[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:00] I hope you have a joyous and happy Thanksgiving. As we move forward, I think it's important that we all realise, and our own ways, our blessed we are,
[0:19] and that we should all show our Thanksgiving.
[0:25] And a part of that is how we treat each other and how we treat our neighbors and our community.
[0:31] One of the things that Bowie has done is it stood out as a community of love amongst each other.
[0:39] And so I hope as we come upon this holiday time, this festive period that we continue to do so.
[0:47] That we continue to love our fellow man and particularly make sure that we continue to make Bowie that place that it's been in the past but moving forward in the future as well.
[1:01] So thank you all for taking the time to be out here on this chilly night and thank you for all of those for the service you do.
[1:12] And on that note, I am going to call the City of Buick, regular City Council meeting of Monday, December 2nd,
[1:21] 2024 and council chambers it is now 802 to order, with those who are able please rise and join us in the pleasure of legions.
[1:46] For which it stands, one nation, under God, end of this, with liberty and justice for all.
[1:57] Thank you. Madam City Clerk, could you confirm that we have a forum this evening?
[2:07] Yes, Mayor, we do have a forum this evening. This evening, I'm pressing in council chambers.
[2:13] We have council members, staff, council member Rogers, Mayor Proton Wolfley, Mayor Adams,
[2:19] council member Brady, council member Truesdale, and council member and get the model.
[2:25] Okay, thank you so very much, thank you, Clark.
[2:29] At this time, I would like to move as we get to agenda, additions, deletion, agenda, additions,
[2:38] deletions and amendments that we move item E do to some additional items we want to review
[2:49] that we move that to the January 6 meeting.
[2:53] Second, it's been moved in probably second.
[2:58] All in favor, please respond with the Nye, a poll-stained favor, hearing none.
[3:05] Are there any other agenda additions, deletions or amendments at this time?
[3:11] Constable Brady.
[3:12] Thank you, Mayor.
[3:13] I'd like to add a new item for discussion and it relates to the Redeemer Church
[3:21] applications for their church and six homes.
[3:25] I'd like to have a discussion on task and staff
[3:27] with action to try and get that delayed
[3:32] from tentatively this Thursday, the fifth
[3:34] in the January February and have them
[3:39] if successful have them do a report
[3:41] and bring it back for us to hold a public hearing
[3:43] and take a position on that application.
[3:46] But I'd like to add that for the discussion.
[3:47] Second, I'll do a new item.
[3:48] Okay, and you're adding that for discussion, you'd like to put it for the January meeting.
[3:54] No, today, right now, so we can test staff.
[3:59] Okay, it's just a discussion on the task and staff for the assignment.
[4:02] Okay, thank you.
[4:08] Motion, second, everything.
[4:11] It's been moved in probably second that we add the item for the discussion time meeting today.
[4:19] All in favor, please respond with the NIE, a poll-sign favor, hearing an ocean carries.
[4:28] Are they, and the other agenda addition deletions are men?
[4:34] Hearing none, we will move on to citizen participation.
[4:38] Madam City Clerk,
[4:58] the first one is...
[5:17] Thank you very much for this opportunity. I am here because I wanted to bring the city council
[5:26] bring to your attention an effort that has been going on for the past five years. Almost ten years ago,
[5:34] Williams, and I quoted a book, a city of Bui, a history book, a book of essays and photos,
[5:45] chronicling the history of Bui. During that project, I came upon the, the fact that there was
[5:53] a lot of missing data on, enslaved at the Fairbunction. The book itself was well received, but there's
[6:02] a lot of holes in it.
[6:05] The enslaved, that Belém aren't sharing
[6:07] in other topics we couldn't include.
[6:11] Inhale, for the past five years, five, four years,
[6:14] I've been working with Susan Proctor at Boe Museums,
[6:18] chronicling and cataloging the enslaved records there.
[6:24] We have enough material for a book.
[6:28] During the same time, we realized that there was the parallel effort by Professor Laura Masur at a secret heart, the on-marked graves.
[6:41] She actually got together and said, well, there's all of this work on history of buoy.
[6:48] So we sort of put our efforts together. She and I are co-authoring this volume of essays on buoy.
[6:56] There's another effort by another professor,
[7:01] Mendoza Elzam Mendoza, who actually worked with the Georgetown project,
[7:06] chronicling the Jesuit slavery at White Marsh.
[7:12] She's also doing some original research on this.
[7:18] So the reason for my presentation tonight is to ask for some sort of,
[7:26] City Council recognition of the historical nature of the omissions. And this is no
[7:40] the GI project. Never has been, we've been, I mean, I'm a local historian. I like history
[7:47] and so I've been researching this for like I said, I've been doing research and bullying
[7:52] for our 10 years now, I did a history book with Boolean, Pam Williams, anyhow, the idea
[8:00] then is to present the efforts that we've been working at, this whole idea of chronicling
[8:07] the enslaved here in Boolean, in Piscadoe, Canoeland, and in a way to chronicle this so that
[8:18] able to give a full-life history, a richer history of buoy and the, you know, this, this, this
[8:25] play. So the idea is that, you know, I came here in order to ask for any sort of support, financial
[8:32] support, but the city's work of recognition of this submission of the enslaved, especially
[8:39] I'd better imagine. Also, Mike Marsh, the Jesuit history there, the Amat's graves, and also what is most interesting is there's new research about the African-Americans and slave African-Americans, who were here in Prince George's county, who filed suits in Washington, DC, challenging slavery.
[9:03] This has been an effort of historical significance that we are trying to bring all of this information together in this book.
[9:12] The idea of challenging slavery itself is a bold move that some of the enslaved African-Americans undertook at that time.
[9:21] There's also another aspect of the fugitivity, the runaway slaves, who's lives, who are also also
[9:29] been chronicled by the Nina Brown who's a Washington Post writer and also a professor in
[9:38] rest of Maryland. So we are bringing all of this research together. There's a lot of efforts
[9:43] going on to chronicle this history and just wanted to bring it to your attention that, you know,
[9:49] Bowie is a place of so much history, I mean going about 400, 500 years and some of us
[9:55] local historians are trying to cornercoat some of the history, some of them are trying to
[10:30] So please make sure you leave your contact information with the city clerk.
[10:35] Yes, Mayor. Yes, thank you.
[10:40] Next, we have less.
[10:45] I'm sorry. I've gotten so familiar last.
[10:49] Okay. I just want to talk about the agenda packet that was attached to the agenda.
[10:56] Okay. It's full of important and complicated details from several sources.
[11:01] It's comprised of over 650 pages, there are items regarding software engineering, economic planning, and others.
[11:09] I just got to ask, how many of you have read this under the six pages?
[11:15] I was able to do it and have a good understanding of all of it.
[11:20] I hope that the City Council gets briefed from people that really are on top of these type of things.
[11:26] and have an intimate knowledge so that you understand it because one day you're probably going
[11:30] to have to vote on a lot of this stuff.
[11:34] The interesting makeup on our city council here made up of diverse group of individuals regarding
[11:45] different experience, providing a panel of folks with complementary knowledge and experience.
[11:51] And I think that's a good thing because it covers a lot of ground.
[11:55] More specifically, I want to comment on items with my own opinions, but first let's look
[12:01] at today's environment.
[12:03] We have a new administration in DC and that needs to be monitored by the city.
[12:09] Interesting is the information that we get about the economy being strong.
[12:13] I would like to bring out some facts that need to be considered.
[12:18] Just found out just look at some today credit card that has been rising to unprecedented
[12:24] to the levels, and continues to go up where savings accounts are being depleted at the same
[12:31] time.
[12:32] That kind of sends an interesting message.
[12:35] National debt is at an old time high, inflation is still out there as far as I can see.
[12:40] See it, regardless of what the source is telling us.
[12:45] I also suggest that when looking at unemployment stats, check out the U1 through the U6,
[12:52] It tells us more of a detailed account of what's really happening just the U3 which is pretty much what everybody looks at.
[13:00] State Maryland budget shortfall is so big. I don't see us ever being that ever being rectified.
[13:08] Where are the massive dollars left behind by the previous governor and where is the rest of the money going?
[13:14] What do we have to show for the spending? I don't think very much in my opinion.
[13:20] Okay, I'll let you, it's the same thing with PG County, you know, where does that leave the city a buoy?
[13:27] And it's, I'll let you mall that over, you know, more about this night than I'm sure.
[13:34] An appropriate stance forward to be to focus on items that are needed and put aside those that are nice to have until our future becomes more clear.
[13:46] Regarding proposed Popeye's chicken restaurant, let me talk about that a second.
[13:50] I've go from one to the other in the agenda.
[13:53] Do we really need another chicken restaurant and boy to cannibalize existing businesses of the same type?
[13:59] I personally think not.
[14:02] Okay, let me talk about the energy portion.
[14:05] Let me talk about the energy portion and the efficiency stuff.
[14:10] It looks very impressive, details, and we'll throw it out.
[14:15] It's over the top complicated, and I think there's only one person
[14:18] on the council that can really assess this info, okay?
[14:23] Hopefully that person will guide the rest of the council in a good direction.
[14:27] Part of the energy presentation is in regard to vehicles using public safety.
[14:32] Regarding public safety is not regarding public safety, it's not about money.
[14:37] It's about response time, safety of citizens and providers, and those are police fire and
[14:43] EMTs.
[14:44] I suggest that the public safety folks be allowed to get the vehicles they need.
[14:49] First and foremost, so they can keep us and themselves safe as possible.
[14:55] Please don't saddle public safety with entities with vehicles.
[15:00] That make them less effective. There are always unintended consequences to plans like this. The ones that EV fires burn extremely hot in our subject to explosions, they are very difficult to extinguish.
[15:15] some time ago I presented proposal to obtain equipment specifically designed to address
[15:20] EV fires and it went on deaf ears. I'd like to hear what the engineers have to say about
[15:27] EV fires and how it presents dangerous circumstances to first responder citizens and property.
[15:33] Stating that they are stating that these fires are rare is not an answer since the push to go to
[15:39] these across the board. It will increase the population and create greater possibility for disasters
[15:48] and fires and explosions. I fully support also. Let me talk about the economic development
[15:54] committee meeting which I had the opportunity to go to, I'll be brief. I fully support
[15:59] the economic development committee and I'd like to say, I'd like to say, I see the liaison
[16:05] John Henry King and the members to be very diligent, logical, and dedicated, the really good people
[16:12] and I enjoyed going to this meeting.
[16:14] I'm curious, however, to know if we have any tips, GIFS, for at this time, or playing to have
[16:23] any new tips in the system, and I'd like to thank you for listening to me, you're all dedicated
[16:31] people. I thank you for everything that you do and I'm glad you're here.
[16:37] I have a good holiday.
[16:39] Thank you.
[16:41] We now have Jesse Blunt.
[16:47] Good evening.
[16:48] Good evening, everyone.
[16:51] I'm actually seeing you over in the Aboui Commons community.
[16:56] And I'm here tonight to try to get some direction or some type of suggestion
[17:01] as to how I can go about getting HUD to find out how to get directed to the right HUD
[17:10] contact so that I can actually have them advocate for the seniors and the tenants,
[17:17] which would include myself. We have a lot of problems. We have new owners who have come in.
[17:24] We've never met with new owners. They have actually, they have the mediators of which would be
[17:31] the property manager and the regional manager.
[17:35] And the office is never open, it's very, very open,
[17:38] it's very, very, very, very, though the staff,
[17:40] the available to us.
[17:41] And I'm at, I'm at with in right now,
[17:43] we're trying to get my red ledgers square
[17:46] the way properly.
[17:48] When you reach out to them,
[17:50] they operate up in Baltimore.
[17:52] It's always a two or three day turnaround time.
[17:55] And I can't, I can't live like that.
[17:57] And a lot of, a lot of the seniors,
[17:59] their bed written and some of them do not use computers.
[18:04] I'm computer-literate, I've held a lot of jobs, I've paid my dues to be where I am.
[18:09] And so I really, really just need the proper representation, someone is going to advocate for
[18:15] the seniors, someone is going to help me feel comfortable and trust where I live, because
[18:20] where I'm at now, I don't trust the property manager nor do I trust the regional manager.
[18:26] And I've never met the owner, so I don't know, I was told that they're going with us in December.
[18:35] I was told that they were actually going to meet with us upon taking on the property.
[18:40] None of that happened. There were packets that we had to sign.
[18:44] There are things in my least that's there now questioning and everyday things change and nobody actually gives proper notice and writing.
[18:53] I have tons of e-mails to support all the things I'm seeing here tonight.
[18:59] Thank you very much.
[19:03] What we'll do is we'll make sure we'll get to a name with it.
[19:07] Okay.
[19:08] Lady Clark, and we'll call from there.
[19:11] Okay.
[19:20] As I already responded to our VA email, and so I, but she hasn't seen that yet, so that should answer
[19:27] a question or get to the right person.
[19:32] Okay.
[19:32] Thank you.
[19:34] Thank you.
[19:34] Thanks.
[19:39] Okay, we'll now move on to presentations, the Oably Arts and Heritage Committee.
[19:53] Please come forward.
[19:57] What we would like to do is to have council members.
[20:00] It was in council. Let's go down. And is there a precedent we can agree to them? Okay? All right. Yeah, all right, let's go down.
[20:09] Everyone wants a question, please.
[20:14] We've got
[20:21] everybody.
[20:40] Okay.
[20:41] No, we're missing somebody. Here we go.
[20:44] All right. Good afternoon. I'm sorry. Good evening. All right, once again. Good evening, Mayor Adams. City Council members and citizens of buoy. My name is Mr. William Green of the old town. I was told not to use the old town.
[21:06] Overweigh Arts and Heritage Committee, which is the Oboe Celebrate Our Festival logo, and I would
[21:16] like for the steering committee members to come up if they can and for the ones that can't
[21:22] stand, you can remain at your seats.
[21:25] We have the following people that's here at this time, that's on that committee, is Ms. Werner,
[21:31] Ms. Kathleen, Ms. Isabelle, Ms. Heidi, Ms. Levarn, Ms. Tracy, Ms. Penny, Dr. Latoya, Ms. Barnes,
[21:47] and of course yours truly, Mr. Green.
[21:58] There are individuals that make up the old-boy arts
[22:03] and Heritage Steering Committee. And also, the organizers, the old bui, celebrate, which is
[22:14] the festival that we had Saturday, September to 5, 2024. We estimated over 5,000 participants
[22:22] that participated in our fourth annual festival. And I was just a rough estimate.
[22:31] coming and going. Now, with that in mind, within that number of people showing up, we've been coming up here in fighting for whole
[22:39] buoy for a long time, in terms of trying to get some of these things done, such as that bridge, the sidewalks, the roads, and maintaining some of the
[22:50] All facilities that have been abandoned and we have some residents that's in the area also that needs assistance in terms of housing.
[22:59] This is a strong sign that Oboi is worthwhile preserving.
[23:05] We have been supported by the City of Boi.
[23:09] Our community sole quarters volunteers and helpers.
[23:14] On that note, I would like to have Mr. Barnes
[23:18] to present the awards and certificates to get you to come up Mr. Barnes.
[23:31] Good evening.
[23:33] Gerald Vars is my name. The first certificate of appreciation is for Sergeant John McMaster's.
[23:42] Is he available? Okay. We'll pass that on tonight.
[23:55] The second is Lieutenant John Knight.
[23:58] These are all members of the bully police department that assisted us during the festival.
[24:07] Corporal David Redmond.
[24:11] Thank
[24:19] you.
[24:21] I appreciate your help.
[24:41] The
[24:49] next person that we'd like to recognize is Tahisha Miner, who is with Parks Operations,
[24:56] Is this a sheet here?
[25:14] Nick Surgeon from the Community Services,
[25:31] also from Community Services, Matt Corley.
[25:35] It's Matt here today.
[25:42] The next volunteer is Stephanie Smith,
[26:00] also from Community Services, Edward McLean.
[26:16] Thank you for your help.
[26:27] The next volume that we'd like to recognize is John T's Dale.
[26:49] The next certificate goes to co-op Walker.
[26:53] you
[27:03] come around. Thank you. Thank you for your help. This is for you.
[27:10] Thank you.
[27:18] The next certificate of appreciation is for Salita Hamilton.
[27:24] Who is Master Walker's friend?
[27:29] The
[27:40] next volunteer we'd like to recognize is Mr. Hassan Abdullah.
[27:50] Thank you. Thank you for your help.
[27:55] Mr. Abdul.
[27:56] Thank you.
[28:13] Here you can take a look.
[28:20] The next is for my best friend, Marianne Cousabian.
[28:37] Philippe Sandiago is our next volunteer. We'd like to recognize you.
[28:50] Mr. Stafford Williams is our next volunteer. We'd like to write this
[29:00] up.
[29:05] Thank
[29:08] you sir. Thank you for your help.
[29:15] The next volunteer we'd like to recognize is Carl Katan.
[29:19] Now Kate, Kate, Kate.
[29:21] Thank you.
[29:21] Thank you.
[29:23] Thank you.
[29:23] Nice to meet you.
[29:26] Nice to meet you.
[29:29] OK.
[29:30] Are you on a date?
[29:31] Yeah, yeah.
[29:31] Yeah, go ahead.
[29:33] Yeah, you know there.
[29:35] There he is.
[29:35] Yeah.
[29:36] This is Mr. Kate and he's the grand night of the night's
[29:39] Columbus at the Theatre Board Council.
[29:41] Had the decision perished for you, assisted with
[29:43] up in the sauce up.
[29:45] Thank you.
[29:46] Thank you.
[29:46] Appreciate you.
[29:47] Thank you.
[29:50] Paul Robinson is our next volunteer we'd like to recognize.
[29:55] Is he here tonight?
[30:02] Matt Corley from the Community Services, our duplicate, thank you, was.
[30:15] Melanie Rosa is our next volunteer, we'd like to let you
[30:31] go.
[30:31] uh... yon c
[30:34] factor
[30:37] okay
[30:49] yeah if you would give them all a round of applause i'd appreciate
[30:52] thank you
[30:58] all right to keep it going we have to lead Thomas
[31:11] thank you
[31:16] thank you
[31:19] we also have Mr. Haywatha Davis
[31:28] We'll also accept on the behalf of Faith Fellowship Church.
[31:47] From 1559, we have Tristan Harrell.
[32:01] Also from truth-1559, we have Wana Sosa.
[32:16] This truth really showed up.
[32:18] We also have Angela Cole from truth-1559.
[32:33] Also from Troop 1559, we have Valentino Cole,
[32:45] and the Troop Master, a 1559, we have
[32:49] Ms. Wendy Harrell.
[33:02] The Troops really came out this year. From Troop 403, we have Jamil Higgins.
[33:15] We also have a son, Mason Higgins, from Troop 403.
[33:35] Last but not least, Mr. Richard, on your will.
[33:58] All right, Mr. Carl Caden from the Knights of Columbus, from the people of Council.
[34:03] I need you to come forward once more, please.
[34:12] We're going to make sure you get tortured by the mayor.
[34:16] All right.
[34:18] On behalf of the committee, also to Stair and Committee,
[34:20] we'd like to present this council as well.
[34:23] And when you be in the grant night,
[34:26] I figured you would put that into your hands.
[34:28] Okay, thank you.
[34:30] I do want to say our council does like to support the community
[34:34] with the efforts that are where they wouldn't put forth with the communities so with this efforts
[34:42] that the communities assistance and our volunteers from our council. So having that we have
[34:50] someone in our, in our midst, like Mr. Greeney, to keep us connected, and it was opportunity to support
[34:57] and with that, thank you.
[35:11] Okay, we have a few thank you letters. We'd like to give to some of our head staff. We have Nick, a surgeon from Community Service
[35:22] Department. Nick, I knew you were on your somewhere.
[35:33] I'm going to get you a pair of roller skates.
[35:36] Thank you.
[35:39] I'm sorry we have everybody up here. We want to make it official. Okay, we're good. All right, sir.
[35:47] You have to get there you go.
[35:59] At this time we would like for Jose of Public Works Department to come up.
[36:05] See here?
[36:07] No, Jose.
[36:10] No, Jose.
[36:12] All right.
[36:13] I'll give that to Mr. Lott.
[36:14] He will take care of that for me.
[36:16] I'm quite sure.
[36:17] And speaking of the devil,
[36:19] the next one is for our city manager.
[36:23] I understand he made sure these paychecks and everything assigned missed out a lot.
[36:27] We need you to come front and center please.
[36:38] This is a young man that moves around very quietly.
[36:41] He's very servited when he moves.
[36:43] I like his moves.
[36:44] It's just outstanding, sir.
[36:48] Okay.
[36:48] I know that, sir.
[36:50] Here's your certificate, sir.
[36:52] Thank you for services.
[37:09] This next thank you letter is to Chief Dwayne Preston of the police department, you see here tonight.
[37:18] Mr. Redmond would you take this on his behalf?
[37:31] Not a problem.
[37:44] We had one more.
[37:46] We had one more thank you letter and that was supposed to be for the Booy United Methodist Church,
[37:52] which has surpassed their Angela shed control.
[37:56] Unfortunately, she was not able to make it night,
[37:58] but she just asked me to make her name known.
[38:01] Okay, because she has put it the whole group in the city
[38:04] at the same time. She's supported us.
[38:06] Okay? Thank you.
[38:09] And,
[38:10] with no further ado, so we don't hold the council up
[38:15] the rest of our certificates.
[38:18] We'll take them home with us and we'll call those folks
[38:21] that did not show tonight.
[38:22] So we wanted to bother to call their names at this time.
[38:25] And we would like to thank, right?
[38:27] We're going to thank this?
[38:29] You sure?
[38:30] All that, they say no, mate, I'm counting on you.
[38:32] You're free.
[38:33] You're free.
[38:34] We do have an honorable man to come to me and spend some time.
[38:38] You want to come around here, not you?
[38:43] One more thing, before we leave,
[38:45] after to see you get through, we're going to have Ms. T's
[38:47] they'll come up and just say a few words.
[38:51] Hi.
[38:51] I'm Celia Murphy.
[38:52] and I'm also on the steering committee and we really all of us really want to acknowledge this wonderful
[39:00] wonderful woman and this is a special mention and her name is Tony Hansbury and she drove those
[39:05] golf carts I'm telling you made so many of these festival goers very happy and she just has an amazing
[39:12] disposition wonderful humor and just boundless energy so we would like to recognize her.
[39:31] Miss T's Dale, Miss T's Dale is our co-chair along with her, another co-chair, Miss Kathleen.
[39:40] Thank you, and it is just a pleasure to be here with the terrific group Tony.
[39:47] Tony, Tony, we just counted on to get us wherever we needed to go and she was always there and always willing.
[39:55] I love you, my dear.
[39:57] Well, thank you so much.
[40:00] We've been buddies for a long time, yeah. You have to run the gauntlet.
[40:47] I want to give you just one little piece of history about the old Louis celebrates festival.
[40:56] And that little piece of history strongly requires you to recognize Mr. Green because without his support
[41:03] with out his, in just determination, it probably never would have happened, so thank you, Mr. Green.
[41:26] And as you know, this is what the third, one year we were right now, but we've had wonderfully successful years
[41:35] and in large part, because of the support of all of you, the support of Buoy, and each year it gets a little bit bigger.
[41:44] And we try to make it always a little bit better because we think it's a wonderful way to show off this marvelous city that we live in.
[41:54] So thank you to each of you for what you've done to help make the festival possible.
[42:00] And you can't imagine a more wonderful group of people to work with and this group of people.
[42:06] Thank you very much.
[42:15] I just want to do what Furnace said, I mean this would not happen without these wonderful
[42:20] people that are up here backing us and the support that we get from the council and the city.
[42:27] And that's the only way that this event happens.
[42:29] And the wonderful volunteers that come out on that day to make everything happen.
[42:34] So, thank you all very much.
[42:44] So, Mayor, I think we're done.
[42:47] You all have an AC.
[42:48] Thank you.
[44:32] All right. Thank you. Thank you for all you do. Thank you.
[44:49] Under no business, we will not be moving on to item B, energy efficiency and conservation strategy.
[44:58] Mayor.
[45:00] We're under city boards and committees. Is what's next?
[45:05] What's that? City boards and committees, is what's next?
[45:08] I'm over the little fast here.
[45:17] Okay.
[45:22] And now on city boards and committees, appointments, reappointments and squiring in.
[45:30] Mr. Kevin Lopez Cruz was interviewed on November 18, 2024, for appointment to the diversity committee.
[45:41] Council concur to appoint him to the committee as a regular member for a two-year term.
[45:48] Council member Rogers, will you please make a motion to appoint him?
[45:52] Certainly, Mr. Mayor.
[45:54] I have the pleasure to appoint Mr. Kit.
[45:57] I've moved to appoint Mr. Kevin Lopez Cruz.
[46:01] Second.
[46:03] It's been moved in properly.
[46:05] Second.
[46:06] I need discussion.
[46:07] Hearing none.
[46:08] I'll call for the vote.
[46:09] All in favor, please.
[46:11] It's bound with an eye.
[46:12] Aye.
[46:13] Opposed.
[46:14] Same favor.
[46:15] Hearing none.
[46:17] Congratulations.
[46:17] The appointing is the motion.
[46:22] Come on up.
[46:24] Come on up.
[46:24] Come on up, here.
[46:25] Sweaty on it.
[46:26] It's the rower out of your head.
[46:28] Front here.
[46:29] A right here.
[46:30] Right here.
[46:30] A right here.
[46:31] Here we go.
[46:33] Here's the ground.
[46:35] Good ground.
[46:36] Out of here with the 10 feet.
[46:37] That's right, it's right here.
[46:40] That's for you.
[46:42] And made all like to shake your hand up.
[46:45] All right.
[46:45] OK, let me get a swammel.
[46:47] Raise your right hand.
[46:49] That's for you.
[46:52] I, stationary,
[46:55] do swear our firm, that I will support the Constitution of the United States,
[47:04] and that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the state of Maryland and support
[47:13] the Constitution and laws thereof,
[47:18] that I will to the best of my skill and judgment,
[47:24] diligently
[47:25] and faithfully,
[47:29] without partiality, our prejudice,
[47:33] execute the office of regular and state
[47:42] diversity of diversity, community, according to the Constitution, and laws thereof.
[47:52] We'll start again.
[48:03] Thank you.
[48:03] Thank you.
[48:04] Enjoy the hat.
[48:06] Here we go.
[48:11] We'll not move to council announcements.
[48:17] We do for the future.
[48:20] Oh sure.
[48:21] Do you want to stand there and get a photo of this way?
[48:25] One.
[48:25] Okay.
[48:26] Go on to stay up here.
[48:30] That's going to be like two hours from now.
[48:34] Okay.
[48:35] Because the department chair has been changed.
[48:39] Come on now.
[48:42] Come on now.
[49:04] It's John, can I ask you a favorite or if someone grab a picture for the stolen place?
[49:11] Well, Leslie's going to take it.
[49:12] Leslie's also a photographer.
[49:14] All right, I apologize.
[49:29] That's one, I'm getting another one.
[49:32] Okay, how about we all smile?
[49:43] That's one, I'm getting another one.
[49:51] I'm going to sell this back to you, there's another lady there, there we go, there we go.
[50:00] Thank you.
[50:47] Okay, we're going to move on to council announcements.
[50:52] Are there any announcements by council members?
[50:58] Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
[50:59] Just a very brief one.
[51:00] Mr. Green and the committee handed out a lot of paper earlier to a lot of different folks.
[51:06] But I just didn't want to just take a knowledge, excuse me, a moment and acknowledge the folks who handed out all those awards.
[51:12] of Verna, Kathleen, John, Dr. Moss, and a whole bunch of people who I see have now left.
[51:18] Who did a really great job working with our staff?
[51:21] I also really want to credit Dustin Cousin, who's now, I think, like the planning director
[51:24] for Loud and County or something, who's started this effort about five years ago, was his
[51:29] idea at back at Old Town Grill, and he got the initial group together that did this and
[51:35] continues to live today, thanks to the wonderful efforts of the many volunteers we saw the
[51:38] as well as our wonderful city staff and my Council colleagues
[51:41] to support the event every year, financially.
[51:43] So I just want to say thank you.
[51:46] I may have the Council on Council on Saturday.
[51:50] Yes, Mr. Mayor.
[51:53] Thank you.
[51:54] Thank you.
[51:55] Thank you.
[51:55] Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
[51:56] I just want to echo the sentiments
[52:00] to from Mayor Adams in terms of wishing everyone
[52:04] a happy Thanksgiving hope.
[52:05] Everyone had great things given.
[52:07] And happy holidays and how blessed we are in the city.
[52:12] And lastly, I just want to make an announcement
[52:15] in terms of just the condolences to a family.
[52:19] Young brother by the name is Cornelius McDonald,
[52:22] who was struck in last week by gun fire.
[52:28] He had an organization in the youth organization called State Solid.
[52:32] And he was a community activist.
[52:33] We, you know, the county, the city not particularly this city, but the county and all, you know,
[52:42] um, has lost a great brother, son, and a father. So I just want to say prayers out and condolences.
[52:51] Councilwoman and the mamada. Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor. I just want to offer a brief apology. I know that
[52:58] Citizens participation, I did hand out a piece of paper to my colleagues, so I didn't want anyone to think that I was not paying attention or trying to interrupt.
[53:07] I did write a letter to Secretary Reagan of the EPA a couple of weeks ago in regards to some matters of the city and I wanted to hand out to my colleagues the Secretary's response to my letter written to him.
[53:19] So that's all. Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor.
[53:22] Thank you, Councilman.
[53:25] Any other announcements?
[53:28] Seeing none, we will now move on to the city manager's report.
[53:34] Good evening, Mr. Mayor.
[53:35] City Council and residents out there.
[53:40] We are, I hope everybody had a great thanks given.
[53:43] I did.
[53:43] I wish everybody happy holidays come up in December.
[53:47] On one business point, the bulk trash solicitation that we all will be going out this week.
[53:58] And so hopefully, if the bits come in, but in our budgets and all that, we'll be back to you
[54:04] in January with a budget amendment, if necessary.
[54:10] But I would want you all to know that bits about to go out.
[54:13] Thank you.
[54:14] Thank you, City Manager.
[54:17] At this time, I will open a floor for motion regarding consent agenda.
[54:23] Mr. Mayor, I'd like to move to approve the consent agenda.
[54:28] Left side of the view.
[54:30] Last night, I am E, which was moved there.
[54:32] That's correct.
[54:35] It's been moved in probably second.
[54:36] I need discussion.
[54:38] Hearing none call for the vote.
[54:39] All in favor, please respond to the aye.
[54:41] All right, a poll-centered favor, hearing non-motion carries.
[54:48] We will now move on to...
[54:51] Oh, business, I see no old business on the agenda.
[54:55] Is that correct?
[54:56] Correct, Mayor.
[54:57] All right, we'll now move on to the new business.
[55:00] We will start with item A, detail side plan, DSP 2003-02, Oppaise Resteron at Millions Cross.
[55:14] Go ahead, Mr. Miner.
[55:16] Good evening, Mayor. Members of the council. I'm Joe Miner at the City Planning Director.
[55:21] Here to introduce this item. This is detailed side plan DSP 200003-02.
[55:29] It's a revision to the Mill Branch Crossing site plan.
[55:34] It is for a Popeye's restaurant, approximately 3,000 square feet in size on a parcel that's approximately one acre.
[55:45] The state, as you know, is under development.
[55:48] Now, their townhouse is being built in the rear portion of the site.
[55:51] This is the property that's right across from Walmart on US 301 on the east side of US 301 at Mill Branch Road.
[55:59] The preliminary subdivision plan was approved in 2021 for this property.
[56:05] And since that time, there's been one other plan that's come through for review.
[56:10] That's for a dash in and convenience store gas pumps and car wash at the northern end
[56:16] of the development.
[56:17] And this applicant is proposing, as I said, about a 3000 square foot, Popeyes, eating and drinking
[56:24] establishment with a drive through.
[56:26] and that is shown on attachment two of your package,
[56:30] a copy of the site plan and the landscape plan is attachment three.
[56:35] Fortunately, we don't have a PowerPoint or anything like that tonight,
[56:40] but it's a rather straightforward and simple case.
[56:43] The window of review was really very short for this turnaround time.
[56:48] We received the referral only a few weeks ago,
[56:52] and I believe the County Planning Board date isn't early January,
[56:55] So, we had to bring the application forward without the blue advisor planning boards input on this agenda because there are no other council meetings this month.
[57:08] The criteria for approval of a detailed site plan is simply that the planning board may approve the site plan if it finds that the plan represents a reasonable alternative to satisfying the county's site design guidelines.
[57:22] We did look at the comments that were produced by the viewing agencies of our complaining.
[57:29] There are a number of recommendations that they made, which we picked up in our staff recommendation.
[57:36] Also looking at the city's development review guidelines.
[57:40] There was a guideline dealing with lighting, sight lighting, that they be full cutoff fixtures to avoid unnecessary light,
[57:50] bill over in glare on adjacent roadways and properties.
[57:54] And so that is the Council's policy.
[57:57] And we'd recommend that that be also made a condition
[58:00] of approval.
[58:01] With respect to the staff recommendation, as I mentioned,
[58:05] we recommend approval with four conditions.
[58:09] I understand, excuse me, understand.
[58:11] The applicant is not an agreement with conditions two
[58:15] and three, and I'll let Mr. Gibbs the attorney speak to that.
[58:19] But conditions two and three relate to a suggestion by the park and planning staff that the driveway around the restaurant, not be a continuously,
[58:34] a continuous driveway around the building and that the side of the driveway that the streets and lowly drive should be removed and that area replace with green space in order to create an outdoor seating area.
[58:48] And it's my understanding after talking to Mr. Gibbs, that that really is not possible.
[58:53] It doesn't fit within the circulation plan that's used for this type of facility,
[58:59] and that the company was not going to provide outdoor seating on these types of projects.
[59:05] So conditions 2 and 3 can be removed from the staff recommendation.
[59:11] So, essentially, we're recommending approval with two conditions, one being a minimum of two
[59:17] bike racks shall be provided near the entrance to the restaurant, and then, as I said,
[59:22] about the site lighting that the site lighting be made designed with full cut-off fixtures
[59:28] to avoid unnecessary lights bill over and glare on adjacent properties and roadways.
[59:34] And with that, that concludes the staff presentation.
[59:36] Mr. Edward Gibbs is here representing the applicant he can make a short presentation.
[59:42] Okay.
[59:45] It's come forward.
[59:46] Thank you very much.
[59:50] Good evening.
[59:51] Mayor Adams members of the council.
[59:53] Edward Gibbs here are going to turn you with offices in Largo.
[59:58] And a pleased to be here the seat.
[1:00:00] We're representing Green Branch, LLC, the master developer of this project. And Mr. Chesley, the principal of Green Branch, is with us this evening, as is his engineer Kim Morgan from Lantek and then Popeye's specific civil engineer Mr. Ethan Pacifico of Bowman Consulting is directly behind Ms. Morgan.
[1:00:29] I really can't add a great deal, I will just say that, as most of you know, we have been
[1:00:35] here on several occasions during the development entitlement history of this project, and
[1:00:41] we're really happy that dirt is being moved, Stanley Martin is building town homes.
[1:00:46] Mr. Chesley has, in fact, sold the multifamily component, and they're ready to commence
[1:00:53] operations. There are 77,000 and some change square feet of commercial retail uses that were approved
[1:01:02] for the project. The city has my clients very happy that the city has supported all of
[1:01:12] his efforts with this project. And this is the first truly retail offering that has come before you.
[1:01:20] Dash in has been approved. There are two other site plans that have been filed. They'll be coming
[1:01:27] shortly. But this Popeye's restaurant is the first detailed site plan. It's a use permitted
[1:01:34] as a matter of right in the zone. But you do have to get a detailed site plan approval. And that's
[1:01:40] why we're here. I did have a concern about conditions two and three in the staff report.
[1:01:50] They
[1:01:50] report has not yet been released.
[1:01:54] I am two and three that Mr. Miner picked up as conditions in his staff report.
[1:02:02] They were questions that were raised by the Urban Design Division in their referral at
[1:02:10] sub-division and development review committee.
[1:02:13] They were not conditions in the park and planning staff report.
[1:02:16] They had four or five major conditions, and they had about 10 or 11 minor conditions that they wanted to discuss.
[1:02:25] These two items were raised as questions.
[1:02:29] Would it make sense to have one way circulation right in front of the building, which fronts on Saint Lola Lane, the internal spine road of the project?
[1:02:39] And would we be interested in having some outdoor seating area?
[1:02:44] And the outdoor seating is just not in the Popeye's business model.
[1:02:50] Quite frankly, they find that most of their patrons these days are servicing through the drive through window.
[1:02:59] And they just don't find a need or a use for any outdoor seating at their restaurants.
[1:03:05] And changing the access from two way the one way in front of the restaurant would solely have been required if there was going to be outdoor seating to provide enough extra space for a patio.
[1:03:23] So we just can't do those things or not required by the zoning ordinance and I'm very happy that Mr. Miner saw fit to withdraw them as recommended conditions in his staff report.
[1:03:35] We agreed with everything else that he had to say in his report and we have no problem with the full cut-off like fixtures
[1:03:44] We think that's a good idea and should be done. So with that being said, I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have
[1:03:52] Okay, so I just want to for clarification you're saying the two conditions that
[1:03:59] Mr. Miter and clue them in there. You have no
[1:04:04] He had four conditions, one, two, three, and four.
[1:04:07] We had no problem with conditions, one, and four.
[1:04:11] We did have a problem with conditions, two, and three, because they were not staff conditions.
[1:04:17] They were just questions.
[1:04:19] And so with the removal of conditions, two and three, yes, we have no problem with conditions
[1:04:27] It's a minor, are those questions that simply need to be removed?
[1:04:34] Well, we would agree with the summary that Mr. Gibbs has given that those were ideas generated
[1:04:42] by the park and planning staff, which we've reviewed and we agreed with, but again, the criteria
[1:04:47] for approval for tight plans is that the proposed plan represents a reasonable alternative for
[1:04:53] satisfying the site design guidelines.
[1:04:56] So conditions two or three, two and three are not necessary.
[1:05:00] In order to accomplish that, so they can be removed.
[1:05:05] Okay, so you're a recommendation. I'm trying to get you on the wrong side. You're a recommendation
[1:05:09] as we can remove those two. Yes, sir. Okay. All right. Any other questions, anyone?
[1:05:21] No. Madam Clerk, are we to open this up for a public hearing?
[1:05:27] No, Madam Clerk. Is it just action? No public hearing.
[1:05:32] So we'll look for approval.
[1:05:37] I entertain the most.
[1:05:39] I do have one quick question of the applicant, Mr. Mayor of all of us.
[1:05:43] On recommendation number one,
[1:05:45] and actually let me direct this to Mr. Minor initially.
[1:05:48] And I see Ashley here as well from Planning Office.
[1:05:51] Right, Mr. Number one is a minimum of two bike racks.
[1:05:54] That should be provided near the entrance to the restaurant.
[1:05:57] Looking at the map and just trying to make sense to the property,
[1:05:59] Can a person safely navigate via bike
[1:06:03] in and out of this restaurant,
[1:06:05] if there's like car traffic and a parking lot?
[1:06:08] Well, council member is staffed.
[1:06:10] There's not an exclusive bike
[1:06:11] lane going into a restaurant from the street,
[1:06:14] but it's obviously a shared space
[1:06:17] with the vehicular travel lanes.
[1:06:20] I believe Mr. Gibbs has described to me
[1:06:23] that there is some additional treatment
[1:06:25] that they're going to make on the pavement
[1:06:26] and perhaps he can add to the answer here for you.
[1:06:30] Forgive them, I'm not going to get run over
[1:06:32] writing my bike in and out of this restaurant.
[1:06:34] You know, I had the same concern when I first met with staff
[1:06:38] about this comment, and we had a virtual meeting with staff.
[1:06:44] It was either November 13th or 15th,
[1:06:47] with the supervisor of the Urban Design Division and the staff
[1:06:50] writer, and they had asked for a bicycle circulation plan.
[1:06:54] And I said quite frankly, we really don't want bicycles necessarily circulating through
[1:07:01] your, it might be a safety issue.
[1:07:04] But I said, there are two points of access.
[1:07:07] The northernmost access point is two way in and out.
[1:07:13] And the bike racks are going to be positioned immediately inside that access point next to
[1:07:21] the building, the front of the building.
[1:07:23] And so it's just a very minimal amount of the traffic through the parking lot that they
[1:07:33] have to navigate.
[1:07:34] Basically, you pull in, go directly to them and pull back out.
[1:07:37] And we're not sure it's going to be a lot of bicycle traffic to begin with.
[1:07:42] And so where you're going to mark that as bicycle lane on site to make sure it's as safe
[1:07:49] as possible.
[1:07:49] So the placement of the bike racks is such that it minimizes the overlap between bike traffic and car traffic.
[1:07:55] No question. No question.
[1:07:56] And then the designated movement will be indicated and will be visible to drive.
[1:08:02] Yes, it should be just in and out for them.
[1:08:04] Understood. Thank you, Mr. Gibbs. And thank you again, Mr. Minor.
[1:08:10] Thank you, Mayor.
[1:08:13] Just to follow up on a couple of things.
[1:08:15] So, I was a little confused.
[1:08:17] So, you are providing bike racks as part of the design.
[1:08:21] We are.
[1:08:21] Just not specifically where staff is called out for them to be.
[1:08:25] No, we are at consensus with staff during our telephone conversation.
[1:08:31] Okay.
[1:08:31] We requested a virtual meeting with staff of park and planning to go over their comments made at SDRC committee.
[1:08:42] And so the bicycle lane was one of those items where we said we really didn't want to bicycle lane through the whole restaurant park and lot.
[1:08:53] And we had said our bike racks were proposed to be right at the entrance and they said that's fine.
[1:08:58] Okay, I noticed that there's the issue of the bike trail and what have you, but you still
[1:09:04] have a major component behind you of residential that you would expect people maybe using their
[1:09:11] bikes to come since they're not crossing over 301, so there would be a need so glad to hear that.
[1:09:16] I have a quick question for Mr. Minot on the issue of the lighting. When you say full cutoff,
[1:09:23] are you talking about essentially downward oriented lighting just to make sure I'm clear
[1:09:29] that terminology?
[1:09:30] Yes, that's what the terminology is.
[1:09:34] And I've been long time in supporting it.
[1:09:35] I just want to make sure we run the same wavelength with that.
[1:09:38] The last question I have is with regards to the recommendation about the two-way drive
[1:09:45] aisle in front of the store.
[1:09:47] It assumes that I couldn't have been trying to go through my packing to find, but it seems
[1:09:52] It's a may be high on the side and the high on the story you have a single or a single
[1:09:57] direction traffic, is that correct?
[1:10:00] There's two way traffic all around, indeed, except that when you come in, if you're coming in the northernmost driveway, you can either come in or out.
[1:10:12] But when you circle around to the west side of the building, which is a budding closest to 301, then circle around the south side, the driveway coming out is exit only.
[1:10:28] Okay, okay, but there there are that driveway is I think at least 22 feet sometimes 25 feet circling around the building, which allows for a two-way traffic
[1:10:41] Okay
[1:10:43] Not exactly certain
[1:10:45] I won't debate that issue or argue the issue
[1:10:49] Then last it's just a general comment and we've asked the
[1:10:51] the outdoor seating, I really don't have a big problem with that, because you're right
[1:10:58] up a butt 301. So, I imagine people sitting out there even if you provided it to them.
[1:11:05] So, yeah, it's, we just didn't, well, the Popeyes didn't think it would ever be.
[1:11:12] Right. So, thank you, Mayor. Thank you.
[1:11:14] Thank you. Any other counsel,
[1:11:21] question?
[1:11:21] I'm good to see you, Mr. Game.
[1:11:23] Always nice to see you.
[1:11:24] I just have a quick question.
[1:11:27] Great for them, my colleague,
[1:11:29] acts the more structural questions,
[1:11:32] but I'd love to understand, how do we land on a Popeye's here?
[1:11:38] That's not involved in marketing.
[1:11:42] I, you know, Mr. Chesley might be able to answer that,
[1:11:45] but I can't.
[1:11:50] Okay. I mean, I know that I guess this is just more common for my colleagues because
[1:11:56] technically this hearing is not the appropriate form to have this discussion, but I'm so
[1:12:00] not in support of a Popeye's being here whatsoever, but I know this is a detailed site plan hearing,
[1:12:06] and I'd be the first one to remind everybody else that this is a detailed site plan hearing,
[1:12:10] so I don't really have any other questions in terms of the structural design issues, but just
[1:12:15] rather being clear that I'm really trying to understand how we landed on a Popeye's here.
[1:12:20] I think from my district, from where I sit in district four, we've been very clear that we don't
[1:12:24] want any more pop eyes adjacent like restaurants or anything close to it. And given that this
[1:12:31] in this particular parcel of land sits on the intersection of 301 and is very visible is what
[1:12:37] it seems like. It's just not the right branding that we're looking for in the city of buoy or I'll
[1:12:42] least speak for district four and say that this is not what we're looking for in terms of speaking
[1:12:47] to other restaurants and saying that we're trying to attract them, this is just not an adjacent type
[1:12:51] of establishment that we're looking for. So, I know that there are no further questions for you,
[1:12:55] but I just want to be clear and put that out there on behalf of my district district for
[1:12:59] and no way support of Popeyes going here, so I just want to participate in the rest of this hearing.
[1:13:04] Right. Thank you. I appreciate your comments and understand them and, you know,
[1:13:09] my bare fruit have a sidebar discussion about that going forward.
[1:13:14] But I'd like to lift the mic up just a little bit for sure.
[1:13:20] Anyhow, perhaps a discussion going forward
[1:13:23] about other users would be helpful for you
[1:13:27] and for Mr. Chesley.
[1:13:32] Call us and I'm sure we'll stay.
[1:13:33] Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
[1:13:35] Thank you for the presentation.
[1:13:38] I did this as a detailed form.
[1:13:42] So I'm not too much, you're really keen on feeling to match you.
[1:13:48] we have a map of something to screen, we can kind of see where the drive-in is going and
[1:13:52] think that's sort of, we don't have that, but for the most part, can you elaborate and
[1:13:59] maybe Mr. Minor can give more clarity to the driveway, the two drivers? So the recommendation
[1:14:07] for two has been, it hasn't been thrown out the window, but it's something that perhaps
[1:14:16] can be considered, or if you can get more clarity on, because what I'm just saying, I'm just
[1:14:22] seeing a site in a big ex, one way going in coming off at the end of the one.
[1:14:28] Oh, that's the, okay, so the entire end look, my apologies for not having a some type of
[1:14:37] electronic submission that I could have given to Mr. Minor. I was on the impression he would have
[1:14:43] something that would at least show the site and but in any event I could have done that too.
[1:14:49] And so this is just as much responsibility for that but the the site of course has
[1:14:58] expansive frontage on U.S.
[1:15:00] And so the project will have two points of access. The first will be a right-in right-out, directly north of this particular parcel from US 301. Okay? So that'll be an access point right directly off 301. The southernmost access will come off of Mill Branch Road.
[1:15:26] And when you come down Mill Branch, there will be a private road that is known as St. Ridgely Boulevard.
[1:15:35] And it runs East West to intersect with the Green Branch Regional Partner, where we're providing access for the park.
[1:15:44] That fortunately it looks like it's going to be coming online here in the not too distant future.
[1:15:49] So from St. Ridgely Boulevard, there is an internal spine road that runs north and south all the way up to the right and right out in a little bit beyond.
[1:16:02] And the commercial lots all about the western side of that roadway.
[1:16:09] This particular site will have two driveways for just this site.
[1:16:15] one on the northern portion of the site, one on the southern portion of the site, that will allow the northern access drive will allow two way in and out.
[1:16:27] The southern most drive way will just be exit only.
[1:16:31] So if that helps, that helps a lot.
[1:16:34] And I will be studying what Mr. Minus sent us as well.
[1:16:39] It probably be in phase four by time I figure it out.
[1:16:44] But for the most part, I do echo in terms of my colleague in terms of the variety of restaurants
[1:16:53] and things.
[1:16:53] That's sort of an even retail, but I do understand that rooftops attract retail and you
[1:17:00] need all kinds of businesses in cooperating with the residents.
[1:17:07] I think my big issue is the safety in terms of how the landscape and structure is set up.
[1:17:16] So, appreciate your presentation and I'll be emailing more questions in terms of just different
[1:17:26] variety of service stores as well as what can we do as it as it is.
[1:17:31] And I promise I'll bring better.
[1:17:33] I want not better. I will bring visual aids to our next hearing. So, thank you very much.
[1:17:39] Thank you.
[1:17:41] Any other question?
[1:17:43] Jerry, no, thank you.
[1:17:45] Thank you.
[1:17:46] Any one like to make a motion at this?
[1:17:55] I'd like to make a motion for detail site plan DSP 2003-02.
[1:18:05] Okay, with the recommendation, with the recommendation regarding the detail site plan for the new item for the item.
[1:18:20] I'm not clear.
[1:18:22] You're accepting?
[1:18:24] Yes.
[1:18:24] Awesome.
[1:18:28] He's accepting with the recommendation for this.
[1:18:32] Yes.
[1:18:32] A second.
[1:18:33] It's been moved in about a second and a discussion.
[1:18:38] Here you go and call for the vote on a favor please respond with an eye.
[1:18:43] I oppose saying favor.
[1:18:47] Motion carries.
[1:18:48] All right.
[1:18:50] I like them saying.
[1:18:51] You like them saying?
[1:18:53] I'm sorry for that.
[1:18:55] Any abstentions?
[1:18:58] Okay.
[1:18:59] Motion carries.
[1:19:02] Thank you very much.
[1:19:03] Thank you.
[1:19:07] Five point.
[1:19:11] More affirmative.
[1:19:22] We'll now move on to the energy efficiency and conservation strategy.
[1:19:29] Good evening.
[1:19:31] Good evening.
[1:19:31] Good evening, Mr. Mayan Council.
[1:19:34] I'm Ashley Diaz on the Sustainability Manager.
[1:19:37] And tonight we have lowering consulting engineers to present the draft energy efficiency
[1:19:41] and conservation strategy.
[1:19:44] This serves as an update to the previous version that was done about 15 years ago.
[1:19:48] It takes a close look at our city government building and fleet energy usage and provides steps forward for us.
[1:19:57] We'd be happy to answer any questions after the presentation.
[1:20:00] I will turn it over to Todd and Brian.
[1:20:06] Good evening. Good evening. Mr. Mayor, council members. My name is Todd Stephens. I am a vice president
[1:20:12] with lowering engineers and I'm a mechanical engineer by degree and training and I work in the energy,
[1:20:21] efficiency and commissioning fields. And like I actually said, we're here to present the report we've
[1:20:27] preparing since earlier this summer, doing a study on reducing the town properties, energy consumption
[1:20:36] and carbon emissions.
[1:20:42] Just some background on our company. We are headquartered in New York City,
[1:20:47] but we are doing this work out of our local Gathersburg Maryland office. We've got an over 200 employees.
[1:20:53] I won't go through all the numbers, but I've been around since 1956 with our first marquee project
[1:20:58] being the electrical design for the original Twin Towers
[1:21:03] World Trade Center site.
[1:21:06] Brief overview of this presentation.
[1:21:09] So we're going to go through the overview
[1:21:10] and the purpose of why we put this report together
[1:21:13] for the city.
[1:21:15] And we're going to go through some of the background information
[1:21:18] on what was dictating some of the analysis
[1:21:20] and the decisions we made, particularly
[1:21:23] through some of the legislation at the Maryland state level.
[1:21:26] We're going to go through what energy benchmarking we did and what the energy used breakdown was for the
[1:21:32] facilities at the city owns that we analyzed
[1:21:35] Go over some of the energy conservation measures or ECMs for short the ECMs are
[1:21:42] Individual measures for individual buildings designed to achieve the carbon and energy reduction
[1:21:48] Some of them are they're in different categories so there are operational changes that can be made
[1:21:53] There's capital improvement projects that can be executed and then there's also renewable energy projects that can be implemented to all three of these will work together to meet your goals.
[1:22:07] Finally, get into that fleet electrification because studying all sources of carbon emissions was part of our scope then onto next steps and a question and answer period.
[1:22:18] So we were retained by the city through a public solicitation that responded to, went through an interview process and were awarded.
[1:22:28] The city of Boe was wishing to update its energy efficiency and conservation strategy, like Ashley said, previously done 15 years ago.
[1:22:38] This refresher is going to include new mandates from the states of Maryland as well as some new incentives that are available in that towards that end.
[1:22:54] So the goals of this energy efficiency conservation plan was to assess the current energy usage.
[1:23:00] In the greenhouse gas emissions, that's the benchmarking phase, which includes the city
[1:23:05] owned buildings and vehicles.
[1:23:06] We're going to provide a blueprint in reducing the greenhouse gas emissions, enhancing energy
[1:23:12] efficiency, and supporting the goal of net zero emissions by the year 2045.
[1:23:19] We're going to provide a plan, which I believe you have, to meet the Maryland Climate Solutions
[1:23:25] now act of 2022, which involves building energy performance standards, reducing the energy
[1:23:32] use intensity of individual buildings as well as reducing on-site gas-fired carbon emissions.
[1:23:40] And then we had a triage or a prioritization of actions to set target dates or future projects.
[1:23:47] Right?
[1:23:50] Yeah.
[1:23:51] Thank you all for your time this evening.
[1:23:52] My name is Brian Walker.
[1:23:53] First, I'm going to talk about the Maryland climate solutions now act that was passed in 2022.
[1:24:01] So this law requires that all buildings over 35,000 square feet with some exceptions
[1:24:06] must annually report their energy consumption and meet certain building energy performance standards
[1:24:13] acronym we call BEPS.
[1:24:15] BEPS sets limits for net direct emissions and site energy use intensity.
[1:24:20] And what those terms mean, net direct emissions refers to essentially the burning of fossil fuels
[1:24:27] on sites typically natural gas for heating and site energy use intensity is basically
[1:24:35] the total annual energy usage at a facility divided by a square footage.
[1:24:41] So with bepset setting limits on those, they are dialing back the burning of fossil fuels
[1:24:47] on-site for heating, and also requiring energy efficiency
[1:24:52] upgrades to buildings.
[1:24:55] Alternative compliance fees will be assessed annually
[1:24:58] beginning with calendar year 20.
[1:25:00] 30 data by the state of Maryland for non-compliance. So this applies to three buildings, three city owned buildings, the Boeys city hall that we're in, Ken Hill Center and the Future, Icerina.
[1:25:14] And the timeline for this law, 2025 is the first year that annual energy benchmarking reports are due.
[1:25:26] 2030 is the first year, as I mentioned, that alternative compliance fees will be assessed based
[1:25:33] on facilities, actual energy usage, so that first five year period has one standard.
[1:25:40] The next five year period starting in 2035 has a second more stringent standard, and finally
[1:25:46] in 2040 there is the final step standard, which requires net zero direct emissions and a very
[1:25:54] stringent energy efficiency standard.
[1:25:58] So that means by 2040 that all buildings affected by this law would have to be completely
[1:26:03] electrified with no onsite burning of fossil fuels.
[1:26:09] Just one more thing about that, as it applies to the city buildings that we found, there
[1:26:14] are going to be some challenges that we discuss in our report with regards to how to to meet
[1:26:20] this do provide a plan for meeting it, but there are some costs involved, some complexity.
[1:26:27] There will be some trade-offs that will have to be considered as far as there are some
[1:26:31] HVAC systems that would have to be replaced before the end of their lifespan in order
[1:26:36] to meet this timeline by the state, which is pretty aggressive.
[1:26:43] So, the first part of the process to identifying how to reduce greenhouse gases and save
[1:26:48] Energy across city buildings is what's called energy benchmarking and energy benchmarking is the process tracking and measuring and organization or facilities energy consumption over time.
[1:27:00] So we used 36 months of data energy data each facility or as much was available during those period.
[1:27:08] came up with a 12 month average for each utility and you can see from this
[1:27:15] included in our analysis and which ones have the greatest impact on the city's
[1:27:21] greenhouse gas emissions. So what our treatment facility is the most and then
[1:27:27] it's almost a three-way tie between city hall solid waste treatment and the ice
[1:27:32] arena.
[1:27:37] We also looked at one calendar year of fuel purchases for city-owned
[1:27:42] vehicles. This included 210,000 gallons of gasoline and diesel, and this allows us to then look
[1:27:49] at the comparison, see the breakdown in greenhouse gas emissions by sector between buildings
[1:27:55] and vehicles. So about 61% buildings, 39% vehicles. The graph on the left is your greenhouse
[1:28:04] gas emissions within your buildings, broken down by fuel source. So electricity makes up 77%
[1:28:11] of emissions natural gas, 21% propane, 2%.
[1:28:19] Then just to give a couple of example buildings, starting with Bui City Hall, this is
[1:28:24] what's called the energy end use breakdown.
[1:28:26] So this presents essentially a pie chart showing the different end uses within the building.
[1:28:34] And you can see what, you know, where the energy in the building is going.
[1:28:39] So about, you know, 43% to space heating, 13% to cooling, 19% to air distribution.
[1:28:46] So, you know, if you're saying about roughly 75% of the buildings, total energy uses going to
[1:28:52] HVAC systems. So this helps us to identify where we should direct our focus when it comes to identifying
[1:29:01] energy conservation measures, focusing on the biggest slices of the pie.
[1:29:10] For e
[1:29:12] -analysis of monthly energy usage by electricity and gas,
[1:29:22] as would be expected.
[1:29:23] You can see that electricity usage peaks in the summertime for air conditioning, natural gas,
[1:29:30] usage peaks in the winter for heating.
[1:29:32] You'll also notice that gas usage doesn't quite go down to zero in the summer, and that's
[1:29:37] because there are hot water boilers here that are operating year-round.
[1:29:46] We'll just show one other of these for comparison,
[1:29:49] but Ken Hill Center.
[1:29:51] Again, space heating, space cooling, are the biggest contributors.
[1:29:57] Lighting is actually the biggest contributor there.
[1:30:00] 16% that that facility also just underwent a complete lighting retro fit to LEDs. So I would expect if you're looking at this data year from now the lighting slice of the pie should be a bit smaller.
[1:30:16] And also on Ken Hill Center, you can see, again, electricity usage, peaks in the summer for air conditioning. It also has a smaller peak in the winter for there are some electric resistance unit heaters at the site.
[1:30:32] But primarily the facility is heated by gas, and you can see as expected natural gas usage
[1:30:37] peaking in the winter. In contrast to city hall here it does go down to zero in the summer time,
[1:30:43] and that's again because the natural gas boilers is heated by natural gas rooftop units that
[1:30:50] are air cooled
[1:30:56] measures. We identified a total of 75 energy conservation measures at 13 facilities.
[1:31:03] We then categorize the measures by facility and by measure categorically, then a
[1:31:15] complex
[1:31:16] artist implement and the age of the equipment in the cases of replacements
[1:31:22] .ized
[1:31:23] as follows operational changes, capital projects, those are broken down into HVAC,
[1:31:30] plumbing, lighting and building enclosure, and renewable energy measures.
[1:31:35] And this chart on the right-hand side here is showing you the projected greenhouse gas emissions for all the facilities.
[1:31:43] You do see some pretty drastic drops there in 27 and 28 and that is simply because we just for, I guess, simplicity.
[1:31:54] Energy measures into 2027 and 2028. In reality, that may get spread out a little bit more.
[1:32:02] The potential, if all the recommendations in the report are implemented on the time table recommended.
[1:32:12] We'll just show a couple snippets here of the Energy Conservation Measures summary table.
[1:32:17] This is for City Hall. You can see there's about a dozen recommendations.
[1:32:22] If you look at that third column for measure category, you can see there's a mixture of operational changes, capital projects, renewable energy, the for each measure, there's a title.
[1:32:36] The report has a detailed description of how to implement each one of these measures.
[1:32:41] There's a recommended year of implementation, estimated utility savings, and all the way in the right hand side there is the CO2 emission or greenhouse gas emission savings from each measure.
[1:33:02] Again, for Kenhill Center, again, there's 75 of these measures.
[1:33:06] We'll show them all here tonight.
[1:33:08] But there's also about 10 or 11 measures here for Kenhill Center.
[1:33:12] You can see, again, a mixture of operational capital projects and.
[1:33:21] So to give a little bit of detail on a few of the recommendations.
[1:33:26] So as we mentioned, these measures are broken down into categories,
[1:33:29] starting with operational changes.
[1:33:31] These operational changes are recommendations that can be implemented typically at little or
[1:33:37] no cost and can be done by in-house by facility engineering staff sometimes with a little
[1:33:43] bit of outside help from contractors.
[1:33:46] So this first measure is to modify HVAC occupancy schedule to match building hours.
[1:33:53] So currently HVAC systems at most city owned buildings are being operated 247 in the occupied
[1:34:01] mode, you know, these buildings are not occupied 24-7, so this presents a very easy low-hanging
[1:34:08] fruit to make some drastic energy reductions at, you know, little to no cost. So this is,
[1:34:16] this will be implemented through the building automation system that controls those HVAC systems
[1:34:20] and in some cases at the local thermostats for facilities that are not tied into a building automation
[1:34:26] system.
[1:34:31] Again, we're just going through a few of these but operational changes again. This one
[1:34:36] is called hot water temperature reset and this applies to buildings that have natural
[1:34:42] gas fired boilers for heating. So currently all natural gas boilers are operated to maintain
[1:34:50] a constant 180 degree Fahrenheit supply hot water temperature year round. That's that's really
[1:34:56] not necessary only on, you know, very cold.
[1:35:00] Day like we're having right now this time of year. For much of the year you can save a lot of energy by operating them at cooler temperatures, as you can see from this graph here, what this is showing.
[1:35:12] You have return water temperature on the x-axis and thermal efficiency on the y-axis. So in order to achieve the higher efficiency ratings, you would want to operate the boiler is at a lower temperature.
[1:35:26] And that this would be controlled through the building automation system by looking at the outside
[1:35:31] air temperature.
[1:35:32] So the colder it gets outside, you would then provide hotter water and vice versa.
[1:35:41] This is to disable hot water heating systems up of 60.
[1:35:48] This is not for all buildings with boilers, but specifically to the Boge and Nizium and Bellar
[1:35:52] dimension. And that's because these two facilities, we feel there's not a need to operate
[1:35:58] the boilers when it is hot outside. As you can see by the graph on the right-hand side
[1:36:04] here, this is for the Bellar mansion. You can see that the natural gas usage, which is solely
[1:36:11] solely for heat, significant drop from winter to summer. But there's really no need for the
[1:36:18] in using a couple of these facilities outside of the cooler months of the year.
[1:36:26] And just one note on the left-hand side here, we wanted to mention about operational
[1:36:30] changes, is that we recommend that these are not just, but our policies that we would
[1:36:40] recommend a designated individual to ensure that they are continually followed through to ensure
[1:36:45] the persistent future years.
[1:36:52] Now to go through a few capital projects,
[1:36:54] starting with HVAC.
[1:36:56] As we mentioned, the Maryland Climate Solutions
[1:36:59] now act is going to require electrification
[1:37:02] of gas-fired heating systems.
[1:37:05] And the way to do this efficiently is with heat pumps.
[1:37:09] So some of you might be familiar with heat pumps
[1:37:11] if you might have one at your house.
[1:37:13] So the same technology can be applied to commercial buildings.
[1:37:17] So, where fuel fired furnaces have efficiency ratings of 80% over 90%, heat pumps have a coefficient
[1:37:26] of performance of over 3, which is equivalent to 300% efficiency.
[1:37:33] And the way they do this is made possible by reversing the air conditioning cycle, so where fuel
[1:37:39] fired systems can never get over 100% efficient, they're restricted to the amount of heat
[1:37:46] that's contained within the fuel, it's burning.
[1:37:48] A heat pump is actually bringing in heat
[1:37:53] from the outside.
[1:37:54] So you essentially have an unlimited source
[1:37:56] of heat in the outdoors.
[1:37:59] That might seem a little counter-intuitive
[1:38:00] when you're thinking about heating your house
[1:38:02] with the outdoors on a cold day.
[1:38:06] But, and these systems do have a harder time
[1:38:09] of working in the cold or it gets outside.
[1:38:11] They're efficient days in their capacities
[1:38:13] drop a little bit.
[1:38:19] So again, continuing with heat pumps, also you can replace existing fuel-fired boilers with heat pumps.
[1:38:29] This is not quite as straightforward as replacing fuel-fired furnaces.
[1:38:32] There are some challenges that come into play when you're talking about replacing boilers with heat pumps.
[1:38:38] Heat pumps, heat pump boilers are not able to produce the high temperatures that you typically have with gas-fired boilers.
[1:38:45] So we're going to have some cascading effects on the downstream aspects of the system, the piping, the terminal units.
[1:38:54] So this will require some detailed engineering analysis to determine how to address those challenges and how to do it in a cost-effective way that doesn't impact building occupants.
[1:39:10] And the Bellar mansion has gas fired boilers for heating, but we felt that this, I'm not sure what happened with the table there, it's blocking some of the next.
[1:39:21] But we felt that this, this was a little bit unique, and that it would be an ideal location for what's called a geothermal water source heat pump system.
[1:39:30] So in comparison with an air source heat pump system that we just presented on the previous
[1:39:35] slides, geothermal system is drawing its heat from the ground, which has a relatively stable
[1:39:41] temperature of about 45 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit to year around.
[1:39:46] So if you think about that in comparison to the outdoor air temperature in the winter, it's
[1:39:50] a lot easier for it to draw heat from the ground.
[1:39:53] So as a result, it's going to be a lot more efficient.
[1:39:55] And we felt that that was ideal at this location.
[1:40:00] Because of the presence of the large field behind the mansion, which would allow for plenty of space to install such a system, it would produce the fewest greenhouse gas emissions compared to alternatives, requires the least maintenance and has no HVAC equipment visible to the public.
[1:40:20] One more HVC measure we wanted to present was called energy recovery ventilation.
[1:40:25] This would apply to the Bogeumnasium and Parks and Grounds office.
[1:40:31] What this is doing is building where you have a constant supply of outside air and a constant
[1:40:37] draw of exhaust air.
[1:40:39] You would duct those two sources and install what you see here in energy recovery wheel
[1:40:45] So that's one stream of air, the outside air is passing through in the opposite direction as the exhaust air and you're able to spin this wheel and then pre-heat or pre-cool the outside air also dehumidify or humidify the air as needed and this running this wheel uses very little energy so it's a good energy savings.
[1:41:09] We also presented some building envelope measures.
[1:41:14] Here's an example of one at City Hall.
[1:41:17] We heard some comments that staff here have noticed heat.
[1:41:24] Due to a solar heat gain coming in through windows on the south facing side of the building.
[1:41:29] So a solution to that is this solar window film, which increases the,
[1:41:36] Or I should say a decrease is the solar heat can coefficient of the window and also would make occupants more comfortable and reduce the glare on their computer monitors.
[1:41:51] Now getting into the category for renewable energy we have installing on-site solar photovoltaic arrays and we identified five facilities where there's ample space and.
[1:42:06] And then we feel that they would be excellent facilities for this technology.
[1:42:15] First is buoy city hall, so we looked at doing both car port arrays that cover portions
[1:42:22] of the parking lot and also a rooftop solar array.
[1:42:26] And just to see what those look like, but these are screenshots from our model.
[1:42:32] And also you can compare to the annual baseline energy consumption of this building, which
[1:42:38] about 1,090,000 kilowatt hours, these two systems combined would produce about 300,000 kilowatt
[1:42:44] hours, so a little less than a third of the total energy used by the facility.
[1:42:51] Another one is the Buie Gymnasium.
[1:42:53] This is a rooftop solar array that you can see the annual baseline consumption of 431,000 kilowatt
[1:43:01] hours, and this system would produce about 320,000 kilowatt hours.
[1:43:07] And I think there's just one more here, the Booey Senior Center.
[1:43:11] This one, there's really a lot of space, especially in the parking lot for a good-sized
[1:43:15] car port array, but also some roof-ups space.
[1:43:18] You can see there's already an existing solar array there, but this would propose adding
[1:43:24] some more solar, and you can see 300,000 KWH of baseline consumption, and there's enough
[1:43:32] capacity to to more than offset that.
[1:43:38] And lastly, we also looked at the fleet of city-owned
[1:43:43] vehicles and looked at some options as far as replacing them with electric vehicles when
[1:43:52] the vehicles reach the end of their life. So, vehicles that we analyzed for this study,
[1:44:00] you can see an example of a few of the more common vehicles that are owned by the city
[1:44:04] here and the proposed electric replacement.
[1:44:09] So this would have a potential to reduce by 938 metric tons of CO2 emission or 47%.
[1:44:20] We would also recommend developing and adopting a green fleet policy to guide staff and
[1:44:25] making procurement decisions and also as you're adding electric vehicles, you have to
[1:44:31] consider how and where to charge them. So look into installing electric vehicle, charging infrastructure
[1:44:38] and when able seeking grant funding within some of the other proposed projects such as the
[1:44:44] rooftop solar arrays.
[1:44:49] That brings us to the end of our presentation. So thank you for your time.
[1:44:52] If you have any questions, I can take that now.
[1:44:57] Oh, this time of the...
[1:45:03] Thank you. And thank you for the presentation. I was actually tracking with you. So I followed, I followed which we talked about, but I have some real general questions. So I was reading that the Maryland Climate Solutions now act of 2022 has very ambitious schools. So based on their ambition, what percentage of those goals are we looking to?
[1:45:30] implement into our 2025 plan, 25, 20, 20, 25 on one plan, I guess that's where it is.
[1:45:42] Yeah, so again, the first step is to start benchmarking the buildings and the city of
[1:45:51] Buwi staff is already doing that.
[1:45:53] We worked with them on kind of cuising the process of how they were doing that and helped
[1:45:59] get that going. So they're a little ahead of the curve there. So that's good. And then
[1:46:04] the first timeline, again, with regards to the BEPS, to me, is 2030. So, and that's going
[1:46:12] to require some both electrification of heating systems and some energy efficiency upgrades
[1:46:18] to meet that. The good news, as far as that site, UI, or energy use intensity,
[1:46:27] goal, or beps
[1:46:29] standard. Those can easily be met through the recommendations that we've provided in the report
[1:46:36] just the low costs, no hanging fruit. So meeting that, the CIEW target is really no problem.
[1:46:44] It's that electrification, or the net zero, or I should say, net direct emissions standard,
[1:46:51] that both the City Hall and Canal Center are quite far from meeting that 2030 goal right now.
[1:46:59] and where I was saying that it would, it would take some maybe some tough decisions as far as replacing
[1:47:04] HVC systems before the end of their life. Those costs would have to be a way to against the cost of
[1:47:11] those alternative compliance fees. Okay. Thank you for that. Did you want to add something? No, you
[1:47:18] But, okay, so the other thing is, so the low-hanging fruit part is absolutely great because
[1:47:28] there's some operational things that can happen.
[1:47:31] But I think that as I think through 2030 goals, I know that come January there's a new administration
[1:47:41] in Washington that's not going to be as friendly to those of us that know we have to consider
[1:47:48] serve energy and two things differently.
[1:47:53] So I saw capital improvements that were also a part of the strategy that may cost.
[1:48:02] And it may be, well, number one, the state of Maryland doesn't have a lot of resources.
[1:48:09] Although their goals are ambitious, they don't have a lot of resources.
[1:48:12] We know they're operating in the deficit coming this coming fiscal year.
[1:48:17] And the other thing is the federal grants may be cut back.
[1:48:23] So what your thoughts around how do we move forward
[1:48:27] in a deliberate way, but also in a way
[1:48:31] that is mindful of funds that may have to be expended?
[1:48:38] Yeah, it's entirely possible that the new administration
[1:48:41] could cut some of the federal funding that gets filtered
[1:48:44] down to the state level.
[1:48:47] There's currently the 30% federal tax credit for solar.
[1:48:54] I wouldn't be surprised if they canceled that.
[1:48:56] If we see that go away.
[1:48:58] But also just some of the programs as far as the utilities that give out rebates.
[1:49:06] That's something that's currently out there.
[1:49:08] And I know that the city of Boise staff has been working with BGE to get rebates for doing these lighting upgrades.
[1:49:15] So they've been doing a great job of that.
[1:49:19] So, I think taking advantage of what's out there,
[1:49:22] the utility rebates, there's some grants
[1:49:24] that are available at the state level,
[1:49:28] but definitely some research is needed
[1:49:31] in order to put out there and be able to take advantage
[1:49:34] of as much of that.
[1:49:37] All I'd do, and some of the other energy efficiency
[1:49:41] studies we've been doing,
[1:49:43] one of our recommendations has been to move
[1:49:45] quickly for just that reason so that you can secure the funding before any funding
[1:49:52] potential potentially gets canceled.
[1:49:55] There's other sources that aren't linked to the federal government like Brian said
[1:49:58] a lot of them are utility-based.
[1:50:00] But there's also financing programs or different types of ownership arrangements with say a solar photovoltaic provider where you don't actually, the city would not own the photovoltaic array, the provider would own it, but they would install on your building and then you get the benefit of the lowered EUI at the same time that they get the benefit of collecting renewable energy credits to sell those.
[1:50:28] So, there's different funding vehicles out there that don't require direct outlay
[1:50:35] a capital from the building owner, but that's sort of financing and cost measures.
[1:50:45] We would look at if we were doing a full-blown individual building energy audit,
[1:50:50] which I think would be the next step to accelerate the process.
[1:50:53] Okay. Thank you very much. You have very good answers. I appreciate it. Thank you.
[1:51:00] Any other questions?
[1:51:05] Thank you.
[1:51:07] Thank you, Mr. Mayor. A couple of questions. Some at the high level and some a bit more detail.
[1:51:14] First of all, where do we stand, vis-à-vis the rest of those who are obligated to follow
[1:51:22] this law?
[1:51:28] Well, this is the first city we've done it for in Maryland, so I don't have the data set
[1:51:34] the comparative, but what I do know is that when we do individual buildings, most of the
[1:51:46] One of the downsides of the types of facilities loan is that there's only a few exemptions
[1:51:51] from the net direct carbon emissions law, which are a K-12 schools and food prep services,
[1:51:57] none of which were included in the city of Bowie.
[1:52:03] I'm not sure where you would send in relation to other municipalities, but there are definitely
[1:52:09] like Brian went through areas where you can make rapid and large significant improvements
[1:52:15] towards meeting the goal for, say, city hall or the senior center or any of the other
[1:52:20] facilities that were higher energy consumption list.
[1:52:25] So I know on an individual basis it's very achievable, but we would have to do that
[1:52:32] that energy audit in order to get actual costs attached to the energy savings.
[1:52:38] And then that's that metric that will compare how feasible it is given your budget
[1:52:45] and other funding sources that you might be able to explore.
[1:52:49] So I think it's most people now.
[1:52:53] I'm pretty keen on these sorts of things.
[1:52:56] However, this is a pretty aggressive timeline and the notion that in a building of this vintage
[1:53:04] that I would toss out perfectly good hardware such as furnaces that are sitting up on top of
[1:53:11] my roof that are natural gas, which is a darn site better than coal and other pollutants.
[1:53:19] That's a real concern for me, and I'm not sure what the cost are associated with that,
[1:53:24] But, you know, I got my, my love at House, my first love at House, you know, the exterior air conditioner last like over 40 years. It was incredible. So the older equipment actually lasts longer and I understand that it doesn't necessarily make it good or efficient, but it eliminates the cost of replacement and I'm very concerned about trying to finance these, these replacement costs and throwing out what is perfectly good equipment.
[1:53:54] I'm sure we'll have a lifespan that's probably only halfway through it's used for life before.
[1:54:02] And I was somewhere we're tossing it off the roof.
[1:54:06] So I am quite concerned about that.
[1:54:08] I think the operational issues are great.
[1:54:12] The one thing that does stand out to me is when I go into the men's room,
[1:54:16] I like to have hot water to wash my hands,
[1:54:20] even if it's the summertime.
[1:54:21] time, and the notion that just because it's over 65 degrees that I no longer have to wash
[1:54:26] my hands in hot water doesn't seem like the domestic hot water systems are separate from
[1:54:33] the heating hot water systems. I see what you're saying.
[1:54:40] That's good to know. But I do
[1:54:42] think that there is some significant opportunity here that you've highlighted that can make
[1:54:50] big difference and I'm a little surprised we weren't already, you know, taking advantage of
[1:54:54] them.
[1:54:55] So Kudos to you guys on that.
[1:54:58] How close.
[1:55:00] This is a graduated process, right? So, you know, how close are we to hitting the mark on the first round?
[1:55:11] And you know, what I'm going with this is that, you know, you know, Rome wasn't built in the day. And I'm not sure that we need to make all of the improvements on an accelerated timeline.
[1:55:23] notwithstanding your point that there may be funding available, but the same time as Council
[1:55:29] Monroe Rogers pointed out that stuff may be going away, leaving us with an empty bag
[1:55:37] of money given there's no real federal support for it.
[1:55:44] So to use City Hall as an example here, so City Hall would have to reach a net direct
[1:55:50] emissions of 0.22 by 2030, it's currently at 2.0, so it's about roughly 10 times.
[1:56:00] It's a very aggressive goal that the state of Maryland has said.
[1:56:04] And you mentioned that there's a penalty for failure.
[1:56:09] Electromagnet everybody failure is an option.
[1:56:13] If failure doesn't hurt as much as success, right?
[1:56:18] I can marathon and kill myself and not live to see the next day or I could do a 5k and be a survivor.
[1:56:30] So what's the what's the what's the what's the the the sword that's hanging over my head.
[1:56:37] Yes, so for City Hall, so the way that the fees work is that you have that 2030 through 2034
[1:56:46] standard and then within those five years it will increase for an inflation adjustment. But just
[1:56:53] that 2030 with the status quo, it would be an annual fee of $47,216. That's our estimate. And if
[1:57:03] to implement the recommendations in our report.
[1:57:08] According to the timeline, we gave, which is not replacing anything before the end of its lifespan.
[1:57:12] That would bring it down to about $12,986 in that first year.
[1:57:19] So those fees would rise every year, like $49,020,030,050,020,022,
[1:57:27] then you get a bid jump in 2035.
[1:57:30] Again, these are status quo numbers, not, you know, hopefully you guys will take all of our recommendations on the account and
[1:57:37] but that's essentially what you're looking at or if magnitude.
[1:57:41] So with that in mind, we presently have a solar array that from which two which we plan to add or we're going to have additional capacity.
[1:57:53] How does that play in?
[1:57:56] Unfortunately, being off sites, it does not help.
[1:58:00] So the state is looking only at site EUI.
[1:58:06] So off site solar arrays to not help with that.
[1:58:10] All right.
[1:58:10] There's an help that we own that property.
[1:58:13] Should I move city hall there?
[1:58:16] Yes.
[1:58:17] It would help if you move city hall there.
[1:58:20] But what would help more is if we installed more solar panels here.
[1:58:24] And what we typically notice, and like Brian was showing for at least that was a senior center,
[1:58:30] It was up to, it was a significant portion up to like 30% of the total energies.
[1:58:36] When we do typical office buildings say in Midtown, DC, you don't get anywhere near those
[1:58:42] numbers.
[1:58:42] You get somewhere between three and five percent if you're lucky.
[1:58:47] Just because of the nature, the aspect ratio, the buildings are lower and they're wider.
[1:58:50] that gives us more surface area, which is what photovoltaics need to work.
[1:58:56] So having that off-site, and then Brian was saying, with the EUI, that's a site, energy
[1:59:01] use intensity.
[1:59:02] That's what you're building, electric meter is saying.
[1:59:06] So having the solar panels off-site is good for the towns over all goals, but not for the
[1:59:12] Maryland state, beps, rules, and how they're going to score you.
[1:59:16] have there been any amendments or changes to this to these rules so far?
[1:59:23] There was one round. There was a proposed legislation that was put out a year prior to this.
[1:59:29] And then they got a lot of commentary back. And then they went and took some of the commentary.
[1:59:35] And now this is the revised law set that came out of that process.
[1:59:41] It sounds to me that it would be hoove us to get in touch with our state legislators and perhaps some of our lobbyists in some other similar situated municipalities for a general relief and be specific relief with regard to the
[2:00:00] A clickability of solar arrays that we have already pursued. I mean, I feel like here we are having
[2:00:07] done Yomans work to reduce our footprint so far. And someone who's come in and saying, oh, yeah, well,
[2:00:16] all that doesn't count. We got a new set of standards, and we exclude all that you've done. And
[2:00:25] have we find ourselves, you know, kind of being penalized for that. I mean, that property could have
[2:00:33] been sold and there was expense doing that. There was opportunity cost associated with it,
[2:00:39] but we are as a city committed and to this sort of thing. But I'm afraid that this is looking
[2:00:46] like it's a pretty onerous burden on some of these things. On others, no issues, I think there are things
[2:00:52] We can move forward on the heat pumps on the, sorry, the geothermal, not the heat pumps, but the geothermal, we may have to take a look with that piece of property, because there may be some concerns up there with regard to historic nature of the property.
[2:01:17] There certainly would have been outbuildings and other structures that were present that may not be visible presently on the surface that might be adversely impacted by, you know, putting, you know, 40 bore holes to run, you know, cooling slash heating pipes. I know they'd be vertical.
[2:01:37] We have some pretty open ground there. It could be horizontal as well, but I would expect we would do vertical on that.
[2:01:42] So I do have some concerns about that, the tempting that just seems like low-hanging fruit,
[2:01:52] but I am really concerned about the cost.
[2:01:56] Any idea would a new unit upon top of this building would cost me for being ballpark?
[2:02:03] I'm not going to ask you to deliver at that price, but.
[2:02:07] And that's one of the reasons why we recommend getting a professional cost estimator.
[2:02:12] So when we do our analysis, we're generally aware of like the ballpark.
[2:02:16] So a new rooftop unit, and I would say if it's like a 20-ton unit, probably in the range
[2:02:23] of $50,000, but given the rate of inflation over the last few years, that number changes
[2:02:30] so fast that it's hard for us to keep up with it, because when we're doing our technical
[2:02:34] analysis, we'll bring in a cost estimator to give us those kinds of prices. But even
[2:02:40] they're struggling to keep up with how much stuff costs. And often times a lot of the cost
[2:02:44] isn't necessarily just how much in dollars, but how long is it going to take. So we're saying
[2:02:51] to secure funding ASAP, a lot of a bleed times we're seeing for stuff that is controlled with
[2:02:58] of the computer ships is now getting over a year out, maybe even a year and a half, before
[2:03:03] they can even get it here.
[2:03:05] So when you start working back from this timeline, you're going to need energy audit and
[2:03:11] engineers to design the thing and the contractor to buy it and place the order to get
[2:03:15] it in.
[2:03:16] So that process by itself can take a year and then another year and a half on top of that,
[2:03:21] we're getting into that timeline.
[2:03:25] But shifting over to the electric vehicles of which I've been a big proponent and all of my in a loved driving mind, so that's great.
[2:03:37] But at the trash truck level,
[2:03:41] these, I mean, I know our current trucks run about a hundred thousand bucks.
[2:03:47] And an electrified version, it's got to be half main bucks, right?
[2:03:52] probably something in that range, but, again, that's another study that you would have to do so you could understand the costs versus the benefits of reducing the fuel consumption.
[2:04:06] That's not part of the bets though, right?
[2:04:09] That was just part of the report that we were asked to analyze.
[2:04:13] So you're not going to be graded by the state of Maryland on your vehicle fleet.
[2:04:18] So, that's a different consideration than trying to meet at some time like.
[2:04:26] Well, thank you much.
[2:04:27] I very much appreciate your work on this and I continue to be quite concerned about the fiscal issues.
[2:04:39] And, you know, we'll obviously turn the staff to try and figure out the cost benefit on some of these things and presumably with your assistance on that.
[2:04:46] because this is a little concerning that we could try and spin it around in this kind of time frame.
[2:04:54] Thank you.
[2:04:55] Thanks.
[2:04:57] Any other council members, any questions?
[2:05:01] Thank you, Mayor. I'll turn off by apologizing. I always wear my engineering hat, so I just a quick comment.
[2:05:14] Your discussion about the mansion and the heat system change over your reference to the ground always being 40 degrees.
[2:05:22] and I was reminded in Thermal and Fluid, the QDOT equals M.DOT CDL to T, you really can't
[2:05:32] get anything warmer than the 40 degrees if that's your source of stuff, but I'd be interested
[2:05:37] to see how that system actually worked, but that's not what the question I have concerns
[2:05:45] you have a statement in here when you talk about operational changes, but it says there
[2:05:49] be a designated individual and sure that they are continually following it to ensure persistence
[2:05:57] of savings through future years.
[2:05:59] You talk about control systems for the different things.
[2:06:03] In this one particular, it's the hot water heating systems for the Jim and Bellar Manchin.
[2:06:09] But I always think part of any new system we put in would have robust control systems to
[2:06:18] program, and it's set for automatic, and you only bring somebody into service it when there's a problem.
[2:06:26] So you wouldn't need, in my mind, someone to be diligent, except for making sure that the maintenance that is
[2:06:33] occurs is in line with what the design parameters are in a system.
[2:06:38] Am I missing something with that suggestion?
[2:06:41] Well, what we meant by that is that things can always be overwritten.
[2:06:45] And sometimes it's easier to just, once again, return things to the way that things were done before and just run the, run the systems 24 hours a day so that it's always 72 to 74 degrees in this space and nobody's ever going to complain and that would be the easy way of doing things.
[2:07:04] But, you know, it's not the efficient way, it's not the cost savings way of doing things.
[2:07:10] So, our point there was just to say that, you know, we do recommend that somebody ensures
[2:07:18] that these things are followed through, and it's not just, you know, someone takes a short
[2:07:23] cut a year or two years from now, and then all the savings that we thought we had are now lost.
[2:07:29] Yeah, I appreciate that.
[2:07:31] I always think though that my background is a facility engineering in the nuclear industry,
[2:07:37] And we had robust controls over how things were going on.
[2:07:41] I would think, I felt the work here,
[2:07:44] we'd have a similar type of approach.
[2:07:46] But I will throw this story and it's kind of cute.
[2:07:50] The place I worked at in Gacyberg was built in 65, 67-time frame.
[2:07:54] And back then, there was no energy issue.
[2:07:58] So they minimized the way things were designed.
[2:08:01] And the way that I was in, there was a thermostat that
[2:08:06] the temperature in one center office is seven. And it happened to be for a period of two
[2:08:15] years the occupant of there of that room that had the thermostat always was cold. So he brought
[2:08:23] a space heater in. So his office was extremely warm, which caused the thermostat to kick back down
[2:08:30] and the six adjacent offices were freezing because the thermostat, the design, the design failure,
[2:08:38] the system, they got rid of it and they ended up with a control system that was separate.
[2:08:42] But to me, once we have a robust control system, and in that control line should be the capability
[2:08:50] to allow things to change for a short period of time, specified time. Not all we want the thing to be
[2:08:59] 24-7, but now okay we've got a meeting at night normally systems down so you punch in a meeting
[2:09:06] and it stays effective for the cooling or heating for the duration and it goes back to the normal
[2:09:13] program.
[2:09:14] I haven't kind of default timer that drops out so that you don't have the possibility of someone
[2:09:19] in sitting there and changing it, it should be controlled automatic like that.
[2:09:25] I'm very familiar with energy efficiency.
[2:09:28] Yes, you have a class associated with it.
[2:09:31] But over a long period of time, you can realize the savings
[2:09:34] that pays for that upgrade that you do.
[2:09:37] I'm not aware of this analogous approach
[2:09:41] when it comes to targeting CO2 emissions and the like.
[2:09:46] I don't see how you necessarily
[2:09:49] can realize a return in your investment
[2:09:52] It seems to me that those things are implemented for CO2 emissions in life.
[2:10:00] Are it costs that are not recoverable over period time? Am I missing something on that or?
[2:10:07] No, you're pretty accurate on that. I mean, it really depends on the cost difference between
[2:10:11] electricity versus natural gas. It can vary a lot by area. There are some areas that have
[2:10:17] cheap electricity and expensive gas, where electrification makes a lot of sense in another area.
[2:10:22] It's the opposite. So, yeah, you're exactly right in saying that energy efficiency typically
[2:10:28] It has savings associated with it, but greenhouse gap emissions, it might, it might not.
[2:10:34] You're in.
[2:10:35] You know, I was going to add that's part of why the state implemented that
[2:10:39] BEPS program to begin with it, put those penalties on there.
[2:10:45] When we do that, more in-depth financial analysis, those penalties are a cost.
[2:10:52] So it goes into the cost column and it gets added to it.
[2:10:55] So, Maryland's hope is that this encourages the different individual buildings and municipalities
[2:11:02] to bring that down by imposing an artificial cost.
[2:11:06] So that helps get to some payback in some cases.
[2:11:11] We've done Washington DC as a similar, but functionally different kind of regulation at the same
[2:11:16] time.
[2:11:17] And we've done studies on buildings where the recommended fix is $10 million and the fine
[2:11:24] going to be $1 million. So it really is on a case-by-case basis. But that's what it
[2:11:30] the intent is there.
[2:11:34] I agree with my colleague. It's frustrating. We years ago, when I
[2:11:39] do this, we've gone in the council of 10, years ago, we looked at the right solar right down
[2:11:44] in the Indian property. And to sit there and say we don't get any credit for taking that initiative
[2:11:49] is troubling and disappointing.
[2:11:54] Are any of these initiatives directed at non-governmental entities or is it strictly for governments
[2:12:02] to implement?
[2:12:04] Does industry have to do it?
[2:12:05] Does commercial have to do it?
[2:12:07] Do homeowners have to do it?
[2:12:10] Yeah.
[2:12:10] The Maryland Veps regulation applies to all commercial government buildings in the states over
[2:12:17] 35,000 square feet. The only exceptions are restaurants and public, not just public, but K through 12 schools, public instruments.
[2:12:26] You mentioned that earlier. Okay.
[2:12:29] That answers that one.
[2:12:33] Are there, you were recommending solar panels arrays out like in the parking lot, what have you, but it kind of is hit or miss.
[2:12:43] Are there trade offs if we were to put more
[2:12:47] floor panels over parking the spots as far as the
[2:12:53] heat island effect?
[2:12:55] Is that considered, or is it, they do
[2:12:59] totally separate isolated considerations?
[2:13:05] I think there could be some small impacts on the heat island effect.
[2:13:09] Certainly any time you're putting more shade over
[2:13:15] help out with the heat on, in fact. I think the size of the arrays that we do up here
[2:13:21] are a little small to have much of an impact on that. You know, we were limited by trying to avoid
[2:13:28] places that are shaded by trees, so the size of the arrays are not really that significant.
[2:13:34] Okay. Well I appreciate that. Thank you for your presentation. I could say too that the rooftop arrays
[2:13:39] do reduce the solar heat incoming to the building that reduces the amount of cooling that's required
[2:13:45] at the same time. So it's got a double effect. It's not huge, but when we're doing these energy
[2:13:52] analyses, there's rarely ever a silver bullet solution that will solve all your problems.
[2:13:58] It's the accumulation of several smaller measures that all add up. That is one of them that
[2:14:05] reduced solar incoming heat load to the roof of individual buildings where you put it.
[2:14:11] Thank you. Thank you, mayor. Thank you. Any other questions from any other council member?
[2:14:20] Okay, well, thank you so very much. Is there any action at this time?
[2:14:30] No motions. Okay, thank you very much.
[2:14:34] Thank you.
[2:14:36] All of them, success,
[2:14:40] success, success, success, success, success, success, success, success.
[2:14:45] And yes, the continued, continued to be a little tough for them.
[2:14:49] Okay.
[2:14:51] I said, good point.
[2:14:52] The city manager, could you continue to have a staff looking into it as you develop
[2:14:57] even more data coming back for?
[2:14:59] Well,
[2:15:00] Ms. Mayor, that's good point. We intend to look at the results of the study and in the budget process
[2:15:10] to come and incorporate what we can't afford to incorporate and take it from there. So you'll see
[2:15:19] some of these things there and those that we can afford without increasing the factory.
[2:15:24] Thank you, City of Aging. At this time we're moving on to item C, economic development committee recommendations on attracting restaurants.
[2:15:40] Good evening.
[2:15:41] Good evening. Mayor Adams Mayor, Protem, Wolf Lee and Council members.
[2:15:47] I have joined with me, Billy Lewis, who was a part of our work group and is quite timely that we're here since earlier we heard about pop eyes.
[2:15:56] One of the things that I wanted to mention is that one of the common themes in the survey that was going to
[2:16:02] induct in the 2023 was that who we city residents wanted high quality restaurants, not a
[2:16:11] chicken restaurant. I guess you can say they're restaurant, but a fast food. We already have
[2:16:19] canes, Chick-fil-A, and now apparently a pie pie that will be in the city of Boe.
[2:16:25] As a result of the survey, we had a work group that was formed with five members, including
[2:16:33] Billy Lewis, and some of the things that we looked at was the fact that in October of 2023,
[2:16:39] there was a panel discussion featuring retail property owners, economic development professionals,
[2:16:46] and elected officials to discuss the state of retail in the city of buoy, among the panelist
[2:16:52] was Larry Pence, he's the executive director of business development in Precious County for
[2:17:00] economic development corporation. Zena Redfirm of the Washington Prime Group, which is the buoy's
[2:17:08] town center. So the working group actually reached back out. So what I'm going to do is to go over
[2:17:13] some of the things that we found and then Billy is going to say it's suggestions.
[2:17:20] One common thing that was mentioned was the fact of demographics that since Boogey is
[2:17:25] competing with surrounding areas, demographics must be compatible with other locations.
[2:17:31] They're looking for high and restaurants.
[2:17:34] You have to have a certain high income and density.
[2:17:37] I like to point out as a realtor and I'm sorry I didn't say who I am.
[2:17:41] along the muckle and I'm the chair of the Bowie Economic Development, but as a realtor,
[2:17:49] I want to note that you have Melford, Mill Branch, and South Lake. Recently, I sold
[2:17:56] a home for 725,000. That was a town hall. That particular family came from elk rich. One
[2:18:04] things they asked me was, okay, let's celebrate. Where's a nice restaurant in our new city that we
[2:18:13] moved to that we can go to. And they didn't think about Keynes or Popeyes or Chick-fil-A. They actually
[2:18:23] wanted us to go to sit down at a restaurant. And the choice is quite frankly, we're limited. We had to look
[2:18:30] to our north. It was like, oh, wow, we have bonafish grill to choose from. We have farmhouse
[2:18:37] or we can go south to brandy wine. And that's a problem. I mean, I have another client who's going
[2:18:44] to be purchasing for $696,000 in milk for it, who's moving from Bosf. Once again, wondering what
[2:18:56] that down restaurants are nearby.
[2:18:58] So when they say that they're looking for demographics,
[2:19:00] if a person could afford a $700,000 town home,
[2:19:05] and in South Lake, a million dollar,
[2:19:08] single family, clearly, they can afford more
[2:19:12] than fried chicken.
[2:19:15] Next would be the retail mix.
[2:19:17] Also with restaurants they're looking at
[2:19:20] the mix of retail, what type of retail,
[2:19:23] not just nail salines, for example, as being considered retail, they want higher end retail.
[2:19:33] Now, with existing restaurants, the performance of existing restaurants certainly will indicate
[2:19:39] to a new restaurant if they're successful, then I can move in and be successful.
[2:19:44] But in addition to that, we should look at home grown restaurants, not necessarily just chains, but entrepreneurs.
[2:19:50] I mean, you have, of course, rubies, their local grown restaurants, and I'm sure it is others as well.
[2:19:59] Density.
[2:20:00] One thing that came out of this was that daytime population, you're looking at one table turn at lunch, and two table turns at dinner, and restaurants need approximately 500 diurners per week to be profitable, and that's assuming that they're open to six days a week.
[2:20:17] Now, of course, Chick-fil-A, they can close on Sunday, obviously, because they're very popular.
[2:20:23] As far as the economic environment, we already mentioned or heard about inflation, so clearly
[2:20:29] people are looking at their pocket book and saying, can I afford to go out to a fine
[2:20:35] dining restaurant?
[2:20:36] But clearly when you look around, if they can afford to go to a natalist croft and self-to-branding
[2:20:45] wine, and quite frankly, even over to the Woodmore Town Center, I recently was over
[2:20:51] are celebrating my birthday and we went to Copper Canyon and had to thank didn't say reservations
[2:20:57] because people were lined up out the door to go to Copper Canyon on a Thursday evening.
[2:21:04] So if they can go there, there's no reason why they can't come to Booy.
[2:21:09] Another thing that was mentioned was permitting that this continues to be an issue as far as
[2:21:15] lengthy and compressing permitting process. In some cases, some of these
[2:21:21] architects are charging an additional 25 to 30% premium in design and
[2:21:28] consulting fees because of the length of time that it takes to get to
[2:21:31] permitting with French George's County versus other areas. Lastly, as far as
[2:21:38] quality improvement, if boy residents are driving 10, 15 miles just to find a quality
[2:21:47] restaurant. In some cases, people are driving to Virginia as opposed to standing in
[2:21:53] the city because of just not having any options. So next up, we're going to have Billy
[2:21:58] Lewis to go over the recommendations.
[2:22:04] Thank you very much and good evening, Mr. Mayor and
[2:22:08] Council members. I'm Billy Lewis. I'm a member of the working group who looked at the restaurant
[2:22:16] issue in the city of Bowie and I've been a resident of Bowie for 25 years and I've been hearing
[2:22:23] about this for a long time and I'm sure our council members have also and the complaint is that
[2:22:31] We don't have five timing.
[2:22:34] We just like the chairperson said, if we want to celebrate anything, we've got to go outside
[2:22:43] of Bowie.
[2:22:44] That's the bottom line, and that's the concern that the residents here are expressing.
[2:22:50] And in light of that, we made several recommendations, all right, we made seven recommendations,
[2:22:55] And we have which are related to the permitting process.
[2:23:01] That is a major issue that has been expressed by retailers and restauranters like.
[2:23:08] And the other recommendations relate to, we within the city and restaurants within the
[2:23:17] city have to improve our game, the better service, better quality.
[2:23:23] That's what we're looking for.
[2:23:24] So, the recommendations are follows for those of us who want to improve our
[2:23:35] restaurants, our services. Well, we need to improve the workforce. We need to improve
[2:23:40] the quality of service that's provided to the residents here. All right. So, how do we do that?
[2:23:46] And the recommendation really is to connect the existing restaurants to resources and
[2:23:53] organization that could help, such as the Employer Prince George's County, that is a program
[2:23:59] that could improve the quality of service that we get and the workforce itself.
[2:24:07] All right.
[2:24:07] Customer service is very important and I think the residents are looking for that.
[2:24:12] The second one is the fostering and the environment whereby instead of the residents here
[2:24:21] going to like the chairperson was saying, going up north to an abolition or a water chapel.
[2:24:28] And if we were to promote the rest of that we do have within the city of Bowie, that would
[2:24:36] be great.
[2:24:36] So foster environment that encourages residents to support existing rest of it.
[2:24:42] And how do we do that?
[2:24:45] We have there's a variety of tools that we could use one of them is promoting it through
[2:24:49] we, there's a variety of ways of promoting different restaurants that we have here.
[2:24:57] So that's the second recommendation.
[2:25:00] Another recommendation is creating a list and maintaining a list of second-general, generation
[2:25:07] restaurant spaces, right? So if you want to open up a new restaurant, if you pay an existing
[2:25:14] restaurant was already there. So if we have a list that we could maintain and provide that
[2:25:23] to assist the respirators once to come within the city. That would be great. That would be an
[2:25:31] expense that they won't have to occur. The other one is to advocate for zoning changes,
[2:25:42] like the chairperson was talking about, you know, density is a big deal of rooftop and that's
[2:25:49] something that we've learned that organizations look for, right?
[2:25:58] They look, they look in for density.
[2:25:59] They want to make sure that they make money when they come into the city.
[2:26:04] And one of the things that we're asking is that you look at the advocate for zoning.
[2:26:10] Zoning is a big deal.
[2:26:13] That would support the zoning with support, residential development.
[2:26:17] And that way, that would increase our density and at different locations, this location,
[2:26:26] you know, around Bowie Town Center would be a perfect one, right?
[2:26:30] So zoning is key.
[2:26:32] So if we could advocate for that, I'd go, that's a tough road to ahead, but that's a recommendation.
[2:26:41] All right, so the other thing that we talked about really relates to the permitting process.
[2:26:54] And I know there's a role in the city, the city, but we already have a person in a role
[2:27:00] that assists the different retailers in the permitting process and we're asking that
[2:27:11] well if we need to increase support for that branch within the city of Bowie that would be great
[2:27:20] Because if we have that role,
[2:27:25] that responsibility could be enhanced, because a lot of
[2:27:31] retail sites are complaining that they have issues navigating the permanent process
[2:27:37] that is managed by the county.
[2:27:40] And the way we see it is we could be like a liaison to help and work these people through
[2:27:49] the permitting process. So that's one item. The other thing is the permitting process
[2:27:56] and it's not, it's not unique to the city of Bowie, other cities within the
[2:28:01] Prangiorges County and other organizations at the same issue. So if we could
[2:28:06] collaborate with them and touch base with them and come up with some kind of
[2:28:19] We could address those challenges, right?
[2:28:25] So the recommendation really is to, for us within the city to foster an alignment with those
[2:28:31] different organizations and see if we could develop partnership with them to help improve the
[2:28:38] permitting process. So that's not too for the permitting process. The last thing we're requesting
[2:28:43] that we're asking that the city requests on Umbudsman at the county level, right, to assist
[2:28:53] with the permit inspection and enforcement issue that people are having. So it's a way
[2:29:03] of coordinating the permitting process through the Umbudsman, through having coalition with different
[2:29:10] organizations and to elevate our support within the city to alleviate the issue with permits.
[2:29:20] All right, that's something. Those are the, those are the items that we recommend.
[2:29:25] Thank you very much.
[2:29:28] Thank you. So thank you, Mr. Lewis. Does anyone have any questions about anything?
[2:29:35] Any questions, anyone? Council. Councilwoman.
[2:29:40] Thank you Mr. Mayor, and thank you so much for the presentation this evening.
[2:29:44] It's good to see you both.
[2:29:46] My first question is first, during the last budget cycle,
[2:29:49] we talked about this role of an unbudgetman quite a bit.
[2:29:54] And then we also possibly talked about seeing what county council woman here.
[2:30:16] We have a internal permit specialist, which is T.R. Andrews, she's our business retention specialist. Part of retaining businesses in buoy has become very much helping them get through the permit process, as Ben mentioned.
[2:30:32] We have a pretty good relationship with Charles Cooper.
[2:30:35] Charles Cooper is the senior person that
[2:30:39] deprived responsible for permit bird dogging.
[2:30:43] He is by default right now the obbudsman for anyone
[2:30:48] who has an issue getting their permit.
[2:30:50] So we're working that in the current year.
[2:30:53] And we're examining what can be included in the book proposal
[2:30:56] that will be winding its way through the council's process
[2:31:00] beginning in January to address whether or not we seek a permit specialist with that being
[2:31:08] the full duties not just additional duties or whether we want to pursue contracting with
[2:31:13] one of several firms that can be hired to do that. So we have to know what we're doing
[2:31:18] it as we can with current resources and we're looking to increase the resources we've got.
[2:31:24] Thank you so much for that John Henry. I think for this next budget cycle that we're coming
[2:31:28] up again. What I would love to get a clear understanding for staff during the economic development
[2:31:34] section will be since we had this conversation about an unbuttsman like figure or potentially
[2:31:41] hiring somebody or looking at what it would take to have somebody specifically dedicated to
[2:31:46] permitting for the city of buoy for any type of activity that we may want for like a restaurant
[2:31:52] or things of that sort. I'd like to understand what that report was and what was the conclusion
[2:31:58] from that because we did talk about this extensively during the last budget cycle so much so that the
[2:32:03] recommendation from staff. If I remember correctly and I can go back and watch the hearing,
[2:32:07] was, hey, we'll think about this. We'll talk about this. We'll do our own research and
[2:32:11] turn on and see if there's a need for this and the next upcoming budget cycle. So I want to
[2:32:16] get a report out to really understand, was there a need? Do you identify and need? Is this something
[2:32:21] that we want to move forward with? How is it? Is there an opportunity cost associated with us not
[2:32:27] having this role given that this is the second time that it's coming up in the council hearing.
[2:32:31] So that's what I'd love to understand going into next by the cycle.
[2:32:34] Well, there won't be a formal report because we've identified that there is an issue and we've applied
[2:32:40] staff resources to addressing it as we can now.
[2:32:43] We will be prepared to discuss that with you during the budget process.
[2:32:46] Okay. Okay. Okay. That will help.
[2:32:48] Okay. In the context of what we're going to be asking you to fund.
[2:32:51] Okay. Sounds good. That's good.
[2:32:53] And then, because I remember, you had some of the recommendations of this about a year ago.
[2:33:00] And then with those recommendations, I took two of them and presented them to this body.
[2:33:04] One was the Embudsman role.
[2:33:06] And then the second one was seeing if we could set aside marketing dollars to attract restaurants to come to the city of Booy.
[2:33:14] Now, I know that we have currently have an RFP out.
[2:33:17] John Henry, can you give us a status on the RFP and where that is?
[2:33:21] We received four responses at our deadline November 22nd.
[2:33:25] Those responses are currently undergoing review by our review team.
[2:33:29] We'll have more details later this month.
[2:33:32] Thank you so much for that John Henry.
[2:33:33] So two of those recommendations that you've already kind of put towards are under
[2:33:38] under motion and I look forward to looking over these responses and seeing what these
[2:33:43] companies are prepared to do.
[2:33:44] I think, and I just, when I saw Chesley, I spoke to him just very briefly, and I think
[2:33:51] for this body, when it comes to restaurant tours, it's a really touchy spot for me mainly
[2:33:56] because a lot of these restaurants that a lot of our constituents want to see
[2:34:02] only go to places that are surrounded by condos and apartments, because that's what sustains
[2:34:07] their foot traffic every single day. Like, these apartment buildings are going downstairs,
[2:34:11] they eat dinner at these restaurants during happy hour and they sustain them financially.
[2:34:16] And unfortunately, that's just not the pattern of our constituents. Our constituency doesn't
[2:34:20] go out to eat every single night. Quite frankly, they may even go out to eat once every two weeks.
[2:34:26] And a lot of these restaurant tours will not take a gamble or take the risk and go in an area
[2:34:30] if they know they're not going to have sustained foot traffic. I don't know what that means for us going
[2:34:34] forward into this next next budget cycle and how we want to look at our strategic planning.
[2:34:38] And what does that mean, because at some point we're going to have to make a decision as a constituency, not just up to this bottle body, but for our constituents, because on the one hand, they don't want more apartments, but they want more restaurants, but these restaurants only come to things that are apartment, it's like the Whole Foods argument. Everybody wants Whole Foods, but Whole Foods only wants to go underneath the apartments, and nobody wants the apartments that.
[2:35:00] And so, it's a very touchy spot for us. I think, for me, on behalf of District 4, I think the best thing that we can do is see if we can focus on attracting specialty restaurant groups that are willing to take the gamble.
[2:35:14] A good example of one is Atlas. Atlas is currently expanding all up and down from Baltimore down to Prince George's county to Virginia, and really approaching them.
[2:35:24] And like these really specialty niche owners that are willing to take the gamble that had the financing in place and just really do a white glove matching of
[2:35:33] You are expanding here is this area. Does it make sense? And what does that look like and really playing a lot more of an
[2:35:41] Intentional role in that matchmaking process?
[2:35:43] I think that's probably what our focus should be going forward, but I know that's gonna be up to discussion for the rest of this body
[2:35:50] It's a very tushy subject.
[2:35:52] I don't even really know what the direct answers are for it,
[2:35:55] but I know that a lot of us are considering it.
[2:35:57] So I really thank you for your recommendations,
[2:35:59] and I'm glad to know that two of them are at least under what.
[2:36:02] Well, thank you for thinking with that.
[2:36:04] When I think of WatchApple though.
[2:36:08] We're the part, it's there.
[2:36:10] I mean, really, you had the older homes, town homes.
[2:36:14] They are building what there's some town houses,
[2:36:17] but they don't have a part.
[2:36:18] That's not accurate.
[2:36:19] Where are hundreds of apartments?
[2:36:20] Big apartments?
[2:36:22] Large, there's a large of apartments right next to the theater.
[2:36:26] OK.
[2:36:27] There's just two hundred apartments.
[2:36:31] That's true.
[2:36:32] Yeah.
[2:36:33] I would even just on that, if I may necessarily briefly,
[2:36:36] even on watchapples, even the restaurants there
[2:36:40] are not the restaurants that the city of Buiwants.
[2:36:42] Like, if you look at the watchapples,
[2:36:44] except they're silver diner, I mean,
[2:36:46] yes, they launched a luxury higher tier restaurant,
[2:36:48] But silver diner technically if we were to say to district 4 and bringing silver diner
[2:36:53] But anybody jump up and now probably not I think people are looking at the fact that bonfish grill is there
[2:36:59] Yeah, and brandy wine bonfish grill is there and then the new farmhouse
[2:37:03] That's been that location been several things
[2:37:09] Yes, thank you Mr. Mayor and thank you all for their presentation
[2:37:12] I had the pleasure of sitting in why you were discussing this and and
[2:37:18] have had a better understanding of what you were saying tonight. But two things I want to bring up.
[2:37:25] So I totally agree 100% with Councilwoman Roxie. I don't mess up her last name. I just call it her first name.
[2:37:33] And the point is that you do need the rooftops to drive the traffic in order to get the people to come in.
[2:37:41] I mean, you just do.
[2:37:43] It's just a basic philosophy around commercial businesses,
[2:37:48] such as grocery stores, as well as restaurants.
[2:37:54] The other piece, I'll say, is about deep high.
[2:37:59] We had less talk a couple weeks ago at a council meeting,
[2:38:04] and I had given him some input.
[2:38:06] And I think I talked to this group as well
[2:38:09] that we can't do this by itself when it comes to permitting.
[2:38:14] And so we're, hopefully we'll have a municipal league meeting here
[2:38:20] in the city and that will give us an opportunity to put that on the agenda.
[2:38:26] So I know that we're not the only municipality that's having problems with deep eye.
[2:38:32] And I'm almost positive that getting our own zoning authority will be a challenge.
[2:38:38] although I am always hopeful that we'll be able to do so, but I think if we come together as
[2:38:45] a collective body, as the administration is changing on the county level, we may be able to
[2:38:52] get in, get a foothold in, have someone talk to us because we learn doing that presentation that
[2:38:59] you all had is that the process is broken. They have a system in place that was supposed to
[2:39:05] make it more efficient, and it has not.
[2:39:08] It has made it probably somewhat worse,
[2:39:10] because you can't just go knock on someone's door
[2:39:13] and say, please, don't we get this permit walk through
[2:39:17] because of their processing process and things.
[2:39:20] So with all that being said, my one question to you,
[2:39:23] you both, is if you had to recommend one thing
[2:39:27] from your list, what would be your number one priority
[2:39:31] that you would want the city to focus on?
[2:39:38] Even.
[2:39:45] Wow.
[2:39:49] Well, like I said, three of our seven recommendation is related to D-Py, all right. So anything that we could do.
[2:40:00] In the city of Bowie to alleviate whatever issues that they're having, and I'm talking about the retailers and the restauranters, that that would be number one, I think, because three out of the seven are related to depot.
[2:40:17] I would also agree with that, because if retailers as well as restaurants are charging additional money,
[2:40:26] because they're saying it's difficult to get through the process, that's basically saying to some retailers
[2:40:35] while I rather just not go there or restaurants, it's going to cost more money.
[2:40:40] Right. Right. Sorry. So one other thing that sounded like a low-hanging fruit for me was restaurant week and I thought that was a good idea because we do have some restaurants and it might be a good idea just to focus and showcase around the local culinary, you know, opportunities that we do have.
[2:41:06] Booie Bick had an event here a couple of weeks ago last week and they had a taste of
[2:41:13] Booie and they had people walking around sampling and I did find a new place it's not
[2:41:18] to sit down, eat in, sort of the place but it was a new place I could go to and get
[2:41:23] dinner on Friday night. So I think that's a low hanging fruit and if I were to
[2:41:28] committee those would probably be my top two. The one that's more critical
[2:41:33] and the other is bringing more attention to what we already have here in the City of
[2:41:39] Buick.
[2:41:40] So that's my comments.
[2:41:41] Thank you, thank you.
[2:41:42] Great job.
[2:41:42] I appreciate it.
[2:41:43] Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
[2:41:45] Thank you.
[2:41:45] Thank you.
[2:41:47] Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
[2:41:48] Thank you a lot before your presentation.
[2:41:52] The EDC, John King, I had a chance to sit on the committee prior to Council a while ago
[2:42:02] And as a business owner, I understand the risks and the rewards, the rooftops, what is attracting the people.
[2:42:15] One of the key issues, and I really appreciate these seven points.
[2:42:22] I mean, they are, they are accurate, clear, one of the things in terms of, I think, is important to retain.
[2:42:34] You mentioned Ruby's restaurant, that's probably the only restaurant that we have, that's homegrown.
[2:42:45] We don't have many second-generational restaurants when I first moved here.
[2:42:52] There was a restaurant in the Boy Tows Center called Straberries.
[2:42:58] It was called Straberries.
[2:43:01] Straberries?
[2:43:02] Straberries?
[2:43:03] Straberries?
[2:43:03] Straberries?
[2:43:05] I remember that.
[2:43:09] Beautiful restaurant.
[2:43:10] sitting, dining, music, grateful in terms of supporting these restaurants. We have a
[2:43:21] Karavas that's Jason Wright beside apartment buildings and long leave off
[2:43:26] Governor Bridge Road. There are facing challenges in terms of staying staying
[2:43:32] are viable and, you know, are we, we have, we have Apple Vs, we have different restaurants
[2:43:42] that after their 30 years, Lisa's there, they had, I mean, as business owners, you know,
[2:43:53] they have a right to, you know, way they are, right? But at the same time, you know, everybody
[2:44:00] that is living in these 700,000 dollar houses, you know, from time to time, you do want to
[2:44:07] fast food rest, you do want to cheese burger, you know, or is something of that sort.
[2:44:13] So Ray Crot, you know, he did what he did in terms of doing something opposite.
[2:44:19] So I think I'm, of course, smart development and we need, we definitely need more high
[2:44:27] in restaurants, just not in Booye City.
[2:44:32] That is a county, you know, um, um,
[2:44:36] cry out.
[2:44:37] And so, you know, because, because we are the greatest city
[2:44:43] in this county, uh, we speak that as well, you know.
[2:44:47] So, I'm definitely in support, you know,
[2:44:50] smart development and retail, um, you know,
[2:44:53] no matter how much customer service I give as an entrepreneur.
[2:45:00] I use to call my business a small business now called it a growing business because after, you know, you
[2:45:06] bid in business and you people support you, you're able to grow. And that's what we need more to sustain
[2:45:15] small business so they can grow. And let's let a lot of residents get their hands in the game. Let's take the risk.
[2:45:23] We don't have, we don't, we can start other restaurants like what's the restaurant you
[2:45:31] name, Copic Canyon, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a county, that's a county and base restaurant.
[2:45:40] And this door is doing well. I definitely love these, these points that you guys gave and
[2:45:48] I echo my colleague and how we can collaborate and move forward is definitely worth the effort.
[2:46:02] So thank you again.
[2:46:03] All right.
[2:46:04] Thank you so much.
[2:46:05] I know we could go on for hours more on this discussion.
[2:46:09] But we need to move on with the agenda.
[2:46:12] One more question.
[2:46:15] Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
[2:46:16] First of all, thank you for being here this evening.
[2:46:19] I do think there are a couple of comments.
[2:46:21] The first thing is no doubt that DPI is an issue.
[2:46:25] However, to a certain degree, we're barking up the wrong tree,
[2:46:29] because we don't have that authority,
[2:46:33] but I do think that we would, you know,
[2:46:35] it's incumbent upon the community at large,
[2:46:39] by that, I mean, the business community at large,
[2:46:41] to be advocating and lobbying for itself,
[2:46:44] at the county level with us by your side because I do think there needs to be a change,
[2:46:51] a sea change in the way that business is handled. I just hear it all over the place and
[2:46:56] it affects us as a community, it affects the business owners, and it's really detrimental
[2:47:02] to everybody. So I would say that what you know and think about how it is that we can
[2:47:08] advocate collectively at the county in essence. I guess what I'm saying is now that you've
[2:47:15] reported out here, don't consider the job done. I think we've got to go to the next
[2:47:20] place which is to the county working with our Councilmen to help advance this. She recognizes
[2:47:28] that this is a problem. This is not something foreign to her. So thank you for your insights
[2:47:34] on that. The other thing is restaurant week. Washington has a restaurant, a Washington metropolitan
[2:47:44] restaurant association, something like that. I think what we need is a group similar, maybe
[2:47:53] it's a subset of what group it would be, but there needs to be a group that coalesces around
[2:48:02] there and off the top of my head I was just in the congease who would be good to put in for such a
[2:48:06] restaurant week. We don't have a lot of people to a lot of restaurants that don't fall
[2:48:10] into that quick serve category. But you got Jerry C. Food, Smokey Bones, Golden Pavilion. That's
[2:48:19] it's a good food there. Ruby's, Black cow, Caraba's, getting that core group together
[2:48:27] to establish that central focus that we can establish a restaurant week so that they can decide when they want to do it.
[2:48:36] What's the best time of the year? Should it be the same time as Washington or should it be different?
[2:48:41] And then I think the city should be in a position to help with that as well.
[2:48:44] But I do think it's incumbent upon the restaurant community get together and be a part of that solution because
[2:48:52] because they're not many of them
[2:48:54] that it would fall into the category
[2:48:56] of someone someone's acting as hell.
[2:48:58] It's restaurant week.
[2:48:59] Let's go to Popeyes and see what they got.
[2:49:01] It's the same, it's the same coupon
[2:49:03] that you get in the other place.
[2:49:05] So I would say that if we could go to start working
[2:49:09] at next step, that'd be awesome.
[2:49:12] Thank you all for very much for the work you've done.
[2:49:14] Thank you.
[2:49:17] Again, thank you so very much.
[2:49:20] We really are going very long.
[2:49:23] Go ahead, cross the one and the remind you what we have to remember.
[2:49:26] I was going to say if you guys are actively reaching out to people, two groups that I would
[2:49:30] reach out to are Atlas Group, Atlas is based in Baltimore, and they're actively expanding.
[2:49:36] They're called Atlas Restaurant Group, and then the other one is a restaurant called Amora.
[2:49:41] It's owned by husband and wife.
[2:49:44] They're building a second restaurant in Tyson's corner now.
[2:49:47] We've pushed them for Prince George's county.
[2:49:49] So those are the two that you could reach out to.
[2:49:51] more and more is in Baltimore right now where it's Carlton residences but in Google
[2:49:55] and more you'll see the owners information there.
[2:50:16] Thank you, Mayor.
[2:50:18] Real quickly.
[2:50:19] At the last EDC, we had a gentleman from DeFi, there to talk about and acknowledge the issues with the permitting
[2:50:28] process and what they're doing to try and rectify that.
[2:50:32] At least they're acknowledging the problem and hopefully something will come to pass on that.
[2:50:37] But I can tell you one back 22 years now.
[2:50:41] But we've had a problem with getting things to come in.
[2:50:48] For a while, we spent a lot of money.
[2:50:51] This will be the third or maybe the fourth hiring of a PR firm for business.
[2:51:00] And it's for most parts been money wasted,
[2:51:02] because I don't think we have a vision of what we want yet.
[2:51:06] So I think we need to find that.
[2:51:07] What is economic development?
[2:51:09] Because right now what I'm seeing is there's a competition between the institutional aspect of the city, commercial aspect, and restaurant.
[2:51:19] Which one do we want to want to help one over the others or all of them at the same time?
[2:51:25] So I think we up here need to resolve that issue.
[2:51:28] And I'm hoping we can do that here soon.
[2:51:31] And my vision is that it will end up with an economic development corporation for the city of Bully.
[2:51:37] So we can come up with incentives to get people coming in.
[2:51:40] I can tell you, my wife went to Boniface, came back and raved about it.
[2:51:47] So I reached out three times to the corporate headquarters.
[2:51:50] And they said at the time, oh, we don't co-locate a bone with outback.
[2:51:58] We don't do that.
[2:52:00] Okay.
[2:52:01] And then, guess what?
[2:52:02] Go up the wall, chapel.
[2:52:03] It was in 500 feet.
[2:52:05] That's where they'd.
[2:52:07] So, you know, the things, either things changed or they were lying, I don't know, but the problem is we've had difficulty.
[2:52:14] And for a while we did have, I think, 16 restaurants came in, well, previously rather than the council, but then COVID hit.
[2:52:21] And we lost TGI Friday, Ruby Tuesdays, Tias, and several others.
[2:52:26] So there was the pendulum of the economic swing kicked in there.
[2:52:31] But I do think we need to, one, continue the pressure and PGSCMA is a good example, because
[2:52:39] at the last meeting there was another representative from Park and Planning, Planning
[2:52:44] Section, talking about the problems with permitting, so they're aware of it, and the members
[2:52:49] of the other municipalities of PGSCMA were complaining about the same thing that we've complained
[2:52:54] about.
[2:52:55] So there is, I think we can benefit if we coordinate and work together, but just because
[2:53:03] all that, I'm not certain without a real good vision of what it is we want, will it necessarily
[2:53:10] help?
[2:53:11] So I would hope that we would be able to deal with that.
[2:53:17] And I've got several things that I won't go into, but I commend you for your effort.
[2:53:21] But I think that several of not all of them are good points, but maybe not implemented the
[2:53:27] way or suggesting, but if we accomplish the same thing by doing a different way, I'm
[2:53:32] sure you won't complain over that as long as we are able to improve and move along.
[2:53:36] But I want to commend you for that and thank you for that and look forward to the next EEC
[2:53:39] meeting.
[2:53:40] Thank you, Mayor.
[2:53:46] Thank you.
[2:53:46] free to go right ahead.
[2:54:00] Any other comments?
[2:54:03] Hey, thank you so very much for being here this evening.
[2:54:08] We'll not move on to adoption of Resolution R-DAS 82-DAS 24.
[2:54:18] Could you leave the mayor and council members?
[2:54:21] I'm George Jones, Grant's Manager,
[2:54:23] and I'm here tonight to present to you the consolidated annual performance
[2:54:27] and the valuation report for fiscal year 2023.
[2:54:31] This report is for year number five of our five year approved plan, which is acquired by the Department of Housing and Urban Development Community Development Block Program.
[2:54:47] The report identifies our expenditures and program accomplishments for fiscal year ending June 30, 2023.
[2:54:56] throughout the fiscal year, the off-the-grant development.
[2:55:00] Government administration performed grants administration activities that included grant research, writing, grants management, and review of rules and regulations along with policy and procedure training.
[2:55:13] The grants office has assisted in housing and community development activities, such as home buyer assistance, workforce training and development, homeowner displacement, fair housing and administration, housing rehabilitation, and work with our community partners on various other initiatives, like response to homeless services and related assistance depending on residents.
[2:55:43] For fiscal year 2023, the HUD CBBG grant funding was 188,403 dollars.
[2:55:53] The consolidated annual performance and evaluation report, or sometimes called Caper,
[2:55:59] outlines all the statutory requirements that would achieve and the program activities that
[2:56:04] have taken place during that fiscal year.
[2:56:07] For fiscal year 2023, these programs were one, the single-family rehab program.
[2:56:14] This program is for low-mod income homeowners.
[2:56:17] We approved the 13 applications, applicants that were awarded grants of $10,000 each.
[2:56:24] During that year, we completed 11 projects.
[2:56:29] In addition, there was fair housing training.
[2:56:31] During Fair Housing Month on Wednesday, April 26, the city hosted an online presentation
[2:56:38] on Fair Housing Laws, Rights, and organizations that can assist with Fair Housing
[2:56:44] Violations.
[2:56:45] The program featured three subject matter experts who worked in a Fair Housing Space regionally.
[2:56:52] They included Emani Cherry Esquire, and Autumn Clark Esquire, of the Real Men Co-Fax
[2:56:59] law firm who presented it on the law of the history of Fair Housing Legislation while
[2:57:05] Hillary S. Chapman of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments presented on the
[2:57:11] regional analysis of impediments to Fair Housing. We also did workforce training, the
[2:57:18] program provided training to 26 residents, between the ages of 15 to 25 years old,
[2:57:29] training
[2:57:29] topics and to demonstrate topics. Having satisfactory completed requirements,
[2:57:38] including public hearings, advertising and community outreach, we ask that you approve
[2:57:44] resolution R-82-24, the consolidated annual performance and evaluation report for fiscal year
[2:57:53] So it can be submitted to HUD for their review and approval.
[2:58:01] That's it.
[2:58:06] Are there any questions, council members?
[2:58:17] Do you have one?
[2:58:19] I know, I'm about to do now.
[2:58:25] I was getting jamad.
[2:58:27] I was getting my cheat sheet.
[2:58:35] I would declare the public hearing open at this time.
[2:58:41] Do we have anyone speak?
[2:58:44] No mayor, no one signed up this evening, and no comments were received for your email.
[2:58:49] At this time, I would declare the public hearing closed.
[2:58:54] Mr.
[2:58:57] Mayor, I'd like to make a motion for approval for adoption of Resolution R-82-24, as
[2:59:05] that all is adoption of Resolution R-83-24.
[2:59:09] No, excuse me.
[2:59:10] I think they have to be too separate.
[2:59:11] Mr. Separate.
[2:59:12] All right, then.
[2:59:13] In that case, I will withdraw the second part.
[2:59:16] Just make an adoption of Resolution R-82-24.
[2:59:20] Second.
[2:59:23] It's been moved in probably a second and in discussion.
[2:59:31] Hearing none, I'll call for the vote.
[2:59:33] On the favor, please respond with the aye.
[2:59:36] Aye.
[2:59:37] Opposed, saying, favour.
[2:59:39] And the abstentions.
[2:59:42] Hearing none, the motion carries.
[2:59:49] Our 83 deaths 24.
[2:59:53] Now, Mayor.
[2:59:54] And now, council members.
[2:59:55] I would like to present to you the consolidated Annual Performance and
[2:59:58] which report.
[3:00:02] This report is for year one of our five-year proof plan, which is required by HUD and the community
[3:00:10] developed community development block grant program. The report identifies our expenditures,
[3:00:16] program accomplishments for fiscal year ending June 30, 2024. The designated CDBG project
[3:00:25] areas for 2024, cover single family housing rehab, fair housing training, workforce, development
[3:00:33] training, emergency food assistance, and emergency food assistance.
[3:00:38] CDBG funded activities for these projects, paid the national objective for providing benefits
[3:00:44] to low and moderate income persons.
[3:00:47] The annual action plan for fiscal year 2024 identifies specific goals and objectives to meet local priority needs during that fiscal year.
[3:00:59] As in previous years, the grants have persisted in housing and community development activities, such as home buyer assistance, workforce training and development, homeowner displacement, fair housing administration, housing rehabilitation and work with our community partners.
[3:01:17] on various other initiatives like the response to homeless services and related assistance
[3:01:23] depending on residence needs.
[3:01:26] But fiscal year 2024, the HUD CDBG grant funding was twofold.
[3:01:32] HUD CDBG entitlement program was funded at $177,913.
[3:01:39] And we also received the CARES Act Supplemental Funding and the amount of 63,204 dollars.
[3:01:47] The consolidated annual performance and evaluation report outlines all of the statutory
[3:01:53] requirements that were achieved at the program activities that have taken place during the fiscal year.
[3:01:59] For fiscal year 2024, these programs were the single-family rehab program, the program is for
[3:02:07] low-mod and come home owners. 15 applicants were awarded grants of $10,000 each, $15 rehab
[3:02:14] projects were completed. Fair housing training during Fair Housing Month on Wednesday, April 24, 2024.
[3:02:23] The city hosted an in-person fair housing event on fair housing laws, rights, and organizations
[3:02:30] that can assist with fair housing violations with a focus on regional, on the regional
[3:02:36] history of fair housing and the current state of housing and privileged storage is calling.
[3:02:43] The 24 presentation was conducted by Manuel Ochoa of the Ochoa Urban Collective.
[3:02:49] In addition, we also had a workforce development program, the program provided training to
[3:02:56] 24 residents between the ages of 15 to 25 years old training topics included life skills,
[3:03:04] curriculum, STEM, innovation and entrepreneurship with a focus on emerging industries and
[3:03:10] technologies.
[3:03:12] And finally, there was emergency housing assistance, the Office of Administration, also assisted
[3:03:20] residents affected by the wooden lake, condominium fire, with shelter and emergency needs
[3:03:26] to funding provided by the HUD CARES Act appropriation, approximately $4,000.
[3:03:34] Having satisfactory complete with the requirements, inclusive public hearings, advertising
[3:03:39] community outreach. We ask that you approve resolution R83-24, the consolidated annual
[3:03:47] performance and evaluation report for fiscal year 2024 so it can be submitted to HUD for
[3:03:54] their review at approval.
[3:04:01] Thank you. Any questions, anyone?
[3:04:05] At this time, I'd like to declare
[3:04:07] a public hearing open. We have any. I'm speaking. No, Mayor. No one signed up this evening in
[3:04:15] comments were submitted via email.
[3:04:20] No, nobody signed up and no comments were received via email.
[3:04:26] Thank you. At this time, I declare the public hearing flows.
[3:04:31] I'll entertain a motion.
[3:04:33] Mr. Mayor, I'd like to move for adoption of resolution R-83-24,
[3:04:38] adopting the housing and community development consolidated annual performance evaluation report
[3:04:43] for fiscal year 2024.
[3:04:48] Second.
[3:04:49] Second.
[3:04:53] Second.
[3:04:56] Please respond with an eye.
[3:04:58] Bye.
[3:05:00] All sign favour? Any abstentions? Hearing none, a motion carries.
[3:05:09] At this time, let's move to item E of the introduction
[3:05:15] of ordinance, ordinance, O1, 25 repeating and it's entirety and enacting with amendments.
[3:05:24] Mayor, that was moved to the January 6 meeting.
[3:05:27] Did you want to discuss? I thought you asked you want to discuss that today.
[3:05:33] Yeah.
[3:05:34] Not until six.
[3:05:37] Not that. Not the rest. This is.
[3:05:41] What are you talking about?
[3:05:42] Did you see him?
[3:05:43] Yeah.
[3:05:45] What are you talking about?
[3:05:46] I'm telling you about item.
[3:05:49] I thought you said you wanted to discuss this today and not wait until January 6.
[3:05:54] No.
[3:05:56] What I have to have a discussion about task and staff with review and the churches application.
[3:06:05] I have nothing to do with that.
[3:06:08] All right.
[3:06:10] Moving right along to Council discussion on hosting a Prince George's County Municipal Association.
[3:06:18] PGCMA meeting.
[3:06:19] This is what I brought on on and let me just kind of cut to the chase on that.
[3:06:24] What I'd like to ask of council is that before we commit any resources of the city or anything else as a professional courtesy, would you please check with me and talk with me on this?
[3:06:41] Because I had talked with them about doing it and wanted to do it a little later in the spring.
[3:06:46] But what we need to do is understand that we can't commit the resources of the city, without us first having some discussion and input to it.
[3:07:03] And that's all.
[3:07:06] All right. Any other items?
[3:07:09] Any other questions?
[3:07:12] Yes.
[3:07:13] So Mr. Mayor, at the point where we're going to commit to a date in the spring, is that what you're saying?
[3:07:20] Well, absolutely.
[3:07:21] Okay, so we'll come back to this and have a date.
[3:07:24] Yeah.
[3:07:24] Okay, all right.
[3:07:25] Thank you.
[3:07:26] Thank you for the clarity.
[3:07:29] Any other questions?
[3:07:32] Go ahead.
[3:07:34] Councilman.
[3:07:35] Sorry to hear.
[3:07:36] Thank you.
[3:07:38] Prior.
[3:07:40] I believe it was, I'm sorry.
[3:07:43] After September, PDC of ABA meeting, I relayed to all that they had asked for some of the
[3:07:50] municipality to volunteer January February March. And I asked for input, no one responded.
[3:07:58] Prior to the meeting, just a week or two ago, I asked, is everything comfortable with a January
[3:08:04] February March date? And I got no response from anybody. They were asking, and I said,
[3:08:10] we would do the January one because I figured you guys already knew about this and it was coming
[3:08:15] and it's not a large capital expenditure, so if we're not going to do the January we need to let
[3:08:23] them out.
[3:08:25] Yes.
[3:08:25] And we'll do that.
[3:08:29] Okay.
[3:08:30] Any other questions?
[3:08:31] Comments?
[3:08:33] Here are you, no, no, no, no, no, no.
[3:08:37] We have one more subject, only gender.
[3:08:42] I didn't know that I added about reading or Christian church.
[3:08:47] Good.
[3:08:49] Thank you, Mary.
[3:08:50] Just in light of the fact that we have a letter from the applicant,
[3:08:57] to talk about, sorry about that.
[3:09:01] They asked that the November meeting at Park and Planning
[3:09:05] be delayed until at least December 5th.
[3:09:08] So the last date we have is December 5th, which is this Thursday.
[3:09:13] What I would ask for counsel support is to task planning department, Joe
[3:09:19] Miner, with reaching out to Park and Planning and seeing if we can push their
[3:09:23] hearing on the Redeemer Christian Church application to January or February and if they are
[3:09:30] able to do it then I would ask staff, prepare or report and schedule a hearing before us
[3:09:37] on this so we can take a position on their proposal because if it moves ahead and they grant
[3:09:45] the six houses to be on extended, due drive, we need to make sure that the quantity and
[3:09:53] the quality is at least commensurate if not equal to what exists there.
[3:10:00] We need to make sure the buffering is adequate. We also need to have discussions about whether to hamax or not.
[3:10:07] Because believe me, in five, ten years from now, the residents, if it is built, the residents in those six houses are going to start complaining about the fact that the city is not picking up their trash or cleaning their streets.
[3:10:18] So I think we need to have a meeting, let the public speak, take a position, a formal position, if they don't have conduct the hearing on the fifth.
[3:10:27] So that is what my request is for consensus.
[3:10:31] Sorry to sign the task to the planning department.
[3:10:35] Sir, imagine can we get that together for the council thing?
[3:10:39] Well, I think based on what Mr. Brady said.
[3:10:43] First thing we need to do is try to get that the simmer fifth hearing pushed out
[3:10:49] and if not then there's a mood point I think.
[3:10:52] So we got that mission unless somebody's got any objectives to it.
[3:10:58] Now we can start pressing that.
[3:10:59] I'm not sure how much success we're going to have.
[3:11:01] We can certainly try.
[3:11:02] It will be telephonic communications with the Parsons and Charge
[3:11:07] and expressing a desire to push the hearing out till January,
[3:11:12] if everybody see whatever response is.
[3:11:16] We can do that if it's all correct.
[3:11:24] Mr. Mayor, I'd like to make a motion for adjournment.
[3:11:30] I'm sorry, I didn't open the floor.
[3:11:34] I live until open the floor to most.
[3:11:39] Yeah, helping you speed things along.
[3:11:42] Drawing up roadblocks.
[3:11:44] It's getting moving.
[3:11:45] How many seconds?
[3:11:46] There we go.
[3:11:47] That's what I'm moving about with.
[3:11:51] And he's discussing here in that all-in-favor,
[3:11:53] Spurs is fine with an eye.
[3:11:55] Hi.
[3:11:56] A pose saying favor.
[3:11:58] Any abstentions?
[3:11:59] Yeah, I know.
[3:12:00] I know I know the motion carries.