Good evening. I call this foreccession of the Greenbelt City Council order. My name is Emma Jordan, I'm the mayor.
Kristen Weaver, mayor, pertain.
Jenny Pompy, council member.
Thank you, Santa. Thank you, Santa, Fred's council member.
Daniel McKinney, council member. Amy Niesel, council member.
It's the new city council.
So before we get began, are there any information items or discussion topics that we need to touch on for the end of the meeting?
I'll have two Mr. Mayor.
Okay, the Council holds work sessions on Mondays and Wednesday several times a month.
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So this is our first work session,
our first gathering since being sworn in just two days ago, and it seems like quite the world
went all the activities around Veterans Day yesterday. So tonight it's an administrative meeting,
We've got a number of topics to consider.
Most of the topics listed on the agenda were submitted by city managers on their own.
And I think the bulk of the session, I think, is actually going to focus on reviewing the council standing rules so that we can adopt them at a meeting in the near future, perhaps even Monday.
We'll be talking a bit about the nature of these work sessions, particularly the administrative work sessions and to be scheduling for the future.
But we need to talk about our legislative priorities and we also need to talk about the district 22 legislative priority and bond sharing meeting that's coming up soon.
So we'll also talk a bit about the council retreat coming up on a scheduled for December the 6th.
We're going to have to shift that around because it's very important that we are all there for that session.
So we've got a lot on here so I think those are the four areas that we will spend most of the time focusing on
And depending on how things go, we will either go into a close session, or maybe even just speak a little bit about this process with via city manager setting goals for the city manager briefly.
Mr. Solarong.
Good evening, Mr. American evening council.
Good evening residents.
Mr. Mayor, you mentioned made a reference to the list.
This is the list of pending topics I had noted down that council had at one point.
said the signal that one did discuss is not a comprehensive lift. There are other items that I have, and a longer list that were not included on here, but others were more administrative items.
And so I didn't want to overwhelm anyone by having a 20 point list.
And with the with the new member of council and with us all sort of thinking through some of the discussions that we had during
our campaigning over the past few months. I'm sure there's some other issues that will be able to deal with in the context of administrative work sessions such as this.
So in the limit amount of time that we have, let's go ahead and dive in and talk a bit about the standing rules.
Yeah. Please. I may make a suggestion that maybe we should talk about the the legislative priorities and the the bond bells and the things that are truly time sensitive because I think this is the only this is really the best opportunity we have before we get to that legislative dinner on December 2nd. So I would propose we start with that and then go to the standing rules because I'm not sure we're going to be ready to adopt the standing rules by Monday. I think we may be need to think about doing that after our retreat.
because I think that will give us some more opportunity to discuss things, but we know that the bond bills and the other things that we want to address at the district 22 dinner are pines sensitive.
Yeah, that's true. It's important that we do talk a bit about the outstanding rules as well, given that we have.
Hold on, hold on, hold on. Let me finish please. Let me finish.
So, it is important that we spend some time talking about,
but it was just for orientation to say it.
But yes, and we really haven't gotten full presentation.
I know the city managers have actually been kind of working through
what the agenda is going to be like in December the second
and given Thanksgiving and other time that we've blocked out
for family time.
As you said, don't really have much time at all.
So what's Council's will, shall we start off and talk about legislative priorities, bond bills in particular focusing in on December the second.
That works for me.
Works for me as well.
That's fine.
Okay.
So there were some materials in the packet and there was a graphic as well.
But I'll do a head and this discussion over two Mr. Summer on because you have been working with the city managers and talking quite a bit.
I think you actually have an outline.
Yes, we have a we've been meeting weekly since a couple weeks ago.
The process we've we've continued to fine tune the process, but overall the outline is going to be the same where
we every municipality has an opportunity to discuss their legislative priorities and their
bond bill request and each municipality is assigned a joint or a shared legislative priority.
So for example last year we included economic development requests that were of interest to all
municipalities in District 22, the law enforcement recruitment grants were was a
a type priority item for Berwin Heights, and a few others, but we all benefit from having
those grant funds available. So the presentation form is going to follow the same as last
two years. It's just incremental improvements. You know as managers, if something works well,
we keep that and we just keep improving on fine-tuning things that work well. So that the process
will be the same structured. The order, we think we're going to keep the order the same, which
is in the order that the municipalities are listed. That's what we'll present that, or obviously,
the mayor that the host city mayor provides the welcoming remark and they are the MCs. So Mr.
Mayor, I couldn't, you know, that's just a procedure we settled on earlier in the process.
So we're going to be on New Charlton right we're going to be a new carolton. Yes, great. I look forward to it
Which is not going to be a municipal building or it's going to be at the Metro 4.0 points. What's your telling? Yes
So that's where the event will take place. The process is going to again the presentation is going to be same the cost
It's we believe it's going to be in the same range as
When highest fell hosted when we host their last year
We got an amazing deal through the American Legion
So, that's just the partnership and there's a kitchen in house, so yeah, it's going to be a little higher than it was last year, but it's still within a reasonable amount of expense for the municipalities.
It's great.
And this book, Do you have your hand up?
No.
So, what are the other, the shared, you've already kind of worked out or agreed on shared priorities?
We have those have remained the same with the exception that there's interest of swapping the law enforcement grant because we then money has the governor has supported funding for the law enforcement agencies.
The new law enforcement pressure we're facing throughout the district 22 in particular is the immigration and customs forcements situation.
So the municipality started would be good to do something collectively in support initiatives that the state already has.
So if you recall, William was spearheading.
Williams was spearheading several bills to protect identity information
and other things to just have fair treatment for all Maryland residents.
So supporting initiatives like that, the managers thought it would be good.
Particularly because different municipalities have different tools and resources to assist their communities when it comes to immigration issues.
So good to have a baseline that the state would support.
So that's a new initiative on there.
That's something I welcome the feedback from council based on the work that we've been doing.
That is the, the know your rights capacity building, the legal clinics.
I, I, it's shared with the city, city managers and administrators that Greenville will be behind this endeavor because of all of the things we've done.
But if council wants to take, since we haven't discussed that particular issue of council wants to discuss that,
welcome an opportunity to hear your thoughts on it and take that back to the team. All the other priorities were
made the same. So what the other shared problem. Yeah, let me put let me put up the comprehensive list. I have it on my run a show.
Just bear with me.
The infrastructure and state highways, the mental health,
affordable housing affordability and enabling legislation for zoning and land use authority.
Juvenile Justice reform, the economic development and LED street lights and environmental sustainability.
Last year, these particular topics were spearheaded by different spearheaded and presented by different municipalities.
So Riverdale presented on the infrastructure and state highways,
Edmund Stem presented on mental health services,
Heightsville housing affordability and enabling legislation for zoning and land use authority.
New Carlton presented on juvenile justice reform,
Berwin Heights presented on the police retention and recruitment grants,
Green Bell presented on the region.
Economic development and LED street lights in university part presented on environmental sustainability.
So the this year we're proposing to replace the police retention and recruitment in that is driven largely
again by the fact that Governor Governor Moore in the office of juvenile services and justice has
to continue its funding for police departments.
What are we replacing?
We're replacing that with immigration,
and we're posting immigration.
Okay, and do you know I have the other municipalities
also approved these shared priorities?
The each municipality was asked about where they stand
on these issues, because as I mentioned,
the municipalities that presented on them,
that was a top priority for that.
a priority for us just a few days ago, you requested that we have a pot-hole filled, it's not
it's on 193, so it's not the city's reception here.
Right, so the team went out and it's on the board on the boundary of SHA, so we put in a ticket
for that. But you know, with anything with SHA, they have a large network of rows to take care of,
and so don't always get the things on our schedule and they are projects like
the intersection of lay crest in 183 that it's been on a project to be studied and re-engineered
and for years that it hasn't happened. So that continues to be a priority not just for
river debt but for most of the municipalities. Mental health services, that's a share concern.
We see less and less resources for mental health services, likewise for juvenile justice reform,
And the issue that municipalities have made that the justice reform, legislation that went into effect were great and welcome, but they also needed social services funding, because without the funding to redirect young people, the legislation doesn't work as well as design.
The housing affordability and enabling legislation for land use, authority that's combining two topics, housing affordability, is seen as a
crutch for the state and its economic growth, but it's also creating significant hardship for communities.
Many communities feel they're being priced out of where they live, so that continues to be a priority.
The economic development, we just talked about this mayor last week with the FBI project.
That is over 7,000 jobs with over $4 billion of investment that was scheduled to come to Greenbelt.
And it would not just be a boost in economic boost for Greenbelt, but for the entire region.
In the governor believes that it will be for the entire state.
And then finally the environmental sustainability, we are seeing 100 years, floods being more common 50 years and 20 years.
So those issues are not going waste or water issues are not going away, and that needs to be part of our environmental sustainability strategy, along with energy, energy generation, energy imports.
We're seeing energy prices just rise at those are just continued to be shared concerns.
So I don't see anything in this list that is controversial or its importance diminished over the last year.
But I welcome your feedback if there's something that you think we need to remove.
I can take it back to the administrators and share your concerns.
Well, it's not just about concerns, it's just about, you know, council being in the loop and going along.
I don't know if any of my peers, but just stepping back just a little bit for council member Fritz,
this gathering, for many years, Greenbelt and the various municipalities with meet with the state senator and delegates to discuss legislative priorities.
Green Belt would actually have a dinner pre-session and we would also have a dinner mid-session to try and give up dates on bills that have been submitted.
So I guess it was two years ago, Senator Washington came up with the idea of all of the municipalities in District 22 meeting together and sharing their legislative priorities as well as their bond request at the same time.
So that's what has brought us to this mean. This is the second the third time this would be the third year
So we talked a little bit about those shared priorities
So I kind of take it that the the economic development piece again would be green belt presenting that section
Yes, I signed us up for that
particularly in light that the state, the county, it's suing the White House over at the FBI project.
And, you know, we're reference on it because the FBI is, the future home is in green dot.
So, unless you want to present on any other topics, I mean.
Well, you know, I wish we were having to do this, which is the FBI project would have been approved
and moving forward years ago.
So we are here where we are.
Certainly, but you mentioned the LED street lights as well.
So that would be incorporated.
Yes, that's incorporated.
And it fits nicely in there.
It doesn't fit squarely in an economic development,
but for some reason, the team has the perception
that we are somehow deeply involved in the topic,
but we haven't made much progress more than anybody else.
We're in the same situation as everybody else on LED street lights.
We've done the studies with done the assessments.
We've asked PEPCO for the cost estimates to acquire the lights
so that we can move forward with the decision
or whether we're acquiring the lights and converting them.
So let's just say that the team,
there are eager to see LED street lights in their communities
and PEPCO move forward with this.
thought that it would be best we push this forward. Okay. Yeah. Council member Pope.
So this, I mean, that pepper was kind of like,
struggling getting this project ahead, or they maybe changed a mind, or
they have a legal requirement to offer us the option for us to acquire the
that there's been an issue, the requirement is because they have felt to do the LED
conversion. So the Public Utilities Commission has essentially forced them to give us
the option to acquire the light. So it's not that pepco is eager to sell us the lights or
whatnot. This is a requirement of pepco. The challenge has been as we're fighting over lights,
for example. I think I believe I've managed to email my latest correspondence with
PEPCO that we heard back from state highway administration with disputed eight lights in the last
round they've accepted four and pushed back four. So now we're fighting over four lights.
So it puts me in a situation that I'm fighting over four lights with the state highway
administration and it's now probably consuming a lot of time and delays in the project for us.
So to your answer your question directly, no, I don't think I don't think
that HEPCO has all the incentives to move faster on this.
And we're trying to move as fast as we can, but we can't move any faster unless
PEPCO gives us a cost estimate to acquire the lights, a contract for us to acquire the lights.
We are still fighting over the, or disputing certain requirements that they have.
We have an unlike college park and a few other municipalities, we have not filed a legal complaint,
a suit with them through the Public Utilities Commission,
because I believe that Suwellin is doing a great job representing the Chevy Chases
and College Park and a few other municipalities.
So we're going to benefit from that outcome.
So I'm waiting to see how that plays out,
and we'll benefit from whatever Suwellin negotiate.
Suwellin is a municipal attorney that represents a number of municipalities
on this and other issues.
Sue Ellen is one of our lawyers.
Sue Ellen represents us on the case against
a pretty sure-just county fire in the MS services.
So that's one of our attorneys.
We have several attorneys on retainer.
More than I would like, but they're necessary.
And each one has a function.
Council member.
Just worth regards to the acquisition of the Pepeco street lights.
So they're currently Pepco owned, and this would be the city acquiring them, is the city currently, I guess, who's paying to like them, you know, the electricity for that, is that shifted with the responsibility with the acquisition as well.
Does that become now a municipal, it becomes part of like municipal overhead to tell those lights was a previously Pepco that was paying to keep them on, however they would do that in their own accounting.
So we've always paid for the streetlights, we've been over paying for the streetlights
as of last November, a year ago when I signed off on the inventory assessment.
We had overpaid the streetlights by the tune of over $80,000.
So Pepco Otis at that point was $83,000 in charges.
And we overpaid them by $83,000.
Under the new model, we will continue to pay for the lights.
What will change is what services were paying for.
We have three options.
One option is where we pay just for the electricity consumption of the lights.
We pay the full service charge for the lights,
which is a rate that PEPCO proposes to charge the municipalities,
where PEPCO will be responsible for the lights
for upgrading the lights and for maintenance of the lights and perpetuity.
And then there's a rate, a different rate,
where we were just, we can pay just maintenance and electricity of lights
if we do the LED conversion.
And then they'll take over from there.
So there's different options that we will have.
It would be council's decision to decide which action it wants to go to.
That do nothing option is everyone would be rolled over
to a terraff rate that is all inclusive that we will pay for, the eventual LED upgrade, the maintenance,
and the electricity. And the, the option where we would have the most autonomy is we only pay for
the electricity, but we will be responsible for buying the picture, upgrading the picture, and taking
all the calls for street adages or the complaints about the lights being to, to low, to high,
know that. And the LED conversion, I mean, I think it's going to
be a cost savings based on what we're paying for electricity now.
Are they more efficient? Are they like sodium dioxide bulbs now?
Yeah, so the the many of our lights are high pressure sodium lights and they consume a lot of electricity.
We do have many lights that are LED lights. The feasibility studies and the cost benefit analysis that we had done early on.
Hi, it's Phil has several studies done college park now it's on his third study
They're all indicate that the faster we convert the lights to LED
These shorter the payback period is for the investment of acquiring and converting the lights long term
It also means less energy consumption, which reduces the demand on the grid
Well, thank you. We're pertain
so does our
is our ask of our legislators to help us with, for example, negotiating with FHA about those
lights.
I mean, what specifically?
I mean, there's also, I know, the listing on the Bondo, we haven't gotten to yet,
but in terms of having the street lights as a priority topic, what are we asking of our
legislators to do related to that?
Yes, specifically we were asking for increased funding for state initiatives, specifically
to the Maryland Energy Administration Street Light and Outdoor Lighting Efficiency Program, acronym SO S-O-L-E,
which grants LED conversion projects. So the pool of funding is very limited. So if all
district 22 municipalities wanted to apply and have that light conversion access to that funding,
we all couldn't support all of our LED conversion. So which specifically asking for that,
program to funding to increase, given that it's now a year since we asked that in the barriers
that we're facing is just there isn't a stricter timeline for PEPCOT to follow on this that
we will we will benefit from the delegates in the senator pushing legislation that there's
a strict timeline of when the municipalities
will or expect that they have agreements
to acquire the light and convert the lights.
If we so choose, right?
Because not everyone is going to be in a position
to acquire the light and manage their own light.
Have we gotten the money that Pepeca owes us
from our overpayments yet?
So I know we have not, and I did not get a commitment
from them to that they would extend the credits
that are owe to us, so when we assigned the degree to the inventory
in the building a year ago last November, the credit that we were always 83,000,
in March of this year, we had not received the payment and there was no indication
that we were going to finalize the inventory of lights.
I put a hold on our payment, on payments to Pepco Streetlights program.
So I'm probably now on my 7th disconnect notice from Pepco for not paying streetlights
and I have shared with them that I won't pay it because I'm being put in a situation where I am paying for a bill that I know it's overcharge.
So I cannot forgive.
I feel my judiciary duty, a pain bill that I know it's incorrect and they owe the city over $80,000. So that's the position I've taken. They have not disconnected the lights. I don't think they're going to disconnect the lights.
But we're probably now, we owe, we owe PEPCO for street lights to the tune around $80,000, but they owe us $83. So I think at this point, I think we're probably breaking, breaking even.
And I know we've got a CPA auditor and the room, and I think Robert might agree with me that it's the right move to pressure them to make a decision.
Moving the lights. I'm just I'm not asking for anything special. I just want to find a finalizer inventory so that I can pay the proper bill that we should pay and not continue to overpay on a bill.
I'm just for the record. I think that's a good list of priorities. I agree with changing the if if if we have gotten what we need for like if the grants have been maintained for the police retention and recruitment that doesn't seem like we need to keep asking for that.
So I think it makes sense to add the the bills related to immigration that's okay for those that makes sense to me.
Two things. One with the, what are we specifically asking? I made the point that a meeting, I don't know, a couple of months ago, that in addition to looking for funding, I think that we should be asking our Senator and delegates to to advocate for exactly what the board of public utilities or public commissions actually make them aware of this, this hold up and also working advocating for PEPCO.
to go ahead and set the tariff, set the rates that we can move ahead.
So it's not just the SOL funding, but it's also, we want them to advocate for us.
Okay.
I will write that up as part of our remarks.
And the other thing is with the street lights, there was a question about responsibility
between the city, not just ours, but a number of cities and state highway about.
So were we able to resolve that question about responsibility?
I think in the past, state highway has been responsible for the lights on state highway.
No, in the past, there were over 4,000 lights the municipalities have been paying on behalf of state highway administration.
So the state highway administration is facing some big challenges that they now have to pay for 1,000 lights.
And that's why they've been pushing back there, something that they had not been budgeting for and the municipalities have been paying for this.
So, for all the street lights that we disputed, we've been paying for it, we believe that
stay highway administration should pay for them because they're on state highways.
So, that's an open question still.
Well, no, it is not an open question because I have read the regulations and the guidelines
that the state highway administration has put out.
It's clear to me that we are not responsible for the lights.
They want to push the responsibility on to us, but unless Council wants to take them over,
of my position is that they're not our responsibilities,
and I have no confusion about that.
Okay, hey, are there some other comments from Council
about these shared priorities,
the structure of these shared priorities
for the meeting on December 2nd?
So I'm satisfied with them.
Do we need the vote on the set for the council meeting?
I mean, probably.
This, the joint priorities,
I don't think you need a vote on what you need a vote
specifically as what is a unique legislative priority for the city to advocate on.
And last year, it's part of your packet, what we included in last year's priorities.
So you have the legislative priorities. You can pick ideally you would pick two to three to
focus on and that's in keeping with the priorities that Council has submitted to PGCMA and
in the past. So you would pick two to three legislative priorities that you want the delegates
in the center to know, and then we pick two up to two bond bill requests. We like to put
two because we want to give an option, right? We don't want to leave money on the table, so we
want to get whatever money we can, so we put an option that we really need, but we also put
option that we know that has brought appeal to the delegates and the senator and they could justify
infunding. Last year we put the two elevators and we put remind me team we put the two elevators
and there is another one that we put street lights. We put the PEPCO street lights and we
funding for just one elevator. And part of our our strategy is we believe that we can
we can secure the anywhere between a last year, you know, last year based on the funding that
was available and please remember that there were some budget constraints and they did significant
cuts last year. We estimated that we can secure the anywhere between 150 to $250,000 for a
a bond bill money and we secured 200,000 for one elevator. I think this year we're we're
probably in the same range. So we're we're proposing a couple of things we have the body
attic park walking trail and stage as a request and we estimate that that's going to be around 250,000
for the engineering and construction of the sorry the engineering is for the stage and the walkways
the ADA walkways to the stage and in the construction of the stage.
For we're also including in there,
the PEPCO street light upgrade to LED.
So this will be for the purchase and some funding for its LED conversion of lights.
Now these are the, and we also included in a list
the second community center elevator.
We have a listed right now as 300,000 to account
for increases in cost, terres have been hitting several of our suppliers and our contractors,
so we know that the cost is an increased from last year, but we will likely find two in that
number as we get closer to this emission deadline. So those are the three things that we have
identified. We obviously welcome Council's feedback on those and the additional items that we
center gym stage floor to rebuild and replenish the community center stage. We also continue to
advocate for the addition of the Spring Hill Lake Recreation Center.
Then what's new this year is the Spring Hill Lake Pocket Park. That is the little pocket part
that is right between the Greenbelt Middle School and the Dora Kennedy School. It's a
could drive by and completely miss it, but it's tiny, it's in bad shape. We think it needs
replacement. The park is primarily on Prince George's County Community Public School,
so it's not our land, but it is an area that needs needs to be repaired. And the schools don't
really have money to pay for all the staff that need a little loan to do these capital improvement
projects. Well, thank you very much. So looking at those bond bill projects, three of them have
price tags associated with them. I'm wondering Council members do you have any other suggestions,
things that come to mind that there aren't haven't been brought up previously?
So I'm pretty comfortable
going ahead when we talk about the walking trail that is the access from the parking lot down
to the stage area. So the master the master the body body attic master plan has a walking path from
the parking lot that's a loop. It starts at the parking lot goes through the inclusive playground down
to the picnic area and down to the stage and then it comes back on the other side. So that's the
talking, trial, it's a loop.
Very good, very good.
So, and that design and engineering would be,
would take us to, I don't know, 50% or 60%
the way that these design and engineering projects
were beginning to understand it,
but the different stages that are sort of laid out.
So, this money would take us half far towards construction.
So we estimate that the engineering full engineering to get to construction for the trail is going to be around 150,000.
So then it'll be 200,000 for building the stage.
And this is the stage, this is, there's a lot of assumptions and unknowns.
We're not sure what the stage is going to look like entirely.
We're pricing it on what projects in this surrounding area have cost for four stage outdoor stages.
The process of designing and building the stage of body attic part will require a lot of community input.
So it would be something that we would do on partnership with Prab, because they've let the work on doing the body attic master plan.
So there would be a primary lead on this project because whatever we design needs to be in line with the master plan for body attic.
Okay, so this sounds like it's going to take us to about 20, 30% design and engineering.
For the trail, we expect to get to 100%.
That is whose construction.
So we want designs that we can go to construction.
There was another place.
I don't know if this is too early or not, but should we be considering
support for what would be in the Indian Creek master plan trail and I know we're just
we haven't even done our community meetings yet, but with hopefully that there will be
some type of concept that will come out of it and we will need designs for whatever concept
is elected and that assuming will also take additional funding to do. Is that possible to add
that it or is that are we too early on in that process to include that in 2026?
I think there could be a way that we can frame it. We learned this a bit of the sort of some
of the strictness of the bond bills through trial and error. You can ask for construction money that
can include engineering and design, but not just designs without engineering that don't go to construction.
So, once we have these study, the concepts for the Indian Creek playground and park,
we could take that on to engineering construction. So, it would fit. We just don't have it in hand.
But I think we could submit for Indian Creek.
So, once the consultants done with the project, we would have the concept plan flushed out and it would be a master plan for Indian Creek.
Yeah, I think that's what I was going to say is I tried to get, I tried to get the consultants
at the meeting at Springhill Lake, what lots of such a last week, to even give like ballpark
prices for the different concepts and they weren't even willing to do that. So I think, unfortunately,
that might be too early to be able to ask to put something in a presentation by December 2nd
with that even having a, I mean, they, he flatly refused to give, like, even an estimate on the,
like, the three different concepts they were presenting. So we might have to wait for next year on that one.
Hey, there's, there's already some assumption regardless of what concept they were already going to go for, right?
There's going to need to be some type of party. Well, that's true. Regardless of it was set, you know,
concept 1, 2, and 3. And so if you can assume, make some assumptions on number of parking spaces,
that would need to be a lot of that's one thing. They also talked about, I think all three of them
could potentially need to shift the actual trail itself for the parking. Right. So that's regardless
of what plan is. So thinking about those basic things, if we could, you know, even make some assumptions
on what that cost would be that could get us further.
Yeah.
Yes.
Councilmember, please.
Yeah.
I don't think it's for this year,
but I have spoken with a couple of the county council members
about the capital by sure station at the Green Belt Metro and, you know, they seem confident
that, you know, it was in the previous budget system a reason why it couldn't be done this
year.
But if it's pushed back again, it would a state bond bill make it more likely for it to be completed because the funding would have been a year mark for that specific project and would be much less fungible.
I don't know that.
I'm sorry I have to to I'm having an internal reaction to the county putting this activity on its budget and not following through.
because there's money in it for it and it's approved.
It is a project manager that has the flexibility to decide which location to go for.
So I have a personal conflict with that approach of doing business.
So now if it was purely like we have a list of projects that far exceeds all of the funding capability.
then we are in the ten-year plan just at the bottom of the list, then I can see looking at a
turn into funding sources. But I think this particular project, it is, I find it problematic that we have
by capital-byteshare stations in the city, but cannot connect back to the point of origin, which is the
And that to me is such a simple case to make that if you are getting off the metro and you want to bike to the last mile, you can't get it at the point of where you arrive to the city.
And I only bring it up because it is just an oversight that, you know, I'm looking at any avenue that we can to advocate to get this done and because, you know, since I moved to the city, I've been asking what's going to happen.
And it's been pushed back sometimes.
I just want to see if maybe the state could play some role in getting the county to
finally do something but I understand it's not really about the funding.
There's some decision-making process that's getting frozen up somewhere.
Yeah, but I think now we've got to push on our on the county council county
our executive, each is because really it's a county executive oversight function. The executive
oversees the county's transportation direct.
Okay. I'm pretty comfortable with these three
council members, please. So are these these top three of the ones that you're prioritizing the
are the lights and the communities that are to the stage four is that the in order
of priority, the elevators, the second item, but the one with the highest priority, the
issue with the elevator is will they fund that second elevator after funding the first
elevator.
So the body attic park, you know, when I've discussed it with our delegates and the
Senator, there's, oh, that's cool that there's a, there's a, a more welcoming stance on those projects, but the, the lights, as you can see, we have this compact competition level or competition, great field of the Trump Hills, but we don't have lights.
We haven't had lights on at them.
We'll benefit from adding extending play time at the field by adding lights.
The lights at the basketball court at spring and leg recreation centers worked out well, especially in days like today at six o'clock
It was dark kids can play at six o'clock. I don't know that they will play in this cold weather, but so I'm just trying to just I mean have we decided which to
We're presenting. I guess I'm just not there.
Well, no, no, we're discussing it.
I'm comfortable with the three that actually have dollar amounts assigned to them.
Okay, I was just to say, you know, my priorities would be the body addict walking trail,
the lights at Toronto Hills or the pocket park, I know we don't have, you know, a dollar
amount for the lights, but I wouldn't think that would be too hard to procure, and I know
the pocket park also has some difficulties because I don't know that we can apply for funding
for something where we don't already have that use of agreement with PGCPS, and we all on this
I also know how hard it is to get a use agreement with Fiji CPS, so I think that's a, that's, that's a, a hurdle there, but I do think that the light set
Toronto's part and the body out of walking trail would have the would benefit the largest number of residents.
That's, that's just a night that's my thinking.
and an approach.
Well, and I agree with that, and I also like that that if we were able to include the pocket
part as a priority, that gives us one in center east and west, although I agree that the
challenge is of getting a use agreement with PGCPS may make that one less likely, but that
would also be if we bring it up this year with the idea that this is sort of floating it
for the first time, and then we might be more likely to get it next year we could work
those details, and that also does sales well with, because I think it's the one that's like,
it's close to the school, but it's not the one on the school property, correct? It's yes.
So, but that could ductile nicely with the, when Spring Hill Lake elementary school is floating,
is, is, is, is, is, that's up, they don't, swinging, they say it's, he's floating
what I forget what the term is. Anyway, we're swinging, swinging into a door Kennedy.
The other thing, I think the one reason not to include the Pepco Street, like,
It's like a great, it sounds like that's actually part of our ask for that fund.
This seems like sort of asking for the same thing from two different ways.
Maybe we want to do that, but I like the Council Member Poppy's three,
not that we expect to get the pocket park funding.
But then that puts it on the radar of our legislators so that when we bring it up again next year,
it's already been sort of floated.
I would agree about butiatic and I think trauma. A question about trauma in putting in the lights. I'm assuming by putting in lights that also potentially increases the possibility for additional revenue as well because our people who want to utilize that were not residents. Is that how the funding structure is going to work for that.
Yes, it would certainly extend the play time and if we are, if we are renting it out
issue permits, which we have seen an increase in applications for organized groups to use that space.
So, yes, I, I, I, I, I paused to say how much revenue it could bring because we have so many
recognition groups and so many city groups that want the space and those are not
revenue generator for us. Yeah. And then as far as the pocket park is concerned, I am, I like having
priorities in East West and Center. If the pocket park isn't possibly because we don't have that use agreement in place, and I would love to see if we could come up with
some amount of assumptions for funding needed
for Indian Creek Trail.
So to recap, one and two is bodyatic and lights
in the pocket park only if it's possible
if not shifted to another priority in Greenbelt West,
which would be in the Creek.
Thank you.
But, Calves, remember, Pope?
Yeah, the issue with the pocket park is we don't own it.
So, you know, so that's my concern.
that maybe it would be best to work towards getting the agreement first and say, look,
you know, give us the agreement, we're fixed it up. And, you know, because I know it
don't have the money for it, like you said, I'm sure it's kind of school system. I don't think,
and now with the French immersion moving out and then I don't know what's going to happen after
we utilize the school for two years temporarily. I don't know what they're going to do with
just school in general. But the walking the buddy at a walking trail,
I was quite happy with the
three items that had a dollar amounts next to it. But I would go with the lights at Trump
Hills Park because I think that makes sense as well. Council member, please. But it'd be possible
to between now and sorry we're voting on are we voting on these three tonight or
not we're not voting for organizations but for a vote would we be able to contact
and PGC this will system PGCPS about the park because you know I don't want the money to sit
you know if they're not going to move on it so at least see a gauge initial interest
in working together if we were to secure the funding because otherwise I do hear
there's interest in other and other things that we could be doing in the next year.
I just don't think you're going to get an answer back in time. It will take a while for
so many. Because we should decide and vote on it on Monday, give it the time friend. I have
two concerns, one, with the lights that Trump
hills park, I would be really hesitant to put that forward
without talking to the homeowners associations.
On the way to the Lake's, the Green Belt Village, Green
Brook Village, the states, because when the lights that are
there now, when in there was a lot of feedback.
So, people are cautious about, you know, be great if we did
to get the funding, but we need to talk with residents.
Another thing has to do with the approvals in general.
We did quite well last year in getting the funding for the elevator.
Other municipalities didn't get quite as much funding for any funding at all.
So I'm just wondering, one of the criteria for these bond bills
is you have to complete the work in a certain amount of time.
So I'm just wondering how, how we're coming along with spending the money,
particularly for the movie theater.
Movie theater, we, as you know, we've gone back and forth on
the bathrooms, the windows, like the entire building and everything in it is
is part of the historical record of the building.
So that being a historical side requires extra approval.
So the toilet that we purchased to replace had to be approved by
the historic trust, Marla, historic trust.
We've got approval on tentative approval on the marquee recently.
I think we should have with Council.
The marquee, the windows, no.
On the way to the tent, do you want to talk about that one?
No, I think it's on.
Is it on?
There it is.
So we have general approval on almost everything interior.
So, the lighting that we want to do, the work on the floor, the carpet, the concessions
to end all those things, strangely enough, the windows themselves, they want us to have
a historical architect remediation, do them historically, they can't just replace the windows.
Even the mural, I think, is getting approval, that's on the outside.
So most of it, I'd say probably 80% of the projects have received MHC approval, and
And our public works department is working with Caitlin and the and the cinema to schedule that.
One of the big concerns you can imagine is we don't want to take the main auditorium offline during their busy season.
So the thought would be to do some of the smaller projects.
The TV screens, the concession set of the things now and probably wait until spring or when they have kind of a downs.
The lowest occupancy time for the theater to do the forks. Once we do the lights,
we're putting new lighting and the ceiling, but once the lights and the forks are going to be done,
the seats have to come out and obviously you can't do movies without seats.
So the thought is we want Mr. Kim is working with Caitlin to kind of bundle all of those projects together.
Once we take it out, we're going to do the floor, the carpet, the lights,
Everything's going to happen all at once and Katelyn is kind of working with her team to decide what is kind of the lowest volume of
usage of the theater
So we'll time it then
We have five to seven years to spend the money so we're not in this I mean we want to get done and the more bond boom money
We have outstanding the more the more the more difficult it is get more more money
That's why I bring you up can know that it's not you know
Senator and delegates can put, put, put, request forward, but the other senators and delegates
basically to look at how much is outstanding.
And the key, the key they want to see without standing is that you're, is that you're working
the projects.
So the good news is we're working all the projects, especially with, well, moderate trail kind
of opening up.
We are spending that money now, which is what they're looking for.
So really, the bulk of the projects are underway.
The marquee was a huge hurdle, and that's going to go forward, which is great.
We do need to do some additional engineering work that we're not planned on because MHG wants to make absolutely sure that the current structure of the marquee
is strong after hold the LED.
The vendor doesn't think that's a problem because the LED display is nice and light.
However, MHG wants to be cautious and they want to make sure.
And they like, you know, thank you to your things for your own way.
I think ironically, the thing that's going to take us the longest
are the toilets and the windows because they want those to be architecturally and historically
accurate and it's hard to find historical accurate toilet.
So, but otherwise, that project is moving on great.
Mr. Kim and Desvin are doing a great job working together and kind of staging those projects
to get them done as quickly as we can, but with as little disruption for the cinemas
activities as possible.
Okay, so long story short we've got the Metro Connecting Trail funding bond bill money is still outstanding.
We've got movie theater and the elevator, so those three.
We have more, so the elevator that was already approved by the Board of Public Works.
So we have submitted that contract for preapproval by the State General Service Department of General Service.
Once they approve that contract, it comes back to Council for approval.
we wouldn't have Council approve a contract
or last General Service has approved for us to move forward.
Because otherwise, we would have to come back to Council
if we have Council approve a contract that General Service doesn't approve.
So we get their blessing then it comes to Council.
So as soon as we get that approval from General Service,
we'll bring that contract to Council
and the Mr. Kim and the team will move that
expeditively on replacing that elevator.
The electric vehicle supply equipment projects, we have board of public works, have approved the funding, we have submitted these two EV stations for approval of general service. They approved it and that is why we now have two EV stations are here at the municipal building. So that's funded by
The museum we have received approved from the Board of Public Works for that project, we have not gone to the general service for approval of our work yet, but that is also moving.
But he had a playground that project is completed and it's entirety, so we've closed that up.
So that is all the bill bond projects that have been funded going back to 2018.
So, and the Clean Belt Station, Connecting Trail, do we have?
That's the one I'd better try that you were talking about.
Okay, so I don't want to temper everybody's expectations too much.
But we've been very successful in the past, but we have a lot of outstanding projects.
I think we all agree on the buddy attic walking trail.
But we should submit to three ideas.
I'm going to pretend I'll go for some public input.
Yeah, I just wanted to make sure to make sure because I think I know which playground.
Is it this one up here? This breeze would drive.
It's that one, not the one right by the school or is it the one that's.
I feel like we talked about both of those.
No, go a little bit.
That would be east.
Go down, go down to where kind of worth.
We're kind of worth it.
So it's.
Go up to Breezewood, it's rise at the crosswalk before you get to the stops, it's intersection of Breezewood and Kennawood.
Yeah, right there. Breezewood and Emma's stuff. It says it right there, Breezewood Drive play.
Okay, so it's up.
So it's up.
But so then that's the middle school.
Look at all those nice little people.
I know.
That's the part of this property is PDCPS property, then that's the issue.
Okay, it's all of the property on the action. Yeah, it's almost. Okay. I just wanted to make sure that I was understanding which playground if you drop you a little, you're little, you know, yeah, I guess you can take a look at it.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I've been there forever. So I moved to a 998 of playing the little pocket playground was already there. And I don't think anything has changed. It looks like what two swings and a slide. Yeah, so yeah.
that's that could use some improvement. Yeah in a no folks are concerned that if we don't have a
use agreement in place that it may, it may stall things. I think that with the, I'm a believer
that if you're not going to get it done, move out of the way. And I think that some of the folks that
work with Dr. Joseph have that mindset.
I'm optimistic. I'm optimistic. I have to be right. I have to
Okay. Let's see. Yes, please.
One other question. I'm just recalling and I can't remember the actual name of the study where we were talking about bus stops and improving those and there were only a certain amount that we could do to make more accessible and things like that.
And I know that we only had a certain amount built in our budget, but that would be a considerable amount that we would need to make lighting as well as the accessibility of them.
Is that something that raises to the level of being something that would go for bond and I'm just thinking of the impact across the city, how many people would be benefiting from that as well.
Just to thought I don't know if that was part of the consideration.
I like that idea. I think we're only able to innovate either one or two or bus stops each year.
We did fund a lot of the improvements through ARPA, so I thought that we were taking care of most of it through ARPA.
Yeah, but I would double check with Terry Rubey, Ruby, to see what we couldn't get to another.
Okay, let's see, I believe in the storelings.
Yes, thank you.
I would think that the decision to place a capital bike share station anywhere would
be that of capital bike share, which, unfortunately, is not part of a model.
I think it should be, but it's not.
As has been pointed out to Council in the past, the instrument for influencing
will modest board is the Washington suburban transit commission. Two members of which represent
Prince George's county. Council member Eric Olsen, the new county executive has yet to
make an appointment to fill her designated appointees position on the commission. But nonetheless,
one of the members of the Washington suburban transit commission is also the primary
a voting member of Audembourg, to the extent that the Audembourg would be involved, and that
could be certainly in locating, in citing a capital bike station, a green boat station,
Council should appeal to both Councilmember Olsen and the county executive to raise the question
with the commission which directs all state and county money to Wemara to bring about that
desire of solution. I certainly agree it would be a desirable solution. I have another question
on an earlier subject matter. Do I understand that Greenbelt is the only municipality it was
over charged by Pucco?
I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think so. I know I'm aware of
some at least two municipalities that have been paying for the lives that they do not
or should be paying for? I would not have thought so either. I apologize that was partly a rhetorical
person, but pepco doesn't make anything but profit. It doesn't generate its parents do, but it
does generates no electricity, which it distributes what I might argue for at an excess profit
in this area. It would seem to me that it's appropriate for a green belt and other
of county municipalities and other municipalities in PEPCO's jurisdiction, delivery jurisdiction
area to consider getting rid of PEPCO altogether and forming our own distribution network
that could just as PEPCO does secure its power from excellent or other sources.
I would like Council to raise that as a priority.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Let's see, sir.
Anybody on one?
There are no hands up online.
Okay, is there any further discussion?
Yeah, please count some number, please.
Mr. Someron, number five, the Spring Hill Lake Recreation Center
edition, which I know is something I've talked to you about a lot.
So, your mark fiscal year 26.
So, we're going to see that when we talk about earmarks.
Is that what you're telling me here?
Just trying to see if that's what that means?
Or in paper, that's exactly what it means.
We went through the Yermark process and our federal delegates
endorsed it and submitted through the committee.
And then,
we're still operating on a fiscal 24 or 25 budget in the continuing
resolution.
That's not even continuing.
I think it's 24.
I think it might be 24.
So I think that's the problem.
It's in a budget that never got passed.
And just for background last year, in the 24 budget, we did receive approval by the committee for funding for the youth center.
And then all of that, those recommendations just basically became null and void due to funding issues, which is unfortunate.
You know that we put all this effort or federal delegations put all this effort to fight for these things in the committee.
the committee has an agreement for an appropriations bill and then it just doesn't go anywhere.
So it's our money. Yeah, it's all of our money. It's all of our money. It's all of our
money.
I would like to put forward.
rights or electronic signs with the bus information posted at bus stops throughout the city.
Can we research the cost of doing that, pop with Ms. Ruby and look at the schedule and maybe look ahead.
I know we've made some improvements, but the issue of the electronic signs at bus stops that tell you when the next bus stop bus is coming.
I believe we have them in the center, and that's the only location in the city.
We have those.
The model was not willing to fund those for us, and it would really be very, very helpful for our residents and visitors to
Greenbelt to be able to look and see when the next bus is coming.
I would check with Mr. Ruby to see what ADA improvements were not funded through the ARPA.
I would I would I would think that castle from what I'm hearing is your priority is the ADA bus stop standard,
which is filling out the concrete pad for the bus to be able to drop the lift into it.
The shelters, we can't do shelters everywhere because there just isn't enough public right
away to do shelters. So I know that the team had had identified all the areas that were conducive
for shelters and we just can't place them in all the locations that we want to. So I know the
the benches. And we put the benches. We took care of all the benches that we had identified.
So we did that through ARPA, but I'll see what else is yet to be funded.
The signage that you're referencing a company or going places where shelters exist,
where you could put a solar panel, and the digital board. So the location must have a shelter for
that to go to place. There are other alternatives, but I don't know that our community has
those and those are the clear channel, yes. I understood that those were not,
well, we're not favorably received by various councils, but but I do think that we if it's possible
to accelerate the the maintenance and accessibility improvements to the bus stops that we have
because there's a replacement schedule, we can accelerate that with some bond funding, I think that
good use and just the basic digital signs, not the wall, but solar panel and signage, or electronic
signage, let you know when the next bus is coming. That would be really helpful, really meaningful to
so many people. I can't remember, Pope.
I think we need to communicate. Why we're not putting these nice bus cuts everywhere, because I
had quite a few inquiries from Green Meldies during the election time. Why we get why they're
adventures and not getting these nice little wooden houses, you know, like we have on some of the other places and I tried to explain it, but I think it's it needs to be communicated because they they are feeling left out.
I welcome feedback. I know we presented it to council. We presented these reports or on our website.
And I know there are folks that feel left out, but the information is readily available and we are very transparent about where we put benches where we put shelters.
Okay, we do need to move forward.
Yeah, just a quick comment on that.
And I realize this would take time, but I'm thinking about some of the, I think it was a city of high school has like project update pages,
But even if there were a way to, like, get a map posted on the city website with the, with the, with the bus stops where you could click on the bus stop, like, if you ask map, but RTA is or something, click on the bus stops see what it has, what, what we would like to have there, or if we can't have a bus stop, like no shelter can be put here because we don't have enough right away, but I think that, that something like that would make the information much more readily accessible to residents about accessibility.
because they could just go and look at the bus stop they're interested in and click and see.
And I recognize there's, you know, that takes the information exists. It's a question of compiling it into that format.
But that could help with some of those questions.
Okay, okay. I really would like to move ahead. Mr. O'Lean says another comment.
You, I of course can't know where there's insufficient public right away for a bus shelter,
but where there is insufficient public right of way for a bus shelter and some private entity owns
theoretically owns holds titled to that ground. The city, if it wanted to be inclusive and
make its bus shelters accessible and safer than they are now and more convenient for riders,
it could win an easement from those private sectors and we should be about doing so.
And just so that I may know, since I don't know, I'd be interested in seeing a list of all the
existing bus stops in Greenbelt where there is no shelter and where it's been determined
there's insufficient right away to construct one. I'll be inquiring about that at a later
time. Thank you. Okay, okay. So here's the list that I have more
lesson listening closely. You know the buddy at a walking trail and path stage funding with $350,000
is that's something we all agree on.
Lights at Trump, he'll park.
I really feel like we need to touch base
with the homeowner's associations in the area.
I mean, it's a great idea, but we need to have their buy-in.
With the community center gym and stage floor,
there's no dollar amount attached to that.
But and Pepeco's street lights upgrade a couple of council members
I've said that they think that it's not the right time to do that and there's too many issues going on.
There, the elevator, but the Springhail Lake Pocket Park seem to have a great deal of support in one of my missing
report.
Well, I think the ones that we sort of added for consideration were the idea just now of the accessibility
of the bus shelters and then the idea of asking for funding for at least a portion of the
things we know we would need at the Indian Creek Master Plan, even if we don't know what the final
And we'll look like it. Okay, so it seemed like they do that we added. So if staff can do some additional research and the present, the ideas at the meeting perhaps we can think about these and they're all down and perhaps you can get back to us and let us know if some of these suggestions are not feasible.
I will, the bus tops is going to be relatively easier. The Indian Creek. I think it's a little more more.
more work, need to know what the pricing will be to get a close estimate. I have a question
about the Spring Hill Lake. Sorry, the lights are strong here. You want us to get buy-in
from the HOA before we consider the lights. I will be concerned about that because there's
always going to be somebody that's going to be against the lights. There were people that were
against the lights for at the Spring Hill Lake Recreation Center. And when those lights went on,
I have received zero complaints for the lights.
And so I think it's, I would like to vision,
revisit the conversation about vision and values,
would we want a recreational access to be?
I just think that discussion needs to take place.
Another example where that discussion
has come up is a light-set McDonald field.
And clearly, we've heard from GHI, the residents there
that they are ambivalent or against the idea
of having lights there.
So, you know, it's a little bit of a hot button topic, and I just think for us to ask for funding for that, without broaching the idea, somehow we're telling the homeowners associations in the area, hey, this is going for money for this, I think that's a bad move.
Okay, but I've heard from council that this is something that you're interested in.
So, if you're not, then let me know it.
I would be interested in including that on the list.
I think that we can work to get the buy-in from the homeowners.
Yes, and I have had my hand up about this specific topic.
I'm sorry.
No, that's okay.
Thank you.
May I please?
Please, go ahead.
Thank you.
I absolutely share that concern, and I looking at a map and looking at how close spring
the Spring Hill Lake lights are to the apartments compared to how close the Schromhill
lights would be to any sort of development.
It's very apples and oranges.
I would very much like pricing for what those lights would be especially considering that we already
have a proven use of solar powered lights within the city.
Okay, Ms. Cole?
I just think we should keep it on the radar and we should at least try to get some funding.
I mean, who knows if we're going to get it, right?
But we can also talk to the HOAs, but we can work on both simultaneously the same time.
So I would like to ask for the funding as well.
Fair enough, fair enough.
Just put a pin in that.
I know there's been a lot of discussion about McDonald field right here in the center and actually putting lights up at the
Butalee can not play their games a little bit later into the games.
Well, let's go ahead.
I'm sorry.
Councilman.
These will come to the council for a vote on Mondays.
Yes, correct. Yeah, correct. And just to general sense, I'm getting it's this buddy at
stage. That's that's a high priority for folks. I've heard from the lights at Trump
Hill Park, the pocket park, the gym stage, and we're adding the bus stops accessibility issues
in in New Creek. Those are the favorite ones. Right. Right. And let me just read on the bus
not just the accessibility, but the idea of these signs, which would tell people when
the solar panel signed to tell people when the next bus is coming, that would really help a lot of people.
Right, and that would be contingent on there being a shelter.
A shelter that is possible, but there's a shelter there.
Right. I just don't want to leave that.
No, no, no, right. Right. But if there's no shelter that can go in that place, there's no signage that can go in there.
Okay, and then the other one is, I think the community center,
the second elevator is there. We know we need it. But I'm thinking we should only put forward
two maybe three of these suggestions. Hammer that on the right meeting coming up. Please go ahead.
Okay. Can I? Yes, please. And you may remember that. I mean, the Schromhill of the
body-edic park stage. Wasn't there someone interested in donating some money towards a stage at
point. I mean, it's quite a few years ago, I know, and Jay Davis has brought it up in the meantime,
a few times. I can't recall the name. Yeah, it was a Leona, Leona, Leona, and Jenny. Penny, as I said,
had made some provisions, perhaps made some provisions in a will, and her son, who is still
we around, I know some people who know him. I wonder if we could maybe reach out, and I think Mike
I don't think we've ever really followed up properly.
We have followed up.
Staff of Philadelphia.
Yes.
We have two families that have expressed interest in the
contributing to the projects.
They're not the tune of 250,000 I don't need, but they'll
contribute something to the challenge.
We were facing internally as that.
They were like naming rights and we don't have a policy that
addresses naming rights just on the
just preliminarily, I think if someone's paying for an entire project to the 250,000, I think
that's worth consideration of a naming rights of a stage. But if it's $10,000 for something that
costs 250,000, I think that's a bit of a big ass. I agree. I mean, there are various ways that you
can go about acknowledging support for philanthropic support for projects such as donor tiles or
It's just a number of ways that you can do it without naming the whole thing after.
We just need to have policy, we've got a little bit of policy, but it needs to be more
specific.
But yes, if there are private resources that can go towards doing things like this, we should
certainly seek them out in polypure.
But you share that policy.
You say there's a policy for naming?
Well, I mean, there's a policy for on the trees and benches and the plants.
But those are paid by those individuals, yes, but but the idea is there a policy another policy about naming
There's no structure.
We talked about it.
Yeah, but we could certainly look at that.
Okay.
Well, we welcome the idea of this cemetery, the own wall that was sort of tied up with the idea of using private dollars to do different things.
So when it suggests that we have a donor tree or something in the building, there's one down
stairs.
There used to be one wall.
Hey.
Well, Jay Davis is online, she confirms Bernard Penny, which we'd already come to, and then
suggest a plaque acknowledging donors, maybe rather than naming right.
Okay.
Hey, let's go ahead and move on.
Let's talk a little bit about scheduling the legislative piece since we've been talking
about legislative priorities and trying to kind of clush things out.
This question about legislative support is something that is on the agenda.
And, you know, we have been able to work with our legislative contractor.
Mr. Carrington has been two years now, one year. So prior to that, Council did most all of the legislative advocacy on behalf of the city with the support of the Assistant City Manager and after many years of request to actually set aside funding to hire a
a contractor to assist us with that. We've done that for the first time with results just in
terms of the amount of information that we're getting, the format of the information and the
interaction between the contractor and council. So Mr. Sumerone put together a survey with Mr. George
And I asked us all for some feedback and the survey was not comprehensive, but I think it gets to the core of the question of how we should proceed during this legislative session, which is coming up really really fast.
And the results, we've got five responses.
five out of seven. Okay. And so the consensus from those five results was that we should
go with a multi-vendor approach instead of just using one contractor perhaps working with others
as well. 60% favored a multi-provider model. That's three out of five. Put that up on the screen
if you like.
So do you want the
Omena?
Do you want me to go over the responses, Mr.
Mark? Sure. If you can
concisely and quickly kind of
sure, I'll cover the highlights.
Generally, very positive feedback on
how satisfying people were. I think
the clarity of the communication
is an item that we would dress with
any future contractor. But overall
the professionalism of the staff and the accessibility
information, responsibilities, and transparency
with the legislative process or high.
Going down to question number two, which approach do you
believe will be best served?
Would best serve the city's legislative advocacy
needs?
60% which is three out of five, respond
that at a multi-provider model would best serve the city.
20% which is one out of five is a new provider to do the entire scope of work and 20% a combination of both approaches.
Moving on to question number three, the preference from folks to receive communication about legislative matters is emails followed by text message followed by website and final phone.
On question number four, how often do you want to receive information?
The majority response is favored weekly at three to three out of five.
Monthly is one out of five, and as needed for council input and action is one out of five.
Question number five is what legislative matters do you want to receive information on.
Number one choice was state-of-green bill priority legislation.
Number two is tied with three different areas.
that's MML Priority Legislation, PGCMA Priority Legislation in four consultant recommended legislation,
only one person wants to receive updates on all state legislation and one person selected other.
Question number six, what are your legislative priorities? The number one choice was economic
development followed by public safety with four out of five, then we've had a couple of
housing attainability, environmental sustainability, transportation, all of those where three out of five responses,
healthcare at two out of five and other is one.
Number seven was a more narrative responses.
What question is, is the current legislative tracking workship and effective tool?
the majority responses that know and need some improvement.
Number eight is, is our current legislative contract
that providing adequate guidance.
The feedback we receive is the folks that have four responses
were generally around improving the clear communication
and alignment with Greenville priorities.
Number five, there's another narrative response.
There were highlights mentioned that there's good relationships
in knowledge of the legislative process, great connections with legislative lots of information.
What improvements would you suggest this question number 10, better legislative tracking system,
more regular meetings and the structure of framework? That covers the majority of responses.
A lot of it is just, there's a lot of information that's coming to us and how to make sense
of the hundreds of not thousands of bills that are in these sheets. I think that's the majority
of the responses.
Hey, well, thank you.
I think that gives us some helpful information to work with the legislative session.
The state session is coming up very, very soon.
The county, the session is ongoing.
So, the contractor that we were working with.
He had been urging us to hold a retreat or a discussion earlier in the year.
I think he wanted to do it in August or September.
But because of our elections and any number of factors, we've yet to do this sort of a deep
dive into legislative priorities.
I think partially, MML has a committee that works in focuses on state legislation that affects
all municipalities and their legislative committee is really just getting started and the
Prince George's County Municipal Association used to provide us with additional legislative support and that's gone.
So we did put aside some additional funding in the budget.
I believe it was $40,000.
The total amount is $40,000. Last year was $30,000 for the FY26 budget.
Council reallocated $10,000 of $4,000 came out of the membership line item,
which primarily was meant to cover PGCMA and then the 6,000,
there remember we're put it from but it was really a movement of money rather than new money.
Right. So, staff, you've been working and looking at this and thinking through the possibility of bringing on some additional support. And I know that the idea of doing an RFP is one option.
Another option is to write on other contracts that we currently have.
So what are our options in terms of bringing on another
some additional support?
I guess we're working with two firms really with legal legislative assistance.
Right now, Mr. Luchian.
He's Mr. Luchian.
So Mali, we hired them for a specific advocacy effort, so they're working on a separate matter.
The go back to your question, what are your options?
We conducted an RFP process and it was a process that we're not at all to all the legislative
support and advocacy firms that we're aware of and we also disclose the publicly.
We received numerous applications.
we went through a vetting process and we scored them and then had ended up securing one contract.
In this, for this year, at the request of council to consider other contractors,
we went back to the scoring sheet and went down the list to see to the next two options.
Omanley wasn't that list, but we had already hired Omanley for separate legal matters.
So Omanley was part of the RFP process.
The other firms, there were two other top scoring firms that we've had interviews with them.
And if we've added the process, we discussed the options that we have with them.
Part of it, we were aware of this desire by Council to have a multi-provider model.
So speaking with those two other vendors on the list, we explore the opportunity of splitting up the
scope of work, one taking taking the lead on the state legislation and another taking the lead on the
county legislation. And then working, the two of them working together on the things that overlap.
And so we had those conversations and we are in the final negotiations steps with a second vendor
to to bring on so we can divide the the the duties. We with the budget we have constraints
because both both vendors fully funded and their proposal exceeds the $40,000 that are allocated
for this activity. So we're negotiating a reduced amount. We're also being in mind for that we
did not want to take up the entire the entire $40,000 because they are things that come up throughout
the year they require immediate action on the advocacy front.
So we wanted to leave some room just for any special advocacy
legal fees that we will have.
Sometimes we could have a consultant,
a vise is about an issue before the county in the state.
And that consultant does not have the legal background
to fully advise us on that matter.
So we anticipate having additional legal expenses
for a subject matter expert to advise us on a particular legal issue.
For example, we can be talking about a land use authority matter,
where the consultant is very much aware of the politics and how things move around land use authority,
but you need a land use of attorney to determine its impact and how we can maneuver around the regulations.
That's just an example.
Council member.
Popping.
Have you, so this is the idea we would split it between county and state.
Is that kind of what you're thinking?
Of course, the vendors go.
I mean, my biggest concern is with the county.
I know that the speed at which legislation is moving is fast,
even for the staff of the council members right now.
So I think it would be really important to have someone with a lot of experience in that.
particular in our county council arena because things are not operating as usual over there right now as we've heard many times
So I do worry because things are getting passed through that we're not hearing about
Things are just moving so rapidly at this point, so
That would be my biggest concern, whoever we we hire if we choose to hire someone to focus on the county that they have to
We're going to have to be great in there and hopefully already have some kind of expertise in that and I also worry about how they're going to be reporting back to us because again, things are moving so quickly.
I don't know how we will stand top of that.
Well, thank you. Thank you.
I think it's really important to define the scope of work and that differentiation between state and county is important.
But I think if we bring on an additional contractor,
there has to be some flexibility,
because there are relationships in areas
of expertise, one of these two contractors
would really need to be working together
and communicating somehow.
The other thing that's difficult is they are just so few
firms that are capable.
It's hard to find them where there's not a little bit
of a conflict of interest
where they're representing different kinds of entities.
But the bottom line is we do need to move ahead.
We've made a great deal of progress with the way
that are legislative advocacy works.
But still, it should be counsel driven with the support of staff
and contractors and just kind of having a good work
in relationship.
You need to make a decision on bringing somebody else on.
And then counsel needs to set aside some time,
work session or a treat really soon to kind of dive down a little bit more deeply into what our
priorities are. Remember, Tom? Just wondering about from the funding standpoint because we also,
I believe, had allocated some money specifically for legal services related to the mega glove,
which seemed to no longer be as necessary. Is that somewhere, is that, how much of that to be used?
Do we still have some of that in the budget? And I realized I didn't think of it until just now,
So I didn't ask you to look it up ahead of time.
But is that somewhere that would have some additional flexibility
for funding if we needed to for things that come up,
just because we don't expect, not that we can stop paying attention,
but we don't expect there to be as much need
with the maglove.
The short answer is yes, whatever is available in that fun.
We are using some of those funds to cover the expenses
that we anticipate around the union matter.
Okay.
But yes, there's that funding available for the Magulette.
Okay, council member, kidding.
So I guess one of the concerns I have about a multi provider model
is that with any provider you still have to provide oversight
and management and you add another vendor or provider,
that's another person that you have to coordinate
when our internal staff is already pulled
in multiple different directions.
So, you know, sometimes more isn't always better when you have to manage that.
And then second, I just wonder, would you be able to get greater efficiency with one provider
with the cost?
So, if you're splitting it up, they're both going to have the cost, as you said, they're over and above.
But if you're working with one, are they more amenable to negotiating that price so that we can keep that price down?
Especially if they're additional legal charges and things that we might need to think about going into this upcoming fiscal year.
Yes, and yes, there's always easier to work with one individual than having to manage to.
as a manager, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's easier to do with one.
The, to the second part of your question, the efficiencies of, of the work,
in the, in the, in the cost structured, we spoke with our existing existing,
contractor and they have been amenable to work through the issues and addressing,
making sure that there's better communication and more targeted.
responses and focus on legislation. So they've been very open about getting feedback and working
through the issues and honoring the existing price structure and identifying things that fall
outside of the scope of work and that those things that fall outside of the scope of work can
incur there could be additional fees associated with that if we need them to follow up with separate
matters. For example, in just full transparency or
scope of work specifically stated a state and county legislation and legal matters or political matters.
We did not anticipate the numerous executive orders that we had to read and try to figure out.
So that was something that I possibly did call it. And, you know, things happen, right?
And they jump, they accept the call to address those issues and where we're responsive
to that matter.
So that's an example of something that falls outside of the scope of work and we could
budget around and have figure out additional fees for things that are not part of the
explicit scope of work.
And there's things that also have their cycle, right?
county council has a different cycle than the state legislator.
There's early pre pre pre submission bills are happening now and then the session is
and for swing and December through March.
We're really almost too late to have a much impact on the pre filed bills with our
we might have, we need to just come from where we are now and rapidly kind of tool up somewhere in a position to have as much impact as we can.
Council member Pompey.
Yeah, as we're talking this through, I was just considering, you know, maybe we need to have a different tactic with county and state legislation, you know,
You know, we've traditionally, we've been sort of tracking the state legislation that falls into, like, certain, you know, priority areas, with the county that's a little more difficult, just because their processes are so different, they have multiple readings and committees and communities of the whole and all these things, so it's a lot more difficult to do with the county level.
So, I'm just wondering if maybe we need to sort of adapt to the way that we work on that issue.
Are we, do we, yes, we still need to be informed on issues that are happening on the county level,
but do we want our legislative contractor to have more advocacy role?
Like, is that more important that the county level for us?
You know, as opposed to bill tracking and informing us when we need to weigh in,
which is important, but much harder
than much larger scope of work on the county level,
is it more important that we are having someone
who's they're advocating for us,
they're advocating for specific issues.
So that's just something that was kind of thinking about,
like maybe the approach should be different.
I don't know.
What do you think, Mayor?
Well, I would be hesitant to,
to see too much, to take too much
authority away from council and staff
in terms of advocating for our own priorities.
There are only so many firms that are out there really working with county council and following these issues closely.
And sometimes they are working for a number of different entities.
And that could actually get in the way of us advocating for the things that green builders want and need.
So I think we have to be mindful of that.
That's one of the reasons why council needs to be as engaged as we possibly can.
But as she state, it has to do with getting information
in a timely fashion and the way that these bills
are changed from one stage at the committee,
love one or two of the body, as a whole,
and it just happens really fast.
Remember, Tim?
Yeah, I guess I appreciate councilmember McKinney's comments
about the efficiencies and things.
I guess what I felt like I noticed with our current
with the process from the last year is that even though it was
in theory and scope to have both, because I think
the person we were employing had more interest and more expertise maybe at the state level. We didn't get a lot from the county. So that's one of the appeals to me about separating it is that if it's for us a very clear scope of work you are focusing on this then there's no just makes it clear that this is it this is what we want.
So focus on the county things for a green belt rather than the ones that might be more in line
with other things the firm is doing.
And so I guess that's the reason to separate them, maybe even though there could be more
efficiencies with one, yeah, well, it's been a little bit more targeted, maybe more effective,
But I'll tell you, I would actually like to have both of these rooms kind of looking at
county is that they do have or just both two contractors both sort of working together and maybe
amongst themselves deciding which committees or which areas they're going to cover I think
it's possible. So the bottom line on this is I think we do need to move ahead and based on the
survey there was a consensus that we should in fact bring on another contractor. So I'm just wondering
Mr. Soma on or will you be in a position to bring something to counsel at the next this meeting or the next one we are actively negotiating those two contracts right now
Yeah, we'll be ready
We'll be ready and and I just just
The question about efficiency I understood it to be about my own efficiency. It's easier to deal with one person that it is to deal with too
That's how I interpret your question
I was trying to preserve your time.
Is somebody who works with multiple vendors,
on multiple projects?
I appreciate it.
I know that that is very challenging.
And everybody's going to have their own system in way, and you will then have to be the intermediary to try to bring that in one package of that was.
I appreciate it, thank you. So if we can move and bring on another contractor, but at the same time, we need to set aside some time in December as soon as possible really to have discussion with these contractors
to try and hammer out some of these ideas about dividing the responsibilities and the best way to move forward and based on the advice that they give us.
I think they'll be very, very helpful.
I'm just looking at the time that it's 1915 and I think we will have this topic on the agenda on Monday.
So I think maybe we need to move on.
I think another sort of couple of other items that are sort of have a little bit more time urgency.
I mean, one is deciding on if we need to do a different date for the retreat.
I think that's something we absolutely need to discuss tonight.
I think some of the liaison role some of the not I mean for it for the city boards and committees,
but also some of the things for like the the the cog boards and things like that.
What is our, is that something we need to actually be able to vote on on Monday or can the December meeting soon enough?
December meeting soon enough.
For college.
Okay. Okay.
I just wanted to make sure.
And the advisory boards.
That's up to your discretion.
You can leave everyone who's on now.
Until you have a new council member that you might want to assign a board to or not.
It'll be up to you.
But that could wait.
that couldn't theory then wait until until the council retreat.
We don't need to talk about that tonight.
I guess the deadline for the NLC committees, though,
is December 2nd, something like that.
So that we might need to, that also has some time urgency,
just thinking of those two things, maybe the next two things
that have the most time urgency to make sure we talk about tonight.
Well, let's talk about the date for the retreat,
which was tentatively scheduled for the 6th,
But that's not going to work for all of us.
So the thinking had then that we would try and do the retreat
on a weekend on a Saturday.
But the way the calendar looks and just thinking about
some of the open dates that we have for work sessions,
perhaps the best thing that we could do
would be the plan, the retreat discussion for a weekday.
filling one of those work session days may be starting earlier, having a little dinner or something,
nothing just like sandwiches, something like that. Six o'clock and then six to ten,
something like that. I think that would be a good solution. What are they? We have three work
session dates that are open in the vicinity early December. Yes, we currently have December 10,
December 15, and December 17, December 17, that we have not scheduled work sessions for.
Well, the 15th this.
Okay, does the city want to have conference with any of those states?
It's at the 15th or 17th.
The 15th is a holiday.
Is that a holiday?
First day of Hanukkah.
Okay.
Sooner is better than way of the 10th.
Well, for me, yes.
So a question though, because the other date was that we had talked about initially
was December 13th that Saturday, and I think there was preference expressed for December 6th,
but I can't actually remember if the 13th was a day that was not going to work for some people.
Mike, there was just a preference for the 6th. I think we had two choices and the majority
voted for the 6th. Right, I know, but that's not possible for everybody, so was it a preference,
or was it the 13th is not possible for somebody? It would really depend on the time for me on the 13th.
I, it looks like I'm booked from 11 to 4.
Okay, so that would not allow for that would be optimal.
Okay, so then that sounds like we do the 10th,
then we try for the 10th.
Does everybody take the 10th?
So we can't think of six, yeah.
Yeah, we.
And we need to speak with our facilitator.
Is he spoken with Mr. Reynolds?
I have not, I don't have dates to run by.
Okay, now that you, or you, I hear the 10th.
December 10th, which is Monday, December 10th, and you want to start off with December 10th is the Wednesday.
So I'm sorry Wednesday.
And what time are we starting?
I would suggest that we start at six, maybe have some sandwiches or some pizza.
Just kind of work, make it a four hour session with a break in between.
It's too long for a retreat.
PM, I mean, I have to work.
I have to get up early in the morning.
I don't, I just don't know that I can do a four-hour retreat after work in an entire eight-hour
work day and then doing a four-hour retreat and then getting up and working another entire
eight-hour work day. I just, I don't know that that's. Why are you?
I feel. So, but it could we start at six and then go to nine or nine, 30, six to nine and at least
have that be a start. I mean, we may have to split up a retreat. Yeah, I think we may have to split it up,
but six to nine feels much more palatable to me, okay.
So there's three dates, this is anyone in the 15th
of the first day of Hanukkah's.
It's kind of high holidays up would it be bad to actually,
you know, Hanukkah?
No, it's not a problem, really.
I was going to go to Hanukkah holiday.
Well, I was going to say, and it looks like the first evening
of Hanukkah is actually December 14th this Sunday,
At least according to the internet.
Well, I have a, well, it popped up and.
Right.
The calendar.
So I have.
So I think it's okay.
So we'll need to check with Mr. Reynolds and find out what his availability is.
But let's let's do that as soon as possible.
So if we can do that on the 10th or the 15th.
Let's split it up.
That's fine.
Yes, please.
As another option.
I don't know how, like, would a Friday afternoon, so after school is out, but we could maybe start earlier, then a regular session, so that we could, so we don't have to start at seven.
We could start at a five.
I don't know.
That's just another possibility.
I'll work till five, I'm fine.
Oh, let's see.
So that's not feasible.
I mean, I'm working from seven to five, but I would just have to come here straight away, but that's going to be a really long day for me.
Is that better than a work session that's starting at 30 and going to 10 30 likely to be better?
I'm sorry, would it be better to go earlier to start earlier to end earlier or start later?
I guess that's the question.
on a front, you're talking Friday at 5 o'clock until or 5 o'clock every week.
It works for me, so let's pick three and share those with Mr. Reynolds and C.V.
available to the 15th and the 12th, 10, 15th and so can I say something?
This is exactly what Jenny just said.
We're having a full day of work already.
And then we're adding another three or four hours.
It doesn't matter what day you do it.
It's going to come out to the same.
If I come, if I work from seven to five, I have a pretty full day already.
And then I'm going to come here at five o'clock.
It'd be here until at nine. That's the same amount of time, right? That's the same issue that Jenny was just mentioning.
I mean, I think we're talking about splitting it up over two days so that we wouldn't have to have quite as long of a day.
So we would split it over two evenings.
And I think the other the other advantage of being of it being on a Friday is that it is a really long day, but at least it's not a school day the next day.
Right. Well, let's bounce these dates off of Mr. Reynolds and see what his availability is.
Right. So what I heard is I'm asking Mr. Reynolds is availability on the 10th,
the 12th, and the 15th after 5 p.m. for a 2 to 3 hour session. Right. That's exactly it.
Yeah, to split it between two of those eights. We want it.
They don't have to be concurrent necessarily.
I mean, we get the half and come back in the next month
and actually might be a little bit more productive
for Mr. Reynolds to be able to kind of consolidate the discussion
in his thoughts and present them back to us.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I think I agree with that.
I think maybe you try to get one of them, one in December,
and then maybe look at another date in January at some point,
rather than trying to get two out of three of those.
Right.
I think that just having work with Mr. Reynolds and work with other consultants, retreats, that seems to be the most productive way to get the
Consolidate all of our thoughts and notes and kind of move ahead with a good plan.
So, this question of legislative retreat also is something that could happen in December probably needs to happen in December, doesn't have to be that long, is that something Council wants to do and one of these open dates in December?
Would
that be with our consultant, right?
That would be with the consultant.
So would you have them in place, if you're finalizing that,
and would they have enough time to prepare for the summer?
Probably not.
Both, well, both consultants that we spoke with,
what has a very clear process about the retreats
and the level of engagement?
Um, I would, if we're going to have the
the legislature retreat, I would bring both for the men.
at the same time, which is because the availability of meetings in December, there's only two
work sessions, unless you want to do a Saturday or another day, you've only got three sessions,
three dates, the 10th, the 15th and 17th. Now the 12th is a new day, that's a Friday, so we'll add
that to the list, but I would just bring them in for one session. Otherwise we had to find another
session to bring another one. And then there's, I think you're already introducing a separate strategy
between the zoo. So if we just have both of them in the room, then we can all try to get on the same page.
Yeah, a merit for them. Well, and it does seem like, I mean, the legislative session starts in January.
So it does seem like, at least the, the, the, the state one. So it does seem like we probably need to
try to talk to have the initial conversation in December.
And I would say that if we do the 12th, I don't think we should have a recession on the
10th because then we have Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
So I think, yeah, if we can get one of those dates for the sort of the council internal
retreat and one of those dates for a legislative retreat, then I think that may cover us pretty
well.
It's best if we can do.
Right, right.
I think the Council retreat is the priority.
So let's share those dates with Mr. Reynolds and depending on which one, which one hopefully works for him.
Then we can try and schedule legislative discussion with the two contractors if that's feasible on one of the other dates.
Okay.
Gosh, there's just so much to talk about in the administrative session like this.
I think it's a good idea, Councilmember McKinney, you have advocated that we have this kind of discussion on a regular basis, and I believe there's the idea of doing this on a quarterly basis is something that's come up.
Is it Council's will that we go ahead and try and schedule the next two or three now or shall we try another one in January and go from there.
I don't think we need to schedule it right now because we already have recognized that we don't have that many takes in December.
But I think maybe we should wait a little bit.
I guess if it was quarterly would be in January if February.
January.
Right.
Thoughts.
Yeah, please.
Well, I was going to say the other one that I think we do need to talk about is those NLC committees.
And actually, this is a question, so the advocacy committees are one thing and I would like to, I would like to continue to.
I'm planning to apply to again to the Transportation and Infrastructure Services Committee because I think that dovetails well with the Transportation Planning Board.
And I feel like I'm finally getting a handle on this a little bit, baby, tiny.
But I don't know if there's other things, it seems like we probably don't want two people applying for the same committee.
You know, I don't know if the same thing applies for some of the, like, the other ones, not the advocacy committees, but the council's council's are they today allow more than one person from a jurisdiction to be on them do you I just I don't know.
Yeah.
Ms. Pope.
I'm I'm reapply for the public safety and the small cities of course.
So we had.
Yeah, two people.
Yeah, we had two people on each at one point.
Okay.
Yeah, I think we want to try and cover as much ground as we possibly can, but I think our individual preferences come into play as well.
So there are three types of committees, and being actually serving on the committees is the best way to really get the most out of coming to an NLC conference.
So, the advocacy committees at the policy for NLC overall, there's the councils which are gathering around topic areas in the constituent's groups, like the National Society of the Black, the NBC Leo.
There's a few, there's so many. I think the women in municipal government, yeah.
There's an indigenous people's, and there's an LGBTQA group as well.
There's some sort of overlap when they're meeting.
Yeah, they do. I've served on community development community and economic development, CED for many years,
I think I may have a chance to take a leadership position next year.
Oh, no.
So the bottom line is you need to apply now and I would strongly urge you to apply to one of each of those.
advocacy group, constituency group, and council. I shared the first year
suburbs council for some time, but as Ms. Pope says, we've had two or three
people attending the small cities were small, and in L.C. were a small city.
Right, and I shared the small cities means we were a host or one of the
some meetings here. Right. So Jenny, do you know if you have you applied?
I have
applied to any as of now, but I have served on EENR, and it's okay.
I think that I was on the Council of Youth Education and Families, but they don't really
meet very frequently.
And then I was in women and youth school government, but frankly, they sent to many emails
from me.
I kind of backed off of that and I'm going to thank you.
I just have there's no way to digest that.
Like put it in a digest.
So I'm sure they're doing great work.
But I need a little more email hygiene than this.
So yeah.
But yeah, I mean, I was more interested in serving on small cities
for a member council this year.
So it sounds like maybe I'll apply for that since they do allow multiple numbers.
That's fine. I'll be great.
I don't know that I will apply for E and R anymore.
It's okay, but, you know, wasn't the most,
I don't know. It wasn't what I thought it would be.
I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying I thought it was because they weren't thinking it's not that.
Yeah, we've always had a good representation on that committee.
Jay Davis served on that committee, read a Mac served on that committee as well as the youth and education committee.
So, council member McKinney, did you go to which, which ones of these did you pop into?
I have served on the Human Development Committee.
So, I plan on re-applying to that.
And council member Niesel.
Anything, what good do you?
I would love to be on the youth education and family, which is a switch, but if anyone is not involved.
Okay, and councilmember Fritz, what do you think? If I can help the city by happy
this ceremony, where were you in your voice?
What you're interested in?
I'll just kind of write down the committees of the or serving on or the once that we applied and then
You can take a look and see where the gaps are and like I said it's your passion really you go to a committed sounds one way
It doesn't turn out to be like that and go another but by signing up and actually being a member of the communication and the impact of your participation as much.
I think is much more substantial.
And sometimes it's like you're on the committee and maybe it's just the people on the committee or maybe not.
Anyway, I'm just going to say that sometimes you get on a committee and you're like, wow, this is not really a committee that's very productive and, you know, so you got it.
Tentatively looking at the list of finance administration and recover mental relations.
Yeah, that's good.
Okay, so why we all just write in email just send that email to council will take a look at that and see what we've got covered.
Kind of go from there.
I think I think we kind of just went through it.
Yeah, I think everybody said what they were interested in.
So unless and less somebody thinks it's something else later that they want to apply to.
I think for a lot of the constituencies, you don't really have to live for them.
I don't think it's not a selective thing.
If you want to be out there, like let's just get out of that email list and then you hear from them.
That's pretty much it. Lots of replyals.
Yeah.
Okay. We have a question raise online and I don't know if you want to do public comment from in the room.
Although Mr Rowan says commented a couple times already.
Okay, who is online there?
It is Jay Davis.
Jay Davis are you there?
Yes, I am. Jay Davis Greenbell East.
First of all, some of these committees, you have to be appointed by the President of NLC.
And so what has been done in the past is that the Executive Director of MML takes the names and promotes them to NLC.
So I don't know if you've been doing that in the past because when you apply, it doesn't necessarily mean that you'll be accepted.
So if it pays to go through the MML, if they still do that, and I don't know if they do.
Also, I'm a little bit disappointed that no one is taking on EENR.
That's the environmental advocacy group.
We have always, at least when I was there, I was there all 30 years.
And maybe it was a bad meeting that Jenny went to, I don't know,
But they have always brought I've always found absolutely amazing ideas to bring back to the city to help with resiliency and sustainability.
A lot of the things that Greenville does are ideas I brought back from that particular group.
And for a city that says that it wants to be sustainable and resilient and green to not have anybody on that committee that advocacy committee to me is disappointing.
So I don't know how you can work that out. Maybe no one on council is interested in the environment. That's possible
But I don't want you
No, that that that's their strong interest in the environment. You all have interest in other things. Education
Communication transportation I understand that but there's gonna be somebody on council that will be at the strong advocate for the environment. And I'm hoping that someone will do that
Hearing the call I will
by the position to make sure we are represented on environment committee.
Thank you.
And in regards to your points about working through NML, I don't think it says my experience
has been that the nomination, putting in the application to NLC directly, is just
likely to land your position on the committee as working through NML.
So, you know, based on our discussion and our passion and what we apply for, perhaps we can send that information over to Theresa at the MML so that she knows what the apply for.
So, Mr. Orleans.
Yes, thank you.
Getting back to the question of the contractor.
So, called contractor.
I have known for many years that all of Council or nearly Council all of Council will ignore me and I may be preparing myself for the future that nearly all of Council or all of Council will continue to ignore me.
But that aside when this came up three months ago there was a question asked from this lecture and it was dismissed.
Council's free to dismiss what residents have to say, or this resident has to say, but I
question the need for any contractor.
Holy apart from the role that Mr. Moran played for all those years,
Rainbow Paisons do as to MMA and MLC and is informed or should be informed regularly,
both before the session and during the session, the status of legislation.
Green Ball has a delegation, the 22nd District, in anapolis.
We are going to be meeting with them in the near future.
They should inform the three delegates in the center, should inform the city of perspective
legislation.
I don't know what to hiccup and whether or not it was resolved with PGCA, PGCMA is, hopefully it
was resolved.
But, we are a member of PGCMA, they also should be informing the city.
Having received and with regard to the county, we have one immediate member of county
to our large. We should be informed by them the status of county legislation. I do not see the need
for the city to spend money for a contractor, a lobbyist, when in fact the council and city management
can be informed by all of the four mentioned. And council, when it wants to consider legislation,
as to whether or not to support it or oppose it, can have a work session with residents. And residents
can offer their own suggestions as to whether council should endorse something or resolve in opposition
to something. We don't need to be spending my- I'm free to- I'd probably would be the free
of spending a green belt, but we don't need to be spending money where we don't need it.
Tows what you do is roll and that's in meeting with the residents and listening to the residents
and the residents should fulfill this roll and telling council what they want council to do.
Well, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Orleans. Council is fulfilling their role and by excuse me sir, you're out
order. So I don't feel the need to say much more about this. It's a consensus of
counsel and staff that we need additional support in order to adequately follow
county legislation in particular. So this is what we have tried to do in the last
year and we'll continue to try and emphasis to protect the best interest of Greenbelts
residents. So that's what we're doing. That brings us to the next topic. What time is it now?
So we may need to try to sort of briefly touch on some of these standing rules ideas that we have but develop that more later.
I know we had some ideas that had come up in previous discussions, but yeah, clearly we're not going to get to everything on on this list.
And the executive session tonight, I really don't think that we are going to be able to do much with that.
Which is something I brought up in our meeting on Monday.
Other than talk a little bit about the time for a council member.
I'm just wondering because we do have an executive session.
If we could just see if there are any of these things that we can table and move into the executive session,
because it's already almost quarter to ten, so I think we could just go through this and decide
what we need to talk about tonight. It seems like many of these things are things that we
couldn't move, we could table for another time.
I agree. But I think the discussion of council rules,
I think we need to do that if we count some number of threats and for all of our benefit at the
beginning of our term. And if we don't do this tonight, we won't be in the position to
you will actually approve these rules on Monday.
I don't think that's not going to happen.
That's not going to happen.
We need to talk about them.
We need to approve them as soon as possible.
So in your opinion, I can't remember what you feel like we can table.
I just don't really feel like in the executive session.
There's a lot that we can cover.
I think that we can table community lays on real rules.
I think we can table the calendar maintenance for seizures.
We could maybe, I don't know, I assume Mr. Samara,
are you prepared to talk about the budget process?
That's to you.
I imagine.
Yes, I'm ready to talk on any one of these items.
The I did not put the list thinking that we would discuss them all.
Yeah, I just suggest.
I feel like we've covered, yeah, we've covered a lot of ground tonight, like the parliamentary
procedures training.
I'm going to think we have to talk about that tonight.
We could talk a little bit about the content of the retreat.
We need to, we need to think that through and perhaps the parliamentary procedure training
perhaps that could be part of the retreat.
Yeah.
I think or we could discuss it at some of their other point.
And I think a lot of the other topics there would actually be topics that would be informed
by our discussion.
Right.
I think standardizing communication protocols, that's a great topic for the retreat, you know,
as well as like the community calendar maintenance, stakeholder engagement, scheduling
and mean coordination.
I think that those are things that are great for the retreat, you know, because we're all
together and this is really sort of organizing how we're going to be functioning together as
the council for the next two years.
I wouldn't mind hearing just a quick update or overview on the budget process preparation
and what we know about that.
But first thing.
Well, I was just going to comment is that because I think we have tried in the past to have
in the summer or maybe early January a conversation about council priorities to inform the budget.
Yeah, does that need to be our other work session in December, or I think it should.
Any big changes, you know, for the you want to see, I will welcome here in that as soon as possible.
I'm going to provide the directive to senior staff in December what the budget targets will be.
In December, we expect to have the revenue projections and that determines whether our current spending level is on par with expected revenues.
and if we have room to add activities or do we need to come.
That's really what we're looking at December. So if council is interested in any funding of special activities or significant projects, I would like to know that sooner than later, so that we figure out how we're going to pay for it.
If we're adding additional officers, as you know, we can take on more officers, we need to find a way to fund those.
It's going to be, I don't want to sound negative for the 2027 budget cycle.
We know that the two years that I've been here, I haven't had the luxury of adding much
of anything to the budget.
It's all been reductions for two years.
So I'm hoping that this year's the 2026 reductions were enough that in 2027, any cuts, if
will be minimal, but I have to be prepared for what could be a worsening economic environment.
So if you have any any any any any special projects or any any thing you want to see different,
I want to know sooner the better and now if you're also open to raising taxes, I would like to know
that sooner than later too.
Now for many years Council has wanted to have a to make sure that
was like a pre-budget discussion, just get a sense of what you're thinking is before it goes
out to the department and it's so that we can and back up.
Let you know about what we've heard from the residents and what's most important to them.
So I would be very supportive of the idea of the limited time that we have the dates to
actually have that pre-budget discussion in early December.
So we're working on, we're trying to squeeze in a lot of things into December 10th and December 15th and December 17th.
It's going to be a good pack week.
Those are the days we've got to work with.
So I'll figure out what we can work out with Tom Reynolds and the legislative support consultants and whatever is available that will be our budget check in.
Okay.
So, so, and you just kind of gave us a thumbnail overview of the budget timing, right?
The industrial, the budget timeline, our initial projections go, or is going out to the team to
senior management team in December. One of the things I'm hoping to improve upon this year is
the special recognition that we receive from the GFOA, aligning the strategic goals and objectives,
So we want to build upon that work that we've done as a budget preparation and continue to get better out those things.
That also includes the performance measures.
We've got the MBOs, but we want to connect the performance measures to the strategic goals and objectives.
So we're doing that work.
I spoke with James in this morning about the budget tools that we'll be using.
We are making changes to the back end and how we're collecting data with Ron, Ron, Kevin Turner, our treasurer, there's some processes will be changing internally about how we'll manage the documents and the narratives to what we're making some changes on how the budget book is is being prepped.
the I attend it, the IC may conference in Tampa in October and I attended the GFOA budgeting
sessions and there were really good techniques and engagement opportunities that were presented
and I want to try some of those tools and techniques that were shared about getting constituents involved
in the process.
Fantastic.
I have a suggestion for standing rule suggestions because I think we need to go into our
close session to do that sooner rather than later.
So I think whatever date we have the retreat, that's a good time to talk about that.
So my suggestion is that we all have homework that we accept the homework of reading through.
I've already started actually writing out some suggested changes, but that we aside ourselves
homework of reading through the standing rules and writing out writing out suggestions for changes
and then maybe we can make sure we have those whatever date we end up with the retreat
that everybody shares those so we can be prepared for that discussion but not try to get into any
of that right now. I mean I'm good with that. I've already done part of that but then your homework
It's already done. It's a good reading. I want to go back and read through it again two or three times.
So at this time, I guess we aren't going to go into an executive session.
So Mayor Protem, well, actually, we've got some information. I have two information.
Yeah, I have two of the EV charges stations are power ups. I hope to open those up tomorrow.
there will be free for use by the public. I know, scandalous. There'll be free. Did you say free?
Free. Well, be free to the citizens, though. You know, the electricity will be covered by the citizens through their tax payer money.
But there will be open to the public in part because Council will have its first reading on the resolution to authorize me to implement charging fees at Monday to 17th meeting.
that's the first reading. Resolutions require two readings. So we couldn't, I couldn't implement
the new fees until Council has fully adopted that resolution. So we're looking at three weeks
of free charging. All right. It would be too much to have those stations up and running and not be
available. It's like a holiday gift, right? Yes. Very good. So that's the first announcement. The second
announcement is the American Legion law enforcement and civilian and public safety awards is Friday.
So I hope that's on your radar is that the American Legion is 30 to 5 to 7.30.
So at five, it's kind of like a social and then the actual dinner and programs started six is incorrect.
I'm always far more, but yes, it starts at five.
Okay, I'll probably get there about 5.30 or 6.
I love just asking it so much time there yesterday at the Legion.
That's right with the governor.
There you go.
We had a great activity yesterday.
The veterans, Sarah Monning, we could turn out whether it was a little rough, but that it was
excessively bent.
Great pictures.
There's a great video at the timeline of yesterday's activity, so I encourage you
to check that out if you haven't already done so.
Let's see, Mayor Protem.
Yeah, a couple of my information, I'm just all just
just saved or write up and to include as reports for Monday.
I was going to give some updates on some of the work
Korean ACEs has been doing on Save as you throw
and then also that meeting that I emailed about
that offering everybody to attend the meeting
with the resident who has some expertise in
voting systems and ranked choice voting.
so I will just write those up as reports, but I think just to note that tomorrow there is
we have the public safety town hall at 630 at Spring Hill Lake, that is also unfortunately
the same time as Greenbelt Rotary is going to listen to Kevin CarpetraJune at school talk about
invasive species invasive and how you can remove invasive. So I think we might need to do some
devise and conquer on that one. There is also, I believe, a form about the transportation
and improvement plan, which is at six, so I don't know that I'm going to be able to, I might
try to listen into the beginning of that, but I don't think I've added that to the city calendar,
but if, yeah, those are all three somewhat overlapping events tomorrow, so just, we might, yeah,
I will be at the rotary thing because I'm in charge of bringing the refreshments. But then I may come to
break up afterwards. What time is spring to wake? It's at 7 o'clock. Six thirty.
Yeah. So those were just the things that, and the, like, and that's at the
Brex Center. Yes.
Yeah.
Not selected in Saturdays a full day too. The morning starts with the door
Kennedy 3K 5K run. That's one of the things that council and door
Kennedy discusses one of their celebration events when we did our walk.
I'm gonna walk it, maybe run it.
Then we have the ribbon cutting for DMV, Iron Gym.
That's the sadder Saturday.
What a clock.
I have not put it in.
I don't know.
It's all.
I really come to rely on that.
Yes, you're so efficient like any things on the calendar. I really appreciate it.
So one pan is the ribbon cutting and I think I have the diabetes walk on there already.
So do you know what the diabetes walk? Is it a fundraiser? Are they looking for teams to raise money?
It is a fundraiser. They're raising money for their PTA.
But I believe some of the funds are also going to be going for diabetes awareness because November is diabetes awareness and prevention month.
Yes, thinking about doing a proclamation on it.
So are there teams or are there like individuals just making?
It's individuals. I believe it's $15 for adults and $10 for kids.
I think it's a good idea for you to
maybe run the 5K, then head on to D&B Iron, work out some more.
It is also America, recycled stay on November 15th.
Yeah. That's right.
Okay. Okay.
Oh yes, and the reparations.
It's also a few third.
Saturday also.
I hear it's going to be an interesting one.
Yes.
Okay.
Well, if there's no further information on them, let's go ahead and go into our executive session.
Okay.
So we need to call meeting towards a special meeting door.
I hear by call the special meeting of the Greenbelt City Council,
to where Madam Clerk can you call the roll please.
Council member Fritt.
Council member Nisa.
Council member McKinney. Yes. Yes. Council member Pompey. Yes.
Here. Mayor Protem Weaver. Here. In Mayor Jordan. Here. Okay. Thank you so much. So at this time,
if there are no further information items, can you please take us into the executive session?
Yes, I move that council go into closed session in accordance with section three dash 305 be I think it's just one right this is one and eight, but I think it's just one.
3-305B1 of the general provisions article of the annotated code of the public general laws of Maryland.
One to discuss the appointment, performance evaluation of appointees, employees or officials
over whom this public body has jurisdiction.
Any other personnel matter that affects one or more specific individuals.
The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the city manager's school setting.
In addition to Council, Director of Human Resources,
sources, Dwayne Martinez and City Manager Selmeron will be in the session.
Note that Council will not return to open session following this closed session.
Okay, is there a second?
Second.
This Pope is seconded.
Madam Clerk, can you call the rule, please?
Yep.
Council member Fritz.
Yes.
Council member Nisa?
Yes.
Council member McKenney?
Yes.
Council member Pompey?
Yes.
Council member Pope?
Yes.
Mayor Pro Tim Weaver. Yes, and Mayor Jordan. Yes, and the time is 9.56.
Let's go ahead and turn off the Zoom and the video cameras so that we can get started at 10 o'clock.