Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning to lead in the opening prayer and then Council President Haib has been conscripted to lead in the pledge of allegiance. But first, Pastor Dr. Halbeneck, come on up and lead us in the opening prayer. I do roll call. No roll call. We're going to do the roll call. So you can stand there silently for a moment. Ma'am Clerk, can you call the roll? Council President Haib. Here. Councilman Linda Camp. Here. Councilman Montgomery. Here. Councilman Linda Camp. Here. Councilman Monk Umory. Here. Councilwoman Richley. Here. Ma'am MacGrady. I'm here too. Welcome. Well everyone please rise. Man, a little while since we've had a meeting. If all hodes and minds are sinner, let us pray to the one that sustains us each and every day. Father God, we pray that you would lead us and guide us always satisfy the needs that need to be met during this meeting. Struth in the elected as they make tough decision, I pray that this council will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. I pray that they will be fruitful. God of justice and mercy. We thank you for the gift of life and the opportunity to serve the people of our city. Help the elected to act with character and conviction. Help them to listen with understanding and good will. Help them to speak with charity and restreth. Give them a spirit of service. Remind them, O Lord, that we are stewards of your authority. Guide them to be the leaders that the people elected. Help them to see the humanity and dignity of those who disagree with them and to treat all purses no matter how weak or poor with dignity and reverence, your creation deserves. Now God, a peace and love, we invite you to preside over this meeting, even if we have different opinions, give us a unity of spirit, help us to listen politely as others share their points of view, help the council to work as a unified body and combine in their ideas for a greater outcome, help this council to work to have the spirit of camaraderie in this room to work the devil on their assigned and shared mission. I'm asking that you graciously lower grant them wisdom to govern amid the conflict and interest and issues of our time. A sense of welfare and true needs of our people, a keen sense for justice and righteousness, confidence in what is good and fitting and the ability to work together in harmony when there is honor's disagreement, personal peace. I ask for all of them for their lives and Lord give them joy for the task to have taken the oath. He turned a God, I pray that you bless this meeting. Lord make your face shine on us and be gracious to us. I pray we will feel your presence doing this meeting and because we you are with us always wherever we go. I pray that this meeting focus upon you and your plans for us as a body of believers. Let our actions in this meeting be valuable to our aim, which is to build up and unify one another. Last but not least, Lord, I pray for the agenda set before us today. Please give an assurance of what would please you and what would benefit those who work and live in the round this beloved city of Aberdeen. And we pray this prayer in the matchless name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the Father of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands and stay as one nation on the dot. In this is a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of justice for all. Council, we've got some minutes submitted by a clerk ready to be approved if they meet your satisfaction. And then I'm going to ask for a deviation on the recorded meeting to present the $20,000 grant that the City Council budgeted last budget year to the Aberdeen Room Historic or Archives and Museum Inc. representatives of whom are with us today. So is there a motion to approve any of the minutes as submitted by the clerk for approval? Some moved. Thank you, Councilman Ridgely. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Councilman Hive. Any more discussion on the minutes as submitted? That is from May 6, 2024 work session June 3, 2024 council meeting. June 17, 2024 work session. June 17, 2024 work session and June 17, 24 council meeting. Hearing none, Madam Clerk, any call the roll please. Council President Hype. Aye. Council Member Nicaran. Council Member Montgomery. Aye. Councilwoman Richley. Aye. Thank you, Council. Mr. and Mrs. Peters, you want just Mrs. Peters, you want both of you and how you want to play this. I'll meet you want just Mrs. Peters you want both of you what how you want play this So before you counsel we have mr. Ruth Peters Who is the president president of the Aberdeen Historical Museum right here in Aberdeen, hosting all the archives, being opened to the public. Last year, Aberdeen City Council budgeted $20,000 to assist in the digitization of the really cool records that exist at the Aberdeen Historical Museum, including a not limited to the Hartford Democrat newspaper publication that goes back to. 19, 19, 19. 19, 19. Some of those old records are beat up. The Aberdeen Historical Museum met with the Maryland State Archives, who has a division associated with these kinds of record retention, digitization, because they want them and because it's important to preserve these kinds of things. And soization, because they want them and because it's important to preserve these kinds of things. And so the City Council approved the $20,000 to fund this project a year ago, and we got it under the deadline to cement the funding availability. And this is the check that will give the $20,000 to the Aberdeen Historical Museum to get that project rocking and rolling. Mrs. Peters, you want say anything? You may. Just that I spent a good part of the day to day already with Maryland State Archives finalizing not finalizing, which is working on a lot of details of the project. We're looking forward to seeing the results. So are we. Thank you. Thank you for coming. It wasn't shaped. It was good. You're happy because I get it back up. It's real good. All right. Thank you, my fingers. Oh, I took the microphone. Let me put that back. It's still good. Amplifiers operational. It's a bit warmer. I know you see how the mobile is going to be. Please. Thank you, Council. The next item on the agenda, if I'm not mistaken, since we have no presentations or public hearings, is the opportunity for public comment. This is where any member of the public can come to the microphone in the front of the room. When you do, please state your name and address for the record and you'll get up to three minutes unless the council authorizes more time. Now is your opportunity. Might be a quick meeting. Anybody coming for a public comment to a close. Councilor Latter, last meeting I told you I was going to nominate Robert Hartman to the Aberdeen Board of Appeals as a regular member and cascaded to serve on the board of appeals as the alternate member. The thinking on this is that the board of Appeals as the alternate member. The thinking on this is that what we try to do with the Board of Appeals, it is not in the code, but the new member gets to be the alternate. And the way the alternate works on the Board of Appeals, they're expected to attend all the meetings of the Board of Appeals, but they don't get to vote on matters before the board until such time that the And there's an absence and if there's somebody needs to be filled in for then the alternate gets to act in the official capacity at the Board of Appeals So council I have two nominations is there objection to me proposing both nominations at the same time and then asking for a vote? Okay, so I'm gonna read both of these and then I'm gonna ask for a vote on both at the same time and then asking for a vote. No, sir. Okay, so I'm going to read both of these and then I'm going to ask for a vote on both at the same time. I nominate Robert Hartman to serve on the Aberdeen Board of Appeals as a regular member to supersede his appointment as an alternate member which was approved at the May 22, 24 Council meeting. He has a three year term to expire on June 30, 2027. And I nominate Cascurie to serve on the Aberdeen Board of Appeals as an alternate member for a term of three years to expire on June 30, 2027. Madam Clerk, can you call the roll for my nominations, please? Council President Hyde. Aye. Councilman Linda Camp. Councilman Montgomery. Aye. Councilwoman Eregeli. Aye. Aye. Four votes. The affirmative. I councilwoman originally I I four votes the affirmative the nominations are approved Madam clerk. Thank you for preparing me the nominations Yes, can I jump back to the legislative session? Part just for a moment for comment For everyone's sake as we move forward with the comprehensive rezoning the ordinance has to sit longer than a standard ordinance due to proper notification to all the property owners and probably notice so it sits for at least 30 days after its introduction and release. So that public hearing will take place on August 12th As well as it'll be the night for consideration by the council of the ordinance as well as any amendments that are offered between now and that point for the 24 O-14. So if anyone was wondering why that was not on the agenda tonight on normal procedure, it would be by giving the special case to this ordinance, you'll see it again on the 12th of August. I think as a matter of practice, we probably should have all active legislation listed under legislative session, even if they're weird. Let's figure out how we can do that. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Council attached to the meeting agenda for this evening, you'll see the procurement of 22 Howard Street with a memo, a couple of sentences I wrote about it. 22 Howard Street is the project that the City of Aberdeen purchased using State Department of Housing and Community Development money right over here at the other side of Festival Park. I used to be a laundromat, then a guy bought it, and then ripped out the windows and slapped some paint on the exterior, and then we acquired it from him. And we are in the process of the procurement process of doing some strategic construction on that site. That is to say we have a structural engineer who drew some drawings up that have a new pair of walls being constructed on the site. One wall on the Masonic lodge side of the building and one wall on the Centennial Lane side of the building. Each structural wall will be holding up new trusses that will make up the roof with a new membrane on the roof and air conditioning units to be set on the roof. There is a mandatory on site meeting for pre-bid that's happening this Friday. And then two weeks from now or two weeks from Friday, the bids will be due to the city for anybody who wants to do that project. So I don't need anything on this item of the agenda, but I wanted it on your radar so you can see that we're making progress on that. Looking forward to in the next few days, signing a lease with the potential tenant, watch Tower Brewing, their gung-ho about moving forward and seeing construction start on that before it starts getting cold and I'm looking forward to that. The next four items on your agenda council are our surpluses. This is L2L304L5. The city of Aberdeen has these vehicles in the case of the first three units that we've attached a memo explaining the material details of those. And then the fourth request for surplus is for a bunch of equipment that has been sitting around the Aberdeen proving ground, work sites of the city of Aberdeen for our APG contract. And they don't do anybody any good, but out of abundance of caution associated with that equipment we would like to have a vote to surplus these things per the city charter so that we can proceed to try to find a new home for this equipment including the vehicles does anybody have any questions about the memos as included in your budget agenda is there a motion to approve the surplus of the L2, 3, 4, 5, or is anybody need any more information? Make a motion to approve. Thank you, Councilman Montgomery. Is there a second on the motion to approve the surplus? It's not good. Thank you. Any more discussion? Why did they sit around so long? The L5 surplus. It's been out of commission for five years? Mr. Torscher, how come all your equipment's been sitting around for so long? Well, sometimes our mechanics end up basically scrapping the entire part, but the entire unit, but sometimes they would end up using parts from those particular units as far as when they're available so that they don't have to go out. So they'll basically salvage those parts into existing units. So I asked the same question of Mr. Torster, and I said, why don't we have so much equipment there, while you just get rid of it? So looking at some of these pieces of equipment, there's a welder, there's a welder cabinet, there's an old generator, a couple of generators that were used for backups for the water and sewer operations out there. And so in the memo, you'll see there's photographs of the equipment where one component could fail on a generator, The belt could fail, but they could salvage, because they're the same, could salvage the lid off of it. You could salvage the handle off of it, instead of going to buy in a new part. And so they left them sitting around and then they realized we're not gonna reuse this stuff. And so let's get it out of here. It would have been easy for Mr. Torscher just to throw it away. But's possible that a lot of it does not have value to somebody who might want to buy the junk generator and use it, but what we might be able to do is find somebody who would pay to scrap it. But more to follow. Good. Any more discussion on the motion to serve plus the L2345? Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Council President Hyde. Councilman Inniquam. Councilman Monk-Gummery. Councilwoman Richley. Aye. Four votes to the affirmative. The bid to surplus those items is approved. Excuse me, the motion to surplus is approved. Council, in the agenda that was published on Friday, you may have looked and saw the memo about the I-95 elevated water tank referenced as bid number 22-05. Since that memo was submitted, which recommended the approval of the low bidder, it came to the attention of the city that the low bidder was not qualified in so far as all of the information that they needed to include as part of their bid package was not there. So even though their price was the lowest, the city in following our procurement policy would be at risk of a threat of, I don't know if it's misappropriation, misallocating the bid award if we award it to the low bidder because they didn't follow all the rules. And so instead of the memo recommending the low bidder which was Phoenix fabricators, any recorders LLC in the amount of $4,600,000 in change to be completed by November 14, 2025. The memo was rewritten, emailed around earlier and you might have found a copy at your desk that says that the recommendation from the Department of Public Works and Procurement in consultation with our legal counsel is to award the bid to Johnston construction company and the amount of $4,700,000 in change to be delivered complete by March 13th, 2026. Which the difference in the bids mayor the original bid that you cannot take and the one that you are now proposing the difference in cost about one hundred thousand dollars. Okay. So mayor this came to your attention today. Yes. Okay. And for budgeting purposes we did budget four million in the budget this year for this it's going to come in close to five are we planning to pay it over multiple years is that why? For budgeting purposes, we did budget four million in the budget this year for this. It's going to come in close to five. Are we planning to pay it over multiple years? Is that why we're going to put it up? Let's come back to that. Yes, let's come back to that. It's good question. So yes, this was brought to my attention today. The significance of this specific bid project is that the city went out for bid earlier this year for the same project. Okay, that is the water tank that's supposed to be built at the site on technology drive near Maryland State 22. We received bids, we opened the bids, but we could not award the bid because after we went through all the process, the Maryland Department of Environment came back and said they wanted the specs to be different. They wanted two pipes coming in instead of one pipe coming in. And we decided we needed a bigger tank than we originally planned for. And so this was for the 600,000 gallon elevated tank to be constructed on site, all in for full million, $739,577, this should get us a tank. What the recommendation is from DPW and procurement is to authorize with this bit award an expenditure of up to $5 million total, which is Council President Huy have said, a million dollars more than previously budgeted in order to make sure that if there's overruns, which will be reported to the Council, of course, that they will be able to be covered under this bid. Did that address your question, I'm sorry. The funding will be paying for, will be over multiple fiscal years. That's why we're gonna keep with the other million, maybe next year is that- I don't know how the process for that works. Mr. Toys, how does the paying for it works? We don't have to pay for it today. Right. Well, what ends up happening is that the schedule is about 18 months and because it's using a water fund, which is paid during the existing year, most likely there's going to be a portion of the 4.7 million that will be spent this year. It's not anticipated to be fully exhausted because of the construction period. And then next budget year we will pretty much continue allocating that in the remainder of the amount of the amount. Yes, and we intend to use what I lovingly call the Biden box or the American Rescue Plan, ARPA dollars associated with this project and we have something like $16 million in the fund where this will come out of. That's total. 16 million total. Cash in the account to cover this over the next 18 months. And the million dollar additional expenses are going to impact and have other planned projects coming down the line. That's correct. For existing infrastructure or future infrastructure. Well, in so far as all dollars are fungible, it will impact them. With the anticipation that we can, yes, we should have enough able to pay for it. I'm not going to pay for it. I'm not going to pay for it. We should have enough money to pay for it. I hope we have enough money to pay for it. I hope we have enough money to pay for it. That's the trajectory. One point that I'd like to add to the point with the information presented of Mayor and Councillor Lest Wednesday when we were looking at the bid's information was provided to our city attorney about the possibility between these two schedules, and our information was not able to be made. In order to meet the criteria for getting this in front of the council was Wednesday, but we had our meeting with our city attorney today. So that's, there was some additional information. Good. Any other questions about this? Mayor, I'm just trying to understand the difference between the lower bid and now. Yes. It's the second bid. There was always two bids that looks like two sealed bids that were actually given. What was it about the initial bid? Because you say that the low bidder was not responsive in their bid presentation. So when a bid comes in to the procurement office, do they review the bid to make sure that it's complete? And if there's anything that's not complete, go back to that individual. That's correct. Yes. Did they do that in this case? And was that something that was? So that's not how it works. That's not correct. But what happens is the bids are submitted, and then they're all opened at the same time. It's a sealed bid. Yes. And so when we open it, then we evaluate it and ones that don't meet the criteria are considered non-responsive. They didn't satisfy the requirements in the bid. And so in looking at it, we wanted to award it to the lower bid because it saved $100,000. And be delivered faster. There was a requirement in the bid packet that said that the bidder needed to submit a schedule of the fabrication, the building, and the site work. And Johnston submitted a, what's the word for this? It's called a Gantt chart. Gantt chart. With the running schedule. Yes, a schedule. And the low bidder just said, we'll have it done in 450 days. the the schedule and the low bitter just said we'll have it done in 450 days and that did not meet our criteria for a schedule and the city attorney says clearly that's not a schedule and would and if I was Johnston I would sue you and I would win if you awarded it to the low bitter okay and we're not allowed to open those sealed bids until the end of the closed period just to catch that. That's right. Okay. And so if you want to see the next one, two weeks from Friday when we do 22 Howard Street, we bring in the procurement team. They sit at a table up here in public. They put the bids on the table that were received in an envelope. They lay them on the table. They open them. They say bid from, you know, one, two, three construction. This is what their total bid is. They go down the checklist that says these are all the documents that were required. It looks like they have them in here. They included their bid bond. They have to give us money when they bid. They include all these things in it. If they didn't have any of them, They close it and say not a valid bid. Okay. Thanks. I don't know that we set a time on that one for that one up. So yes, and to add to that, we'll take the information. If there's something administratively missing on a document, and we'll talk to the better and say, okay, you didn't fill out this form. In this particular case, the attorney advised us that there was a significant amount of difference. And so when that letter was prepared on Wednesday and to today, that's a difference at the time. So, okay. Thank you. Any more discussion or questions about this bid or the process or generally help procurement works in the city of Aberdeen? Mayor, I would move forward with bid number 20205 for Johnson and construction company in the amount recommended by procurement and the department of public works. Great. So that's to award the bid for 4,739,577 dollars but to authorize funding of up to $5,000,000 to cover project cost increases. Yes. Good. Thank you. Is there a second? I'll second it. Thank you, Councilman Ridgley. Any more discussion? Madam Clerk, can you call the roll on approving bid 2205 to Johnston construction? Council President Hyde. Aye. Councilman Linda Camp. Aye. Councilman Montgomery. Aye. Councilwoman Ridgley. Aye. Four votes, the affirmative, that bid is approved and the contractor will be notified. Good, Mr. Torture. Mr. Sclery, you you start with updates from staff. Sure. I hope I don't sue your thunder mayor on this issue. We just received an announcement which you're aware of from the U.S. Department of Transportation where receiving another $800,000 grant for the raise grant that we submitted and raise is an acronym for U.S. Department of Transportation's rebuilding American infrastructure with sustainability and equity grant program. We submitted that for phase two of the station square architectural and engineering design, geotechnical reporting, and we were very successful. So we've got a total of $5.6 million from federal funds to go towards the station square project. Great news for the city. How did we get the $800,000? Is that money just floating out there? We just scooped it up. Now it was a lot of hard work in my department to submit that grant application. So we work with our lobbyists to review our criteria and the merit criteria and all the other components of the grant application that takes a good two months to work on that grant application before it's submitted. And we worked with our congressional representatives and we worked with the lobbyist at Commonwealth Strategic Partners who's been helping us navigate that system. We go through Senator Van Hollen, Senator Carden's office, we go through Representative Harris's office and then all the local Delegate and Senator as well, but we've gotten a lot of great support from Senator Cardin and Senator Van Hall and's office. Tremendous is a matter of fact. Anything else? We will be meeting with Senator Cardin's representative this week on Thursday. We're going to take a tour. Look at I believe it's from 1030 to 1230 on Thursday. We're going to take a tour. Look at, I believe it's from 1030 to 1230 on Thursday. Jessica Cook will be here in Aberdeen, the Maron Eye and our lobbyists will be providing a tour of the Aberdeen train station. Talk briefly about the Amtrak improvements that are planned there as well as the federal grants that we have received in the next steps. We'll be taking her to the Swan Meadows development to talk about the infrastructure project there because as you're aware we did submit an earmark for over nine million dollars for the public infrastructure upgrades there and it is looking favorable so far but I don't want to you know cross to me bridges yet. We'll also be touring briefly the University of Maryland, Aberdeen Medical Campus, and we have some other sites. We're going to be Aberdeen Activity Center because we did submit an earmark for the outdoor recreation components of the activity center site. I'm going to loss. We're going to look at the middle gate at APG road. We're going to look at the Aberdeen post office here across from West Bell Avenue from St. Delay. Main street. Main street. We're in the tour of the Main Street area. Great. Anything else? That's it sir. Mr. Torscher, where you got last week the sidewalk connectivity contractor was working on Cambridge and this week they're working on Edmund. So those are new sidewalks where no sidewalks have existed. The work on Beards Hill near Barnett, we're waiting for the contractor. He had to order basically the storm grates which are several weeks in advance. So at once those storm grates and the boxes come in, they'll go ahead and install them. There's a storm pipe that they're going to have to tie into. And so that's kind of where the delay in this particular connectivity issue is over on Barnett When do they have to be done with that one? I don't know I have to check this guy reason I ask is because I feel like we awarded that like when it was cold No, it was awarded towards the end of... Check on that, get back to me. Okay, we'll check on that. Anything else? Not this evening, you'll notice that the audio is working. So the audio issue was... It was an amplifier. It was the original amplifier So I'm not an audio engineer But the sound comes in goes into a box the box was broken and so it was not able to make the sound louder But the original one 24 years old maybe the last another 24 years. We're good. Thank you And that's all I have. Great. Mr. Jack. That's a bit of a million cancel. Just want to let you know that the auditors are here this week to do their preliminary field work for the audit of the financial statements for fiscal year 2024. They'll be back after this week. I'm going to be back in that is quick. They'll be back and step them by I believe. Great. So Mr. Jack's comments about the audit. It is an annual thing that happens here. The audit thing of the books of the city including and not limited to looking at receipts, making sure that receipts match deposits, making sure that checks have enough signatures on them over certain quantities, making sure that there are invoices associated with each of the checks and they do random selections from the files to make sure these things are in good order. And as long as I can remember, they've been in good order here. And so, anything else, Mr. Jack? Mrs. Horn the Main Street Coordinator is meeting this evening with the Havardegraise and Belair Main Street Coordinators and Secretary of Department of Housing and Community Development Jake Day in the town of Belair this evening. Secretary Day was in Aberdeen earlier today. I met him here at City Hall from 330 until 430. We walked around Festival Park, pointed out the projects that the Department of Housing and Community Development has helped with in Aberdeen and some of the stuff that they're currently helping with and some of the stuff that I want them to help with in the future. And so I think it was very productive. He brought with him a Mr. Cook who is the husband of Jessica Cook who works for Carden who I did not know. So Secretary of Housing and Redevelopments, top aid is Jessica's husband. And so that was productive. We talked about how to take advantage of the $50 million investment in the M-track project and continuing the great stuff. The primary feedback was you're doing exactly what we want you to be doing in Aberdeen. Keep doing what you're doing, keep focusing on your main street, keep taking advantage of the opportunities for the grants that we make available, keep approving housing of all types. So the Secretary of Housing and Community Development was the face man for the governor's housing package, House Bill 538, which changes the way that local zoning is Incorporated and his aid Mr. Cook says you as much as love that you're doing all this TOD stuff I said it was a very ambitious plan like I've been saying in the beginning It was very ambitious and I'm curious to see how this plays out. And they are working to amplify those efforts. Apparently, the primary nexus where they were focusing on getting more housing constructed was not up here in Aberdeen, but seemingly was in Baltimore County where there have been pressures to stop additional housing units from being built in a whole series of ways and it looks like it's going to be the Baltimore County Council tightening their restrictions on housing and response to the governor's housing law. And then the governor is going to go back to the legislature next year and get them to change state law to overcome the restrictions from Baltimore County's restrictive housing policies. The goal being that more housing stock, they say that there's 60,000 or 100,000 units short in Maryland of housing available. The idea being that more housing being available makes it more affordable for Marylanders to live in Maryland. So they want to shoot everything across the bow. They want modular homes and mobile homes and townhouses and single families and apartments and condos and everything, all incorporated housing because more housing gets more people off the street and makes it more affordable to live here. Secretary Day has an interesting background. He was the mayor of Salisbury, which is, if you think of Aberdeen as a mid-size, Maryland town, Salisbury would be like Aberdeen's older brother. So they got about 30,000 people. Aberdeen's got about 18,000 people. And so they have bigger and different kinds of problems, but they approach real-size city density levels and problems. But it's interesting experience that he brings to the office of the Secretary of Department of Housing and Community Development. And I gave him an Aberdeen hat and Mr. Cook and Ben, his photographer. What else? That's the highlight. We did the whole tour around Festival Park. We looked at, because DHCD has had a lot of impact here. The Department of Housing, QE development helped with strategic demolition at the site, at the corner here, where the horn project is going. And then at 34 North Philadelphia Boulevard, they helped with money to offset the development costs of Dr. Schaudry's project. And then of course Festival Park, ProSterman Restaurant, they've helped with facade money which is a DHCD thing moving over to 22 Howard Street. We talked about the project, we went in and looked at the current situation there where we're going to build the new walls and a new roof to get that brewery project going and we continued down to say delicious through the alley where we're talking about making the pedestrian improvements from Festival Park down towards say delicious to connect the main street to festival park. And he said, you guys are doing exactly what you should be doing, keep it up. And I said, well, how can we help you? And he said, just keep doing what you're doing. He said, can I tell Aberdeen story in other places in the state? And I said, whatever. Yeah, that's great. Anything we can do to help. And so maybe they'll give us more money now. I don't know. We'll see. To see the stuff we're working on. And again, that's why Vicki's not here. But we've got all the remains to keep stuff coming. Next is the second opportunity for public comment. Anybody who'd like to can approach the microphone to the front of the room. When you do, please state your name and address for the record. Unless Lieutenant Reads wants to add anything from the police department. Okay, so now is the opportunity for public comment. Karen Havis, exterior for the West Bill or app. I want to say I appreciate all the information that has been being incorporated into the city website. Still a little bit hard to get. Quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, and maybe you get there. That being said, the information is in a lot of places. Just if you would clarify something for me this evening, I saw it in the newspaper that there is a board of appeals meeting this week on Tuesday the 9th, but I don't see it on the list of meetings later on in your announcement. So I just want to make sure it's in my recollections normally been on Wednesdays, but anyway, so what I didn't see it here, I thought maybe it got to be. Don't go anywhere, hold on. This Wednesday is the planning commission meeting. Right but on Tuesday the night there's a board of appeals meeting and I thought maybe when you did the little unfinished business with the appointments you might have mentioned it but just feels the shaking her head yes so yeah okay I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I I can't notice that's not online. Yes. Well, I don't know. It's online and here also. Also online. OK, great. Great. And also, I would imagine if Ms. Horners here, she would have mentioned the stakeholders meeting that's been announced for this week also. That's Wednesday. And that's, I think, really important. That's someone needs to talk about that. Make sure you remind people whether you know, whether you're a business owner or a resident or, you know, civic groups, everyone in the city is invited to come to that. Sometime during the day for that meeting. But anyway, I appreciate, you know, information is in many places. Just want to make sure that, you know, since it wasn't on the list tonight, that everything's still kosher with that. So what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to pack it all on there. And then we will unpack it and see how to make it the most useful. But right now I'm in, put it on the website moment. Right, right. Yes. And I know you have mentioned feedback from the public. And at some point in time, to me, it's still constantly changing. I have been looking at those weekly reports. And I will say some of the size of the text is hard for seniors for me to look at. But in general, it's got some information in there. It's good to know some might be a little bit too much information, but you know, as it progresses, maybe a more concerted organized analysis might be forthcoming. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Mrs. Grover, can you please add the stakeholder meeting to Graticus? Absolutely. We'll do that. Take care of that tomorrow. Okay. meeting to Granicus. Absolutely. We'll do that. Take care of that tomorrow. Since everybody is pulling the energy to get out of their seats, the stakeholder meeting to be held on Wednesday basically all day, I think from 9 until 3 o'clock. 9 until 2 o'clock is a main street project we've hired a consultant with money from the Department of Housing and Community Development to help us nail down the specific details of more downtown revitalization. So urban design and street walk configuration and specific details on the specific area between Festival Park and basically the post office on ways that we can make improvements there that will make an impact in the near term rather than long term aspirational stuff. If anybody has any ideas about how to improve that, that's the opportunity to come and provide your feedback. I don't know what to expect at that meeting, but these people are professionals, and so they should have good questions to ask. And if you want information about that, it'll be on the website, no later. I'm sure it's on the website now, but it'll be on the tool for the meetings. I'd say by 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. Good, thank you. I might call the public comment to a close. Next is the business of mayor and council with liaison reports. Councilman Montgomery, will you start this evening? Sure, Mayor. Thank you. Since we last met on the 18th, I had a chance, actually, I think since we last met, it was the 16th, wasn't it? Have you been that long? You said it's been a while and it has been a while. On the 18th of June, I had a chance to sit down with the Aberdeen Golden Age Club, kind of an engagement meeting with them. It was twofold. One, they had asked for some feedback on what was happening when it came to our activity center. And then the second piece was how they felt about services that were given to them and that they have recommendations on services not only now, but recommendations for the activity center. I was happy to have Councilwoman Ridgley with me as well as is it the director or the chair of the economic. Mr. Horn was there as well and helped with the conversation. I did do a summary report of that engagement that I shared with the Council and it will be a part of the minutes as a part of this Council minutes. I won't get into the details of what they, but I will say that we all came away from good feedback from them when it came to what they'd like to see now, what they'd like to see in the future for their activity center, and I did in the summary report list a series of actions that were clearly they wanted us as a council and a city to take a look at. So that was a good engagement. And councilor and Bridget, I don't know if you want to add anything to that. Or. I will want to smile. Okay. Yeah. Three of us went to the 2024 MML summer conference. 23 through 26 June. It was my first conference and I got a lot out of it. Had a chance not only to kind of get to know our council members a little bit better, but also fellow council members from across the 160 municipalities in the state, as well as other municipality workers to kind of get their feedback. I did a formal trip report that I shared with the council this weekend and that trip report will also be a part of the minutes. I won't get into the details of that but you certainly can take a look at it but you basically get a chance to see what I got out of the conference some points of contact that I had a chance to meet and probably more importantly and I shared this with the council president some ideas for us as a Council to take a look at when it came to lessons learned at that trip. On the 27th of June, I had a chance and I think I was the final one to sit down with Inter County Outreach, early education center, great group of people, super plan. I was very thankful that I had a chance to take a look at that. The recommendation I made to them was let's build the coalition. Let's get more people at the county level and the state level involved with their plans, so they understand it, because we're stronger together if more of us kind of understand where we're going. And I basically said that it was a great brief and it was a good background. I really enjoyed their time. On the liaison side on the 28th of June, I represented Aberdeen City Council at the Communication Electronics Command Assumption of Command, ceremony at APG. Brigadier General Jim Turnetti, he's dual-hatted. He's not only the commander of a command, but he is the new installation commander for APG. So we're looking forward to working with him and getting him on an orientation schedule. He certainly is interested to work closely with the city and also found that I worked with him when I was a major and he was a captain in Germany about 18 years ago. So it's a small army and it's great to see him come here to Aberdeen Prudent Ground. And on the 6th of July I had a chance to participate in the Harvard-a-Grace Independence Parade. I want to do a shout out to our Aberdeen High School Eagle Marching Band who came in first place as judged by the judges in Marching Band High School so good for Aberdeen High School. And finally I want to make a comment as the Council President made on the in Marching Band High School, so good for Aberdeen High School. And finally, I want to make a comment as the Council President made on the legislative side. Council, Linda Camp and myself have submitted to the clerk and the Council and the Council President three amendments for the current ordinance for comprehensive rezoning. And the three amendments basically touch on three areas and it's really an amendment to the exhibit, not an amendment to the ordinance. And those amendments will be available as a part of the minutes for this council session. So I won't go too deeply into it, so you'll have a chance to see it. But basically the three areas that we looked at are one property that's recommended for rezoning to be three. We recommend that it stays at B2 and that's at 729 West Bellar Avenue. There's another series of properties that when I went back to look at the April planning commission session, one of the commissioners, Commissioner Hayab, had a recommendation at that session for a series of properties that were originally supposed to be looked at as TOD and he had recommended a down zoning to R3 to R2. And that's a total of 17 properties, properties 13, 30 through 46. So after listening to the discussion of the Planning Commission and seeing his plan, given that the Chair of the Planning Commission looked like went on a review of those properties, as well as our liaison to the committee, I felt that proper that we should consider an amendment for those 17 properties to down zone from R2 to R3 largely because of the age of the properties, the way I see it. And then the final amendment largely has to do with the TOD properties, some 86 of them that are currently being recommended for rezoning to TOD, Corridor T5 or TODN neighborhood. And I had a discussion with the mayor. I've talked to some of the council members. I am pro-TOD, but I am not pro-using a plan that is 12 years old. And I really have encouraged through this amendment to basically take a look at our 2012 TOD master plan, which was largely crafted to basically give us a foundation for the TOD that we have right now, and have that reevaluated given the age of that plan. One of the things I would share with you is that in 2012, it made perfect sense to have that master plan. One of the things I would share with you is that in 2012 it made perfect sense to have that master plan. We had the once-in-a-lifetime move of the base realignment and closing, some 8,000 folks coming from Fort Momoth to APG and that plan was an excellent foundation to get Aberdeen prepared. Now we are stationed, look for the reception of those families to benefit our city but a lot's changed in 12 years. The BRAC has came and went and our city has changed a lot and I really believe for us to make the most informed decisions that we can make it as a council we need current data and current review of that plan. I will tell you that when I was in uniform in 2010 and 2011 I was part of the Brake planning and one lesson learned from that Brake planning is if they build it they may not come. DOD spent a lot of money for the properties on post with corporations. The gate bought a tremendous amount of property as you go into 17, 17, 15 gate. As a matter of they took down a lot of trees, which was a pretty big controversy at that time. And we also had another property outside of 22 that was purchased. Both in 2012 believed those properties would be fully used and totally exploited because of the Brak move. You all both know what happened to both of those properties right now. They're probably in 715 gate, maybe about 20% strength, and certainly outside of 22, even less than that. And just because we are getting funding for our railroad station for design and possibly building doesn't mean that that's going to bring people or make things grow. When I was at APG, we actually spent money on shuttle buses to try to encourage the APG civilians and military to use the train station to save travel money to the Pentagon, the BWI, and we had about a 5% utilization rate. Because most people that work at APG take their car and they don't use that strain station in that way. So the caution for re-evaluation comes from experience when it comes to where I stood on the DOD side and I really want to make sure that the council as well as the citizens get an opportunity to have current data, some analysis and not only look at what we need to do today, what do we need to do the future in TOD? Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Councilman Rizli. Thank you, Mayor. And I want to thank Phyllis, Ms. Grover for all of her hard work and congratulations for that grant. Thank you so much for your work. So I just have a couple of announcements. The MML chapter meeting will take place this Thursday in Havvy Grace at the Van Diver Inn of which I will attend. And this will be the first MML chapter meeting in which our Council President, Adam Hayab, is the newly elected president of our chapter. So congratulations to him. We will have Keep Aberdeen Beautiful. It has been rescheduled for this Saturday, July 13th at 9 a.m. It was canceled last weekend due to the holiday. If anyone would like to help us out, please feel free to join us at 9 a.m. at Festival Park. All supplies will be provided. Please bring some water to stay hydrated in this intense heat. We probably will do our work very hard and very fast so that we can just get done and get it over with before the sun hits us. That's if we have good weather. Also this Saturday's the Amstrate community meeting in which there will be a discussion concerning the old basketball court, or is that a tennis court mayor? Was that an old? I've heard conflicting reports. So they told me it was a tennis court. So they told me it was basketball, but to me it looks like there were posts in the ground for basketball hoops yeah okay so there'll be a meeting to discuss what we should do how the city should move forward what the residents want for that old structure and that will take place this Saturday at 9 a.m. I wasn't completely sure as to the location of that meeting. Do you know if it's in the Chesapeake Acres community mayor? Okay, he's looking that up. It's at the Elm Street Park. Okay, so it's probably at the basketball. Yeah, so at, I mean tennis basketball,. Yeah, so at I mean tennis basketball. I don't know. I don't know at the 10 foot tall fence with asphalt on the inside of it. The court. Yes, it's a basketball court. Okay. Now it's not. There's no way it was. It was a basketball court. Now it's a fenced-in area where people can go. I'm like we're a baker field. You said the basketball courts are next to the baker field. Yeah. And now it's just a fence in area where they have recess because they took things. Oh, wow. All right. So last month I attended the annual, oh, excuse me, early, it wasn't that I'm getting my dates mixed up, it was last month. We attended the annual M&L conference in Ocean City, Maryland. I was submit my full report about that conference later on this week just to give you a little synopsis. Some of the classes that we took were ethics, which was a very interesting class, open meetings, racial equity, and municipal budgeting. Some of the additional sessions included an in-person session with Senator Ben Cardin and the opening session with Governor West Moore. Some of the takeaways that I got from the conference was that I would like to implement some items that I had learned and I will bring those things up at a future work session. I'm hoping that we can devote an entire work session to some takeaways that we learned at the conference. But what was impressed upon me the most was the increased involvement of state and federal government on the local level. There is a concern, there is a push for those in those elected positions to meet, to be more involved on the local level. I was very glad to hear that and I'm looking forward to that engagement and that future interaction even more. I also came away with an increased appreciation for the integral ways that this municipality, this administration is ran. The last day of the session, I had a class municipal budgeting and we had a round table discussion with some of the elected officials at my table and some of the issues that municipalities are going through would just totally blow your mind. Some of the misappropriation of funds theft, fraud. There was one municipality. I don't remember what the town was because by that time it was the last session, last day everybody took off their badges. So I didn't even know who it was, but she had told us that her town just passed the 2022 budget. So, they gave me an increased appreciation for the integrity that our town has in reporting and finances. Mr. Jack, how he runs the finance department and his integrity and his character with that. So I'm very grateful once I heard the horror stories from other municipalities. I want to back up a little bit. I did attend that meeting with the Golden Age Club in June with Councilman McGunnery and just to touch on a few items. It was an impromptu situation for me. I wasn't really scheduled to be there, but I went to the meeting with Mr. Steve Horn and I'm glad that I went because of some of the issues that I had no idea that was going on with that club and the way that those seniors are being treated in my opinion is appalling. So I have made it a point to, along with Councilman Montgomery getting contact with our County Council representative, Jessica Saddles. I follow up with her to see what it is that she can do to help us and to help our seniors, particularly with the Office of Aging. So thank you Councilmember Gunnery for your report on that and I know that you'll be following up on that issue. Lastly there's something that has just been on my heart and my mind and I have shared this with a couple of my Councilman colleagues and that is the role that the county plays in Aberdeen. As a city council person sometimes at least for me I can get kind of lost in the minutia of municipal government and in municipal life. But I have noticed a recurring theme in terms of the heavy handiness that the county has with Aberdeen and how it affects us here. In my opinion, it kind of prevents us from reaching our full potential as a city. And in those issues, mainly having to do with funding with our activity center, the presence of parole and probation in our downtown area, the office of aging and the treatment of our seniors, and the proposed Harford County Sheriff's Central Precinct in the Aberdeen area. I will go into further detail hopefully in a work session with my colleagues, but I feel that there needs to be a concerted effort to address each of these matters and how they adversely affect us and prevent us from reaching our full potential. I am very sick and tired of the county treating us like stepchildren in comparison to other municipalities. I feel that Aberdeen has come a long way we are have evolved as a town, but I feel that the mentality of what the county level believed Aberdeen was still remains in their minds. And that bleeds into their engagement with us, funding issues, things that they want to put here in Aberdeen, such as Peronan Probation, which has been here about 18 years. So I'm going to talk more in depth in more detail with my colleagues about these issues and how we can possibly just get a plan of action and how we can engage the county and help them to realize the part that they're playing and preventing us from moving forward as a town. So thank you very much. Councilor Melenticamp? Oh yeah, a couple things. First thing, again, I was one of the sponsors for the amendments for the comprehensive rezoning. I'm not going to go into too much. Councilman Montgomery explained it very eloquently. Again, you know, he talks about Brax, Brax going, the empty buildings we have around here. If you remember, there was a building around 22 that was sitting empty that the mayor worked very hard with upper chest. I picked up to make that a medical center. So if that didn't happen, we'd have another empty building sitting here. So again, I understand what's going to happen with the train station. Hopefully we'll get all that money. There is an election this year, so that money could change hands. So you don't know if that's going to happen or not. Right now, I'm back waiting to see if it does happen. And again, I don't think that zoning should be changed until that does happen. On another note, last Thursday, pillar of our community that's not out in the open that people see. A good friend of mine, Virgil Mullin, passed away of cancer. Virgil was one of the first people, I don't know if he was the director, but one of the first ones at the Boys and Girls Club, worked for the high school, worked at the ARC, was involved in Park and Rec, Aberdeen High School. Virgil give you the shirt off his back. And his memorial service is the 25th at the High Regress Rec Center at 1230. So if any of you guys are friends with Virgil, please come out there and tell some stories about him. Great guy. That's all I got. Thank you. Council President Hype. Thank you, Mayor. I'll start off by echoing a lot of councilman Montgomery's and councilman Ridgeley's comments as relates to the Maryland Municipal League conference that happened at the end of June. It's always a pleasure to attend, to get feedback, and engage with our colleagues from across the state. And see what they're doing, lessons learned, and reaffirmation, like the councilman said about it, I'm doing a lot of things right and hitting best practices on a lot of fronts. Being first and second time, they're going through a lot of the core courses that's available out there. And I think those are very valuable in rewarding courses. Now on my third or fourth conference, the some of the classes I've been able to attend this year were related to tourism zones, engaging with community stakeholders. Legislative outcomes particularly as relates to marijuana and housing legislation on local area. General best practices to gain state funding through the legislative process and not just through the regular grant process, which is we've been very successful and feels congratulations on that front as well. That had opportunity to talk briefly with the governor on a after hour session as well as the comptroller and just kind of highlighted some of the things we're doing here in Aberdeen and just a habit on their radar. The government was very appreciative of some of the same things that Secretary Day referenced today about the housing stock and the work that Aberdeen is doing on that front as well as in the TOD area. The new president for Emma Mel this year is from Frederick and the president-elect next year will be from Pokemon City. So we have, and last last year was from Gullinha. So it's a good to see a variety of cities and towns that take the lead each year on a ML. Pokemon City. Pokemon City is in Worcester County, right, down by the Virginia line on the Eastern Shore. It's on 13-Asia, head and south, past Ocean City. It's like the last town before you leave the state. Where is Galena? Galena is in Kent County right across the bridge. And then of course, Frederick is out in the Frederick. So it is a good to see towns of like 400 people. Like Galena take the lead next year is Frederick with a 5,000 people. And then Pokemon has about 2,000 or 3,000 people. Interesting. So it's good to see it pass around the state and you had different perspectives. So of course, each chapter is represented on the executive board as well. And so Travis Marion and the mayor of rising sun is our representative for our region on the board of directors. Why is that? Why is what? Why is Travis Marion the representative for our district on the board of directors? So each chapter has our yearly elections, which took place in the spring at our chapter meeting. And Travis was currently the representative and no one else applied to run. Saying is that a role? Like the delegate to the board is a role. I would think that President would be the guy. So the president of the chapter leads the efforts within the chapter in terms of meetings, organizations, stuff like that. Yes. Our representative is someone who goes to the board of directors meetings that are happening in anapolis and goes down there represents the chapter down there. What's that title called? It is the chapter, chapter 11 vice president of the board of directors. So that would be, we are district 11, so that person is our Harvard Cecil chapter representative. Some counties are large enough that they have their own chapter like Prince George's, Carol, Montgomery. Some counties are smaller than us, but they have a lot of municipalities. So Carol County has like a dozen, but Harvard only has three, even though we have twice the people. Interesting. Some areas of the state are regioned together. So Southern Maryland, low-recent shore, Middle Eastern shore, Western Maryland, Washington Frederick. So those are some of our voices and representatives of that level. As the chapter president, I have tried to take feedback from across the county, across the county, Parford and Cecil and show that with Travis or directly to the MML leadership as well as our staff. So Felicia who used to work here with the city is one of our points of contact as well as a few other staffers from MML that work specifically with the local chapters and not as focused on the legislative and advocacy front. When you make recommendations on behalf of, I guess you're representing the city. You're representing the city of Aberdeen and the, so chapter 11 entities. So when I speak to them on things that are relative to the chapter, I'm speaking as the chapter of it's not as Aberdeen. But when it's something that's specific that we have worked on to save for when we did the structure of government work, they did some of the research and I inquired for them to get some of the information as well as some of these sessions. I did inquire about the marijuana legislation and the housing legislation to a degree that affects some of the things we're doing here in Aberdeen, got some feedback on one way and here back on the other. Because some of the questions I asked, they actually hadn't come up to them before and so they had to get information from the Department of Planning on it. Interesting. So those are some very good work sessions and good conversations during the conference as well as just getting other colleagues from across the state. And you know, three of us wanted to us some of the after-hours events. So always a good time in terms of information gathering and information sharing. So I will try to also put a report together for post talk for that. What are you going to have hopefully in the next week or two? I've been a little busy. A week or two weeks. I'll have it before our next council meeting. You put the date. I'm not putting the date before the next council meeting. You put the date. I'm not putting the date before the next council meeting. You're gonna have yours by the next council meeting. Because you know, I know how these things go. I try to write the report. Three months go by the report, never get through it. Yes. So the police department wanted to thank Lieutenant Senator Long to the chief on the community event in business warmnotes on the 22nd. I was there, I believe Councilman Montgomery and the mayor also were in attendance at different points throughout the day. The planning commission's next meeting is this Wednesday, the 10th at 7pm. There's a heavy agenda including a site plan for consideration. The plan was to site the 22 comprehensive plan talking about implementation on chapter 11. As well as discussion on housing and legislation further and how that Impact the city we had discussed that as relates to some other zoning that was going under consideration Considering in swan meadows, so that is an item that will be under further discussion at the planning commission meeting this week Let's see Also could as to the average high school I happen to hear about that as well. The Councilman looks good in the parade. I was not participating, but was spectating at the event on Saturday. It would be nice at some point to get up to what we're looking at in terms of improvements or changes to old Philadelphia road as additional projects are coming forward on that front mayor. And I guess Kyle will have the sidewalk recommendations the next month or so for the next fiscal year on the next phase of those improvements in subwikener connectivity. Yes, my team's working on it and we'll be presenting that up to the mayor and we'll get that onto the agenda. Great. Let's see, I want to think here. Council for everyone's consideration and planning purposes, we have a work session to see how to look for next week. There's a couple items that each some council members have shared with me. If you can formalize those and emails to me and if you can conclude everybody, I don't care. And it's just as well as the clerk so we can get that agenda crafted. I really have it just by Wednesday so that we can get that ready for next week. The in and that same mold the feedback and recommendations and thoughts on the development code as well as a table of uses so that we can put a collective document together for planning to discuss and the planning commission to review. As part of their greater review of the development code, as part of the greater comprehensive process that is on almost near the final face in the next several months. the next several months. As the mayor presented the digitization for the Aberdeen Room funding came to be. A lot of work on their part, the mayor, myself, Mr. Jack getting that all operated and moving by the end of the fiscal year so that everybody was in the clear we didn't have to put a budget in the mid-year and for next year. So I appreciate everyone's efforts on that front. And we and the regular reports are great. There are a few weeks behind on the website so if we can have them updated that would be really appreciative. Other than that, that's all I have for now. They were approved by me and published this afternoon. I sent them. I don't have admin access or website so I sent them to the person who has the admin access with the PDFs attached and they should be posted there tomorrow. I don't have admin access or a website. So I sent them to the person who has the admin access with the PDFs attached and they should be posted there when you look at it tomorrow morning. Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry for the delay. That is okay. Thank you. Council, the Planning Commission will meet Wednesday, July 10th. Also on the agenda for Wednesday, July 10th in addition to the things expressed by the Council President, are an ongoing series of communications and reports that we've been working with the Hartford County Government and the Hartford County Public Schools, relating to capacity of elementary schools in the vicinity of the Aberdeen and Harvard-Graces communities. There are a lot of residential dwelling units that have been added and depending on who you talk to at the Harvard County Public Schools or the Harvard County government, there are significant issues, concerns, projections of overcrowding in the elementary schools in the Aberdeen area. And so Mrs. Grover, having been the point person on this, has a couple of memos for the Planning Commission to review. I encourage you to look at the agenda council where they are attached there. We will have a similar briefing as we get more information to this body at our next, let's aim for the next work session or council meeting, but there's nothing secret in any of it. It's all information that's been publicly available, but we have taken the initiative to beat up on the Hartford County Public Schools to figure out what a potential path forward looks like if we are over capacity the way that they're projecting. What's the timelines for school construction? What's the timelines for making improvements to the existing facilities? What's the impact on the developments that are proposed or contemplated in and around the Aberdeen area, in and around the Havardegraze area. On this side of the county is really where the issue exists. It doesn't really exist elsewhere in the county where the elementary schools are over capacity. The Harper County Public Schools people also used a very fancy word to describe the impact of our existing homes, where some of our seniors are either moving into smaller homes or otherwise vacating their homes and new families occupying them, which I'm seeing all over town, which is really cool. And they say, the cohorts of students are multiplying. And I said, do you mean that there's kids that you didn't plan for? Because they're not new homes. And they said, yeah. And I said, oh, there's kids that you didn't plan for because they're not new homes and they said yeah, and I said oh okay and so they don't have any formula by which they can evaluate future growth in this way but once a kid comes into first grade right they have reasonable expectations of where they're going to land at sixth grade in middle school at ninth grade for high school and then what the boundaries for those schools look like and all that stuff comes into play. So we'll have a good report for you, for your viewing consideration on that. All tying into the city's development code has a section called growth management, which prohibits the city of Aberdeen from approving a preliminary site plan. If one, the elementary school where the students are supposed to go is projected to be at 115% of the Maryland state enrolled capacity in a five-year projection from when it's being proposed. And so, more to follow. The Elm Street Park input sessions is Saturday from 9 to 11. I was hoping to beat the sunshine. It might be warm, but I hope that any folks that live in the area any folks Are interested in that park where I'm gonna try to do is I'm gonna try to get some spray paint and put a sidewalk Connecting from Elm Street if you know the site over to the Plader Street Park and it's well semi-witted area And I think it could be a good thing to do that I sent to you by email this evening a letter that I received in response to the invitation for people to come and participate in the Elm Street. I don't know if it's going to be a public meeting. I don't know what we're going to call this thing, but I just want to see, I want to show people the site. I've got a couple phone calls saying, please don't put a basketball court there. It was a basketball court before, and it brings all kinds of people around that we don't want in the neighborhood. And they come and they hang out there. This letter written from this young lady who lives in the neighborhood says, you know, do basketball with pickleball. So make it so that we can make it pickleball sometimes and basketball sometimes, she says, because my sister wants to learn how to play pickleball, which is really cute. And she also included a color scheme. If you look at the email, it's cute. How we could paint it, Maryland colors red and black and yellow. Smart kid. Maybe she's a kid. I'm giving her, I'm giving her the benefit of that saying it's a kid. But anyway, so that's Saturday. I want to connect at least, at least put a sidewalk and connect me. But this is not only a way for us to get creative ideas for how to make improvements to a city-owned park before we just make the decision unilaterally in city hall. This is a way for us to actually engage with the community that they live in and show them. We really do care. We might not do your really cool yellow, black, and red basketball court design but that's a cool idea and we'll consider that just as much as we'll consider the people who live with their window 11 feet from the basketball court saying we don't want basketballs or pickle balls banging on the ball right outside our door. Anyway so I'm looking forward to that no obligation for anybody to attend but if you want to swing by I'll be there from 9 to 11 on Saturday. I guess I'll do community cleanup while I'm there. I'm supposed to be three places at the same time on Saturday. I guess you got to prioritize which one's the most important? Clearly my Elm Street meeting. Okay, okay, just kidding. All right, the law enforcement, invitational corn hole tournament has been rescheduled. Formerly, it was going to be this Saturday. Now it's October 5th, so we can get some a respite from the heat, which is the same day, I think, as the ThinkPink motorcycle rally. And so 11 to 4 at Aberdeens Festival Park on October the 5th, you can mark your calendars for that and We will continue to promote that in all the regular courses. The council has the schedule work session. July 15th, council president, hi, where are we trying to firm up that agenda? We have everything submitted in by Wednesday so we can get it out Thursday, six o'clock is the ideal time for the work session on Monday. Great. Got that, Madam Court. Do you need anybody there? Or do we based on the agenda? It'll be based on the agenda. Okay. More than likely, it'll probably be a couple directors, but okay. Okay. The EDC meeting is Monday a week. Maybe you've seen on Maryland State 22, the Shred Vest 2024 banner. Council, you recall about a year ago we opened the Aberdeen, Northean, Skate Park, monster concrete structure that has people on it many hours of the day, skateboarding and riding bikes and scooters and all the kinds of other things. Got a call from a Mr. Ken Herman resident of Edgewood who said we need to have a skateboard competition and I said what's that mean? And they're going to have a style competition for skateboarders on September the 14th at the Northean Skate Park. All ages are welcome. The website for the Skate Park event is Aberdeen Shredfest.com or you can go to the Aberdeen Main Street.com and see the link to Aberdeen Shredfest there. There's some really cool graphics. There's an eagle holding the skateboard. and see the link to Aberdeen Shred Fest there. There's some really cool graphics. There's an eagle holding the skateboard. It's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. And so that'll be an opportunity for the first annual Shred Fest. We are projecting 100 skateboarders will and list in the competition. Registration is free. There will be professional skateboarding judges. We're bringing up the people from Charm City Skate to participate in this. These are folks, Baltimore, that have a skate park facility that came up to our grand opening and participated in that. Trying to grow the sport, use our facility to the maximum. And in partnership, the reason I was coming up with this on the Economic Development Commission is Monday week. The Economic Development Commission has sponsored this event for a thousand bucks so they paid for that big banner on Maryland State 22 near the target and more to follow. The next regular council meeting is scheduled for Monday, July 22nd here in the Aberdeen City Council Chambers. The Mermaid 5K and Under the Sea Bash is August 24th. Okay, so that's coming right up. I understand next year we're looking at the Mermaid event being a three-day event with a gala on the front end and a tea and making it a monster event for Hartford County tourism Which should satisfy the county executive's desire for events that put heads in beds and therefore would qualify for help from the county's tourism money that comes from the hotel tax And then the October fest of course is September 21st followed by the September 21st followed by the paint the town pink for the Coffman Cancer Center October 5th, trunk or treat late October 26th and then my favorite time of the year Christmas Street on December 7th. Any other business before we adjourn council? Secretary Day is coming tomorrow. Secretary Day is in Hartford County today and tomorrow. Today he did a bunch of stuff. I was only brought into his conversation at 3.30 when he came to Aberdeen and was wowed and impressed with all the great stuff that we're doing. He said that Harvard agrees seemingly doesn't want any new housing. And I said, is that the case? And he said, that's our impression. And I said, oh, that's interesting. And I said, what about Bel Air? Because they don't want any new housing. And he said, oh, we haven't got that from them. And I said, oh, I think you might have got your wires crossed. But he was going up to the Main Street meeting with the town of Bel Air and and the ability to talk about how our main streets continue to grow and thrive and do cool stuff. Tomorrow, Secretary Day is doing a county tour with the County Administration at 11.30. He's going to be at the Northean Skate Park. We will tell him all about the Shred Fest event. And after that, there is a two o'clock meeting with the Secretary at the County Executive Conference room at 220 South Main Street. Council I sent this email around anybody have availability to go to either of those tomorrow or desire. I believe I'll be able to attend the 1130 skate park. Okay great. Send me an email to that effect and if if nobody else wants to go I will instruct someone who works for the city to go. So it will clap. Yes. Good. Thank you. Anything else, council? 823. We're adjourned. Thank you, council.