This conference will now be recorded. Welcome to the May Board of Managers meeting. Everybody, thanks for being here. The first item is the approval of the minutes. We have the regular minutes and the annual meeting minutes. They circulated comments questions. I want to approve minutes of what the manager's regular monthly meeting held on April 14, 2025, and minutes of the 111 bill January meeting, although they've been putting first coming to 25 as directed. Second. All in favor. Aye. Anyone opposed? Great. The minutes are approved. The next thing on the agenda is the Treasurer's report Gary. I don't think it will be that the Treasurer to the report which is that I enjoy it lovely right up I 95 today to the PWI area to Rosedale Federal savings and loan and so we have now one fewer CD with nothing to to do. We still have to. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for your service. The next item on the agenda is a project change order. So we're the bill on the new extended buffer area drainage to the project. Yeah, so I will walk us through that. As the board knows, we have been planning for a short-order mediation project in the buffer for quite some time. We really took time over the last year to ensure that we were addressing concerns and input provided by the Parks and Green Space as committee in regard to the plant materials to be selected for this space. As you know, we also incurred damage to several mature trees last summer due to some summer storms. And so we also want to demotify the planting plan to ensure that we were reinforcing the areas where we had lost several trees. Responding to the additional thing that we discovered because this was our first year having real major snow, we determined that we needed to better assess the walkway that goes through the buffer to ensure that the walkway path was wide enough for our public works equipment to access the pathway for snow removal operations without damaging the ground on either side of the walkway. Unfortunately, one of the things our engineer brought to our attention is that full widening of the walkway would have triggered the threshold that would have required Montgomery County permitting, which would have exponentially increased the cost of this project as well as the time. So we decided to work with the engineer to modify the walkway in strategic areas where our public works crew were having a more difficult time navigating with their machinery. the added benefit is that it will also make the pathway easier to navigate for bicycleists and specifically in the area of Montgomery Street where there are some tight turns to get from the main pathway to the exit into shopping center area to go toward friendship heights. So all of those modifications and taking the time to address those issues has lengthened the consultation time with the engineer, has lengthened the amount of time that they needed to redesign the plans and so we need to add additional funds to the original 78,900 that the board. Excuse me, authorized in 2023 for the planning and engineering side of the project to increase a fine additional 12,000 to cover expenses to date as well as finalizing the planning and design works that we can then advertise this for construction vids. Our project engineer will also be tasked with with doing management and so they will review the beds that are received and help support staff in making a recommendation for contract award. They will also be in charge of working with the selected contractor to review any orders and supplies that are made and to ensure that they are operating in compliance with the approved plans. And so the recommendation to the board is to authorize the additional 12,000, which does exceed my authorization limit. Okay, anybody have a motion on this? I move to authorize the village manager to execute a submitted change order from Charles P Johnson and associates dated April April 25, 2025 to provide engineering services to prepare construction documents and observations services for the Belmont Avenue extended drainage project in an amount not to exceed $12,000. Second, all in favor? Hi, hi. And you want to post? Great. So the next item on the agenda is contract extension authorizations for the landscape architect and the janitorial services. Yes, I come for you this evening with two contract extensions. The first would be for our landscape architecture and design services. And this would be the second of two one year extensions. And then it's for a miracle that they have with neighbors, they helped you to the design of the Chevy Chase Circle Green space. We've also had them give input on the median here at West Kirk and then the cypress oh, green space here. They gave us some ideas there. So we've been very happy with the input that we have received from the Environmental Club and seek to get the towards to extend that contract by the one year. Anyone have any questions? motions. I move to authorize the village manager to execute a letter exercising the second of two one year contract extensions for landscape services within VARO, colab LLC. All in favor? All right. Good. All right. So the next one is at the genitorial services. So this would be to extend the contract with B Clean Cleaning Services. And this would be the first of the two one one year extensions. We've been very happy with the janitorial service and we're just basically asking if you would allow us that extension. Are you ready for motion? Yeah, ready for motion. I moved to authorize the village manager to execute a letter exercising the first of two one year contract extensions for janitorial services with clean cleaning services incorporated. Okay, all in favor. Any of anybody opposed to this? No. Okay. So now we have some personnel policies. Yeah, so I'll go through these kind of one by one here. As you know, during the budget work session for the FY26 budget, there were some personnel policy changes that included changes to the budget itself that were brought forward to you. You've authorized the budget now with your approval of it at at the annual meeting and now it's time to actually formalize your authorization of the policies that go with them. The two policies that have direct budget implications are the reduction of the overtime threshold for police officers currently under federal law. We are allowed to not assess overtime until police officers have worked their 86th hour and the proposal is to bring that in line with civilian positions by allowing overtime to be assessed at the 80th hour. What's slightly different is that for civilians. Their overtime threshold is actually determined by the work week. And so the seven day work week for us, it runs Sunday through Saturday through Friday. And so if a civilian works in excess of 40 hours in that time frame, at the 41st hour, it's paid at the overtime rate. For police officers, it would be calculated in the pay periods span and would be paid to them at the 81st worked hour in a pay period. The second change would be to authorize a pay differential for our overnight working personnel, which are our public safety personnel in the police and communications departments and that would be to authorize us to give them a differential between the hours of 7 p.m. when they're working. You're going to see who that is to meet them. Mr. Winds, if you're able to mute on your end, we're getting some background noise. Perfect, okay. And so that would be for any police officers or communications groups who are working between the hours of 7 p.m. and 6 a.m., they would receive a pay differential. I want to be clear that $1.40 is what is budgeted in the FY 26 budget. You're just authorizing the policy, understanding that that threshold may change in the future years depending upon cost of living another assessment that we may make about the feasibility of that being a sufficient amount. So those are the two direct budget-implicating policy decisions for you to approve. The other two are to change our plan document with our retirement plan provider. So currently the village offers two different types of retirement vehicles. One that we pay in to, which is a 401A plan, which is a defined benefit plan. There is also a deferred compensation plan that employees can pay into directly. Many local governments, especially bless you, especially local governments that operate police departments, are used to a defined benefit pension plan. And so one of the things that we have tried to look at and lieu of offering that type of plan, which I'm not recommending, I'm not suggesting, I think that's too rich for a small government of our size to offer. We're looking at other ways that we can maximize the quality and benefit of our retirement offerings so that we can be more competitive with other agencies. And so the two ways that we're seeking to do that under the proposed change would be to allow for people to join employees to join our defined that defined contribution plan. Thank you. Oh, God, thank you. So I think that's what's going to be that. To find contribution plan by allowing them to join from day one. Currently, we have a one year waiting period. So you're not beginning that besting until you have been with us for one year of employment. We've asked our plan provider why they think we may have structured the plan in that way. And they said that generally it would be for agencies who want to allow employees to have ended their probationary periods. You would not have them join the retirement plan until they've done that. There really isn't a fiscal hit to us if someone departs employment after one year. They're not vested, they're not even partially vested after one year. And so those funds which just roll back into the account for disbursement to the other eligible employees. So there really isn't a downside to us allowing employees to join from day one other than Demetri would just have to work with new employees to get all their paperwork and everything done in order to join the plan. The second change that we'd like to make to the benefits would be to allow Roth IRA contributions as a part of our plan. This would be a payroll deduction that would go into a Roth IRA account. It's a very safe, um, my understanding is, you know, strong yielding retirement savings vehicle for people to be putting their funds into. This would be employee contributed. And so it would just give them an additional option to the deferred compensation plan for generating retirement savings. There is another benefit that's not included here, because it's not a direct policy change of the board needed to make. But in my manager's report, I also noted that one of the things that we're looking to offer as of July 1, 2026, assuming we get sufficient enrollment from the staff, would be to also roll out offering a long-term care benefit to village employees. We have a broker that will be holding an information session with the staff later this month, provided we have five enrollments. We will be able to join that plan. It's actually being offered through our local government insurance trust pool. And so very competitive rates and it's a guarantee issue in year one and portable coverage that our employees will be able to take that coverage with them when they separate employment from the village. So the benefit there is again just offering yet another benefit to employ that doesn't have a direct fiscal impact to the village, but puts us on par with some of the agencies that we're competing with for candidates. So happy to answer any questions, but I wanted to also just see Chief to do anything that you wanted to add about the first two policies. Just please and thank you. Well, it's a game. He said please, so is anybody have a mind? I'm just, I'll thank you. Well, it's a game. He said please. So is anybody have a moment? I'll take your moment. I would authorize the recommended personal public service proposed. OK, all in favor. I anyone opposed? Great. That passes. Thank you all very much. You're welcome. Thank you. Next is commission and committee matters. We have the Tree Ordnance Board appointment. I'll just explain this really quickly because if you're keeping track of names, you may wonder why musician is back up for appointment. Last month you appointed her to reappointment as an alternate on the Tree Ordnance Board. In the last month, one of the members of the tree ordinance board has stepped down, and Ms. Ifshin has volunteered to step up onto the tree ordinance board to fill that vacancy. As I noted last month, we currently have a vacancy in the over two alternates on the tree ordinance board. One of those positions was vacant as a last month month with Miss Ifshin's appointment to the tree ordinance board this evening. That will leave us with two vacancies as alternatives on the tree ordinance board. Certainly, if any members of the board know any residents who might be interested in serving on that board, please, in the alternate capacity, please let us know. and the tree ordinance board has been asked the same. Okay. I move to a point, Gail ifsion of Western Avenue to serve as a member of the tree ordinance board completing a vacant term ending April 2027. Okay. All in favor. Awesome. We're now moving on to the police report. Good evening, all. So, um, turn the annual meeting. I spoke briefly about sex with that one. And, um, part of that was based on things that happened in April. So we did have a, uh, suspect that broke the rear window of a vehicle. Remove the visible handbag, and again, the odds of you getting your window broken if you don't everything visible or low. But they had a visible handbag, so the window went and so did the bag. And then at the same parking lot on the 27th, we had a stolen auto. The suspect survived and a stolen auto dropped their office, what they usually do. And then took another one that was recovered in DC about five miles away. The interesting part was there was no forced entry to the vehicle, no damage to the ignition. The victim could not remember if they left their spare file in there. So again, just asking people to be aware of what they're leaving in the car, including keys, or possible keys. And again, don't need to victim chain where they are, but we live in imperfect society. So the more we can do to reduce the opportunity, the better off we're all to be. Other than that, we had a couple other vehicles that were searched and or something was stolen, all of them unlocked. I'm sorry, two unlocked and one unknown means but no four centuries. They couldn't tell me if the tell us if the car was locked or not. So again, we just have to build better habits. One thing that we did see on West Irving, that we haven't seen a lot of, was a catalytic converter for you. So that was on West Irving on the 22nd of April. So old school. Yeah, really strange. Yeah, and there's. It was a big thing for a while. People have, they've started painting them, things like that. There's shops that will paint them and the metal recyclers are supposed to take it if it's painted, but who knows. But again, it's something we don't see a lot of. So it was worth mentioning. Administratively, we have two openings. We also have two people in the final home stretch of their background, both through the psychological and the polygraphs. So we have high hopes for that, and hope to have them cleared and on board within the hopefully by the time I come in for review. Good folks and Jim. Thank you, everybody. Thanks very much. If I can just add one things, I haven't shared this with you, the chief yet. I saw in the town of Somerset, of course, our neighbors here to the West in their newsletter, where they cited how they had not had any vehicle breakings in 2024 and cited how in Chevy Chase Village, we had had several and how despite the pleadings from our police chief, people were still keeping your doors unlocked and keeping valuables. So we have now been officially neighbor shamed. So if that doesn't motivate people, I don't know. Very interesting. There are that the sex papers read that in the summer. Hey wait a minute. Part officially part of Chevy 6. I had one question that probably just told straights that I didn't read something carefully but the the light and siren thing in the sex parking lot that was causing very serious. First we go on is that affirmative situation? Yes. Yeah. And again, we have a fairly good relationship with our security folks and kind of coordinate, so we should be out of mitigating these issues moving forward. Thank you. So we move on to the managers report. Yes. So you may have seen that there were signs placed along Connecticut Avenue, south of East West Highway at the bus stops, noting that the single, Womada bus that comes down goes up and down, Connecticut Avenue between East West and the circle has been a limit will be eliminated out of June 29th leaving only the counties right on service basically south of East West Highway. We did not receive any notice about that change until the signs were posted at the bus stops. It reached out to neighboring municipalities. They were not notified either. Historically, Womada actually has been pretty good about providing notice to the municipalities when they are looking at doing any major service changes in our area. I reached out to a contact that actually say to Ms. Winston, he provided to me for the government relations contact at Womada for the Maryland side. And in a nutshell, what he shared was that these changes were part of a system-wide modification to make the Womada bus service operate more efficiently. And they did not do more localized noticing because they did very region wide noticing about this better plus network approach that they were undergoing that apparently started a couple of years ago. This was still, it must have happened at such a high level that it was not on anyone's radar here locally. One of the people I also reached out to was the General Manager for Chevy Chuse Club Club as the single largest employer along this section of Connecticut Avenue and they are very concerned about the change. They have about 400 employees, they've already been struggling with getting their employees to park within the limits of the property. And as you may know, on several of our east side streets, we do have JV Chase Club employees who park consistently on those roads. And so the club has actually been looking at ways to get their employees to increase their use of the bus line. So elimination of this will mod a service is really going to be challenging for them. For anyone who may not be familiar with the bus service line down here, the current L8 service takes you basically from only all the way down to the friendship heights metro. Under the new bus route that they've unveiled the M22, you would have to either remain on the bus as it then travels westbound on East West Highway over to Wisconsin Avenue, where it will then continue south to friendship heights, or you would get off at the intersection of East West Highway across over the intersection to then catch one of the two ride on bus services that would pick you up south of East West Highway. I did a trip origination test on their website just to see what the difference would be under the current service versus the new service and it adds about 30 minutes to what was originally a 25 minute trip if you were traveling from from Kensington to our village hall. So definitely is a pretty drastic service delivery change. As I'm sure you're all aware as well, the current bus service is one of the things that has been cited for the increased housing options being proposed by the county. And so it is interesting that this is happening simultaneously. Laws of service at the same time that the county is looking to allow additional housing density along Connecticut Avenue due to what they felt to be ample public transit option. So just wanted to bring that to the board's attention. I have reached out to our delegation to see if they can weigh in or give us any guidance. I don't anticipate from the information I've received from Omana that this is going to be reversed or that this is going to be changed in any way, but it is troubling to have such a large public transit service delivery change without real meaningful notice to the impacted community. For our residents who would be traveling to the Friendship Heights Metro from Connecticut Avenue, they'll continue to be able to use the County provided right on service. This is really an impact if you were trying to travel north of east west highway, you'll now just be lengthening that trip might fight a bit. So just wanted to make sure that the board was aware of that service change and as was noted before the meeting started. We are in the process of making some repairs to the building following the week that was discovered from the ice machine in the kitchen. We have a contractor schedule to come out on Wednesday to assess the extent of the repairs that are needed to get us an estimate for moving that forward. We do have one private rental later this week that had been scheduled to use this room that we'll now be using Lambert and our HVAC contractors working diligently to ensure that we'll have HVAC service in Lambert in time for that event on Wednesday evening. Nothing else to add let's say questions. Any questions? I have the great honor and distinct privilege of moving to to which are second. Oh, in favor. Oh, OK. Thank you. Thanks everybody. Thank you all. Thank you. privilege of moving to a second. Oh, in favor. Okay. Thank you. Thanks everybody. Almost a record. When was that?