[0:08] Ladies and gentlemen, call this meeting to order. The mayor and board of

[0:10] commissioners for February the 10th, 2026. Can I get the roll call, please?

[0:15] » Yes. Commissioner Kleiner >> here.

[0:17] » Commissioner Pearson >> here.

[0:19] » Commissioner Don >> here. Let the record show you have a

[0:24] quorum. >> Thank you. Will you rise with me for the

[0:25] pledge of allegiance, please? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the

[0:31] United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation

[0:37] under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[0:42] » Commissioner Kleiner, would you do us the honor of a prayer, please?

[0:45] » Sure. >> Thank you.

[0:48] » Father, I thank you for this day. Uh we ask for your wisdom, for your provision

[0:54] for this town. We ask for new police officers and uh we ask for your

[1:00] protection over all of our citizens and we pray Lord that you would lead us

[1:07] every day and guide us into your will in Jesus name. Amen.

[1:11] » Thank you. >> All right. Approval of the consent

[1:16] agenda. Town administrator, do you have that?

[1:19] » Yes. Um, you have the town meeting video summary of January 13th. You have the

[1:26] upcoming town meeting schedule, but more significantly, we want to reintroduce

[1:33] the West Ningham Academy annexation resolution. If you remember, we have

[1:40] been doing our due diligence to make sure that um everything is in order.

[1:47] More specifically, we did apply for grant money from MDE for the state to

[1:55] pay for a water line down to West Ningham Academy, but we although we we

[2:00] got approved for that, the overall approval process could be about a year

[2:06] and a half to go through. So, we wanted to have a couple more discussions with

[2:10] MD to see how viable this is. And so far, so good. they're encouraging us to

[2:16] move forward with the design of the water line. So that's why we want to

[2:20] reintroduce the resolution to keep it um upfront on it. So it's again you're not

[2:28] you're not voting to adopt the resolution, you're just accepting it

[2:32] into the record and then that'll start the normal uh 45day process.

[2:38] » And a copy of this resolution is on our website.

[2:40] » Yes. >> All right. Can I get a motion to approve

[2:44] the consent agenda, please? >> I make a motion to approve the consent

[2:48] agenda. >> I second it.

[2:49] » It's been moved and seconded. Is there any further discussion?

[2:54] » Hearing none. All in favor? >> I

[2:56] » I >> Thank you.

[2:59] » That was an I. >> Okay.

[3:02] » All right. Thank you, Commissioner Dowling. Sorry. Uh, under public

[3:05] presentations, we do not have anything. Uh, we are going to go ahead and skip to

[3:09] citizens input. Would anyone like to speak this evening?

[3:16] Can we go here or can I just stay right here?

[3:18] » Yeah, unfortunately you got there. Sorry.

[3:23] » And all all you have to do is say you're a resident of

[3:27] » I'm a resident of Rising Sun. [laughter] My name is Chrissy Shepard. I just

[3:31] wanted to um to extend my um thanks for the snow removal this year. It was

[3:36] definitely different. It's definitely needed. Um, and my mom lives on Walnut

[3:40] Street, so the sidewalk, the removal of all that, you guys, the um, town really

[3:45] did a great job, and I thank you so very much for that. And that's all I have to

[3:48] say. [laughter] >> Huge shout out to our public works crew

[3:51] for sure. >> They did. They did such a great job with

[3:54] that. >> All right.

[3:56] » You want any highlights of that? >> Sure, Cal. Go ahead. Um, so one of the

[4:02] things the town has been doing since 2008

[4:06] is recognizing that when you get a significant amount of snowfall, there's

[4:11] always so many places to put that snow. So back in 2008, u Commissioner Pearson,

[4:18] you can recall and Chief Peterson, you remember we were getting two very

[4:22] significant snowstorms within like a week of each other. And so we pree or

[4:30] preemptively got contractors lined up to come in and haul that snow out so that

[4:36] the next snowstorm had someplace for the snow to go. Um, we don't get together

[4:43] every time there's a pending snowstorm, but given the nature and the particulars

[4:49] of this particular snowstorm, we started meeting on Tuesday, the week before, and

[4:54] we got all of our contractors lined up. Now, here's a frustrating thing is that

[5:02] in past storms, the state has declared a state of

[5:07] emergency and the town gets reimbured for all of that expense. However, the

[5:14] state has a criteria that they will only declare a state of emergency if the vi

[5:21] in the case of snow removal um or flooding is if the end result exceeds

[5:28] 90% of the end result of the previous one.

[5:33] So, what that basically means is they're always adding a rung to the ladder. So

[5:39] unfortunately what that means is we've not crunched all the numbers, but before

[5:45] you get involved in the labor of our personnel, the town probably spent close

[5:51] to $35,000 in contractor fees and getting this snow out of there. It'll

[5:57] probably be another chunk of of change for our public works employees because

[6:03] they work, you know, non non-stop for two, three days straight. So these types

[6:09] of snowstorms do cost a significant amount of money, but we have internally

[6:16] and I know I speak for the elected body. We just want to do things differently

[6:20] than you know you your what's that old saying your grandfather's town

[6:24] government kind of thing. We want to do it differently and we want to get that

[6:29] snow out in here. And so we take a lot of pride and a lot of people don't

[6:34] realize it. We have three public works employees that are moving that snow. I

[6:40] also want to obviously thank Chief Peterson because he he and some of the

[6:45] police officers were getting behind the wheel of snow plows also to to move it

[6:51] out of here. But I would put our people up against anybody in state county in

[6:57] terms of clearing snow out of this devel.

[7:01] Now, with that, I also want to say I'm not naive to say that there aren't some

[7:06] nuances here and there. And we had plenty of people that

[7:13] sort of attested to being experts in snow plowing and telling us how we

[7:19] should and not be moving the snow. But I just bec I I can't resist it. It's not

[7:25] as simple as redirecting the snow plow when you're coming down the street. It's

[7:30] not that simple. And the best way I can describe it is let's just use a funny

[7:35] number. Let's just say you had five tons of snow between one curve on one side

[7:42] and one curb on the other side. Unless you push that snow off the curb, you

[7:47] still have five tons of snow in the middle of the street. So if you're

[7:51] moving the snow plow to not go across somebody's driveway or go up on the

[7:56] sidewalk, you still have the same five tons of snow in between the curve. So

[8:01] it's not as simple as just angling the plow a different way. With that said,

[8:07] and our next step is in wanting to be different than the typical local

[8:12] government, we also went out and rented some equipment to be able to uh move

[8:19] snow and to help our residents because this was a very unique snowstorm. And

[8:25] it's all well and good to say there's no excuse for not removing snow off your

[8:30] sidewalk, but sometimes there is a valid excuse. and having somebody out there

[8:36] having a heart attack or getting injured is not worth that when at the end of the

[8:41] day we can work with some of the residents to remove some of that snow.

[8:46] So going forward we are actively looking at some creative pieces of equipment

[8:51] that we might be purchasing in the future so that we don't have to have to

[8:56] take the standard hey that five ton of snow has to go in your driveway. We

[9:01] don't want to be that way, but we're going to need to get some additional

[9:05] equipment to uh be proactive about that in the future. So,

[9:10] » all right, Cal, if you want to just roll into your town administrator report.

[9:13] » Um, I don't really have anything other than, you know, we have a lot of things

[9:18] going on, the uh snowstorm. Um, I would warn folks, it is inevitable we are

[9:26] going to have water mane breaks. There's just no way around that. When the ground

[9:31] freezes, it only takes a little bit of shifting of the ground with thawing and

[9:35] freezing for these lines to break. We have lines that are pretty much 80 years

[9:42] of age in our community. With that said, we have applied for grant money to

[9:48] replace a good portion of those uh water and sewer lines in the future, but we

[9:54] will have water main breaks in the f, you know, in the very near future. As

[9:58] soon as this cold spell, you know, freeze up, we're probably going to have

[10:03] water main breaks. And as always, we'll do the best we can to get in there as

[10:07] quickly as we can, notify everybody of the implications of it, and get them

[10:12] done as quickly as possible. But more than that, we want to thank everyone who

[10:18] reaches out to our public works employees. I can't tell you the amount

[10:22] of pots of coffee and soup and they get more stuff than they can actually

[10:27] consume at some of these events and that that makes us all feel good that the

[10:31] community the community as a whole comes together to solve these issues. So, we

[10:36] appreciate you reaching out to us and being supportive.

[10:40] » Thank you. Um, Chief, >> um, I'm going to be brief first. Um, the

[10:47] officer we hired that's in the academy, he's doing well, Mr. Lombardi. Um, he's

[10:51] doing well. He's down to a month. >> All right.

[10:54] » Fingers crossed that he continues to move forward and do well and we'll have

[10:57] him here on site in a month to do the rest of his training. Uh, the search is

[11:02] still on for additional officers. The starting salary is in the neighborhood

[11:06] of $60,000. And if you're out there and you want to become a police officer,

[11:11] please come out and see us and uh we can get started with your background

[11:15] investigation. Um

[11:21] and uh I lost my train of thought on the rest of it. So that'll be my report.

[11:28] » Thank you, Chief Assistant Town. >> I found it. I'm sorry. [laughter]

[11:32] Um, going back to what the town administrator said about getting the

[11:36] information out. I I've noticed, which I hate to look at social media, but I've

[11:41] noticed on social media, a lot of people complain that we tried to broadcast

[11:45] information on social media and other forms. Um, if you don't like any of

[11:49] those ways and don't want to wait for a newspaper to have it, you can always

[11:52] text 888 se 77788.

[11:57] Text your zip code to that number. And when we do have an event, you will get

[12:03] the emergency information sent directly to your phone. So it's 777888.

[12:08] Text your zip code to that number and we'll get you the information. That's my

[12:13] report. >> Chief, that that's a really good segue

[12:17] into what one of the things that I was going to actually bring up. Uh we do

[12:20] have communication capability in our uh utility system and we have reached out

[12:26] to all the residents to please provide us that information. We can do

[12:29] robocalls, we can do text messaging, and it's a really great way for us to

[12:33] communicate to you if there's things that we need to get out into your

[12:36] community. The only other thing that I do have is we are in the I'm beginning

[12:40] the budget process. So, all the department heads and and staff will be

[12:45] working on getting the budget ready. Our goal is to be finished by the end of

[12:48] May. >> Thank you, Judy. Moving forward into the

[12:52] mayor's report, I'm just briefly going to uh mention our communication stuff.

[12:57] Uh we are working really hard to um not only reach residents on social media,

[13:02] but find other avenues to do it. Um we're collecting emails. We're going to

[13:06] have text alerts. We're going to do everything we can to try to alert our

[13:10] citizens when something goes wrong. Uh we are not immune to the fact that we

[13:16] have a lot of older residents that may not be on social media. Um so by

[13:20] providing a text alert system, we're hoping that they'll be able to sign up

[13:23] for that. um or at the very least have an email that they can access to get

[13:28] important alerts. Eventually, what we're looking at doing is um getting it so

[13:32] that if we have a water main break, those alerts would go directly to that

[13:36] street uh and uh those residents would be notified immediately that their water

[13:40] service may be effective if something goes wrong. Same thing with uh community

[13:44] festivals and other things that we have going on. We're going to work on ways to

[13:48] uh improve our communication. Uh, I do want to just again say a huge thank you

[13:54] to our public works team. Um, to chief to Cal. Uh, we had numerous meetings

[13:59] during the snowstorm. Uh, and they both worked super hard to keep our residents

[14:04] informed of what was going on. Um, while also dealing with some tricky issues of

[14:09] motorists being trapped uh on their road on the roads um as well as some

[14:15] developments that weren't happy about the snow removal. Um we're super

[14:19] thankful for them. Uh we're super thankful for our public works crew. Um

[14:24] they ended up having to do a water mane break right in the middle of the snow

[14:27] removal um in sub-zero temperatures. Uh we can't thank them enough for all that

[14:33] they do uh for our community. Uh couple of bad bills are coming through right

[14:38] now because the uh session is uh the state legislature is now in session. Uh

[14:44] we've written a couple of opposed uh to those bills. Uh, one of them is a

[14:48] juvenile justice reform act that is going to be heard on the 12th. Um, that

[14:53] is something that Chief Peterson and I are going to be opposing. Um, there's a

[14:58] few other ones that are now coming up uh regarding local zoning authority uh that

[15:03] the state has put forth. Uh, we continue to keep an eye out on what's coming down

[15:07] from the state and what may be affected by uh how the town may be affected by

[15:12] legislation coming from the state. Uh moving forward into commissioner

[15:16] comments. Uh Commissioner Dowling said that he has no comment. So

[15:22] Commissioner Kleiner >> um just a brief report. We only were

[15:26] able to meet once as as the uh planning commission for January because of the

[15:31] weather, but we continue to have good discussions. Um, and I too want to share

[15:37] my thanks to the Department of Public Works and to Calvin and Chief and

[15:41] everyone who worked late and worked days and days into the storm. And also, um,

[15:47] there have been a few water main breaks. So, it's just it's not ever lost on me

[15:52] that they're away from their families overnight sometimes um, and their

[15:56] families are missing them. So, thank you so much. That concludes my report. Thank

[16:01] you, [clears throat] >> Commissioner Pearson.

[16:05] » Well, I have the fortunate saying that I was sitting in Florida when all this

[16:12] happened. Okay. >> And it was I think it was 81 that that

[16:17] Saturday. Uh >> however, when I got back,

[16:22] » I heard nothing but positive things about our public works and all. I mean,

[16:29] my neighbors were coming up to me saying they did a great job and all. So, even

[16:34] though you're not here, word gets out pretty quick of the job they did. And I

[16:40] want to just say I appreciate what they did. So, that's the end of my report.

[16:45] » Calvin, did you have a brief comment regarding the zoning stuff?

[16:48] » Yeah, I I think it's important um to step back for a second. If you remember

[16:54] when the cannabis legislation came in and people wanted to know why we were

[17:01] allowing cannabis in the community. Um, another one that comes in that trunk

[17:07] there is solar panels. What I'm alluding to is our state government is

[17:16] navigating towards taking local control away from local government to regulate

[17:22] these things. So let's let's talk about what that means. It's a rural community.

[17:27] We like the rural nature of the community and people pick and choose

[17:31] where they want to live. If they want to live in an urban area, they can live in

[17:34] an urban area with public transportation. if they want to live in

[17:38] a rural area, maybe the side effect of that is there's no public

[17:41] transportation. But what the state has been doing over the last couple of years

[17:46] and and and I'm going to sort of call them I don't want to say quite threats,

[17:52] but what they keep gravitating towards is a one-sizefits-all way of regulating

[17:58] things. So they are looking to take away and not just the town of Rising Sun, not

[18:05] just Cecil County, but every county in every town in this state the ability to

[18:10] regulate residential zoning. So what that means is that if you go into the

[18:16] Summer Hill development and you say, "Wow, it's a halfacre piece of land and

[18:21] that's just the right amount of land I want for the size house that I want." Or

[18:25] you could go down to uh break or I'm sorry uh Keles Mill and say, "Well, I

[18:30] want a townhouse development. I want to move down there." You're not going to

[18:35] have that right effective October of 2026 if this legislation gets passed.

[18:41] And the new legislation is going to be no community can require a lot size

[18:48] larger than 5,000 square feet. So, I believe um you live on Manor, is it?

[18:55] » Yes. >> Yeah. [snorts]

[18:56] That's like half the size of your lots right now on Manor Court. So, we're not

[19:02] going to be able to regulate lot size. We're not going to be able to regulate

[19:06] house size. We're going to have to allow houses to be five feet from the property

[19:13] line, which means they're going to be 10 feet apart. And we're not allowed to

[19:17] require a setback of greater than 10 feet. Which what that means is you will

[19:24] not see anybody parking in a driveway in front of a home again because the

[19:30] average car a sedan is anywhere from 16 to 22 feet long. So unless these cars

[19:36] are going to block the public sidewalk, that's what we're going to be dealing

[19:41] with. which means we're going to have more traffic parking out on residential

[19:46] streets. Some of those streets are older, might not be wide enough. We've

[19:51] talked before about the changes the town has made to in our zoning code that's

[19:56] going to be eliminated. And the other thing they're talking about doing is

[20:01] allowing any residential property that has not been subdivided in the last

[20:08] three years to subdivide. So, not to pick on Manor Court, but what that

[20:14] particularly means is Manor Court people could say, you know what, I want to

[20:18] build another building behind my house and I want to rent it out to people and

[20:23] we can't we can't charge impact fees for that. So, what that means is the sewer

[20:29] and water repairs that the town has made in the past, the high sewer and water

[20:35] rates, we're not going to be able to pass that along to new development in

[20:40] the future. So essentially what that means is future land owners are going to

[20:46] receive more profit for their land and developers are going to be able to build

[20:50] more houses which is profit for them but the existing taxpayers are the ones who

[20:55] are going to have paid for that sewer and water infrastructure. So when you

[21:00] think about it your head just like just wants to pop like what is the logic

[21:04] behind that? But I think it was Ronald Reagan who always said the this the nine

[21:10] scariest words are, "We're the government. We're here to help you."

[21:15] That's what it sounds like the state is trying to do is help different

[21:20] populations or communities, but they're trying to do a one-sizefits-all.

[21:25] So, that's pretty scary. And we're going to lose control in the future if that

[21:30] bill is passed. >> Yeah. And I think that uh Cal and I are

[21:34] are putting forth a letter to the housing committee um in the general

[21:38] assembly because that's who's putting it forward right now. Um and those

[21:43] legislators we hope to reach out to and explain uh what is going on and and uh

[21:48] how it's going to affect our rural community.

[21:50] » And I think the Maryland Municipal League is also

[21:53] » they are >> writing against it too.

[21:56] All right. On on our schedule, you can see our

[22:00] board of zoning appeals, upcoming town events, upcoming town holidays, our

[22:04] trash, recycle, and yardway schedule. Is there anything else to come before the

[22:07] board this evening? I think this is our shortest meeting we've ever had.

[22:12] » No, >> I think it was 11 minutes.

[22:15] » Can I get a motion to adjurnn? >> I make a motion to adjourn.

[22:18] » Second it. >> It's been moved and seconded. All in

[22:20] favor? Meeting ajourned.

Town of Rising Sun, MD, Board of Commissioners Meeting - February 10, 2026

Transcript