Remember to speak into, go ahead and turn the mics on and just leave them on.
Each one of the mics is shared between two seats.
Just keep in mind you've got to get a little close to the mic to be heard.
All right, good evening. Called us fourth meeting of the Baltimore County
Council structure workgroup to order. Thank you all for being here tonight.
staff
informed me that they want to look at, or at least present some financial numbers as far as economic impact of what will happen if we do decide to recommend to the council to expand,
and what that's going to cost from a capital standpoint, from a salary standpoint from all the numbers. So I think that's going to be the major lift for tonight is looking at that.
that. First thing I want to do is to ask for a motion to approve the December 28th meeting
minutes. Anybody have a chance to read those?
We've got a motion. Second. On favor. All right.
Okay. Thank you. Mr. Chair. Yes, sir. Just thinking of our end goal, a couple things
we discussed and had a consensus or the report that we're going to put out before the public
if some of those items that we do reach a consensus on if we could elaborate
some of the background of why we supported something or why we didn't or how we get it
that when we come to prepare this stuff,
we'll be that much further ahead
than having to go back and retrace our steps.
What was that discussion about?
Well, I think that something is very reasonable
when we did the charter commission five or six years ago,
something similar happened.
That staff basically had those to keep us up on task
where we were supposed to be.
So I think that's a good idea.
It's probably going to be a lot easier now than we have.
I don't know about that.
Someone leading the group versus kind of all of us chipping in.
So, yeah, I think it's a good idea.
Staff, you want to chime in on process on that?
Yeah.
And we were, Brad and I were planning on trying to get, you know,
a skeleton report, a skeleton
of the draft report together.
Honestly, I think we were waiting for this meeting before we really kicked that off in
Just because, you know, at this point we do have a lot of the base research done, so, you know, the findings part of our report, you know, we can start working on it.
And that will help us kind of narrow down, you know, what are the, I think we all know generally what the questions that you guys are tasked with answering.
But, yeah, we are going to be working on that in
the next few meetings.
We're really going to be that part.
Is that right?
That's good.
All right, so pick up number three.
We've talked about the survey.
I know some members have sent in questions.
Where are we on kind of that process and yelling that down?
So, Brad and I, we started trying to narrow down the questions, survey questions that you
guys had, and we quickly realized that we were not experts in this, and there are experts.
So we called one up.
We spoke to one of the foremost polling experts in the state about what they consider
you know, good practices, smart questions, you know, good methods. And to be very blunt,
she had two basic pieces of advice. Bad data is worse than no data at all, and a bad survey
is not just useless. It can be actively harmful to public policy discussions. Her
recommendation was if the choice is an online survey that we put up on our website, or if
that's our only avenue, she advised us not to do that for a couple of pretty major reasons.
The first has to do with respondents and the other has to do with questions. So on
on the respondents issue, with an online poll, there is no way to verify who is answering.
Even if we ask the name, there's no independent verification. So, you know, these could be
people from another jurisdiction, it could be someone from out of state. There's also
no way to guarantee that someone taking the survey is not taking it multiple times.
The survey platform that we use gives us an IP address, but IP address is change.
You know, an IP address is a combination of three things.
Time, the device you got, and the connection to the Internet you're on.
So your phone here has one IP address.
When you go home and connect to your home Wi-Fi, that's a different IP address.
and your iPad has a different IP address from your phone.
So, and there's also programs that allow you to manually cycle that IP address
so that someone could literally just sit there and take the survey multiple times.
So, and so those are kind of the functional problems.
There's also the science, the polling science problems,
which is, you really can't save much in survey results if your sample of respondents are not representative.
And even if we, what she quoted us as a general representative sample is,
I think it was 7 to 900 respondents.
And to be brutally honest, I doubt we'd even get half of that.
And even if we did get up to 900 or 1,000 respondents,
even if we asked questions about location and, you know,
racial background and socioeconomic status,
there's no way to verify that who they're saying they are is correct. When professional
pollsters go out and do these things, do polls, they gather data from a variety of sources,
both government and private, to independently verify that who they are calling, who they're
speaking to is who they think, who they're reporting to be and there's tons of data out
there to do that but that's an analysis that we just cannot do. We have no capacity to
do that. So it's very difficult to say anything with the results from a poll without that
representative nature.
And to be honest, you know, the people who tend to focus
on local government, you know, tend to be from the upper end of the economic spectrum, you
know, tend to be whiter, you know, in race. I just think that we're not going to get a
representative same.
The last part has to do with questions. So I gave her the questions
questions that you all submitted to me and that we looked at at the previous meeting.
And her conclusion was that the concepts that we were trying to drive at are good concepts,
but the questions themselves had a lot of flaws. And not only that, the questions
themselves were biased in different directions, but importantly they were biased in opposite
directions.
In another, to put it another way, they kind of revealed the preferences of the people
who are of the questioners.
Yeah, and it does take a lot of skill and experience to draft somewhat neutral questions.
I don't think there's such a thing as a perfect question, but professional pollsters spend
their life doing.
is trying to come up with something as close to neutral as they can. And we were not there.
The problem with push polling or bias questioning is that it tends to be used by advocates on
And on any side of an issue, or all sides of an issue, to browbeat the questioners.
In doing the research, you know, to get to this point, I saw an article, you know, from
early January about the Pittsburgh, it's not the Pittsburgh city mayor, but it's the
county.
Allegheny County.
The Allegading County executive newly sworn in, put out a nine-page poll or survey asking
for respondents to, you know, tell this new administration what they want to do, you know,
what kind of public policy they want to see.
And she was getting a lot of criticism from specifically the Allegading County Council
that the survey was biased towards liberal agenda items and that it was going to be used
as justification for the agenda that she was going to do anyway.
My greatest, and this was not, this was anecdotal because this was one news article I saw, one
jurisdiction.
I'm not saying that that's going to happen here, but I do think it's a serious consideration
that your hard work could be distracted from by an online survey.
So, just in conclusion, Brad and I, our recommendation is that you do not do an online survey.
If you are really, truly interested in a survey, the expert we spoke to gave us an idea of
what it would take to get a scientifically rigorous poll.
It would be a calling poll, not an online one, and it would cost between $25,000 and $30,000.
It could be done relatively quickly, you know, within two to three weeks after they started.
But, you know, so our suggestion is if you are extremely serious about wanting to get
a survey, don't do an online poll.
Consider either using the public hearings to get your public input or think about asking
the County Council, whether they'd be interested in funding a scientific poll.
My question is, with the scientific poll, what kind of time are we talking about? Because
I'm looking at the time and strength that we have.
If it's got, it would be in several steps. The first one is I think you, this group
has to unanimously say that they want the Council to look into funding it. I think that
it's not going to help. The Council has to ultimately decide whether they want to expend
the funds to do that.
And like I said, 25,000 to 30,000 is the base price.
It can be done
within two to three weeks, I would say probably after signing the contract. But I think it's
a big ask in terms of, you know, money and time.
And we're going to be having the public meetings, right? And the council people are going
to help us get the information out, right?
Yes.
I think it's it's online. We're able to go in there. People are able to go in there
And see what we've discussed, what we've come up with, that sort of thing.
And basically, whatever our recommendation is to the county council, the people are going
to vote aye or nay. I mean, I don't think this survey is the be all and all. I think that
people are going to be pretty well versed if they want to be and if they're interested
did in what we're doing?
I, as far as the survey is concerned,
I don't know, I don't know for myself personally, whatever
information is received from that survey, how much I'm going to use it to base my decisions
regarding what needs to be done.
And I'm not going to speak for myself.
I don't know if anyone was planning to say, okay, I'm going to use a survey and it's going
to formulate my decisions.
That's going to change what I'm thinking.
But I don't need personally feel that any information I'm going to receive from that
survey is going to make a major impact on what I feel should be done.
And I'm sort of coming to that same thing is that whatever we put together as a group
and present, it would be up to the county council to say yay or nay.
And people will also have the opportunity to comment on what we said, and we had already
put in the plan that based on some of the comments we received, we might want to modify
a few of the things that we are presenting to the county council.
So.
I guess my feelings are that the survey probably would be less useful given what Adams found
out from his sources.
The only thing I am concerned about is I don't want us to be reacting just to the comments
in the public hearing.
So, how do we achieve more interaction, maybe weekly putting out a notice on the structure
web page or other ways to ask people to write in emails, giving us their thoughts about things.
I just don't want to hang my hat solely on the two or three public meetings.
The problem with the emails, too, that I saw and I've seen as an elected official is you
get a lot of cut and paste where it's the same email, you get a group together that wants
a certain thing done and they'll send that email out to hundreds of people and say, can
you please send this email?
I mean, I've gotten them where it doesn't really give you a true idea of what the
people in your district and you got to remember we're representing a lot of us
are representing certain districts so even if you did a poll you take 900
people there's seven districts I mean that's a hundred people per district
that's not a really good sampling of you know of 125,000 people that the
councilman represents so you know I agree that I don't know that it and
it's coming up with a group of questions that we how long would it
take to come up with a group of questions that we all agree with you
that are scientifically correct.
Apparently we're not able to do that.
So we'll let the polling company do that.
That's been established, right?
We're not good at that.
Anybody else have any comments on this?
Please feel free.
I agree. I don't think we need a survey.
I make a motion that we don't do a survey.
I'll second it.
All in favor?
All right.
Answer that question.
all right
all right so Adam Brad do you guys want to present we're gonna move
into our presentation
so just for just for the record we're gonna do a short
you know, five to ten minute tour of the council offices.
That way, you know, when we're talking about, you know, possible changes, you know, especially
costs, we all have an idea of the physical space we're talking about.
We're not going to take the mics with us, so the recording is going to show, you
know, five to ten minutes of us not being here, and then we're going to come back.
All right?
Yeah, and it's kind of been discretionary.
I mean, I encourage them to do it.
Just for the public's benefit, the group just took a tour of the council offices so that
when we talk about council budget and any renovations that might have to go along with
possible expansion, the group has an idea of the physical space we're talking about.
That's pretty much it, and I'm going to pass out the report on financials that we have
prepared.
Everyone, this is a report developed by the Office of Government Affairs and Consultation
with the County Office of Budget and Finance on the estimated fiscal impact for expanding
the size of the County Council.
I just want to be clear, these are estimates, not hard and fast final numbers, but these
These are – this includes operating and capital costs that would be included by changing
the structure of the council.
Next slide.
So obviously, there would be a significant fiscal impact to add more council members
or districts.
You know, when you think about the capital budget, there's the office space need.
We just toured the offices.
You can see there's some limitations there if you want to add offices for more members.
There's also the factor of adding district offices around the county.
Most of the council members do have a district office.
It's in the district closer to their communities that they represent.
So that's a factor, too, in coming up with some figures.
On the operating side, you have to factor in the personnel costs of new members,
their staff, cars, supplies, and equipment.
And, again, these figures are estimates.
They're not finalized costs.
Next slide.
So currently when you factor in salaries, benefits, equipment, supplies, things like that, the council's fiscal impact to the operating budget is around $4.9 million.
That includes salaries for the council members, their district staff, their central staff, their benefits, supplies, that includes laptops, et cetera.
And just to get perspective on how that fits into the overall budget picture, the county's total general fund is about $2.7 billion.
Next slide.
And just to give a benefit, just to talk about the methodology, how we calculated
the operating impacts, we included salaries of the positions within the council office,
calculated 50% of that salary for fringe, which would include retirement and health
benefits, a one-time cost of $3,600 for equipment and supplies, including laptops, cell phones,
et cetera. There's a one-time cost of $33,000 for a car if a council member elects to
to have a car. And we can go to the next slide.
So with a seven-member council, we have about
$4.7 million in costs, including those benefits. We divided that cost by the seven members
that we have to kind of pro-rate the cost of central staff, district staff members, and
get a rate of what it would cost to operate the council. And we come up to around $675,000.
We can use that to model out what it would cost to expand to nine or 11 members.
We chose those figures 9 and 11 as those have both been publicly discussed by activists,
elected officials, and others in the context of the council structure.
And then in the third column from the left, there's a column just to talk about new cars,
what that would cost if we added members.
A new car is $33,000, so that's 66 if we went to nine members, 132,000 if we went
to 11.
So what you're looking at is about $1.4 million to expand for two members, and then another
$1.4 to go to 11.
So right now it's $4.7 million in operating impacts for a seven-member council.
To go to nine, it would be around 6.1, and 11 would be 7.5.
Again, these are estimates.
Next slide, please.
That's right.
Right.
That's correct.
And this slide is to put those numbers into the context of the overall budget picture.
As stated, the county's general fund is around $2.7 billion.
In the five-year period from fiscal year 2020 to present, that fund grew from $2.1 billion to $2.7 billion.
As a share of that general fund, the council's current budget is about 0.17 percent of the general fund.
That's less than a percentage point.
using current figures and without projecting future revenues,
the general fund usually grows.
But just to use current numbers,
a nine-member council would have about a 0.22 percent budget share
and 11 would be about 0.27,
just to give some context about how it fits into the overall picture.
Next slide, please.
Now we begin to get into the capital budget costs.
So expanding the council would have a greater impact
on capital budget than the operating budget,
As we just toward, you know, the council occupies much of the second floor of the historic courthouse
in Towson.
This is where they hold offices, have meetings with the public, hold their work in legislative
sessions.
We used a $700 per square foot rate to calculate construction for renovation of the space.
And that includes abatement costs, information technology improvements, furniture costs,
everything it would take to bring the space to renovate it, to modernize it.
And that would come out to around $12 million over four years.
That includes design, contingency, escalation rates.
But that's the full picture for what it would cost.
Brad, real quick, is the $12 million for two members or four members?
That would just be for renovation of the space.
For now, we used a $700 per square foot rate just to calculate what it would cost.
So that's how we arrived at the number.
whether you divide into 50 or 100, that got it, okay, thank you.
Next slide, please.
This is just a slide to talk about district offices.
As mentioned, many members have offices closer to their community.
This is something that if the council is expanded and voters approve that on the ballot,
we would probably have to revisit this.
The administration and the council would have to work together to identify how to secure
and allocate those district offices out in the community.
And we'd have to go from there, I think.
There's no funding, but there's numbers on the team.
Sorry?
Have you put their district or their office, like Todd Cramp's in East Point Hall?
Do you have those numbers in here?
It's a good question.
I'll double check to make sure that they're baked in.
I'll get those numbers for the group.
But not every council person has a district office.
Correct.
It's correct.
I never do.
just just saying
yes
that is correct sorry I didn't have my mic on before
that's correct that's what they try to do is find a county of county owned
building to put the office in if that's not possible within the district then we
have to look outside of least to lease
there hasn't been any discussion as to
where they would put the two to four people.
Offices, yeah, well, no, the district is not a big deal.
I mean, well, the district has to be reconfigured, but here.
There's no idea as to room to put.
I mean, I think that has to be part of the consideration.
Where are you gonna put them?
And as far as, you know, how are you gonna put them here?
And, you know, that has to all play.
You know, whether we're going to do it or not, I think it's important. I mean, you can
say, oh, yeah, we're going to add two more people. But if there's not enough room for
two more people, what are you going to do with them? You know, you can't put them on the street,
you know? So that has, there's no consideration as to where they would put those people yet.
I'm sorry.
I think that concludes the presentation of this one, in fact, just to reiterate the numbers.
On the operating side, you're looking at about 660 points.
On the capital side, you're looking at around 12 million dollar costs to renovate the council office space as well as the chambers.
And that renovation with that office space, you can reconfigure the office at all levels of office.
That's right.
I'm sure it was broken down, and what is it, the salary per, one of my questions on the
survey was, you know, about adding extra staff to each one of the council people.
You know, instead of adding council people with their complaint, one of the complaints
was that it represented a lot of people, which, like I said, when I was in the House
of Delegates, we represented the same amount of people.
The senators represented the same, it was almost exact 125,000 people.
And we got one part-time person to do,
they've got a lot more than that,
but what is the cost to add a per person
to add more staff to the council
instead of adding a whole new council person?
The report includes some figures
that includes the full-time equivalents
for legislative needs and legislative legislation.
That includes the total cost for the position categories.
So the council currently has 14 full-time equivalents for legislative aides and three full-time equivalents for legislative assistance.
The aides had equates around $1.9 million, or actually $2.9 in fact, or in the French.
Run some numbers real quick.
I mean, I can…
You know, I've got calculations on that.
As we were walking around, I raised the issue.
The concept of adding positions doesn't have to be limited to this existing space.
There are options in terms of going across the hall, in terms of the council, and then
relocating auditor staff elsewhere.
where can officer budget finance do some kind of analysis underneath of that scenario.
Secondly, in terms of the cost, you know, the upfront one-time cost sounds scary, but
it's not going to be done with current cash dollars.
That's not how budget would do it.
It would be through debt.
And so in terms of giving us an idea on that present value of the debt service on a year
basis to help us understand what that $12 million really is.
And thirdly, in terms of the way the council handled for all the years, I was familiar
with it, the issue of the assistance, and Tom, maybe you can answer this.
It was always the issue that the council received an allotment per council member.
They could hire as, you know, different numbers.
They have each one of them has a senior.
But then they have different levels of individual people.
My question to you would be, has there been a significant, I don't know for sure, looking
at the number they have for council aid budgeted in FY24.
Has there been any significant increase in the total allocation for those staff in the
last couple of years?
I think an answer to your question, yes, that there has been.
The council has, I think, recognized that, and I think Mr. Patoka's case is a good
one.
You know, he has four people working for him now, and, you know, most of the time
previously, you had two, maybe a third, part-time person. And several members now have three
full-time people. Some have two and maybe two part-time or whatever the case may be.
But we have. The allotment, as you know how we do it, we do get one big amount, but
we divided essentially seven ways. And everybody gets exactly the same. And right now,
Now I think the figure is 275, Chris.
That's correct.
So it's $275,000 that each council member has to spend on their personnel, which is their
senior council assistant and their legislative aides.
Those are usually the two specific part-time, I mean full-time, and then you have however
many part-time people they deem appropriate.
it. And, you know, not everybody goes up to that 275 because you want to have some will
room to give your people raises and, you know, what not, or hire somebody additionally or
have an intern. But that's the allotment. And that's more than what it used to be.
You probably remember. In fact, when I got here in 2011, it was, I think, about 120.
So it was, you know, less than half.
And so one of the reasons why I raised that question, the assumption in the analysis here
is whatever the allocation per councilman remains the same when you add additional ones.
But one option is, you know, that because there has been this growth, because we did
not have, you know, many council members to spread around the county.
And one of the options is the allocation per councilman does not have to be as large as
it is right now.
If you're going to increase the number of council members, the amount per council member does
not have to remain stagnant.
Yes, but one of the complaints that I've heard from the council people is that the workload,
okay, the amount of constituent cases they have.
So if you add two more council people, but take away assistance, then that's not
going to change. I mean, that number is still going to be relatively the same because you're
adding and subtracting, you know, different people. So it's not going to make a big difference
that, you know, so the complaint may still be there that, you know, there's a lot of
constituent work for the amount of people that they have because you're taking people
away from them. I'm sorry.
Okay. I'm sorry. So I mean, that's relative with, you
As far as I see anyway, I mean, when we did it in the legislature, you go from a three man district to a single member district, you know, your number of constituent cases go down, but your number of people also goes down because you're not, you know, you're not, you know, helping each other out.
So, I mean, that concern is still going to be there with, and I'm talking about, you know, David Marx is my councilman, you know, about the number of constituent cases that they have per year.
year. Their number is relatively equal to what we did in the House of Delegates. I ran
the numbers. I called my old legislative assistant. She gave me the numbers versus David's numbers.
His numbers, he has three people. I had one part-time person to do the same work that
the council people had three people to do. So, and we still represented the same amount
of people, 125,000 people in each district.
Well, excuse me, since we're talking about how
this to be here.
So,
thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you all for agreeing to participate in this really
important work.
I'm Izzy Patoka, and I'm Chair now, recently, and second district council member.
And I just wanted to add something I thought was relevant to the discussion.
Tom Balswick said that he started in 2011, and that was announced 2024.
And what I have noticed in the work that I have done as council member and the work
I've done this kind of work for many, many years, and the volume of work has changed dramatically
because of technology.
And I can tell you that the number of, in terms of just constituent service, let's forget
all the other components of the job, or all the other, yeah, all the other components
of the job, for constituent services, the number of portals have changed dramatically.
There's the old school, someone calls on a landline and says there's an issue
you, and there's a piece of mail that comes in through the U.S. mail. And more recently,
we get an extraordinary volume of emails, an extraordinary volume of texts, an extraordinary
volume of Facebook requests, an extraordinary volume of LinkedIn requests. I can tell you
I don't check LinkedIn, and I don't think any of my team members do, but I often get
folks that come up to me and say, hey, you never responded to me. And we're very thorough
about checking every request that comes in. I said, well, how did you do it? I said, well,
I sent you a LinkedIn message. And so I just want to point that out because as you
discuss this and as technology will change and allow for greater access to your elected
officials, I think that's why the workload will grow irrespective, I believe, of how
many council members you have because it'll grow with the level of ways to reach out to
your council member and I think it will only grow more and more as time goes on.
I think it's quality over quantity. For me, it's, for me, I can easily say, and I don't
mean to be disrespectful to any of my colleagues, but I'm really proud of the team. This
This is the second district team here, they're off of work right now, but they're spending
their time here at this hearing or this meeting because they want to understand how they can
best serve and they want to observe the work of the talented groups, talented people
at this table.
When I was suggesting the idea that it wouldn't have to be as much, I wasn't
suggesting an absolute option, one for the other.
Right now, in theory, if there is three assistance per council member, then there's 21.
If we're saying we went up four more, then that would take it to 33.
I'm saying you wouldn't need to necessarily take it to 33.
You could say that, you know, even if it was two, back to two per councilman, that
would be 22.
That would be an increase.
It could be two-and-a-half, because it's a lot of dollars.
numbers, what the number of staff people is dependent upon the council person, because
as councilman pointed out, some councilmen will put more emphasis on full-time people
to get better quality or a higher salary person to pay for higher quality.
So what I'm saying is it doesn't have to be an exact dollar-for-dollar increase.
It could be two-and-a-half, it could be two-and-a-quarter, whatever it is.
That's all I'm pointing out.
it doesn't have to be an exact dollar-for-dollar matchoff.
At
one of the meetings, there was some concern that in terms of the work we're doing,
that as to whether or not the council will take it seriously in terms of the recommendation,
you know, or, you know, is there already a fate of complete in terms of that issue?
Do you feel that the Council is going to, while examining, make their own decision that they
are going to take seriously the recommendations of this workforce?
In the conversations I've had with my colleagues, it's absolutely that they will take serious
the recommendation of this group.
There was a lot of discussion that went into the formation of the legislation that
created this workgroup.
And so this council that we have right now is a very thoughtful council.
I enjoy working with people that dig in and really take this work seriously and give it, you know, 100 percent of their effort.
And the names you see up here are really extraordinary people that have been, that don't take anything for granted.
So, Keith, I think it's easy to say that they will take the recommendation of this group seriously.
Obviously, everyone really took a great deal of time in selecting their appointment, because
they wanted to make sure that this group would come back with a recommendation that is thoughtful
and that considers the sentiment of people that they engage with.
I can tell you, Sheila Lewis is really a dynamo in the second district.
She understands the dynamics of what's going on, and she knows how to get things done.
And so it was an easy appointment for me to select Sheila because I knew she'd be added value to this group.
I just hope she doesn't run for second district council.
Never. Seriously, never, never, never.
You were here when I think when we, Adam was talking about the pitfalls of electronic survey.
If you have multiple avenues for electronic contacts, do you as doing constituent work
running
The same issues Adam discussed about I don't know who this person is or it's being mumbarded
by the same e-mail or the same thread.
Well, Jeff, that's a good question. And we talked about this, the group talked about
this in terms of how many staff members do you want? You just want one or two and or do
you want, and I have four, probably a greater, a larger number, I guess, Tom, than most of
the members?
Yes.
And so because it's my philosophy of how I want the council office to operate and
my philosophy is I want people touching people. I don't, even though we get an extraordinary
amount of telephone calls, an extraordinary amount of emails, extraordinary amount
of Facebook and all the ways you can touch your council member, I still want to have
that face-to-face operation. And Ms. Lewis can probably tell you that we're in the Villanova
community pretty regularly, whether it's a cleanup or whether it's a community meeting.
But in my philosophy of how to be a good council office is you have to have a person-to-person
relationship. And so when somebody calls the office, we usually have that person-to-person
relationship. So we know if it's, if it's, we can, we can weigh the severity of the issue
coming in. Does that answer your question?
I have one. How many calls do you believe feel that come in that are calls that should
be going to the executive part of the Baltimore County?
That's a loaded question. Brad, can you turn away for a minute?
Did Brett just get an urgent call?
So it really – so the county council really has no authority to direct an agency.
But yet the constituent request that we get really asks us to direct an agency.
And so the way, I can't speak for my colleagues, but I can tell you how we navigate in that
environment.
And so Justin Soberman is chief of staff.
He's a pit bull.
And he's a beast on constituent services.
And the agency's heads have learned that that's his character.
And so they have decided, do they want to deal with Justin once, or do they want
to deal with Emma dozen times?
And now they have learned that once is good enough.
And so, but we don't really have any direct authority to say, hey, DPW clean this storm
drain because water is everywhere.
So we have to kind of, now the executive office can go to the director of DPW and say, you
guys have to do that, but we have to finesse it or figure out another way.
My younger staff are learning from Justin and they're going to develop their own
methods for making an agency go.
So when I say go, press the button that makes it work.
They probably do get calls that would maybe otherwise be more appropriate to go directly
to the administration, but when you're in the constituent services business,
you don't say, well, ma'am, there's a number instead.
So I don't think it's easy to quantify exactly how many they get.
Well, I respect my whole point is we need to do a better job of educating the constituents
where to call.
It's easier said than done.
I know it is.
I mean, but we still have to try.
We get constituent calls, I mean, in the supermarket, and Vicki, you know this, and
John, you probably know this from your days as an elected, you know, when you're
out in the public, your fair game for constituent service.
Talking to Kathy and Vicki and Todd and Mark and trust me.
But starting at the bottom doesn't work,
so you have to go to the top.
You have to call whoever that department had,
whoever DPW, Mr. Low.
DPW is DeAndrea Walker.
That was an Oriental gentleman.
It was like Wooder, like the...
I don't know who it is now, but...
Anyway, we found that you had to go right to them
because it never got done if you started at the bottom,
you know, I mean, everybody kept passing it around, you know,
and blame, and we're the blame, you know,
I had one like you have, I had a pit bull,
you know, they didn't want to talk to Rita,
you know, once there was enough talking to Rita
because she, but she also found
that we had to go to the top, you know,
and we would sometimes call you guys
because we, you know, we would run into a roadblock
And it was a county agency and luckily the council people worked really good with the legislative body, you know
When we when we had a problem, you know, I don't think we ever called the county executives office, you know for anything
We you know, we always went to the council let them be the bad guy. I
Was gonna say though all that is true
But some county executives in the past depending on their temperament wanted everything run through them
That's true.
Fair point.
And I want to say, and Johnny, he's got a good team together.
And to be honest, I go to the executive before I go to the council because it gets done quick.
I'm just, it happens.
County council, I mean, they're just bombarded.
And I know that.
And most of the time, I won't even bother with them because I know it's not their
job to do that.
I'm going to where it needs to go.
And it's my point, we need to start educating constituents to let them know where they should
be calling for their issues.
Well, my only point is the constituent can become schizophrenic because in one administration
it's done a certain way and in another it's done a different way.
Schizophrenic is a good tool.
Yes.
It was just like that from the record.
I like it.
In terms of, Councilman, you probably remember how I've been involved in community association
kind of activities one in 40 years and I remember way back when when you were also involved
in there. As you are going out now in terms of compared to those days, do you feel that
you have, and you were talking about sort of like face-to-face kinds of things, the
way you like to do it in constituent services. Do you feel oppressed now to be able to get
out to the different groups' ability to get out like would have been possible many years
ago because of the increase in community association, increase of apartment developments
and associations related to that.
Is there a more of a demand on your time
if you really want to pursue face-to-face kinds of things
for you as a councilman now,
then let's say 20 years ago?
Well, you know, I've done this kind of work
pretty much my whole life, Keith.
And so I think to me it just seems
the world was slower back then.
And so it's really, you know, our news is rapid,
our, the ability to move information
has to be rapid. Otherwise, it's irrelevant. So I think the world has changed. In this part-time
job I have, I'm out every night at a community meeting. I have one after this, the Lockhearn
Improvement Association. And it's all up to the council member. Each of us has their
own style. And I applaud the current council because their styles are very compatible.
And, you know, everyone, as I pointed out earlier, is thoughtful.
Sure.
If I could just say one thing, and I will leave, I want to thank you for giving me a moment
to speak.
And I just want to say that we focused on constituent services, but that's just one
component of the job.
You know, right now, as Vicki can tell you, we're in CCMP and that's a master
plan.
We hopefully will do something with the adequate public facilities ordinance.
We have a whole agenda of things that are both legislative and things that are routine
and things that are not so routine, but constituent services, you know, if this is 100%, it really
should be about that, but it does take up 50 to 60% of the time.
So again, Mr. Chair, thank you so much for giving me a moment to speak.
I hope that what I, the comments I had were helpful.
Thank you.
Thank you all.
Thank you.
A
quick question. Brad, on these numbers, and Councilman Patoka mentioned, I know this
group has talked about it before, did we ever consider part-time to full-time? Because
remember when you and Adam presented some information about different counties and different
jurisdictions, they had full-time council members and things like that. That wasn't
considered in this analysis, right? Like the $1.4 million impact for two additional
council members would be, status quo, two part-time council members, right? So, I mean,
I guess we don't have a budgetary impact analysis on full-time because we've never done that before,
but I definitely wanted to bring that up to the workgroup again that, you know, similar to
what Keith and John had been talking about. There is definitely more than one way to
view this, right? It could be same amount of council members increase aid money or the pool
that they get from the 275 to 350 throwing numbers out there, right? Or it could be keep
the 275 the same but then make the current council members full-time so they would have
additional time and it might increase the diversity in people that run for a council
position, right? So, you know, there's only a certain amount of people that can
do this type of work on a part-time salary rather than full-time.
I agree with you. I think that that has a lot to do with it as far as people running,
because I, it's a part-time job. I did it, I think, believe is a full-time job, as Izzy
does. I didn't have another job, but there were others on the council when I was there
that had full-time jobs, really full-time jobs, plus this. So they relied a lot more
on their office staff and assistants because of the job that they had. Now, if it
We're a full-time job.
I think more people would be inclined to run and to say,
yep, this is my job.
But to do this job and another full-time job is pretty hairy.
I really think that.
Then we get into discussion of salary.
Right, right.
I mean, I think Prince George is in Montgomery County.
They're up in the $148,000 range,
something like that as a full-time job.
Right.
So it would be a huge.
huge, and whether some of the council people could do it. I mean, they have other, some
of the council people have other jobs that would they will, are they willing to give up
that job to do this with the chance that they may lose next time, you know, I mean, it's
not guaranteed.
Right.
Yes, I thought this, all this, this discussion is very interesting, the tour and everything,
bank, the cost of the renovations, the salaries and that type of thing.
And the focus of our objective is whether or not we should expand the Calming Council.
And it's good to know that if we said yes, what that's going to mean, the renovation
cost is going to be a one-time cost.
And it was even a note that at some point this might just need to be renovated because
it's becoming obsolete, and that might be an appropriate time to do the expansion.
So even though that 12 million is a one-time cost, it does sound something that's doable
for what the proposals are.
And then I think about what the focus is that we are going to enable the council
members to have more time to devote to their constituents.
That being the case, does really
the cost of this going to impact the decision or am I going to consider that I feel that
cost is justified to give the citizens of Baltimore County more of what they want and
say they need.
The idea of constituent services, it's questionable that people may be doing it the incorrect
way, but on the other side of that coin, that council person and their staff are able
to understand the needs and the desires of their constituents so that when they sit and
perform their other duties, I'm not going to call them auxiliary duties, but their other
duties that aren't so constituent focused, they are now sitting there making those decisions
organizations knowing what their constituents need.
So that being the case, if the objective is to make that a more, a better enhancement
of the services to the citizens of Baltimore County, then the cost to achieve that might
seem outlandish if I'm talking about renovating my house, but if I'm talking about renovating
the services in the county for ongoing of how long we've had a non-board council, but
since 7, how long we had that swap? Since 57. Right, so I'm talking about this cost
to do that based on
On this has worked how much this has been an expansion. Is it justified? Because if the
focus is the constituents need better, they deserve better, then is this associated cost
justified? And that's a decision that I'm thinking about there.
Well, you know, I was listening to your presentation, and as we walked through this building, I was
looking at the simple fact, me and the facility person, myself, you know, with this marble
in here. This marble alone, just moving this marble. This $700 square foot is not going
to do it.
I mean, yes, this building is historic. I understand that. But when you think about
putting it in a different space,
you're going to have to move some of this marble. And
this marble isn't cheap.
I was thinking about that issue in terms of to what is the extent of the task for this work
group.
I think it's important for us to incorporate into our report estimates of cost so that the
council can make the decision with that information involved.
We can even comment on the issue of the cost, but I think our task is one of looking at is
it advisable or various reasons to increase or not increase the council size.
That is our task and our focus because, as you know, the fiscal authority is first
in terms of the executive proposing the council resolving that.
We can't make a determination what the fiscal capacity is for the county to afford
to do this. And we don't have to find the money. We don't have to find it. But we do need to make
legitimate recommendation based on what we believe are the needs of the county in terms of
council representation. And then we can include, as I said, so for the public who will read it,
they will be educated to that fact as well as to what costs are involved.
but I don't think it's our task to make a decision based on the ability to pay. That's
beyond our capabilities to make that analysis.
I do think people, though, in our public meetings, the constituents, I think they're going to
be concerned about where's the money coming from. Are you going to raise my taxes? I
mean, I can hear that being the first question. Jeff?
I think I would side with Keith, especially when the numbers that you talk about, if the
council were to go, the percent share of the total's accounting budget is less than 0.3.
And I'm sure if you put the $12 million renovation cost in the perspective of what is the overall
capital budget, it's probably in that same magnitude.
And I think kind of marrying these two that cost, to me, doesn't overwhelm the need for
if you had more and more representation, each council person could spend theoretically some
additional time on policy that may drive a constituent request down because the policy
is addressing some of the constituents' desires or, you know, problems that the residents
are facing.
I think I'm worried, though, that how would we – how will we answer that question,
though, at a public meeting if – yes, she'll –
I think it goes to education. When I sit down and actually think that when it was established
there would be seven council districts in the late 50s with less than half of the present
population, I think most,
I'm not going to talk about the people, I think most reasonable
people understand that it has changed significantly and it's time. And if they also judge that,
how they feel that they are receiving services from their council people, that when they
see legislation, policy or laws or whatever that are put in place and they felt that
their council person did not represent their interest. It kind of hurts because they don't
have the interaction. But given the number of constituents that the individual council
people have, that might be a reason for it that if you want better service, then you're
going to have to give a little bit to get what you want.
Eric?
Keep in mind, however, and we heard this, I think, at the last session that we had that
St. Louis County, Missouri, has greater population than Baltimore County.
Counties roughly 850, St. Louis, Missouri County is over a million, and they have
seven council people.
So it can be done, and maybe the answer is full-time as opposed to part-time.
And there's a lot of variables that are going to be involved in our final determination.
I just hope everybody keeps that there are many ways to skin this cat.
John.
Thank you.
Do we know who brought this forward?
Was it the citizens that brought the idea of going to 9 or 11 council people, or was
it somebody, the administration, or was it the council that brought this forward?
Do we know where it came from?
That is a fascinating question.
It's actually been brought up several times over the decades.
It's the 1978 Charter Review Commission brought it up.
The 2017 Charter Commission that our current chair served on, they brought it up.
There have been different movements in the 90s and 2000s, you know, like citizen led
petitions that were not successful and, you know, and of course the most recent
is the vote for more campaign that's currently going on.
So this is, it's fair to say,
this is a multi-generational question.
Okay.
And one more question, and I looked at the numbers.
It looks like our population in Baltimore
can't even went down from the last census.
So then, you know, the census was what, 21 or 20?
20.
And it's gone down since then, since 2020, right?
So let me, let me,
the 10s years, the census is tasked with actually doing the full head cap.
In between that, they release what I would call unofficial numbers that are using models based on the previous full head cap.
So that's what was released. And they do that, I think, every two years.
So, on the evens, in between the full headcount,
COVID may have played a role in this, but
the difference between the 2018 estimate and the full headcount in 2020, about 7%.
Above or below?
The 2018 estimate of where we would be was below by 7%.
Okay.
So, the actual headcount was greater.
Okay.
COVID may play a role. You know, the headcount starts in April, it started in April of 2020.
You're fully covered by that point. Right.
It's just something to keep in mind. The unofficial numbers
are statistical models.
There's debates about which one is ultimately more accurate. Right. I look at,
and I don't know, a lot of people, I'm a retired police officer, and I look at the numbers for
for police. And they're moving out of the state in droves because of the
tax base because of how much taxes are. I'm sure everybody that owns a house just
got their reassessment or a lot of people didn't saw how much the reassessment huh.
So I mean that that has a lot to do with it but you know COVID may play a
part in it but I I see a lot more people moving out of the state.
Yeah, keep in mind too, you know, a particular group, especially one, you know, like a well represented employee group, like police officers, you know, they're represented very well by FOPs who, you know, are charged with keeping tabs on them in a variety of different ways and life aspects.
So I think that the level of detail that you add is unusually high when you talk about police officers.
When you look at the population in general, the census can only do so much.
And especially if they don't do as much as the local FOP does.
Tracking, right. Tracking the people.
Yeah. Yeah, that's the only basis I can, you know, go off of. And like Ricky said, it
groves. I mean, they're moving, you know, south and droves to a lex tax or Delaware. Delaware
is getting a lot of them because of the tax base and which you have to pay as far as
taxes.
Keith.
Keith and then Sheila.
Yeah, in terms of going back to what the two of you were talking about, in terms of
putting it in perspective and responding. That's why I was asking the question in terms
of what the debt service would be, which is over 30-year period of time. So that puts
that 12 in a better perspective when you're talking about the impact is not 12 million
one time. And people thinking, oh, my taxes are going to go up by 12, just being able
to put in the paid-or-debt service, which likely would not cause an increase in taxes.
I mean, we went 30 years, I know personally, that we went 30 years without a tax increase.
So one does not equate to the other.
The other side of perspective is, as you were sort of pointing out, that it's been
In 65 years that we've lived under this configuration, depending on whether it's nine or 11 council
members, we may be in the next century before we need to make another adjustment in size
so that when you talk about those dollars, it's not even just the 30 years of the
debt service.
It is a longer perspective than that.
We're talking about 75 years.
And then the other part of it would be, well, if we don't do it now, aren't we eventually
going to have to do it?
And then all those costs will still be there, but at a higher price.
So that's why what you're saying is important for people to understand.
The full perspective is not just what's coming out now, but really how long does it take
to pay for it?
But also how long is it good?
that, you know, is it good for just, you know, 10 years, or is it something that's good
for 75 years?
Well, based on what you said, that was what I was going to speak about based on the population
and projections.
And if we're talking about expanding the county council, I didn't want to, as a group
hopefully, expand it to the point that if the population did decrease, we would
have more members than what we need.
So...
Never go backwards.
That's exactly what I was thinking.
That's why I said that's exactly what you can't take it back.
So that would be something given to consideration.
Do we just say, hey, let's go here, or do we say let's go here?
Because at some point, if we do feel that projections will say not necessarily the
county will lose a lot of population, but maybe this as well be our max. Like if we're
looking at the master plan where they're talking about the hurdle for the land development
and maybe they say we want to cap it here because we do want to keep that rural land
and not have it all become suburban or urban, and the population will maybe max out
at this level, then we have all these council
Thanks so much.
So I just wanted to also mention, and I know a few of us have mentioned, you know, potentially
part-time and full-time rather than just expanding the number. I mean, and Councilman Patoka mentioned
too, I mean, there is a thing of quality versus quantity, right? And as part of this workgroup,
we've been talking about increasing the diversity of the council and the representation so that
it more mirrors, you know, the demographics of Baltimore County.
Similar to, you know,
Vicki and I were talking about, I don't think you're going to attract, let's just say,
a younger, more diverse pool of council people if it continues to be a part-time
job just because, you know, similar like you said, and we've seen a lot of our council
people out in our districts late at night, early in the morning, on the weekends, you
know, trying to, you know, give the constituents as much face time as possible. But, you know,
there is another big part of the council person's job, which is not just constituent
services. And I really think that, you know, to put in the correct bills and legislation
and things like that, you know, does require more full-time dedication, and I'm not saying
that the current Council people are not dedicating full-time hours and also potentially some
of them have other full-time jobs or part-time jobs, wherever the case may be.
But I definitely think, as a group, we really need to consider that when we mention our
recommendations because it really is going to have to try to attract different types
of people that run.
I do think a full-time position would attract and be more younger people, that younger
demographic, would look at it in a different light than rather it's just a part-time job.
Yeah.
Keith.
And yet, if you remember, Councilman Bartonfelder, who was a farmer, I mean, because we have
that part-time ability, and others who may have, you know, a salary where if we doubled
it and say, well, you're going to be at 157,000, that's below what I make.
So there's still going to be that issue in terms of that, you know, that concern.
But, you know, I think that what the original framers of the Charter were thinking to allow
for also those people who are going to be, you know, involved and not necessarily that
is their dominant that they still have a connection with the regular council person, county resident
who has a regular kind of job. And so I think, you know, that's part of the consideration
that we and I agree with you in terms of we can give those other things consideration,
But that's the other side of the application for a part-time status.
I thought about the part-time, full-time.
And I also think about the lack of diversity on our county council.
And that's something that the population will have to start dealing with, realistically.
It's about choices.
I mean, the county council lost their new woman.
And it was people knew it. She says she was leaving. And yet there was not one woman out
of the 850-some thousand that said, whether I want to do it full-time or part-time, I'm
going to take that stand. So that's something to be considered, that if people want representation
they're going to have to step up to provide that representation.
The other thing is that if the job is full-time with a significant salary increase, then my
concern is something I talked about earlier, and I'm like, okay, let's put it on the side,
term limits.
That now that I've got this job, I'm going to keep it and keep it and keep it as opposed
to talking about giving people opportunities, that you can be a council person, let's
say, for only three terms.
That means that you're going to have to leave and now here is an opportunity for more another person said
I'm going to do it for maybe two terms or three terms and then you it's not like I stay
But now because I have that limit there will be opportunities for more people to step up and say, okay
It's my turn to take it is my turn to step up because they know that cannot stay there until they decide they want to leave
Again, I think as was mentioned at the last meeting, I'm not sure that the resolution that
was passed by the council has us dealing with term limits at all.
Right.
So I think we need to restrict our comments there.
Relative to the full or part time, another option that we certainly should be discussing
somewhere along the line is the use of full-time committees within the council
and adding staff there which may facilitate constituent responses and
elevate the rapidity of responses to constituents. Keith. I have actually
forgotten what I had wanted to ask before before I responded to Emily and
And that was Ken planning, provide us with some data in terms of the outlook over the
next whatever 20, 30, 40, 50 years, whatever, something that gives us, and Jeff is pulling
out something now that takes it all the way up to 2050.
Do you have anything going beyond?
I think Jeff's got our answer for us from the state data center is 934,520 people divided
by seven years.
But I said going further because, you know, because we wouldn't even have paid off that
service by that by that point in time.
So, you know, if the planning has something of a longer horizon for us to consider in terms
of that.
Thirty years is usually there.
One that you'll publish.
Give me that number one more time.
Anybody else want to?
934-520.
About.
A little higher.
Not a huge increase.
Right.
So one thing I'm still trying to research is go backwards and see what the projection
was at the time of the charter to see how far, how close they were.
What they were thinking, well what they had was a lack of vision of what was happening
in this county in the second half of the 1950s.
It ballooned.
Right.
in the second, and then into the 60s, and then when we started having the issues of people
leaving the cities in 1970s, it's because you can tell it in terms of number of schools,
you're familiar with number of schools, we built all of those schools because we had
a ballooning of our population, and then it slowed down.
So it was an assumption we'd grow a lot faster.
But what you have there, Jeff, is from the state.
And so what I'm asking, does planning, our office of planning, have anything that, even
though they don't have it published, is that do they have some basic planning thoughts
in terms of beyond 1950?
The state usually modifies what the county submits, so it's pretty tight, but we can
get that.
Yeah.
Be interesting.
More and more council people are doing more atoriums on building.
Yes.
I don't know the term for it, but they're expanding one house per acre or whatever.
I know an area down in the Middle River area.
They wanted to put a whole bunch of houses and apartments down by that plant that they
just blew up.
Right.
That's not going to happen.
David says it's not going to happen. He's put, you know, something on, you know,
one paper that's 29 is 20 something. And along Ebenezer Road, along Ebenezer
Road's another area where there's a vacant lot that's probably 25 acres.
475 acres. Is that what it is? And it's just sitting there now because they can't
build on it, you know, I mean. Well, the thing with it is it's still, they're
still filling the den. It's going to be 10 years. No, but they, yeah, but
there's a lot of things, there's a lot of things coming to play. There's some
things happening there.
They're running out of room.
Yeah, true. I think that's true. I think that's probably the only place
where they got and a lot of those are farms that they can't build.
I think that's a good point that are we being built out as much as we possibly
can be with the restrictions on environmental and other factors that
that we're not allowing 40 townhouses on an acre of land in Garrison Forest where an owing
smells, something like that. I mean, I wonder the potential for, I mean, I think there's
always building going to happen, but the potential for these huge, like, owing smells
and white marsh that have built out, you know, is, are there other areas that are
going to be built out like that? Yes.
And I think, you know, part of Keith's question, obviously, we just went through a master plan
2030, right?
And then we're about to enter CZMP, as Councilman Motoka mentioned.
I mean, I definitely think Jeff's numbers reflect that we're not growing at a huge
percentage anymore, right?
We're more like we're at 850,000 about, we're going to be at 930,000 in 2050,
right?
So...
Five years.
Yeah.
Yeah, so it's definitely more smarter growth than just like a giant amount of growth, right,
Vicki?
So it's more, I think, and as Sheila mentioned, it's – I mean, we're kind of – yes,
we can plan a little bit for the future and take some of the projections, but it's more
just at this moment in time with about 850,000 constituents versus in 56 when the original
charter was formed.
Do we really feel like it's a quantity play?
Do we feel like it's a quality play of full-time part-time?
I think that's kind of really what we're trying to focus on right it's like we can't predict
What's gonna happen? I mean if there's another growth spurt or people just mass exodus like we talked about I mean it happens
And we also have a booming pop like a a growing elderly population
Right in the county. So it's like, you know people are aging in place and then they're staying but then you know
Unfortunately if they pass away, are we attracting younger people in those neighborhoods?
the oldest population in the state of Maryland.
That's right.
And so that's also part of it too, right?
So maybe that's part of Jeff's projections.
It's like, okay, it's a little bit more stagnant growth
because we have an aging population
and we really aren't attracting that younger group
from other parts of the state.
So I think, you know, as a work group,
we can only just take the amount of information that we have
and make the best recommendation.
Any other discussion?
Adam?
This
is on the 1st of January, the next time we'll be seeing each other over here.
And then you have our January cleanup, 2nd of January.
So Brad and I are going
to start creating the skeletons.
We can focus right now on where
you guys do have the central
questions that you have to answer.
And I guess we're
here to help you guys.
So if there is something that you would like for us, if there is something that would help
if we could focus down to a set,
if you would like us to try and do a survey of the group
on specific questions. However, you guys want to do it so that we can actually, or simply
We can vote at,
it's up to the group how we want to proceed.
That might be a good idea, a survey of, for all of us to, you know, with some questions,
one there, specific questions, and you put together a number that, you know,
we've got seven people that want this, but we have three people that want that,
universes, you know, trying to do a vote on each question at a, I mean,
eventually we're going to have to get to that, you know, the vote.
But it might not be a bad idea to put a survey just to see where we stand exactly to see where the group stands as a
Entire group, you know
And it might not be a bad idea
Do we expand the council do do we expand the council by seven do we
Or two do we expand do we expand the the amount of people a man of staff?
You know, I mean that those kind of questions and just exactly where we may be
you know, as far as a group goes.
I mean, it's just a thought, but...
I think that's...I like that idea.
Jill, I would like to...
I think we can firm up some type of narrative on why this group is existing.
Did this group
just get here because the county executive wanted to stave off a referendum drive?
You'll see what you mean.
Or was this group here because the county executive looked at the history and realized
that the 7 was set when the county was less than half of this now.
And even if the group's recommendations, you know, was to keep it at 7, the reason
The reason why this started, the genesis of this was because someone said, it's time
for a look-see, as opposed to we just do it because we're trying to do this.
But it's a legitimate time for a look-see.
Now, times have changed, transportation, communications, electronics, vehicles have
speeded up a lot of those things that took a long time back then that people accepted.
it. But now people won't set their time, but they don't have to because of technology.
And the county government has taken advantage of that, and that seven has seemed to work
because of those changes. But given that we're going forward, is that seven still good enough
or did the county's act have said, it's time for a look-see? Why? And then we can
can go from there to say, well, we didn't look seeing these are the things we consider.
We consider cost. We consider demographics. We consider opportunities for diversity. We
even looked at other places, although Baltimore County, it was not unique as a county, but
we are unique as a state because Baltimore County doesn't have any incorporated cities
in it. So that makes us a little bit different also.
But it's like, let people know that, you know, there's a legitimate reason for this group
to exist.
Yes.
With that, so, you know, off what Sheila said, so maybe that's part of your draft, right,
Adam, that you and Brad are working on for us of kind of our recommendation.
Because eventually, you know, we're going to have to get into some timeline as a
group where we're done data gathering, right?
I mean, you guys have been amazing in answering our questions.
but eventually, we only have until the end of March, so eventually we're going to have
to shift from data gathering and everybody getting all nerded out on research to, well,
here's our recommendation.
So maybe what Sheila is saying with the narrative, that could be part of the draft recommendation
that comes from the group, and I guess if we kind of see the bones of that draft and
then maybe everybody kind of gives their first off opinion, like John mentioned,
that might also get us, well, okay, let's narrow down the data that you guys need because
a majority of the group thinks, oh, let's just go to nine, or a majority of the group
thinks, let's just go to full time, right?
I think like the more consensus we get from everybody, it'll narrow down how much information
we need, because you guys have been giving us great, broad data, but it's like we
got to eventually zero in on a recommendation.
But the recommendation also should have, if it's not unanimous where we're at, I mean,
are we, I don't know how many people are on the committee here, are we, you know, eight
to three, are we six to five or, because I think that's going to have a huge difference
in how the council looks at it also, I mean, if it's unanimous, obviously they're looking
at it different than if it's six to five, you know, this is what we, the recommendation
is to increase by seven people and the vote was six to five.
I think that's important to them, because they're important.
I mean, as far as when you vote at the end of the day,
they need to know that.
And I think that's important.
As part of the end of the day, you know,
that draft has to have those numbers in there.
Keith?
Yeah, I was going to suggest Adam and Brad,
and you all can work with the chairman one that,
And starting at the end, when do you expect to deliver a report and then working in reverse?
What's the deadline for starting to write that final draft and then working from there?
When do we need to resolve the key questions that some people have been alluding to?
So we have – so we'll know – I mean, I've enjoyed this discussion tonight,
But if we don't put a sense of our deadline in front of us, we can waste a lot of meetings
talking about a lot of things.
So it would be good if you all start looking at, from the end to the present, where are
some of the key dates that we need to hit in order to get this work done by the end
of March?
I'm very glad you said that because
we want to have
recommendations on the baseline questions,
big questions, public hearings in the second half of March.
We want to have those decisions made by our first March meeting to be probably in
March
for
working backwards from there, that means, you know,
as we start working on a draft, we can give you
the bones of a draft, probably,
of January,
or second January meeting,
and then in February,
we can
put feedback from you guys on
if the group seem
to like the idea
of the next meeting,
the
draft.
So could tonight, I mean, if everyone agrees that we should take a feeling to find out where
we stand, is it just me tonight to agree to do that and to submit questions that we will
see in the next couple of days that these are the questions that people want to answer
to.
I want to know how many want to.
I want to know how many want four.
I want to know how many want six.
I want to know how many don't want any.
I want to know, you know, how those type of questions we can submit that would be on the
survey, then once the survey comes out, we can send it to you guys and then you guys
would, you know, to do, yeah, and then so that in our next meeting we are seeing the
results of that survey as opposed to just getting on it.
I mean, I know there are things I want to know what you think about.
So I mean, if I'll put the name on it, you know, because it's like, these are the questions
that people want to know.
How many want this?
How many want it this way?
This is how many want it.
And then once we come back, we have something to talk about.
We're
having back-to-back, we're having 20 seconds as virtual, and then the 29th
is back here.
Yes.
Oh,
okay.
Okay.
Right.
Okay.
So when is the announcement going to go out to the public that that on the, that's two
weeks?
January 2nd.
Yeah, that press release is nice.
I saw the press release, but it's a press release.
And when we're talking about individual community numbers, it's like they need more than that
type of press release because unless that press release gets high profile, for example, with
the news outlets, it's the those.
Finally, after the first or second paragraph.
Right.
Part of that is where we come in.
Yeah, I've been, I've been asking people to, and, you know, I'm going to get on my
county council person because they have those they have those contacts to say not
that much you know hey big letters you know and I can say Councilman Patoka
does have a newsletter it's a email blast that goes out to all his
constituents and he did send something out he sent the press release out and I
sent mine out to the planning board and then they sent it out to like I'm
I'm saying more of a plain announcement that on the 22nd, this is, you know, we want your input,
you know, and then put the website or whatever that they can get on.
Did it go out on the county?
And that's what I'm...
The county doesn't have...
The council doesn't have a person.
But the county does.
I think it went out on the county.
Not yet, right?
But again, it's a press release and a lot of people don't read freedom.
You know, I mean like a blurb.
Like normally the county Facebook is good about blurbing and then like attaching.
Do you know what I mean they'll like they'll do like a giant or I don't know Brad if you can check on that
Yeah, I suppose based on what you're saying since we were appointed by specific council people
That we can go back to them and say can you do a special blast?
For example council put the okah. He did a special blast for the budget meeting
I mean it was announced on the county website and went but he did a special blast just to say
Here's the budget meeting for a district to be there
And if, since we were appointed by them to represent them, to ask them, we know the press
release is there, but can you do a special blast so that, you know, everyone knows they
can do it?
We also do it, so we hit them two or three times.
Right.
So we hit them two or three times.
Yeah.
And
we'll know from how many people are going to talk to us, whether it's important to
them or not.
Right.
And the civic councils, the Essex and River Civic Council, we have 20-some community groups
tomorrow.
It goes out to all of them and it will be going on their Facebook pages, websites and different
things and the meetings and everything else.
It's already being discussed.
So
we're heading into debate.
That's what we're saying.
I think that is definitely in the purview of this,
the process of drawing the lines is
something
more,
doing that research.
The thing that is something I think is that
it's
less something I think
it'll probably
be.
But isn't the council the, they're the ones that are, you know, the bottom line?
I mean, I know when they did the last redistriction, it was done by a group, but then they changed.
I mean, there was a lot of wheel and a deal going on when you take this area, I'll take
this area, you take this area, you take that area.
So even though you put together something, the council is the ultimate bottom line, as
I said.
Or spin it and fix it, right, and make it the way they want for their role model.
Is it the
next section?
It
sounds like these are separately.
So it has to have five votes to get passed on the council?
Council.
Yes.
I mean, to get whatever we decide, if the council decides that it has to go in, it has to get
five votes before it goes on, does it go to the people then?
Keith.
Along with that, Adam, and I've sort of been waiting to bring it up, since you're bringing
up the redistricting, there are other areas of the charter that we may need to address
if we do change the number of councilmen.
Right now, the planning board is based on a council member per council, and it assumes
it has the number seven written in the charter.
If we change the number, that's another charter amendment.
There are other boards and commissions that specifically say a seven in there.
So, I think there's four areas that, where it's mentioned, that we'll have to address
that if, you know, to point out that if you're going to do this, and this is where the planning
board is a particular institution.
Right now the planning board has basically eight people from the county executive side
and seven from the council side.
So when you add more councilmen and if you add more representative, do you change the number of executive appointees?
To maintain the balance of power or do you just leave it flat? That is a question that
is addressed when you can't avoid it that if you say specifically there are seven representatives
from the council and now you have nine or 11, you have to change that section and then what
does that do to the planning board and you have to address it. Do you leave the eight
the same or do you add additional people for the executive representatives to maintain that
balance there?
I would like to see that information, I'm glad you brought it up.
I would like to see that information for you guys to go through whatever documents
you need to do for the county to determine these will be directly impacted by your decision
so that we are fully aware of that.
I think there are a lot more than we know.
I can send you something.
It's on the back of the footmore petition.
And I would like to see that.
And also the redistricting, it just happened.
And I'm assuming if it's done,
it's going to be done with the same process
because I guess we have the same guidelines.
And I know I researched that significantly because I submitted a request regarding my community
to that so I understand that process.
And if somebody wanted to look it up, it's not long surprisingly, but it is relevant and
pertinent if someone wants to look it up and see what's really involved in that redistricting
which is done by different commission that was set by the county council.
But it is interesting that those, that would happen if we decided to do it differently.
And I wonder, would the redistricting process be different if we increased the council or
would the redistricting start from where the districts are now?
Because there's been so much redistricting over the years that we have divided communities.
We have done a lot of that that I'm not quite sure was the best way to do it.
So, are we going to start in a redistricting process?
Would they start from where everything is now, or would we take a step back and look
at the county as a whole again, and do redistricting that way,
increasing?
Right.
The Congressional will have to be within five or ten people.
Legislative has to be within 5,000 or 4,000.
How much in the Council does it have to be?
10 percent.
That actually is a big thing.
Artels and Todd Crandall has a large.
Yeah,
maybe it's eight or nine percent.
But you look at the map and Wade Cotches got the biggest area of Baltimore County
but he might have to stop putting in a small population.
No population, right.
The county council, Liberty Road, Liberty Oaks.
We always said that.
You know, it's probably really way up there as far as numbers.
When you get to all the communities, the numbers do increase.
Right.
because it's they mature and they and they also and the top of the demographics they fluctuate because like where I live in the
part of parks where I live
At one time if we need to go out of schools a lot of young families because of suburban area the people who love the area
They rather age in place and now that they are aging out now
We're seeing influx of more families again
And now we're having another need for more schools because you know like I said the generational thing score that liberty
Road corridor was the first corridor that increased from Baltimore City. You could see that when
I was a policeman, we could, you know, that the people moved up the Liberty Road corridor.
As it was a straight line. Right. Straight line. That's right.
I mean, I remember Park Heights and then Rolling Road and, you know, I mean, it was a huge
change in population. And once they put, and once they even
the road out, you know, it was at late 50s, once they even the road out and stopped
going up and down your heels. We'll show you a manual admission. Yes, straight line.
So we'll be submitting you questions that we want on a survey. We have like a two or
three-day limit so that we have time to send you the questions. You send the survey out.
Oh, I wanted to hear the results by the 22nd.
I know, I know, but at least if we have, we are finding out, once we hear, we feel, we
find out what we think, then we're hearing what people think.
I mean, if it's still, if it's still oppressive, no problem.
I mean, we're coming back on the 29th and we'll be dealing with both our questions
and the public's questions.
That's what I'm saying.
Right.
We'll have them.
And we have, for example, if I'm looking at what people are feeling and I'm hearing what
I'm hearing from the public, I mean, it makes, you know, if it's still a question, not a
problem.
Yes, Sarah.
I'm going to be out of country the last week in February.
Yes.
I'm speaking the 26th of February to the second of March.
Not that I mean, you can do it without me, but I'm just wanting to, you know.
That is a good point.
I
think it's the best I can.
I understand.
You don't think you'll play for a while.
Okay.
What is our quorum?
As long as we're not voting on anything, you know, that's the key.
Six. Six.
As long as we're not voting on anything, then I think everybody needs to be available for the vote, you know, and whatever.
Right.
I think that's right.
That's right.
The fourth is a Monday.
Since everybody is already planning like February and March, I know you sent the February dates out,
but could you just send March date out options to the group now so we could just like get them on the calendar now?
That would be helpful, I think, for everybody.
Yes.
Eric.
One thing I want to mention on in-person meetings, there was a suggestion that they'd be done
on the weekends, because presumably more people might be able to show up on a weekend
as opposed to a workday night.
For a public hearing?
Yes.
That was something that came in, I think, from a community person that said that
about when we have the community meetings.
season or you won't get anybody in. That's right, that's right. So true. Do I march bad in this time?
That's not true. Anybody can. That's not right. March Madness. That's March Madness in March.
You ain't going to get anybody in. We're starting to realize what it is.
No, we're not. Remember, this is open. People know they just have to make a decision.
They have to make a decision what's important. This is one sense from 58 for 7 to now. This
is the once in a lifetime.
Folks, I think we won't be around for the next one.
I'll be taking a dirt nap.
No doubt about it.
I haven't had to say this for a long time, but can I have a motion to adjourn?
I move that we adjourn.
Thank you.
Good meeting.