy. Okay.

I have two items related to the 250th. One, it was my pleasure yesterday to join Council President Callahan and Councilwoman Mielke at a presentation on the courthouse lawn in front of the courthouse here to receive a portrait of local hero Tench Tillman. commissioned by the SAR, paid for with grant funding from the Maryland State Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, and executed by a local artist right here in Easton, Laura Era. Well done, and that will now have a home in our in our courthouse. Second item is I look forward, as always, to the Fourth of July celebrations with the Children's Parade in the traditional community. Fourth of July events down in St. Michael's on St. Mary's Square on Saturday morning. And I have the privilege of being the speaker for them again this year.

Good.

Good.

Well, you stole a little bit of my thunder because I was going to talk about 10 Stillman. But I would like to announce that tomorrow we're going to have a ceremony dedicating the ball field down in Trapp.

Right.

So if anybody can attend that, if it's not too hot, it'll be nice.

And what time is that?

Four. I think four.

Four o'clock. Yep. Okay.

Four o'clock.

Okay. 100 degrees.

Yep. 100 degrees.

Yep. It's going to be hot. I hope not.

I hope not. I just have one item. So I had a constituent that reached out in regards to... Having a pedestrian crossing at the Easton Parkway right at Peach Blossom and Oxford Road. There are several constituents that travel that road, Oxford Road, Peach Blossom, Easton Parkway. And they have raised the issue of it being a safety issue with biking and running on that road. So they reached out to see if there's something that council can do in regards to getting some type of pedestrian crossing similar to what's at Target on Marlboro and Easton Bypass. So I don't know what that process would be, Clay. So I wanted to bring it up today.

So that would just be direction by council to me. Three of you to agree that you would like us to draft a letter and we can bring that in on the 14th for approval and send up to State Highway Administration.

Okay. All right. Okay. That's good. Would that be to add to our priority list?

You could do that as well. That would give it a little more of a priority by adding it to that priority listing.

Yeah, I think we should. And then also when we meet in Ocean City and Mako too with Department of Transportation, put that on the list to discuss because they, you know, they do believe it's a safety issue.

And then the other thing would be to reach out to the town of Easton and see if they would join in sharing interest and that it's in the town's area.

Okay. Okay. So the process is just to have it as an agenda item at our next meeting then? Correct. Okay. Thank you. And then happy, blessed Fourth of July to everyone. That's all I have.

Yeah, all I have to is like, like I say, with the 250 we would, you know, at the end of the day, we're all here because of the military and freedom and really appreciate military what they've done for the last 250 years to keep us safe and the veterans. So, um, I want to thank them, thank their families and their kids. And, you know, that's why we're here today and and and can say what we want to say most of the time. And the freedom that we have, we're blessed to have that. And I'm glad to be part of it. Ready to close us out here?

Yep, close us out.

The County Council's next meeting will be held on Tuesday, July 14th, beginning at 5 o'clock p.m. The Council will be convening an open session at 3.30 p.m. and then a turning into closed session as listed on the statement for closing that meeting. On Wednesday, July 1st, the County Council will be celebrating the ribbon cutting for the new playground at Home Run Baker Park in Trapp. The celebration begins at 4 o'clock p.m. and is open to the public. On Tuesday, July 7th, the County Council will be meeting at 5 o'clock p.m. with representatives from Easton, Oxford, Queen Anne, St. Michael's, and Trapp. The meeting will be held in the Y Oak Room at the Talbot County Community Center and is open to the public. Therefore, is there a motion to adjourn this meeting and reconvene as noted?

So moved.

Second. Okay, we've got a motion and a second. Madam Secretary, could you call the vote?

Mr. Callahan? Aye. Mr. Stepp? Aye. Mr. Lesher? Aye. Ms. Mielke? Aye. Ms. Haight? Aye.

Okay, appreciate you guys coming. Thank you.