Good afternoon, everybody. It is Thursday, May 1st. Welcome to a joint committee of the Transportation and Environment and Government Operations Committee. The joint committee has two items on our agenda for today. The first is amendments to the FY 25 to 30 capital improvement program for supplemental appropriations for the Montgomery County Department of General Services, Montgomery County Public Schools bus depot and maintenance relocation. The second item will take up after that is the Montgomery County Green Bank NDA. But first we will take up the bus depot, which has been a real challenge over the last number of years. And that seems to be putting it mildly for colleagues and for the administration. We have engaged the community for a very long time and have engaged the school system to find a new location, to negotiate a new location and to make sure that we have the capacity to do that. And so I look forward to this conversation because I've been a few moving parts. Since last, it was publicly discussed. The community I'm sure is following and turn it over to the the government operations community chair and additional comments. No comments. With that Mr. Mia. Sure. So the item before you today is a supplemental appropriation request for the MCPS bus DIP project as well as an associated CIP amendment Just to go back on the the procedural history this came over in March as a CIP Preparation request and amendment for 10.5 million dollars of which two million was FY26 funding previously programmed in the CIP and 8 million 8.5 million is essentially new funding and funding is recognition tax premium The funding was to be used to build out improvements, 8.61-goody drive, which is being currently negotiated as an additional site to accommodate some of the buses from the Jeremiah Park, from its current location. In April, the executive submitted a essentially a revised request withdrawing his request for the preparation and that's because the negotiations are currently in progress and the idea here is to do a CIP amendment now and to come back with the preparation once the lease is finalized and ready to move forward. And so really the decision point today is to whether or not approve just the amendment piece, not the preparation as we are waiting for further development before that comes forth. But other than that, there's some additional background in the packet. There are some better color pictures of the site. It is actually two parcels co-located. A61 Goody is the main parcel, and there's a secondary parcel as well. But DGS staff can provide a lot more details at this current stage. Appreciate that. While Director Dys is following, hopefully driving safely while he's listening to this conversation. He's got a steady right hand man, Deputy Director Assant. Good afternoon Greg Ossent, Department of General Services. Thank you and appreciate you recognizing Mr. Dys. He would love to be here but had other matters to attend. Yeah, to put it mildly, we've been challenged by this project and we've continued to zig and zag our way towards a solution and we have some members of the community here today who have been part of that discussion and ongoing adventure for a long time and so we're happy to have them also to my stage left is, excuse me, stage right, is Ms. Ronny Warner, our Office of Planning and Development Chief. We have really want to get you caught up from this time last year when we were last before you seeking an appropriation and a project to engage in community outreach activities, all with an idea or a concept to use the existing Jeremiah Park parcel where the MCPS bus depot is currently, to reuse that for a new co-located zero-emissions bus facility that that would accommodate both MCPS as well as our future MCDOT buses. The idea or the notion was to construct a new facility on site, push it towards the back and then leave enough land along Crabs Branch Road to encapsulate or line that road with the mixed use development that was originally envisioned as part of the shady growth sector plan many many years ago and I believe Mr. Mia's packet references that and it goes back to 2003-2008 range when it was adopted by council. So since May of last year, we have been engaged in community outreach activities. They lasted all summer. We brought in some professional help, design collective, and some folks with other expertise. And we let a series of workshops, basically hyper local sharets for this specific project. They conducted pop-ups at local retail stores. and a robust website, Jeremiah Park Project, is the handle to seek a virtual input as well. All of that information is still live and available on the DGS website, but more importantly, JeremiahParkProject.com. We spent the from May until about September, that community community outreach activity, and that culminated with a final presentation. The exhibits that you have in the packet circles one through six, I believe, are some of the proposed concept plans or options that the community reviewed at that culminating event back in September. And you can see that the future depot or the Zeb depot, zero emission plus depot, would occupy about half of the site while the other half would be devoted to mixed use development. The community was engaged throughout. I would characterize the conversations as very well informed and positive. The community generally is very pleased that we are paying attention, continuing to move forward towards a solution and is really willing to listen and see what we can resolve. And with that sort of atmosphere from the very beginning, we were able to put together these concepts, and I believe that all of them were while received. From there, we immediately pivoted to the second phase, which was to put together a solicitation for a public-private partnership to actually build this facility, the timing of which would have contemplated a fiscal year 30 delivery, which was our target date, and we had reiterated that sort of delivery and timeline with the community throughout these outreach activities. And so we just immediately, following the community, final community event, started putting that solicitation together and had been doing that ever since. A few months into that solicitation development, we learned of a site that was nearby that we had actually looked at several years ago as a potential option for a depot. And that is the site that is in front of you today, 861, 861, Goody, and in a adjacent lot on South Lawn. It was originally constructed as a Coca-Cola distribution facility, was subsequently used by Amazon, and it had been off for many, many, many years. But as back available, Amazon has moved on, or is in the process of moving on and it's availability is forthcoming. We learned that in the late fall and as a packet notes, well after we were already through the community outreach activities and started to put together a solicitation for a P3. So we immediately pivoted to see if this was an option that would be feasible. As you can see, the square footage and the area that we're working with, it's a 65,000 square foot warehouse. We think that we can get about 250 bus parking spaces between the two sites. And so that theoretically solves the current facility, the current MCPS facility would be relocated entirely from Crabbs Branch to this location and 250 school buses. The remaining balance of school buses, there's about 450 onsite at Crab's Branch now, would be left behind in the interim and either incorporated into the future, zero emissions bus depot, Jeremiah Park, or elsewhere in the future, we're working through those issues with MCPS currently. We toured this facility many months ago, with MCPS representatives who the super intended and others. They're fully on board with the concept and we are actively moving forward with their program and their design and build out of the facility. The appropriation request in front of you today, the 10 and a half, which would complement money that we already have in the CIP, would be specifically for the build out of this warehouse for MCPS, their move from Crab's branch to this location, and then demolition of the existing structures at Jeremiah Park, so that we can move the rest of the buses that would stay behind to the back of the site, and then proceed with the beautification of Crab's branch, which is is something the community's been asking for for a long, long time, and MCPS has just secured the funds to do so. So that is it in a nutshell. There are a couple of reasons we think that this is a really good opportunity. Well, I won't say primarily, there are a number of reasons. First is the cost. We will get into the Leases NDA tomorrow as a matter of fact with the Geo Committee, but at this point we're still in negotiations, but the order of magnitude is about two to two and a half million dollars a year all in, so that would be leasing both sites plus operating expenses, et cetera. The cost of a new facility to house MCPS's program, just MCPS. Never mind DOTs at this point, but just MCPS's are early estimates to build a new facility at Jeremiah Park or somewhere in the range of $260, 270 million. So through a public private partnership and not through a traditional CIP, that cost increase even more. And then of course over time, we're talking about a 30, 40, 50 year window for this lease. That project gets very, very expensive. Plus the delivery of it doesn't happen until FY30, maybe FY31 at this point, which really puts us a calendar, 31 calendar, 32. The timeline for the lease space, however, as you can see, it's a fraction of the cost. Even over the term of the lease, it's a fraction of the cost versus the ZEM facility. But perhaps more importantly, we would expect if approved, we would immediately were already in design, but we would immediately begin bidding out, do a design, build contract, and occupy the facility, turn the keys over to MCPS next fall. So the fall of 27, or excuse me, 26. And so that would be the timeline for the least space. We don't think that it's going to take us more than a year to actually build out what MCPS needs. So it's not an overly aggressive timeline by any stretch. We feel it's very realistic to have MCPS in their new facility in the fall of 26 and about four or five years earlier than we would otherwise do through a public private partnership at Jeremiah Park. So those are the two primary reasons and there are a myriad of others. As Mr. Mia mentioned and I'll wrap up here, I apologize. We are still in negotiations to lease this facility. We are right in the middle of it. There are obviously the timing of all of this has been very inconvenient, because it hasn't synced very well with our budget process. So you've seen a flurry of amendments to both operating and CIP. We think we have a handle on it now. will know in a matter of weeks whether we are a go or a no go. We are hoping very much that we come back to you in a few weeks with very good news and everything as a go. And seeking your approval obviously for today's agenda items. Thank you for that overview, Mr. Austin. And I just want to commend DGS for the quick action and the nimbleness recognizing that these properties were available and recognizing the potential given the budget dynamics and the other land use issues that that existed. Seeing the potential here, that is what local governments all about seeing the potential within our community, and that's the action that you all have taken. I wanna thank our residents for their civic engagement. Civic engagement, you all should be teaching civic engagement classes to the rest of Montgomery County because you have been persistent, you have been informed, and you have been there at every step of the way, not just at the end. You've been there from the beginning. And that is what partnership really is, making things in your own community happen. So I'm glad we're at this point. Bottom line is that this is good not only for the residents so that we can get mixed use development where it should be in our transit corridors and it's good for the future of Montgomery County so we can have zero emission buses not only for MCPS but for our ride on fleet. And so for that reason I'll support and have my fingers crossed that the least negotiations go well. Turn it over to my co-chair. Yeah, I'm not sure. I have anything to add from what, no, it's okay. From what Chair Glass has added and just thank again for the quickness of this and able to figure out the situation moving forward. But I'm really looking forward to getting something solid on this as I know you are. So I'm sorry back to the chair. Council Member Freighton. Yeah thank you. A lot of support here. We've been waiting for this moment and we'll be waiting for the next moments that follow that this precipitates, but kudos to the community for the advocacy. It's been on really more than 20 years when you talk about when the master plan process actually started, not when it was actually approved by the county council, which was 19 years ago, but this is a beyond long awaited effort to actually redevelop in a way that works for the community and having a site that that makes sense and really appreciate DGS want to acknowledge she's not here, but Councilmember Luki for her efforts and her work with the community. She deserves quite a bit of credit as well, but obviously it's complicated. It's challenging. There's still some work to be done, but this is a really positive step forward. Really appreciate the work that DGS did in meeting with us and explaining the process so that we had information ahead of time since there are a lot of moving parts to how this is going to work. That doesn't always happen. We've had a number of conversations throughout this budget process of significant asks that haven't come with the preliminary communication and collaboration this has. And I think you can see the benefits of that because there's quite a bit of understanding of where this has headed the reasons for it. And we are hearing overwhelming and enthusiastic support. So thank you for the work, thank you to the community. You're gonna have to continue to engage in this process, as I think you're well aware. This is the beginning of the end, I hope, not just the end of the beginning of this process moving forward, but it's clearly a positive step in the right direction. And I'm looking forward to supporting it. Thank you. Turn it over to the council member who used to represent this district. I'm going to exactly what my statement was going to be. I want to very publicly thank Mr. Dyson. I know as he's driving and Mr. Saundin and certainly the community and you already have mentioned council member Luky. At one point before they reconfigured the third district, this was in my district. And I have to tell you this was an absolute nightmare. Everyone who former County Executive Legget worked with us. Certainly County Executive L Rich has worked with us right along the way. Everybody wanted to solve it, and nobody could figure out how to do it. And I always thought I knew a little bit about Montgomery County. I looked at places that I thought, well, that they could go right over there, and there was another problems associated with that. This finally, and let's underline the word finally, is the hopefully the right spot for it and hopefully it'll get solved much faster. We had made promises to the community all along. The only promise that we truly kept was that we weren't going to give up and we and we have done that. So I look forward to the voting for this a final capacity. Thank you all. Councilmember Bacchum. Sure. I'll chime in as well. So I'm new relatively new on the council. So in this capacity it's a relatively new conversation. But being a community member, it's kind of like like cicadas every so often. It comes up and we all have to deal with it, right? So I'm really looking forward to some finality. Thank you to the community for being here and for watching. Thank you. There we go. Thank you, team effort. But as Councilmember Kat said, we're almost there. So let's do a formal vote for everybody who's watching all those in support of this $10,550,000 appropriation so that we can finally dispose of and build a new bus depot, raise your hand. And that is unanimous by the joint committee. Thank you, DGS. Thank you to the community. Talking about green buses, we're now going to talk about the green bank. And so I invite the green bank to come on up. Good afternoon. Welcome. It's been a good week for the green bank with the opening of your new office, which is beautiful. Not only the facility itself, but the space in which the green bank team does their work. And we want to make sure that you continue doing that work now more than ever, especially with all the other priorities that the county has. And we'll get into that as Mr. Kenny walks us through. Madamchair. No, I'm just looking forward to it. Great. Thank you. Mr. County. Thank you. So we're talking about the Montgomery County Green Bank non-departmental account in the FY26 operating budget. The County Executive recommends a 15.7 million dollar budget for the green bank NDA. This is a 3.4 million or 17.6% decrease from the FY25 approved budget for the Montgomery County green bank. So we'll get into some details on what comprises that change. So just quickly, some background on the Green Bank run through this quickly. There's more information in the packet. The Green Bank was created by the Council via Bill 2421 in FY23. And the Green Bank is a pseudo-governmental independent organization is designated by the council. It operates independently but receives funding from the county via a statutory transfer of 10% of the county's fuel energy tax revenue. This is the 10% level of transfer was what was stipulated in the original bill, although the county attorney has ruled at the time and continues to maintain that this appropriation is ultimately up to the council, in terms of what level is transferred. This is relevant for this year's discussion. So moving to page two of the packet, the budget discussion items, there are only two items, two changes that comprise this year's, how we get to this year's budget for the green bank. The county does not stipulate what, unlike other NDAs or other budgets, or other components within the operating budget, the county does not stipulate what the operating or personnel expenditures are for the green bank. Rather, just we determine what our total appropriation will be. So the two changes to this year's appropriation in the executives recommended budget are a roughly $1.1 million decreased cost to adjust for the FY26 energy tax projection as well as a 2.3 million dollar reduction in the transfer to the green bank. So essentially, you know, I mentioned the 10% fuel energy tax transfer. That first item, the 1.11 million is a decrease in the total transfer. So that, you know, if we were to, that's still keeping that 10%, but the 10% is lower because the total revenues are lower. Meanwhile that second item is a reduction by 12.5% of the county's transfer. So this is a discretionary transfer. This is a decision in the county executives FY26 recommended operating budget to go below that 10% threshold in a stipulated in statute to do affordability. So this is generally part of that broader equation in the general fund. So this is all part of that conversation. I have some information. A council staff has information in the staff report on what the Green Bank expects this, the impact of this reduced transfer to be. I will note a textual error that came to my attention at the top of page three of the packet. The text says that this $2.3 million loss in county funding will result in a $12 decrease, as a $12 million decrease. So this is a roughly routing area. So this is a roughly a six-fold impact in the reduction of county dollars translating to a reduction in total investment that the Montgomery County Green Bank is allowed to do. This will also result in the Green Bank retaining their current level at 14 FTEs where they were looking to get back to their previous level of 15 FTEs to hire up. So these are the two changes. I know the Green Bank has some slides that they've prepared to kind of walk through in greater detail. The work that they've been doing over the course of the year, the work they expect to do in FY26 and the impact of these changes on that work. Thank you for that Mr. Kenney. It's been a big 12 months for the Green Bank, not only your new offices, but also the work that was won by Federal Award from the Green House Gas Reduction Fund, as well as the work that will be moving on in the years to come. So with that, Mr. Morelle, welcome. I'll turn it over to you to walk us through your presentation and share with us the work that you've been doing and the work you expect to do. Excellent, thank you. Should I move over or you can, I can do that if that's easier. Great thank you and thank you chair glass chair Stewart for allowing me to come I do have a couple slides that I won't spend too much time as you all are already great experts on the Montgomery County Green Bank. However, reading some inaccuracies in the news about how we function this morning, I felt as though it would be worthwhile just spending a few to a few moments to go over these slides. Clearly, I appreciate consideration of this NDA item and I'm here to actually not, except the recommended level and to boost the level of funding. We understand that as a 10% benchmark, that is the right benchmark for us to move forward on. And so if expected receipts of the fuel energy tax are lower, we also understand that 10% of that is proportionately lower. But we do encourage that we try and maintain as close to that ratio as possible. Having a long experience in the financial industry, I can tell you that people in this industry share many characteristics with woodland creatures and the more that you make loud noises, the more you frighten them, the more we veer off either down or up From the 10% mark, it's hard for the industry to accept that that is the appropriations in future years. So just a couple things that I wanted to mention. Like I think we've heard a great description already from Stephen about how we work, but I do always like to reiterate what we're actually doing. We're here to solve problems in the market. This is just a map of green banks all around the US, but the solution set here is a financial solution set in addition with some education solution set, but these are the tools that we use to garner financial leverage. And so every time we think about funding that we would garner and be able to spend, we're thinking in terms of these solution sets, really how we can overcome market barriers. So we did have a big year as Chair Glass mentioned last year, catalyzing $105 million worth of projects. And that was by spending approximately $20 million in capital. And so that's a roughly four to one private sector capital leverage ratio that we were able to bring those results this year to actually cross on an aggregate basis 280 million dollars worth of project volume. So we're on an upward trajectory and we want to make sure to continue that upward trajectory. This next slide is going to be a very important part of the project. We're going to be looking at the results this year to actually cross on an aggregate basis 280 million dollars worth of project volume. upward trajectory and we want to make sure to continue that upward trajectory. This next slide is one that I think everybody's already familiar with of where we're really working. We're looking to achieve climate objectives, but we do that from an economic development perspective. We're generating jobs. Last year we helped create 900, around 900 indirect and direct jobs We work at the intersection with health and resilience and bring in that private capital. And I think that these are important elements to recall in terms of where we work. But how we work is really the slide that is complicated and I wanted to spend a few moments on because it gets to a bit of the inaccuracies that I was reading in the new set today. We have different tools to garner financial leverage in order to take a limited public set and bring in the private capital. And these vary from things like the left of the loan reserve structure. These are credit enhancement techniques in order to bring in private capital all the way to different levels of capital within a capital stack to completely doing a transaction ourselves. But I do want to spend a few moments on the the third and fourth item on the right which is about balance sheet capital. So the inaccuracy that I was reading about this morning was that the Montgomery County Greenmake is not spending the entirety of the NDA that it's receiving which is not true. We've actually spent 100% every year that we've received these funds from the county council. But the inaccuracy may stem from the fact that we do use balance sheet leverage in order to garner private capital. So that could look and feel like money sitting on our balance sheet and not being used. But let me give you three examples where it's been incredibly productive. We required more fairly recently $2.5 million to cash collateralize a 10-year, $5 million revolving fund that we entered into with the USDA. And that's going to be revolved over 10 years. So assuming that we can revolve that twice, generate 10 million of capital, and on our leverage ratio, execute $40 million worth of transactions, that $2.5 million that we had to sit on our balance sheet is actually catalyzing quite a bit of private capital investments. But it does look and feel like money that we're not spending if it's on our balance sheet. Another example that Chair Glass mentioned is the GGRF, greenhouse gas reduction fund grant that we competitively won recently from the federal government, the EPA. In order to get that $68 million, we had to have a very robust balance sheet where at the time we had approximately $41 million on our balance sheet in net assets. And a lot of that was cash on hand from loans that have been repaid, and we hadn't redeployed or funds that had come in from the NDA. But that was very important to get that grant. And then a third example is that we're currently in the process of negotiating with private capital providers for $5 to $10 million in a private issuance or a Lyofcredit. It would be structured in a way to look and feel like a BEPS bond. And all of those private capital providers meet the description. I just gave earlier that they say in their term sheets, we want to see a consistent annual appropriation come from the County Council because that goes to their repayment if we're actually drawing funds from them. So again, we'd like to stick as close as possible to that 10%. I think how we're structured. People are very familiar. We're at 14 employees and interns currently. I do like to highlight that we actually speak 10 languages. The county is diverse and we would love to try and work in as many languages as possible. We're set up very much like a fund in terms of functionality of our back office, our credit teams, as well as our investment teams that are out working on transactions and a very strong board of directors and independent governance, which also goes to our commitment to transparency to make sure that we're publishing our financials consistently that we're publishing our annual reports and working with the community to make sure that they understand everything that we do. So historically, and I do include what we expect to finish this FY25 with. We've been on a great upward trajectory in terms of what we're spending. Like I mentioned, on track to an aggregate basis, reach $280 million. And on a portfolio, overall portfolio, that's three to one in terms of private sector to the public capital. Just last year it was four to one, so we're clearly increasing with every year that we do. So where are we looking to go in FY26? Our BEPS readiness program is number one. We really want to support the BEPS program and the regulations that the council recently approved, which is a really continuum program, starting with technical assistance to allow people to understand what do I need to actually do to comply with BEPS through to the financing solutions that are out there. Our energized multi-family is dedicated to doing more clean energy and energy efficiency within the multi-family space. And we've had really great results so far in electrification of entire large properties. It would be challenging to do without subsidized support. Our resiliency hub accelerator looking to put more resiliency hubs within the county to act not just as hubs for energy security, but also community centers that provide many other resources as well and expanding our EV charging infrastructure program. And so going back as well to the comments I made that I think that there's some information out there that the Green Bank is not spending all of its funds, that may also stem from the fact that we were initially were created with a capitalization from the PEPCO X-LON merger. And that's a fixed set of funds. You can see the orange bar at the same level every single year. We don't want to spend all our money in one year when that was the case. And so it was a slow ramp up. The blue line on the bottom that also curves up slowly is that deployment of of resources on an aggregate basis. But you can see that we went spending very little of our resources to now in this year and expected by the end of FY25, spending almost all of our resources. So we wanna make sure to continue to leverage our resources as best possible. And any cut in them is not going to have or is going to have a direct cut in that top line, the purple line, which is the investments itself. We won't have additional slack or dry powder as they say in the finance industry to be able to put towards more of those transactions. We do show this on a regular basis with the county. We do quarterly reporting and and so just want to share our FY 24 final report. That's aggregate for the whole year. As you can see we reach a hundred percent deployment of the energy tax and then the chart right below that is where we are contemporaneously for this fiscal year we're almost at 90 percent so I have no concern that we won't reach a hundred percent spent of the fuel energy tax money as well by the end of this year. So what would happen, like I was mentioning, we can't keep the increase in the exponential increase in total project investment, that purple line if we do accept the decrease in NDA funding that's been proposed. And that's where that King's line shows that FY 26 on a 3-1 leverage ratio would really start to decline what we are ultimately going to be able to provide to the county. And so really appreciate Steven's description of how we would adjust with a reduction. I think you said these points already, but just want to put this out there. If we are looking at the reduction that's been proposed, we'd be looking at a reduction in our operating budget, both on the programming support, as well as general operations. Clearly, we would freeze new hires at our 14 level as opposed to going up to 15. What that means is that we would hold on an underwriting individual that would help us really with the volume underwriting BEPS transactions and internalize that as best we could in the meantime. We would lower our target deployment of actual capital to 18 million instead of 21. And again, as Stephen mentioned, if you look at that reduction, it translates to $12 million, not 12, but $12 million less than in total project investment. Of course, we would still prioritize BEPS as our number one product, but I think as we go down that prioritization list, it would be more and more challenging. Another key piece I want to note, which I'm sure you're all reading about in the news every single day as we all are with various pieces of federal funding, the GGRF money, though we received successfully this grant, though the grant was deposited in the Green Bank accounts with City Bank. It's entered into litigation as the government is trying to cancel the grant program and as there's ongoing litigation. And so I can't comment too much on that given it's continuing litigation other than to say that we are going to be pencils down as that's being resolved. I am very hopeful that some of that will be resolved in the next four to eight months but I don't want to prognosticate too much because that's always hard to tell. So those were just a few of the slides. I wanted to make sure to hit for common information for everyone and happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much, Mr. Morrell, for the presentation highlighting the incredible work that has been underway. And what I particularly appreciated about your slide deck was the work over the last number of years, seeing how it has ramped up, seeing how the additional financial support has turned into additional investment and green infrastructure. And then adding to it, which I don't think was representative on the slide, the greenhouse gas reduction fund, which will have to, it will require a brand new slide with a brand new y-axis there, right? Given the work that that is going to be undertaken. The decision points for us right now are really two different items which have been identified in the packet. One is the, One is maintaining or keeping to the spirit of the law that was passed regarding a 10% transfer and then the other is more discretionary. And so I just want to say that when the legislation was introduced and passed a number of years regarding dedicating 10%. I was skeptical. We had many conversations about it. And the reason I was skeptical of that legislation, which I did, support. But my skepticism came from two reasons. One, it tied the additional funding to the energy tax, which we know fluctuates. Sometimes it's higher, which is good for the green bank, and sometimes it's projected to be lower, which is part of the conversation we're having today. And then the second reason was it further commits the counting to the energy tax, which has been a long simmering debate in general. And so those were the concerns that I expressed that we privately talked about. And then that second issue is just more discretionary revenue transfer. I'll share that the law that we passed is the law that we passed. And I support the spirit of the law, which is 10% recognizing it fluctuates. And this projection might not be the projection of the Green Bank wants, but it is the law and we'll follow the law. And so I am inclined to support item 1.1, which is the decrease reflecting the actual energy tax revenues. The second aspect is the energy transfer, energy tax transfer, which is wholly discretionary. And I think that you outlined a very good case as to why those investments need to continue being made and why we need to continue moving forward as we here in Montgomery County continue putting more work on your plate. I mean, that's the bottom line. If we want the electrification, if we want the EV upgrades, if we want the building energy performance standards, and everything else that we haven't denumerated, and quite frankly, has not come to fruition just yet, because people are working on scientific discovery and enhancement. We need to provide you with those levels of investment. So what I would recommend, I'll hold my recommendations. I'll hear where colleagues are. But right now I will support the County Executive Recommendation for the 1.1. I'm not inclined to support 1.2 and open to conversations about how we go about that. Madam Coacher. Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. And sorry, I missed the open house. So the ribbon cutting the other day. So I agree on the first point on the adjustment and on the reduction. I just have to say that, you know, I feel like each time we get deeper and deeper into this budget, I have to say I'm very disappointed in what the county executive sent over to us because I feel like at each turn where we find something else that is, you know, taking away from investments that we have promised to make in our community. And I have a hard time having this reduction, knowing we have such a tough budget this year. It's very difficult as we're trying all the puts and takes. But we all worked really hard on BEPS for a year and made commitments to building owners, to individuals, to condo owners, and everyone else spent so much time going to meeting after meeting. And in meeting after meeting, we talked about the greenback. And we talked about the work you do and our commitment that we were going to pass that we are going to move forward on our energy work and we were going to do it in partnership. And that was a commitment that we made. And so I have a really hard time now getting this back from the county executive because it feels like to me we're going back on our word. And so, and we have a ridiculously tough budget in front of us, in which we can't predict the future in terms of what is going to come at us with this White House and how we need to ensure that we have healthy reserves and that we have a safety net for our residents. And so balancing all of those things. And so I think as I want to hear from my colleagues as well, I think I would like to put this on the reconciliation list and not move forward, whether or not we tranche that or put the whole thing as I think a conversation today, but I just am very disappointed we even have to have this conversation. And usually I like to have the green bank. Budget be easy peasy and go on consent when we go to full council, and it's very disappointing we have to have this conversation today. I appreciate those sentiments, I echo them, and I'll go one step further and add to the tranching and make a recommendation that we split the item 1.2 into two tranches of $1,145,902 to see what is possible in this very tough budget that you are leading through the council and so I take your word at it and we will do our best to try to make the Green Bank as whole as possible. Council member Friesen. Thank you very much. First of all, thank you for the presentation for clarifying. I absolutely echo the points of Chair and president on the frustration here I was the co-author of that bill as it has been referenced the Montgomery County Green Buildings now act and it was a commitment that we made and It's great that we have lots of people out there now going to ribbon cuttings and talking about how they envision this from the beginning and that's great, but the commitment has to be reflected in the budget decisions and the challenge that we have now is that it is a renegging of the commitment. It's not just a reneging of the commitment of the bill that was passed and signed unanimously. And different people can talk about different things about how they came to those decisions. But as was noted, there was a year and a half to two years of conversations about BEPS. And this was used as the argument repeatedly everywhere around the county was, Well don't worry about BEPS because we've got the green bank and you know when we were told that they would never leverage 4 to 1 which was the number that we use we could get approximately 20 million dollars from 10% and that would be leveraged 4 to 1 get close to 100 million you've done exactly we asked of you. Exactly what we've asked of you. And it's just extremely frustrating to me to have a budget that doesn't follow through on the legislative commitments that we've made if there was disagreement there should have been a veto. And we would have had to deal with that. There wasn't a veto. There was a signature. And I just find that to be extremely frustrating. And certainly, if there was no intention of moving forward at the 10% level, then that shouldn't have been used as the primary justification used at committee and at council, and in the public, over and over and over and over again. When we passed this, it was based on the premise that I shared with Tom Hocker that if we are gonna set extremely ambitious climate targets, we have to have a ladder to help people actually reach them, to support our businesses, to support our residents, to help them get to where we want them to go, where we're requiring them to go. And this falls short and I am concerned, you know, last year we had the concern of what message are we sending with a dramatic cut in economic development. What message does that send? And in this budget I'm concerned of what message does to send with the dramatic cut in climate initiatives at a time when we're doing everything that should be done on this and when the federal government is walking away from these commitments and we're criticizing them for that. And we're concerned about that as we should be. And we are questioning whether or not we're going to be able to meet our needs in our community without any or very little federal support. So I very much agree obviously in fulfilling to fidelity the intentions and the legislative dynamics of what was put forward in the Montgomery County Green Buildings Now Act that I author. I am supportive of splitting it into two tranches. I do recognize that it is a very tough budget. The county executive has put us in an impossible position again on this item and I am continually frustrated as you are Madam President and appreciate you voicing those frustrations. But now is not the time for us to reneg on commitments or to back away from the progress that we were making on climate. And I'll just note one last thing that wasn't talked about today but has been talked about before. Nancy Navarro put forward an amendment that was a very important amendment to ensure that this was being done in an equitable way. And there were benchmarks that were said, and those benchmarks have been met and exceeded to intentionally invest in areas of the county, in communities, and historically under-invested places and people. We can't walk away from that. And particularly as we were adding cost burdens, for very good reason, but cost burdens, after cost burdens, that is making housing affordability and affordability in general harder and harder to walk away from some of the mechanisms that we are putting in place that we have sold to people that we are mitigating those is just not a reasonable way for us to move forward. So appreciate us moving forward as a committee and I'm very hopeful that we can follow through on this as we make it through a challenging budget environment. Councillor Moura, welcome. Thank you. This is going to sound like piling on, but I feel like a couple things. point that you made about the perception of with with other fiduciary partners that you work with, right? One of the underlying aspects of this program is the commitment that the county has made to fund 10% of the energy tax. And if we change that, in what appears to be an arbitrary decision with certainly no input from the council and no input from the Green bank in terms of making that decision It it just it throws the entire future of the stability of the fund in question With your partners and I think that that is the most detrimental thing that can happen here of Of course, then the secondary aspect is the actual funds that you're not getting and won't be able to invest. But the threat of the perception of the fund, I think, is the most critical aspect here. I think that's important. From the perspective of the decision that was made to pull this out, if we put this back in, we have to find $2 million someplace else. That's not even including the amendments that were just sent over at the very end of last week. It doesn't take into consideration a funding mechanism that was sent over very late in the game that we still haven't been able to figure out if it's real or not. And it just puts the body into an untenable situation where we have to make decisions that should have been made at the executive branch. So it is very disappointing. And then lastly, suggesting that there are two separate decreases, the first decrease firmly states the 10% commitment, mandatory commitment. The second one throws that mandatory commitment out the window. So that just doesn't make any sense at all. So that's how I feel. I feel like, and the whole discussion of BAPS, there were numerous opportunities for anyone in the executive branch to signal or to flat out tell us that this funding was in jeopardy, because we, at every turn, I haven't had a single conversation about VATS that did not reference the Green Bank and so it's it's I will support it looks like we're coming to agreement on tranches I think that we and we need to talk with our colleagues about that so that's where I'm met. Thank you. Councilman Recaz. Thank you very much. I get there again. It's a me too. First of, let me thank you for everything that you do. I did enjoy being at your open house. And it was a truly, it was a celebration of not only the green bank, but it was a celebration, it wasn't just an open house, it was a celebration for everything you do. Got to see some folks hadn't seen in a long time who obviously have gotten to see you and who are very much impressed. The word being used as frustration, I think we can all agree with that. I agree with my colleagues. I think the reconciliation that's for two tranches is the best way that we can go at this point. It's not the best way we should have gone, but it's the best way we can go. At this point, and I've always been taught, that when times are tough, you don't make less investment. You make more. And that's what we should be doing. But at this moment, I think this is where we are. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, colleagues. It sounds like we've all landed in the same place and appreciate everyone who has uplifted the years-long conversation that has tied building energy performance standard to the outreach and investment that will be done by the green bank and to undercut the green bank in the way that has been undercut the goal of building energy performance standards. Full stop. So it sounds like we as a joint committee will accept the recommendation for the energy tax 1.1, the decrease of $1,080,032, but then tranche for our colleagues' consideration, split into two, the other reduction of the transfer and make that two tranches of $1,145,902. Great pun, without objection. Great. Thank you, Mr. Morelle. Please do continue to keep us apprised of the ongoing litigation, which most legal scholars deem unconstitutional, but what do they know? So thank you. Without any other comment, this joint committee is adjourned.