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Recording in progress.

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Hey, good evening, everybody. This is a Greenbelt City Council work session. My name is Emmett Jordan. I serve as mayor council. Could you introduce yourselves, please? Kristen Weaver mayor, pertain.

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Jenny Pompey council member. Amy, council member.

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Okay. I've got an information item. Any other information items from council? We do have a closed session coming up after this work session with the board of elections.

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It's going to be an exciting evening. It's very rainy outside. I'm a little wet. It's hot and humid here in Council chambers, but I'm looking forward to an exciting discussion tonight.

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But before we begin, I just want to mention that we do hold our work sessions on Mondays and Wednesday several times a month to change information with community stakeholder groups.

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so that residents and others can observe our deliberations.

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We do strive by reasonable opportunities for the public to enforce opinions on matters being considered.

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So we'll pause periodically tonight for public comment.

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During these times, if you are in the room, if you raise your hand after being recognized and go over to podium,

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you need to state your name and where you live and the green belt or in the area,

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more or less, we need that for the minutes.

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If you are watching on Zoom, you can submit a question using the Q&A tab on the bottom of your screen,

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or you can raise your virtual hand, and once again after being recognized and promoted,

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you'll be able to speak, but you'll need to provide us with a name, we don't take anonymous comments.

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And finally, if you are watching on good old cable TV

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or live streaming on Facebook or YouTube, you can submit an e-mail to us.

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The e-mail address is questions of GreenbeltIndeed.gov

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And so with the public comment, about three minutes, three minutes or less,

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And we asked to speak on one topic related to the question of consideration, and we asked

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that you avoid questioning the motives of others.

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And in general, let's all be civil and moral marks.

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So let me say hello to Mr. Somerone, Mr. Somerone, how are you?

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And well, Mr. President, good evening, Councilor.

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Good evening, residents.

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Okay.

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I, I, I still am relieved, so we had some, uh, made some, uh, strides on the youth center and

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being able to open on Monday with, uh, camps.

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Yeah, that's so important. Such heavy rain. It's almost something is wrong with the environment.

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100-year storms are more common now than they have been.

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We might get five inches of rain today, but I know there's flooding over the city.

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We'll talk about that a little bit behind.

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But tonight, the topic for the work session is the Board of Elections.

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This is an election year coming up and the Board of Elections has been very, very busy throughout the year just working on the new initiative for all resident voting and also looking at ballot questions and just basically getting ready for the election season which is starting now pretty much just in terms of your preparations.

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So I want to welcome you both. Could you state your names for the record?

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Okay. Steve Gilbert on the press the button if it's green, it should be on.

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But I think those microphones, you have to get really close to the mic. So I think that's

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the issue with those is that it has to be closer than you think you need to be really close

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to. Okay. Steve Gilbert board chair. Nicole Shang board member. Yeah. Beth Terry couldn't

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be with us because she's not feeling well and Alice and Gary, I think we'll join us

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later. She should be joining online. Oh, she'll be online. Okay. Okay. So, as I was saying,

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there's just a lot of things going on. So, do you want to give us just before we get into

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the questions and the documentation that you provided? Can you just bring us up to speed a little

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We're looking forward to the elections in November and this will be the first year that

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non-citizens will be able to vote. We don't know how many will will be doing that. They have to

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register with the city and today I don't think we have too many registrations but they will they'll

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be able to do that through the end of September to early October and tonight I think we're

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going to be talking about the possible referendum questions.

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We have the question of under

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Number 18 poll workers, assisting with the elections. We also have the question of whether to change council terms from two years to four years. That will require a charter amendment, of course. And then the general question of whether the city should be divided into election districts.

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And the last two questions will just be general questions for the voters and the council

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will then have to take that, the advice of the voters and decide how to follow

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what

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the voters have suggested.

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The 16 and 17-year-old Poehl-Way quarter question, we're not sure that that needs to be on

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the ballot into the fairly simple question. The board is in favor of that. And we have a memo

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in the file on that, the minority that has under 18 poll workers would have to get a permit

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to do to to work for the city they would I think it's we think it's advisable

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that they have permission from their parents and from a from a teacher in their

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high school and since they'll be high school students and it will be a school

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day they will only be able to work after three.

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Hey well thank you thank you so I

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I brought this up. I was at a conference and folks from other jurisdictions were saying that they had 16-17 year old poll workers.

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It just seemed like a really natural thing for us to do.

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And looking around a little bit, they're already doing that in Prince George's County.

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So you have to be at least 16 years old. You've got to be a resident of Prince George's County.

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The citizenship is required in Prince George's County, and the 16 and 17-year-olds don't necessarily need to be registered voters, but they have to demonstrate to the local board of elections that they meet the qualifications for registering in the county.

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And parental consent, because there are laws about if you're a minor, you can only work so many hours.

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12 hours. Right. You can't work more than 8 hours a day. Yeah. So they will have to work

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both election day and the training session the night before. Right. Now one thing that

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I was curious about with our early voting on weekends, on Sundays, Saturdays and Sundays

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It seems like that would be a really easy time to have youthful poll workers working

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because they'd be out of school and they'd be able to easily do the happy day without

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taking the time off.

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Now, of course, when working as a poll worker in Crunchy George's County, you do need to

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either get service learning hours, which students need to have any out, or you can get paid

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like one or the other, but as far as our current regulations on poll workers, how would

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that play out during the early voting? Because I also know it's a challenge early voting

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getting, you know, having the clerk and everybody come in. It's a little bit of a stretch

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and having a couple of youth workers who will be helpful probably.

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But yeah, as we understand the charter and code poll workers quote unquote only work on

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elections.

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And so we read the board cover, the board in the clerk's office, the administration

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cover that of the Saturday and Sunday of early voting.

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Okay.

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So, if we were to change the code, is that something that could go in effect on the ship?

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I would have to look at the charter to make sure.

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I know both the charter and the code address that's up here to the whole world.

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Right.

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So, I think this is a low-hanging fruit, and I'd like to go ahead and move ahead with this.

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Of course, we'd have to, what we'd have to do, we wouldn't have to do an ordinance or resolution.

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We're already, since it's already in Prince George's County, we just have to adopt the practice.

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That's right. You don't have to change the law.

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Right. But if we wanted to change the qualifications somehow, so it's not either war, payment or learning service hours, let's say we vote for people who are resident citizenship.

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We have to draft an ordinance or resolution. I guess our legal counsel on

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the subject of pay, changing the requirements, but their citizens are not. Is that your correct? Yeah, the two things, yes.

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On the, I don't, I do in both things offering community service hours and aiming, I think it's

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more of a policy issue that, are we sending, are we incentivizing the right things, right?

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If you're, if you're, I think typically you don't have, if you're paying someone, you're

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not offering community service hours because the nature of community service hours are that

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they foster a tier that's volunteer service.

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So I do involve, I think, will be made in contradiction of the spirit of what community

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hours are.

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That's a good point.

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And also, I suppose you could say that that's more lenient than what's in place with

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the county.

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So we would have to actually do something about that.

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I suppose it's the same thing with residency versus citizenship, right, on the issue of

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Haying, someone I think as long as they are allowed to work in the United States, we could

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employ them, I think, that's separate from citizenship or non-s citizenship because you

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can have someone that's not a U.S. citizen but eligible to work in the United States.

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Right.

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That would be more lenient in a way of different than what the counties do, so we have to get

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legal counsels to pay me in there.

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Yeah, by the way, poll workers don't have to be residents of the city.

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Okay.

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All right.

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This seems really easy to do.

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Council, what do you think?

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Mr. Roberts?

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Oh, nice.

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Counting before marms go on.

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I think if we want to bring...

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I think the pollard hasn't, right?

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We've got to bring on 16, 17 year olds.

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And whenever capacity, whatever it is,

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they need to be treated the same as every other employee, the same pay and whatnot. I don't think you can't make it. I don't think you can mix the school hours when your

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microphone might

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die. Yeah, they need to be treated the same as everyone else. And I think that's the way the board has

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Yes.

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Point is.

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Thank you.

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It's a good point.

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You know, I think it's their option.

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Do we have any poll workers that you know work out of the

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goodness of your heart?

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It's a long day.

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It's a little bit harder than some people might imagine.

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Yeah, I think we've had poll workers in the past.

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You didn't live in Green Bell.

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The counselor.

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They want to get the payment or they want the car in the car because if they are wanting to graduate

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they may actually need those volunteer hours to graduate.

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So that might be more beneficial to them than the pay at that time.

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I think offering them the choice makes sense.

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They should have that choice.

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It's like anybody else would.

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But I think that might be the decision.

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Yeah, that's what I was driving.

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I'll leave it to choice.

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I don't want to do something.

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Any of the thoughts from Council can open it up to the floor if there are any comments or questions.

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Mr. Hartman, you had a comment, please go to the microphone.

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Michael Hartman to confirm what actually my comment is I don't have a comment because I couldn't

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hear what people were saying so I would ask that all of you speak louder or at least use

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a microphone that actually raises the volume of your speaking because I couldn't hear the

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Does Cindy manager or Rodney or anyone actually, can you all speak louder or use the microphone

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that actually amplifies your voice?

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Yeah, we'll actually do that.

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What do we do before we have microphones?

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Loudly, louder, louder.

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Let's see.

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Anybody online?

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I'm looking around for the Zoom link.

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There are no hands raised online.

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Okay.

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Well, is there any...

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Any further discussion? If not, I'd go ahead and put this in motion. And based on the discussion tonight, if we have Mr. Deloge review the proposal, the advice and the recommendation from the Board of Elections was you thought that this was a good idea. Yes, it was. Okay. Nicole? Oh, I just wanted to say that there were board members who voiced support for offering the

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community service hours for students.

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So I think it makes sense to do either or like,

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to offer both, you know, choose one.

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Right.

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And of course, we would need an application,

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a parental permission from parents,

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and also some minors that have to be thankful creditors

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in a way that we would want perhaps not.

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We could.

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I don't know that they would yield any need.

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It's unlikely that we'll get a background check from minors, but they can certainly be

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familiar.

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Many of our we hire minors for summer camps, they're not any work that they do for the

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city.

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They're always under supervision, so we would treat these employees like we do any other

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my employees that are minors and any other function of the city.

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Yeah, I think you still need to speak up, post-leg.

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Okay.

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I stated that we could, we could fingerprint our minors, however, we don't, I don't think

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that we would get a background check on the minors.

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I would prefer that we treat the poll workers that are minors like we do, all the other employees

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that are minors in the organization, and we hire plenty for, for the summer camps.

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So we would just treat them the same way we treat our other minors.

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And a point that I've made is that we do not have minors working in the city without supervision, so they're all supervised

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Thank you. Thank we got to find a way to bring you out of your shell

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Speak out you're free

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Work on it. Yeah

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But for them well, I think the bigger issue may not be the minors themselves

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But the poll workers working with the minors because that's something that we ask I know of of

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of recognition groups that if they're working with minors,

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they have to, those who are working with minors

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have to go through the process.

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So that actually might be the bigger issue,

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not the minors themselves, but whoever's supervising them.

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So that I think that's something to look into

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how we do that with the recognition groups

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and the contribution groups.

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That's an excellent point.

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We would have to run background checks on every employee

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that would be in contact with that minor.

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Well, let's not over complicate this,

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but let's have our legal counsel take a look,

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have him a pie and see what we can do there.

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It just seems like a good idea.

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Already doing, I don't know what they do

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in Prince George's County,

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if they go through that same procedure,

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it seems like we should,

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if we follow the procedures in Prince George's County,

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we should be fine.

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The county does a few, many things well.

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There's other things that their standards are below our own.

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speak the truth okay hey let's uh yeah please um since the poll workers currently

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do work with 16-year-olds when they're voting do they not need to be background

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checked I mean I know they're not I know that the 16-year-olds aren't working for

224
00:18:52,680 --> 00:18:56,780
the city but they are interacting with minors I'm just I'm just curious if that

225
00:18:56,780 --> 00:19:04,420
We don't background check the poll workers, but I think in that context they're not serving

226
00:19:04,420 --> 00:19:11,040
that minor in a one-on-one setting, they typically come in and grow out the same, they're

227
00:19:11,040 --> 00:19:18,200
not hanging out, there's no opportunity to leave the space, so I think it's a different

228
00:19:18,200 --> 00:19:23,320
context than when we have other employees working with minors or serving minors.

229
00:19:25,470 --> 00:19:33,410
Yeah, and no individual poll worker is by himself or herself with a voter.

230
00:19:34,210 --> 00:19:35,330
There's always two others.

231
00:19:39,260 --> 00:19:40,180
Thank you so much.

232
00:19:41,060 --> 00:19:45,160
So at this time, if there's no further comment, let's go ahead and move on to the next question

233
00:19:45,160 --> 00:19:48,500
and that had to do with four-year terms.

234
00:19:49,320 --> 00:19:51,820
So this issue, I think, has come up from time to time.

235
00:19:51,820 --> 00:19:55,160
Last time it came up was maybe 20 years ago.

236
00:19:55,160 --> 00:19:59,800
So what can you summarize?

237
00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:29,340
Is the Board of Elections deliberations on this topic? Yeah, we don't have a position on whether councilmembers should serve for two years or four years. If the council wants to put the question to the voters in referendum, then do that. And if, if it's decided that that should be done,

238
00:20:29,340 --> 00:20:33,460
and then it was suggested and we think it's a good idea

239
00:20:33,920 --> 00:20:36,380
to have another question whether council members

240
00:20:36,380 --> 00:20:43,790
should be subject to recall after being elected.

241
00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:47,820
Let's see, if we were to that way,

242
00:20:48,880 --> 00:20:51,940
would that imply that council member,

243
00:20:52,160 --> 00:20:54,800
if we kept it at two years, it could be recalled?

244
00:20:56,060 --> 00:20:57,720
And what does the charter say about?

245
00:20:58,540 --> 00:21:00,960
No, the charter doesn't say anything about recalls now.

246
00:21:00,960 --> 00:21:14,040
The idea, I guess, being that within two years they can decide, a recall election would

247
00:21:14,040 --> 00:21:15,100
take time anyway.

248
00:21:15,880 --> 00:21:19,200
I mean, it would also be an expense for the city.

249
00:21:20,080 --> 00:21:27,940
And if the terms are only two years as they are now, then there's no crying need, I think,

250
00:21:27,940 --> 00:21:32,340
to have a recall procedure.

251
00:21:33,820 --> 00:21:34,240
Okay.

252
00:21:34,860 --> 00:21:37,540
Mayor Proteman, I thought I saw you move over there to show you.

253
00:21:37,720 --> 00:21:40,140
No, I was just going to be moving to pull it up.

254
00:21:40,900 --> 00:21:44,980
But this was the text from the memo from the Board of Elections.

255
00:21:44,980 --> 00:21:45,940
Right, right.

256
00:21:47,440 --> 00:21:47,780
Okay.

257
00:21:48,820 --> 00:21:49,660
Mr. Roberts.

258
00:21:52,820 --> 00:21:54,800
Yeah, I don't know about the recall, actually,

259
00:21:54,980 --> 00:21:59,500
but I think there is a need for a mobility of the citizens

260
00:21:59,500 --> 00:22:07,360
to petition any particular issues to referendum,

261
00:22:07,700 --> 00:22:09,500
because we don't have that ability right now.

262
00:22:10,440 --> 00:22:16,540
And we also need to recalibrate the number of signatures you need

263
00:22:16,540 --> 00:22:22,500
on a petition in order to go to referendum on a charter change.

264
00:22:22,500 --> 00:22:34,820
Because that has been badly skewed, and right now it's almost impossible for citizens to get the required number of signatures to do that.

265
00:22:34,880 --> 00:22:36,080
Right, you need about 3000.

266
00:22:36,340 --> 00:22:44,660
So we need to recalibrate that so it matches what was originally intended, I think, by the founders of the city.

267
00:22:44,800 --> 00:22:52,260
The people who set up the charter, that it was fair and people would have a reasonable chance of being able to do that.

268
00:22:52,260 --> 00:22:55,620
That is right now it can't do.

269
00:22:56,940 --> 00:23:03,540
So I think that, to me, that's the most important thing we need to worry about when we look

270
00:23:03,540 --> 00:23:09,520
at having a charter change or something on the ballot that people are concerned about.

271
00:23:11,240 --> 00:23:12,400
Anyway, thank you.

272
00:23:13,900 --> 00:23:14,200
Okay.

273
00:23:14,560 --> 00:23:15,000
Mayor Pro Tem?

274
00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:21,140
Well, I think related to that, I believe that state law, that the state law sets the number

275
00:23:21,140 --> 00:23:26,080
of signatures required for a ballot petition.

276
00:23:26,160 --> 00:23:28,740
We can have our own voting system.

277
00:23:28,980 --> 00:23:30,180
We don't have to do that.

278
00:23:30,780 --> 00:23:32,640
Well, I think sometimes we actually do have to do

279
00:23:32,640 --> 00:23:34,780
what this takes as a long time.

280
00:23:35,320 --> 00:23:38,920
If you look in the past, before we adopted the county

281
00:23:38,920 --> 00:23:43,900
registration list, it was a fair system of citizens could.

282
00:23:44,560 --> 00:23:46,580
If the council wanted to make a charter change

283
00:23:46,580 --> 00:23:48,140
and the citizens didn't like it,

284
00:23:48,140 --> 00:23:52,840
They had a fair chance of taking that to referendum.

285
00:23:52,980 --> 00:23:57,740
And that's if you want to have citizens that are going to participate in their community,

286
00:23:58,420 --> 00:23:59,420
you have to have that.

287
00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:05,420
People have to have a realistic opportunity to participate in the community.

288
00:24:07,710 --> 00:24:12,610
And so I'm not sure we can disregard state law that easily, but my other question was actually

289
00:24:12,610 --> 00:24:13,190
related.

290
00:24:13,190 --> 00:24:15,070
I think you've got to make stuff.

291
00:24:15,210 --> 00:24:17,090
I believe I have the floor, Mr. Roberts.

292
00:24:18,310 --> 00:24:21,170
But the question I was actually raising my hand to ask,

293
00:24:21,330 --> 00:24:25,170
did the Board of Elections discuss the idea of staggered four-year terms

294
00:24:25,170 --> 00:24:27,950
at all, or including that as one of the ballot questions?

295
00:24:28,630 --> 00:24:33,610
We didn't talk about, but that is one of the things you could do, obviously,

296
00:24:33,870 --> 00:24:39,910
is stagger the terms so that you don't have everybody being elected

297
00:24:39,910 --> 00:24:41,290
for four-year terms.

298
00:24:41,290 --> 00:24:45,150
So yeah, so yeah, four year terms, but you still have elections every two years.

299
00:24:45,470 --> 00:24:50,050
So half were, or so in a seven-member council, you might have three elected one year.

300
00:24:50,550 --> 00:24:53,650
And the four elected in two years or something like that.

301
00:24:53,950 --> 00:24:55,210
But you didn't discuss that at all.

302
00:24:55,890 --> 00:24:58,530
No, it would be three and four.

303
00:24:59,150 --> 00:24:59,170
Yeah.

304
00:24:59,170 --> 00:24:59,510
Yeah.

305
00:24:59,530 --> 00:24:59,970
Three would...

306
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:29,980
We elected one time and four the next time and three and four. Council member Poppy. But that would really only work if we had a ward system, right? Because I don't know how else we would decide that because we're all at large. So how would we say, okay, you're the three that are up for election this time and you for, you know what I mean? I think we don't have seats. So if we didn't have wards, I just don't know how we would do that. No, you don't need to have wards.

307
00:25:29,980 --> 00:25:32,900
Awards, everybody would be elected at large.

308
00:25:33,580 --> 00:25:36,320
There would be three candidates.

309
00:25:36,840 --> 00:25:40,580
Three offices open, one election.

310
00:25:41,220 --> 00:25:42,680
And then the following election, there

311
00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:44,000
would be four offices open.

312
00:25:44,500 --> 00:25:46,360
So there would be any number of people

313
00:25:46,360 --> 00:25:49,220
running for those three offices or those four offices.

314
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:50,800
That's how it would work.

315
00:25:51,180 --> 00:25:51,320
Right.

316
00:25:52,180 --> 00:25:56,340
And then how would we choose mayor?

317
00:25:56,520 --> 00:25:58,200
Because we choose mayor from within the council.

318
00:25:58,200 --> 00:26:02,480
So we have to choose the mayor every year, so we'll be doing that every year.

319
00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:07,280
Yeah, that would have to be part of what the council would decide.

320
00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:09,140
Okay, we don't have to figure all that out right now.

321
00:26:09,280 --> 00:26:11,440
Anyway, some of the thoughts are going to be too bright.

322
00:26:11,840 --> 00:26:12,020
Right, right.

323
00:26:12,040 --> 00:26:12,220
Thank you.

324
00:26:12,520 --> 00:26:17,380
And typically, from my knowledge of other municipalities and print shortages around the state,

325
00:26:18,260 --> 00:26:24,580
a lot of them do have staggered four-year terms, and the mayor is appointed by council still.

326
00:26:24,580 --> 00:26:27,620
but only for a two-year term.

327
00:26:29,500 --> 00:26:31,960
Let's see. Any other council members want to speak?

328
00:26:32,540 --> 00:26:35,540
I know we've got some hands up over here before we go back to Mr. Roberts.

329
00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:39,340
But Mr. Roberts is a council person, so Mr. Roberts, please.

330
00:26:39,600 --> 00:26:41,520
Thank you. Well you know,

331
00:26:43,770 --> 00:26:45,090
I think that

332
00:26:45,090 --> 00:26:47,130
you know, having

333
00:26:48,030 --> 00:26:49,970
you know, splitting, having the

334
00:26:49,970 --> 00:26:57,830
the action every two years and whatever you want to call it is just a guys for trying

335
00:26:57,830 --> 00:27:00,010
to make four-year terms look good.

336
00:27:00,910 --> 00:27:07,130
I don't think they look good at all for the public personally, I mean, I hope in a little

337
00:27:07,130 --> 00:27:10,030
past it will fail, like it failed before.

338
00:27:10,390 --> 00:27:17,770
In fact, I think because the mayor was actually a little bit off on his date, the last time

339
00:27:17,770 --> 00:27:25,830
this came up was in 1991. That was first election that I got elected. I think this issue really helped

340
00:27:25,830 --> 00:27:31,970
me get elected because I was the only one out there against that four-year term. The rest of

341
00:27:31,970 --> 00:27:38,430
the incumbents and the other person that was running against me were all in favor of that.

342
00:27:39,190 --> 00:27:45,130
And I think that different that gave me an edge because I don't think the public wants four-year

343
00:27:45,130 --> 00:27:51,170
terms. I think that's, you know, especially you have no recall, you have nothing so you

344
00:27:51,170 --> 00:27:56,090
get somebody elected and you got them for four years. That's too long for municipal.

345
00:27:56,450 --> 00:28:01,910
I don't care what the county or anybody else does. We're in a small town and people need

346
00:28:01,910 --> 00:28:06,050
to meet. If you want, it's like I said, if you want people to be active in the community,

347
00:28:06,190 --> 00:28:10,830
it has to be fair and four year terms not fair for anybody in my opinion.

348
00:28:10,830 --> 00:28:14,800
Well, thank you, Council Member McKinney.

349
00:28:15,500 --> 00:28:25,380
Well, if I heard you correctly, Mr. Roberts, it's the last time that this was came up, it was 91, that's been almost 30, 20, 30 years.

350
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:30,940
So there may be some changes to how people may vote this time.

351
00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:34,040
Thank you.

352
00:28:34,980 --> 00:28:41,040
And then I guess what I'm wondering is, do we know the percentage of...

353
00:28:41,040 --> 00:28:43,260
Please continue to drop the floor.

354
00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:55,160
Do we know the percentage of cities or municipalities within the state of Maryland that do have four year terms, especially if they're relevant in size to ours?

355
00:28:55,500 --> 00:29:05,180
Because I would beg to say that if there are other municipalities that are in the same size, have similar issues, they are running equally as effectively.

356
00:29:05,180 --> 00:29:14,940
So I don't see how the argument of four years versus two years will not be, will be in detriment to the residents.

357
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:23,700
Yeah, we can certainly get that information before a meeting where we might have to vote on whether or not to put this kind of question forward.

358
00:29:24,540 --> 00:29:31,360
My informal knowledge of other municipalities in Prince George's County, most of them do have four years coming.

359
00:29:33,180 --> 00:29:38,100
Same statewide. Let's take some questions from folks who are in the room or online, anybody

360
00:29:38,100 --> 00:29:38,520
online?

361
00:29:41,810 --> 00:29:45,430
I think we have a question here in the room. Ma'am, would you like to come to

362
00:29:45,430 --> 00:29:45,810
the microphone?

363
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:56,340
Don't be nervous, go ahead and speak up.

364
00:29:57,980 --> 00:29:59,880
Jay Davis, Greenbelt East.

365
00:30:00,530 --> 00:30:30,210
I will use my teachers' voice because to be perfectly honest with you, I agree with Mr. Hartman. I'm most of you, I cannot hear. And Mr. McKinney and Mr. Roberts, the city manager, are so soft spoken. It's very nice that there's so soft spoken, but you can't be heard. So anyway, this issue has come up before, and it has been discussed. Every time we have an election council members say,

366
00:30:30,210 --> 00:30:36,730
why can't we have four-year terms. And that's because, you know, when you run an election,

367
00:30:37,030 --> 00:30:42,830
it's very hard. You really spend a lot of time. It takes a lot of energy, takes money,

368
00:30:43,070 --> 00:30:50,030
takes a campaign. But the thing is, you do go out and you talk to the people. And what will happen

369
00:30:50,030 --> 00:30:56,230
with four-year terms, you will only go out and talk with the people every four years. Now, granted,

370
00:30:56,230 --> 00:31:05,270
Most of you are very active right now in the community, but with four year terms maybe you would be less likely to be as active.

371
00:31:06,030 --> 00:31:18,810
The House of Representatives is every two years, somehow they manage to do it and they have a larger district, larger constituency and it probably has, obviously requires a lot more money.

372
00:31:21,310 --> 00:31:25,850
However, I'm not opposed to having it as a referendum question.

373
00:31:26,430 --> 00:31:31,730
And I appreciate the fact that the Board of Elections added the other question because

374
00:31:31,730 --> 00:31:34,650
the recall part of it is very, very important.

375
00:31:35,790 --> 00:31:41,830
A lot of people, as you said, might be in favor of a four year, but they want the chance

376
00:31:41,830 --> 00:31:45,750
to be able to recall somebody who is doing a bad job.

377
00:31:45,750 --> 00:31:48,810
and it shouldn't be just after two years.

378
00:31:49,370 --> 00:31:52,130
The recall process should be at any time,

379
00:31:52,690 --> 00:31:54,570
we have had that issue,

380
00:31:55,110 --> 00:31:57,290
where all we could do was censure,

381
00:31:58,050 --> 00:32:01,410
when obviously the problem was extremely,

382
00:32:02,110 --> 00:32:04,510
extremely bad, and that was several years ago.

383
00:32:04,650 --> 00:32:07,750
I am not referring to the most recent time.

384
00:32:08,850 --> 00:32:12,170
So I think putting it on the referendum is fine,

385
00:32:12,410 --> 00:32:14,250
as long as you also include the recall,

386
00:32:14,250 --> 00:32:17,610
and then we will all discuss the pros and cons

387
00:32:18,250 --> 00:32:19,730
and the people will decide.

388
00:32:20,370 --> 00:32:23,970
But I already will tell you that I am opposed to a four-year term.

389
00:32:25,590 --> 00:32:27,690
Thank you, thank you for that perspective,

390
00:32:28,050 --> 00:32:29,270
that thoughtful perspective.

391
00:32:30,390 --> 00:32:33,470
And this question about the four-year terms I agree that

392
00:32:34,190 --> 00:32:37,410
I like the questions, the two of them, the way that they're phrased

393
00:32:38,130 --> 00:32:41,670
and I think that depending on those results

394
00:32:41,670 --> 00:32:46,230
you might have deeper discussions, but I think the question sort of works in

395
00:32:46,230 --> 00:32:51,070
hand them with this idea of voting districts and kind of thinking through

396
00:32:51,070 --> 00:32:56,650
different ways of electing the mayor if that's the intention of some of this

397
00:32:56,650 --> 00:33:02,430
discussion. So I think they're all sort of interconnected. Anybody else have

398
00:33:02,430 --> 00:33:04,390
comments on this initiative?

399
00:33:06,780 --> 00:33:07,620
And is there anyone online?

400
00:33:13,180 --> 00:33:18,880
Okay, let's go ahead and move on to the next question, and that is election districts.

401
00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:30,520
Yes, and this question is a little more difficult to put to the voters because there are so many ways you can know it one.

402
00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:33,040
So many ways you can divide the city.

403
00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:37,300
you can have two districts, three districts, four districts, five districts.

404
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:49,800
And then when you've decided that, you have to decide whether some of the district representatives

405
00:33:50,220 --> 00:33:57,000
will be voted on only by those residents in that district, or whether everybody will

406
00:33:57,000 --> 00:33:58,400
still be elected at large.

407
00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:05,620
large. The way you can do it with everybody being elected at large, some will be required

408
00:34:05,620 --> 00:34:14,900
to live in a district, but they'll all be elected by all the voters. That's one way

409
00:34:14,900 --> 00:34:21,380
of doing it. The other way of doing it would be with two, three, four districts having

410
00:34:21,380 --> 00:34:26,340
the residents only of that district vote for that representative.

411
00:34:29,200 --> 00:34:30,320
Councillor Member of Palmy.

412
00:34:30,960 --> 00:34:34,540
I just wanted to say I thank you for the way you phrased this because I do.

413
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:41,440
I do think this is a question to go to the residents, but like you, when I think about,

414
00:34:41,820 --> 00:34:44,780
if we split into districts, I'm like, there's so many ways to do that.

415
00:34:45,120 --> 00:34:48,140
So it's like, we could put a question to the voters so you want to do it.

416
00:34:48,260 --> 00:34:52,300
But that doesn't mean that they're like, do it because there's just so much more,

417
00:34:52,300 --> 00:34:59,920
like thought and time and preparation and that has to go into it. So I think that the way you have it phrased here is really good because it's

418
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:29,160
It's like, is this something you want? And then if it is something people want, it's like the city can invest the time and resources and figuring out, like, how do we do this? In a way that benefits the city the most, and that is, you know, the most democratic. So I just, I just wanted to, you know, say, I appreciate the way you guys voted that. I mean, I would add that I think the way I had been thinking about districts is the way I believe most other places do it where only the people in that district vote for that seat.

419
00:35:29,780 --> 00:35:59,140
But I think it's an interesting, this is an interesting variation that you still have to have people who live in that district, but you're still running at large, so that sort of, that does create a little bit more of a balance that you still try to have representation of people living in all parts of the city, but you still, you still in a sense have to run in the entire city because you have to be known if everybody's voting for you, I think that that has some of the advantages of representing a district without losing the, you still have

420
00:35:59,140 --> 00:36:01,920
have to campaign everywhere a little bit.

421
00:36:06,220 --> 00:36:10,300
So kind of complicated, as you said,

422
00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:12,820
how something like this could be implemented.

423
00:36:14,040 --> 00:36:20,380
So I have to think the underlying issue here

424
00:36:20,380 --> 00:36:24,880
perhaps is the thought that some of our neighborhoods

425
00:36:25,160 --> 00:36:28,060
are not adequately represented on council.

426
00:36:29,720 --> 00:36:31,440
And a lot of people say that.

427
00:36:31,440 --> 00:36:41,640
So, when you look at the composition of council over the last five elections, maybe six,

428
00:36:43,280 --> 00:36:53,160
this term for the passing of council member, you know, we had three representatives with

429
00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:53,680
Greenbelt West.

430
00:36:54,860 --> 00:36:56,560
And before that, we had two,

431
00:36:59,290 --> 00:37:01,370
I guess, for the two terms before that.

432
00:37:02,030 --> 00:37:10,130
And before that, we had a majority of residents on Council from Greenbelt East going back to 2009.

433
00:37:10,870 --> 00:37:17,790
So this question about, are the different neighborhoods of Greenbelt well represented?

434
00:37:18,510 --> 00:37:24,370
If you look at the actual results of the elections, I think you could make the argument that they

435
00:37:24,370 --> 00:37:30,970
We are. It's varied over time. I know historically if you go way back, we had a number of

436
00:37:30,970 --> 00:37:39,030
mayors and whatnot who came out of Sprinkle Lake. So it's kind of an open question. In my

437
00:37:39,030 --> 00:37:46,010
mind, the equity aspect, the other question is with districts, if it takes close to 1,000

438
00:37:46,010 --> 00:37:51,990
votes in one precinct, if we were to buy the city by precincts, right?

439
00:37:51,990 --> 00:37:57,570
close to a thousand in two precincts but it only takes two hundred and another

440
00:37:57,570 --> 00:38:06,640
precinct. Is that really equitable? So the real questions about equity, how

441
00:38:06,640 --> 00:38:12,060
that plays out in the city, how it's played out historically. Mr. Roberts?

442
00:38:19,420 --> 00:38:25,020
I've got to admit I never thought of the districts being described the way you

443
00:38:25,020 --> 00:38:29,980
thought about it but still I don't see really the benefit in having a

444
00:38:29,980 --> 00:38:34,740
district where you know one person is going to be elected by a small number of

445
00:38:34,740 --> 00:38:39,820
people. That's what I see and you look in other communities college park and

446
00:38:39,820 --> 00:38:44,000
some of the other nearby communities people are getting elected by you know

447
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:49,140
50 votes or something and I don't think that's really giving the people more

448
00:38:49,140 --> 00:38:54,620
representation you know and I think that if someone does get elected with 50 votes

449
00:38:54,620 --> 00:39:00,060
or two hundred votes. It doesn't give them a lot of sway on the council to get

450
00:39:00,060 --> 00:39:06,060
anything done in their neighborhood. So I think it's best the way it is

451
00:39:06,060 --> 00:39:12,020
personally because everybody has to get out there and work at it. You know

452
00:39:12,020 --> 00:39:17,060
that's what life is about. It's about work and you get you get returned from work

453
00:39:17,060 --> 00:39:22,940
and but at the same time you have to make it fair so that everyone does have a

454
00:39:22,940 --> 00:39:30,180
chance to be able to work at. To me, that's the secret. You know, it shouldn't be like

455
00:39:30,580 --> 00:39:36,700
you have to have, you know, $50,000 to run for safe counsel. You should be able to run

456
00:39:36,700 --> 00:39:44,120
a good campaign on a few thousand dollars and get elected. You know, that way, that way

457
00:39:44,120 --> 00:39:49,400
you have a fair system. You know, we talk a lot about, you know, the number of people

458
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:58,400
that vote and all that stuff, but I was looking at an old news of you and from the 1989 election,

459
00:39:58,760 --> 00:39:59,980
which is the first one I've read.

460
00:40:00,560 --> 00:40:30,340
And I think there were four or five challengers running in that election. We had a 65 percent voter turnout, 65 percent. And I think lately we're down, we're having like 20-some percent. But that good, what that really goes to is the fact that that's, that election was before we took on the county system. So we have so many people in the county

461
00:40:30,340 --> 00:40:36,320
voting roles that are not even there anymore because anybody that has

462
00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:41,620
run out of campaign has gone out and knocked on doors and you have your voter

463
00:40:41,620 --> 00:40:48,460
list and you see there's like four or five names registered at this one

464
00:40:48,460 --> 00:40:54,200
address you knock on the door and none of them live there anymore so I think the

465
00:40:54,200 --> 00:41:02,440
the county roll is so bloated with people who have moved or whatever, that it just messes

466
00:41:02,440 --> 00:41:08,580
up the whole system. So it makes it look like we have a very low turnout when we actually

467
00:41:08,580 --> 00:41:13,440
don't, we actually have, probably have a very good turnout, but because there's so many

468
00:41:13,440 --> 00:41:20,740
people on the rolls that are not there anymore, and it's never purged, then it looks bad.

469
00:41:21,680 --> 00:41:27,780
But anyway, I think that the system we have now is a good one, personally.

470
00:41:32,190 --> 00:41:38,870
Yeah, I'm actually curious, Mr. Roberts, does the idea of having people, having districts

471
00:41:38,870 --> 00:41:45,150
where certain you have people who are elected, who live in a district, but the voting is still

472
00:41:45,150 --> 00:41:45,610
at large.

473
00:41:45,790 --> 00:41:47,630
Does that change your opinion of that also?

474
00:41:47,630 --> 00:41:52,250
So everybody is still voting for everybody.

475
00:41:52,770 --> 00:41:53,610
You just have-

476
00:41:53,610 --> 00:41:54,350
I don't know.

477
00:41:54,530 --> 00:41:57,230
I really have to think that thing over at least.

478
00:41:59,300 --> 00:42:01,360
I think it's more complicated than we think.

479
00:42:10,380 --> 00:42:11,020
I forgot the truth.

480
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:13,480
Please, if you could go to the podium,

481
00:42:15,710 --> 00:42:16,030
welcome.

482
00:42:16,190 --> 00:42:16,590
Good to see you.

483
00:42:17,690 --> 00:42:18,330
Thank you.

484
00:42:18,910 --> 00:42:21,110
John Estensen, I live in Old Green Belt.

485
00:42:21,750 --> 00:42:24,490
I have one comment related to where

486
00:42:24,490 --> 00:42:27,070
I previously lived, which is Minneapolis, Minnesota.

487
00:42:27,550 --> 00:42:30,250
and one comment related to moving here.

488
00:42:32,090 --> 00:42:34,870
The second one, when I moved here,

489
00:42:35,030 --> 00:42:37,450
I was used to having wards and precincts.

490
00:42:37,510 --> 00:42:40,650
And I knew who to go to to talk to about city issues.

491
00:42:41,350 --> 00:42:44,070
And when I came here and found everybody was at large,

492
00:42:44,310 --> 00:42:46,850
I was confused, you know, who do I talk to?

493
00:42:46,950 --> 00:42:48,470
And I didn't know any of you at the time.

494
00:42:49,790 --> 00:42:52,510
And it was, I had been here for quite a while

495
00:42:52,510 --> 00:42:55,270
before I discovered that there are council liaisons

496
00:42:55,270 --> 00:43:00,890
to various organizations, which gave me a clue who might be interested in which issue.

497
00:43:01,470 --> 00:43:02,550
So that was helpful.

498
00:43:03,010 --> 00:43:09,570
But I think that if you're going to consider at large you need to be better at informing

499
00:43:09,570 --> 00:43:12,110
people who's interested in what.

500
00:43:12,310 --> 00:43:17,370
And that isn't to say that you can only talk to those people, but they're perhaps the better

501
00:43:17,370 --> 00:43:18,790
people to talk to first.

502
00:43:18,790 --> 00:43:25,070
First, related to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where I lived, they talked at one time about

503
00:43:25,070 --> 00:43:27,010
having awards and awards.

504
00:43:28,520 --> 00:43:34,890
The council people would represent awards as they do, and having at large positions,

505
00:43:35,610 --> 00:43:42,070
and they felt that it was not helpful because the people who were politically involved in

506
00:43:42,070 --> 00:43:49,510
client to vote were already well represented and having at large elections as well would

507
00:43:50,250 --> 00:43:56,510
allow the politically active to be over represented and it wouldn't help the people who live

508
00:43:56,510 --> 00:44:00,450
in the boards that don't vote necessarily and don't get involved.

509
00:44:01,150 --> 00:44:06,330
So I'm a little confused about the idea of having both boards or whatever you want to call

510
00:44:06,330 --> 00:44:11,410
them and at large. I think that's confusing. You need to either go one way or the other.

511
00:44:13,470 --> 00:44:21,570
Thank you. Thank you. A couple of reactions. You know, many apples is quite a bit larger than

512
00:44:21,570 --> 00:44:28,690
the green belt. Like it's Baltimore, other Frederick and many other counts. So my personal feeling,

513
00:44:28,690 --> 00:44:36,370
this is my personal feeling, is that in the city, the size of green belt, it's important for anyone

514
00:44:36,370 --> 00:44:43,850
sitting on council to be aware of the issues in all parts of the city and also to be responsive.

515
00:44:44,390 --> 00:44:49,790
In our form of government council manager the city manager actually runs the day-to-day affairs

516
00:44:49,790 --> 00:44:56,090
of the city so if there's an issue with the streets or the sidewalk with the recreation department

517
00:44:56,090 --> 00:44:59,730
But really, you come to any council member.

518
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:24,500
We would end up preferring it over to the city manager to deal with the problem. So those are just a couple of thoughts we do have as former government, which is a little different. In Minneapolis and in Baltimore, strong mirrors. I'm just not as strong. I got to work out a little bit more. Yes, Ms. Davis.

519
00:45:35,540 --> 00:45:37,220
Jay Davis, Greenbelt East.

520
00:45:39,820 --> 00:45:41,700
Again, this topic.

521
00:45:41,700 --> 00:45:48,220
has come up so many times and it's part of the discussion. And it usually happens when

522
00:45:48,220 --> 00:45:54,460
one part of the city feels that the other part of the city is getting the most goodies,

523
00:45:55,740 --> 00:46:03,000
whether it's during the budget or what have you. And it always kind of amuses me is that when

524
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:09,420
you talk to one part of the city, the people there, they feel that they've been neglected and

525
00:46:09,420 --> 00:46:13,320
you go to another part of the city and they feel they've been neglected because the other

526
00:46:13,320 --> 00:46:20,420
part who feels neglected is getting everything and it's all perception and you know some

527
00:46:20,420 --> 00:46:25,620
years some things go to more you know some parts of the city and sometimes they don't.

528
00:46:26,860 --> 00:46:31,700
So that's when people think that there's a favorite part of the city and it used to be the

529
00:46:31,700 --> 00:46:37,260
center city and now I hear from Greenbell Dees that they think the Greenbell West is getting

530
00:46:37,260 --> 00:46:42,240
everything. And then in Greenbow West, oh no, it's Greenbelt. East is getting

531
00:46:42,240 --> 00:46:47,400
everything. And then the center city feels, now we've been neglected. Everybody else is

532
00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:53,360
getting something in the center city. So having districts sounds like what a

533
00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:59,340
wonderful idea. Except when you have districts, you get very parochial. You get

534
00:46:59,340 --> 00:47:06,580
very territorial. And it gets more difficult to have a consensus on how to move

535
00:47:06,580 --> 00:47:13,720
resources around because you want your little piece of the property to have

536
00:47:13,720 --> 00:47:18,600
everything and you don't care maybe what other people have. Now the members

537
00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:23,060
at large care about everybody but I find them even with the county members at

538
00:47:23,060 --> 00:47:29,320
large totally useless in most cases because they well you know they represent

539
00:47:29,320 --> 00:47:34,900
everybody but they don't help very much when you try to talk to them. So and

540
00:47:34,900 --> 00:47:40,620
cottage city for instance, which I don't even know how small they are, they have

541
00:47:40,620 --> 00:47:47,200
wards. So when they have elections, like Mr. Roberts says, 15 people will

542
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:49,020
choose their representative.

543
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:54,740
Another ward might have seven people choosing their

544
00:47:54,740 --> 00:48:00,540
representative. I get they also have a hard time finding people even to run. In our

545
00:48:00,540 --> 00:48:07,780
In our case, we're kind of bound in a certain, I mean our population may grow, it may not

546
00:48:07,780 --> 00:48:10,700
who knows, it hasn't changed much in many years.

547
00:48:11,200 --> 00:48:16,640
If we were New York City or Minneapolis, I could see because it's so immense, you kind

548
00:48:16,640 --> 00:48:21,260
of want to have an idea of who you want to talk to and who's going to stand up for you.

549
00:48:21,900 --> 00:48:29,400
But in our case, when I was in council, there was never a problem as to somebody coming

550
00:48:29,400 --> 00:48:33,460
up and talking to me, whether you were from Greenbelt East or Greenbelt West or Sennie City,

551
00:48:33,940 --> 00:48:41,620
I listened to you. What will happen if you are just Greenbelt West? Maybe someone comes up and

552
00:48:41,620 --> 00:48:47,300
you say, well, it's in one ear and out the other because you really don't care. So I don't, again,

553
00:48:48,180 --> 00:48:53,300
certainly you can put this question on as a referendum, but there'll be a lot of people and a lot of

554
00:48:53,300 --> 00:49:00,300
discussion, and I think it could be detrimental to the unity of Greenbelt as a whole.

555
00:49:00,540 --> 00:49:01,180
Thank you.

556
00:49:01,760 --> 00:49:01,880
Thank you.

557
00:49:01,880 --> 00:49:02,820
That's awful comments.

558
00:49:03,260 --> 00:49:03,520
Thank you, Mr. Chair.

559
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:06,120
Before Jay Lees, the podium, I have a question.

560
00:49:08,180 --> 00:49:09,220
Please, ma'am, put it down.

561
00:49:09,360 --> 00:49:12,340
So we know that the four-year terms came up in 1991.

562
00:49:12,780 --> 00:49:16,580
Do you recall, has there ever been, I think it's been on the survey, but do you recall,

563
00:49:16,840 --> 00:49:19,380
has there ever been a ballot referendum about districts?

564
00:49:19,820 --> 00:49:20,900
About districts now?

565
00:49:21,260 --> 00:49:21,340
No.

566
00:49:21,540 --> 00:49:24,320
So it's gone, come up on the survey, but not on the comments about it.

567
00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:29,700
I mean, people have talked about it, mentioned it usually when they think that they're not getting a good deal.

568
00:49:29,960 --> 00:49:30,640
Okay, just curious.

569
00:49:31,560 --> 00:49:35,620
Jay Davis, I just wanted to, that isn't a tract of polo shirt you've got on.

570
00:49:35,800 --> 00:49:36,180
What is that?

571
00:49:36,680 --> 00:49:45,580
Yeah, but since I was a former member of the Women's Commission, but I still wear the polo shirt.

572
00:49:45,580 --> 00:49:46,800
But it's nice looking shirt.

573
00:49:48,080 --> 00:49:49,480
Yeah, and those are thoughtful comments.

574
00:49:51,340 --> 00:49:56,980
I wonder, it's not a small city, but I think it's just

575
00:49:56,980 --> 00:49:59,980
important for us all on council to do.

576
00:50:00,000 --> 00:50:20,720
To be accountable to the entire city and to be knowledgeable, do the best we can, even though it's the city manager that really ends up dealing with a lot of the situations. Come up. So we would be, I guess we would be voting on these questions in an actual meeting. Mr. Roberts.

577
00:50:23,340 --> 00:50:31,240
I think my real problem with this going on the ballot is it's not even coming from the people. This is coming from the city.

578
00:50:31,240 --> 00:50:39,340
city council and you know why why is that you know if we had a groundswell of

579
00:50:39,340 --> 00:50:44,960
people if we had some kind of referendum mechanism and the people out there

580
00:50:44,960 --> 00:50:50,920
said hey we want this you know here's our petitions okay but just coming from

581
00:50:50,920 --> 00:51:00,120
the city council now I it's horrible I don't know it's horrible you know I was

582
00:51:00,120 --> 00:51:03,660
I was going to say I actually have heard from some residents who are interested in

583
00:51:03,660 --> 00:51:08,420
this, so it may not be a groundswell, but it is something that I've certainly heard

584
00:51:08,420 --> 00:51:12,540
people discuss, so I think it's not just coming from Council, I think there are

585
00:51:12,540 --> 00:51:16,600
residents who are interested in this idea. Maybe not, maybe not enough, we'd have to

586
00:51:16,600 --> 00:51:20,140
see if it passed, but I think there are some who have definitely expressed interest

587
00:51:20,140 --> 00:51:23,720
in going to a district or ward system. Again, I don't know if it's a majority,

588
00:51:24,060 --> 00:51:26,620
but I have heard from residents who are interested in holding.

589
00:51:30,140 --> 00:51:37,220
So I worry that in a funny kind of a way, not explicitly, but it's sort of a leading

590
00:51:37,220 --> 00:51:41,280
question, if you ask someone, would you like to have a local representative for your

591
00:51:41,280 --> 00:51:41,680
neighborhood?

592
00:51:42,400 --> 00:51:46,700
99% of the people in the water just going to say, well, yeah, let me have somebody who lives

593
00:51:46,700 --> 00:51:48,120
across the street on council.

594
00:51:48,120 --> 00:51:58,920
So, and I worry some of the, it's not a groundswell, but I'm just concerned that the reaction

595
00:51:59,440 --> 00:52:03,280
from a lot of people was just to say, yeah, it's not districts without really thinking

596
00:52:03,280 --> 00:52:09,100
about some of the broader implications of accountability for all council members to all parts of the

597
00:52:09,100 --> 00:52:09,340
city.

598
00:52:10,000 --> 00:52:11,060
It's just my personal opinion.

599
00:52:11,420 --> 00:52:11,640
Mr. Hart.

600
00:52:24,160 --> 00:52:34,380
I would like to just a general comment as a frequent visitor to the election board meetings

601
00:52:34,380 --> 00:52:36,320
and they are open to everybody.

602
00:52:37,380 --> 00:52:44,680
And Mr. Gilbert is very generous with his, with allowing non-board members to speak.

603
00:52:44,980 --> 00:52:49,780
Their mind, in fact, visitors can do anything except vote.

604
00:52:49,780 --> 00:53:02,400
So I appreciate that very much, but I also know about other time and effort and energy that went into these proposals and I appreciate the Council's taking them seriously and discussing them.

605
00:53:03,820 --> 00:53:14,660
And so I hope that this kind of focus on the elections will continue.

606
00:53:14,660 --> 00:53:21,500
You know, to that end, as the Board of Elections did recommend in their cover letter, I hope

607
00:53:21,500 --> 00:53:26,980
that the board and that the council will consider the question of rank choice voting, not

608
00:53:26,980 --> 00:53:31,200
tonight perhaps, but take it seriously and have work sessions on it.

609
00:53:32,700 --> 00:53:36,740
And so I don't know if you were going to address it or not, but I think I have to take a chance

610
00:53:36,740 --> 00:53:42,640
right now and let you know, but the Board of Elections is a very, very hard on these.

611
00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:50,720
and lots of questions, lots of answers, and I one thing that didn't come up, and I thought

612
00:53:50,720 --> 00:53:56,140
about it later, was I'm wondering if anyone thought about the, in order to increase voter

613
00:53:56,140 --> 00:53:56,520
turnout.

614
00:53:57,340 --> 00:54:02,860
I know the question has come up before about holding the city elections on even years

615
00:54:02,860 --> 00:54:07,760
and side by years, and I know that a lot of the arguments were that you guys would get lost

616
00:54:07,760 --> 00:54:11,460
in the shuffle of a presidential or a midterm election,

617
00:54:12,280 --> 00:54:14,000
but that might be something else to think about

618
00:54:15,040 --> 00:54:18,400
as far as turning a boost response.

619
00:54:18,620 --> 00:54:20,680
Because I know it's a disappointment

620
00:54:20,680 --> 00:54:23,940
that not that many people actually come out to vote

621
00:54:24,260 --> 00:54:27,440
and they don't, maybe because they don't realize

622
00:54:28,920 --> 00:54:32,340
how important the council is in their lives

623
00:54:32,340 --> 00:54:34,300
and all the decisions you make

624
00:54:34,300 --> 00:54:41,620
affects the residents and the businesses in the city and but still for some reason we don't get

625
00:54:41,620 --> 00:54:47,420
really good turnout and so those are just the general thoughts that I have. Thank you.

626
00:54:48,680 --> 00:54:56,620
Thank you very much. The question about changing the elections over to the presidential

627
00:54:56,620 --> 00:54:59,980
a little gubernatorial cycle is something that comes out of it.

628
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:29,880
The provisions of frequently, the pro would be many more people, many more people do vote in the presidential elections. And in Prince George's county with the gubernatorial elections, funny thing happens in county elections, people tend to feel that the primaries are actually more important than general election. So some of the issues that are associated with presidential or gubernatorial county elections is, there's

629
00:55:29,880 --> 00:55:37,160
I suppose there's a risk that the elections could become much more partisan and candidates

630
00:55:37,160 --> 00:55:42,920
for city council might want to affiliate themselves on a ticket, particularly with the county

631
00:55:42,920 --> 00:55:52,620
folks, which many people think they would rather see, well, we are a nonpartisan city council

632
00:55:52,620 --> 00:55:56,880
and I'm adamant about that, we're nonpartisan and I want to keep it that way.

633
00:55:58,920 --> 00:56:00,420
No joke, Mr. Roberts.

634
00:56:01,120 --> 00:56:06,360
So and the other thing is with the cost of running, if we were running on the same cycle,

635
00:56:08,060 --> 00:56:13,500
the council candidates might have to spend more on printed materials to try and stand

636
00:56:13,500 --> 00:56:20,720
out from the other, unless they got on a ticket with county people, other folks, so there's

637
00:56:20,720 --> 00:56:21,380
some issues there.

638
00:56:22,080 --> 00:56:26,160
But the other point you brought up, just because you brought it up, let's talk about ranked

639
00:56:26,160 --> 00:56:36,340
choice voting. It's actually your wish is being granted so if we're ready to move on to

640
00:56:36,340 --> 00:56:41,800
rank choice voting. I think so are there any other comments? Yeah council member please.

641
00:56:42,140 --> 00:56:53,040
Okay, going back to the question that you had recommended putting as a referendum have you determined

642
00:56:53,040 --> 00:56:57,340
And that some members would be at large and some would represent a district.

643
00:56:58,800 --> 00:57:05,700
No, that's a policy choice that the legislative body would have to decide.

644
00:57:06,080 --> 00:57:13,800
Okay, just because I, just from a clarity perspective, I would rather it be the question and then yes or no.

645
00:57:14,080 --> 00:57:21,200
And then like maybe an italicized statement, if we do decide to go that way, but having the statement after the question on the referendum.

646
00:57:22,560 --> 00:57:26,700
just seems a little confusing for our voters, so that would be my feedback.

647
00:57:29,500 --> 00:57:31,720
Thank you, thank you.

648
00:57:31,840 --> 00:57:35,080
So let's move on to the right choice voting.

649
00:57:36,060 --> 00:57:41,540
Okay, so I thought it would be appropriate to do a really brief presentation about

650
00:57:41,540 --> 00:57:46,280
right choice voting because I know people who are on council might like a little

651
00:57:46,280 --> 00:57:51,640
bit of a review. This topic has come up in the past before I'm sure.

652
00:57:52,240 --> 00:57:59,280
And for anyone who's listening online or in the room to get you caught up to speed on what

653
00:57:59,280 --> 00:58:02,060
is being asked when it comes to rank-choice bidding.

654
00:58:02,960 --> 00:58:03,880
So next slide.

655
00:58:04,760 --> 00:58:12,980
So I'll be going over the question of what is rank-first meeting or RCP, a little comparison

656
00:58:12,980 --> 00:58:16,320
of the way we currently vote versus what RCP might entail.

657
00:58:16,320 --> 00:58:23,300
some real-world examples of places that use RCV, particularly in city council elections.

658
00:58:25,320 --> 00:58:30,240
And I've also done some pros and cons for us to consider maybe as discussion topics

659
00:58:30,240 --> 00:58:38,180
for things to kind of get ideas to get used and think about like what are their perspectives

660
00:58:38,180 --> 00:58:38,500
here.

661
00:58:39,280 --> 00:58:40,260
That's very helpful.

662
00:58:40,700 --> 00:58:43,260
I thought RCV, I thought you were supposed to get a vaccination.

663
00:58:45,180 --> 00:58:51,260
Right, yeah, so R-C-V, again, Rank Choice Voting, and then finally, I did.

664
00:58:51,960 --> 00:58:58,240
We didn't, as a board, decide what question to necessarily propose like the final language,

665
00:58:58,800 --> 00:59:03,640
but I have a draft advisory question for you to kind of think about how it might appear

666
00:59:03,640 --> 00:59:04,280
on a ballot.

667
00:59:05,300 --> 00:59:05,680
Thank you.

668
00:59:06,120 --> 00:59:06,620
Next slide.

669
00:59:07,740 --> 00:59:10,340
Okay, so what is Rank Choice Voting or R-C-V?

670
00:59:10,340 --> 00:59:17,760
and simply put, it's a method in which it allows voters to select candidates by order of preference.

671
00:59:18,920 --> 00:59:25,160
So here I've kind of shown an image of what that might look like if you're looking at a ballot

672
00:59:25,160 --> 00:59:28,340
and participating in a ranked choice voting situation.

673
00:59:29,040 --> 00:59:34,380
So you can see we have the different candidates on the left and then each of the column

674
00:59:34,380 --> 00:59:38,520
across the top indicates your first choice, second choice, and so on.

675
00:59:39,840 --> 00:59:44,980
You'll notice here that there's also a write-in option, so that's still allowed in Rachel's

676
00:59:44,980 --> 00:59:45,120
room.

677
00:59:47,660 --> 00:59:52,040
And I believe there should be a link in this slide, but we don't have to look at it.

678
00:59:52,060 --> 00:59:57,600
There's an additional video that, if you want to learn more about the process of

679
00:59:57,600 --> 00:59:59,540
right choice voting you can certainly go ahead and

680
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:05,500
And look at the video to understand it better. Mr. Roberts, do you want to wait till she finishes?

681
01:00:09,660 --> 01:00:30,980
Here. What a person have to vote for each one. Or could they just mean right now we kind of have a right choice system. Because most people don't vote for seven. No vote for a couple. So on a ballot like this, would you actually have to vote for each candidate?

682
01:00:30,980 --> 01:00:35,020
Did it in the line or in just the ones you wanted to?

683
01:00:35,800 --> 01:00:36,320
Exactly.

684
01:00:36,760 --> 01:00:39,100
You don't have to vote up to the number of seats.

685
01:00:39,100 --> 01:00:45,160
You can still choose to vote less, but it would only make sense to vote, you know, the

686
01:00:45,780 --> 01:00:52,480
lowest number or sorry, the your top choices in that case and raise them accordingly.

687
01:00:53,080 --> 01:00:57,020
I need a lot of education on this because I've heard it.

688
01:00:57,020 --> 01:00:59,700
I've heard it described different ways.

689
01:00:59,700 --> 01:01:01,280
And there are different ways.

690
01:01:01,460 --> 01:01:03,600
So it's confusing to take it true.

691
01:01:03,940 --> 01:01:04,120
Right.

692
01:01:05,660 --> 01:01:07,820
Hopefully, it's just cut off because I put a link

693
01:01:07,820 --> 01:01:09,820
at the bottom of that slide.

694
01:01:10,560 --> 01:01:13,800
But that would be kind of a more dynamic way

695
01:01:13,800 --> 01:01:15,840
for you to get some more information about

696
01:01:15,840 --> 01:01:16,980
and translating it in a video.

697
01:01:18,680 --> 01:01:20,020
Well, thank you so much.

698
01:01:20,240 --> 01:01:21,660
Member Tim, how's she doing?

699
01:01:21,780 --> 01:01:23,540
Yeah, well, I think just on this diagram,

700
01:01:23,900 --> 01:01:27,840
this example shows five candidates and five places.

701
01:01:27,840 --> 01:01:33,460
But you might have, if you're five seats, you might have ten candidates and you rank one through five.

702
01:01:34,060 --> 01:01:36,480
So I think that's where that's maybe a little bit different.

703
01:01:36,760 --> 01:01:43,200
This example could also be, yeah, candidates one through ten and you rank one through five if there are five seats.

704
01:01:43,500 --> 01:01:50,020
So in our case, you could have ten candidates or fifteen candidates and you would rank one through seven with a seven member council.

705
01:01:50,500 --> 01:01:50,660
Correct.

706
01:01:52,080 --> 01:01:52,960
Okay, so next slide.

707
01:01:54,320 --> 01:01:59,640
Okay, so our current voting system, another term for that is called plurality voting.

708
01:02:00,420 --> 01:02:07,660
And the framework that plurality voting seeks to kind of ask is, who can win the most

709
01:02:07,660 --> 01:02:08,060
votes?

710
01:02:08,460 --> 01:02:11,180
So that's what plurality voting seeks to answer.

711
01:02:12,380 --> 01:02:19,720
In the proposed voting method that we're discussing, proportional range choice, the framework

712
01:02:19,720 --> 01:02:20,920
of that kind of shifts.

713
01:02:20,920 --> 01:02:29,660
So instead of who can win the most votes, the question that we're kind of centering around is who can win enough votes to get a seat at the table.

714
01:02:34,030 --> 01:02:35,230
Next click.

715
01:02:36,450 --> 01:02:50,150
So the two things that go along with the proportional range choice voting that's different than plurality voting is that the threshold that a candidate has to reach is based off the number of available seats.

716
01:02:51,390 --> 01:02:59,030
So it changes depending on what kind of contest we're running.

717
01:02:59,970 --> 01:03:06,010
And the other point to make about rank choice voting is that there's a redistribution process

718
01:03:06,010 --> 01:03:12,810
of votes proportionally from candidates at the top and or at the bottom of those ranks.

719
01:03:17,420 --> 01:03:21,520
So at this point, it'd be really helpful to look at some real-life examples of rank choice

720
01:03:21,520 --> 01:03:28,320
voting. There are two different cities that used this, so the first example was kind of

721
01:03:28,320 --> 01:03:35,540
a simplified, in Albany, California, City Council in 2022 had an election where there

722
01:03:35,540 --> 01:03:41,060
were two seats, and they had five candidates. And the process of looking at rain choice

723
01:03:41,060 --> 01:03:50,980
voting requires that there to be rounds. So in this example, we can see the person who

724
01:03:52,880 --> 01:04:03,820
So this round one looks at who's getting the breakdown based off of your top choice.

725
01:04:05,280 --> 01:04:09,360
And at this point, that dotted line is the threshold that someone has to meet to win

726
01:04:09,360 --> 01:04:09,720
a seat.

727
01:04:10,440 --> 01:04:12,880
And in this case, nobody has met that threshold.

728
01:04:13,740 --> 01:04:21,820
So what happens in the next round is that the lowest earner will have all the voters for

729
01:04:21,820 --> 01:04:26,260
that instead they recognize that okay you're not going to get that person elected.

730
01:04:26,920 --> 01:04:30,600
So who's the next best person that you'd like to not kind of select?

731
01:04:31,300 --> 01:04:35,520
And so those votes are proportionally distributed to their next choice.

732
01:04:35,520 --> 01:04:45,540
And this keeps happening in the next round until someone goes over the threshold and that's

733
01:04:45,540 --> 01:04:47,560
how they can get elected.

734
01:04:48,580 --> 01:04:53,740
And there's one final round to pick the second seat, so we see that those votes are redistributed

735
01:04:53,740 --> 01:04:56,020
once again and a second person has met the threshold.

736
01:04:57,040 --> 01:04:59,560
So, it's almost in this example

737
01:05:00,000 --> 01:05:28,600
They're almost using it as a run-off because no one has reached the threshold. Correct. It's a way to have an instant run-off without going to the effort of posting an action. Yeah, important. Well, I was going to add, because this is Albany, California, I actually spoke to one of the council members from this, this city council, not one of the ones elected in this year, but this is an example of a five-member at-large council, but they have staggered four-year terms.

738
01:05:28,600 --> 01:05:32,460
So this particular election, where they were electing two, but then there would have

739
01:05:32,460 --> 01:05:35,940
been another election, they would have been electing three, but they are five at-large

740
01:05:35,940 --> 01:05:37,620
seats and they rotate mayor.

741
01:05:37,920 --> 01:05:44,180
They have sort of a queue for who gets mayor, and so it's based on the number of votes

742
01:05:44,180 --> 01:05:48,260
you got, and I'm not sure all the details, but so this is an example of what you were

743
01:05:48,260 --> 01:05:52,500
asking about, Jenny, of sort of the at-large, but still staggered for your terms.

744
01:05:52,840 --> 01:05:53,480
Just adding that.

745
01:05:58,840 --> 01:06:11,120
I'm sorry. I just wanted to ask a couple of questions. Yeah. Slide that you talked about. The differences between the plurality and the redistribution can you just explain to me what you meant by

746
01:06:12,220 --> 01:06:22,400
redistribution of votes and how that actually works. Okay. Does it? I'm sorry. Kind of break it down. Is it an automatic thing? You said it just keeps happening.

747
01:06:22,400 --> 01:06:38,560
It does, because when the voters indicate who they're first and that's their second and third choice that's their next choice down on the list is how this calculation is being done by software so nobody's having to try to figure out.

748
01:06:39,660 --> 01:06:43,680
So it happens very seamlessly in terms of the tabulation.

749
01:06:44,700 --> 01:06:50,580
but the way that the votes would get moved around are based off of people's next choice

750
01:06:50,580 --> 01:06:57,500
from either the candidate that's eliminated or the candidate that has excess votes

751
01:06:57,500 --> 01:07:02,220
and kind of trickles down in a sense to other candidates.

752
01:07:03,040 --> 01:07:06,700
So to kind of clarify that point, let's actually look at the second link.

753
01:07:07,360 --> 01:07:11,920
So this is a bigger election case and go back to round one.

754
01:07:11,920 --> 01:07:16,680
We'll look at just like very beginning because I think there's going to be an example.

755
01:07:18,760 --> 01:07:23,560
So in this, the first round, we see that there is one candidate who's already crossed

756
01:07:23,560 --> 01:07:24,100
the threshold.

757
01:07:24,980 --> 01:07:29,900
So they're elected, and what happens to those excess votes if we go in round two?

758
01:07:33,420 --> 01:07:39,220
Those excess votes, so what we're looking at is everyone who voted for that candidate

759
01:07:39,220 --> 01:07:40,800
that did get elected.

760
01:07:40,800 --> 01:07:47,580
We look at all of the voter's second choice, and then we assign proportionally how much

761
01:07:47,580 --> 01:07:50,120
of the excess votes to move to other candidates.

762
01:07:51,920 --> 01:08:04,060
So if 30% of the people, for example, voted for candidate B as their second choice, and

763
01:08:04,060 --> 01:08:09,780
We know that they have, for example, 100 access votes,

764
01:08:10,100 --> 01:08:12,160
then 30 of those votes would go to Kennedy.

765
01:08:16,220 --> 01:08:19,500
And so again, the framework of rank choice voting

766
01:08:19,500 --> 01:08:23,200
is who can win enough votes to win a seat at the table.

767
01:08:23,460 --> 01:08:26,040
So we're going to remove access votes

768
01:08:26,040 --> 01:08:27,760
and spread them out to other candidates.

769
01:08:28,380 --> 01:08:31,040
And we're also going to eliminate from the bottom

770
01:08:31,040 --> 01:08:32,300
and redistribute up.

771
01:08:33,520 --> 01:08:36,220
So that makes a whole lot of sense in a situation

772
01:08:36,220 --> 01:08:41,120
We have a whole lot of candidates on with so many seats or the threshold is very high.

773
01:08:42,020 --> 01:08:45,880
Yes, well, the threshold is based off of the number of available seats.

774
01:08:46,480 --> 01:08:51,800
So you can imagine in for a very simple example in a one-seat election,

775
01:08:52,140 --> 01:08:55,160
you have to basically have majority more than 50%.

776
01:08:57,280 --> 01:09:02,060
For a race that has many seats, like a seven-seat city council,

777
01:09:02,060 --> 01:09:05,540
the threshold is going to be much lower than 50%.

778
01:09:05,880 --> 01:09:08,680
So if there were four candidates, it would be 25%.

779
01:09:08,680 --> 01:09:12,440
It's actually going to look...

780
01:09:13,340 --> 01:09:13,860
12%.

781
01:09:13,860 --> 01:09:19,320
Well, so for example, for a seven-seat council, let's just use like our elections,

782
01:09:19,980 --> 01:09:22,820
the threshold is actually 12.5%.

783
01:09:24,680 --> 01:09:27,060
And of course, Steve has that number.

784
01:09:28,240 --> 01:09:32,900
You just know off the top of your head with that number, 12.5%.

785
01:09:33,440 --> 01:09:34,900
Yeah, it's one-eighth.

786
01:09:36,620 --> 01:09:37,760
Very good, very good.

787
01:09:40,480 --> 01:09:43,340
Okay, so we can go back to the present.

788
01:09:43,600 --> 01:09:44,120
Unless there's any words.

789
01:09:44,120 --> 01:09:46,500
It might be worthwhile stepping through the rest of that.

790
01:09:46,580 --> 01:09:46,960
Oh, sure.

791
01:09:47,180 --> 01:09:50,560
Okay, so let's just continue to step through the different rounds.

792
01:09:50,780 --> 01:09:52,220
So we've have one seed elected,

793
01:09:53,140 --> 01:09:54,940
but nobody else has reached the threshold,

794
01:09:54,940 --> 01:09:57,500
so we're going to eliminate from the bottom

795
01:09:57,500 --> 01:09:58,880
and redistribute those votes.

796
01:09:58,880 --> 01:09:59,660
who's

797
01:10:00,000 --> 01:10:04,460
Who are people's next choice? Is it clear? Can we keep going?

798
01:10:07,040 --> 01:10:08,880
So we can see that the bottom

799
01:10:08,880 --> 01:10:14,160
of that list of the people who didn't get enough votes are now being redistributed

800
01:10:14,160 --> 01:10:17,040
up based off of those voters' next choice.

801
01:10:29,760 --> 01:10:32,740
And I do want to reiterate that it's pretty

802
01:10:32,740 --> 01:10:40,440
standard for the reporting to be round by round so that voters can kind of trace how these

803
01:10:40,440 --> 01:10:43,360
These calculations are being made, and it's not just a black box.

804
01:10:44,120 --> 01:10:46,640
So transparency is really important with RCD.

805
01:10:47,980 --> 01:10:53,080
While the software can just tell you who wins those seats, people still like to know how

806
01:10:53,080 --> 01:10:58,040
that process happened, and so the reporting is a really key part in the communication to

807
01:10:58,040 --> 01:10:59,240
the voter with the results.

808
01:11:00,580 --> 01:11:04,900
Well, Ed, and it's interesting that this only has eight because the Cambridge Massachusett

809
01:11:04,900 --> 01:11:09,840
City Council is a nine-member council, so I'm not quite sure why this ends with only eight

810
01:11:09,840 --> 01:11:16,060
to be honest, this example. But they, because this is one of the other ones that I looked

811
01:11:16,060 --> 01:11:20,300
at and reached out, but didn't hear back from the council member that I reached out to on this

812
01:11:20,300 --> 01:11:27,080
council, they, they, they, they elect their mayor from the nine seats. So similar to, to,

813
01:11:27,240 --> 01:11:32,220
we do, the way we do, that the mayor is elected from among the, they don't have a separate

814
01:11:32,220 --> 01:11:36,160
mayoral election. So this, this is probably the most similar that I've seen to, the way we

815
01:11:36,160 --> 01:11:41,120
do our elections in terms of all that large seats and then electing mayor from among those

816
01:11:41,120 --> 01:11:41,960
at-lar seats.

817
01:11:42,300 --> 01:11:42,940
And every two years.

818
01:11:43,760 --> 01:11:50,160
And I do think there is a provision that the last person who's still standing, who hasn't

819
01:11:50,160 --> 01:11:55,560
been eliminated, if they haven't technically reached that threshold because of maybe

820
01:11:55,560 --> 01:12:01,840
writings or something else, or people didn't want to fill out the entire choice selection.

821
01:12:03,580 --> 01:12:06,260
Because they're the last one standing, they do get the seat.

822
01:12:08,340 --> 01:12:10,580
So I have just a couple of questions.

823
01:12:10,800 --> 01:12:12,040
Do you have several more slides?

824
01:12:12,980 --> 01:12:17,840
We're just going to talk pros and cons and the proposal for advisory questions.

825
01:12:18,160 --> 01:12:18,680
Okay.

826
01:12:19,040 --> 01:12:19,800
Why don't you go ahead?

827
01:12:20,220 --> 01:12:26,680
Because I was going to ask with this example from number 13, iteration number 13, to the

828
01:12:26,680 --> 01:12:29,880
first slide, the first iteration.

829
01:12:29,880 --> 01:12:33,100
the order has actually changed over candidates?

830
01:12:33,500 --> 01:12:40,660
Yeah, so based off of the redistributes of votes you might see some candidates get a

831
01:12:40,660 --> 01:12:49,160
big jump so they might actually rise up in the by-round-by-round total yeah so it is

832
01:12:49,160 --> 01:12:51,680
possible that people change.

833
01:12:51,840 --> 01:12:57,300
So the person who got the second highest number of votes and the third highest number of votes

834
01:12:57,300 --> 01:13:01,620
in the beginning. How did they come out in the final round?

835
01:13:06,350 --> 01:13:11,810
Let's see. So at the first, in the first round, it looks like

836
01:13:12,310 --> 01:13:17,390
Simmons, then Nolan, and then at the last round. If you just click on that drop down.

837
01:13:18,050 --> 01:13:21,310
I think that they have these in the order that they ended up.

838
01:13:22,250 --> 01:13:24,910
Oh, okay. So you can actually see that it looks like,

839
01:13:25,330 --> 01:13:28,450
after the first round, Nolan was actually second.

840
01:13:28,450 --> 01:13:33,310
Yes, and then I can't tell if it looks like Simmons was third

841
01:13:34,130 --> 01:13:35,090
toner was

842
01:13:37,010 --> 01:13:39,270
fourth, so if you just look by the length of the bar

843
01:13:39,270 --> 01:13:44,610
So I think they they they already have them ordered by the winning by the winning order. Yes

844
01:13:44,610 --> 01:13:49,650
I think for the purposes of this animation. If if we go back to round one you can see that

845
01:13:49,650 --> 01:13:54,750
It isn't actually ordered based off who who's getting the most votes

846
01:13:55,330 --> 01:14:00,530
You can see that third line in the first round that person has more votes than the second line.

847
01:14:01,290 --> 01:14:06,030
So she got more first choice votes. Patricia Nolan got more first choice.

848
01:14:06,270 --> 01:14:07,970
Got the second most first choice votes.

849
01:14:09,190 --> 01:14:09,670
Yes.

850
01:14:12,540 --> 01:14:15,860
And actually you can see that someone who got a lot of...

851
01:14:18,310 --> 01:14:21,310
Yes, exactly. Got a lot of first choice votes.

852
01:14:21,310 --> 01:14:28,190
ended up being kind of towards the bottom, actually.

853
01:14:29,030 --> 01:14:30,610
I think he may have been number nine.

854
01:14:31,190 --> 01:14:33,930
So with his supporters, it was like all of nothing.

855
01:14:35,030 --> 01:14:36,970
And it looks like he is on there's the key council.

856
01:14:37,450 --> 01:14:39,570
I just checked the Cambridge Massachusetts website.

857
01:14:39,570 --> 01:14:42,550
So I think he did get elected even though it's not noted on the end of this.

858
01:14:42,630 --> 01:14:43,270
Right, exactly.

859
01:14:43,650 --> 01:14:47,630
I think this visualization of the round-by-round

860
01:14:47,630 --> 01:14:51,250
is also accompanied by some explanatory texts.

861
01:14:51,490 --> 01:14:54,370
So if you want to take a look and get some analysis

862
01:14:54,370 --> 01:14:56,470
about what's going on in each round,

863
01:14:56,790 --> 01:14:58,310
you can feel free to read that as well.

864
01:14:58,910 --> 01:14:59,830
Thank you, Mr. Harmon.

865
01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:01,420
Do you need to ask a question now?

866
01:15:10,830 --> 01:15:37,050
Something Michael Hartman, two-cook hardware. One thing that I don't remember being discussed at the Board of Election meetings is that in the last round, if there's nine seats, if the ninth and tenth candidates have exactly the same number of votes, then you are in a situation where you have, for the last remaining seat, you have actually two people

867
01:15:37,050 --> 01:15:43,370
people who have the same number of votes and then what happens then.

868
01:15:43,570 --> 01:15:47,570
And I'm really in favor of a drink choice voting, but I just realize that there could

869
01:15:47,570 --> 01:15:51,750
be that situation coming up in that.

870
01:15:52,730 --> 01:15:55,070
So I don't know the answer to that, you know?

871
01:15:55,970 --> 01:15:56,450
Yeah.

872
01:15:57,010 --> 01:15:58,230
So let's hold that thought.

873
01:15:58,730 --> 01:16:02,470
Why don't we go ahead and present your pros and cons?

874
01:16:02,710 --> 01:16:02,830
Okay.

875
01:16:02,930 --> 01:16:04,010
I have a couple of questions.

876
01:16:04,350 --> 01:16:04,630
Sure.

877
01:16:04,630 --> 01:16:09,710
Yeah so we can come back and I don't actually have that answer for you tonight

878
01:16:09,710 --> 01:16:15,250
but I can certainly look at that and see what is typically recommended as a

879
01:16:15,250 --> 01:16:20,650
practice. Okay so Rank Choice Voting thinking about some of the pros and cons

880
01:16:20,650 --> 01:16:27,950
and who in my benefit will start with the pros so for the voters this does allow

881
01:16:27,950 --> 01:16:34,350
the voters to express more give more information about how their thinking is

882
01:16:34,350 --> 01:16:38,790
with the candidates, who their top choices is, who's kind of middle of the pack and who's

883
01:16:38,790 --> 01:16:42,170
someone that they accept, but maybe not their top choice.

884
01:16:43,230 --> 01:16:48,710
So it gives the voters some greater flexibility and more nuance in their selection.

885
01:16:49,690 --> 01:16:56,510
And it also reduces the risk of choosing a candidate who might seemingly be less popular.

886
01:16:57,600 --> 01:17:03,690
If you're feeling really enthusiastic about a candidate, but you think they don't have

887
01:17:03,690 --> 01:17:09,870
enough support broadly speaking, you might be disinclined to vote for them because your

888
01:17:09,870 --> 01:17:12,270
roads are just going to get tossed out if they don't get selected.

889
01:17:13,370 --> 01:17:18,870
But with ranked choice voting, when someone is eliminated, you get to answer the question

890
01:17:18,870 --> 01:17:21,190
of who you want instead.

891
01:17:23,890 --> 01:17:29,550
The pros when it comes to the City Council is that from what we've heard for people who

892
01:17:29,550 --> 01:17:35,370
to advocate for this issue is that it does actually result in encourage more diverse

893
01:17:35,370 --> 01:17:38,670
selection of city council or selection of candidates.

894
01:17:39,690 --> 01:17:47,730
And in thinking about what this process does, it's removing a systemic barrier by lowering

895
01:17:47,730 --> 01:17:56,970
the threshold potentially and allowing representation from a smaller, less broad group of people,

896
01:17:56,970 --> 01:18:02,870
but someone who has enough support to win a seat at the table, so to speak.

897
01:18:04,070 --> 01:18:10,430
From the city perspective, this would save significant money and time by eliminating

898
01:18:10,430 --> 01:18:14,790
the need to do a roundoff election if that were to be the case.

899
01:18:14,970 --> 01:18:21,890
I know that potentially it is the case that currently we are asking people to meet a 40% threshold.

900
01:18:21,890 --> 01:18:29,590
If not enough candidates do so, then we have to put time and money into hosting a runoff

901
01:18:29,590 --> 01:18:32,310
election for those remaining seats.

902
01:18:34,750 --> 01:18:41,110
In thinking about the cons, obviously a new process of choosing your candidates on a

903
01:18:41,110 --> 01:18:48,570
ballot, you know, it's going to require learning a new process for the voters and I would anticipate

904
01:18:48,570 --> 01:18:54,650
pay potentially that there is an initial higher number of spoil ballots or ballots that need

905
01:18:54,650 --> 01:19:01,590
correction because of a new process. And so voter education and outreach is likely

906
01:19:01,590 --> 01:19:08,450
going to need to happen for people to really feel comfortable and understand what they're

907
01:19:08,450 --> 01:19:16,650
doing. From the city's perspective, obviously they need to communicate this new process or

908
01:19:16,650 --> 01:19:25,590
the voting method and it would increase the base cost per election by about 1.5,000 because

909
01:19:25,590 --> 01:19:28,670
you're adding on this tabulation software for rank choice voting.

910
01:19:29,670 --> 01:19:37,330
Now I still think overall, like if you look at what it costs to just run an election in

911
01:19:37,330 --> 01:19:44,230
the city, like if we had to do a runoff versus just every time, you know, we use a method

912
01:19:44,230 --> 01:19:51,270
that doesn't, that eliminates potentially that risk, then you know, you come out on

913
01:19:51,270 --> 01:19:54,210
top in terms of the money most likely.

914
01:19:56,470 --> 01:19:57,850
Okay, next slide.

915
01:20:00,000 --> 01:20:07,360
So, this is a draft rank choice voting advisory question that I've put together, but it's not

916
01:20:07,360 --> 01:20:14,020
been voted on by the board members. This is just an example when city council for something

917
01:20:14,020 --> 01:20:19,240
for listeners to think about, like, how this might appear and how this might be explained.

918
01:20:20,380 --> 01:20:28,160
The question stated such. Do you approve of the city of being vote using rank choice voting

919
01:20:28,160 --> 01:20:33,800
for all city council member elections and amending the city charter's 40% threshold criteria

920
01:20:33,800 --> 01:20:41,280
in section 31. The city of Greenbelt currently uses plurality voting for multi-winner races

921
01:20:41,280 --> 01:20:46,800
where voters can select candidates up to the number of available seats with equal preference.

922
01:20:47,640 --> 01:20:54,280
The candidates must meet a 40% threshold of all votes cast and those which qualify with the most

923
01:20:54,280 --> 01:21:00,620
votes win, when the threshold is not met and seats may unfilled a runoff elections held.

924
01:21:01,860 --> 01:21:06,520
Ranked choice voting is a voting system where voters rank candidates in order of preference.

925
01:21:07,500 --> 01:21:12,040
Vodes are initially counted for each voter's top choice, if the candidate gets more than

926
01:21:12,040 --> 01:21:15,360
a necessary threshold of first choice votes, they are elected.

927
01:21:16,220 --> 01:21:20,820
Access votes over the threshold transfer proportionally to the remaining candidates based

928
01:21:20,820 --> 01:21:22,140
on each voter's rankings.

929
01:21:22,140 --> 01:21:28,320
If there are more candidates than seats to be filled, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated.

930
01:21:29,020 --> 01:21:33,560
There are votes transferred to remaining candidates based on each voter's rankings.

931
01:21:34,140 --> 01:21:37,680
This process is repeated until no unfilled positions remain.

932
01:21:38,980 --> 01:21:40,900
Okay, Mr. Roberts?

933
01:21:42,260 --> 01:21:45,920
I was wondering, has there ever been a runoff election in Greenville?

934
01:21:46,720 --> 01:21:48,020
I can't remember what.

935
01:21:48,020 --> 01:21:49,760
I can answer that, and the answer is yes.

936
01:21:49,760 --> 01:21:55,540
Yes, but not since the threshold was changed to 40%, no, actually there were so much later

937
01:21:55,540 --> 01:21:55,960
than that.

938
01:21:56,160 --> 01:22:01,560
I could tell you because I did a lot of that research when we were looking at filling

939
01:22:02,220 --> 01:22:03,240
Councilmember Gordon's seat.

940
01:22:04,120 --> 01:22:05,680
But yes, there have been.

941
01:22:05,780 --> 01:22:09,400
They were actually reasonably frequent when the threshold was 50%.

942
01:22:09,400 --> 01:22:13,560
I don't think there have been any since it was changed to 40%.

943
01:22:13,560 --> 01:22:18,800
But there used to be pretty regularly if you look in the news review archives.

944
01:22:18,800 --> 01:22:19,820
Thank

945
01:22:22,920 --> 01:22:26,300
you. Thank you. I have a few questions.

946
01:22:28,360 --> 01:22:32,020
So first, and thank you for pulling this together.

947
01:22:32,240 --> 01:22:37,920
I know this has been one of your passions to kind of look at this rent choice building.

948
01:22:38,400 --> 01:22:39,400
I appreciate it.

949
01:22:41,480 --> 01:22:46,620
First, with the tabulation software, is that proprietary or can anybody,

950
01:22:46,620 --> 01:22:50,020
There are a number of different places where you go.

951
01:22:51,720 --> 01:22:55,800
There are certainly different vendors who offer their own software.

952
01:22:57,800 --> 01:23:02,200
In that sense, do you need to get the license for it?

953
01:23:02,480 --> 01:23:07,620
Yes, you have to go to the official range, which is voting vendor, but apparently there's

954
01:23:07,620 --> 01:23:11,380
a number of resources, so it's not a single proprietary system.

955
01:23:11,940 --> 01:23:14,120
No, it's not just one vendor who offers it.

956
01:23:14,120 --> 01:23:23,820
Okay. So, here are the other questions. I was just wondering about the spoiled ballots.

957
01:23:24,140 --> 01:23:30,360
I was picturing a scenario where a voter comes to the polls and there are seven seats.

958
01:23:30,360 --> 01:23:35,160
Let's say it's queen belt and the voter knows three of the candidates.

959
01:23:35,720 --> 01:23:38,900
It doesn't really have a strong feeling about any of the three.

960
01:23:38,900 --> 01:23:48,220
he or she likes them all so the inclination might be to check one on all three or it would

961
01:23:48,220 --> 01:23:55,140
be maybe it's a little hard sometimes to make that choice between individuals that you know of

962
01:23:55,140 --> 01:24:01,720
and respect on the flip side of that is if you don't know anybody you know how would you or if you

963
01:24:01,720 --> 01:24:06,320
only know one candidate how would you go about selecting the other choices I guess you would just pick

964
01:24:06,320 --> 01:24:13,960
the one that you know, and that's what a lot of people do. They vote for the ones that they are

965
01:24:13,960 --> 01:24:24,600
familiar with and leave the other ones blank. And I know people do that to, so that question of

966
01:24:24,600 --> 01:24:28,960
spoiled ballots, you know, in some of the other cities where this has been in place for a while,

967
01:24:29,380 --> 01:24:35,300
do you have any kind of a sense on how what the percentage of spoiled ballots might be

968
01:24:35,300 --> 01:24:39,600
from people just not putting in the bottom of the right place.

969
01:24:40,040 --> 01:24:48,160
No, but I will say usually in the process, especially if you're voting in person, although

970
01:24:48,160 --> 01:24:52,660
I know for early voting you don't actually scan the ballots just yet.

971
01:24:52,660 --> 01:24:59,960
but you have typically an opportunity once the ballot is scanned to get feedback from

972
01:25:00,000 --> 01:25:29,180
Back, did, did, was it able to count what you did correctly? And usually there's an opportunity for voters to make a correction, if they, if they, so choose to correct. Once, once the scanner has told them that there's an issue. That's helpful. That makes sense. You, you do have that opportunity. And if you leave with most voting machines, if you leave something blank, there's, you know, you'll ask you before it casts the vote that you mean to do this.

973
01:25:29,180 --> 01:25:35,280
But those circumstances where you're in the voting booth, and you know that you support

974
01:25:35,280 --> 01:25:40,240
two or three people, just making that choice between number one, number two, and number

975
01:25:40,240 --> 01:25:46,320
three might be kind of hard on the fly and it might become sort of an arbitrary thing.

976
01:25:49,100 --> 01:25:50,220
That's one concern.

977
01:25:50,620 --> 01:25:57,480
The other concern just has to do with the practice, the way things typically go in Greenbelt

978
01:25:57,480 --> 01:26:04,740
And it is sort of like that, as Mr. Roberts was saying, most voters will either vote very

979
01:26:04,740 --> 01:26:09,940
strategically, or they'll only vote for candidates that they're familiar with, or the other.

980
01:26:11,020 --> 01:26:18,120
So with rank choice, it seems like it would put even more emphasis on that kind of a strategic

981
01:26:18,120 --> 01:26:19,640
vote than we presently have.

982
01:26:20,380 --> 01:26:20,760
Do you know what I mean?

983
01:26:24,780 --> 01:26:29,940
If the strategies in rank choice voting are different than they are in morality voting, I would

984
01:26:29,940 --> 01:26:39,440
say but you know I think let's let's look at it let's look at an analogy to

985
01:26:39,440 --> 01:26:48,740
this you're trying to figure out with a big group of people what you're trying

986
01:26:48,740 --> 01:26:54,560
to order a pizza and you want to know what toppings you want to get I think you

987
01:26:54,560 --> 01:26:55,680
I want three.

988
01:26:56,560 --> 01:26:57,680
You want three.

989
01:27:00,120 --> 01:27:04,160
I think it's pretty, it's not uncommon for people

990
01:27:04,160 --> 01:27:07,320
to have preferences about, OK, I really like this topping,

991
01:27:07,580 --> 01:27:08,960
or like this, these topping.

992
01:27:10,480 --> 01:27:13,240
And who want to express, which if they're

993
01:27:13,240 --> 01:27:15,920
going to choose up to seven, which ones

994
01:27:15,920 --> 01:27:17,500
they like more than others.

995
01:27:18,720 --> 01:27:20,640
And some people may not have preference,

996
01:27:20,640 --> 01:27:29,580
in which case still voting, you know, that voting for those that they do like is still

997
01:27:29,580 --> 01:27:34,640
making a difference in the tabulation. And if there's enough votes for that person

998
01:27:34,640 --> 01:27:42,380
then they'll still be elected. So it's, there's still some benefits to, you know,

999
01:27:42,480 --> 01:27:47,840
putting down those names. Whether or not there's an order for you personally as a voter

1000
01:27:47,840 --> 01:27:56,820
is you know kind of like pepperoni onions and black olives right so you've got to have the

1001
01:27:56,820 --> 01:28:02,240
pepperoni but you know between the onions and the black olives it's sort of a toss up I wouldn't

1002
01:28:02,240 --> 01:28:06,340
want to have one without the others I have a really hard time you can't forget the people who are

1003
01:28:06,340 --> 01:28:07,720
I'm really passionate about pineapple.

1004
01:28:08,040 --> 01:28:08,340
Pineapple.

1005
01:28:08,820 --> 01:28:08,960
Yeah.

1006
01:28:10,680 --> 01:28:12,820
Half an hour.

1007
01:28:14,840 --> 01:28:15,420
Okay.

1008
01:28:15,580 --> 01:28:18,320
Let's have one quick question.

1009
01:28:19,280 --> 01:28:21,220
How would it be effective?

1010
01:28:23,300 --> 01:28:24,980
If you don't have a lot of candidates,

1011
01:28:25,080 --> 01:28:27,840
if you only have one extra candidate,

1012
01:28:28,120 --> 01:28:29,120
you've got seven spaces.

1013
01:28:29,300 --> 01:28:30,300
You've got eight people running.

1014
01:28:31,540 --> 01:28:33,240
I mean, yeah.

1015
01:28:33,240 --> 01:28:41,660
I mean, I think in a close race, the impact is probably going to be the greatest in who's

1016
01:28:41,660 --> 01:28:48,120
going to fill that last seat because you have, as a voter, more control in saying, I'm

1017
01:28:48,120 --> 01:28:53,460
going to go out on a limb for someone because I know that no matter what my vote, if that

1018
01:28:53,460 --> 01:28:56,760
person doesn't make it, my second choice can be picked.

1019
01:28:58,280 --> 01:29:05,320
So, I think, you know, one of the problems that you hear with plurality voting or the current

1020
01:29:05,320 --> 01:29:11,400
method is that you might split someone's vote, but those candidates might have very

1021
01:29:11,400 --> 01:29:19,000
similar values and very similar stances on things, just people have a preference of one

1022
01:29:19,000 --> 01:29:22,100
person of the other and that vote is kind of split.

1023
01:29:22,100 --> 01:29:25,260
So this just helps with that issue, actually.

1024
01:29:25,880 --> 01:29:26,420
Thanks.

1025
01:29:28,540 --> 01:29:29,500
Council member McKinney.

1026
01:29:30,740 --> 01:29:32,620
When you look at the pros and cons,

1027
01:29:32,920 --> 01:29:36,140
are there any pros and cons in plurality voting

1028
01:29:38,100 --> 01:29:41,660
across cities that have different population sizes?

1029
01:29:42,340 --> 01:29:47,200
So does plurality voting work better if you are a bigger city?

1030
01:29:48,380 --> 01:29:49,040
Or what are the pros?

1031
01:29:49,120 --> 01:29:49,780
I don't want to say better,

1032
01:29:49,840 --> 01:29:52,860
but are there pros and cons based on city population?

1033
01:29:54,600 --> 01:29:59,840
I'm gonna write that question down sorry I didn't mean to put you on this spot but I just

1034
01:30:08,020 --> 01:30:29,740
Thank you very much for putting together sort of a draft statement. If we were to move forward with this and put it as a ballot question, I just hope that we'll have some chance to maybe tweak some language because we're in reading it. I was like, I don't know if I would totally understand what it was saying, especially when it says, like, excess votes.

1035
01:30:29,740 --> 01:30:32,800
get kind of like, yeah, that just means that it's going to take the

1036
01:30:32,800 --> 01:30:36,520
access votes, smooth it across like if you don't have the background of the

1037
01:30:36,520 --> 01:30:41,880
context, that could weight people's decision very. Yeah, it's a struggle

1038
01:30:42,640 --> 01:30:47,760
because there is a lot of kind of information that you can get into the

1039
01:30:47,760 --> 01:30:52,620
details with not to throw all of that down. You know, you want to be descriptive

1040
01:30:52,620 --> 01:30:57,980
enough that people can understand a process, but you don't want to get too far

1041
01:30:57,980 --> 01:31:06,080
and then have the whole page 100% it's a complex topic to break down into like a

1042
01:31:06,080 --> 01:31:10,980
nothing right but so we'll have to try to figure out if we do yeah and this is

1043
01:31:10,980 --> 01:31:15,520
something that's I think the board of elections is open to being tweaked for

1044
01:31:15,520 --> 01:31:25,080
sure yeah and I think there's there's also there's a video from I think

1045
01:31:25,080 --> 01:31:28,580
Minnesota Public Radio that kind of goes through with sticky notes that also helps

1046
01:31:28,580 --> 01:31:35,540
a little bit, but another way I think to think about it is that the single winner ranked

1047
01:31:35,540 --> 01:31:40,920
choice is sort of like an instant run-off, right? But I think in this one way this has also

1048
01:31:40,920 --> 01:31:45,840
been described as sort of like an automatic caucus because if you imagine a caucus, which I know

1049
01:31:45,840 --> 01:31:50,580
they don't do in Maryland, but I have participated in caucuses in Colorado, you sort of go to your

1050
01:31:50,580 --> 01:31:55,400
corner of your favorite candidate, and then you see, okay, well, okay, this person doesn't,

1051
01:31:55,400 --> 01:31:58,480
And then you walk over to, okay, my second favorite candidate here.

1052
01:31:58,980 --> 01:32:02,160
And then, oh, my second favorite candidate also doesn't have enough votes.

1053
01:32:02,160 --> 01:32:07,120
And then you walk in the people split to the, to the, to the, to, there's, and so it's,

1054
01:32:07,120 --> 01:32:09,520
it's, it's a little bit more like that.

1055
01:32:09,860 --> 01:32:14,040
And actually, the council member from Albany shared a PowerPoint slide that I can,

1056
01:32:14,060 --> 01:32:18,120
I can send to council as well, that sort of has some animations that sort of demonstrate

1057
01:32:18,120 --> 01:32:32,060
That of the idea of is allows you to have your first choice, but then your second and third choice, if your first choice doesn't win the first time around or gets it like is eliminated.

1058
01:32:32,260 --> 01:32:37,560
So if you really love somebody that nobody else likes, then they get eliminated.

1059
01:32:38,800 --> 01:32:44,320
because I think in a plurality and especially in a single winner, then your vote just really isn't counting for anything.

1060
01:32:44,560 --> 01:32:48,680
But in this case, oh, well, if your first choice gets eliminated and you get your second choice or your third choice and so on.

1061
01:32:49,000 --> 01:32:55,060
So I think it does allow voters to give more information about their preferences compared to the way we do it now.

1062
01:32:56,300 --> 01:33:07,400
Yeah, it is a lot of information on the ballot that has the power to kind of do that tabulation round by round all at once.

1063
01:33:07,400 --> 01:33:19,220
But, you know, there's still a process to it and I will say that, that video, I think, is the one that's linked in the presentation, so if you want to look at that, it's in the slide.

1064
01:33:20,060 --> 01:33:20,880
She did.

1065
01:33:32,950 --> 01:33:38,870
J. Davis, Greenbelt East, historical background on this.

1066
01:33:39,410 --> 01:33:47,970
When we were sued by the ACLU and we were looking at ways to put minorities on the council.

1067
01:33:48,950 --> 01:33:51,270
This was talked about quite a bit.

1068
01:33:51,410 --> 01:33:58,490
We had several meetings and people explained it and explained it and explained it and luckily,

1069
01:33:58,490 --> 01:34:03,550
actually at that particular point, we decided, well, maybe the easiest solution was to increase

1070
01:34:03,550 --> 01:34:11,050
the number on council. So we went from five to seven. Lo and behold, now we had a minority

1071
01:34:11,050 --> 01:34:18,590
on the council. And in the past couple of years, having a minority on the council has not

1072
01:34:18,590 --> 01:34:28,310
been a problem. And now we've got female gender almost a majority, well definitely a majority.

1073
01:34:29,230 --> 01:34:36,870
So I'm not sure what problem we're trying to solve here by changing, other than to go

1074
01:34:36,870 --> 01:34:43,830
along with a system that perhaps seems more democratic or flexible or whatever you want

1075
01:34:43,830 --> 01:34:51,070
to say, I sort of kind of agree with Mr. Roberts if we don't have a problem why try to change

1076
01:34:51,070 --> 01:34:58,490
it. So in the 50 years that I've lived here in Greenbelt we've never had to run off one

1077
01:34:58,490 --> 01:34:59,170
and we are the other.

1078
01:35:00,000 --> 01:35:29,980
And they simply did a simple change. They went from 50% to 40% in a lo and behold, finally solved that problem. Having this and using technology, software, people don't trust technology. I mean, you can sit there and say, okay, we're now we're going to go to round one and you change it. And then you go to round two and you change it again. And yet, I'm going to sit there and look at that and say, how do I know that

1079
01:35:29,980 --> 01:35:34,520
But my particular choice is actually being recorded and changed.

1080
01:35:35,220 --> 01:35:41,580
People don't trust the ballots now when we have a regular election in plurality.

1081
01:35:42,340 --> 01:35:47,080
You throw this in and they're going to be even less trustworthy, especially if their

1082
01:35:48,060 --> 01:35:50,900
particular person doesn't even get elected to counsel.

1083
01:35:50,900 --> 01:36:02,200
because I can see a position where someone doesn't quite get to the threshold and then eventually

1084
01:36:02,200 --> 01:36:07,300
eventually doesn't even get elected, but they wear way ahead of, you know, ten other people,

1085
01:36:07,580 --> 01:36:15,420
but then they don't get elected. It's very difficult to explain even to try to put it on a

1086
01:36:15,420 --> 01:36:19,220
ballot question, trying to explain, you know, people are not even going to read that,

1087
01:36:19,420 --> 01:36:23,380
generally they're not. Now, there's a lot of people who know about it. Certainly,

1088
01:36:23,540 --> 01:36:26,620
there are quite a few cities that are trying it, and that's fine.

1089
01:36:29,800 --> 01:36:31,980
And I was just going over the idea,

1090
01:36:33,260 --> 01:36:39,060
if you went by bullet voting, because we do have that, and I'm watching

1091
01:36:39,940 --> 01:36:45,080
thread. So I'm just going to go real fast. Bullet voters is that going to be an

1092
01:36:45,080 --> 01:36:51,960
advantage or a disadvantage? Right now it could be an advantage and it could be

1093
01:36:51,960 --> 01:36:56,980
if you could get enough people to vote number one and you get to the threshold

1094
01:36:56,980 --> 01:37:01,820
and nobody else voted for you for second, third, fourth or fifth or sixth but

1095
01:37:01,820 --> 01:37:07,320
you got past the threshold and the bullet vote worked or it could be a disadvantage.

1096
01:37:07,960 --> 01:37:12,200
You get everybody to vote for you that you want to talk to and they don't have enough

1097
01:37:12,200 --> 01:37:16,860
to get past the threshold and nobody else wanted you, well then you don't get elected.

1098
01:37:17,640 --> 01:37:20,600
But in our polarity, you may have gotten it, who knows.

1099
01:37:21,440 --> 01:37:27,600
The percentage is awfully low to me, but that's what you've decided.

1100
01:37:28,140 --> 01:37:29,380
No, that's not what the math works.

1101
01:37:30,060 --> 01:37:32,320
It's the math, it's still cool.

1102
01:37:32,720 --> 01:37:36,800
Also, in this particular situation, you can't vote for number one for everybody.

1103
01:37:36,800 --> 01:37:42,820
I mean, that's what just have to be, if you try to do it, your boat would be invalidated

1104
01:37:42,820 --> 01:37:46,220
because number one, you have to have a different choice.

1105
01:37:46,580 --> 01:37:50,900
If you voted for seven people, number one, it's not going to work.

1106
01:37:50,900 --> 01:37:55,500
It's like you're bullet-voting seven times, but it's a complex issue.

1107
01:37:56,420 --> 01:37:56,740
Good luck.

1108
01:37:57,440 --> 01:37:57,780
Thank you.

1109
01:37:58,040 --> 01:37:58,320
Thank you.

1110
01:37:58,320 --> 01:37:59,940
Good. Good points.

1111
01:38:00,920 --> 01:38:02,720
Member Tim, then, on Australia.

1112
01:38:03,300 --> 01:38:08,660
Well, and I guess I would say that I think we have had.

1113
01:38:08,820 --> 01:38:12,940
So, you know, obviously we had our first non-white council member elected in 2009.

1114
01:38:13,140 --> 01:38:15,980
But then it took until 2017 for the next one.

1115
01:38:15,980 --> 01:38:21,100
And we still have not had anybody who is not white or black elected to council.

1116
01:38:21,320 --> 01:38:26,060
And there are people in our community who are Latino, who are Asian, who are Southeast Asian.

1117
01:38:26,060 --> 01:38:31,640
So I think while we have achieved some measure of diversity, I think that one of the advantage

1118
01:38:31,640 --> 01:38:38,920
of this method could be to achieve greater diversity because we have not really, the city

1119
01:38:38,920 --> 01:38:46,040
council does not look like the city of Greenbelt in terms of racial distribution at this point.

1120
01:38:50,730 --> 01:38:51,030
The call.

1121
01:38:51,030 --> 01:38:58,990
Well, yeah, if I could just respond, and I think I didn't specifically say, or I don't

1122
01:38:58,990 --> 01:39:05,450
know how I phrased it in that slide, I think I did say diverse, but I didn't necessarily

1123
01:39:05,450 --> 01:39:10,870
mean democratically diverse, I meant diverse in the way that people think about issues,

1124
01:39:11,590 --> 01:39:19,310
what issues are priorities for them, and the way that they approach problems diversity

1125
01:39:19,310 --> 01:39:24,470
in the way that they think, not necessarily a demographic diversity, although that may

1126
01:39:24,470 --> 01:39:26,750
be a benefit from doing main tri-spotting.

1127
01:39:27,990 --> 01:39:34,170
But because we're focusing on a lower threshold, we want to represent a section of the city.

1128
01:39:35,990 --> 01:39:37,730
That's where the diversity is coming from.

1129
01:39:37,830 --> 01:39:42,150
We're getting more input from a lower number of people, yes.

1130
01:39:42,150 --> 01:39:48,870
So, in a sense, if the choices do you want candidates who, across the board, have broad

1131
01:39:48,870 --> 01:39:56,110
support, 40% threshold, or do you want candidates who maybe need a lower threshold and potentially

1132
01:39:56,110 --> 01:39:58,510
have more differing opinions.

1133
01:40:00,850 --> 01:40:30,250
Very, very, very thoughtful. So I would be concerned, you know, based on what Stavis was saying. Mayor Davis was that strategic voting or bullet voting, I don't really understand it. But still, it seems like there is a certain level of nuance that's required in looking through and an understanding went choice voting.

1134
01:40:30,250 --> 01:40:38,070
where some people might understand exactly how they want to use this in order to advance

1135
01:40:40,010 --> 01:40:44,830
particular candidates for demographics or geography or any number of reasons.

1136
01:40:45,070 --> 01:40:49,810
While other people might not really get that, they would just see this choice and there's a couple

1137
01:40:49,810 --> 01:40:56,770
of people who they want and their others and they should make a number two or number three,

1138
01:40:56,770 --> 01:41:02,990
each, and be onions, black olives, yeah, both, so I can see how it could be challenging

1139
01:41:03,790 --> 01:41:11,230
might end up with more spoiled ballots, or it might be easier to kind of change skew

1140
01:41:11,230 --> 01:41:17,850
things somehow, for some people, and other people would pick up on that nuance, it's a

1141
01:41:17,850 --> 01:41:22,390
little complicated, I think we could maybe work on the wording, Mr. Roberts?

1142
01:41:22,390 --> 01:41:28,930
I just want to say that I don't think that four-year terms promotes any kind of diversity

1143
01:41:29,430 --> 01:41:30,390
on the counts.

1144
01:41:30,790 --> 01:41:32,470
So I can't go both ways.

1145
01:41:34,270 --> 01:41:34,930
Thank you.

1146
01:41:35,030 --> 01:41:35,570
I'm Mr. Orleans.

1147
01:41:39,310 --> 01:41:40,330
The Orleans resident.

1148
01:41:40,870 --> 01:41:42,110
History is important.

1149
01:41:42,910 --> 01:41:43,670
I also feel useful.

1150
01:41:43,890 --> 01:41:45,130
I shouldn't be mischaracterized.

1151
01:41:45,770 --> 01:41:53,330
It's my understanding that in 2009, the ACLU, Moore, Francisco, and the LACP did not sue

1152
01:41:53,330 --> 01:41:53,990
the City of Cleveland.

1153
01:41:53,990 --> 01:41:56,510
It's not even threatened to sue the city of Greenbelt.

1154
01:41:56,930 --> 01:42:02,390
What was suggested was that they may have to sue the city of Greenbelt if council do

1155
01:42:02,390 --> 01:42:07,810
not make some changes to a better, better, better population, demographic population of

1156
01:42:07,810 --> 01:42:08,130
Greenbelt.

1157
01:42:08,850 --> 01:42:10,770
History is also all important in this regard.

1158
01:42:11,410 --> 01:42:17,530
It's been more than 20 years since council was first urged to consider ranked choice

1159
01:42:17,530 --> 01:42:17,970
voted.

1160
01:42:18,950 --> 01:42:25,350
I'm glad finally the Council is now, at least considering putting it on about as an advisory

1161
01:42:25,350 --> 01:42:31,710
question, but before it should do that, Council should have a better, a clearer understanding

1162
01:42:31,710 --> 01:42:37,390
of whether it's going to entertain amending the charter to have election districts.

1163
01:42:37,390 --> 01:42:39,690
But that

1164
01:42:42,250 --> 01:42:51,230
would influence the kind of participation that rent-joice voting could influence, appropriately

1165
01:42:51,230 --> 01:42:57,750
influence, more so than simply saying we're going to have rent-joice voting in a multi-out

1166
01:42:57,750 --> 01:42:58,410
large election.

1167
01:42:58,910 --> 01:43:04,490
I have a question with regard to the one page in this handout tonight that reflects the

1168
01:43:04,490 --> 01:43:05,090
Board of Elections.

1169
01:43:05,190 --> 01:43:08,970
And let me say I appreciate all the work that the Board of Elections has been doing recently

1170
01:43:08,970 --> 01:43:14,030
on the various questions. I'm sometimes able to intermitly have a connection to those meetings,

1171
01:43:14,650 --> 01:43:20,650
and when I'm on a meeting, I like it. I'm happy to be on a meeting when I'm disconnected. I'm not

1172
01:43:20,650 --> 01:43:32,310
so happy. But the board is suggesting that if there is to be a change to election districts,

1173
01:43:33,050 --> 01:43:38,310
some members of council will be elected from districts, and remaining members will be at large.

1174
01:43:39,010 --> 01:43:45,030
I don't know if this is intended to go on the ballot and it should be approved by Council to go on the ballot this way

1175
01:43:45,030 --> 01:43:50,550
But that's even more confusing the ranked choice voting if we're going to have election districts all members of council

1176
01:43:50,550 --> 01:43:55,930
Should be elected from their district the only potentially at large position should be that of mayor

1177
01:43:57,090 --> 01:44:01,850
And I would that's been suggested in the past I would agree with that finally

1178
01:44:02,610 --> 01:44:08,730
There's apparently going to be an advisory a question should council members term be extended from

1179
01:44:08,970 --> 01:44:16,390
two years to four years and then should there be a recall if it's extended four years

1180
01:44:16,390 --> 01:44:21,650
I think there should be recall currently recall opportunity currently with two year terms

1181
01:44:21,650 --> 01:44:26,010
and since I've been advocating a return to one year annual options there should be recall

1182
01:44:26,610 --> 01:44:30,030
potentially available to the residents even if it was the term was only one year.

1183
01:44:30,610 --> 01:44:33,750
I hope there will be more discussion before this goes to staff.

1184
01:44:34,570 --> 01:44:39,930
Thank you. Thank you. To be clear, the Board of Elections did not make a recommendation

1185
01:44:39,930 --> 01:44:46,650
on rank choice voting. You recommended the Council discuss the issue and make some decisions.

1186
01:44:47,110 --> 01:44:52,250
Correct. Discuss the issue. Right. This is a presentation to give you more information

1187
01:44:52,250 --> 01:44:57,450
about rank choice voting, whether it's an appropriate advisory question to have on the ballot.

1188
01:44:57,450 --> 01:44:59,970
But ultimately, if it goes...

1189
01:45:00,000 --> 01:45:05,900
Opposed to an advisory question, it's the voter's choice. Thank you. Please go ahead.

1190
01:45:16,240 --> 01:45:24,080
Ms. Jones, in all green belt. As you pointed out, Mayor Jordan, there is a little set

1191
01:45:37,680 --> 01:45:40,760
of them. Okay. Start over.

1192
01:45:40,760 --> 01:45:42,600
For John Estonson from Minneapolis,

1193
01:45:44,800 --> 01:45:53,160
from Greenbelt, originally from Minneapolis, I think

1194
01:45:53,160 --> 01:45:59,520
that there are things even though Minneapolis is just a tad bigger than Greenbelt that we

1195
01:45:59,520 --> 01:46:01,040
could learn from Minneapolis.

1196
01:46:01,900 --> 01:46:08,580
And I was a city election worker for 10 or 11 elections, two of which were municipal elections,

1197
01:46:08,580 --> 01:46:10,880
which had ranked choice voting.

1198
01:46:11,800 --> 01:46:15,680
So on a practical basis, the people who came in to vote,

1199
01:46:15,980 --> 01:46:19,980
and we have a 45-day early voting period,

1200
01:46:20,580 --> 01:46:21,780
there are two questions,

1201
01:46:22,120 --> 01:46:24,180
where do I have to vote for three candidates,

1202
01:46:24,720 --> 01:46:26,200
which was of course, no?

1203
01:46:27,220 --> 01:46:29,240
And can I vote for the same person

1204
01:46:29,240 --> 01:46:30,020
as

1205
01:46:38,690 --> 01:46:39,950
it sort of defeats the purpose?

1206
01:46:46,930 --> 01:46:51,190
And Nicole, I appreciate the presentation

1207
01:46:51,350 --> 01:46:54,690
because it answered some questions I have,

1208
01:46:55,490 --> 01:47:01,550
but it also made me realize that, as the previous speaker said,

1209
01:47:03,000 --> 01:47:11,330
if you have boards, or if you have seven at large positions,

1210
01:47:11,910 --> 01:47:17,370
it will change the way that rank choice voting will work.

1211
01:47:17,370 --> 01:47:28,650
work. So I think that decision should be made first before deciding on rank choice voting.

1212
01:47:29,250 --> 01:47:36,390
I do strongly believe in rank choice voting. There are advantages for the voters. They're

1213
01:47:36,390 --> 01:47:44,530
not wasting a ballot by voting for someone who has no chance of winning because for their

1214
01:47:44,530 --> 01:47:48,330
their second choice, they can vote for somebody acceptable.

1215
01:47:49,050 --> 01:47:56,010
So it's not a matter of voting for their first choice necessarily as the person they like

1216
01:47:56,010 --> 01:47:56,890
the best.

1217
01:47:57,370 --> 01:48:00,930
They may want to support somebody who has no chance of winning.

1218
01:48:02,070 --> 01:48:10,670
But my main point is the methodology would be different either way.

1219
01:48:11,550 --> 01:48:13,450
Hey, thank you for that perspective.

1220
01:48:13,450 --> 01:48:17,790
I can't really think of anybody in Greenbelt who runs who has no chance at all.

1221
01:48:20,830 --> 01:48:27,350
But needless to say, I really appreciate the research that has gone into your presentation

1222
01:48:27,350 --> 01:48:32,350
and really all of the work that the Board of Elections has been doing on behalf of the

1223
01:48:32,350 --> 01:48:33,430
residents of Greenbelt.

1224
01:48:33,630 --> 01:48:34,730
It's really a powerful thing.

1225
01:48:35,730 --> 01:48:40,690
And I think all of Council appreciates just how much work and how much thought really goes

1226
01:48:40,690 --> 01:48:43,990
into these referrals that come from the City Council.

1227
01:48:44,870 --> 01:48:46,450
So I think we're all very grateful.

1228
01:48:47,410 --> 01:48:53,270
The next step, though, in our process, is we would actually have to take a discussion

1229
01:48:53,270 --> 01:48:59,110
from tonight to a work session into a council meeting.

1230
01:48:59,310 --> 01:49:06,310
Thank you so much, and we would discuss it more and actually vote on these valid questions.

1231
01:49:06,310 --> 01:49:15,990
So, I know we asked the question recently when would be the drop that date for making decisions on these valid questions.

1232
01:49:19,790 --> 01:49:24,930
We would like to have the questions by September at the latest.

1233
01:49:25,710 --> 01:49:27,270
Is that when we discussed Monday?

1234
01:49:28,690 --> 01:49:36,910
So, we've got a little time, and I know Greenbelters read the Greenbelt News Review and watch these sessions.

1235
01:49:36,910 --> 01:49:41,170
So, I suspect that we'll probably get a few emails and notes from folks with their

1236
01:49:41,170 --> 01:49:41,470
thoughts.

1237
01:49:42,730 --> 01:49:48,810
So, that's the direction that I would like to go in, definitely have a decision way

1238
01:49:48,810 --> 01:49:49,570
before September.

1239
01:49:50,490 --> 01:49:55,890
But if we need to let this percolate, just a little bit, this question about should we

1240
01:49:55,890 --> 01:49:59,910
be looking at the district question before we consider a right choice?

1241
01:50:00,000 --> 01:50:21,040
This voting is not to overload our voters with ballot questions. Mr. Roberts, perhaps you can give us some perspective on this, Davis. Typically, how many ballot questions might we have on a ballot? Board of Elections? Is it usually one or two? Well,

1242
01:50:26,950 --> 01:50:30,170
it seems like we usually just have one or two. Often it's just one.

1243
01:50:38,600 --> 01:50:40,340
Mayor Davis was saying, sometimes none.

1244
01:50:40,340 --> 01:50:50,100
And the survey, the resident survey that we've done in the past along with the elections is this question has appeared.

1245
01:50:50,680 --> 01:50:52,580
Other questions we will appear on that.

1246
01:50:53,300 --> 01:51:01,760
I would like to say that I think it would be very interesting if you're going to put this thing on about four year terms.

1247
01:51:02,240 --> 01:51:06,580
To also put one on right next to it about should there be term limits.

1248
01:51:07,860 --> 01:51:12,760
Yeah, I don't know that I'm in favor of term limits, but it would be very interesting

1249
01:51:12,760 --> 01:51:17,860
to give the voters that choice and see how it comes out.

1250
01:51:19,240 --> 01:51:19,540
Yes.

1251
01:51:20,260 --> 01:51:20,720
Member Tim?

1252
01:51:21,240 --> 01:51:26,300
Well, I believe that you mentioned that the Board of Elections maybe would want to do

1253
01:51:26,300 --> 01:51:33,200
a little bit more revision of the work, the language, and I think that this was still sort

1254
01:51:33,200 --> 01:51:33,660
of a draft.

1255
01:51:35,620 --> 01:51:43,320
Yeah, I mean, we're willing to take, you know, public and council notes into consideration

1256
01:51:43,720 --> 01:51:51,120
for how, you know, if you have thoughts about how the wording is confusing or where we

1257
01:51:51,120 --> 01:51:57,000
need to put the emphasis for that question in order to give people a clear understanding

1258
01:51:57,000 --> 01:52:00,900
of what they're deciding on, you know, I think we'll open to that.

1259
01:52:00,900 --> 01:52:04,420
It seems like it might be a good idea, and I don't know, I don't see anyone from the

1260
01:52:04,420 --> 01:52:08,380
news review here tonight, but I think that could be helpful to get the draft language

1261
01:52:08,380 --> 01:52:12,880
out there and get some public feedback about, you know, whether they find it confusing

1262
01:52:12,880 --> 01:52:19,720
or how they would recommend what issues confuse them and then maybe get some revisions at the

1263
01:52:19,720 --> 01:52:27,480
next Board of Elections meeting in preparation for voting in July or August on, if we choose

1264
01:52:27,480 --> 01:52:28,240
to put it on there.

1265
01:52:28,240 --> 01:52:36,900
I just think that this is one we're getting more brains on it, could be helpful and asking more people,

1266
01:52:37,120 --> 01:52:41,380
hey, read this. Do you understand this? What is confusing?

1267
01:52:42,500 --> 01:52:48,300
And it has to be readable. So we have green belters at all different levels.

1268
01:52:48,660 --> 01:52:52,500
So the reading comprehension really needs to be perhaps the 10th grade level.

1269
01:52:52,700 --> 01:52:55,620
I believe this is a standard. Is it seven?

1270
01:52:56,860 --> 01:53:11,520
Okay, well, and of course the board of elections you mentioned you hadn't really voted on this so no this was simply just an example of what you could put but it's not been voted on.

1271
01:53:11,620 --> 01:53:16,440
Definitely appreciate it. Mr. Orleans has an additional comment before we wrap up.

1272
01:53:23,520 --> 01:53:23,900
Thank you.

1273
01:53:24,800 --> 01:53:31,320
I will forever believe it's a bad practice of democracy when elections are all about

1274
01:53:31,320 --> 01:53:32,000
the candidates.

1275
01:53:33,460 --> 01:53:38,180
A good practice of democracy, a better practice, elections are all about the people.

1276
01:53:38,560 --> 01:53:44,100
It's the electorate that has to do the fundamental role in elections.

1277
01:53:46,540 --> 01:53:53,960
It has been suggested, regrettably again, from a member of council that, and I certainly

1278
01:53:53,960 --> 01:53:57,860
understand the reason, if there were to be a question on the ballot, should council

1279
01:53:57,860 --> 01:54:03,040
terms be extended to four years, from two years, then necessarily, there should also be

1280
01:54:03,040 --> 01:54:06,720
a question on the ballot, or should we have term limits agreed about?

1281
01:54:07,500 --> 01:54:13,160
I've said before, I'll say again, I'll die believing that we have organic term limits

1282
01:54:13,160 --> 01:54:18,240
it's now, it's just up to the people to unelect folks that they've previously elected.

1283
01:54:18,920 --> 01:54:24,620
I'm opposed or inorganic term of its any voter, all voters have a right.

1284
01:54:24,940 --> 01:54:28,800
I think they make the mistake virtually every election, but they have the right to vote

1285
01:54:28,800 --> 01:54:30,360
for whomever they want to vote for.

1286
01:54:30,900 --> 01:54:36,680
So if J. Davis were still on the ballot in another 10 years, people have a right to vote

1287
01:54:36,680 --> 01:54:37,100
for her.

1288
01:54:37,520 --> 01:54:42,660
If Emmett Jordan is not successfully negotiated in a higher position for himself, and he's

1289
01:54:42,660 --> 01:54:46,840
the ballot in another ten years, then people have a right to vote for them. They're making a mistake,

1290
01:54:46,840 --> 01:54:52,320
I believe, but they have that right. So to have inorganic term limits is a mistake, it's a denial

1291
01:54:52,320 --> 01:54:57,720
of the right of the people those vote for who they would like to do so. Thank you, and of course, we do

1292
01:54:57,720 --> 01:54:59,780
You have a right-end slot on your balance.

1293
01:55:00,000 --> 01:55:03,500
So people can still vote for J. Davis, Ed Pugans.

1294
01:55:05,740 --> 01:55:28,900
Hey, but once again, all kidding aside, I really, really want to thank you for all of the work that you do, and just the preparations for the election that are coming up very soon. I know you're in the city clerk. I know the city administration are working very, very hard, so tremendous lift. Appreciate it so much. And on the pizza question, if you might have some pizza, I could forego the pepperoni.

1295
01:55:28,900 --> 01:55:33,240
We can try pineapples. I don't know if the pineapples would work with black olives.

1296
01:55:33,420 --> 01:55:36,520
I think we'll have a diverse opinion about what toppings people like.

1297
01:55:36,920 --> 01:55:37,360
There you go.

1298
01:55:38,180 --> 01:55:44,260
We can do a practice ring choice of voting election with pizza toppings to help people understand

1299
01:55:44,260 --> 01:55:44,800
the process.

1300
01:55:45,100 --> 01:55:46,420
That's actually not a bad idea.

1301
01:55:49,100 --> 01:55:54,300
Okay. Well, thank you so much. If you know further comments from questions from Council

1302
01:55:54,300 --> 01:55:59,840
there's nobody online let's go ahead and move on to next topic information item so I just

1303
01:55:59,840 --> 01:56:05,020
wanted to ask the city manager about these incredible rains of rabbi was just pouring today it

1304
01:56:05,020 --> 01:56:10,440
seems like it's going to rain some more tomorrow and the the amount of rain that's coming down is

1305
01:56:10,440 --> 01:56:16,680
just phenomenal so I've gotten word I actually have a photograph over at the three sisters

1306
01:56:16,680 --> 01:56:23,020
garden by the Spring Hill Lake Recreation Center what pretty badly so I'm just wondering if you can

1307
01:56:23,020 --> 01:56:29,480
give us an update. I know when it rains very very hard public works will try and clean out the storm

1308
01:56:29,480 --> 01:56:37,540
grains in various locations. I don't know how much more rain will be getting but do you have

1309
01:56:37,540 --> 01:56:44,400
anything to report? On the how I'll check with the team tomorrow and Friday to make sure that we do

1310
01:56:44,400 --> 01:56:50,980
around and clean out the storm drains that have been identified as critical drains that create

1311
01:56:50,980 --> 01:56:54,420
backups in the community, so I'll make sure that that gets done.

1312
01:56:55,080 --> 01:57:04,060
In terms of the rain overall, the COG membership received a recommendation from the committee

1313
01:57:04,060 --> 01:57:09,900
reviewing the drought status, and today just happened that we received a recommendation,

1314
01:57:10,320 --> 01:57:16,180
so it was sent to the Chief Administrative Officers for consideration,

1315
01:57:18,620 --> 01:57:19,380
given the amount

1316
01:57:19,380 --> 01:57:23,360
of rain that we're getting, we're not going to pose, lift in the drought. I think the

1317
01:57:24,120 --> 01:57:30,560
water reserves are being backfilled. So, while it's unfortunate to get it all at once,

1318
01:57:30,560 --> 01:57:36,800
it's much needed rain to help replenish aquifers and drinking water sources.

1319
01:57:37,540 --> 01:57:44,380
At the COG Council of Governments Board Meeting last week, the topic came up briefly. I believe

1320
01:57:44,380 --> 01:57:50,560
Even with all the rain, some of the aquifers in some areas still have not gotten enough

1321
01:57:50,560 --> 01:57:57,620
rain throughout the season, so it's come down pretty hard at the Spring and Lake Recreation

1322
01:57:57,620 --> 01:57:58,800
Center with the new playground.

1323
01:57:59,160 --> 01:58:04,740
There really is more flooding than usual, so if there's anything we can do, meet rains or

1324
01:58:16,120 --> 01:58:29,160
I think the system as you're familiar with the area, there's a strong drainage system that's been designed around the playground that this is a good

1325
01:58:29,160 --> 01:58:35,200
expect to see if it's working. Very good, Mr. Roberts. I noticed that the

1326
01:58:36,600 --> 01:58:42,000
apartments that were by the mobile station there, they were about that far from me

1327
01:58:42,000 --> 01:58:47,740
and flooded it. Did they flood work? When I got there, it was just like right up to the top.

1328
01:58:50,820 --> 01:58:56,060
Yeah, I don't think it quite got up. It was right there. I don't think it went

1329
01:58:56,060 --> 01:59:04,140
actually into the apartments but it was right there but after it stopped raining it went down pretty

1330
01:59:04,140 --> 01:59:10,640
rapidly but I think most of the problem there is that there's a lot of water that's being

1331
01:59:10,640 --> 01:59:17,780
diverted from garden way I think down into that area and I think that's the main problem so I went

1332
01:59:17,780 --> 01:59:24,180
and looked at where is all the water coming from and it's clear that there's a lot of water coming

1333
01:59:24,180 --> 01:59:29,160
I think it can divert that over, you know, towards the center more.

1334
01:59:29,840 --> 01:59:33,200
I think that would solve that problem because it's just too much.

1335
01:59:34,320 --> 01:59:35,800
I think that's true.

1336
01:59:36,220 --> 01:59:39,920
I think the train that's there at the underpass is just too small.

1337
01:59:40,100 --> 01:59:40,740
We know that.

1338
01:59:40,940 --> 01:59:42,280
You know, the light is just too small.

1339
01:59:42,480 --> 01:59:42,760
Right.

1340
01:59:42,880 --> 01:59:44,540
We know that that's too small.

1341
01:59:44,660 --> 01:59:45,360
We've had engineering.

1342
01:59:45,700 --> 01:59:52,700
One of the agreements that were made with Parkway Apartments is that lower apartments would

1343
01:59:52,700 --> 01:59:59,920
not be least out because we can't tear out that storm shortage and replace it.

1344
02:00:01,460 --> 02:00:07,520
Okay. Well, thank you very much for that update. Hopefully we'll see some sun. What's the

1345
02:00:07,520 --> 02:00:09,420
other prediction for tomorrow's supposed to rain?

1346
02:00:12,410 --> 02:00:14,990
In the afternoon or all day? I think it's

1347
02:00:14,990 --> 02:00:22,670
supposed to be hot. Starting on Friday, there's nothing but sun for the next day. Yeah.

1348
02:00:22,970 --> 02:00:30,230
So we'll dry out. Okay. Next. Yes, next week, we expect to be over 100 degrees. I believe

1349
02:00:30,230 --> 02:00:36,530
Tuesday or Wednesday. So we reviewed the weather forecast for next week because we are expected

1350
02:00:36,530 --> 02:00:41,270
that we will open summer camps on Monday and we had the issue with the youth center.

1351
02:00:41,490 --> 02:00:45,530
So we closed the youth center. We have an incline of weather policy that it's a high heat

1352
02:00:45,870 --> 02:00:51,350
we bring to kids indoors, given that we were looking at potentially not having the youth

1353
02:00:51,350 --> 02:00:58,450
center open because of the damage sewer line. We were concerned about the weather. Fortunately

1354
02:00:58,450 --> 02:01:04,030
Finally tonight we had a really exceptional plumber come out and did a survey and video

1355
02:01:04,030 --> 02:01:06,990
inspection and a lot of work to identify the issues.

1356
02:01:07,650 --> 02:01:12,410
The good news is we were able to get two big clogs open and the facility.

1357
02:01:12,890 --> 02:01:19,150
The bad news is that we found the cast iron pipe corroded and it's created bellies underneath

1358
02:01:19,150 --> 02:01:20,890
the slab in the youth center.

1359
02:01:21,450 --> 02:01:26,890
So while the good news is we can operate on Monday and we have to do some preventative maintenance

1360
02:01:27,510 --> 02:01:36,470
At least monthly to keep the line clear until we figure out a permanent solution, a permanent solution is breaking the concrete and replacing the damage pipe.

1361
02:01:37,630 --> 02:01:38,670
Sounds complicated.

1362
02:01:39,170 --> 02:01:39,690
Inexpensive.

1363
02:01:40,650 --> 02:01:43,610
Give me the heads up. I'm going to come asking for money.

1364
02:01:44,890 --> 02:01:48,930
Okay. Well, at this time, we are going into an executive session.

1365
02:01:52,210 --> 02:01:59,580
I hear by call this special meeting of the Green Belt City Council to order. Madam Clerk, can you call the roll, please?

1366
02:02:00,640 --> 02:02:01,200
Here.

1367
02:02:02,420 --> 02:02:02,980
Here.

1368
02:02:04,200 --> 02:02:04,760
Here.

1369
02:02:10,500 --> 02:02:10,780
Here.

1370
02:02:11,400 --> 02:02:11,940
I'm here.

1371
02:02:12,500 --> 02:02:14,620
And the time is 8.32.

1372
02:02:14,980 --> 02:02:15,640
9.32.

1373
02:02:17,600 --> 02:02:24,760
I move that council go into closed session in accordance with Section 3-305-B1 and 10 of the general provisions article of the annals.

1374
02:02:24,760 --> 02:02:28,660
of the public general laws of Maryland in the municipal building library to discuss the

1375
02:02:28,660 --> 02:02:33,140
appointment, performance evaluation of appointees, employees or officials over whom this public

1376
02:02:33,140 --> 02:02:37,240
body has jurisdiction or any other personnel matter that affects one or more specific individuals

1377
02:02:37,240 --> 02:02:41,700
and two to discuss public security if the public body determines that public discussion would

1378
02:02:41,700 --> 02:02:45,600
constitute a risk to the public or to public security, including one, the deployment of fire

1379
02:02:45,600 --> 02:02:49,440
and police services and staff and two, the development and implementation of emergency plans.

1380
02:02:49,900 --> 02:02:53,520
The purpose of this meeting is one to discuss personnel matters and two to discuss public

1381
02:02:53,520 --> 02:02:57,280
public security if the public body determines that the public discussion would constitute

1382
02:02:57,280 --> 02:03:00,640
a risk to the public or to public security, including the development and implementation

1383
02:03:00,640 --> 02:03:01,640
of emergency plans.

1384
02:03:02,300 --> 02:03:06,580
In addition to Council City Manager Salmaron will be in the closed session, and I don't

1385
02:03:06,580 --> 02:03:11,720
believe anyone else, and note that Council will not return to open session following this

1386
02:03:11,720 --> 02:03:12,280
closed session.

1387
02:03:13,380 --> 02:03:13,940
Thank you.

1388
02:03:14,040 --> 02:03:14,380
Was there a second?

1389
02:03:14,620 --> 02:03:14,800
Second.

1390
02:03:15,380 --> 02:03:17,340
Okay, Ms. Pompey is seconded in the discussion.

1391
02:03:18,240 --> 02:03:18,820
Let's go ahead.

1392
02:03:19,000 --> 02:03:21,360
If you could call the role, City Clerk?

1393
02:03:26,140 --> 02:03:26,580
Yes.

1394
02:03:26,580 --> 02:03:27,780
Yes. Yes.

1395
02:03:30,010 --> 02:03:46,650
No. Yes. Yes. Okay. That's a six to one. Thank you. Five five to five. Thank you. Okay. Let's clear the chambers and close the the