Westminster Historic District Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. This is the Historic District Commission of the City of Westminster. We're meeting Wednesday, October 1st, 2025 at 6:00 at City Hall in downtown Westminster. I'm going to start us out with a call up to order. Our statement of authority which is the Westminster Historic District Commission derives its authority from chapter 164 article 98 of the city code which is authorized by the Maryland code annotated land use article division one single jurisdiction planning and zoning title 8 historic preservation. The qualifications of the Westminster Historic District Commission are on file at the city administration building at 45 West Main Street. Valley is open to the public. I'd like to do a quick roll call so we all know who's here.

Kathy, baby, Chris McMasters, chair, Grace, Kelly, Lawler, Melissa Thorne, city staff, Mark Keepo, director of planning the city. Thank you very much. Okay, great. So, let's begin. We have an item of old business which is a post construction application for the historic rehabilitation tax credit for one for 31 West Main Street um in the rear. It's TC25-01. Miss Thor, would you like to speak about this on behalf of the city?

Sure. Uh, we received a tax a postredit application, I'm sorry, a postconstruction application for this property on September 11th and the applicant submitting it is here tonight as we follow up if you have any additional questions. The final amount of the work was the same as the original proposed proposal, $95,92. The work was completed within the 24 months of the commission's granted preliminary approval and uh the work that was completed according to my review was completed as approved. Um so as a reminder, Westminster Glass and Mirror furnished and installed east and west side windows in 14 units in total. There were 13 on the south side and I'm sorry, one on the south side and 13 on the east and west. Each window has three vertical sections. Actually, I have pictures I can be flipping through. Here's the location. So, here is during construction of the window installation. So, as you can see, uh we had a a large discussion on the color and different things. Um we ended up with it. The manufacturer called it clear. It's a gray color aluminum and it matches what closely was found there. Oh, sorry. Moving on. So, this was the final uh look from the inside and um staff recommends tonight that the commission review the post construction application for historic rehabilitation property tax credits TC251 and other documentation provided by the applicant for 31 West Main Street rear to determine whether the completed work is eligible work and in accordance with the preliminary approval of the certificate of eligibility and two that the original approved amount ount of

$9,590.20 is acceptable. And I have three draft motions there ready to go. So, usually this is a good time to ask if our commissioners have any questions. No, I think it looks great. Kind of like it better. Oh, really? Yeah. I think it looks really nice.

Honestly, I do too. It doesn't have that weird uh industrial look to it. It's got a brightness to it. So, I like that. All right, commissioners. I will draw your attention to the draft motions we have before us. We have a number one motion which basically accepts the project as presented. We have a another a number two that basically denies the project as presented and we have a draft motion number three that has some sort of alternate motion. So, I look to my commissioners to offer one of these three motions. I move that we accept motion number one.

I second. Second. Do we have any discussion about draft motion number one? And Melissa, that's acceptable to just say draft motion number one. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's a long paragraph. All right. Hearing no concerns or questions, I'll call for a vote. All in favor? I. And if there would be no negatives, just two out of three of us here tonight. So, you've been accepted for um and I'm assuming you're here for this as well. Yeah. That's how quick that happened. Right on through.

Nobody can say we're a slow group. So, all right, Melissa, thank you very much. And thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Great job. That's a pretty bright. We'll just follow up once you pay your property taxes. Okay. Show those to us and then if we get a signature tonight, we can send it through to our finance department. All you have to do is demonstrate you you're up to date on your taxes. So I don't know taxes until Yeah. Well, as soon as you're current, then you can go and claim the tax credits. Okay.

Great. All right. Next, uh item of business is the historic district commission implementation plan. Do we have anything new for Miss Melissa? Um Oh, for the implementation plan? No, we do not. And I don't have any control over that. So, I appreciate your patience. I have been sending through some stuff. I've seen that.

Um, and I want to thank Kathy Baby for her contributions. Um, what I get is usually I ask a question of Kathy like, "Do we know what the address is that where the president spoke on Main Street? Do we know the address where Frederick Douglas spoke on Main Street?" So that we can put that little X on the map um, and add to the downtown business that had that. And maybe on President's Day they can say, you know, here's where Teddy Roosevelt stood in, dressed the crowds, or here's where whatever. And um to me, that's just a little piece of history. I'm unmasked. I'm going to ask you officially for two more addresses. Sure. Ready?

Yeah. What do you need? I would like to know where um both issues with the free press happened. I understand there were two issues. one at the opera house where a guy was murdered in the back alley because they didn't like his they didn't like his opinions. Okay. And then there was another smashing of um the editor name I cannot recall at the moment. Yeah. Yeah. I have to look for that one. Did you give ah there used to be a working tour for that murder of the editor. Did that

was he in the ghost stories or what? No. Uh, do you have a copy of Carol County newspaper wars? I'll see if I can find the the editor. Um, who also might have two cents to add is Kevin Dehoff because he seemed to have more of it right off the top of his head than I did. For example, I only remembered one incident and he remembered two. So that's why I'm thinking and there are two different addresses, you know, Kevin likely to be helpful.

Unfortunately, the collections hub doesn't give you it. Every time you search for anything, it finds everything on the I searched for one term and I got 3,000 something or other bits, which was the entire collections of. But if I go to the times and I search through the Carol yesterday year's articles, which is how I got the one about the the Whiskey Boys, um then I can go find the full thing someplace else. So I I'm pretty sure we must have written about that during the Civil War. So that might even be in just anyway. So I look for those

and that's a Main Street thing might add to the body of history and stories that people on Main Street might want to talk about someday about their own address. They do not know that. But somebody got murdered. Well, murder happened I think in the back alley south. Yeah. behind. There was one behind the opera house where um a guy who was a comedian in a vaudeville show um made comments that the mob didn't like him. He was murdered in the alley after

and the other one that she's talking about is one of the editors of a local newspaper who was a Confederate sympathizer um had the unfortunate timing to write an editorial saying somebody should get rid of Lincoln that ran like the day after Lincoln's assassination. Um, and so a mob smashed the presses. He was murdered in one of the local. Uh, wow. And even though they know everybody who did it, they all got off at the trial. None of them were convicted. Scott free press. So things happen in history. That's kind of interesting. Well, things, you know, are still happening where freedom of speech can get you in trouble.

That's right. But yeah, those were probably the two that you at. Anyway, I thought that might be a couple more interesting locations in town in the historic district. Worth noting. Okay. Also, I've been sending through a couple of things. I found a county brochure which had some um places for African-Americans um in the city of Westminster. And then I found another little write up and so I sent that through for African-American stories for the implementation plan. Yeah,

sure. I think it's actually very thin written remance about stuff. I mean, I just keep looking, but I'm not finding much interesting and I don't like to give just oral history because it's not my history, right? So if we get an someone who would like to offer oral history that would be great but I prefer to do written things and offer it to the team and then they can look for someone who's got some critical local oral anything through the uh Carol history project oral histories the through the black experience part I would have to look for downtown Westminster I don't know if they're indexed or anything

I don't think they are I think and also I think they're more countywide in scope Well, some of them are, but you might, you know, find some there wasn't Robert Men falls right outside of city line. The original Robert Men house school is one step out of the historic district. I think I've nailed down exactly where it is. That's the corner to Charles Burch. Yes.

Yeah. But I think it's the flat in the corner and I think I think it probably still has really good archaeological integrity to be honest, but it's just a step outside the historic district for this project. So it would be like we could do another project. All right. Anything else we should cover with the implementation plan, Miss Melissa? Nothing tonight. Okay. They probably sent you way more stuff than you wanted or needed, but they can they can sort it out. They can sort it out. Yeah. All righty. 250th.

If you if you don't mind me interrupting. Sure, chair. Um, can we go back to I don't know if you got the I had an amended our agenda for an item of new business. I skipped right over that. I'm so sorry. Thank you for That's okay. I wanted to remember it.

I wanted to remember it, too. Okay. So, we have an item of new business item B and it is the Carol County History Day uh competition theme and um so this is part of um National History Day or the National Competition for um history and we've participated for many years at least 10 years I believe and we've offered a cash prize and Melissa attends a celebrating America group which sort of is the hub for coordinating it and this year's theme is revolution reaction reform in history. And so um yeah I threw up on on the screen here uh our cash prize that you mentioned along with a little blurb that I got from the website that just wanted to remind you what we do have out there. There is a separate section on their website about Carol County History Day that they're looking for updated topics on that we've provided in the past, but they have scrubbed that list because the theme changed, right?

So, I just wanted to share uh two things tonight if possible. Um, first revisit the prize um and see if it's what you want it to be. I have learned that sixth graders in Carol County are required to do this project. Well, that's why there were so many kids last time. So, I'm wondering if if we would like to open it up to a sixth grade or middle school entry instead of just the high schoolers. So, I would think structurally you need to talk with the school. Okay.

Because I don't know if they would agree to that or not. And um I mean on some level it makes sense, but I don't want to do something out of step with what the school system is already doing. You know, it makes sense. I would be I think our contact would be Ryan Malhorn. He's social studies over everybody. Yeah. For this program and he could explain why they're not already included. Okay. Yep. I think they're just using the national standards so that the winner can go to the state and then go to the nationals and the sixth grade might be too young. I just don't know. Yeah.

But it's worth asking. Just looking for a way to encourage students to delve into our West with Mr. Historic District history. If there's any piece of incentive we can throw out there, maybe it's just a meeting with mayor or somebody. I have some topics I would love to toss out on the table. I would love a kid to do a research paper on all the Revolutionary War items they could see because revolution is one of their themes. So like we did to do an inventory of Westminster structures, right? I would love for them to kind of check us, you know what I mean?

For them to jump in and look for historic structures and even go so far as to say anything else, a bell, anything that is um remnant of the Revolutionary War within our city. Within our city. Yeah. And they might think that's pretty easy, but I bet it's not. And they could use resources at the historical society by a point. Um, any place else that you get resources like that? That's a tough one because, you know, if you are literally talking just the period of the American Revolution, there's really not much left. Um,

well, let's see. What are we ever actually awarded a prize? because this is a really really narrow topic and we seem to focus just on architecture which I understand but you're not going to very often get students who are doing that. Is there a way to broaden that so that it's topics that occur maybe within the district but don't necessarily have to be specifically about architecture? Well, it has to be about theme. Right. Right. But our our if you can go back to our ours is is a little bit narrow because we didn't want to be giving away prizes for balloon explorers in Africa or something.

No, it still be something that pertains within the district or within the city of Westminster, but isn't necessarily just focused on historic preservation and architecture because that's not going to come up in your in your themes too often. Well, I got to admit we did write this pretty closely to us. And we also put one of the biggest cash prizes there ever, right? Thinking that we could drive people down this, but we have never awarded any, have we, Melissa?

We've never gotten anybody to look at our historic structures or buildings and tackle it. And I thought maybe at one point, well, we could wind it up to historic landscape like the road and the oldest part of town and how it grew. But I think that's even more esoteric and saying look at this historic building. And it just says of highest consideration. It doesn't say it's got to be exclusive. Okay. the the Mount Air Historical Society examples are from this year,

this this current theme. So, I wanted to show you a bit of this, you know, they're not directly relating it necessarily to revolution either when you look at the Civil War. Um, so I think or the fires. I mean, you know, I'm saying they even include the rural mail delivery system. You know, I've never heard of I mean, I know who Walter Rudy is. I didn't know he had anything to do in the national development of the rural male system.

That's usually attributed to Westminster and it went. So, to me, and I haven't been in this game in a while. It's been like five years since I worked on it. All those things are interesting and not local, but how would they compete? Oh, moving on to the next competition. Yeah. And that's this is really supposed to be a shoot for is to helping kids move on to the state level and then to the national level. Well, it depends on how well you do it. You can take a pretty local topic, but if you do it really well, you know, you don't have to just talk about something on a national level. That's the idea is it's

well but one of the best ones I saw 5 years ago when I was judging was a young man who took civil war which was one of the themes. Talked about where it was in Mount Ary. talked about the church that the troops were around.

Talked a little bit about that and then he moved it on to them going to Antidum and that national focus and then kind of brought it back to a guy who participated. So he did this like narrow wide back to narrow and he did very very well but he did sort of a a movie or video and um although he did well locally I don't know how he did on the state or national level but we have had some state national winners from Carol and so he was able to kind of seamlessly go through talking about local stuff relating it to larger stuff and then mailing at home locally and he did really well. So to me, you know, I would see us, this doesn't say, you know, anything is exclusive, just of highest consideration or of keen interest. Anyway, the the um competition the competition themes are what? Revolution,

reaction, reaction, reform. So to me, it could be the revolution or it could be a revolutionary figure to like Satie Miller who even published her sports um she's a sports uh reporter just under MK or something. She just used her initials. She used her initials. She was a early female sports reporter. What was her first name? Satie.

Sadie. Sine Neller, which is K ne L E R Miller. Um, and actually all through her life, she used Mrs. I forget, Charles Miller. Um, even though she she did all kinds of things, including sneaking across the border into Mexico to interview Ponchovilla and his wife. I didn't know there was a Mrs. Ponchovilla. And he just like showed up at their door and knocked and he was so surprised. was like, "Okay, if so, how does that relate locally?" Well, she's buried in the Westminster Cemetery, right? Yeah.

And she did live here locally, but I've never figured out where, so she was a a graduate of Western Maryland College. Be nice to nail down where. To me that would be really you know I mean she lived here for some amount of time and um well and her husband even though she went all over the world doing her photography her husband lived here and she had a housekeeper and every day she had the menu planned out ahead of time she was traveling to make sure that

he fed what she wanted him to be fed. So where's her house? That would be really a project that I would love a kid to tackle and he could figure that out through city directories. I would expect.

Uh yeah, probably. And that's at the historical society. Um yeah, I guess you could even like um you know, if you want I saw that Mary talked about women's suffrage. if you want to talk about women's suffrage because you've got the opera house which is where the just government league was founded. You got Mary Shman's house, she was the first president of that, you know, election education things in there and there were other places where she taught women how to vote in their home. They said I think in each election district they had a forget what they actually called it. It was like an educational place. So on election day, the woman could go there and learn how to vote and then go vote. Yeah, you probably couldn't get away with today, but yeah,

here here's how go vote now. I told you to do um so you know, you could do that. A lot of that was along. And another thing that I think was revolutionary with Mary Shelman was that um she ran the uh telephone exchange when it first opened and she had done such an efficient job of setting things up that Alexander Graham Bell came to visit Westminster to see her setup. Oh, that's pretty revolutionary to me. Yeah. So maybe Mary Shman herself is a revolutionary figure in a way, but that's not revolutionary war. But it doesn't say revolutionary war. It just says revolution reform.

And she certainly qualifies in terms of being a revolutionary female figure, but also a reformer with the temperance involvement and suffrage and all the other things that she did. So maybe we're reading revolution too narrowly to mean American Revolution. And the reaction part can be distilled from the newspapers with the debt,

you know. And again, certainly you've got the rural free delivery story here in Westminster, but what I'm thinking of is the reaction part. Maybe people were afraid to use the phone in the beginning, you know, or who knows what what was the community reaction. Is this a wildly heralded thing or well, to be honest, not everybody wanted royal free delivery. They, you know, especially the people who ran stores and had post offices in them. Mhm.

They wanted people to have to come in and get their mail so they'd buy in their stores. So the idea of not having their customers coming in and people were worried about privacy that somebody knew all the mail that you were getting because they could see what's getting delivered, you know, and so there were a lot of concern. We just assumed that hey, what a great idea, but it wasn't necessarily a great idea to everybody. So the idea of that was just revolutionary on its own. And Edwin Triber from Union Mills, but who's a postman here, was very involved with that. He designed the post office wheels wagon that they used. He laid out the roots. The historical society even has his workbooks.

Yeah, that scrapbook is amazing. It is an amazing resource. Includes the blueprints for the wagon. Yeah. So, Melissa, do you have some themes for us out of all that talk?

I do. Um I had peaked too. So back in September of last year we had said five topics related to last year was rights and responsibilities and we hit on the um first telephone office, the rural free delivery. Um we also talked about um the significance of our district and how it's changed over time just broadly. Um, and very heavily in the in the last two were like architecturally related, but also what what rights can Westminster citizens exercise to celebrate the upcoming nation's 250th celebration. Um so I I have written down about the royal free delivery with Edwin Shrivever Tel Exchange the just government league and um Satie Neller Miller as well as just focusing on a revolutionary warrior ion that you mentioned too. So I will put some together and send it out to you guys if you can rubber stamp it and I'll send it to Ryan afterwards. That'd be great.

That's great. That was great. And again, you know, I I would I would find it amazing that somebody even applied. You know, I just I know it kind of feels like I just don't want to hand it away, but I don't know. We want to have somebody apply. Great. All righty. Now, are we done with that new business? And can scoot on down to the nation's 250th. First thing we have here is logo. How we doing in logo? Uh, I sent Melissa some It's coming. Maybe not so good ideas for logo changes.

There are eight slides all dedicated to the great logos. Great. So, the great logo. Let's go through them. The idea was that we were getting rid of the ribbon and changing the font for America. Roll the tape. I like that one. I'm gonna kind of flip through them quick and then we can go back slower. And you'll see variations on some of them where I changed colors. I wanted to see what that one look would look like in one color because I was afraid the ribbon might just bleed out.

Like that, too. Like that one. Again, this is the last one. So, sometimes there's variations on the same one where the colors up and between one and seven. Yeah, I think you heard the most walrus class. I also liked one. I liked one. One and seven. That's the toughy. My only like suggestion would be if somehow we could get the ribbon to like weave into the clock somehow to like hug it. Unfortunately, with that ribbon, that's clip art. So, I can make it longer, but I can't adjust the curvature on it. Um, the other

not much to work with on the other image either. Um, it's just a block unless we shave it the background out on which one itself. Oh, I think we're making this too hard. Yeah, I mean, if I had Photoshop, I could get it to overlap, but without Photoshop, I can't layer it any better than Yeah, I didn't know if I like red or blue better. The blue I think I like better, but that's just a personal thing. And I just wanted to see if I could change the color on the clock tower, which I can, but we don't have to. One and seven. I That's I think it's down to one and seven. I like the black because it's so definitive. Oh, what's the one star mean then? Yeah.

But one star being lit up. There's our meeting there. 13 stars. Yeah. Doesn't have to be. Those are all individual stars, so I can color each one individually. I think I love one. What do you think, Grace? I like one. We're going for the number one lobby. We love number one. That's right. Can we can we do a motion tonight and it's done? Does it go to the city council or anything? Is this a proposal to them to kind of approve it or not or we just do it? I should not have asked that. Well, I was going to take I was going to take it through anyways.

I would also say that whatever if this is the design that this one is also included because it might be applicable in certain. Yeah, there are places where it's going to be done all right, which is why I did that to see what what especially the ribbon. I wasn't sure how it would read in one color, but I just love it kind of swooping into the clock tower. It's like feeling like it's coming on in. I love it. That's great. What a good job. So, is there consensus? Do we need a motion tonight that we recommend?

Yeah, make a recommendation. We I'm looking for a motion that would recommend number one with number two as a grayscale um mirror companion to that recommendation. Do I hear a motion? I make a motion between number one and number two. I'm not sure that's number two. I think it was number number two. Number three. Okay. which is really the same one as just showing how it'll look when you print it in grayscale, which I'm sure we'll have to do at various times. We have a second. I guess I can second it since I designed it. I guess we motioned it.

Sure. I second. Great. Do we need any more discussion? Fantastic. Yay. Yay. All in favor? Yes. Hi. That logo gets recommended. All right. Yeah. Check. Check. Check. We'll wait for the next

street signs. Street signs. All right. So, the last time we were here, we discussed a bit of a price shock and all the 157 signs. I went back to the scope and found that it was actually more than 157 because I wasn't including the double signs that there's two on each one.

Exactly. Which isn't as many as you would think it would be, but still was. So, when we scaled it back to just focusing only Main Street, it limits our scope to only 14 signs. Four of those are the double signs. Um, I do have a quote. It's much more affordable. We haven't even talked about it. I think I have it here in my papers. Um, but just a Just to confirm, we have a laser pointer. So, as you can see on the right image, that's the look that we're going for. Ignore the blue post office sign on the bottom.

But I wanted to ask you about the left image because we didn't yet look at these. So, there are at least three instances. I want to think center street probably railroad and liberty where this is the sign. Should we also be looking at making these a brown historic because you're going along your estate, we're focusing on the one street and then all of a sudden it just doesn't match. So, I would recommend that we do look into it. Uh but I wanted to get your feedback. Maybe you have examples of something. So, um this is my gut reaction and I'm easily swayed as everybody knows me. I'm easily swayed by any other logical discussion. But I have this funny feeling those are like states.

I don't think that they are, but obviously we will check on that. Yeah, I have a funny feeling. You're probably right. Regulated. I think it's a combination of ownership. Maybe. I mean, I would love to change it, but I don't know that those are up for grabs. I think state allows for historic. I wouldn't it just reaching out to the state and asking them that we went asking replace it for us I think their standard is brown is it for downtown sign so

and we are a certified heritage area which is a state program on main street so we could ask them to pay for it so would you just get the same kind of sign like for the big ones sign. Would it just be the brown color or would it be that design as the other or just a brown? Well, I would shoot for the moon and get the design, but I'm not sure the state would matter. Yes, even if you just got the brown, that would be something for the for these two on the left. The large or what? Yeah, do a brown. Even I just I can see it brown. It would look good. I think the state probably has standards for sign types and what they can put in the poll. So, it'll be I think it would just be the green but brown. Yeah, that'd

be still it's better. It's better than having green. This is still trying to highlight. Yeah. Storage district at least the color of the other side. Well, we should be able to, you know, push them into doing that for us. I mean, I think that would be something in their wheelhouse. Okay. Just wanted to make sure we touched on that tonight. And then would you be able to like make this like a five-year project where the other signs in town get changed out over time as well? Like a phase out project that we can talk about. I think that's the concept. Yeah. Great. Okay.

Good, good, good. Street signs. Anything else, Melissa, you want us to think about with you? Not under that topic.

Downtown 250th um preparations. Do you have anything going? I just went gang busters on powerpoints tonight. So, one of the later um the Carol County group that we get together, Carol County Downtowns, is actively working on this. It has been a slow ball rolling, but it is rolling really fast. Now, Carol County GIS is actually working with us and Carol County Economic Development helped us coordinate this where each of our municipalities are getting 10 locations on a story map and I want to see if this works. So, story map is the name of an ArcGIS. Um, probably need the screen. Oh, it is still sharing. So, this is Psychills. They're already doing it. Um, we're basically mirroring ours off of theirs, but it will include Psychell and Tony Town and Westminster and everybody. So, we're we're providing them now content.

So, what Oh, very cool. I know. Isn't that neat? So, what we have is this Excel spreadsheet. so we know what to do and then we'll plug and play and then they're doing all the work for us. We're planning on April May of next year for it to be ready, but it includes an audio portion so that you can um learn about the different places. So, we'll we'll have no issues coming up with these. We already have a lot to work with. So, I'm working on my spreadsheet and I'm not sure which ones are ranking higher than others and I would love your feedback when I'm at that point.

Um, and we can help figure out how to narrow down the words to 150 or less. But it it's great because it includes hyperlinks to places. So, if there's a business included, we can incl have that as a click clickable link to their website. And then they hired somebody to do the audio. trial. Sounds like AI does, doesn't it? It wasn't. It was someone who actually went to the Carol County Media Center and and did that. So, we're planning on doing the same thing. So, yeah, we're excited about that. Very cool. And to me, so you're very familiar with our walking tour brochures and all that.

It's all there already. It just needs to be updated into the support. So, that's exciting. Text it. Yeah. So that that to me is downtown because we're really limiting our story to that section. Another thing that we're we're talking about is the possibility of purchasing flags, but we haven't quite narrowed down what exactly we want them to be. Not that where's the picture taken from? I was thinking that. So is that from the website? It is. So it makes doesn't it make you feel that that means you can do it? It does.

Originally, they said that everybody could use it, but now it seems I believe you can purchase from their website. If we want to purchase from their site, we can buy as much as we want, right? But take it and put it on our stuff. Correct. So, that's the that's the question. Would it be beneficial to include this? Should we include the Maryland Commission? Should we include the Carol one? If we're doing it countywide, the thought was we would at least get one banner for the county logo and then have our own logos on some flags as well.

I really would like that because I I hate to say it, that red county logo just doesn't say red, white, and blue to me. Just says red with a star. So to me, I would much rather see ours with 250 as as many city ones as we can. Yes. Great. Yes. Okay. Um, we talked about butting it length and then a cool idea one of you guys had was to make those the stickers.

So once we have them up on the building, we can re replicate that in a little city hall with banners. I have concerns about city hall because we have such beautiful trees now. I was walking around. It is actually very difficult to even see this building unless you're right up on the on the driveway. It's hard to when we were doing the Carol County then and now build book. Luckily, we were shooting in like in February, so there are no leaves on the trees, but all the downtowns have these beautiful trees now, and you can't see the buildings.

And we were trying to match these great 19th century photos where there were no trees. Like, wow, this was a problem we didn't figure on. Luckily, we're doing it at the time of year when the trees aren't leafed out yet, but it's fine. Yeah. Yeah. So, I was disappointed to think about how it might not be as pretty in pictures as we can imagine, but there's drones now. Falling in, get it. We'll figure out a way. Well, not only that, but you got to think about all the foot traffic. And it's people, you know, if there's something to look at that gets them out of their cars, maybe that's

kind of a way to look at it. You know, it's an investment in pedestrians rather than the cars. And then they'll see it during the festivals like the art in the park, the um what we had the fall fest and there's a lot of people around here because everybody like pops up around here. All the strolls. They have the strolls. Yeah. So we have another idea that came out of the county idea if we could get some of but I was thinking just for Westminster. Would this be something you'all are interested in? A window painting contest? Possibly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, as long as it's temporary and doesn't damage the windows.

Yeah. So, I we'll see how how we get on that. If we have options that we want to do. Um, however, if it does become a county thing, we're going to want to jump on it if everybody's doing it, of course. So, that's that's the only thing right now that's happening downtown related. Fabulous. And, um, have we thought about maybe writing a letter to downtown just saying, "Hey, the 250th is coming up. you want to spruce up. There should be Do we think they'll be facade grants? Do we think they'll be We sure hope so. We've Whatever that was old old grant saying they had.

We do have an application date. So, if funding is available, round one will be February 10th, 2026. Would be nice to like just tell our businesses and community downtown, you know, this is the time to really spruce up. The 250th is coming. We want to look great for July 2026. And to help you crush this, I was hoping we would get that letter out with our letter on the inventory because we're already planning on doing a direct mailing piece with that project

and I would be happy to dovetail that in. We can make sure we can get one stamp on it on the letter. Well, you could even encourage people if they want to buy an America 250 flag from the official website to put up on their buildings. Yeah. Or if we wanted to say, you know, if you're interested that if we purchase in quantity, we can get a discount. You can get it from the city. Yes. What about that? Or decorating contest. Decorating contest. Yes, it's in here. I don't mean the stuff. I wanted to make sure I included it all.

Is that coming up next? It is. All right. Great. So, black. Grace sends us to via email. Thank you, Grace. But, but we haven't had any resolution. Yes, I know. But you know what? Has anybody been by the um the plaque at Belgrove Square? I drove by it. Yes. Isn't that nice? That's classy. That looks a lot like number two or Mhm. one or three. Just a new one. Yeah. Yeah. It's a two.

I just I just like, you know, all these. I think probably number three is really more what I was thinking about. Something small, not so wordy. I like number one. I like number one, too. But people have to be willing to put these up on their buildings. Yeah. Can't be too big. No. And um number four is what I have in my house. It's really time to get a letter out for them specifically, too. Um and we have that list of specific homes that we that we would use here, too. But what do you guys say? Let's pick a plot. I'd say number three. Three might be the least expensive, too. Maybe because it's not too

I mean, I can't tell because there's no real scale, but to me, number three looks about like what I think. Well, I imagine that they come in different sizes. Oh, sorry. That's that's I think it page. So somebody on the National Register of Historic Places could also be a 250th, right? Remember to black? Yeah, because all of our downtown is on the National Register. Well, with these blacks you were saying specifically relate to the 250, they're going to look similar. That's okay. Okay.

It's okay. They they're not going to be bolding saying National Register of Historic Places. probably they're going to say this building's being recognized for the two to commemorate the 250th. That way it keeps us, you know, yeah, two words away from saying this building was standing here 250 years ago. It just says it's part of the commemoration. What do you guys think? You need an arrow down to one of these five. I think the basic rectangle is pretty simple. It's not going to be too obnoxious on anybody's house. Um, and I'm sure it comes in different sizes. What do you think, Grace? What do you like?

I like three. I like one, but I like three, too. I like simplicity. Well, so let's let's say a matter of preference and put it in motion that number three is preferred, but number one is also an acceptable option. And don't know if council wants to see all this too, but we'll leave that tomorrow. I would think so. Yeah. I don't think they're going to have any say. I think they're going to have a say over the 250th. I don't think they'll have a say on this. I think this is more just a notification. Hey, by the way, we're contacting.

And in this, I think it's more just letting Sarah know and she can she can make them aware of it. Mhm. Great. So then we'll just for Melissa's sake, we'll say RIA's preferred number one's acceptable and we'll let her look into the cost of it all. I think it's in this case I think it's more the if we send letters out that the mayor common council if they get a phone call know what's going on. What a great idea. Thank you. Or something. Oh no. Imagine that. What are you trying to do to us now? Well, you're sending letters out to people that they're going to want to know the shape and how big it's

four guys to haul up and nail to the front of the house. Um, yeah, I think we would need to have one person installing them, the same person, whether that be our our folks or maybe a contractor we hired to do it. And then would would we be fronting the cost for these? I think we got to figure out what the cost is. Yeah. Yeah. And if we need to ask for Oh, from the homeowners, right? It's an honorary thing. You would be asking them. They won't participate. Almost guaranteed. Yeah. I was going to say, yeah, probably.

Yeah. We either spring for this or we would you be okay if like is there a minimum percentage that we would do? Like is one house okay? Is two homes? Like is there a minimum that we want to move forward? If if half do it great. Um do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. You don't want to do it if only three people have signed up. Do Yeah. I mean maybe you do. Maybe we have maybe the letter is this. you know, we're considering this that you know Yeah. trying to get a feeling. Exactly.

And then would you Yeah. would you be willing to participate and then that'll give us an understanding plus cost too. If it's only five people with five people, maybe we we we pay for that. I mean, I live right down there. Like most of them I could just go talk to. they have any questions or concerns, you know, put my name and number on that letter and I'm happy to go sell it. Oh, okay. But I I just don't know of a memorial plaque program that any city's done where they actually charge people for the plaques. Okay.

That's usually an honorary thing that actually you're hoping people participate in because then they value their building even more. And it's a selling item actually for real estate. State people make it valuable. Yes, it is. Good. All right. Do we have a direction for this month, Melissa, on plaques? We do. Okay. And then do you want to talk more about your contest? Well, who's doing the letter for the plaques?

Figured it was me, but I'm I'm happy to have any help. I think we also have to make it clear that this is not going to affect your property or not have this is solely just recognizing your property. I don't want people to think, oh, they want, you know, I'm now in the historic district and I don't have these regulations against me. Make it clear. It's just now that I have assigned does that mean people get to come in my I think we just have to make lease says yeah this is commemorative only. It doesn't alter your property or allow anybody to enter. You're not required to open your house six years or anything like that. Any regulations or any additional

I've had people actually walk into my house and say, "Isn't there an insurance agency here?" And it's like, "No, that was two two doors down 50 years ago." I mean, and also I've had people walk in my house and say, "Oh, we just assumed this was a rental building." Oh, no. It's just one person's home. People will step in the house for whatever reason they want, you know, when they see a sign up. So, that's crazy. Yeah. Okay. Flex. Next. Are we done with good?

Yep. Did Grace want to talk about the the contest? Yeah, we discussed it um last month and I came up with a little form um on um with an idea of how people could decorate and um I think I had to scratch the gold off. I just remember gold seemed to me to be getting into building every certain buildings and I didn't want to go into the politics that might be involved. Um, but red, white, and blue I think is scratch off. Look at that. So, I was trying to make it as simple as possible.

Yeah. Um, so I don't know how we would like to These links were just the ones included in the email back comments from Kathy. Um, I didn't take the time to actually put pictures in, which is what I think the intent was. download a picture just giving examples of how of how it Yeah. And I wasn't sure just it's great. Yeah. We want to get permission to use those to give people ideas of what or if you just want maybe one of those to be sort of on the form of hey we're having this big contest. Um what are they going to win? This bragging right

certificate or something bragging rights. Certificate. driving nice. Oh, yeah. No, no blow up stuff. Yes. No inflatables. No inflatables. Thank you. Other signs a big turkey for Thanksgiving. Big turkey with think of it. It too once you send out an invite and you say keep it classy, do not do this. That's when you have that one guy who's going to do all the opposite things. Yeah. Yeah. A Coca-Cola polar bear with a flag over shoulders is classy. Got an inflatable polar bear on horseback.

There is a website just for yard inflatables. Yes. And I could see somebody coming up with one of those wheels um light shows on the garage of you know various Daniel Hall and other Revolutionary War images. So that I can see. So yeah, I don't know how if you know we wanted to be able to give people some suggestions of how other it's been done in the past at various events creatively go away. Be creative. Well, why don't you say something like so that it could be judged at noon because then that'll leave all the stars at daytime judging. Daytime judging so that they don't illuminate the girl.

No illuminations. No illuminations. Now, is this geared to just to residential commercials? Well, I mean, maybe you have three divisions. Maybe you have a residential division and a commercial division. Yeah, kind of like the holiday mayor decorating contest. That's the 80s. That's always really nice. They don't go overboard. Bringing out the calendar. Maybe we could throw some dates out there. So, I would assume this is more of a Memorial through July thing or we talking about June and July.

Let's do June and July. We don't want to conflate Memorial Day stuff. It's already a bit cluttered at that time. Okay. It's could really be working up to maybe we do the judging on uh June 6th. Isn't that flag day or June 14th is flag day? Yep. Oh, that's a good idea. Mhm. I like that. And then leave it up for summer. Yep. Yes. Or as long. Yeah. Exactly. At least before the dry and they can take it down anytime after that. So they would have to have it up in order to be judged on June 14th. What day is that?

A Sunday. Oh, that's perfect. That'll give us a chance to go. Yeah. We'll have all thing to consider. That is a good idea. And do we want to have them register by a certain date so that um have enough time to make those judging? Like if we judge on the 14th and and announce that we really should have it up by June 1st, June 1st.

So register by June 1st. So the announcement can be made on flag day. I like doing forms on our website. I would just create another form for this that they would sign up officially. Yeah. Just we usually then the mayor's true. Yes. I want to put something in with like a watermelon or something. That'd be good, too. Because a lot some people don't older people don't do.

Everybody takes a quick look at that little news. Yeah, I always read it. Love that. Excellent. Awesome. And then this was just Oh, is that working? Not talked about this. Yep. I think the last thing for me was this. Just a reminder that we had liked this and then we brought it to at least verbally to council. Um, so now the tree is not looking great. No, it's not. I just noticed that, but it's been really dry. So, it has been. I would imagine they're not

having the time to go and water it every day or something. So, but it is looking sad a little bit. So, we'll move on to the next topic. We changed the logo on that. Can we get a spike tree person to look at us? Yeah, we can. I'll ask. Discussed a lot today. Yeah, we really did. And lastly, I think we want to just hit on the Belgrove Square thing commemoration. And I I'm I just want to report that um as a kickoff activity, I cannot imagine it going better.

Good. Other than it would have been nice to have a few more people, but um we didn't have a small crowd. It was a short event, so we didn't need chairs.

Um our our elected officials all did what we asked them to do. you know, they Eric Boucher spoke a little bit. The mayor did the proclamation. We had Patrick Henry there for color. Um the uh D girls kept short and we all, you know, we read the creed and we read the uh part of the preamble for the Constitution because we always do that. Every time the D meets, we do that little part. And you know overall it was very very simple but it was also really nice. But um Kevin Dehoff did a prayer and that was also really well done. You know really thoughtful um he really crafted it to match the event rather than just sort of generalized you know a little bit addiction kind of thing. It was very good and um I have to say I felt like it all went off without a hitch. the S came and did a little honor guard flag thing and marched in the flag.

So, it it really was nice, I got to say, for, you know, nice and short, crisp, and well done. I was really proud to be part of it. So, and I think the flag or the plaque is lovely. I was thinking it was more like a metal with an enamel, but it's actually, you know, molded bronze. Yeah, it's beautiful. All right. It's great. So, um, next up, when it comes to the plaques in the city, the S should be doing one for the Westminster cemetery, and I think they're going to push it off till next year so they can say, you know, 2026 on the this was dedicated. So,

I had I was kind of pushing because I heard we were accepted. I thought, well, let's do it in November, like the next step. But I really think they want to wait until that January page turns the points. That's what we're looking at. Could be chilly. Well, you know, it's January or something. Well, I might push them to put it off till March so the ground doesn't ground is frozen. They can't put food in it anyway. So,

the ground is fro. But anyway, um we were all watching to see what could be done better for the S ceremony. All the maid players of the S were there. So they were I know they were paying attention because ours at the Westminster Cemetery for the S will be the first in the state of Maryland. So um they don't really know what kind of ceremony they want to do or anything. And so I can't imagine they could do much better than get music maybe. Well, hopefully there's a couple of other cemeteries that could you got the historic Triber cemetery, the David Triber, and you got the Giz family cemetery with Joshua G. So hopefully those cemeteries will get on board with getting art by the S. Well, I have I have to say it was pure chance that I heard from Ed Spano, who is in Virginia at one of the meetings in Frederick, that this program even existed. When I contacted the county chapter, the S, they didn't really know anything about it.

And so I think you really have to push this stuff from behind the scenes. And if those cemeteries don't have anybody doing that, I don't know how it's going to happen.

Well, the Triber Graveyard is actually a a 501c3. It's actually its own nonprofit, so they should be pretty easy to get hold of. Grab something here or something like that. that you know obviously all members of that board are the board I don't really know who as far as I know it's ground up I don't know that has made any decisions to proceed this on any kind of regular basis so we're the ground that pushed it I don't know how it's going to work for any other cemetery Okay. Anything else on 250? Have we covered the lead cover tonight? Seems like then we move on to the historic mission and public comments. Um Kathy, have you got anything for the good of the Nope. Your contest was a big contribution. All right. So, just from my point of view, developer square was the completion of many grants and the D is getting their paperwork in to call it today. And so, that is getting done. What's Mr. Cemetery? We are so close to having that website done. I know I've said that over and over again, but we really are pretty close. and um that training some more attention on the implementation starter works.

Yep. Yep. October switch. So if you want me to work on it, let me know. So we'll talk later. Um it's 5050 grand. So as long as we're planning on doing it anyway, and these are legacy projects that is daylight things that last beyond the day, the programming date of what All righty. And do we have any comments from city staff that you'd like to share tonight?

We met with the 59 Westman. This is the next off to the left. Um about fixing up the building, the facade outside. They're all going to um I guess there's um lead paint on the exterior. So they're not removing that p repaint the building but it seems like they are amenable to removing that whatever that addition was in the face of it uh get it back to the original book. Uh so just preliminary discussions with them uh and you didn't mention the S approval program and the attach credits. So that would be that whole that whole block you can see is improving and grants and everything else. Be nice if we get this building as well. That would be great.

That particular property was the Montour House dog. You have to research it one. [Music] What's happening with um street? So um they have met with us. They've seen a site plan. That's the next step that tells us, you know, that's going to be a cost and you everything else have to come back to you and to plan to come back and confirm that what we originally approved is still hold the site plan. But it's a good sign. It means that they move forward. We were a little worried going to sit there. So hopefully they found funding. Um, and hopefully as we move forward, I'll get more information as to um if they do have somebody that's ready to build and what their plans are for development. We're going to be bringing back 20 post construction next month and watch out. We're so close. I hope that's it. Well, thank you very much. Then with that, I think we moved