We are gonna bring this meeting back to order.
Alright, good evening folks.
Welcome to the Queen Anne County Commissioner's meeting.
This is a public meeting.
This is being aired on aired live on our local cable
television station, QA CTV seven.
These media broadcasts provide county citizens an
opportunity to watch
and participate in our scheduled public meetings.
In addition to our live audience this evening,
we are providing remote options for citizens to watch
and participate in county commissioner meetings.
Citizens may watch our meeting live on our website at
qac.org/live or on our public access television channel
provided by Breeze Line Cable Services.
Citizens may also participate
by joining the live Zoom meeting by going
to qac.org/public comment
and citizens may also email comments
to public comment@qac.org
and all comments received will be summarized
during the present public comment period.
On tonight's agenda, we acknowledge everyone's participation
and by attending you acknowledge
that this session is both recorded and aired pressing.
Public comment will be taken
and is limited to three minutes per person.
If you do care to speak, please sign up at the information
table in the lobby
and comments longer than three minutes can be submitted in
writing for the commissioner's review.
We will now stand and be led in the Pledge
of Allegiance by commission.
President Jim Moran,
I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America
and to the republic for which it stands,
one nation under God, indivisible
with Liberty Justice Strong
All commissioners.
That brings us to the approval
of our agenda for this evening.
So the agenda for today's meeting, June 30th, together
with the regular session minutes, the Rhodes Board minutes
and the closed session minutes from the June 9th meeting
have been circulated for review.
Any additions or corrections?
Nope. Motion to approve the agenda as submitted
and all three sets of meetings as submitted.
Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye.
Opposed for one?
Commissioner IL's on assignment. So. Alright.
Thank you. Commissioner Maria,
Have Commissioner McLaughlin on the, on the TV screen
and the rest of us are right up front.
Okay. Okay.
Commissioners, we just held a closed session under the
general provisions articles Section 3, 3 0 5 B one
for boards and commissions and personnel.
Section 3 3 0 5 B seven to consult with council
and section 3 3 0 5 B three for land acquisition.
So I do think we have some board appointments and one on
Motion.
I move to a appoint Douglas Jenkins
to fill the vacancy on the board of electrical examiners.
This term will expire on June 30th, 2030. One second.
We have a motion to second Any discussion? See none.
All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed?
So moved four zero
The housing authority.
We're gonna hold that. Yeah,
Hold that.
And you at 26 13.
And then I move to withdraw county ordinance 26 dash 13
and to develop a policy regulating all signs on county
property without permission.
Does that mean second?
Yeah, we have a motion to second on this item.
Any discussion? Seeing none.
All those in favor signify as aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye.
So moved.
Okay. Alright. Thank you commissioners.
That brings us to press and public comment.
So we appreciate all citizens taking time to express views
to the county commissioners Comments are limited
to three minutes per person comments longer than three
minutes can be submitted in writing
this commission in respects your desire
and right to convey your message freely.
When you come forward, please speak clearly at
the standing microphone.
State your name, your address, and your topic of interest.
And in keeping with the dignity of our office, we ask
that all views be expressed in a
respectful and civil manner.
First up is Eric. True?
Eric Truitt. Zero. Southville Cemetery Road. Millington.
So I have a farm in Queen Anns County here
and I'm trying to get a permit to put a shipping container.
I've been a month and a half trying to get this permit.
I have a irrigation machine that I'm trying to set up
and the electronics are gonna go in the ear in the
shipping container and I'm outta stu.
There's no accountability at the permit
office you call up there.
Nobody has no idea what they're doing.
I can't even have a refrigerator to get a drink there.
There's no house there. It's just a farm.
Wanna keep some tools in there.
Stuff that I use every day
and I'm not sure what my next step will be.
Any advice?
You took the right step coming here. Yeah,
Well I called you last week
but I never got a call back. Oh,
Okay.
Left you a voicemail.
Very good. Okay. Yep, you got it.
Front row, you got it right.
She'll be happy to talk to you. Okay,
Thank you.
Is it Michelle? Is it Beaver Aver? I'm sorry.
Hi, my name is Michelle Ver
and I am the Democratic candidate for Maryland
District 36 here.
And I am here today to introduce myself
and to let you know why I am running and why I'm here today.
So I'm running because I believe that the people
and the government have become too far removed from each
other and it's about time that the people we elect
for our government represent the people
that they're there to represent.
The reason I'm here today is
because we have a lot of legislation that's coming out
of Maryland that is one size fits all,
that really just doesn't work here in our district.
And I want to make sure that I am talking with county
commissioners as well as the local town mayors
and such to make sure that any legislation
that is being considered is appropriate here
in District 36.
And if it's not then I can go and fight to have it changed
or have our district removed from
the legislation altogether.
Thank you. Thank
You Marty McKenzie,
I am going to defer to the second round
of comments. Okay, thank
You.
Alright, thank you. That's all signed up.
Would anybody else like to speak? See none.
We'll close press on public comment. All.
All right commissioners, we can move into the
legislation portion of tonight's agenda.
So we have two public hearings.
The first one is a public hearing on county ordinance 26
dash five supplemental standards for gas stations
and this is a citizen sponsored text amendment.
So Mr. Thompson here we will offic officiate the hearing
and we have Stephanie Jones from
the planning office as well.
If there's any questions
You ready?
Ready At the regular meeting on
May 26th, 2026,
commissioner Moran introduced county ordinance 26 0 5
a bill entitled an act concerning supplemental standards
for gas stations to include fuel pumps,
underground fuel storage tanks and islands
and canopies in Queen Anne County for the purpose
of reducing the required distance between an entrance
exit to a gas station to any intersection from a hundred
to 75 feet, providing how such distances be measured
and generally addressing and dealing with gas stations
and exits by amending section 18 1 58 B
the code of public local laws of Queen S County.
This hearing is being held Tuesday,
June 30th, 2026 at 5:40 PM in the county Commissioner
reading Room, Liberty Building 1 0 7 North Liberty
Street, Centerville, Maryland.
The proposed amendment received an unfavorable
recommendation from the Planning Commission
at the May 14th, 2026 Meeting.
Copies of the proposed ordinance have been available
to the county commissioner's office
during normal business hours
and online in the county website speakers,
speakers will be limited
to the three minutes each written t on the event length
could be submitted on
before the hearing date to the county commission.
Hearing sites are accessible to individual with visibility,
sideline and interpreters
and assistance listing assistance are available.
Part of the record the proceeding will be a certificate
of publication indicating that notice
of the hearing was published for two consecutive weeks
in bay on record observer newspapers of general circulation
in Queen Edge County as well as the recommendation
of the Queen Edge County Planning Commission.
First person I have signed up is Joe Ano
we're gonna bring in, bring that around there.
Would the applicant Sit at
The front or would you rather that the applicant
Speaks?
You could speak right there and to three minutes.
So I'm Brendan Mullany, I'm applicant for the I call
Judge Ano.
I represent Mr. Cus Now,
Well you're also listed here.
Would you prefer that Mr. Cus goes first?
No, he, but if he wants to speak,
now's the time. Understood.
Okay, so I'm I'm Brendan Mullany.
I am counsel for three Cs LLC, which is the owner of a,
of a property at 1104 Price Station Road.
Like all citizen sponsored text amendment.
This text amendment is proposed
to solve a problem in the county.
This applicant
that brought forward this text amendment owns a 6.8 acre
property that is zoned VC and there is a, a local
and minor road intersection that is essentially a sand road
that intersects a, a minor collector
that is 81 feet curb to curb away from the entrance
to this property.
The property owner brought a conditional use application,
which in, in the VC district, the convenience store
with fuel pump use, which is proposed for this property,
is permitted by conditional use approval.
The applicant submitted the conditional use application
and was told that the 100 foot dimension from entrance
to intersection applied to the application.
So we quickly supplemented the conditional use application
with a variance to allow the reduction from 100
feet to 81 feet.
Staff has concluded
that supplemental standards in the zoning ordinance cannot
be subject to a variance application
and approval by the Board of Appeals.
So that decision was appealed.
It went to the Board of Appeals, I think last month
and the board of appeals found two to one that they agreed
with staff we're waiting on the written decision from that.
But in the meantime, because frankly we have no interest in
litigation related to
what we believe is an erroneous legal conclusion related
to whether or not the applicant here can seek a variance,
we applied for the citizen sponsored text amendment to allow
reduction and frankly to change what was the black
and white letter of what was submitted for was
to reduce the 100 feet to 75 feet.
I believe that your packages for tonight include a variety
of materials and memos that were submitted by
the applicant here and by my office.
One of those is I think 13 examples of convenience stores
with fuel pumps that have entrances less than 100
feet from intersections.
Another is a memo that we submitted
to the planning commission, responding to some of staff's
concerns about the proposed text amendment.
And this applicant has no intention
or desire to propose anything that
opens the flood floodgates to something
that isn't good for the county.
They, they have a property that is unique in
that it has an intersection 81 feet from its entrance
and there is no viable path based on staff's position
that we can't seek a variance to get a convenience store
and fuel pump on this property even going through the Board
of Appeals variance process.
So we went to the, let's
Finish got the three minutes now go ahead
And finish it.
I'll be as brief as I can.
We, we went to the planning commission and staff
and the planning commission's counsel told them you are not
to consider anything outside of the strict text
that was applied for when this goes to the commissioners,
the commissioners can do with it what they want.
So our intention tonight is to come to you all and say
and ask, we proposed in the materials that were submitted
to the Planning Commission, a number of different approaches
to accomplish what we would like to one of them.
And and the one that I'm the biggest proponent of is
not have this be a reduction countywide from 100 feet
to 75 feet because I think staff's concern is
any property in the county would then be available for
an entrance within, within a hundred feet,
no, no closer than 75 feet from local nearby intersections.
What we would ask the commissioners to consider is
applying this reduction only in the VC district.
And the reason why I think that would be prudent is
fuel pumps and convenience stores are only permitted in the
VC district with conditional use approval.
So an applicant, a property owner has to go in front
of the board of appeals for the county
and demonstrate that there are not any unique
and adverse impacts at the location
where the convenience store and fuel pumps are proposed.
So if the text were changed
to say in the VC district only in all other districts
where fuel pumps are permitted,
the 100 feet would still apply.
The, the dimension to intersections from the entrance
to properties can be no closer than 75 feet.
An applicant still has to go through the process
of conditional use approval with the Board of Appeals
where they consider any unique
and undue adverse impacts on local properties
or local roadways.
And one of the things that the, that the Board
of Appeals is tasked with considering is any undue threats
to the health and safety of citizens in the area.
So that was, that was one of the approaches.
The another was Mr.
You your Tom so
Understood.
We ask that you consider something reasonable
and, you know, discuss this amongst yourselves to try
to recognize the problem that we're trying to resolve
with this citizen LED T amendment. Thank you
Mr.
Co honor, did you want to honor
Joe Ano one of the owners of three Cs.
I, I bought the property with my dad, my brother.
We bought this four years ago.
We're trying to make something of it.
It's an existing commercial property, it's sitting vacant.
We have a lot of citizen support.
We submitted a bunch of letters from all the
neighbors, they all want this.
We're hung up on being too close to dirt road.
We're four years in, it's costing us a lot of money
and you know, all we gotta do is get past this code section
and we still have to fight the Board of Appeals
and get through a whole nother process just to get close
to getting approved to open a gas station.
So, you know, we're willing to work with anybody we can
to make this happen.
Thank you. Thank Jay Stead.
Good evening Commissioners.
Jay Alstead, queen and Conservation Association.
We oppose this ordinance
and ask that you accept your planning commission's guide.
Unfavorable recommendation on this really for a couple
of reasons, both safety and environmental in our view
and on the safety.
I know the applicant mentioned
that there are other gas pumps within the community
that are less than 75 feet and that is true,
but those are typically within the municipalities.
So Southville, Millington, Churchill, Centerville,
they all have pumps that are right near the roadway.
The difference is between what they want to do
and those, the pumps that are in those areas are one,
they're in a municipality, the speeds are much, much slower.
This section near 3 0 1 is totally different.
And so at the very least, I hope
what you'll consider doing is
asking guidance from the fire
marshal public works.
Just try and get a better handle on the safety dimension of
how this particular application
could affect all of the county.
I have to say, in some ways this feels like a little bit
of a backdoor way of spots zoning
because if the 100
foot limit is right now countywide, basically
what we're doing is we're trying
to accommodate a single landowner,
but it opens the door to every,
every other area around the county.
And so it's a little bit odd for those reasons.
I hope you'll reject it very.
Finally, the applicant mentioned the Board of Appeals.
I have to tell you, anything that comes
before the Board of Appeals under the standard
of Schultz v PRTs, they would have to show that somehow
or the, the anybody
that opposes this particular project would somehow have
to show that this is totally different than everything else.
Having testified before the board or
before the, the Appeals Board, on numerous occasions,
nearly every single application has passed.
And so I would not put a whole lot of faith that the,
that the Board of Appeals would somehow
be able to reject this.
So for those reasons I just ask
that you support the planning commission's guidance
and give this an unfavorable recommendation.
Thank you.
Oh zero close
Evening commissioners.
I have a couple farms towards Ingleside in that area
and like many people over there have always wanted something
to get, you know, closer than Churchill for fuel and or food
or just small, you know, necessities.
So it's always been a, a wish of many of ours in that area
to have something good on that corner.
It's a great little spot.
I mean I come through there all the time.
There's a railroad track, people are always
driving slow through there.
I mean 3 0 1 is what it is right there,
but there's nothing from Queenstown to Middletown
and this is the only good place for it.
And it's a, you know,
it's just a shame that it's sitting there. So thank you.
Thank you. That's everyone signed up.
Is there any other public comment on county ordinance
26 0 5? Yeah,
But I might have signed, I didn't sign it.
That's okay. Good evening.
This is kind of strange to me
'cause I'm usually up here asking for something for myself,
but I'm not, this time, I'm just here as a citizen.
I, I know the applicants.
I know the property I drive by him. Name, name, name, name.
Oh, Jim Dedo, Queenstown, sorry,
I'm not a hundred percent up to speed on all the, the issues
with the property, but I do know that we drive, you know,
3 0 1 a lot to Delaware up to Pennsylvania
and it's an awful long road from,
from Queenstown all the way to Middletown if you do need
to stop for gas or something like that.
And I, I think just from a, a perspective of a citizen,
it would be nice to be able to, to have someplace that,
you know, you could stop, get gas if
you have to pull over something like that.
'cause it's a, it's a long stretch of road.
So again, if there's something, I mean if the county sees it
as, as an opportunity to,
to revitalize an existing commercial property,
I think it would be well received by, you know,
citizens plus anybody that's driving through,
if they spend any money there at all,
it stays in the county versus going to Delaware,
which I think that's probably where it's going right now.
So from a tax perspective, I think that's probably a bonus.
Like I said, I I have no interest, I have no
interest in the property whatsoever.
I just, but I would support seeing it developed if,
if there's a way, if it's not this way,
maybe there's another way you guys can recommend
that it, that it goes through.
So thank you very much.
Thank you. Anybody else wanted pass testify?
All right, we'll keep the record open for two weeks.
Alright, Thank you.
All right, commissioners also on your legislative tab.
Item two, page two. This is public hearing county ordinance
26 0 6.
This is another citizen sponsor text amendment.
This is for maximum impervious surface ratio for commercial
and industrial uses in the suburban commercial district
that were operating prior to December 31st, 2025.
Mr. Thompson,
This is the public hearing being held on county ordinance
number 26 0 6 A bill
and Plato an act concerning an increase
to the max maximum impervious surface ratio for commercial
and industrial uses in the suburban commercial
SC district, which were an operation prior
to December 31st, 2025 in Queen Edge County,
Maryland for the purpose
of increasing the maximum impervious surface ratio
for commercial industrial use
uses in the suburban commercial zoning district,
which were in operation prior
to December 31st, 2025 from
0.45 45% to 0.80
80% by amending section 18 1 21 E
two A, one of the code of public local laws
of Queen AIDS county.
This hearing's being held Tuesday,
June 30th, 2026 at 5:45 PM
County Commission meeting room,
Liberty Building 1 0 7 North Liberty Street Centerville.
Opposed ordinance received an unfavorable recommendation
from the planning commission that the May 14th, 2026 meeting
copies of opposed ordinance
have been available at the county commissioner's office
during normal business hours.
And online on the county website speakers will be limited
to three minutes each written testimony of any, any length
could be submitted on
before the hearing date to the county Commissioners.
All hearing sites are accessible, individual
with disabilities, sign language interpreters
and assistive listening systems are available.
Part of the record of this proceeding will be a certificate
of publication indicating the notice of the air, the publish
for two successive weeks and the Bay Times
and record observer of newspapers are general circulation in
Queen Edge County as well as a recommendation
of the Queen Edge County Planning Commission.
Jay Fett
Ninth's Daily Double Commissioners, Jay Fett,
queen Ann Conservation Association.
Once again, this is one of those issues where
I hope you'll accept your planning
commission's recommendation.
But it also raises the question
of just stormwater generally in Queen Anne's County.
And right now we're making progress in
waters that reach the bay.
Agriculture is making progress.
The one area where we're sliding backwards
has to do with storm water.
And so I hope we can find ways to accommodate some
of these projects that are coming up while at the same time
addressing some of the storm water issues
in doing an AI review tonight.
I just wanna put this on the record
because it does give everybody a little bit of hope.
I think I ask AI
whether there was substantial construction costs
increase in going
with impervious surfaces over traditional parking lots.
And here's what it said, opting
for a pervious layout can ultimately make a project 12
to 38% cheaper overall
because it completely eliminates the need
for expensive underground
and storm water sewers, catch basins
and retention bonds and then going further.
Traditional parking lots must route water
to dedicated land consuming stormwater retention basins,
previous or pervious pavement is the basin
saving valuable land for parking spaces
or for building footprints.
And so I mentioned that just
because Atkins Arboretum has a a great parking lot
where it's pervious water drains through,
it does not sheet off into the local creek
and it is a good environmental aspect to have.
And so if you're looking towards approving these types
of projects, I hope we can find ways to
find better mitigation standards that go beyond our code
in preventing some of these toxic waters from reaching the
Bay and the tributaries.
With that, thank you. Thank you.
Be honor person signed up.
I did know I had signed twice. Could you forgive me?
I represent the applicant here as well. Sure.
Brendan Malaney, 100 Northwest Street East in Maryland here
on behalf of three parties.
Chesapeake Boat Lift service, Chesapeake Family
Flooring in the middle of Kingstown.
This again is a a text amendment that was brought forward
by three businesses that are operating in the county today
to address a very real problem
that businesses are facing in the SC zoning district.
Currently the lot coverage,
the total maximum impervious surface in the SC zoning
district is 45%.
That doesn't just include asphalt and buildings
and gravel, it also includes all parking areas,
whether they're on grass impervious pavers.
It also includes all lay down
and storage areas, even if they are on vegetated land cover.
And that comes out of the county code.
Unfortunately, staff has interpreted that to, to include all
of those areas even if they're vegetated the,
the proposal was aligned with a couple
of other zoning districts in the county
that allow 80% maximum coverage to give the most flexibility
to my clients, the property owners.
And one of them is a tenant in the county
who operate businesses and are looking to expand
and invest in the properties in order to do so.
Oftentimes that means enlarging buildings,
it means enlarging parking areas growing their business.
So this would be a vote if this should be modified
to support businesses in the county.
Recognizing that the planning commission was told only
consider the 80% we had submitted a modified proposal.
If it is more palatable to the county
to propose an increase from 45% to 65%,
that would be consistent with
what is permitted in the suburban industrial district.
This again is the suburban commercial district.
So you'd go from 45% to 65%
and would give much needed flexibility to
businesses like the ones I represent
and throughout the county that are in
the SC zoning district.
I also think it's important to note that only 202
of the 27,375 properties in the county
are zoned sc.
So this is not something that I believe is going
to open the floodgates countywide.
It is a moderate increase in proposed lot coverage.
The 80% that was proposed eliminated all
of the non-conforming situations on SC zoned properties
that my office could find.
There are only three properties that we could find
that are significantly over that 80%.
And again that that does not include my aerial
review, does not include the landscape lay down
or parking areas that businesses
use to support their business.
That was only gravel, asphalt, and structures.
If the 65% were to be found acceptable to the commissioners,
that would eliminate all
but 12 of the non-conforming situations that we found.
The total non-conforming situations that we found were 39
of the 202 SC zoned properties.
We believe that this is a reasonable increase.
It's consistent with other zoning districts
that are similar, similarly situated in the county
and solves a problem
that real businesses in the county are facing right now
that's preventing them from operating their companies.
So ask that you discuss this
and look at it favorably, modify it within reason
and move it forward. Thank you. Thank you.
Any other testimony on county ordinance 25 0 6? Yes ma'am.
Good evening commissioners.
My name's Annie Richards, I'm your Chester River keeper.
I look forward to speaking with you in just a few minutes,
but I just wanted to share Sho River's concerns with this
particular county ordinance.
As Mr. Fall said, mentioned in from QACA impervious surface
is a major contributor to stormwater
runoff to our waterways.
I participate in a lot of work groups for state legislation
and something that NGOs
and environmental partners talk a lot about is how
to help counties meet their MS four permit goals.
And so when we consider a major impervious surface increase
in zoning close to double in this situation, one
of the concerns that is flagged for me is
how will the county quantify what that increase will mean
for the increased water loads for in terms
of meeting your MS four goals.
Also, DNR has long supplied information
and research that shows that when a county
or when a sub watershed goes 5% impervious surface,
five to 10% in impervious surface, you start
to create conditions in the local streams
and sub watersheds that plummet dissolved oxygen levels
and impact fishery habitat.
So essentially you start
to massively eliminate the biodiversity of fish
that can exist in that waterway.
And so if a text ordinance like this were to proceed,
I would recommend having some sort of tally
and accounting process as
to what's happening in each sub watershed to see
how much we're increasing impervious surface in those areas.
And in particular, I would be thinking about tier two
streams which require,
which are currently in much better standing in terms
of water quality in the county.
And of course the state
of Maryland has heightened expectations
for protecting that increased.
So if you have any questions, happy
to supply greater information
from Shore Rivers and our staff.
Thank you for receiving our comment.
We have a testimony on county Ordinance 26 0 6.
Well thank you very much. We'll keep
the record open for two weeks.
Alright commissioners, we can move into the
presentations this evening.
So next up we have Annie Richards, Chester River Keeper,
shore Rivers, and she's gonna give us
the Shore Rivers update.
We have a presentation in your books tab number six,
item one, pages one through 17.
And it's up on the big screen here as well.
We should have just stayed up here.
Yeah, that's right Annie.
How you doing? Okay.
Hi. Hey, now once again, I'm Annie Richards.
I'm your Chester River keeper with Shore Rivers.
It's a pleasure to be here. I'm not often able
to give you all a presentation about our programs.
I'm proud to do so. Tonight I'm gonna be speaking
to you about our Swimmable Shore Rivers program.
So in case you're unfamiliar,
shore Rivers is a local water quality nonprofit.
Our mission is to protect
and restore Eastern shore waterways
through science-based education, restoration, advocacy,
and community engagement.
Those are the four pillars we think really work
for a rural area like the Eastern shore.
And it's not just river keepers though we have four.
I'm happy to work with more than 30 full-time staff members
across the sassafras Chester miles y Eastern Bay
and Chop Tank watersheds.
We have many different departments to uphold the four spokes
of our mission that I mentioned earlier.
We're trying to achieve a vision
of thriving rivers cherished
by all Eastern shore communities.
And you can't cherish our rivers without getting in them.
We've been busy since becoming a merged organization
of legacy grassroots organizations in 2018.
We've been able to accomplish a lot.
I'm not gonna go through all of those things,
but this is one of our annual reports
that summarizes the many achievements each
of our departments have made in terms
of stewarding students, restoring underwater bay grasses,
planting trees, and many, many more things.
But what I think really makes us stand out compared
to other organizations is our commitment to science.
So this graph here shows you
shore rivers testing sites
and those have been community supported as far back
as the 1980s when our grassroots organizations
or legacy organizations began.
Today we operate 67 tidal water quality stations across the
four watersheds we serve.
We have 54 bacteria monitoring sites.
Let's compare that to what the state does in
that same geographic region.
Maryland Department of the Environment operates seven tidal
water quality stations
and 19 healthy beaches sites, which again are comparable
to our bacteria programs.
This isn't to throw shade at our state of Maryland,
but it is to show what the power
of community investment does.
We have a lot of community support, a lot
of community requests for this data
'cause they want to know what's happening
in their local rivers.
And I would say the thing that gets the most public
engagement that we do is sharing the results
of our bacteria monitoring program
through Swimmable Shore Rivers.
As I mentioned, we have 54 bacteria sites.
We test those sites with a suite of volunteers.
We have more than 50 volunteers that go out
to public access locations.
Not all of them are swimming sites,
but we also know that when you're launching a kayak
with your children, the chances for recreation
and those shallow waters are very high.
So we wanna make sure that we have reliable bacteria data,
even if it's not a designated swimming beach.
And those volunteers go out between Memorial Day
and Labor Day every Thursday they collect a water sample,
bring it to our in-office labs.
We process those for fecal and enterococci.
So we're talking about waste.
So bacteria that comes from waste.
We're not talking about Vibrio
or any kind of flesh eating bacteria.
This is something that is in the gut
of every warm blooded species
that lives in our environment, including us.
And so that's what we're testing for using the IDEXX system.
We share those results with the public every week on Friday
so that they're ready to recreate for the weekend.
We also share with local agencies
and we follow the Maryland State Clean Water Standards in
terms of our thresholds for passing and failing.
And this is incredibly tiny for you guys to see.
Plus shameless advertising from my cute children.
So you can see all
of the different dots along our watersheds.
You'll see green dots, yellow dots, and red dots.
Red dots are testing locations that pass less than 60%
of the time that they're tested yellow between 60
and 79% of the time.
And green pass 80 to 100% of the time.
Happy to report that we have a Corsica River site
that passes 80 to 100% of the time.
That's a Corsica River Yacht Club.
And then Conquest Preserve also does very well.
It can toggle back and forth between yellow
and green year in year out.
I think that goes to show that we have a lot
of natural lands out on Spaniard's neck
and that contributes to healthy water quality.
I also wanna flag that we are in the final stages
of becoming tier three certified, which is the highest level
of certification A NGO lab can become in terms
of having our data recognized by the state of Maryland
by the EPA and having our data integrated
into the state integrated report for water quality.
So there are many different stations that we have
that we test that are actually public landings
and publicly operated by Queen Anne's County across two
of our watersheds miles y Eastern Bay.
We have Matte Beach Kent Narrows and Drum Point Y Island.
All of those were in the red you could see.
And then in the Chester we have some others,
Southeast Creek Crumpton Landing, Jackson Creek Landing.
So those are the publicly operated landings as I mentioned,
that are part of Queen Ance County that we test for.
And unfortunately most of them are in the red except
for Jackson Creek, which is yellow.
So while we wish all of our sites are green, they are not.
What environments do bacteria thrive
and grow in darkness, heat and nutrients.
We have turbid rivers here on the Eastern shore.
We have nutrient and sediment pollution problems that kind
of creates a perfect environment for bacteria to grow
and to thrive, even if it's a normal amount of bacteria.
And what I mean is bacteria introduced by wildlife, deer
creatures living in the marsh, that type of thing.
But we also have common sources
of bacterial runoff from agriculture,
from failing septic systems,
wastewater treatment plants elicit discharge from boats
and then storm water gen runoff generally across the land.
All of this can con contribute to situations
where folks really want to know what the bacteria
count is in their waterway before they use it.
And we have the web traffic to prove that.
So as I mentioned, this is something that we get a lot
of feedback from the public on.
This is a tally of the web traffic that we get
through the swim guide for each
of the Queen Anne's County sites.
You can see we have over 54,000 views
of people checking this website
to see if their favorite landing is ready
and appropriate to be recreating in.
We get a, we've also been surveying our members
and general community members about the utility
of the program and we've gotten a huge
response from the public.
88% of respondents said
that the bacteria results from Shore Rivers influence their
decision about where and when to swim.
And that's important to us because this program is not
telling people not to get into our river.
It's teaching people how and when and where.
We also use this data publicly, a program I'd love
to highlight is we actually share this data
with the Smithson Smithsonian Environmental Research Center
and they use that data to train satellites
to pick up different pigments in the water
and then attribute those pigments from satellites
to certain bacteria counts, certain per turbidity accounts,
and then certain algae content.
So it's training satellites from space
to detect our water quality.
And then as I mentioned, we also share our data
with the state of Maryland
and with the EPA
to influence integrated reports and other things.
And so today I'm here
before you to humbly ask for your support for this program.
So we are approaching our counties this year
to help support this program as it is a public resource
and a tool for all county citizens.
We are asking for the funds that it would cost
to cover the sites that are operated by,
or that are yeah, operated and owned by Queen Anne County.
That's seven public sites.
Our price to operate
and serve these sites is $50 per site per week.
We run this program for 16 weeks, which is a total of $5,600
for the entire season for all of these sites.
And that covers testing, supplies, staff time
and lab equipment depreciation.
And with that I would welcome
any questions that you might have.
Can you go back to the last slide?
Absolutely. Is there any way
to get more testing sites from Matte Beach South?
The reason I say that is because you know we have gone
through our Southern Ken Island sewer
and I wanna see, has it cleaned it up?
How much it's, it's cleaned it up
or if it's trending towards cleaning it up?
Absolutely. I can speak for Ben Ford,
our miles wide Eastern Bay Riverkeeper
to say he would absolutely love some more sites in
his watershed.
And so if that's something
that Queen Ance County was interested in exploring adding
to the docket, then we
could absolutely talk about that. What
Do you need to get the site selections?
So typically the way
that Shore Rivers chooses sites is it's gotta be a publicly
accessible location in some way.
Like for example, Corsica River Yacht Club is not a public
access point, but it serves the public
because it offers summer camps
and swimming activities and things like that.
So you have to have a willing site public access.
We have to have a volunteer,
which we're very proud at Shore Rivers
that we do not have a lack of volunteers.
It's quite easy for us to identify Swimmable,
shore Rivers volunteer and then we need the funding
and that's how we bring that new site online.
We do camp. Right.
And Roman Co here right would be two,
what's the, the beach down there? Yeah,
We go to, we could reach out to the Beach
and Recreation Association Can Island,
the States Beach and Recreation
Association. Those they've got what
Beach?
We could probably get at least three or four long there.
Yeah. And then all way on the other side we donate 6,000
be enough to get a couple more spots.
You can't do math that quickly,
but if it's $50 per site per week for those extra sites,
then yes, we could do that. It's
$800 a site.
Yeah, $800 per year per site. Yeah.
You need to go To Annie. Are you? I couldn't tell
Right From the on the screen are you testing
by the white mouth of the Y River?
The commissioners just invested quite a bit
of money in an oyster restoration project there.
It'd be interesting to see the water quality.
88.
I'm doing the math right.
So we want to do, Did you hear me
Say what you said again about the oyster restoration?
Real quick.
I was just saying Annie are, are you testing
by the mouth of the Y River?
The commissioners invested quite a bit into oyster
restoration there last year and then this year.
And it'd be nice to know what the water quality is
by the oyster reefs.
I see. Thank you for repeating that question.
So the closest testing site we have
to the restoration site you've mentioned is drum point on Y
Island, which is pretty close.
It's not right over it but it's certainly it should.
The neighborhood education where it's at. Yeah, I
Agree.
I can speak because I've done it, my wife
and I many a times drum point
and just south of where everybody ties up the minute they
leave, first thing they do is pump out.
Hmm. And we've taken samples plenty of times doing that
but Well then I'll make a motion for $8,000
that'll cover the US for three more sites.
Three more sites
I would come back to.
Well can I come back and accept?
I would absolutely love to accept,
but I'd love to just confirm with my colleague Ben Ford
and that it's incredibly generous of you
and we love to add sites so
that communities have more information.
So that's wonderful. I'll
Make a second on the 8,000.
So we'll just go ahead and Right do that
and then come back if you need more.
Okay. Make It easier. All
Go. Great. Thank you.
You still up there? Yeah.
Okay, so we have a motion and a second for $8,000.
All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye.
Aye. Aye. Aye. Four zero. So
Annie, can you Pull out his checkbook?
Can you let us know if there are other areas that oyster
reefs, restoration barges, so to speak would be helpful?
Absolutely. You don't, You don't have to tell us now,
just, you know, let us know.
Sure. I can come back with a whole oyster
presentation in another time.
Okay. Thank you. You thank your oyster
Barge handy Dan.
Yes, I know I gotta, I gotta keep 'em in organized boxes.
But thank you all so much for generosity.
Thank this is a wonderful program. Appreciate it. Thank you.
Alright commissioners.
Moving on to our second presentation for this evening.
This is also tab six, item two, pages 18 through 34.
We have Janet Nelson,
commission on Aging member subcommittee chair,
Ms. Janet Salazar, commission on Aging.
Member Queen and county library Director. Ms.
Annie Sparks our Department of Aging
and Transportation director.
The presentation is entitled Longevity
Ready Queen Anns County. So Annie, hello.
Thank you for having us. Alright,
Thank You'all. Good to see you.
Are we ready? So a few people I do wanna introduce
before we get started.
So to my right we have Ms. Janet Nelson,
she is a commission on aging member
and chairperson for the subcommittee
of the Commission on Aging
for the Longevity Ready Queen and County.
She's joining me up here today. Thank you for for that.
And Janet Salazar, queen County director
as you know, sends her regrets.
She was under the weather today
so she won't be able to join us.
And then we have Bonnie Walter here with us.
She is attending
as the Queen Anne County Commission on Aging Long
serving chairperson.
So thank you for being here and all that you do.
And Becky Barbie is another member
of the subcommittee group we've had
and another member of the Commission on Aging.
And then if other members
of the Commission on Aging can raise your
hand, thank you for coming.
And then we have some staff here as well.
Aging administrators, they're like, no, no, we're done.
So thank you and I will turn it over
to Janet to get us started.
Well our program started when the state
of Maryland did a presentation
on their Longevity Ready Maryland program.
And it was to recognize Maryland's growing over 50
population and what the state could do.
Well we started thinking why should we wait for the state?
Let's look at Queen Anne County.
Well as a result,
queen Anne County's commission on Aging believes
let's bring the awareness to our county.
Okay? Because of the increase in our population,
our slides are going to show statistically
how it's really increasing for those over 50.
So to accomplish this mission, we would like to
and or have planned presentations to bring awareness
to our increasing aging population.
Everybody's aging right?
And we would like to give it
to county government departments, civic organizations
and businesses about the aging population in this county
and what their needs are.
And now shall we go on with our slides? Okay,
Sure thing.
So again, who we are for people watching at home too,
the Department of Aging
and Transportation, which houses the community care
division, senior Centers division,
and the Transportation County ride division
and of course the Commission on Aging,
which put the subcommittee together for this presentation.
They do a lot of large events for the aging population
and coming up in September they will be hosting a
resources spotlight event.
So be on the lookout for that.
And then in 2027 there will be the
usual senior center tour for the commissioners
as well as the town hall.
So a couple of big events that they have coming up.
And so how all this got started,
governor Moore signed the Longevity Ready Maryland Executive
order through the leadership of Secretary Rooke
for Maryland Department of Aging
for moving aging services from a category reserve
for a specific group of people at a specific time of life
to a unified whole of government process
that better prepares Maryland
for longer lives across the lifespan.
So this QR code for people watching at home too,
if anyone wants to check out the full Longevity Ready
Maryland plan, they can click that QR code
and have access to that
and a lot of great resources through the data dashboard.
So with the Longevity Ready Maryland plan,
it is a 10 year multi-sector plan,
which put together four epic goals of building longevity,
ecosystem, promoting economic opportunity,
pre preparing Marylanders to afford longevity
and optimizing health and wellness.
Some stats for the state of Maryland
are included in the slide.
By the year 2031 in every four Marylanders will be over the
age of 60 by 20 35, 1 in three American households
will be headed by someone 65 or older.
Maryland's 85 and overpopulation is the fastest
growing segments.
And then we have some Queen Anne County
numbers here as well.
So looking back in 1980,
the 50 in overpopulation was at 29%,
then going up to 2000, the year 2000 was 31.
And then in 2020 was 43.6
with a continued growing population for Maryland,
for Marylanders for the 60 plus in 2020 it was 22%
and then estimated by the time of 2030 it will be 26%.
44% of Marylanders jobs are supported
by Marylanders over age 50 by 2030,
Marylanders age 50 and over will support 1.7 million jobs
and occupy 36% of the workforce by 2050.
The 50 and over population will account for 60%
of all money spent in Maryland.
And yes, there will be a pop quiz at the end
For the Alice threshold.
The asset limited income constrained employed group
looks at a group that falls above the federal poverty level,
but they don't make enough to afford the cost of living.
So this is a, a big group that is underserved
and really all groups are.
So we are going to be sharing this in our presentation
with the businesses that we go
and see, as well as sharing some information on ageism
because that is an important part of it
with stereotypes
and prejudice being included in people's
abilities to live longer, work longer.
And you know, important of thinking
that if someone is capable of doing something
based on abilities and not on age, and it goes both ways.
So assuming younger people are incompetent
or unreliable is a stereotype as well.
So what we're going to be doing in the community,
you all are our first presentation, so we're
metaphorically cutting the ribbon with you all.
Thank you for doing that with us.
So we're gonna be talking with businesses on
how they can prepare for people living longer.
A big part of the Maryland Department
of Aging multi-sector plan is
bringing businesses together to talk about it.
I think Commissioner Wilson said it well in one
of the budget presentations with the public where he said,
we are an aging county
and you mentioned the emergency services getting another
ambulance because of that aging population.
And that's really what this multi-sector plan is about.
It's talking about the aging population.
So every department and every business is ready for it.
So we will be brainstorming with the businesses on
what they can do to be longevity, ready
and be ready for every age and every stage.
And with that we have a video I will ask
for qac TV's help with
I am aging, we are aging, we're aging,
we're aging, we're aging, we are
Aging, we're all aging through every stage of life.
The Queen Anne County Area Agency on Aging invites you
to explore all of the fun activities
and supportive programs they offer to older adults,
individuals with disabilities and caregivers from crafting
and lunches to events and dancing.
This department encourages residents
to learn about services offered, preparing
for longevity at every age and every stage.
For more information, please visit the Department of Aging
and Transportation's website.
Thank you for watching QAC tv.
Thank you Bruce.
And so with that we will conclude our presentation
because we are all aging
and we wanna be prepared for every age and every stage.
We look forward to going out into the community
to offer this presentation,
which will be a lot more interactive and and things.
So if you know of businesses
or things that may be interested, please let us know.
And we would like to do a group photo
with y'all since this is our inaugural presentation,
if you're willing to do that with us And everyone here
that came for this presentation,
if you can get in it as well.
Alright, Thank you.
Have to jump. I'm
Thank you.
It's
white.
Need that yet? Yeah, keep it handy.
Everybody get one of these masks. I
Dunno. Centerville
Gotta be.
Yeah, yeah. Gotta be.
All right. Commissioners, you ready to proceed on
with our Absolutely business?
Okay, next up we have the Department of Public Works,
they've got several action items.
So if you wanna turn to tab number two for DPW.
So we have Lee Edgar, our chief engineer,
and Alan Quimby, our director of public works.
So tab two, item one on pages one
through three is the Department
of Emergency Services Station 400, which is out at near DPW,
the old helicopter hangar.
This is a renovations contract award for DES station 400
to remove and replace existing exterior metal wall panels,
install metal over metal retrofit roof system,
interior wall panel systems and exhaust fans
and other components and additional all site work.
So the bids came in, there were four bids,
the lowest responsible bidder was 338,100
$108 with Bayside Roofing
and Exteriors of Rockville, Maryland.
None of them from our county.
I'm sorry, commissioner couldn't
quite understand that. None of them
From our county Are they from Mayor County.
We had bidders from Rockville, Harrington, Delaware,
Salisbury and Gaithersburg were the four bidders.
Were you in a motion I move
to award the DES station 400 renovations contract
to Bayside Roofing and Exteriors LLC of Rockville, Maryland
and the amount of $338,108.
And authorize the director of public works
to issue the notice of award
and execute the contract on behalf
of the county commissioners.
Second, do you have a motion to second any discussion?
Seeing none. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye.
Aye. Aye. Gonna have it completed. Do you know?
I think they're allowed 90 days,
That's correct.
And we're ready to hit the ground running.
Good. Thank you commissioners.
Alright commissioners, the next items are for the
sanitary commission, so
Convenience, sanitary.
Second. All those in favor?
Aye. Aye. Alright, thank you Commissioners.
Item two on pages three through six.
This is a consent to assign a Maryland Department
of Transportation easement to license agreement
from the town of Sellersville to the county.
The town had to secure a license agreement from MDOT in
order to place one of their water mains
and Main Street under their railroad right away there.
And as we all know, the county is now the owner
of the water main and the utility systems in Sellersville.
So this is a transfer document from the town of Sellersville
to county.
I move to execute the consent
to assign a license agreement
with the Maryland Transit Authority in order
to transfer the license, allowing a water main
with Main Street to cross under the existing railroad right
of way from the town of Sellersville to the county.
Second, we got a motion to second.
Any discussion on this item? Seen none.
All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed?
And moved.
Okay, thank you commissioners.
Item three on pages seven through nine.
This is the A memorandum from Director Quimbee
for the Barclays Sewer Subdistrict rate hearing.
As I mentioned, the county owns
and operates the public wastewater collection system serving
the town of Barclay through the Barclay sewer Subdistrict.
Following an exhaustive review
of the system's first full year of operation,
we've completed a financial review
and determined its current user rates are unfortunately
insufficient to cover the actual cost
of the operating maintaining of that system.
And the staff is recommending
that the Sanctuary Commission authorize the public hearing
to consider revisions to the Barclay sewer rate schedule.
We propose to have that on July the 28th
and I think we would wanna hold that up in the northern part
of the county if we can find an an appropriate venue.
The idea here is we would be ready to have this,
the new rate schedule be effective
for the October billing cycle
and there are a number of components to that rate schedule.
Would you like me to read through those real quickly?
The motion? Well, yes in the motion as well.
Yeah. Yeah, I'll do the motion.
Okay. Alright, commissioner, I move
to hold a public hearing on July 28th, 2026
to adopt a Barclay sewer service area rate schedule
and consider the following rate adjustments.
Institute a customer charge of $6 per quarter per account
institute a ready to serve exemption program
to assist homeowners with limited incomes currently defined
as a gross income of 38,484
or less to modify the ready
to serve charge billing from a per account basis
to a per EDU basis to increase the current operations
and maintenance charges by 25% per EDU
to institute an annual rate escalator to be applied
to the operations and maintenance charge
and the pump maintenance charge.
Effective July 1st, 2027 in each subsequent,
subsequent July 1st thereafter.
Second, we have a motion and a second.
Any discussion on this item? Seeing none.
All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed?
Four zero
Thank you commissioners.
Item four on pages 10, 11, and 12.
This is for the sellersville water
and sewer subdistrict rates.
Again, the county owns and operates the public water
and sewer system serving the town of Sellersville
through Sellersville water and sewer subdistrict.
Again, a comprehensive financial review found
that existing rates no longer generate sufficient revenue
to cover the actual cost of operating, maintaining,
and servicing debt associated with these systems.
And again, staff recommends San Commission authorized public
hearing to consider revisions to the sellersville water
and sewer rate schedule.
And the, these proposed changes do include a phased three
year adjustment to those water and sewer rates.
And again, we would like to hold
that on July the 28th in order to be prepared for
implementation by the October billing cycle.
Okay, I moved to hold a public hearing on July 28th, 2026
to adopt a southville water
and sewer service area rate schedule
and consider the following rate adjustments.
Number one, to institute a customer charge
of $12 per quarter per account.
Number two, to institute a minimum quarterly flow
of 4,550 gallons per quarter
to all improved properties.
Number three, to institute a ready
to serve exemption program to assist homeowners with limited
incomes currently defined as a gross income
of $38,484 or less.
Number four, to increase the current water
and sewer ready to serve, charge and usage.
Charge by 30 oops, 35% for both water
and sewer to the, to be effective October 1st, 2026
To increase the rates established on October 1st, 2026
by 15% for sewer
and 5% for water
to be effective July 1st, 2027.
And to increase the rates established July 1st, 2027 by 15%
for sewer and 5% for water effective July 1st, 2028.
Number five, to institute an annual rate escalator
to be applied to the water and sewer ready to serve
and usage charge of 5% to be applied July 1st, 2029.
And each subsequent, subsequent July 1st thereafter.
And number six, to institute an annual allocation for,
excuse me, to institute an annual allocation fee escalator
for new development to be applied to the water
and sewer allocation charges of 2.5%
to be applied July 1st, 2027 in each subsequent
July one thereafter.
So second, we have a motion and a second discussion.
Alan, I thought Yeah,
I was gonna say we should probably explain a lot of this.
Yes. And I'll start off and then Alan,
you can fill in all the blanks with your expertise,
but, so for those not aware,
the Sellersville plant was upgraded in 2000 6, 7, 8
timeframe with the anticipation
that two large communities were gonna come online
and support the project.
Yep. Fortunately, with the housing bust, neither one
of those communities became established and
therefore the plant moved forward.
It's created a lot of debt on the back end with USDA
and other sources of in of money to upgrade to plant.
And it's been pretty much in that situation
for the last 15 years under the town's,
the town commissioners are the ones that have run it up
until, I guess last year, two years ago now, I guess,
in toll, MES Well, MES ran it,
but the town commissioners had control
of the purse strings and everything else.
Two years ago the county stepped in
because it was basically going bankrupt
and services weren't gonna be able to be provided.
So it's been a painstaking thing for the commissioners
to have to step in first and even go down this road.
But unfortunately with sewer
and water, it is enterprise zones,
which means it's user funded.
I, we met with the commissioners who went
and met with their townspeople, came back with this is a,
a really good compromise based on the severity of
where the plant lies today.
So hopefully the hearing will, will be able
to share more information out to the public in that area.
But I think this,
in three years we will actually get
the plant in a good shape.
In good shape financially,
and the users will, it'll kind of settle out.
The good news is too, they have two housing projects
that are due to come online in Su Louisville over the
next two to five years.
Just say that will put an additional 300 plus homes there,
which will greatly reduce a lot of this
long-term effect of the sewer plant.
So there is a silver lining to where we're going with this.
And it is painful to have to do this,
honestly, as far as I'm concerned.
But it, unfortunately it is necessary at this point.
So, anything else you got, Alan,
One of the things you asked us to look at is the impact
of growth and it would make a huge difference if
and when it comes, right?
That's the, that's the issue.
And also these rates, as drastic as they may seem,
that only get, brings us to a breakeven.
There's no reserves being built up.
There's no capital program being set aside
for this is simply to keep the, the operation moving
and having the customers pay the cost of the operation.
There's, it's just, we're looking for breakeven.
One other thing, if in order for us to be able
to implement the Ready to Serve exemption program
by October, which would help out the low income people, I,
I really have to start that process now
to get the applications in.
Because what I have to do is send 'em to the comptroller
to verify their income,
which takes a long time, four to six weeks.
So if you decide not to go that route,
which I can't imagine you would,
but we just throw the applications away.
But I really need to start canvassing the public now
to get those applications in.
Something you need from us to start your canvas?
Nope. Just say Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.
Okay. Very good. Alright, any,
any additional on this item or you got anything else
Now?
No, I really need to know by Monday the location and time
For the, For the advertisements.
Middle school? Well, we'll, we'll have to wait.
We do the budget, get a location.
We were thinking six 30 or seven. Yeah.
Seven. Yeah. Seven. Seven.
Seven o'clock at the middle school,
right where we do the budget here.
Maybe we can try for the middle school. What about
since it's summer weather or not?
It's open to, yeah. Oh, gotcha, gotcha. Maybe
The Firehouse Middle School.
We can, we can check those couple
venues, but those would be the two
Firehouse has rooms.
Firehouse. Yeah, the firehouse. Okay. Yeah.
So he needs that by the firehouse,
right? As long as they're, yep.
Yeah, we'll check with them. Okay.
That's about it for me. Very good. Thank you.
Moving on. Yep. Alright. Thank you gentlemen.
Alright, Moving on. Commissioners. Tab three. We have
Vote.
We did. Yeah, we voted. We did. Did we not vote?
Not on the second when we haven't voted yet.
Did you get the vote on that or did not vote?
No, we did not vote. Oh, I'm sorry. Excuse me.
Okay, well we have a motion in a second.
All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed?
There you go. Alright. Todd gets so excited.
We talked about sewer, he just, that's he just, he just kind
brings him back to the days.
Alright, commissioners, moving into
the action items this evening.
Tab number three, item one.
On pages one through five we have the Mako
annual accomplishments list
and the FFY 2027 dues and assessments.
They've submitted their membership dues invoice
and once again dues remain frozen.
This is 17 consecutive years
where they have not increased their dues
for county governments and one penny.
It's been a great year this past year,
as I'm sure our past president, Mr. Jack Wilson, here,
commissioner Jack Wilson can attest to.
So this would be recommended for approval.
I move to pay the invoice to Maryland Association
of Counties for the FY 27 dues
and assessments in the amount of $15,113.
Second, you got motion? Motion to second. Any discussion?
Chiefess lobbyists. Annapolis, right there.
Yep, that's true. That's very true.
All those in favor signify saying aye. Aye. Opposed?
So moved.
Alright, thank you commissioners. Item two on page six.
This is from Marque Ians County Health Officer.
This is requesting approval for the FY 2027
contract along with the option to extend
for additional five years
for non-emergency ambulance transportation medical
assistance services.
The amount of this particular service contract caps out at
$96,000
and this is state funded dollars
that the county health Department operates the program for.
I move to approve the Queen s County Department of Health.
Enter into the FY 27 contract along with the option
to extend up to five additional fiscal year terms
for non-emergency ambulance, transportation,
medical assistance, transportation services
with AM van LLC transacting as AAA transport.
This service contract is not to exceed the amount
of $96,000.
Second we have a motion. Second. Any discussion?
Seeing none, all those in favors. Second favor say aye. Aye.
Aye. Here you go
It.
Thank you Commissioners. And item three is a similar item.
This is also from our health officer
and this is requesting approval
for their FY 27 contract along with the option
for an additional five years for the ambulatory
and non-ambulatory wheelchair medical assistance
transportation services.
And the amount of that service contract is not
to exceed $800,000.
And again, it's with AAA transport.
And that I will mention too that this,
both these contracts were competitively bid on e Maryland
marketplace and we only had one bidder for these contracts.
The only service provider really in the region.
So just wanted to make sure you were aware of that.
And again, this is a, a state funded,
I move to approve that the Queen Annes County Department
of Health enter into the FY 27 contract with the option
to extend up to five additional fiscal year terms
for ambulatory and non-ambulatory medical assistance
transportation services with AM V-A-L-L-C transacting
as AAA transport.
This service contract is not to exceed the amount
of $800,000.
Second. And these are fee for services.
So it's just a, basically a knock to exceed. Yeah. Yep.
And we have a motion in a second. Any discussion? See you.
None. All those in favor signify Aye. Of us saying aye. Aye.
Aye. Aye. Opposed? So moved.
Thank you commissioners. Item four on page eight is a
letter of support addressed
to Governor Moore endorsing the town
of Centerville's wastewater treatment plan expansion project
and the town's request for state funding
and assistance to advance this critical infrastructure
investment for the town of Centerville.
And they also sent letters, similar letters,
requesting support from our delegation members as
Well.
I move to execute the town
of Centerville wastewater treatment plant
expansion project support letter
to the governor of Maryland.
Second, we have a motion and a second.
Any further discussion? Seeing you? None.
All those in favor signify by saying Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed?
So moved.
Alright, thank you commissioners.
Item five is a letter in support
of Chesapeake College's grant application
to the rural Maryland Prosperity Investment Fund
for the development of the Queen Edge technical building.
This will be a letter that we'll be getting later
for signature by all
of the Chesapeake College counties via DocuSign.
Just need your approval to have Commissioner Moran sign
that when it comes in and the application is
for $112,875,
which will help offset design expenses incurred by the
five counties for the Queen and Tech center.
I move to agree to execute the letter of support
for Chesapeake College's application
to the rural Maryland Prosperity Investment Fund
for the development of the Queen End's technical building
via DocuSign when the document is ready for signature.
Second, we have a motion
to second any discussion on this item.
And I also believe I read that they're gonna also
next year will apply for construction.
Yes. Grant as well. So yeah, the, yeah,
all those in favor signify to say aye.
Aye. Aye. Opposed? So moved.
All right. Commissioners. Item number six.
Do we wanna do seven first?
Yeah, we can. Sure. That's a good idea Commissioner. Yeah.
Item number seven, this is engineering services
for Kent Narrows, Thompson Creek Landing Bulkhead
and Matta Peak boat ramp replacement.
So our department parks
and recreation held a bid open bids on June 22nd
for engineering services.
For the three projects I mentioned, four bids were received
and they're recommending award of the lowest
to the lowest bidder jewels, miles,
and Bureau from Salisbury $97,810.
And we do have some grant dollars from the Waterway
Improvement Fund to help out with those three projects.
You owe Jack Big time. What's that?
You owe Jack Big time do for moving you up the list.
I do appreciate it. A little earlier.
It would've been great, but this is good.
What took you so long?
So you want the motion first? Go ahead Chris.
I moved to authorize the Department of Parks
and Recreations to contract
with engineering services George Miles
and Burr, LLC from Salisbury, Maryland
for the Kent Narrows landing Thompson Creek Landing
and Manatee Boat ramp projects for a total amount
of $97,810.
Utilizing the MD DNR Waterway Improvement Fund grants.
Second. We got a motion in second discussion.
We're all good, right? We're all good.
So actually yeah, let's do the motion
'cause I actually have a question for James
after this in relation to the RIVERKEEPERS presentation.
Oh, different Yeah, different just outta So these,
this is just the engineering to to design
new ramps? Correct.
Oh wow. And bulkhead two
Bulkhead repairs one ramp
and it's just repairing
and replacing them. It's not a new site.
Okay, Great. For Saint Grant funded. Alright,
Well we have a motion.
We have a second. All those in favor signify to saying aye.
Aye. Aye. Opposed? So moved for that.
And you want to, yeah, so, so,
and the river keepers, they, she was showing
where they took a lot of their
metrics were at boat landings.
I just, how, I don't know how that's a good place
to be taken at water quality metric when you have boats in
and out there with fuel and a lot of things going on there.
I, I don't know, I was just questioning
'cause you looked at some of the other ones that weren't
related to boat landings.
They were in much better shape.
Do do you see that
where the water quality right there at the boat landing,
if you go out 50 feet,
it's probably much better 50 feet out than it
is actually at the boat landing.
I mean to my, in my common sense mine, I would think
so, but I don't know.
I wasn't part of that presentation, so I'm, I'm not,
I'm catching up a little bit here.
Okay. I'm glad they're study.
You know, people are getting out on the water, which is
what we're want and yeah, the boat ramps are a place
where, you know, it's the interface with land and water
and a lot of times the runoff is coming off there so.
Right. Yeah. Okay.
I know they help us out
with the swimming beaches at matte.
I think they're studying that one.
So does MDE and
that's really our only public swimming beach.
But, and that was the other question
and we didn't really haven't that much time with them,
but that was what I was gonna say is most of
that they're testing aren't swimmable anyway.
People aren't supposed to be swimming
or should we be telling them go swim in there
because the conditions are right.
'cause there none of 'em are certified swimming
places in Queen Annes County.
Right. As far as I know, it's only matter
Matte beaches.
That's the only one I'm saying matte is our only beach
that's certified for swimming county Beach County.
Yeah, there's some rules. I'm not the expert on that.
It's other folks are handling that,
but they're swim anywhere as far as swimming beaches,
you need a shower, a bathroom close by and things like that.
Yeah, that's my question. I was just wondering why they
would be testing there if they're not really swimming
areas or swimming. So,
Well, I think it was part of it where she alluded
to the fact that, you know, if it's a kayak launch
or a canoe launch, you're still stepping into that water
so you're still being exposed.
I gotcha. They're trying to bring information that way. But
Yeah, I think you can make the argument people are tubing
and getting, you know, the, our boaters are interfacing
with the water, so Yeah,
I'm just saying at the landing though.
Yeah, right. It just seems to me it should be
somewhere away from the landing.
And I think there's a, a certain standard of
how far out into the water they're supposed to go.
And again, that's, that goes
with consistency and consistency
Of the test taker too.
They also, they're, they have to get
locations where there's public access.
That's probably why sometimes it's at the landings
is the only place they get the access.
But if we get a couple more of these locations for them,
we'll get a better feel for how it is
as you're sort of going down the
Line.
Right. Which are non landing locations.
That's what I'm thinking is
Might be better. Hopefully.
Yeah. Yeah. You would hope you're gonna see
more yellow or green at least.
Yep. So
We are trying to look into ways to intercept
material before it gets into the water as
that interface point. So
At the landing itself. Yeah. Gotcha.
I, I have some preliminary work
behind the scenes we're working on, on that.
Excellent. Very good. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you for the bump up. Yep. Appreciate
It.
All right, thanks gentlemen. Okay,
Now the next item. Yep.
Our final item is item number six.
This is a follow up to the presentation we had a couple
of months ago on the building moratorium.
We have some findings recommendations
and we would like
to seek out some policy direction
from the board of commissioners.
So I think we have a number of the committee members here.
I think come on up, Steve Cahoon and
and Director Quimbee are gonna lead, lead us
through a couple of these policy questions.
But we, we still have a lot of work to do, yet we have
to update and adopt the comprehensive water and sewer plan
and the associated sewer allocation policy
and related to that the county's adequate public facilities
ordinance and the memo in the book outlines
and some of the findings, the appendix in that
item in the book on page 20, no, I'm sorry, the last page
of the memo does show the, the
appendix A on page 17, the remaining
capacity at the sewer plant
where we had the allocations set aside for residential,
commercial and climate resiliency.
And then the re-rating capacity in the buckets
for public health concern,
unidentified public health concern areas, non-residential
and residential infill uses.
So all, all, all in,
we have about 450,000 gallons remaining.
So we want get some direction from the commissioners
how we are going to allocate that
and if we're gonna have annual caps, winter to be allocated.
And then Steve will be going over several additions
and modifications to the adequate public facilities policy
and ordinance for school capacities.
So with that commissioner, have any
initial questions before we get started?
And I'll let, I don't know who wants to start first
Actually, have we, I mean we had an initial presentation
on this a while back and there was some social media
outreach for citizens.
Have we gotten any input from any
citizens by email or anything?
Not to my knowledge. Yeah, we have,
we've received very limited feedback from the presentation
on, on the proposal that we had laid out before.
Well, just so folks know who are watching, there tends
to be a lot of people who voice concerns about
whenever there's a development or something that's approved.
That's what this is about.
This is about what resources are available
for future development from Can island up to Queenstown.
And so if you have strong feelings one way
or the other about what should be loud,
what shouldn't be loud, how it should be mitigated,
how it should be sequenced, this is like a big deal,
important thing to be active as a citizen.
'cause if you're not, and then a year from now there's
something that you don't like, you know,
there's gonna be a new policy that's in place
and this is the opportunity.
So just so people know that the words been put out there,
but there's been shockingly little feedback on it.
Go
Ahead Steve.
You wanna kick it off? No, I'll take it. Okay.
The final component of the water and sewer plan
before we can put put publish it for adoption is the water
and sewer allocation policy.
If you recall, we were here a couple months ago.
One of the things we proposed was quarterly
restricting application applicants for allocation quarterly,
which wasn't well received.
So that's off the table.
There's only really two components left that we need answers
to to finalize the draft sewer allocation policy
as one for residential.
Do you wish to meter out the allocation,
remaining allocation 70 gallons per year?
And if so, how many gallons per year?
Or just leave it as it is now on demand?
And the second one is,
where in the development review process would a project be
eligible for asking for allocation?
Currently they have to go through concept plan review
and approval and then they can ask for the allocation.
One proposal put forth was to hold it to the very end
of the process, which I guess that's on the table as well.
I'm not sure how you feel about either of those things.
But again, to frame 'em up, we need
to know if you wanna meter out the
residential allocation or not.
And we need to know where in the process you want the A
project to be eligible to request the allocation.
That's the direction we need at, at the moment.
As far as allocation policy,
Well I think just from my perspective,
metering out the allocation makes sense to me
because you have a big project that come in
and it gobbles it all up and then it's gone or a large,
and then you don't have a lot left.
We don't know what the county might need six years from now.
And so metering it out gives that flexibility to
future citizens, future commissioners to use
that allocation without having it all used up quickly.
So I, I think there's some, some logic to it.
Then the other side I guess would be, if, if it's too rigid,
then you may prevent certain projects that do make sense
that need a larger allocation.
But I wouldn't wanna see it all gobbled up quickly
and then there's nothing and then, you know, there's some
who knows what it is that we need that now we we're,
we're in a, a bind
because when this is gone absent new technology, like
that's it for the county new we,
there are some change in laws at the federal
level or new technology.
This is it.
Yeah, no, I'm definitely in favor
of metering what that number is.
I I still have to think about that before, I mean,
and take a look at our net, you're saying four 50,
but is that taking the institutional
and everything outta of that or that's the total
450,000 gallons.
Yeah, the 150,000 remaining in the current plant
and then the 300,000
Rerating.
Yeah, but only a hundred thousand goes to residential.
We're only talking about residential.
Right. So you got a hundred thousand basically.
Yeah. Yeah. To be clear, we weren't talking about,
at least we weren't initially talking about metering
commercial allocation.
Right. Or public health needs or institutional uses.
Just the residential 150,000.
And historically those have not been ones that have sort
of used large volumes at once.
Correct. So they almost sort of like
historically have been self metering themselves.
Correct. Yeah. Residential users consume
the bulk of the allocation.
So we had suggested
before a 10,000 gallon per year cap
for residential allocations out of the re-rating
that was, that was 40
Single Family homes.
About 40. Yep.
And just to, this is not a, a one and done situation.
This is something that as projects come in
as sewer allocation is allocated, we would keep, have,
you know, keep the commission informed right.
On where we are. And if policy changes
or changes are needed to the allocation policy,
you could change, it could get tighter or looser.
So if at, if at a certain point there were no caps,
then a, a year later we came back to revisit it,
those caps could be put in place.
So this is a, a starting point as we move forward
and we could, and we're going to,
it's gonna be an ongoing annual process.
But I think the caps also keep the county from getting into
a bind legally with a development that comes in
that just say wants 500 homes
and that's gonna gobble it all up for say,
a two year foreseeable future.
And we say no because we have another project
or whatever the case may be.
And that, and that begs me
to my next question was I brought up the concern about this
group of commissioners can't sit up here and pick
and choose who gets housing and who doesn't.
And I feel like that's a situation that's gonna be a very
hard unintended consequence that's gonna be out of this,
the way this is drafted now.
And I know you're shaking
your head, Alex, 'cause you knew that.
I mean, and, and it, I get it,
but it's, it's like we have to come up with a system of how
that is me if we're gonna meter it, there's gotta be
the rule's gotta be very clear as to how it's metered
and you know, whether it's first come first served the end
of the day due to commissioners get the final
beat oath, that kind of thing.
I think all that's gotta be thought about
before we just jump into this.
'cause this is it. I I said it
during all these forums and stuff.
We had this is it, this is gonna be something
that's gonna stick with Queen Annes County till
the end of Queen Annes County.
Now, like to your point, unless technology changes
and there's something drastically happens
and it all just disappears in the air
after you flush a toilet.
But I don't think that's coming anytime soon.
So, and then the other one is the clawback.
We already have a clawback feature for
developments now.
Right. For if they don't break ground, blah, blah,
blah clawback For the allocation,
clawback allocation, we already have that in place.
Right. I noticed that was one of the things that was on here
to decide on, but I think we already
have something in place for that.
Correct? We do. Okay. So I mean I'm good with that.
And then the A PFO side, obviously that'll work itself out.
And you, Steve, you did all those numbers
and I understand that there is some maybe shift on Yeah,
so we'll get into AP F.
Okay. You wanna just do the sewer part for if you wanna go
through sewer, then we'll shift to AP FO.
Okay.
And, and so, so people understand too,
what we're talking about at, at 10,000, this is for
new development proposals.
There are, there are developments
that already have allocations
but have not yet put a shovel in the ground order in the
process of putting shovel in the ground.
They've already got allocation that's outside
of what we're talking about.
Correct. Here. So Southern Ken Island, a house that,
there's a lot that hasn't been built yet,
but it's buildable that's already sort of accounted for.
Correct. In a separate allocation.
So we're not talking about that doesn't stop
those from going forward.
These would be new developments. Right.
I think some people don't understand that distinction.
And if you do do a metering, you have to, we'll have
to set a date when it takes effect.
As you know, there are three
or at least two, there's three projects in the wings
that were held up by the moratorium.
Right. So you need to keep those in consideration.
One of 'em actually fits under the 10,000,
so I'm sure about that one.
But the other two would exceed
to 10,000 if the 10,000 is the number you pick.
Well also, I mean I think we need to keep in mind that
these appendix A at any given time,
the sitting commissioners could vote to move some
of the allocations from one category to another.
All they have to do is amend the word sew plan. That's it.
Right? Yeah. Right. So I mean I, I think that's something
that's, I think that's a good thing.
I mean, I think the Queen Annes County has,
and shoot me now if you want,
but it's always been a bedroom community
and that's why there's so many commuters.
But I don't know, I look at,
I look at this from another standpoint, the Clean Water Act,
the T MDLs, that's why we're here.
We have 3.3 million gallons of discharge
into the Chesapeake Bay where
what we're discharging is a hell
of a lot cleaner than what's out in, in that bay.
And we have 3.3 million gallons for a county
that has 53,000 people in it.
And I look around all around us in the capacity that a lot
of these other counties have.
We are the first one to run into this
in the Chesapeake Bay watershed to reach our, our limits.
And our limits are, were very, very low.
And, and I, I would like to see some sort of report on
all the other counties and municipalities that discharge
and what kind of ratings they had to begin with.
Because, you know, I approached Senator Sarbanes
three or four years ago about this when we saw this coming.
And I said, you know, what are we gonna do?
I mean, you you, you're gonna shut down a,
a county's ability to grow
and without growth, we all know what that means with taxes.
So he goes, that's very interesting.
You know, let me look into it. And crickets.
So I just think that, you know, while we do the metering
and I don't have a problem with that,
I think it's gonna be difficult to, to get that up
and running because like you said, you know, if,
if the property's gonna need a lot of improvements to it
before one house is built
and you can only build so many houses,
I think we're gonna see a lot of things not
being cost effective.
So, and and again, that's just the Well, the housing,
housing cost goes Yeah.
Way up. Right. So, you know, those that have, you know,
are looking for workforce housing,
this is gonna push hard against it.
I think. I, it's, there's no doubt, right?
It it's, and that's where the municipalities, I think that,
you know, they have to step up.
Right. You know, and that's so, I mean I'm just giving
that information out there.
So I, you know, I don't know how we wanna proceed from here
to get that daily or or annual allocation out there,
but were you thinking 10,000 gallons?
I haven't honestly really haven't.
That's just a number we
pulled out here that's they threw out.
Right. So, yeah.
Well, and again, it's how many gallons
for a single family we allocated two 50.
Two 50 per home. Okay. And Amy's already left.
I wanted how many homes got built last year?
I, I think, well,
and I said this too, I think we're looking at a bad com.
We're at a bad stage to compare
because we've had 20 years of homes
that are now getting built that have been
through legal challenges
and things like that, that are actually getting,
so it looks a lot worse now,
but it's really just catching up to
what is already allocated, was already in the pipeline,
was already permitted in a lot of instances.
And so as that tails off, I think we talked about this.
Now as that tails off, you go back and look traditionally
before that with in,
in normal growth times it was less than 40.
You know what I mean? So I that's, I think that's 10,000.
Right? We figure 40 is 10,000. So, but it was less than 40.
So again, looking at what we're doing today,
I don't know, it was a good comparison.
But 40 seems like a reasonable number in my mind just
because of the old growth rates that what,
what you were seeing was less than that.
I think I looked at some numbers a little while back
that over the last eight years,
commissioner voted on new residential units
is about 88 a year.
Okay. That's It.
You talking about single family homes,
No re residential units.
So that includes like the senior complexes
and all those things, but apartments and
Two including Yep.
It averages out to about, well,
Apartments can be residential now too.
You gotta remember, so I
Think it average out to about 80 80 a year based on some
of the spreadsheet I was looking at.
Obviously you see a lot more being built
because Four Seasons was not right.
Voted on by us. Southern Can Island was not voted on us,
may, Hove, Ellendale, all of those were,
as you're talking about retreat, the ones
that have been in Yeah.
Sort of like this rubber band that had been pulled back
and then it got finally let go.
And now we're seeing that. Yeah.
But actual ones, the commissioners have voted on far,
far less than what people think.
But that's sort of gives you a numbered look at like, so if
that's 88 and if we had 40 at 10,000, that's 40.
So it's like half now, all those 88, you know,
that they approved but not yet all built. Right.
But some are, but some apartments too, right?
I'm, I'm thinking you got apartments in there, town homes,
you got Slippery Hill, there's town homes.
I mean, so there's size and, and, and quantity.
We gotta look at that too, in my mind. Right.
That's what you're getting.
How about, let's do the easy one. Hopefully it's easy.
When in the process do you wanna keep as it is now as
to when they can ask for the allocation?
Or do you wanna push it further down
the development review cycle?
That's a good question. I,
and that's one that gets asked a lot too,
is when should they have to be,
when should they have to ask for it?
It's like when they're $500,000 into design or before
They 5,000, you pull the rug out, out under,
they've spent hundreds of thousands
of dollars on design fees.
I mean, I feel like that's,
to me that's the first look, right?
If you don't have sewer on water in an area
that requires it, you're not gonna build anything.
Well what's the pro and the con
to the two? I mean, but, but,
But I would think they have to do like a con concept plan.
Like a concept plan first, right.
And then in between that
and go into that next level
of planning, I would think would be the point.
But before they're hundreds, hundreds of thousands of
Dollars, right?
Yeah. 'cause the next level of planning
after concept plan is now they're all in at that point.
Yeah. So now they're into a PO
studies and all that kind of stuff.
So, and then we can adjust where that is.
'cause right now isn't the A PFO post that a PFOS
between concept and preliminary.
Okay. But so you need, you need a allocation.
Same time actually same time, same time. Okay. You also
Have to think if, if you're,
if you move it too far into the process
before they get approval, then the smaller, maybe more
of your local developers, there's like,
they're not gonna be able to shoulder
that kind of cost and that risk.
Not that risk. They're just not gonna build.
And so you're gonna have, you know, the larger builders from
outside the state that come in to do it.
So, you know what sort of, if, if you're, if you're trying
to help promote the locals who build, you know, I'm gonna go
and do 16 homes here, you can't make it so expensive that
they find out after $400,000 that it's a no go.
It's just something not fair.
If, if it's not gonna, if a location's not gonna work
or get approved, I think the commissioner should know sooner
rather rather than that late
To Well I think it's fair to the developer,
to everybody involved really.
I mean, and, and I guess the one thing about
that too is the A PFO itself, I just feel like,
and it's just my opinion,
the A PFO gets rubber stamped once you get to that stage.
A lot of times I don't know that they look at traffic.
I mean, let's face it, they, if they use the A PFO
for four seasons or any
of those from when they originally conceptualized them,
a lot's changed in terms of traffic.
So there's no way in a lot of those,
the traffic in my mind would pass muster to
where you could build, or, and the schools have changed.
There's a lot has changed over that time
and you're supposed to take all that into account.
But I don't know that that always gets looked at as hard
as it should down the road.
And unfortunately a lot of
that was because of the legal stuff.
But to your point, I think if you do that, at
that same point now they know everything.
They're up against like, right.
Like you're, you're not gonna get
this traffic study is gonna come back a flat f
and you're gonna have to do a lot of mitigation
for the roadways
and that kind of thing to get your,
to do what you want to do.
That's a, that's a big ticket item.
That, that may be the one
where they go, yeah, okay, I'm out.
And I just think that's fair to anybody that's coming
to the county looking to do something too.
Whether it's a business
or residential, whatever the case may be.
So I'm in favor of earlier in the process if keep it as is.
Yeah, I'd keep that
as is everything earlier in the process if we can
Yeah, we'll keep, we'll keep it at as, as is in the,
in the documents with the,
the recapture provisions, you know, via pwa.
Like we've, like we have now, right.
In case they don't advance. 'cause we
Have had project projects.
Right. Then we pull Yeah.
Pull back. Okay. Alright.
Now we're back to the metering question.
So you're saying that that 150,000 gallons is 600
Homes.
Yes. So you're saying that 600 homes,
the way the allocation sits right now is, is all
that can be done in residential until we either decide
to take from one of the other categories
or the federal government eases the T MDLs
and allows us to discharge more. Yeah.
As far as allegation goes, allocation goes,
the reality is homes typically don't flow two 50.
So how this works is as they connect,
you look at the actual flows through the plant
and capacity kind of creeps up a little bit, right.
Not much. Right. But Yeah.
But other than that, yes you're right.
And keep in mind too, commissioners, we have 150,000
gallons for public health area concern zones, which will
have some new infill development too if
public sewer goes there.
Marlin Farms de meaning
there's some vacant properties there.
So there will be some new home construction in those
communities when they get served.
Right? Not a lot,
but there will be some infill like, like Route eight. Yeah.
Lot like route eight. So
that stretches your capacity out 15 years.
That takes you to not the next comp plan,
but the next comp plan.
I'm sorry, what was that? If you go with the 600
that you just said, that's takes you out 15
years at 48 year.
So that takes you a year. I just, I I I just, I don't know.
Think it makes it too difficult for Yeah.
Some of the developers. Yeah.
Yeah. And then They're gonna want
to be more expensive where you're gonna have
Right. Outstate, right.
Yeah. Again, there's nothing magic about the 10,000.
We just had to have a number. Yeah, no talk about, right.
Yeah. I think
we also looked at a scenario where we
did not meter the remaining 50,000 gallons
for residential from the 150,000 gallon
allocation pool from the existing plant, the 3M GD plant.
And then we started the metering process
with the new re-rating allocation at
a hundred thousand gallons.
So you could, you could let it be market driven for up
to 50,000 gallons.
And then once that's exhausted, then go to metering at some,
at some threshold, 10,000 or 15,000. Steve, what was
The, in Ken Island, the sewage street,
the sewer, SKI, what was it?
You have a best guess Vacant lots. Yeah.
On, on 500 vacant lots that had been built on,
Been Had the possibility to be built on,
but it was 500 total lots 500,
Which a little more than half I think maybe even two
thirds have already been built.
Yep.
Yeah, when we presented
before the commissioner's last time, we, we
considered an idea, as Todd said, where we wouldn't have,
where we would allow for a short period of time,
those projects in the pipeline to come in,
secure their allocation, the, the projects that were,
were caught up in the moratorium
and then January one start the metering out of,
of the amount of, of new allocations.
You know, so there, there was a, a
kind of a hybrid of, of finish out the year,
let the market do what, what it's gonna do,
or let people request what they need
and then begin a metering process
at a certain point in time.
And that, you know, was a 10,000 what suggested,
but, well, you know, I think that part of this is trying
to slow growth residential growth.
So that means you need to count the municipalities.
And the question is the only one that's really close
to Ken Island
and that's where we're trying to control all
this is Queenstown.
So, you know, maybe we go to a combined
75 to a hundred per year,
but you're counting Queenstown in there also so that,
you know, I don't know, just like,
because if you say 40 here in, in Queenstown says, okay,
I'll do 200, 300
or whatever, I mean, then that's gonna really skew it
and make it look like that didn't work at all.
I don't, I don't know, I just, I think that somebody
but Queenstown still be using the schools and on the roads,
Everything else, Right?
That's tends to go to the next Queenstown as a municipality
that goes to the next conversation.
Honestly, that's a whole
different conversation at that point.
Well, but I'm saying it's, it's possible
for the ones when can I, if their development goes through
and, and they're gonna build a hundred homes there, maybe
that's, you know, do you, do you want that a hundred plus 40
or do you wanna just cap it at a hundred?
I I'm just throwing out different
options. Way different ways.
Throttle back the Right, the can island ones,
if Queenstown is growing at a faster pace so
that you still have a, a set amount of homes
that you're allowing Right. In a region.
But the net tax effect is much worse when Queenstown does
it versus Ken Island.
And we control it because Queenstown can go unvetted put a
hundred homes in with no,
but they're gonna do that regardless.
But no kickback to the county.
That means the people on Ken Island are gonna pay
for those homes in Queen Queenstown.
Right. But it, it doesn't work the other way.
So I I feel like that's well that's
because we don't have, like I said, I,
I'm number, but that's number.
But that's addressing number that's addressing the EPFO.
I have nothing in my head right now.
I'd have to really sit down and Yeah.
And take what you're saying.
Look at the countywide ville iss getting ready
to do 300 over the next five years.
Right. So what if Centerville what, what Centerville's got
what two large annexes that they've been sitting on for
three, four years that I know of now
that if they got their sewer,
they'd already be bailed them out.
And that's close to 600 homes if I'm not mistaken.
So the concentration would
be moving north at that point.
And then would you need 'em up there?
Would these be more affordable?
I mean, that's what I'm saying that's,
this is more than just, I, I think 10,000 in my mind,
10,000 right now is a good target number.
And that's just me For sake of this conversation,
What are you looking for for us to tell you like today
or next meeting?
I mean I obviously we want it today.
I just wanna say that I just wanted soon, soon we
Just, Patrick, I just want to say
that the number we've been throwing at,
I've been throwing out is 30 to 40 based upon, you know,
a year ago the numbers.
And I don't think it'd be a good idea to give one developer
30 or 40 houses over, you know, a year
for two or three years in a row.
So, and I, I hadn't even considered the
queenstown part about that.
So I gotta think about that too.
I mean, theory one developer could grab 60 to 80,
they could do two phases.
I was gonna say year one I get 10,000.
Year two I need the other 10,000. Yeah.
I haven't figured the mechanics out of the all that.
Yeah, well that, that's just, that's where
putting it on the five up here to have to decide.
That is where it gets tricky.
Because to your point, you go phase, phase phase, it's like,
well the commissioners just to approved 120 homes.
It's like, well wait a minute, right?
We did it through this system.
What does that system look like? That's my thing.
I don't feel comfortable. We have that system right now
that I, I would feel good about doing.
'cause you think they say we take money from developers
now and we know it's not true.
Can you imagine that? Oh my god.
Well that's a challenge with ra with with
that creating a criteria and mechanism
and we would have to put
that in place if it's not first come first
serve. What is it? Right?
Yeah. And, and
and what effect does that have on housing prices as well?
Is it an important issue because, you know,
housing affordability's difficult now it's gonna be,
it's told people they don't understand like fine
Demand.
I agree Chris, you're gonna be thinking wistfully
of the days of the $500,000 house on can island
because it's gonna change a lot
and like a very short period of time.
And then everybody else's house is their costs is their,
their assessments are gonna go up. 'cause
The market, I I hear that Chris,
but the comp plan has put the growth areas
not on island.
They put it up in Centerville and Barkley
and Sutterville
and that is where people should start looking.
That's where developers should start looking.
Well I think people need to look where they wanna live.
I'm all in favor of that. Wherever you wanna live,
you find a million dollar
home you love and you can afford it.
God bless you live in that million dollar home.
But I think, you know, to, to your point Chris,
to have any illusion
that this is gonna drive down housing crisis in Queen Annes
county is just that it's an illusion.
It's when you get that supply
and demand, once that supply is finite number one
and continues to drop off, the demand's gonna get higher.
It's, you know, it's no secret Queen Annes County
people wanna live here.
It's, I mean that is just what it is.
It's closeness to Baltimore DC it makes it a good place
to live other than the bridge traffic.
But you know, only one hurdle at a time. Yeah.
So promise that million dollar home is,
that's gonna be the starter home eight years from now.
I, I, I don't disagree. That's why I say don't have
illusions that prices are going down at
Queen Anne's County anytime soon.
So
Let's go to A PFO.
We got, yeah, let's go. We got 'em all.
We go to the next one. How allocations done.
Okay with A PFO school capacity
and how we calculate school capacity was one
of the issues brought up during the moratorium.
We looked at a couple different things.
When somebody does an adequate public,
a new development is proposed.
If it's over seven units, they have to do a school study.
When they do a school study,
we have a formula which they used to project the number
of school students at that project
or development will generate.
Historically we've used 0.5 students per household.
So every two houses generate one school age student
put in our school system.
And then for multifamily it's 0.25.
So we went back and looked at enrollment last year
and compared that to new developments,
new communities throughout the county
and looked at how many kids were in each community
to come up with ratios.
And what we found was the actual ratios
that we're seeing on the ground are more, are about 0.43
for single family home.
So a little bit lower than what we have been projecting
and 0.27 for multifamily.
So pretty much the same but just a little bit higher.
And this is a practice that should be done every 10 years
or so to look at market cha trends and changes.
So we went through that and we think that changing
or updating, it's updating these ratios to meet current
meet what we're currently seeing makes sense
to do with the A PFO.
So we're recommending that
we change the single family ratio from 0.5 to 0.43
for single family homes
and for multifamily homes go from 0.25 to 0.27.
One of the other things with A PFO is calculating pre-K
historically pre-K is not a required educational level.
However, we do have six schools
that include pre six elementary schools
that include pre-K out of eight.
It is turned into a regular standard practice as well
as being re we're seeing more
and more regulations from the state to,
to make it a permanent opportunity.
So we recommend that the historic practice
of not including pre-K
and A PFO studies be changed
to include pre-K in all studies moving forward.
You got here 'cause it's a
affect schools, that's what happen, right?
Yeah. Yeah. So that's a change that's we need to make.
And then we went back
and looked at high school capacity.
Currently, if a, if a project comes in
and they're proposing schools, school age children
in a school that's at a hundred percent capacity,
the a hundred percent capacity is the limit for A PFO.
And that makes sense when you're putting kids in an
elementary school in a middle school where they show up.
Yeah, they're there all day and they go home.
So, so when you look at the number of kids
registered in an elementary school
or middle school, that's the number of kids that are there.
High school's a little bit different.
High school has a lot more flexibility in their programs.
And we see things like dual enrollment, like work
work programs where they leave school finishing
before four years and then also web-based learning
and also CTE, there's a number of different programs
that allow flexibility.
So you might have kids
registered at the high school totaling a hundred percent
of capacity, but only about 90% of that building filled.
So high school operates a little bit differently
and we think we ought to recognize that.
And one way to recognize that is by adjusting the,
the maximum capacity for high school from a hundred percent
to 110%.
And we think that would be a way to recognize how
the high schools actually work and how kids physically move
and are when they're in
the school and when they're not. And there's
Other jurisdictions that that do the over,
I mean we've been at a hundred, but a
Lot of jurisdictions.
Yes, many, many AFOs go to 110, 120% of
of state rated capacity for schools.
And some jurisdictions do have different
for elementary, middle, and high.
Different percentages for elementary and middle
and high school trying to account for how they function.
So what in the IAC, what's the IAC trigger
for getting the matching funding and all?
Is it, what is it? It's like 110, isn't it?
Right, it's over a hundred.
Right Before you have to hit that threshold
before you can get the matching.
I think it's, there's not a set percent,
but you have to demonstrate the need for the new school
or demonstrate that you can fill a new school.
Right. You gotta be above and
otherwise they're only gonna fund,
they're gonna fund a much smaller school.
Right, right, right. Or expansion. Yeah.
So you have to demonstrate that you, if you're going
to build a new school for new capacity, you have
to demonstrate that you're gonna have enough kids in
that school to make it worthwhile.
And the A PFO, there's no real way to, the other thing
that I think we ran into, not anymore,
but we ran into the bubbles,
the bubble years with the classes.
You know, the the larger class,
the nine 11 class when everybody was gonna die.
And of course nine months later we had a ton more kids
that was a bubble class where we had I think almost 580,
almost 600 whatever it was between the two high schools,
which is the most I can ever remember since I've been
commissioner graduating between the two.
But there's no way to factor that in, is it?
I mean, to where, you know, because you know what I mean?
If you got two back
to back bubble classes hitting high school in two years
and now you're gonna bump to, to your point
that diversity's gonna take you to 120% of capacity,
when in reality the next year you're gonna be back down
under a hundred at your 90 that you're so, so A PFO tries
to take that into account by looking at future projections.
So if you have a project coming in that's a hundred units
and they're going
to be two years in the development review process
and then they're gonna take seven years to build out,
you would project those kids coming in,
in those years of build out.
So, and you would be projecting that with the board
of Ed's 10 year projection.
So if there is a bubble where the Board of Ed projects
that number going up and coming down that would be,
should smooth itself out over the, okay.
Yeah, that makes sense. Okay.
So they may be held up for a year because of that bubble,
but if they adjust their plan
or wait a year, that bubble will go by and go by.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Gotcha. But with sewer,
we we're only gonna see a limited number
of these large projects.
You know, A PFO applies to for schools, applies
to projects over seven units
and we're talking about rationing out sewer
or you know, limiting it.
So there's only gonna be a limited number
of projects dealing with A PFO based on that.
Right. So till we get into the towns, so,
so the towns, as you mentioned, the towns do not have AFOs,
they're not obligated to do the county A PFO,
which has been an ongoing discussion with the,
with the county and the towns, which for everybody
to understand that basically the rest of the county pays
for the kids that are gonna be born into the town.
So, so A PFO does not apply to the towns,
however impact fees do.
Right. So when,
when development occurs in the incorporated towns,
they do have to provide a pay for a school impact fee,
which would be a capital contribution towards the school.
But that's a, well we know that's not even close
to building a school nowadays with the cost
of doing anything with schools.
He's gonna do a, a middle school
that's gonna be the same capacity for $80 million
that doesn't maybe even 90 by the time it's built.
So, so those are three policy changes we'd like,
we believe are would imple would make sense
to implement adjusting the student generation rates,
including, including pre-K
and making some adjustments, maybe going to 110% of
high school capacity to deal with the flexibility in
how high schools operate.
So, and we don't have an automatic period within the A PFO
ordinances as to when it gets
reevaluated again the next time. Right.
The A PFO. Yeah.
Like so when, when we look at these numbers again to see
No, no, It's been been quite a bit of time.
It's been Do we could, we could factor that in.
I'm wondering if we should, I think we should add
that in there as part of it too.
So revisit it.
We, we can, one of these changes requires an amendment
to the A PFO, which could also, we could add that
language in there that a set schedule,
we would revisit these issues
No later than every 10 years or something like that.
So if they wanna do it earlier, you can, but,
but at least it's sort of triggering that
that would be that review.
'cause you also don't know,
But How much everything's gonna change in the
next four or five years.
Right. That a lot of these numbers,
how schooling is done could change
a lot in the next five years.
Yeah. We could Drastically.
It just depends on how,
if things evolve over the next several
years, it's, it's hard to say.
Yeah. And school numbers, I mean we have,
we track these numbers every year.
We get new enrollment numbers from the school. Yeah.
We plug in developments.
We, this is a, this changes with every,
every year when we get new enrollment numbers right.
Or if the change state changes state rated
capacity, it's constantly
And enrollment is currently
Down and we're trend down right now down
Flat. Right.
Yeah.
I would've thought it wouldn't have been down.
It's crazy, huh? What's that? The student population? Yeah.
That it's down.
That's the way it's going.
Okay. So is that acceptable that we make those changes
to the A-P-F-O-I
On that?
Okay. Yeah. We'll start the process
to develop those documents.
That'll all come back to the commissioners.
We have to have a hearing for the A PFO ordinance change,
but that'll all come back around.
So we will proceed on that basis.
Sense A PO to your point, Chris too, I would like
to see mandatory triggers on some of this stuff.
So yeah, the next set of commissioners, next set
of commissioners don't have to keep doing
what we've had to do with a lot of
This stuff.
Right. 'cause some people will just kick it down the
curb when they should look at it.
That's why we're sitting here today. Yeah.
So that's how building in safeguards is important. Right.
So I think we need some guardrails in there
for making sure that it gets reviewed.
Whatever makes sense in between comp plans at least once
or whatever I think makes,
Okay.
And the schools, I mean my, I'm hoping the board
of ed is on top of this a lot more,
at least from the student
population side and what they're seeing.
Oh yeah. What they're Look, because you know,
the target funding's gonna keep coming back
and it's based on where Kerwin's gonna settle in.
Well that doesn't, that Kerwin is looking at nothing in
terms of county population, how we're growing,
what we're doing, how much soil we got.
They don't care. It's, this is what it is per student.
So gotta be conscious of that to,
and I think that's where Jim was going with,
if you're not growing at all, you're not gonna keep up
with Kerwin, this county.
No county's gonna keep up with Kerwin
if you're not growing in some pace.
So yeah, we work with a board of on coming up with this.
Yeah, I know. They were on the task force.
We're, we're using their state projections. Good. Yes. Good.
Thanks for all that work. I appreciate it.
So back on the sewer side.
So we're gonna keep the allocation request commensurate with
what we're doing now after concept plan commissioners can
review those requests as they come in.
Where, where in the, in the
It's at concept.
They got a concept plan review
and they can then, they can make a request
for allocation in front
of the sanitary commission commissioners.
So as far as the metering,
it sounds like we do wanna have some type
of metering component
or rationing of this,
the residential component of the sewer.
So if we're not sure where that number is yet,
we can still proceed on getting those documents ready
and come back, discuss that some more
before we finalize everything.
But that's, that's part of the sewer allocation policy,
which important company. No,
But again, again, you know that sewer allocation,
we're not saying one development's gonna be 40 houses.
We're not saying one
development's gonna be a hundred houses.
Right. Right. You're, you're, you're saying
you don't want more than 40,
a hundred, whatever the number is.
And if it's five different developers in
five different locations.
Right. You know, I mean I think that, I think,
I think everyone sometimes gets hung up on a number thinking
they're gonna be a hundred homes there.
Oh yeah. No, I don't think the 50 homes there, it's,
that doesn't, I mean there could be,
but that's not what we're, we're not,
not what we're implying
Or just how do you assimilate it.
Right. On a yearly basis. Right.
Yeah. Yeah.
You're just saying that when you hit this cap, right.
That's you gotta wait a year and then to, we discuss that.
You're saying that they, they can come in any time for it.
I know the last time we said once a year you can like a text
amendment, you could come in once a year
and apply for the allocation.
But you said quarterly.
But no, it's any sanitary commission meeting they could ask
once they get concept plan approval.
Okay.
I think that makes, I mean, yeah, there,
because you don't know when they're
gonna be doing their concept plan.
They should have a concept plan
and say, now I gotta sit on this for,
Well, plus I was thinking about planning
and zoning, having to go through
35 concept plans all at one time.
Like they do text amendments. Yeah. All at one time. Yep.
Stress.
They like it. Stephanie's smiling.
Maybe she, maybe they do like it. He does.
All right. Alright. Alright. Yep.
Well I got one answer so I'm gonna keep it up.
It's not bad. 2%. It's not bad.
Alright, thanks gentlemen.
Thanks for the other members of the
task force that are here tonight.
I appreciate everyone being here tonight. So Alan,
Great.
We'll get all the commissioners out in the heat tomorrow
and we'll let 'em leave the sunlight till
they come up with a number for you.
Alright. Alright.
He gonna be out there, so, so now Alex smiling.
All right, well commissioners, that is all
of the items on the agenda for tonight
other than round table and any closing
Question? Public,
I'm sorry.
Press Public Health. Yep, that too.
Do we have anybody signed up? Yep.
Oh good. Okay. This young lady here wanted to go with.
Alright, Thank you
Again.
My name is Marty McKenzie, I'm from Centerville.
And I tell you tonight's been a real wake up call for me
for a reason I didn't expect.
I can't understand what you're saying
and I'm so glad that the agency on aging,
aging people are here because you hope the longevity study
includes something to help us.
I got spoiled, I watched CSPAN
with the closed captions all the time.
Right. But I think
what I heard you say is there was a chance
for public input on this moratorium report.
Am I correct there?
Yeah, Absolutely. Yeah. I saw the A PFO the part there
still is Chance for public input.
Absolutely. And, and it has been made
that the findings had been made public.
That's what this presentation is for.
And there was another presentation two months ago,
Two months ago now With the initial findings of it.
And this was just a, a follow up on it,
but no action being taken.
We're not voting on it yet.
So there is time for people to get more of the information
and our meeting materials are also available.
So the report tonight though is available to the public.
Yeah, I think the Slides, it's in the
Book, but it's in the book.
Yeah, yeah. There was no slides but it's in the book. Yeah.
Okay. So on our website we have an agenda
with all the meeting materials
for each meeting you can click on, you can also go back
and watch the meetings. They'll be there also
On video.
Hear better. Yep. So can I assume the moratorium
is still in effect?
Yeah. Yeah. It, it is still in effect. Okay.
It doesn't expire until August, August, August,
August 2nd meeting in August,
Second meeting August is when it expires.
And I wanted to also give a big thank you
to your county commissioner and your Board of Public Works.
I was one of the organizers for the no Kings rallies
that we've had in the past year.
And you all have been wonderful to work with
because I am so technically challenged
and they help me so much get
through all the permitting process.
So thank you so much.
Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else like to speak?
There you go. You got any emails? Nothing, nothing to read.
Round table Patrick, we'll let you go to first.
Oh, you're muted. Mute.
Any update on the big beautiful flagpole that's going up
by, by the bridge tonight? Have we heard anything
Tonight?
Oh, we, we've been in here.
Rumor, rumor mill says it's supposed
to go up this evening sometime.
Yeah. Oh wow. Yeah.
It's a great on Unfurled tomorrow though.
I think it's, oh, is that what it is?
I think it go tell the people what's going on.
They don't know. They're all excited.
Well let 'em be excited
when they come across the bridge tomorrow.
Right? Or next time they're at the bridge. Yeah.
We're worried about Well, I
Just, I'll give a shout out to the commissioners
and to the American Legion
and to Mdot for putting this together our, our
county administrator.
And it's just gonna be a, a welcoming,
Welcoming people to the eastern shore.
The O Queen Annes County is the gateway to the,
to Del Marva on the Eastern shore.
And this is gonna be a big, huge, beautiful
American flag, patriotic.
And it's going up for the 250th anniversary.
And I just want to thank my colleagues for getting it done.
Second thing is a little bit of
a challenge I had,
I I, I went to Tyler Hendricks down down
to the Rooke Fire Department
and spent a lot of time our young kids
and our first responders.
These are 16, 17,
and 18, 19, 20-year-old kids that are our
up and coming first responders that are going to take care
of, take care of us as we get older.
Spot fires and car accidents and EMS.
And it was just a tragic loss that we,
that we had on Father's Day.
And then I went to the, the candlelight service
at the high school base football stadium.
And it was packed.
There were, there were so many people
and so many young kids just asking questions and,
and then on, on Thursday
when they, they had a procession from Baltimore
from the coroner's office
and every bridge between Baltimore
and Kent Island had firetrucks on it
and just hundreds if not thousands of people on,
on, on all the bridges saluting
our first responder.
So I just want to thank all
of our volunteers and all of our paid EMS staff and,
and our fire firefighters who just
put everything on the line for us.
And we're just a grateful county
and we're just very thankful for them.
And lastly, our very own William Pack
who had a summer home here signed the Declaration
of Independence 250 years ago.
And we should celebrate that, that Queen Annes County
had a, had one of one of our, one of our own on the
D Parchment from July.
It's actually July 2nd, 1776, put out July 4th
and Marilyn signed actually on, I believe it was August 2nd.
So just a little bit of history there. That's it.
Thank you. Okay. Yeah.
So first off, I wanna set the record straight price had a
post office when we were talking about Verna's
and where they wanna put the gas station.
So it was a big city when I moved here
'cause it did have a post office.
Matter of fact, my address when I moved here was price
and is now Centerville 'cause it no longer exists.
Real quick, I just wanted to talk about that
with that gas station there.
As somebody who crosses that intersection for the reasons
that were brought up about going to get anything, literally,
whether it's gas, snack, whatever we, we know
how dangerous 4 0 5 is crossing there.
In my mind, I think having
that convenience store on the other side
would eliminate a lot of crossovers of locals.
And I think we're seeing more locals have been injured at
that intersection than out of towners
and have been critically injured.
Dead in unfortunately in quite a few instances
here in the last year.
So, you know, this is one
of them ones that I'm looking at hard.
I I, I gotta look deeper into
how it's gonna affect other parts
of the county if we do this.
But honestly right now,
the way I'm leaning is I think it makes sense to be able to
have that on that side of the road
because points were made tonight that were very good.
There's no gas between the split and Delaware
unless you get off and go into town
and there's no place to get a drink.
There's really no place to do
anything until you get to Delaware.
So that's my opinion on that one.
And like I said, it, I think it will eliminate a lot of
that cross traffic with our local people
and hopefully save some lives.
Second thing, the, the river keeper she took, she,
she took the ask for money, but I'm gonna ask anyway.
So as you know,
our clay target team is one of the best in the states.
We went out and swept the Maryland State Finals
and now we have the reigning national singles champion in
Clay Coppi, who is going back to defend his title July 8th.
They're heading out to Michigan.
And we have a full team of five.
We have 10 people that are going out to compete individually
for the national title Clay Cole, I'm sorry,
I say Clay Cole Coppi to compete.
And then we have five individuals who are gonna compete
who were the, the basically the creme de la creme
of our Queen Annes County high school team
that are gonna compete for the team title nationally.
We also have one Kent Island student who was going out
to compete from Kent Island.
They didn't have enough to get a team together this year.
But my ask is, so roughly with the,
with the registration fees, ammo
and everything else, basically put on there,
this is no travel expenses for 'em.
It's about $500 a kid.
So I'd like to cover our team, which would be roughly $5,500
to cover the kids and take
that expense away from the money they've raised this year
and let them enjoy themselves.
It's fantastic Clean.
Ance County has a national champion
and really by all accounts,
we have a good shot at winning 240 teams.
We have a good shot at winning the, the team title this year
and that would be awesome to have a
national champion in our third year.
How, how cool is that? Right.
So I will make a motion to put
$5,000 towards Queen Anne County high school team kids
and 500 towards our one Kent Island High School
for their registration, ammo and other expenses.
And just with second. Okay, there you go.
Got a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Aye.
There we go. Well that's all I got. That's all. Awesome man.
Alright. Fireworks are tomorrow at the narrows.
And some people have asked about why are the fireworks
not on the 4th of July?
And we do have fireworks on the 4th of July
when the 4th of July is not on a weekend.
And there's a lot of reasons for that.
And I know it's preferable
to see fireworks on the 4th of July,
but there is a lot of logistics that goes into this.
And as people may not know, there's beach traffic that comes
through in the summertime on the weekends
and that impacts a lot of things.
And so it's not so much that you are going to have
beach traffic when people are arriving for the fireworks
or leaving for the fireworks,
although quite possible when they're arriving on a Saturday,
you, you could have those backups,
but there's a lot of logistics that goes in beforehand.
Parks and recs getting there
and setting up law enforcement,
getting there, the first responders.
And we wanna make sure that we also have
the first responders in place
and on the weekends, a lot of times they're responding
to calls and they're going to hospitals across the bridge
and they gotta wait because the ERs are full.
And so they have to stand there with the beds
until the patient is accepted into the hospital
and then they gotta battle traffic to get back.
And that drastically also impacts their
ability to be available.
And for us to not only make sure
that the 4th of July event is safe,
but that we have personnel
who can respond throughout the county as well.
So all of those factors go into it.
It's not a decision that we take lightly,
but for the sake of the planning, logistics
and the safety, including also
for the county staff, that works really hard.
We do it during the week
and by doing it on the first, if there's rain,
it gives us the opportunity to just roll it into July 2nd.
So decreasing the chance that we're gonna have an issue
with it being, being canceled.
So that, that's why it happens that way.
But for those of you who are really excited
to celebrate America on July 4th as well,
I've got great news for you.
Every July 4th we get in front of the old courthouse
and there is a reading of the Declaration of Independence.
It's a whole bunch of people. Mary Margaret puts it together
and everybody reads a portions
of the Declaration of Independence.
And I bet most people have never read the Declaration
of Independence or haven't since high school.
It's really cool to listen to it
and it's really cool event to go there.
And this is two 50. So I would like to see as many people
as we can get possible to the old courthouse,
eight o'clock in the morning on July 4th.
Mary Margaret would be ecstatic if we just packed
downtown Centerville with people to hear that.
So please tell a friend
and tell a friend to tell a friend and show up.
It's a really cool thing.
And fireworks are cool,
but the Declaration of
Independence is really what it's all about.
Not, not the fireworks.
So that's the more important thing to be there for.
So I encourage everybody to come to that.
I have enjoyed participating in that for eight years now.
So that's my plug.
You'll be there. I'll be there. I'll be there. Yep.
You know, so yeah, I'll be there.
And it's nice 'cause when you screw up them
real big words, nobody knows.
Nobody knows. So it's nice.
You know, I guess I wanna talk a little bit about the bridge
and, and a little bit about traffic and,
and a whole lot about accidents.
We need to slow down out there.
I mean, I think that the traffic right now and,
and the speed that residents people just traversing
through the county, it's like NASCAR
and it, it, two weekends ago
we had five accidents on the Bay Bridges in one day.
It's just crazy. And, and it is just
because honestly, we're, we're, we're not doing enough
to enforce some of the laws that we have on the books.
Tomorrow night is the Bay Bridge Reconstruction Advisory
Group meeting where I will be there to discuss that.
We're, again, we're in the process of the,
the red X cameras, hopefully it won't be this year,
but next year, having that in place
and possibly doing something with speed cameras
to slow people down, if not hurt their wallets.
But I just, and
and that's one of the main concerns I have about the flag.
We, we were talking about this brand new flag, 50
by 30 to cover this room.
And I'm more concerned about people coming on down the
downhill slope, looking at that giant
flag and not paying attention.
I hope to God that doesn't happen tomorrow,
but it'll slow down down.
Yeah. I mean, so just, you know, I I I just want people
to slow down en enjoy what you're doing
and where you're going and you'll get there.
You know, it might take a
little longer, but you're gonna get there.
And, and also, you know, the, the one thing with the,
when I was on the Economic Development Commission,
the reason the fireworks also aren't on the weekends is
because the restaurants are full on the weekends.
So during the week, they're not full. This fills 'em up.
'cause most people will sit there,
especially as hot as it's gonna be.
Yeah. I don't think the restaurants
gonna, you know, be loving it.
But that's just, you know, it happens.
So, you know, stay hydrated, enjoy the show.
I'm gonna try and see three of 'em.
So, you know, and that's the way to go.
So looking forward to it. I'll take a motion.
Motion to adjourn. Second it. All in favor? Aye. Aye.
Thank you. Thank you everybody. See you Patrick.