I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Today we have a lot of celebrations and proclamations and we are going to move to the front. I'm going to ask my colleagues to join me. First proclamation will be Public Service Week. And it goes as follows, whereas National Public Service Recognition Week has been recognized and organized annually since 1985 by the Public Employees Roundtable and its member organizations to honor the men and women who serve our nation as federal, state, county, and municipal employees. And we're as the goals of Public Service recognition we are to connect and educate citizens nationwide about the work in their government, of their government rather, to improve the perception and morale of public service. And helping inspire, rather, a new generation of public service. And now therefore, the mayor and council of the city of Rockville to hear by proclaim May 4th through the Chimp 2025 as National Public Service recognition week in the city of Rockville, Maryland to thank and appreciate city staff for their dedication and service to the Rockville community. With that, Madam Mayor, I move the proclamation. Councilor Fulton, seconds, all those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. I believe we have Baroque Matete receiving. Mr. City Manager, do you wanna do it in this stead? I know you love the camera, so I'm happy to give it to you. Do you want to say it? I do not. Thank you. If I had a computer, I'd take a picture. Sure. Here it is. It's a long video. I guess it is. It actually is a notch. It's off. I guess it is. I'm honored to read the proclamation declaring this police week. May 15th is National Peace Officer Memorial Day, and the week it falls in is National Police Week. So this week is National Police Week from Sunday, May 11th to Sunday, May 17th, is a week of activities honor and remember those officers who have sacrificed so much for the public safety. Close to the home, I've come to know the men and women of the Rockville City Police Department. RCPD does a phenomenal job, not just in keeping the peace and in public safety, with community engagement, getting out in a neighborhood that neighborhoods events, and getting prescription drug checkbacks and gun buybacks, and in being a presence presence at Rockville area schools, I know that take pride in discipline and holding themselves to the highest of standards and they're accountantly training and incorporating new techniques. Through all of that runs the theme of accountability and respect for civilian authority and perhaps most of all respect for the dignity of all residents of Rockville. I'm honored to present the approximation on behalf of the mayor and council to the men and women of the Rockville police department and the brave and women men and women who have sacrificed so much and are prepared to every time they go out under shift. Whereas, the Congress and President of the United States have designated May 15th as peace every time they go out on a shift. Whereas, the Congress and President of the United States have designated May 15th as Peace Offices Memorial Day and the week in which it falls as Police Week. Now, therefore, the Mayor and Council of Rockford, Maryland, to hear prior proclaim, May the 11th to May the 17th, 2025, asothit's Week and May 15th, 2025 as peace officers more all day in the city of Rockville and call upon the residents to commemorate this observance by thanking our police officers, past and present who by their faithful and loyal devotion have established an enviable enviable and beable and enduring reputation for preserving the rights, safety and security of all residents of Rockville and the surrounding communities. Madam Mayor, I move the proclamation. I'll talk to Michelle seconds next one. I'll just switch to the next one. I'll just switch to the next one. I'll just switch to the next one. I'll just switch to the next one. I'll just switch to the next one. I'll just switch to the next one. I'll just switch to the next one. I'll just switch to the next one. Not really. I'm not going to go on. Too long. Yeah. It's a mini-micro-phatic. That's a shit. make me go far, that's not really. No, not really. No, not really. No, not really. It's a long, long time. That's a mini-meek of thought. That's a huge... That was fast. I'm not afraid. I don't think I saw. Nice one. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. It's my great honor to read National Women's Health Week Proclamation, not just because I'm a City Council member, but also because I am an NIH employee and a public health. Thank you. Whereas National Women's Health Week celebrates the extraordinary progress in women's health and recognizes that more needs to be done to safeguard the health of women and girls for generations to come. And now therefore, the Mayor and Council of Rockville, Maryland, do hereby proclaim the week of May 11th through May 17th, 2025, as National Women's Health Week and encourage and so of Rockville, Maryland. Do hereby proclaim the week of May 11th through May 17th, 2025, as National Women's Health Week and encourage the community to engage, keep up to date on news and activities that will benefit the health and wellbeing of all women and families. I move the proclamation. Seconds. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you can see him on. and council members for allowing me to accept this proclamation for Women's Health Week. I was so flattered at the invitation that I broke my wrist, petting myself on the back for focusing on needs as a woman. Kidding, of course, but honestly, I have learned that it takes real work to get healthy, maintain it, and handle all life offers you good and bad. After suffering a few serious losses in recent years and supporting a parent with cancer. I was glad I had taken the time to be active. Thank you. Exercise, eat right and prioritize building. For community, myself to support my own mental health. Strong, busy, happy women can have incredible positive impact for the good of a soul. I encourage all women to take the time this week to go for a walk. Prepare healthy meals, schedule that annual screening. You have been putting off and meet up with the people who make you laugh the most. Our community values you and want you to thrive, especially during women's health week. Thank you. That's beautiful. That's great. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. I was joking earlier that I did not bring my bubble tea with me for this next proclamation, but I really should have as a true bubble tea aficionado. I have the honor of giving out the proclamation for Taiwanese American Heritage Week. Whereas the United States of America has been continually renewed and enriched by the many different people who choose to come here and become our fellow residents. Whereas, Thailand needs Americans have made enormous contributions to the diversity and prosperity of American society consistently contributing to the promotion of democracy and self-determination here and in their homeland. Now therefore, the Mayor Marin City Council do hereby proclaim May 11th through 18th 2025 to be Taiwanese American Heritage Week in Rockville Maryland and encourage all residents to observe, celebrate and enjoy this special week. Met Ameri, I moved of the population. Hi, and we do have some individuals to come on up and accept the proclamation. Yes. Oh you. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, Council Members, and our special guests. I'm behalf of the four-most association for Public Affair DC I am an honor to accept this Pokemon machine recognizing Taiwanese American history week. We extend to our half-rate gratitude to the city of Blockville for these regulations and the four-four-thousand and inclusive involvement where our culture are celebrated. Thank you for the honor. Thank you. And also I want to invite September 20th. We have a 2025 Taiwanese, Taiwan, Babo T. Festival at the Laugh Fierce cities. So our also will be the Rockville Town Center. Thank you. Be there in the square. Thank you. Thank you. I was just invited to say just a quick word. September 20th is the Bubble Tea Festival this year, and it's a great opportunity to learn something. I was also invited to just mention that next week, we host a clar ensemble from our other sister city in Pinninburg, Germany, and we will be having a public concert at Glenview on the 23rd of May in the evening, starting at seven o'clock will open and 730 will be the concert. On the Richard Montgomery Jazz Band will also be playing. So if you'd like to come out and hear that cultural music as well, the group from Rich Montgomery went to Pinnon Bird last summer and played in their Jazz Festival. It was quite interesting to send American students over to Germany to play in American musical form in Germany. But they have a Jazz Festival, so it was pretty neat. So yeah, the Rockville sister cities, these are the activities that we do. We've been getting more active in exchanges because COVID's over. So thank you very much. So you probably see every day people potentially working on the street, working on the lights, working all of a rock film. I don't know that I realize until I was a council member, the degree to which our public works, employees and staff work around the clock. They are the hidden people behind the scenes that are making our city run. That is why I am honored to read the proclamation here for National Public Works Week. Whereas public works professionals focus on infrastructure, facilities and services that are of vital importance to sustainable and resilient communities, and to public health, high quality of life, and well-being of our residents' lives. And whereas the year 2025 marks the 65th annual National Public Works Week sponsored by the American Public Works Association. And this year's theme is people, purpose, and presence. Now therefore the Mayor and Council of Rockville do hereby designate the week of May 18 to 24, 2025, as National Public Works Week in the City of Rockville, and call upon all residents and civic organizations to acquaint themselves with the issues involved with providing public works services and to recognize the contributions of which that our public works officials make every day to our health, safety, comfort, and quality of life. Madam Mayor, I move the proclamation. Councillor Schell, second. Councillor Schell, second. It's all the same. I believe we have Jim Woods from the Public Works Department to say a few words. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Jim was I'm the deputy director of Public Works and as council member Van Grack mentioned this the theme of this year's national public works is people purpose and presence and it's intended to recognize that public work staff serve the public with quiet dedication and we really really like it it when it's quiet. When it's quiet, that means that the services that we provide and the infrastructure that we maintain are in good condition and that we're doing our jobs. So on behalf of our public works department, we accept this proclamation and thank everybody. And we want to invite everybody to attend our annual equipment show. this year will be held at Maddie's Topanic Park Thursday, May 22nd, from 1030 to 4. And it's a great opportunity to meet our staff, learn more about the services we provide. And everybody, including kids and grownups, will enjoy climbing on our trucks and honking our horns. So thank you. Thank you. Now Dr. Miles will proclaim National Kids to Parkstay. Thank you Madam Mayor. Before I begin I want to make note of that May 17th, 2025, this kids to Parkstay will be celebrated at the Coordin Creek Nature Center with the 24th Annual Spring Festival, family event from 10 a.m. to noon. So just a note, as I begin to read this proclamation, and it goes as follows, whereas May 17th, 2025 is a 15th annual National Kids Departor Day organized and launched by the National Park Trust held annually on the 3rd Saturday of May. And now therefore, the Mayor and Council of Rockville, Maryland, do hereby proclaim May 17th, 2025 as National Kids Departor Day. And urge the residents of Rockville to take their children to one of the many great city of Rockville parks with that metamere move the approximation. And I believe we have somebody here who stands as an example to accept the the confirmation youth who spends a lot of time believe it by calling and Creek whose father got to meet this weekend. I'll stop there and I shall take over. Hi, my name is August. I just want to say that from a young age, I've always loved the Rockville parks and the nature centers and the nature we have around here and that I think it's really important to go outside and go to parks. Just a fun fact, Rockville has over 60 parks, so we have many to enjoy. I'm going to go ahead and move on to the next process. Good evening again. Before I read the next proclamation, I'm recognizing the Greek genocide. I do want to just share quickly. This is the second time that this proclamation has come before Mary and Council last year was the first year for this. And it was a very personal passion project for myself. My, yeah, yeah, was chased out of Smyrna Turkey as part of the genocide of the Greek and Armenian and many other communities that were being ethnically cleansed out of that part of Turkey. She landed in Athens with where she was welcomed open arms, where then she saw Nazis marching down the street and literally had to flee from Athens to Egypt where the Greek government and exile was. I say all this because there are connections between the two. We know that the Greek genocide was a precursor, and in some ways a practice run for the Holocaust. And I think remembering any genocide is an important reminder for all of us. So this is truly for everybody in the community, but with special love and gratitude toward individuals of Greek heritage, as well as Armenian heritage. Whereas the city of Rockville is home to many diverse ethnic and religious communities who came to the United States seeking refuge from war, ethnic and religious persecution. And whereas the genocide of the Anatolian Greeks is a tragedy that took the lives of estimated 900,000 Greeks during World War I and it's noted by scholars as the model used by the Nazis for the Holocaust. Now therefore the mayor and council of the city of Rockville do proclaim May 19th 2025 as Greek genocide remembered stay in the city of Rockville, Maryland, and encourage everyone to join with the Greek American community. And it's many of religious, communal, and philanthropic organizations as they honor the sacrifices and memory of their ancestors. Madam Mayor, I move the proclamation. Second, all of the favor. Please come move the second, all of the favor. I thank you. Thank you. So I know there's many people in our community and throughout the world that have suffered from ALS, which is also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, and considering the way that it affects families, I'm honored to present the proclamation with regard to acknowledging and the month of May is ALS, Awareness Month. Whereas ALS, better known as Lugeric's disease, is a fatal neurodegenerative disease characterized by the degeneration of cell bodies of the lower motor neurons in the gray matter of the anterior horns of this spinal cord. And now therefore, the mayor and council of Rockville, Maryland, do hereby declare the month of May as ALS Awareness Month in Rockville and call upon a residence to join other communities across the region to recognize and participate in this special observance. Madam Mayor, I move the parking please. Thank you. Councilmember Lowry, seconds, all those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. It is nowous. Thank you. We are a very diverse city, and we're very proud of all of the people, all different kinds of diversity that make us unique. And not everyone knows this, but Rockville is over 20% Asian American. And so it's important to see and recognize all of our community members. And we're really excited to be able to proclaim May as AAPI Heritage Month. Whereas the Asian population makes up more than 20% of our population. And AAPI members represent many nations, ethnicities, each with its own culture, heritage language, and experience. And whereas, Rockville Asian American and Pacific Islander Task Force serves an important connection to and for our community, engaging our new and long-term Asian American and API residents, business owners, visitors, and city programs and services. And whereas we also commemorate Asian Pacific Islander Day against bullying and hate annually on May 18th. Now therefore the mayor and council of Rockville do hereby proclaim May 2025 as Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Rockville, Maryland and encourage all of our residents to acknowledge, embrace and commemorate and celebrate. Councilmember Fulton moves to proclamation. Do we have a second? Councilor Jackson seconds, all those in favor please raise your hand and say aye. Thank you and now I'd like to welcome a member of our API Task Force John Lynn. Welcome. Thank you so much. Thank you. I you want to say a few more? No. All right. I will just say they do a lot of work behind the scenes and plan many festivals for us to be able to celebrate culture. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. I have the honor of doing the proclamation for building safety month. And I will tell you that over the course of my career, I have found myself accountable for the safety and structure of either a major renovation or a full scale build. And I can tell you that the amount of work, the amount of effort, the amount of complexity and skill and checking that goes into ensuring the safety of our buildings is something much like with public works. I don't think a lot of us spend a whole ton of time thinking about. So I'm actually glad we stopped to take time to think about the people who ensure the safety of our buildings. So whereas the city of Rockville, Maryland is committed to recognizing that our growth and strength depends on the safety and essential role of our homes, buildings, and infrastructure. What that plays in both everyday life and when disastrous strike. And whereas Game On is the theme for Building Safety Month 2025, is dedicated to raising awareness about building safety, promoting the adoption of modern building codes, and highlighting the work of building safety professionals. And now therefore, the Mayor and Council of Rockville, Maryland, do hereby proclaim the month of May 2025 as building safety month in the city of Rockville. We encourage our residents to join us as we participate in building safety month activities. I move the proclamation. And I believe we have some members of our own city of Rockville staff who help keep our building safe to come accept. Come on down. I said, Kina, come on up. Kina, Campbell, and Jenny Snap. Would you like to say a few words? I just have one thing. Go for it. Just one. Good evening. My name is Kina Campbell and I'm the chief of inspection services. And for the month of May, as we participate in building, building safety month, we are offering free residential deck inspections. So just wanted to make everyone aware they are upon request. You can send an email to permits at Rockville. If you are a city resident and would like to, and I'll take advantage of that service this month only. Thank you. Hi, I'm Jenny Stamp. I'm the deputy director at community planning and development services. Almost half of our staff is comprised of the inspection services division. So on behalf of our department, I want to thank them for their service. They're out in the field every day, ensuring that our residents and community are safe. In addition to that, we have support staff that support them like our permit tech, so I want to thank them as well. Thank you. Applause So this month is bicycle awareness month. It's also national bicycle month. It is a month for us to not only be aware of the bicycle community, but also partake in it. Last week, I was honored to partake in the bike-to-school, bike-enrolled-to-school event that happened all over the city. And this upcoming week gets bike to work week as an example of things that we can do. And while there is just one day out of the year for each of these events, we should consider the fact that we can do it every day. And with the regard to our bicycling community and you're going to hear from some of the members of the bicycling community after this proclamation. There are opportunities to bike on a regular basis throughout the month of May. If you look on the site, just Google Rockville Bicycle Month and you will see all the different opportunities. There is also almost every week of the year opportunities to bike together with numerous members of our community, the bicycling community here in Rockville is strong. And if you have any inkling, if you just, I bike to the kid, I want to start biking now, there are opportunities. I've taken numerous members of the Mayor and Council have their wonderful opportunities and I'm proud to present this proclamation. Whereas the bicycle plays an important role in the lives of many Rockville residents by providing a means to travel to work, school, and parks, and a popular form of recreation. And now therefore the Mayor and Council of Rockville, Maryland, to hear pro claim May 2025 as bicycle awareness month and urge all residents of Rockville to seek opportunities to ride bicycles this month and throughout the year to recognize the importance of bicycle safety and to be more aware of our cyclists on our streets and our roadways. Madam Mayor, I move the proclamation. Hi, now I know I believe we have a number of members of our bicycle advisory committee to come up here and say a few words. Okay, Nancy. I think you may are asked in the council for having us accept this proclamation. My name is Jake Jackabek. I'm the chair of the Rockville bicycle advisory committee. I just want to offer kind of a quick anecdote of something I've noticed over while traveling around the city on a bicycle this past a while. Sometime I go over to an article that said that you find your city has a true, sort of normal cycling culture when you just see people from all walks of life on bicycles riding to wherever they're going, whether you know they're going for recreational ride or visiting somebody in whichever. And in the past few months, I've actually been, instead of riding at exercise, cycling time, like at eight o'clock in the morning, I've gone out in the middle of the afternoon and I was pleasantly surprised that I see those people from all walks of life, what riding their bikes in the city of Rockville. This past Sunday, I saw family of four, two adults, two children just going for ride on the west side Millennium Trail. I see kids passing by my house on their bikes all the time, just going wherever. And this to me speaks that Rockville is achieving that goal of having just cycling be a normal thing that people do to get around. And I encourage everybody to come join us and help make that culture continue impossible. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. I do want to quickly end. I think everyone in this room should be proud of the City of Rockville. We really have such a great environment for safe biking. So no matter what the age, come out and join us. So as a Jewish American here in Rockville, it is truly my honor to present the proclamation for Jewish American Heritage Month. And I think it's especially important in this day and age in the different time period where we're actually seeing a rise throughout the nation in the world and anti-Semitism. It's all the more important to recognize Jewish American heritage and understand the importance. And I am proud to claim that I am member of the Jewish American community. And I know that there's many, many members not only here in Rockville, here in the county, here in the state of Maryland, here in the country, and the world who are also proud to be members of the Jewish community. Whereas American Jewish history commenced in 1492 with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and this action set off a period of intense Jewish migration. And whereas May 2025 is Jewish American Heritage Month and hundreds of organizations and Americans of all backgrounds are joining together to discover, explore and and celebrate the vibrant and varied American Jewish experience from the dawn of our nation to the present day. And now therefore, the mayor and council of the city of Rockville, Maryland, who here by proclaim May 2025 as Jewish American Heritage Month in Rockville, and urge residents to celebrate the rich culture of their Jewish American neighbors, friends and colleagues and embrace the diversity and practice and support of one another and to reflect on the need of respect for all people. Madam Mayor, I move the proclamation. Thank you, Councilman Jackson. Seconds, all of a favor please raise your hand and say, honor as you now have to thank you. And now I think we have a member from the Rackville Habbad to come and say a few words. And my junior, my buddy. It's a great honor to receive this proclamation on behalf of the Jewish community here in Rackville. And the Jewish community here in Rackville and the world over today is eating matsu. Today, why are you eating matsu today because it's the second Passover? But why is there a second Passover? There's no second rosh Hashanah. There's no second Yom Kippur and there's certainly no second Hanukkah. And the answer is in the Bible, there was a group of Jews coming out of Egypt in the desert who didn't get a chance to celebrate Passover, to celebrate their freedom. And they didn't get a chance to offer the Paschal lamb. So they came to Moses and they said, well, what about us? And Moses consulted with God. And the verdict was, you'll get a second chance. And so, Jews all over today celebrate Passover for a second time, for those that didn't get a chance to find and celebrate their freedom. And there's no coincidence that today we celebrate the freedom of Eden Alexander, who was Hellhastage for far too long. Today, he found his freedom. The message to us is stark. that while we in this great country are able to celebrate our freedoms living in this beautiful city of Rockville we must remember that there are those who are far less privileged and something you might have obviously noticed throughout all these proclamations is the diversity and the wide variety of areas that the Rockville City covers. So I commend the mayor and council for making sure that every single part of our community can participate in community life and for those that are less privileged ensuring that everyone gets a fear of chance and if needed a second chance. For my Jewish brothers and sisters who are here, who might be watching and listening, I wanna remind you that regardless of your background, your upbringing, there's always a second chance to reengage in your Judaism. So as a gift to each of you, I've brought some matzah on your way out. You could take some with you. I don't know if there's enough for everybody, but thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me I'll be in the picture. Let experience with this. My son, who hopefully is not watching or would be embarrassed, was diagnosed with Lyme disease several years ago. It is a difficult to diagnose disease. It causes a great deal of pain and is a long course of treatment. So I do think it's important that we all take the time to be aware, be aware of the causes, the symptoms, and the treatments of Lyme disease. By the way, I'm going to try to pronounce like the name of a bacteria here in a second, so give me some grace because I'm going to get it wrong. Whereas Lyme disease is the fastest growing vector-borne disease in the United States. It's caused by the bacterium Borella burgdorferrary, and is transmitted by the common black-legged tick, founded nearly one-half of all US counties, including here in Rockville. Now, therefore, the Mayor and Council of Rockville, Maryland, do hereby proclaim May 2025 as Lyme disease awareness month, a murderous month, and urge everyone to become aware of the steps that can be taken to reduce the risk of tick-borne illnesses such as Lyme disease. Madam Mayor, I move the proclamation. Seconded by Council Member Larry, all those in favor please be again to the chair. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Applause. I'm wearing green today in honor of Mental Health Awareness Month. And it's the issue that is not talked about enough. It is a disease that can be unseen. But there's also a need to just take efforts to make sure that we are finding ways to improve and support our mental health every day. There's a lot of pressures and stresses that everyone in this room sure has felt at some point in your life. And someone has known someone who's needed help. In fact, there are 50 million Americans who have mental health illnesses. And you may not know this, but half of those who have adults who have mental illness do not get any treatment. They haven't been seen or supported. We retreat our hearts. If our hearts have issues, we retreat diabetes. If you had A1C issues, we have to also think about our brain and our spirit and our hearts. So it's an honor to talk about mental health awareness. And I also just want to know the City of Rockville does have a mental health specialist here who resides within our city police department. Plays a tremendous role in de-escalation in supporting our police officers and members of our community. And a city of Rockville also has social workers out in our schools. Our children are feeling a lot of stress. And in this coming budget, we have put additional support towards support for our seniors and mental health as well. So if you have not gotten therapy or spoken to your doctor or even just meditated for a while, I encourage you to do so as we talked about earlier. It's important to get your health checked up and make sure your mental health is part of that. Whereas in May 1949, Mental Health Awareness Month was established by Mental Health America to encourage people to consider their mental health as an important part of overall health. Now therefore the Mayor and Council of Rockville do hereby proclaim May 2025 to be Mental Health Awareness Month and to encourage the Rockville community to remember this year's theme, turn awareness into action. Always seek help and reach out to a friend, not only when needed, but just because. Do we have a member to move the proclamation? Not a member. Council member Greg moves the proclamation. Council member Larry seconds. All those in favor, please face your hand and say aye. Thank you. We now are going to be joined by Beth Lothis to say our few words about mental health awareness month and what she does for our city. I'm going to be very brief. Madam Mayor and council members, thank you. Mental health is a topic that is far reaching and has touched so many of us. On behalf of the Rockville City Police Department and our community. Thank you so much for bringing you attention to this topic. We are grateful to be part of a city that prioritizes compassion. Thank you. All right. Hello again. So I have the privilege of reading the proclamation to make May 2025 older American month in Rockville. Older adults play vital positive roles in our community as family members, friends, mentors, volunteers, civic leaders, members of the workforce, and more. Just as every person is unique, so too is how they age and how they choose to do it. There is no right way, no correct path. The team for all the Americans month is flip the script. This team encourages a shift in how society views, talks about, and approaches aging, aiming to challenge negative serotypes, and highlight the positive aspects of older adulthood. Rockville has a variety of programs and services year-round and older Americans month is used to focus on how older Americans in our community are leading and aspiring others, how we can support and learn from them, and how we might follow their examples to age in many ways. I am proud to read this proclamation for this important segment of Rockville's population. Whereas, May is older Americans month, a time for us to recognize and honor older adults and their immense influence of every facet of American society. And therefore, the Mayor and Council of city of Rockville, Maryland, do hereby proclaim May 2025 as other Americans month. This year's theme flipped the script on aging. Encourages a shift in how society views, talks about and approaches aging, aiming to challenge negative stereotypes and highlight the positive aspect of all the adulthood. We call upon all residents to recognize the contributions of our citizensants and promoting programs and activities that fostering connection, inclusion, and support for all their adults. Madam Mayor, I move the proclamation. I did the council of the shots seconds, all those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. And I believe we have several people in the audience who are going to be accepting the proclamation, both the senior students of this commission and also members of the villages. Do you want to say a few words? Did you want to say a few words? Or do you want to do it? I'm not one of the eight. You didn't want to. Yeah, I know. Be careful what you wish for. My name is Trish Evans and I serve the role as village coordinator for the City of Rockville. And this would be a very long presentation if I told you what the villages do. They do amazing work and we have representatives of the Wooten's Mill Village, West Rockville Connects Village, Twin Brook Connects, and Rockville Town Center Village. We also have two members of the Senior Citizens Commission who are working on behalf to promote awareness of issues that face Rockville seniors. And I'm here representing the senior services staff over at the senior center. And I'm proud to be part of that team. Thank you. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. long history. I will say even throughout the state of Maryland, the Underground Railroad Forms here, we are an important part of the county seat. Next year we'll be celebrating 250 years of our country. And there's a lot to celebrate in terms of our culture or history. And I know that there's a dedicated group with our historic district commission, Peer List, the Lincoln Park Historical Foundation, Montgomery History, actually was just meeting over the past week about Lincoln High School. There's so much, and we're all here because others were, and we cannot forget our past, and we must celebrate and learn from lessons from the past as well. Whereas May is designated as preservation month by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, this year's theme, harnessing the power of place, is a national effort to recognize the individuals and organizations that pour their time, energy, and resources into protecting places and inspiring others to do the same. Now therefore, the Mayor and Council of Rockville, Maryland, recognizing that the efforts of historic preservation enrich our presence and enhance our future, do hereby proclaim May 2025 as preservation month, and call upon the community of Rockville to enjoy historic homes, sites, and landscapes. Councilmember Fulton moves, do we have a second? Oh, okay. Everyone seconds, council reject. Everyone seconds. Councillor Jackson seconds. All those in favor please raise your hand and say aye. Okay. All right. And now we have some members of our historic district commission. Anita Niel Powell, who is our chair as well as Nancy Picard, director of Puel, and I'll say, need to know how also represents Lincoln Park Historic Foundation, and I wanna thank staff member Sheila Bershiri, who keeps us all in line. Thank you, Mary Council. Thank you, Mary Council, for this recognition, but what I'm going to do is as Commissioner Michael Goldfinger to come forward and to accept the proclamation on behalf of the historic commission. Thank you. Thank you so much. I was expecting this so much. Yes. I was expecting this so much. Yes. I was expecting this so much. I was expecting this so much. Yes. I was expecting this so much. Yes. I was expecting this so much. Yes. I was expecting this so much. Yes. I was expecting this so much. Yes. I'm going to be in the next meeting. Good evening. Thank you, everyone. My name is Sheila Bichiri. I am the preservation planner for the city of Rockville. And I just wanted to let everyone know that we are the historic district commission. We're holding an event on Saturday, May 17th at the Gray Court House. It is a sustainability event and we will have residents there that have historic homes who have put together sustainability projects on their homes. So we have EV chargers. We have solar panels, a few other things, but we just wanted to let you know that it's going to be in the historic Gray Courthouse. If I'm not mistaken, that is also the anniversary of Brown versus Board of Education. And come here just a second here. you can yell. OK, I'm Brown. OK, just tell them a little bit about Gibbs case. Oh, it's a bit of versus the Board of Education broom. And on May 17th is when in 1954, when segregation took place and when we absolutely had to leave. And our schools came together. And that's what nobody said more. And just the kids and so we need the Board of Education for equal pay for all teachers. And it's an exact person to the Board of Education, to the Brown versus Board of Education, right? Correct, because the Black teachers were not getting the same rate of pay as the White teachers. If they're a good Marshall, actually we're gonna have the Preservation Conference and the Gray Brick, the warehouse, 27 where he actually went and bought his case that were gonna be in the historic courtroom where the case was fought by Thurgood Marshall. Right here in Rockville. Right here in Rockville. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. All right. The last pro last. The last proclamation. So here we go. So I get to read the proclamation declaring May 2025 as stroke awareness month. I thank my colleagues for agreeing to add this proclamation to the other many were the proclamations that we have today. Stroke is a personal issue for me. Nearly 14 years ago, at the age of 38, was when I discovered a stroke. I did not know much about strokes before I had one. But I certainly got a crest course and what one was in the long road of recovery from a stroke and when it does the people around a stroke survivor. It is my hope that this proclamation will help educate about what strokes are, how common they are, how to recognize them, how to treat them, and resources that there are for stroke survivors and their loved ones. Some facts. Stroke can happen to anyone at any age. 80% of all strokes are preventable. Stroke is the fifth leading cause of death in the new U.S. and a leading cause of disability. On average, one person dies from a stroke every four minutes. Stroke kills almost 130,000 people per year, that it's one out of every 19 deaths from all causes. So what can you do? Recognize the warning signs of stroke since it's sudden weakness, difficulty speaking, or nonness, and take prompt action for dialing 911 or seeking medical attention. If you are someone who suffers stroke, you're not alone. Most of us know someone who has had a stroke or suffered one themselves. There are resources available to survivors and their families, offering support and service for recovery and long-term care. Remember this, the human brain is still in many ways a mystery. Every stroke is different and every stroke survivor has somewhat different needs. Some people recover fully and others must adapt, learn new ways to do things, and often then be struggling mentally to deal with a new reality. You don't have to do it alone. Resources are available, support is available, many many others are facing similar challenges of being a stroke survivors or the families of stroke survivors. Visit the American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association to learn more about preventing, treating, and being a stroke survivor. Now to read the proclamation. We're asked. Stroke is a leading cause of disability and death, impacting individuals and families across the nation. And now, therefore, the Mayor and Council of Rockville, Maryland, do hereby proclaim May 2025 to be struck awareness month and encourage the Rockville community to remember this year's theme. Make May purple and act fast, F-A-S-T, and to always seek help quickly. Madam Mayor, I move the proclamation. Please, come to the polls in seconds. Almost in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. And I believe we have somebody from the American Hall of the Heart Association to come out and set the proclamation. And say a few words. Stuart. Thank you very much. Councilmember Jackson wanted to thank you so much for sharing your personal story and educating everyone today. On behalf of the American Heart Association, most importantly, one to reiterate what you just said about recognizing the warning signs of stroke. As you said, we want everyone to remember fast, which is F-A-S-T, F for facial drooping, A for arm weakness, S for speech difficulty, and T meaning it's time to call 911. As the council member said, if you act fast, we have incredible medical facilities here in the county that can help and reverse a stroke before it does permanent damage. So I wanna thank you for bringing awareness to this and just please everyone remember fast. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much for everyone coming to celebrate and raise awareness about important causes with us. I know that took a long time, but in Rockville, there are many issues that matter, and we wanna make sure that we're celebrating and supporting our community. We're gonna take a brief break, and they wanna come back and continue with our meeting for this evening. you you I'm going to get a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a I'm going to put it on the top of the head. I'm going to put it on the top of the head. Good evening Rockville. Today is May 12, 2025, and we're reconvening meeting 13-25. It's like to start out with the gender review, Ms. Sarah Taylor-Farell, do we have any changes? Madam Mayor and council members, there are no changes for this evening's agenda. Excellent, thank you. Now we'll have the City Manders report, Mr. Mahalink. Mayor Ashton, members of City Council, good evening. I have three items tonight, all good news. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank accessible and we really appreciate the additional funding from the state to do that work at Fallow's Grove Park. We also, this is brand new hot off the press, received yet another grant from the Maryland Energy Administration for 160,000 dollars for the purchase of an electric senior transit bus. As you know we've been working really hard to electrify our fleet with this new grant plus the budget that you approved last week Monday, we're investing over half million dollars in electrifying our fleet, including having two new senior transit buses next year. I also like to point out an item on your consensus agenda, and that is an agreement with Wilmata, as you know, we're trying to do a lot more signage improvements and beautification in around town center. The agreement with Wilmata would allow us to put up some wayfinding along the pedestrian bridge that leads from the station into town center. So we're excited about that. So that bridge improvement coupled with the CXS, that's bridge improvements that you all for your weeks ago, plus the new mural that more more guide just put up near Trader Joe's. You're seeing those beautification projects materialized. We're really excited about it. That's all I have, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any questions? All right. Thank you. We'll now move on to community forum. It's a time to share your thoughts ideas and concerns with the mayor and council. Please address the mayor and council in a civil and courteous manner and be respectful to your audience members. Each person will be allowed three minutes. We ask that you stick to that time. There will be an audible beep and a time clock in front of you. Please also state your name and whether you are from the city of Rockville. Thank you very much and will now move on to those who have signed up in advance. However, if you are inspired to speak after these folks go, please raise your hand. First, welcome, sit you. Thank you, my name is Sergio Obidia. As some of you might know, I'm building about a 1950s house, and I'm turning it into a Mad Zero Plus house. That's my own designation, enough solar power to power the whole house in two EVs. Once it hits the MLS market, it'll be the first one of its kind on the East Coast. Well, that's not true. There's a couple of them. Upstate Vermont, but first one in the urban area. The reason I'm here is I don't know the city of Rockville. And I would like to have the city put a place a bile swale in front of the house. Apparently there was a meeting in the over the summer about putting sidewalks on Wade Avenue. and they will put them on the other side. So for the next 25 years probably they will not be sidewalk. There's seven houses uphill that we could capture the water. I just don't know who to ask. Thank you. So we'll have someone at the back for these kinds of questions. Today, you'll be Mr. Dave goddessman. You've been nominated. So please see him and he can help answer questions and set up a meeting to discuss further. Great. Thanks. Thank you. I have a second question. There is a property on the market on 24 Martins Lane. It's for sale. It has an old historic home on it that has to be torn down. There's a neighbor who is saying that for the past 12 years, somebody, it's a point eight acres. And there's a neighbor that says that nobody can for 12 years, somebody has tried to build on it, but the historic designation will not, will prevent anybody from doing anything. Once again, is that true? Is anybody know? So direct you again to Mr. Goddessman, and we also have historic staff you can send a question to you. So he'll be at the back of the room waiting for you to help. I just made the sustainability plan today, so. Excellent. Great. Thank you. Welcome, Kevin H. Kevin? Okay. All right, so I can't quite read this one. Mr. G. G. Wers, Jerry. Sir, Jerry. Sir Jerry. Okay. All right. Next person is Bri. All right. We had a large crowd here for proclamation, so they may have been excited and left. Shaman. Okay. Judy, anyone else? All right. Welcome. Okay, all right. Anyone else who would like to speak? Well, thank you all. Mr. Becker, would you like to speak? All right. Welcome. Good evening. My name is John Becker. I live at Americana Center, which is across the street from the Rockville metro station. I'm here tonight to more or less we have our district 17 folks here. And as a board member of Safe Roads, Marrily, I'd like to thank them for their efforts this year as far as roadway safety. That affects the only other areas in the state and the Montgomery County, but also in the city of Rockville. Although a number of bills and legislation did not pass and not get accepted in the city area, they made an effort along with other members of the Montgomery County delegation. So for tonight I would like to say thank you for your support and as a common community owner, condominium member, I like to thank them for their efforts as far as condominium ownership and the commission on common ownership communities and the efforts being made to make things a little bit more just. And this is more less of just a general thank you. As far as safe roads Maryland is concerned, this I guess to a sound bite is the beginning of the beginning. There are a lot of things that need to take place to make our roads our sidewalks our streets our bike lanes safer And we look forward to working with the district 17 delegation Montgomery County delegation those throughout the state in the future. Thank you very much Excellent. Thank you mr. Becker What anyone else like to speak? Okay Thank you everyone much. Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Becker. What anyone else like to speak? OK. Thank you, everyone, for participating in community forum. We now have a wonderful special presentation. It is an honor to welcome Senator Cheryl Kagan, delegates, Ryan Spiegel, Julie Polackovich Carr, and Joe Vogel. We really appreciate all of your efforts to represent us. I know we had a chance to come visit you and see you in action early in the morning and late at night. Really working hard for the city of Rockville, and I'll also proactively say thank you again for legislative bond initiatives and for all you've done to provide support for nonprofits as well and trying to support important infrastructure projects for them. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you, Madam Mayor, Council members. I'm going to play traffic a little bit as we each do our presentations and we are hopeful that the three-minute mark is not going to apply to us because we have so much to share and we are grateful for this opportunity to tell you about all we accomplished in our 90-day legislative session. So kicking us off this evening is our newest delegate, our baby delegate, Ryan Speagle, a former Gathersburg City Council member who made a very smooth transition, had a great session last year and knocked it out of the park again in a very tough year on the appropriations committee. So, delegate speak will go first. Welcome, delegate speak. Thank you so much, Mayor. Thank you, Senator, for the introduction. Madam Mayor, honorable members of the council. Let me start by saying thanks to you, because one of the most important ingredients that makes our delegation able to be effective in anapolis in advocating for the residents of Rockville is the partnership that we have with you and the close working relationship that we have with you and your excellent staff. And indeed really all the citizens and other residents of Rockville who are engaged in the process at the state level Who communicate with our offices who let their concerns and ideas be known and we take that very very seriously as you know And we really just appreciate that partnership. I think Mr. Becker's testimony earlier is a great example of that One of the roles that I play in Annapolis is that I serve as the chair of the Montgomery County House Delegations Committee on Land Use Transportation and Public Safety where we focus on road safety bills that impact Montgomery County in particular. And as he mentioned, and I thank him for sort of already addressing a couple of the talking points I was planning to talk about tonight, we were able to help shepherd a couple of important bills, a few important bills that will increase and improve road safety here in Rockville, but there is more work to do and we're looking forward to working with him and other advocates and with you to move the ball forward on that. Let me also thank my outstanding district 17 delegation teammates for their support and guidance and mentorship as I have found my way in anapolis these last couple of sessions. And it has really been invaluable and I know senator kagan likes to say this a lot so I hope I'm not stealing your thunder but we really do work incredibly well together and may well be the best working delegation team of any legislative district in Maryland and we're very very very proud of that fact and we all bring our diverse strengths and interests to that team. And for my part, I was able to utilize and rely on that team, including by the way personal and direct testimony from the mayor and members of the council and written testimony submitted on behalf of the city of Rockville to support a number of the bills that I was able to advance this year that I introduced in Annapolis. And so I'm gonna start by just addressing a couple of those. I had my first two bills that passed that of both houses of the general assembly this session and the governor signed them last week. The first was a bill that will make it easier and provide more support to public service workers to be able to learn about and access the federal public service worker loan forgiveness program. This program, at least as of now, is still an operation in the federal government and is a really huge benefit to those who dedicate themselves in their careers to public service. And that includes not just people who work in the federal and state government, but also Rockville City government and other municipal and local government employees who meet the eligibility requirements because we want to encourage, attract and retain folks to do these important jobs. It applies to teachers and first responders and it also applies to the nonprofit sector. So folks who are choosing to go the route of maybe getting paid less in their career to do good work to support the community. So we're really looking forward to activating this legislation and making sure that folks get that benefit. Another bill that I was able to pass and that was signed by the governor last week was to provide consistent reliable funding for a resource called the Maryland Deaf Culture Digital Library. This is an important resource for our deaf and hard of hearing communities in Maryland. And by recent count, approximately one and a half million people in Maryland are deaf or hard at hearing. And that's about one in four Marylanders. So this is a really important resource and I was able to get that bill passed to ensure we have funding going forward in the future for that important program. important program. I had two passed out of the House. Again, thanks to the support of the Mayor and Council here. Unfortunately, they didn't make it across the finish line in the Senate, but we'll be looking to continue that work. One, of course, to expand a pilot program for financial empowerment centers across the state, which would provide financial coaching, one-on-oneone in multiple languages, especially focusing on underrepresented and underprivileged communities so we can empower folks to become financially independent and financially stable. That was an important bill that I brought last year and again this year and it's been making more and more progress each year so I hope one day soon it will become law. There were a couple other things that I wasn't the direct primary sponsor of but was able to impact that I think are worth mentioning. I was a co-sponsor of the Protect Our Federal Workers Act which was brought by Delicate Jazz Louis and that did pass. But in addition to that bill helping our federal workers who are dealing with the indiscriminate and chaotic layoffs that we're dealing with in a disproportionate way here in Rothville with such a high percentage of people who are federal workers or contractors. I was also able to get an amendment into another bill that was a bill to regulate the health professions. And that amendment basically says that if you're a federal health worker, a doctor, a nurse, a medical technician, or some other licensed health care worker, and you get laid off from a federal agency like NIH or FDA, we are going to fast track the process of allowing you to get approval to work as a health care worker within the state of Maryland in another job. And so we're going to try to do our best to help get those folks placed and continuing to serve our community as fast as possible. And there's, of course, the economic development benefit of that as well. So that was a really important one. And the other is one that I worked very closely with Senator Kagan on. I had a local version of a bill and she had a statewide version similar bill. unfortunately the local bill didn't move but the good news is that the state wide bill did pass and that is the bill that Mr. Becker referenced that provides additional rights and protections for people who live in homeowners associations and condo communities. And we've just been trying to tighten and tweak those rules because we know many of our condo boards and homeowners association governing bodies and property managers do a great job. But there are some who are struggling and there are some who unfortunately occasionally will abuse the authority that they have and we want to make sure there's more of a level playing field between them and the residents who live in those communities. It's an affordable housing issue. It's a consumer protection issue and it's a fairness issue. So we're really glad to see that bill passed. And I believe the governor is going to be signing that bill tomorrow. So very exciting. But I am a member of the House Appropriations Committee and I think the headline for me to speak to you all tonight is really about the state budget. And so I just want to give you a quick overview. It's an extremely complicated process with lots and lots of moving parts. We will not be able to address the whole thing tonight, but I just want for the benefit of the Rockville public and for the benefit of you all to tell you a little bit about how we got where we are. We started the legislative session with by the account of many senior legislators, the worst budget situation we had seen in maybe 20 or 30 years. And the causes of that are many and they're complex. And that includes stagnant economic growth in Maryland over the last several years. It includes national and global inflationary impacts. It includes really structural problems that have existed for many years, but were essentially covered up by the temporary federal funding that flowed into the states during the COVID pandemic. And that funding was needed and it was important, but it sort of covered up these larger structural problems that were not being addressed on a more comprehensive long term basis. And then to exacerbate the problem, I think exacerbate is not a strong enough word. The Trump administration came in and their decisions immediately cost us probably another $600 million in losses just in the first couple of months for the state of Maryland. And that doesn't include the $400 million in additional money that they were trying to withhold for our state education programs and schools, which fortunately our state attorney general was able to get back through active litigation. And so it's kind of a moving target that we're dealing with these challenges and this sort of perfect storm of these fiscal pressures. So facing that storm, we acknowledge that, in our Maryland State Constitution, there is only one thing that the General Assembly is absolutely required to do every year, and that is to pass a budget. And it must be a balanced budget. It cannot be a deficit budget like we see Congress instituting all the time. And so we had some very difficult choices to make. In this process, the governor introduced his initial proposed budget and it contained severe cuts for things that a lot of us consider priorities and values that we need to protect. Things like funding for our developmental disabilities programs, funding for healthcare, funding for childcare, which I would argue is also an economic development thing, not just the need for families, not just something that is required on its own and worthwhile on its own, but also has ripple effects for our economy. And so the challenge was how do we balance significant cuts, potential new revenue sources, to try and meet our constitutional requirement to balance our budget in this difficult circumstance, this extremely difficult circumstance, while still protecting our priorities and values to the extent that we could. And so the Appropriations Committee got our red pens out and we went through binders upon binders upon binders of state agency budgets and we did as much cutting as we could down to the bone without sacrificing our core values. That was a real challenge, of course. But at the end of the day, we were able to cut, depending on how you count certain transfers between $1.6 billion and $2 billion out of the state budget. And that was a very significant cut. But we were able to work with the Ways and Means Committee and with our colleagues in the Senate to come up with a solution that allowed us to maintain and preserve at least most, if not all, of the core priorities that I mentioned earlier. That was a real challenge. So we looked under every couch cushion and you all as local appropriators understand this because you just went through your city budget process and tried to balance those revenues and those expenditures as best we could because a budget is a moral document. How we spend our money reflects what we believe and what we value. And so it was very important to us to try to bring back funding for some of those priorities. And a budget in a lot of ways touches a lot of ways touches on so many different aspects of policy. how we fund all of these things, whether it's transportation or climate impact resources or education or public safety, that all is reflected in our budget. And so I'm going to let my colleagues on the Ways and Means Committee, because we have a bit of a division of labor in terms of revenues and spending in the House. I'm going to let them talk a little bit more about the tax reforms and the policies that we implemented to generate additional revenue, because the cuts that we made, while significant, were not enough to get us to the finish line. And so we did have to make some tough decisions about generating additional revenue. They're going to say this too, but I think it's worth repeating. 94% of Marylanders will see no increase in their state income tax under our revenue generating policies. In fact, some of them will see cuts to their state income taxes. 94%, so that's really important to keep in mind. So with that, we were able to put ourselves on track for more sound fiscal footing. By the end of fiscal year 2026, we are projected to have $2.4 billion in our rainy day fund. Even while we are spending $400 million less this year out of our general fund than we did last year. And we're still able to preserve local investments. We're gonna be bringing back about $1.2 billion in direct aid to Montgomery County and its municipalities in education, transportation and public safety funding. And that includes, of course, the famous highway user revenues that are so important to Rockville and other municipalities. That's a 6% increase in the amount of direct aid received last year for Montgomery County. So we really try to go to bat, especially given that Montgomery County is the economic engine of the state of Maryland and bears a disproportionate burden of the tax policy, I would say, compared to other counties around the state. And so it's important for us to deliver for all of you. With that in mind, I will end by talking about a separate piece of our overall budget, the capital budget, the capital budget, of course, separate from our operating budget. And this is the portion of the budget that allows us to deliver funding for multi-year projects that are physical projects within the community, assets for the use of the community, for the use of the city and the county. And it's such an important piece of what we do to be able to bring back something concrete to show you that the state is investing in and cares about the city of Rockville. And so this year, despite the really, really challenging financial circumstances that we were in, our team was able to deliver a number of really important capital budget wins. And I'll just mention a few of them. Elwood Smith Community Center, which is badly in need of renovation, we're able to bring back $210,000 in state money for that. The old water tower on Talbot Street, I know the city plans to convert that property into a park, we're able to bring back $200,000 to contribute to that project. Mr. Becker stole my thunder a little bit, or actually I think it was the city manager and mentioned that Falls Grove will be getting a new playground with a state, Department of Natural Resources money. And Montgomery History, which recently bought the historic bank building, the beautiful bank building near the courthouse, they're gonna be getting $270,000 towards their renovation of that building to make it a new history center, which is going to be a great addition to downtown Rockville. And of course, all of the grant programs and the revolving loan programs that you are able to take advantage of at the state level, including over $3 million this year from the state to invest in Rockville's water system upgrades, as well as some of the other grants that the city manager mentioned. Those are all made possible because of what we're able to do with the state budget. So the money comes to you in a lot of different ways, but we're really trying to make sure that we invest in and take care of our residents, our community, our businesses here in Rockville. And with that, I just wanna tell you how much I appreciate and how much I am honored to be able to represent you all in Annapolis, and I will turn it over to delegate Polackovitch Carr or delegate Vogel. Nope. You will turn. I will turn it over back to Senator Kagan. And I look forward to answering any questions that you all may have. Thank you. Thank you, delegate, Spiegel. All right. I think delegate Spiegel told do all the things. I'm supposed to be the punster on our team, but when he was talking about capital projects, he talked about bringing back something concrete. Just saying, giving you some credit there for that pun. Next up is our wonderful delegate, Joe Vogel, brings an energy and a knowledge and a strategic passion for making a difference also on the Ways and Means Committee. We will hear that delegate block which car is as well. He'll kick things off on the education, early childhood elections, revenues, and so much more that their committee does. Delegate Vog. Welcome, delegate vocal, thank you. Thank you all. And I'm kind of disappointed Senator Kagan went in between me and delegate Spiegel because I was going to say thank you to the baby delegate, you know? Well. I heard when that was coined. Yes, it was great. It could say maybe a name, but not in behavior. Not a mayor. Never gonna forget it, okay? Well, thank you all so much, and I just want to thank all of you for how hard you work. Test them into that as a fact that I think I've seen each of you in the last week all in different places. Madam mayor, we were together just earlier this afternoon working on an issue. So and that goes for during the legislative session as well. There are times when I get texts from you late at night, when you come and spend, Councilmember Van Grax, spend hours and hours in a committee room waiting to testify on one of our important bills. Councilmember Jackson, when I hear from you about a constituent that reaches out and we make sure to give him a call. So thank you all for not just the work you do in the city, but for your advocacy at a statewide level as well. My colleague, Delegate Spiegel, and all seriousness touched on some very important issues that we worked on this legislative session. We came into our legislative session about two weeks before the turnover of the federal government, and we knew that things were going to be different. We just, I don't think any of us expected to what extent the decision has made in Washington would have catastrophic consequences here in Rockville and really all across the state. I think someone that grew up here in Rockville and grew up around so many federal workers who really dedicate their lives and their careers to serving their fellow Americans, seeing how the administration came after them and came after their jobs. I was just way of a federal worker yesterday who told me about the work she was doing to address the spread of HIV AIDS in Africa and how overnight her position and her responsibilities in their project, their report, their research that they were doing just went in the garbage. Right? So from that standpoint, right, one of my priorities and I know Delegates Beagle mentioned this was protecting our federal workers. And I'm glad we passed a very significant piece of legislation sponsored by Delegate Jazz Lewis that I believe most of, if not all of of us co-sponsored as well to provide that essential 10 million dollars in bridge loan assistance to workers who were laid off that is one example of multiple actions that we took to address the changes in federal policies I introduce a number of bills one to protect workers rights one of the first actions that the Trump administration took was to fire the General Counsel at the National Labor Relations Board, and that new General Counsel started to rollback protections, including against captive audience meetings that had been advanced over the last four years. We passed legislation and passed it out of the House of Delegates to ban those meetings in Maryland and continue to make progress here on that issue. On immigration, we have seen this administration relentlessly attack immigrant communities. I know I'm in close communication with many of you on that issue as well. And we passed a number of bills to address that issue and protect one that I'm very proud of is legislation that we passed to protect sensitive locations. That was a directive that existed under the Biden administration that ICE should not go to schools or hospitals or places of worship and we passed legislation in Maryland to protect those locations in Maryland. I'm also proud of the work that we did to lower prices for Marylanders. I think the federal the federal government claims to be doing that in Maryland, we actually did that. We passed legislation to lower the cost of healthcare for Marylanders, to lower the cost of energy for Marylanders. And I'm proud of a bill that I introduced and worked very closely on with Councilor Van Grack amongst, and I think the city sent testimony and support as well. I know the city sent testimony and support to address junk fees facing renters and promote transparency in the rental pricing market. As a renter myself, I can tell you that it's not just the rent that you pay, but the hundreds of dollars in additional fees that you pay every month. So we're working on getting at that. We pass it out of the house and got it very close to getting out of the Senate, but we will continue to work on that issue as well. Two, three bills that I'm proud of, and one of them I'll get to how deeply I appreciate working with these three fantastic leaders behind me. First is I continue to work on addressing the Fetnell overdose epidemic in our state. We have made very positive progress, very significant progress in reducing the number of overdose deadly overdoses in our state. One of the best practices that is being pursued in other places across the country is to train paramedics on the administration of Biprenorphine, which takes away those symptoms of withdrawal in the 24 hours after an overdose. So when that is administered by paramedics, it's a perfect opportunity to get individuals into medically assisted treatment moving forward. I, we delegates Beagle talked about the budget and my colleague, Delegate Palacovitch Carr, will talk more about the ways and means standpoint, the revenue generating perspective of that. But one thing that is clear is that we need to grow our economy. And the reason for this deficit is because of a stalling economy, right? I believe that wholeheartedly. And so we've taken a number of actions this legislative session to help grow our economy, help address the stagnation that we're seeing. And I'm very excited about a bill that we passed to build out an entrepreneurship program, extend and expand a pilot program that was working with colleges and universities across the state that historically have not seen statewide funding from Ted Co. in tech entrepreneurship. One of those colleges that could potentially be part of this program is Montgomery College, seven-blighted representatives from Tedco and recording with Montgomery College for a visit next month so that we explore opportunities for collaboration. Lastly, in just getting at the three our senator and my two colleagues and legislature who I get to serve with and I'm so happy and so proud that I get to work with them. At the very beginning of the legislative, before the legislative session, we were approached by a restaurant that wants to open a second location here. They're running into issues related to some of the licenses that they needed. So we passed necessary legislation in the House and through the Senate, through a County local bill, working very closely. I introduced it, but worked very closely with our delegation chair, Julie Pallacabachkar. Senator Kagan was just testifying and support of the bill in the Senate. And through really our collaborative efforts, we're able to get that bill passed and hopefully we'll be signed and we'll be able to soon celebrate at a ribbon cutting of a new restaurant, a new business here in the city of Rockville. And that those kind of achievements and that progress really wouldn't be possible without the collaboration of this District 17 team and the partnership with all of you. So I wanna thank you again and look forward to any questions. Thank you. Aren't they all wonderful? They are. Delegate Pollack of the Car is well known in Rockville as a former City Council member. She is doing important thoughtful work in Annapolis on the Ways and Means Committee in leadership. And as Deleg Vogue will just reference as chair of the Montgomery County delegation. Join me in welcoming Delegate Palakwitch Carr. Welcome. Good evening all and I'm going to start off by also just adding my thanks for your all. Very effective advocacy in Annapolis this session just really appreciate the the partnership between our district team and the mayor and council. So I think you all. Well, as my two colleagues have already mentioned, there really were two major challenges that stood out beyond anything else as we went into this legislative session. And the first was addressing our state's $3 billion budget deficit, which we knew about in advance of session. But then also just being ready to respond to all of the changes at the federal level and being nimble and trying to anticipate what might happen to try to blunt the impact of those federal actions in our community and in our state. And I would say on both of those accounts, it was a very challenging session, but I think a successful one. We really did get a lot done this year, and I think we got the important business done on behalf of the people this session. So I do want to take a little bit of time just to talk a bit more about how we closed that $3 billion deficit as Delegate Speakle mentioned. It was disproportionately through budget cuts, which were tough but necessary. But ultimately in order to avoid even deeper cuts to some very important programs including supports for people with developmental disabilities, very profound disabilities, to some core environmental conservation programs for the Chesapeake Bay, for education, for other areas that we know Marylanders really value and care about, and are important to our state in terms of our economy and our way of life. We knew we needed to raise some new revenues. So ultimately we did work very closely between House, the Senate and the administration to come up with a responsible package of with some tax changes but also a variety of fee changes in order to raise that money. In all it was about $1.2 billion that we are raising through new sources. Really the vision, and I'll say from the House's perspective from day one, was to make sure that we weren't putting that burden on people who could least afford it, to make sure that our very low income residents that our middle income families weren't going to be impacted by the tax changes. And we were successful on that front. As telegotspeagle mentioned, 94% of Marylanders while either see a tax cut or no increase, no change on their income taxes. So that was really, I'd say, a very aligned with what our chamber was hoping for this session. And I think it's something that we can be very proud of and stands in contrast to perhaps what some other states are doing this session as they also faced budget deficits. So overall that 6% of Marylanders who are going to see in most cases a modest increase in income taxes, those are the wealthiest Marylanders. They are our top 5% wealthiest Marylanders for the most part. And that's fair in terms of how we're raising that money. There is a variety of other pieces to that package that I'm not going to go into here. And I know there were a lot of proposals on the table this year and I'll just put the offer out there and as we've been kind of doing the tour around Rockville and Gaitersburg since session ended if residents have questions about anything there, of course, always welcome to reach out to any of us who are always happy to answer more specific questions. Let me just note one other piece on the fiscal front because we know transportation funding is so important for our municipalities and for our local partners as well. That was another important piece of this. We did raise an additional $500 million to fill a deficit that was separate from our general fund deficit for transportation infrastructure spending. So this is money that goes directly back into keeping our roads in a state of good repair, bridges safe, investing in our local transit systems like ride on buses, like Lomada and commuter buses across the state. So let me switch gears here and talk about a few policy areas that I thought might be of interest to you all. And I'm going to continue on with transportation. First of all, I'm very appreciative that you all and city staff continue to be huge champions for Vision Zero. It is such an important initiative in terms of making our roads safer. People should not be dying on our roadways whether they are walking or biking or riding in a vehicle. And I know you are all fully on board with that vision. Unfortunately, we've seen the data that the state roadways continue to be the major problem and really where our deadliest roads are. So we still have a lot of work to do on the state end. Since 2019, when Maryland adopted the goal of Vision Zero, and I was very proud to be the sponsor of that legislation. I really think in the last few years, we were starting to see some more progress, and it was really heartening to see how many of my colleagues were sponsoring legislation this session. And as Mr. Becker mentioned, there were a good number of pieces of legislation that passed this year. So I'll highlight just a few. First of all, the Sergeant Patrick Kepp Act, which spends penalties for reckless and aggressive driving, cross-responding to the horrific crash that involved one of our county police officers a few years ago, who thankfully has been recovering and has returned to the job, but drivers who are engaging in such horrible and aggressive behavior, there should be tougher penalties in cases like that. So that bill did pass. that was the second year resume, but it did pass this year. In terms of speed cameras, we also pass legislation that allows for basically escalation of fines. The principal being, if you're going 15 miles per hour over the speed limit, should you get the same ticket as somebody who's going forward to your 50 miles per hour over the speed limit? This would actually allow for higher fines for when people are speeding at even more excessive levels. And another important change this session is that basically the allocation of funding for building of sidewalks from the state is now going to be prioritized for jurisdictions that have adopted Vision Zero and are pursuing that goal. So I think that is another great change for places like Rockville and Montgomery County that have been putting your own resources in to make sure that we're making progress on that front that you'll get a leg up in terms of that state funding going forward. And the last piece I'll mention on transportation, I think when I came last year I probably talked about the new noise camera pilot program that I sponsored and then we passed this last session. The update is that the county has been, as you probably all know, been working to implement that. They passed their own ordinance. The latest I've heard is that they are still going through the procurement process, but my hope is that the cameras will be deployed in the not too distant future and hopefully one here in Rockville as well. We did pass a bill this session to give an additional year to that pilot program because the legislation last year was limited to just two years. So now they'll have a third year basically to deploy those cameras. Let me talk a little bit about childcare. One of the leadership positions I have in the house is chairing the childhood subcommittee. And right before session started we got a very good report from our comptroller, Brooklearmin, documenting the really dire state of childcare in the state of Maryland. Really since the pandemic we have seen just things are all going in the wrong direction. We've lost 15% of childcare businesses in the state and 25% of our childcare workforce. So this is problematic on a lot of fronts. These are usually small, women-owned businesses that are throughout communities across the state here, including here in Rockville. So the loss of those businesses in of themselves is problematic. But when we think about all of the families that childcare allows for those parents to to go to work and to be contributing to our economy. So we're starting to see a lot of warning signs on that front, too. The labor force participation for especially mothers of young children is lower in Maryland. It's been lower since even before the pandemic and we're kind of lagging behind other states and the recovery on that front. So there were a group of us that were working this session to try to make some progress on that front and trying to be creative, recognizing that there wasn't money for anything, but really trying to think outside the box on how we could move the needle on childcare. So we passed a number of bills, everything, from looking at how we could reuse state properties to be leased for by child care businesses, perhaps like onsite, where there are state offices providing better access to health care utilizing an existing program that's available for all small business owners to doing a pretty comprehensive review of the regulatory environment for child care businesses. And then one of the bills that I sponsored along with Senator Nancy King from here in Montgomery County allows for local governments, both municipalities and counties to offer an enhanced property tax credit for child care businesses. So this was something that was on the books for a long time, but wasn't really being used. And so we made some reforms to that credit and hoping that going forward more businesses will be able to make use of that. So one other area that I'll mention here is around housing and particularly protections for renters. This has been an active area within the legislature for a few sessions now and I give a lot of credit to Governor Moore and his administration for making this a focal point. So this session we pass several bills that are really important for our residents who are renters, everything for making sure that landlords are providing advanced notice before they enter a rental unit to making sure that newly constructed rental housing has air conditioners. Now, of course in Rockville that's already kind of the market standard. I don't know if it's the kind of the technical requirement, but apparently in some parts of the state that was still not the case. And that's very troubling, especially with climate change and as hot as the summers are getting. And one last bill on that front, we also pass legislation to ensure that if a tenant is getting evicted that their possessions aren't just dumped on the street, that they actually have some time to collect their things in a dignified manner. So I think all of these are really important in terms of helping a significant portion of our population who does rent. So again, overall, it was a very challenging session, but I'm very proud of the work that we did in all 11 out of my bills actually passed in some form so we passed I think about 900 bills if anyone Senator Kagan probably has it in her her PowerPoint so we got a lot done and yeah happy to answer questions thank you very much hello hello now it's my So Cheryl Kagan, very proud to be the senator of a rock fill in Gatheorsburg. And I echo so much of what our wonderful delegates said in thanking you all. And while they thank the mayor and council and you met a mayor, I felt like you were moving in to and during our session. But you know, saw you guys in my committee and out in other committees. And so thank you for making the effort. I also really want to thank Rockville staff. And Christine Cron is here, one of our advocates in anapolis and she and her firm and our city manager, Jeff Mahalik, I met El Shafi when it came to lighting, lights that have gone out on state highways. We worked together and got those fixed really quickly, Craig Semino, Linda, Dave got it. I mean, all these, all the staff that work hard and help us do our job. So I wanna say that before we get get started. We do have a PowerPoint so I can plow through that if I don't know who the clicking person is. But all right, I'm just going to do that, and that'll be OK. So delegates Beagle talked about the impact, the fiscal impact of the Trump Musk administration, but I think we've also seen the cultural, ideological, political, personal hate-filled actions that they have taken that have hurt our residents and our communities. And one of the many, most egregious in my view, was pardoning the January 6th insurrectionists and threatening to go after some of the heroes. I have been working with Sergeant Eccolino Gonelle, officer Michael Fennone, Harry Dunn, and Danny Hodges, and I was so honored to invite them and have them come to the Senate and I arranged a meeting with the governor. These are our heroes who protected our democracy and our U.S. capital. And when they went to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to their state capital, there were legislators who stood up, booed, and left the chamber. That did not happen in the Senate of Maryland. and I really want to continue to honor their heroism and their service. Federal workers, this is Senator Cory Booker. I think we, from New Jersey, I think we all watched him with his amazing stamina, filibuster, standing up for our federal employees, Delia Plock, which Carr, and talked about the legislation that we passed, looking out for our federal employees, and making sure that they have opportunities and making it easier for them to get jobs. Hopefully maybe we take advantage of all their experience and passion for service, and bring him to a state, county, or municipal government. My committee, I'm very proud to be the vice chair of education, energy, and the environment. So in addition to those three areas, we also have elections and ethics and housing and so much more. And if you see here, the numbers bear this out. My committee, Triple E, had more bills, 541 in our committee than any other in the Senate or in the House. So we had late nights, we had weekend session, but we got an awful lot done That's me with the chair the budget and taxation committee and working closely with him just to make sure that our interests and our priorities were heard Non-profits, I think many of you know is one of my real passions passions. They are often overlooked and people say, what can we do for small businesses? And that's important. But we also have to say, how can we help our non-profits, especially in these challenging times when there is going to be more demand for their services, whether it's hunger, housing, maybe increased domestic violence or alcohol and drug abuse, we really have to make sure we are showing them up. And it is one of my great honors when people call me the Senator for the Nonprofit Sector. I passed, I sponsored three bills for the Nonprofit Sector this year. All three passed the Senate. Two of them have been signed into law. One of them is increases the amount of what's called indirect cost to help give them better incentive and better support if they apply for grants and contracts with our state government. The other is a new program creating a nonprofit navigator in the Department of Commerce. There's already kind of an ombuds person for small businesses. And so I said that we need nonprofits, the 41,000 nonprofits in the state of Maryland need to have someone that they can call to ask, are we eligible for this grant, this contract? Can we, can you help me get my check? We haven't gotten paid yet for the services that we provided and it's stuck in the Department of X. So really excited. Both of those were passed as emergency bills. They have both been signed and they are both law already. So those are really important. Moving on. Public safety, I think you know that I talk about Carl Han are late resident who was struck by lightning and killed when 911 failed. Three people have died in our district when 911 has failed and I have spent the last 11 years working on 911 and Maryland is at the forefront nationally in in shifting to generation, 911. One of my goals was to visit each county. There are 24 counties and 24 county-wide 911 centers. And I went to my last one and visited Calvert County and the Maryland Association of Counties was made a big deal out of it. And the Secretary came down, Secretary of Emergency Management and others. And it was really great to learn about all the differences and make sure that all boats rise and that anyone calling 911 anywhere in the state of Maryland is going to get great service. And whether they need police fire or paramedics, but they will get the support they need. 988, people still don't know what that is. We all need to talk about it. It needs to be on Rockville's website. It needs to be in people's e-signatures. It needs to be something we talk about all the time. I just recently gave a speech at the Rockfield Chamber of Commerce, Commerce. Thank you, Margie Graf. And I asked people among the 50 small business and nonprofit folks who were there. I asked people to raise their hand if they had never heard of 988. And I would venture to say that more than half still didn't know. So I'm going to say it here. 911 is what you call when you have an emergency and need police fire and paramedics. 988 is the suicide or mental health crisis hotline. It is available anywhere free of charge 247 365. And I sponsored the bill that made it easier to interconnect our 911 and our 988 systems, fiscally and interconnectivity through technology. So that was the governor signed that a few weeks ago. Tomorrow, so I passed 16 bills this year, which was a lot for me, a record breaking number, and 12 have already been signed, the other four are being signed tomorrow. And one of them, it may not seem like a big deal, but sometimes, I always say words matter. And I think you all know that I'm a nationally ranked scrabble player, and I call myself a word nerd and a grammar geek. And MSFA has been the Maryland State Fire Man's Association. And I used to think that was annoying, marginally funny, but mostly just annoying. And finally, I really started working on it. And last year, by a margin of three votes, MSFA membership finally voted to make MSFA the Maryland State Fire Fighters Association. And with three of our largest jurisdictions having women fire chiefs and so many young women or any age women willing to volunteer or put their lives on the line as career people fire fighters, there is the importance of being seen. Tomorrow that bill will be signed into law. Energy costs, people have seen their Pepco bills, go through the roof. We've spent a lot of time on energy policy that is in my committee. Countless hours, really tedious, frankly, but it's a long-term game, but there are short-term actions. Climate continues to be a focus of the more Miller administration and the General Assembly. The blueprint for Maryland's future, which is the K-12 public school program. It's a 10-year program that former Governor Hogan, then Governor Hogan, head vetoed and we came back and strengthened it and all that. The fiscal realities did mean that we did have to extend and postpone some of the enhancements and improvements, but they are still coming and we are all still dedicated. This picture here is with our state superintendent of schools and Maryland's teacher of the year, statewide teacher of the year. Governor Moore and I have worked together on many issues. This was from the state of the state and I'm just so proud of all he's accomplished. Not every bill passes, but we know we have three branches of government and we have a strong executive who for the first time now works closely with the legislative branch, listens to our concerns and tries to collaborate with us. Consumer protection, I think you all might recognize who this is. This is Rockville's own Jenny's Topanic. And I learned about, sometimes I go to, national legislative conferences. And the national conferences state legislatures is where I learned more about a national trend called right to repair. And there are warranties that can be voided if you try to fix your own widget. People who rely on wheelchairs to go to their job, to go to a doctor's appointment, to go out to dinner with friends may have to be without a wheelchair for weeks and weeks and weeks, where all it really needs is just a little bit of a little bit of attention. So right to repair, I took it to delegate Aaron Kaufman, who agreed to be my co-sponsor that is being signed into law tomorrow, and will be, so Maryland will join just a couple of other states in, in right to repair wheelchairs. There are additional areas of consumer protection, including farm equipment, cars, electronics, and others. So we'll see whether there's an interest in moving forward in others, but consumer protection. This is kind of a basic place to start. I'm proud we passed it in one year. Immigrants, I think my colleagues talked about, uh, who was it? I think delegates Beagle talked about safe spaces, safe havens, uh, and Deli Gapalakowiczkar was the leader when she was on the Rockfield City Council in making sure that our police officers are not doing immigration enforcement. These folks are here and they need due process and they should be welcomed and included. Elections are something that I spend a lot of time on. I sponsored 11 election bills this year. I think I passed eight of them Did two with delegate Polakowicz car and we have passed a couple together in the past from changing the date of election day to allowing more folks to have their nonpartisan ballots counted for school board to making sure that election judges are paid only if they show up. There were people who took the training and then they flaked out and counties were still forced to pay them. I mean, some of these things are so obvious. Working with delegate Kormann, we now require that our 24 counties live stream their local board of elections meetings. Greater transparency is greater confidence in the process so that we don't have conspiracy theorists have any ground to gain. There are many more, but that gives you just a sense. Anti-Semitism is on the rise still. And yes, we have Islamophobia and homophobia and anti-Asian hate and bias and racism just never seems to go away. Anti-Semitism, the numbers are bad and getting worse. This is, I convened a meeting with the University Systems of Maryland Chancellor, Dr. Perman, some legislators and the American Jewish Committee to try to figure out how to keep our students safe and feeling comfortable on campuses. So proud of Senator Also Brooks, who totally hit the ground running, and we have three new members of Congress in the House, April McLean Delaney, Sarah Elfrith, my former Senate colleague, and Johnny Olshewski. And we have nine of our ten members of the Maryland Congressional delegation who work with us closely on federal priorities. Once you pass a bill, it doesn't go away. And sometimes enforcement and the governor signing it doesn't end thing. So I'm just flagging really quickly, gas price gouging on the State Comptroller's website. Or you can contact my office when there's a bait and switch and they have the big neon sign that says the price, but it's actually a little baby sign. It says cash. 90 something percent of Marylanders pay with credit or debit and you can see what a big difference there is. 14 cents per gallon if you decide to pay credit and you can't even see that sign. Styrofoam, I banned it with then delegate lehrmann, Brook Lehrmann, and yet there were five places in the course of a year where I was served or offered Styrofoam in the state of Maryland. So been working with some of the national suppliers to make sure that they do not even ship to Maryland. So that's still something we're working on. And the last thing there, because of my work with 311 on 911, I have been working on trying to move towards a statewide 311. We have it in Montgomery County, Prince George's Baltimore City, Baltimore County, and Rundundle County in St. Mary's, six out of the 24. That leaves 18 where people don't have access to statewide 311. Where can I get a flu shot? What day is my recycling getting picked up? How do I register to vote? We need to be able to have that access. I passed a bill on working to use AI, artificial intelligence, because that seems like a safe way to use it, because all three of the questions I just gave as examples are things that a computer could tell you without needing your personal identifying information or anything kind of scary in a database. So I'm excited about that. Our first meeting is coming up in about two weeks. We're going to move fast on that. All of you guys, we love you. We love the mayor and council of Gathardburg and Rockville, and we always appreciate seeing you. Just a few more. Tell you a big ol' I think laid out some of it bringing home the bacon and that's important and part of our job. And the list is coming up. This is some of the numbers, some of the projects. And again, I talked about these. Moving on. Four and a half million dollars for our public schools is a big deal. And that is the site of Montgomery history. And once you see it in Madam Mayor, you were kind enough to come in and all four of us have been there. It is deco, it is historic, it is beautiful and it's going to be a magnificent place and everyone's going to go to visit. It's really cool. This Sunday, the four of us are having an in-person town hall meeting. The RSVP is right up there or you can go to my website, CherylCagan.org. There's a hyperlink. You can just click on a link there to RSVP. You'll get all the information after your RSVP. It is 5.30 this Sunday. And we are looking forward to welcoming a bunch of our constituents and continuing this conversation. And so many fun and interesting things. I know that you all talk about hometown holidays. Returning to town center as it should. I am very excited about that. Pride on June 1st. Gathersburg Book Festival is this Saturday. I think most of us or all of us are interviewing authors. I'm really looking forward to it. My author wrote about being at a school shooting and just the implications and long-term damage. Let's move on. That's my team. We continue to work for you during the interim. My interns were terrific. Scholarships. all four of us give away scholarships. I have a lot of money to give to deserving students. Undergrad or grads. The deadline is this Thursday at 5 p.m. 5 p.m. this Thursday. Say it twice. Late applications are not accepted. 5 o'clock, this Thursday spread the word. delegate Jackson, I appreciate that you serve on my Sanitorial Scholarship Selection Committee. We redact, we erase all the names and any information that might bias folks, but my committee evaluates the essays and the applications, and we go a whole process including in-person interviews for those that the committee ranks the highest. And again, we're going to be giving out significant money and senatorial scholarships are for four years. It's a big deal. Five o'clock this Thursday. Got it? Moving on. I have a really fun podcast. I've done a few hundred now. You can see Mayor Ashton. You can see Delegate Vogel. I just taped with Delegate Pollock of its card today. I'm doing Delegate Speagles shortly, but everyone from the governor and comptroller and lieutenant governor to scrabble players and musicians, nonprofit leaders and others. It's very cool. You can watch or listen on YouTube or Apple Podcast. And I'm all over social media. So with that, I just want to add a couple of final things. Deligate, Spiegel and I just learned a couple of days ago that we were among five out of 188 five legislators who were named by the Maryland Municipal League as municipal champions. They used to be called municipal superstar and I have my MML municipal superstar pins but now we're going to be called champion and it's a huge honor to partner with all of our municipal advocates. Reiterating Sunday's Town Hall meeting and scholarships, reiterating 988 and the last thing. If you didn't get my letter in the mail, my post-session letter, or if you'd like to and or, if you'd like to get my legislative updates. Just go to my website, sharealcagan.org and you can click to sign up and be in touch anytime. So thank you for welcoming us all and thank you again for all that you do to help us be successful on behalf of the residents of Rockville and Gatheresburg. And I know that Councilmember David Miles is there, and so sending hello to you here, and now it will be our honor to take any questions or comments. delegates, why don't you come back up? Thank you, you gave us a lot to chew, and I know that some of us and many of us, actually, were in an app was watching and testifying with you. On your final night we tuned in in Solidarity. We happened to leave our meeting and still had time to catch yours. So I just know that last day was a real midnight party. So I want to just say that for everyone who's listening, these four really have made themselves accessible to us, to Rockville. You not only are in session, but zipping around to so many community events and just being available to listen to what are the things we need to fix at the state level. So I just want to say thank you for being fantastic representatives for all of us. But thank you for being colleagues, right, because I think having the relationship to be able to pick up the phone and ask questions and support each other, and sometimes we get phone calls from you to say, what do you guys think about this? How does it impact the municipal level? That means a lot to us. And so just thank you. In addition to the money that helps a lot too. I also wanted to just give some good kudos for what's going on at the state level. I can say that I have just seen the Department of Labor having meetings with the county and reaching out across to, we've really felt the presence of the state locally and I can't say that has been like that forever is really refreshing. Debsek Rice, from Commerce, was with us helping to think through economic development. Secretary Day is always available thinking about housing. And so I know that we have the support of a legislative team and executive branch really paying attention because we all need each other to make our goals and make sure that there's affordable housing, strong economic development, our education is going well. So I think it's an unprecedented time for collaboration. And I just wanted to say that also, everyone knows how hard you all work, but how special you are to collaborating with us. So thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. We appreciate it. And I also know the Attorney General has been very busy. I just wanted to just thank you for the highway user revenue. I know that sounds very jargon-y, but it means money for Rockville to be able to support the visions you have worked that we're doing. And it's something we rely on. So I just, I know that it's always at risk, but you guys really step forward and speak up for us. So I wanted to thank you on that as well. I was just curious, thinking ahead, and I know that you don't have a crystal ball yet, like if you were to think about your next session and what you'd want us to support you the most on, what is that one bell for each of you? Oh. Oh, let's go by you see. I'll back clean up again. Okay. My mind's a little blank at the moment, but I think I will go back to Vision Zero. I think even though we did pass a lot of bills this year, there's still more to be done, and I know that that's a priority for you all too. I think I will go back to vision zero. I think even though we did pass a lot of bills this year, there's still more to be done. And I know that that's a priority for you all too. Yeah, and I will just want to say thank you for also stepping forward to try to do the work on the algorithms and its impact on rental fees. That was greatly appreciated. I know it passed this time, but hopefully in the future. Thank you. I'm going to give you a really good non-answer, which is that a lot of the bills that we introduce start with conversations with you all or within the community. So if you have an idea, if there's an issue that you're dealing with, come talk to us about it. You've got plenty of time now. The earlier, the better. Thank you. There. That is a non-inventing. In addition to the financial empowerment legislation that I've brought that you all have been so supportive of, which I intend to bring back and I hope you'll continue to support, I'm thinking about some legislation to bolster economic development and our investment in climate action. More to come on that, but I'm looking forward to the conversations with you all about those priorities. Excellent. Thank you. I suspect that in addition to continuing my work on 311 and 911, nonprofits will continue to be a place where I put a lot of energy. It's 13% of our workforce is the second largest sector after retail, 14% of our economy, and two often overlooked. So that will continue to be a focus. Thank you. Colleagues, any comments or questions? Councilman Van Grack. Obviously echoing the mayor's comments of how wonderful you guys have been both in our community aside from legislation just being all over the place. But I know Senator Kagan, you talked about your scholarship fund, which I know has a deadline coming up. Again, this Thursday, and 5 PM, 5 p.m. is a deadline 5 p.m. to the other delegates. I know that you guys have also scholarship funds. Do you guys have deadlines coming up or have they passed to the community? And also to all of you, what is the best way for community members to find out about that information and apply? Yep, I'll answer your last question first. Folks are just welcome to email our offices. That's the best and most direct way to get information about our particular, since they all are a little bit different. I have two scholarship opportunities. The one that is income restricted for low and middle income students, household incomes of to $125,000 That deadline is coming up on May 23rd and then very recently like last week I decided to because we have a little bit of extra scholarship money this year Launch an additional scholarship opportunity for displaced federal workers their spouses and their dependent children That one will take on a rolling basis May 30th at 11.59 p.m. I would encourage you to email our office as well of your interested in applying or you can see it on our social media as well. My last round of scholarship applications is actually that window has already closed, a close at the end of March, but there will be a lot of information coming forward about the next round that we'll be opening soon. All of us are very active on social media, and I think we all do a good job posting information about our scholarships and social media, so look for it there and on our websites as well. Thursday, May 15th, 5 p.m. So like it's scholarships are one year only, mine are four years. I don't want to say mine as in me. I mean, it's it's taxpayer money. It's senatorial scholarships. Four years. This Thursday, 5 p.m. So apply to that one first. And then you've got lots of time to do with you. Then May 23rd and May 30th. Yes. If you can, I know I've gotten social card. And if there's any information you can share with us, because I know I've posted already two on social, on Instagram stories and other things. So just with, I know we have yours in Senator Kagan and Senator, I've already given you promotion. Tell him, pull out the Vichkar. I'll give Ogle with Love to see you as well. And I did see your deadline. Thank you so much for doing all that work. And I should give a shout go around the horn. I'm going to send her Kagan as someone who's only ever worked for non-profit. Thank you so much for doing all that work. I should give a shout out to the city's C.J. Rucker to help us connect directly to some of the school leaders, principals and guidance counselors. Thank you. Councilmember Valerie. I feel like I'm going to go around the horn. Senator Kagan as someone who's only ever worked for non-profits. Thank you because we are not always remembered. You know, non-profits, maybe not so sexy, but it's a very, it's an important calling. So thank you for everything that you've done. I delegate Polackovich Car. I appreciate the work that you've done on Vision Zero. I think you know how personally and for all of our residents, how important it is. But I think it's some of the most important work that is happening in Annapolis, not to denigrate know, and nobody, like you said, nobody should be dying simply for wanting to cross the street. So I think it's really important. I like it, Vogo. I absolutely love as somebody who carries a Narcan kit with me everywhere, and I encourage everybody to carry a Narcan kit and carry two doses. Thank you for everything that you've done around the crisis. And we know that it's only going, it is getting worse, it's getting different, right? We're going past them all now. So thank you, as always, for pushing that. That puts the baby delegate on the hot seat. And that is, no, I actually really appreciate everything that you've done. I'm curious about your thoughts from your perspective on the proposed Medicaid cuts and how, you know, thinking through the safety net here, and what, you know, what the potential impact will be as far and how perhaps we can prepare for whatever the federal administration wants to do there. Thank you for the question Council member and for all your kind words for all of us. First, let me just say, it's been almost two years that I've been a delegate now. So can I be a toddler delegate instead of a maybe delegate? Uh, look, we don't know what's gonna happen at the federal level. We work closely with our federal delegation as the senator said in her presentation. We'll continue to work with them. I'm sure you're seeing the same news out of Washington that I'm seeing on a daily basis, including today reports that there are at least a handful of Republicans in the House and the Senate at the federal level who are potentially going to draw a line on the sand on some of the more severe proposed Medicaid cuts. But we don't know what's going to happen yet. We're obviously closely monitoring it. I don't want to suggest to make any news today by saying, you know, if we get into a seriously dire circumstance and we need to revisit our budget, there is the opportunity to have a special session say in the fall. I'm hoping it doesn't come to that. But I think that the leadership in the state of Maryland is dedicated to making sure that we don't have a situation at least in Maryland where hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people are suddenly losing what they need in terms of that safety net. I don't know if any of the other folks want to add anything because I'm not the expert on Medicaid, but I think in terms of the budget perspective, that's what we're looking at. I just want to add one piece, I think, he covered the budget piece very well. There was a suggestion yesterday as they're coming out with details of what the budget from Congress could entail. One suggestion now is that any state that provides any sort of healthcare Medicaid assistance to immigrants would have their Medicaid expansion coverage from 90% to 80% which for our state sets up I think a choice of values that I just think is so cruel right the idea that we're gonna abandon our immigrant neighbors and and take away their rights to health care the rights of of pregnant women and young children to have health coverage, just because of their documentation status just feels wrong, right? So I think we gotta stand strong and protect the healthcare rights of every Marylander. Councilman Jackson. Thanks, Mayor. I will be brief, because obviously I echo the words of my colleagues, but thank you all for everything you do and for being so present in the community. It's really appreciated not just by me, but by the residents. The nonprofits is just something that I wanted to adjust real quickly. So like my colleague, I've only worked on non-profits. It's an unsung act, but I just want to put it in a plug. So on May the 22nd, we have a non-profits summit. So for anybody watching who is a non-profit, look into the non-profits summit, the City of Rock Falls putting on, and Senator Sheryl Cagan is gonna be a speaker there. So I just want to put an employee for that. Thank you, Councilmember and Comptroller Brooke Learman, who we have mentioned more than once is gonna be joining us. So thank you all and staff for your leadership. I think this is a great idea, overdue, and will be deeply appreciated. So I'm excited about it. And I'm going to get up at O'Dar Cundrid to be here. But I just want to say, since two of you have mentioned it, when people say, oh, nonprofits, if all the food pantries, homeless shelters, battered women's shelters, arts organizations, all close their doors because they ran out of money, people would be in need. and the staff members, the staff members, the staff members, the staff members, the staff members, the staff members, the staff members, the staff members, the staff members, the staff members, the staff members, the staff members, the staff members, the staff members, the staff members, the staff members, the staff members, the staff members, the staff members, the staff members, the staff members, the staff members, the staff members, the staff members, the to be a great step for that. So thank you both for mentioning it. Councilor Michele. I just want to echo my colleagues and thank you for all of the work that you've done this past session as well as your leadership. Senator Kagan, I want to especially thank you around your work, around elections and rank choice voting. Senator Dele, it's legal, I wanted to thank you around your work, around federal employees and Deleau Git, Pallacavitch Car and Vogel around your work, around your work on renters. I know the bills did not pass, but I do know renters feel seen by continuing to fight for them. I did have a question around the advance notice bill. I know in Montgomery County tenants are allowed 24 hours before the landlord visits their rental unit. What is the timeline for the state? You know, I don't recall off the top of my head, but I think it might have been 24 hours. And then that bill also did put some parameters around like it should be during normal business hours unless it's an emergency circumstance. Okay. All right. Thank you. Councilmember Shaw, you sent you a reference rank choice voting. I know that the city City of Rockville was going to put that as a ballot measure on the city's last last election. I think that's a great idea. I just want to advocate for that in the future. It sounds complicated, but it's just picked the candidates in your order preference. It's really basic and it is growing in popularity and being used in more and more countries and states and cities. So hopefully Rob Fill will help be the next one of the next locations to use it. Thank you. On that question, where does it stand at the Maryland State level? I know you guys have been looking at it and will state machines be able to support it? I'll do the latter and then delegate can go from there. Yes, state machines can, the current machines today can use it. It takes a small software tweak for tabulating the votes. And as we upgrade our software and hardware, it's going to be even easier to use rank choice voting if any jurisdiction other than Tacoma Park and decide to use it in terms of the will of the body. It is an education process. Delica Polakovitchkar, you want to say more? Yes, we've continued to have legislation in the Montgomery County delegation that passes our House delegation unanimously year after year. It's probably been, I don't know, six, seven, eight years. It's been a long time that we keep passing it. Unfortunately, has never moved yet in the house. We will get there at some point, but it continues to be an education process. And would the state consider doing the software updates? So that means the subpellies don't have to. Let's have that conversation. That's an interesting question. I like the concept, but first you guys have to say you want it and then we can work to make sure of that. How's this a consideration? So I think we should, that would be helpful. I love that. Okay. Thank you. Um, question for you. I know we've submitted our priorities annually and one of the things that's been on there is the low income and senior tax credit. And the amount that is, as allowables on the first 495 of a assessed value, which is, you know, that hasn't been updated in a very, very long time. And we'd love to be able to see if we can get any traction to see how the city of Rockville could allow a more contemporary amount. And is this for the homeowners property tax credit? Right. We have had some bills on that front. The last few sessions, the ones that have had any kind of expense associated with them, unfortunately, have not moved these last couple of sessions. I'd have to go back and look, I think we did make some small tweaks to it. but I don't think anyone has had legislation in on those dollar values that you were speaking to, but I'll give ogle and I'll double check on that. Thank you. At least even to allow it on the municipality level would be helpful. Dr. Miles has a question. Thank you Madam Mayor, thank you all for being here this evening and for those great updates. Given... Thank you Madam Mayor. Thank you all for being here this evening and for those great updates. Given that we recognized at the beginning of this meeting, it is mental health awareness and given the great presentation and education on 988, it's my understanding that it's both federally and state-funded. There have been talks of cuts for the federal agency. I think it's the substance abuse and mental health services association of to 50% of staff cuts there. To what extent made that effect 988? Are there any perhaps stop gaps in place at the state level to make sure that we continue continue have funding for this final service. I have to check in on the impact of SAMHSA. So first off, it's always great to see a council member Miles. Thank you for your vigilance in doing and being engaged this evening. So we set up, I think, two years ago, separate funding stream for 988 in Maryland. So I would like to say confidently that we're good in Maryland, but I will check on that. And again, you saw that my legislation allows for the interconnectivity with 91, between 91 and 988. And what that, when I passed what was called Carl Hens law, we made a serious lock box, like nothing gets used from our 9-1-1 fees for anything that isn't directly 9-1-1. And we locked that up real tightly. So this created the tiniest little loophole just to connect 9-1-1 and 9-8-8. But other than that, kind of it's only 9-1-1. But that will be another source of funding if there were a problem in a pinch is we want to make sure that 9-8-8 still works because no one who calls 9-8-8 should ever have a busy signal or no answer. Thank you for the question. Thank you. Councilmember Fulton. Thank you. Like Senator Kagan said, I think I like to play. I like to back clean up because my colleagues always do such a great job of covering everything. And I can just say diddo and thank you. However, there is one thing that I'm not sure we talked about. It is not really clear to me. I think there's a scholarship deadline coming up. I think it's Thursday at five o'clock. Is that right? You know, I guess I didn't say that enough times. I'm so glad you asked. Thursday at five o'clock, CherylKagan.org, apply for scholarships. We have a lot of money, and we have wonderful scholarship selection committee. Thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Thank you. May 15, May 23, May 30. Get them all in. The last thing I just wanted to just note is there are additional federal cuts that are potential. And we are getting updates from, well some of us are getting updates from the county, national, legal cities. I'm sure that are you all getting updates on things that might have an impact on potentially trickling down to county from the state, just so that we can communicate and be prepared in case it impacts our budget eventually. Since we're all looking at each other quizzically, I'll step up to say, I think this is going to be one of those. Don't assume. OK. Don't assume we know. We know a lot of stuff. And there's a lot of stuff we don't know. Because we are busy. We have our lanes. We have our news sources. So if there's something that's going to affect The residents of Rockville and then you think it's important. Be in touch with us. Yeah. We would appreciate that. There's one thing I will say is, um, the related to our climate action plan, one of the questions I asked was about, um, there's a, there was an environmental justice equity indicator that the state was maintaining. But now the state can provide, provide information to us and it's not available on the website because the federal site's not being maintained. So as we were looking at air quality and a variety of factors across the city, that resource from the state because of the federal resource is not available to us anymore. So I just think that it's probably good that we will try to be more really communicative with you all, but also few hear things that would be helpful for us to know as well. So just sorry, Christine Cron is here and she will be another great way to connect with us during session and during the interim. I was just going to add, you know, we're all pretty closely tied in with a number of great advocacy organizations at the national, regional, and local levels that are providing great information and research for us and real-time updates, whether it's the Maryland Municipal League with you all or the National League of Cities or in our case, National Conference of State Legislatures or for all of us the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments and other organizations like those that are constantly keeping an eye on this stuff and communicating with us and with you. If we hear anything that we're not sure that you know about, we will of course let you all know right away. And if you hear anything that you're not sure that we know about, please reach out. But obviously these organizations are spending a lot of time these days focusing on that. and they're a good resource for all of us. Thank you. And on that note, I'll just add that our, we'd be in a much better place of our federal government, ran like our city government. So thank you. Oh, I love that. Good clotheser. Thank you. Thank you. A little bit of this. Thank you. You're welcome. And you're best friend. Thank you so much for your time. I do have copies of my end of session letter hard copies for any members of the public who want them in the back of the chamber. Excellent. Thank you so much for your time. I do have copies of my end of session letter, hard copies for any members of the public who want them in the back of the chamber. Excellent, thank you so much. Thank you all. Stay well. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your work. We are going to take a three minute break watching the clock. We'll be back shortly. you you you you Good evening, Rockville. Today is still May 12, 2025, and we're reconvening meeting 13-25. We'll move on to consent agenda item 9, and we have a few items to approve this evening. 9A is award and authorize City Manager to execute a professional services agreement with Mead & Hunt and they amount not to exceed 686K in the initial term through December 31st, 2026 with an additional option for two years. Next is 9B, an authorization for the City Manager to execute a real estate permit with Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, Wilmata, to help install the window decals on the pedestrian bridge over 355. This relates to the support of creating additional awareness on Rockville Town Center, as people go through 355. And C, and authorize the city manager to execute a right of contract with Motorola Solutions as approved by the city attorney in the amount not to exceed about 1.129 million. That would help support the purchase and delivery of replacement, portable and mobile radios in accordance with the pricing structure, terms, and conditions of metropolitan Washington Council of Governments contract. Colleagues, let's say you will we take all of these at the same time, which is anyone needs to pull. All right. Do we have a motion to approve 9A, B, and C? I may. I may have pulled 9A, please. Yes, Dr. Miles, we will pull 9A if everyone's okay with that? Excellent. Thank you all. All right. Do we have a second. I'm going to have a second. I'm going to have a second. I'm going to have a second. I'm going to have a second. I'm going to have a second. I'm going to have a second. I'm going to have a second. I'm going to have a second. I'm going to have a second. I'm going to have a second. I'm going to have a second. Also please proceed with your questions or comments on 9a which relates to the meat and hunts. in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Hi. Dr. Miles, please proceed with your questions or comments on 9a, which relates to the Mead and Hunt contract on Stone Street. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just wanted to note that this sidewalk service agreement as laid out seems to suggest that they're're at least in the preliminary stages will be one by plane on one side and Sheros on the other. As a both cyclist and the liaison to the Puckett Advisory Committee, I just want to make mention that generally a particular lane is best best I do recognize from staff's response that over time this, again, is preliminary plan and I would hope that in the public engagement process that we certainly listen to all of our constituents, members, and particularly the bike advisory committee with regards to the bike lane portion of this project. That's all. And the second point is there was some discrepancy, at least in the reading as to whether or not this vendor was made the DBE a disadvantaged business and price status that at least I own my read when I was looking at FACAPA 258 versus PACAPA 63 it looks like me and Hanthee the bitter is not a DBE but they might be partnering with two qualified entities that themselves contract with DBEs that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. And just for additional contacts, this is for the Future Stone Street corridor development project. And it is on our budget book, Stone Street corridor improvements at-20. Thank you. Colleagues, do we have a motion to approve? Councilmember Jackson. Thank you, Mayor. I make a motion to approve consent item A. Thank you. Do we have a second for 9A? Councilmember Van Graek? We have a motion. All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Thank you. Thank you to Stafford Poll together, all those items. We'll now be moving into agenda item 12 work session. It's on the annexation petition, 8NX 2023-00147. We'll be conducting work session on the potential annexation plan for city growth metro station. And welcome, Minesha Tawari, with additional support from Ricky Barker's Dacey Webster and Kim Francisco, and I believe our police department is in full force here as well. Good evening, Madam Mayor. Good you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank. All right. So the purpose of this work session is to provide the mayor and council with a brief background on the project, review the planning commission approved annexation plan, discuss fiscal impacts on city services, review next options and outline next steps. So the question that we're going to ask you at the end of the presentation is to think about the potential options. Would you like to proceed with the annexation, with the area as was proposed or annex only the best side of the proposed annexation area or delay annexation? So for the background, as you all know, you approved the Comprehensive Rockwell 2040 Comprehensive Plan in August 2021. The Comprehensive Plan included a Municipal Growth Element, which identified areas where the city would like to expand and grow into. the municipal growth element also outlined a proactive annexation approach for specific properties in the municipal growth element. As an implementation strategy for the municipal growth element, the men council discussed this on February of 2022 and directed staff to research on how we could initiate the annexation process for the shady growth or matter property. On October 2023, the Maren Council introduced the annexation of this property and it also included the CSX railroad right away. For Rockwell zoning ordinance requirements, the mayor and council reviewed an approved preliminary annexation plan at the meetings in February and April of all this year. So the next few slides will go over the state requirement for annexations that are annexations in Maryland and governed by state law. So the first and foremost requirement for any annexation is that it must be consistent with a city's municipal growth element. In front of you, you have a map that is from the city's comprehensive plan. In orange you see the boundaries of the maximum expansion limits of the city. And when you discuss the implementation strategy, you talked about what does it mean to have a maximum expansion limits. And then you do get a step further and you decided to outline areas where the city would like to be proactive in the annexation process. And in other situations, they could be reactive, which means that you would just wait for property owners to come in and apply for petitioned the city for annexations. So typically for annexations owners are, owners initiate annexations and that's how it's pretty much been done in the past. A city can also initiate an annexation with a desired annexation area. If it can obtain consent from owners with 25% of the total assessed value of the properties and are owners that also are 25% of owners that are also registered voters in that area. One exception to this rule is that a municipality can introduce a resolution to annex tax-exam plan without obtaining the consent from owners of such property. And that's what prompted us to initiate the annexation of the metro station because it's a tax exempt property. With any annexation state law also requires that an annexation plan must be adopted. The annexation plan findings misestablished that the annexation is consistent with the municipal road element of the comprehensive plan, the zoning as proposed for the land is appropriate. and the city in general has a capacity to provide public services. Some of the public services are provided by the city and some are provided by the county. The property currently serves as a metro station. If annexed in a current condition, the police estimate six additional officers to respond to public safety needs. Other impacts to the annexation can only be evaluated more precisely when any development approval is any development plans are submitted to the city. Rockwell's public facilities ordinance establishes procedures and standards necessary to ensure that adequate public facilities are and services are provided with new development. If the findings are that the new development does not meet the specific requirements of public facilities, the development will not be allowed to move forward. So here is kind of a bird's-eye view of the annexation area. This shows the city of Gatorsburg and Rockle boundaries. The dark boundaries in gray is the outline of the city of Gaitersburg and the green boundary is the outline for the city of Rockwell. So as you can see the property that is considered for annexation is shown and read and it means the contingency and adjacency requirement as is required by the state law. So here is the proposed annexation area in detail. From the in total the properties about approximately 108 acres. The property can be accessed from the east side with off of Crab's Branchway through Metro Access Road. On the east side of the parcel, there are two parking garages and with and structure, the structured parking and surface parking for about 4500 parking spaces. With the analysis with Indiana Station plan, it was determined that the calls of service for police are higher on the east side, crime incidents are significant, more significant in the garages. A stream by sex, the property pretty much on the east side that may create barriers to development in the future. On the west side there is a large rail yard. You may be wondering why we have the rail yard in our proposal. Again, the annexation law does not permit municipalities or for any annexation to have bits and pieces of the parcel. If you want to annex, you need to take the entire parcel into consideration. That's why we had to include the rail yard as well. So the rail yard is about 40 acres. And the west side includes a surface parking lot. It mainly includes surface parking. and there is a county run daycare facility at this corner. The improvements scheduled are outlined for this property include new transportation facilities, which include a new BRT station and a transit facility. Other features included with the annexation include CSX transportation and Mark runs by green lines, vomata, rain line tracks, and the shady growing maintenance facility. So the planning commission at the April 23 meeting after conducting a public hearing approved the annexation plan with the findings that the proposal is consistent with the city's municipal growth element. The zoning of mixed use transit transit district is appropriate and the city has the capacity to provide public services. Although the planning commission did note that this is was a generational opportunity for the city to annex this property. They did express concern on the impact of adding six new police officers to the city budget. To better understand the fiscal impact, the city contracted with the fiscal impact consulted, who are Mr. Michael Maker and Eden Oats are here at the meeting if you have any questions of them later on and they can help facilitate the discussion. So we work with new GEN strategies and solutions they've worked with the city before on developing fiscal impact analysis. So the general, the general fiscal impact assumptions are taken from the budget broke. The development factors were established by reviewing the census data population and households. The employees kept square feet, what calculated by reviewing the building footprints and the methodology is generally consistent with what coagulose dictions use across the region. So the potential development assumptions were based on site typology, the proposed MXTD zoning, and a webmaster study from 2019. The purpose of the webmaster study was to evaluate market readiness, development potential, transit needs, environmental conditions, and site layouts. This study ultimately concluded that the site is not currently feasible to develop, given the high cost of replacement transit facilities and other infrastructure. Therefore, straight-to-grow metro station is currently placed in Group 4 in Vomata's strategic plan for joint development based on their analysis related to market readiness and infrastructure cost and development potential. However, like other stations in the city like Twinbrook and Rockwell, Fort Vomata, strong support of the local jurisdiction is instrumental in addressing feasibility challenges and advancing joint development planning and future development at different stations. So there were two methodologies used to develop the fiscal impact analysis. The first approach, which is the poor capital method, reflects a citywide sharing of service expenses and distributes city costs evenly across residents and employees. The second approach assigns costs solely to the annexation area. Both methods of available insights, while public services are typically funded through poor capital method, it is also important to examine whether the annexation can support its own cause and operate in a fiscally safe sustaining manner. A key cause consideration in the analysis is a need for expanded police services. The model assumes that six new officers will be required, resulting in a total first year cost of approximately a million dollars, ongoing costs are projected to go at a rate of 4% annually reaching approximately 2 million by year 25. Since the actual timing of when the property would be developed and begin generating revenue is unknown, the analysis evaluated three scenarios with the 2031, 2036 and 2046 development start dates. Each scenario assumed a five year completion period with 20% development completed annually. More specifically scenario one assumes that development would start five years after the properties annexed into the city and no revenue with property taxes would be generated by the property in the tax exempt status. And police costs would begin at annexation. So here is the first scenario, which assumes that development will start in 2031 with full bold buildout achieved by 2035. This scenario represents the most accelerated yet plausible development timeline and so still illustrate the potential fiscal impact with early buildout conditions. In this scenario, the X-axis shows the fiscal years, the Y-axis shows the dollar amount in millions, and the blue columns represent revenues received by the city from the development primarily from property taxes. The orange columns represent the city's expenses to serve the development. The green line shows the cumulative fiscal impact over time calculated as total revenues of less total expenses. In summary scenario one under, under the poor capital methodology, shows that bed development starting in FY2031, and based on the general assumptions listed on the slides previously shown, the city realizes a positive net fiscal impact shortly after it begins. By 2050, the cumulative surplus reaches approximately 18 million. Slides for scenario two and three pretty much show that the more the development is delayed, the more costly the annexation would be for the city because the police service cost begin as soon as the properties annexed into the city. So the direct cost method is an alternative approach to assessing whether revenues generated by the annexation are sufficient to cover the direct cost of adding police services. This method isolates police cost and applies it exclusively to the annex property rather than distributing across the entire city. The analysis shows that the shady grow metro station area cannot operate on a fiscally self-sustaining basis through the 25 year analysis period under this methodology. Under the best case development scenario which has been developed in stats in 2031, the property would break even in 2055. Under 2036 and 2041 scenarios, the break-even point is further out in the future. So this slide highlights how outcome can vary significantly based on how costs are defined and attributed. If police costs are treated as shared certified responsibility, consistent with how public services are typically funded, then the annexation is projected to generate a positive fiscal impact once development is underway, which stronger results as the development approaches full those out. However, if police costs are treated as a direct burden on the annexation area alone, the analysis suggests that the revenue generated under the current development assumptions would not be sufficient to fully offset those expenses estimated at an average of nearly 1.3 million per year over the 25 year analysis period. Again, more in summary, under the poor capital method, the annexation becomes net positive shortly after development begins in each scenario, under the direct cost method, the annexation struggles to cover police costs during the forecast period of 25 years. Just to note that fiscal impact analysis is a valuable tool, as it considers revenues and expenditures. However, it does not consider the impact of the project on the entire economy. This analysis does not account for the goal and vision of the city. As an example, this is a very appropriate location for affordable housing, which is the city's vision, but the analysis does not account for that. This analysis also does not analyze multiplier effects, such as how economic activities ripple through industries, income generation by new business, or residents, job creation, branding and other set up considered more with an economic analysis. So with that we have three options to consider. You could annex the entire annexation areas proposed both the east and the west side, annex only the west side of the proposed annexation area or delay annexation for some time in the future. So the advantages of all options listed here, with development being consistent with the city's version and tax revenue, will ultimately be generated generated when any development happens and when a J-sensee achieved other properties could be encouraged to annex into the city and annexation would also improve Rockwell's branding prestige as being the only municipality in Maryland with three mattress stations. The disadvantages that development does not occur in the near term and no revenues generated as noted earlier, these properties under Group 4 and we're not a strategic plan. There's a significant burden on the city budget with the cost of additional police officers. So here's an outline of the proposed annexation area, which we're calling option 1, which includes the entire property. The advantages of annexation of option 1 are that the entire property will be in the city limits and future development will be better coordinated with Rockwell's version. Specific disadvantage of option one are that an existing screen by sex property and presents environmental challenges mostly on the east side. If the development requires relocating the parking garages, then the parking relocation causes significant. And there may be potential development restrictions related to the water mains on the east side. So here is the other option for option two, which proposes just to annex the west side of the property for the time being, and then work with Vomata and annex the east side at a future date, because we would have achieved a So specific advantages of option 2 are that the area on the west side is relatively easier to redevelop. And once the JCC is achieved, we could move forward with the east side. and the improvements that are planned on the west side, which is the BRD station, is funded by the county with no anticipated city cause. And the shady growth metro station will be within city limits. And if we annex the west side, it will prevent, it will create a blockage to Gatorsburg if they do want to annex this property in the future. So with option two, police costs are comparatively less but we still need to add four additional police officers when annexed. And if we wait too long, CSX may have different staff and they may withdraw the consent to annex. I don't know if I mentioned it earlier, but all the bombata is our tax exam property, CSX is not tax exam, so we had to obtain consent from the property owner to proceed with the sign excitation. So with option three, you have the option of delaying the annexation. This would give staff time to coordinate with Pomata on any potential development. Once the zoning ordinance rewrite process is completed, the heights by right for MXCDD zone will be more than what the county permits at present we are proposing 235 feet hides for the MXDD zones. Then there are no additional costs to the city for the time being. The specific disadvantages of delaying annexation is that a potential developer would still want to develop at Montgomery County because Montgomery County offers tax abatement, which may be more attractive for a developer. If the property becomes private at any time, then the property will not be tax exempt and then an owner consent will be required for any annexation and there's still the risk of city of Gatesburg acquiring the property before Aqua. So this is the schedule that we have and it meets the state requirement and meets all the notification requirements for holding public hearings and adoption of resolutions. However, the state does not mandate that the annexation needs to be completed once initiated within a certain period. So if you choose to delay the annexation, either with option one or two, we can follow up with the process with, very currently, with the adoption of the annexation plan and discussion of any changes that we do in the meantime. The annexation has already been introduced. The planning commission has had a public hearing on the annexation plan and approved it. So those steps do not need to be repeated. Staff has notified Montgomery County Planning Staff and County Council staff is required by the to code on the annexation. Besides that staff has had numerous conversations with County Planning Staff related to this project. County Planning Staff reached out to us noting that the annexation would be presented to the County Council and we may receive testimony at your hearing when it's scheduled. So with that, I would like to conclude my presentation and I look forward to any questions that you may have. Thank you very much for the thorough presentation and also for offering us some options for consideration. I know the City Manager and I and I know colleagues have been talking with the City Manager about this as well. One of the questions that I had because one of the rate limiting factors potentially is the cost to the City of Rockville and our taxpayers. And you note the need for six officers if the whole thing is included in potentially three if only the West side is included. One of the questions that I think is important to understand is what the tax duplication formulas and I don't know if someone from finance or Jeff can answer this question. But I think this will be a critical question for us to make a decision in terms of thinking about the budget. But with tax duplication reimbursement formulas include calls for service as well as, you know, there's a formula looking at what the county would have had to spend on their own offices responding. It's my understanding that when I asked a question about how many calls this area has received, it was 1,416. So it's not a small number. So with the increase in calls for service, as well as the additional personnel, have you looked at how the offset might be? So maybe the city of Rockville isn't bearing the full cost, but we would get reimbursed partially. and so that might be a lower number than is presented. So, I'll answer the end of the question first. Would we be able to get some reimbursement? Yes. We would have to use the newly approved formula to kind of back into that amount. We'd share that with the county. Make sure they agree with us. And as you guys know, that money comes back to us money comes back to us in a rierce. We don't get the money up front. We do the services and then we get paid back. And I'm happy to do that analysis for you. I don't have that off stop my head. Thank you. That would be helpful for a future time. And then also just confirmation that we would, how much would be offset compared to? So if we were going to get like 70 or 80% back, that's great. But if it's not, then that's an important consideration for this body. Colleagues, I have several questions but I want to pass the mic. Councilman Van Gregg. Thank you. I've got two questions. One, I know we're talking about the staffing with regard to the police department. I know we've got members of the command staff here. Is there any Any other concerns outside of just staffing with regard to our annexation of this property issues such as what they've found with regard to pass incidents and is there concerns with regard to our police enforcement of adding this outside of just the cost burden of the different officers? So let me take a stab at it and if I can chief wants to come up and add more to it, I would welcome him to do that. We're pretty comfortable with six officers, if we annex the whole thing. And that's based plainly on the number of calls for service, right? We think over time those calls for service will decrease because we'll be patrolling the area more frequently, particularly more frequently than the county place does now. And it's not a dissonment, it's just we would be out there more often. That's just what we do in the city of Rockwell with the fine protection that they provide. If we annex just the west side, we are saying three would be the absolute minimum number of officers we'd have in there. We've on an analysis, I made that commitment acting chief that if we just go with West Side, if that's the will of the council and we do the three officers that we have to monitor it very carefully. Short of that there are some environmental concerns that we have related to the stream in terms of like how close can we get it if there's new development where we have to have additional buffers we don't know that until we would see a development plan. But the other bigger issue is just some of the infrastructure costs the water line and the water is provided by WSSC, not the city. So we'd have less control over that. But the biggest concern is just broadly, we need to find a developer that would be interested in coming in and taking over that property working with us and WAMATA to make sure that the large infrastructure costs are incorporated to the plan plan and can they develop a plan that has a result new development to cover all of us costs and can they carry that cost? Gotcha, thanks. So my next question is a much more broader question because I have no problem saying that I believe this is annexing the entire area is a very good way to go. That being said, We've got costs. There are other areas of the city that we've included with regard to both the complaint in our areas that are business central areas, such as the other section of Goody Drive and the Rocky section and other areas adjacent to Shady Grove, such as kind of medical center drive, what would be the path if we would to not necessarily take a pause on annexation, but look towards still annexing this whole area, but also potentially adding along with this annexation, some of these other business-centric districts to offset some of the costs while we're waiting for this development to occur. So I guess the question is, is that feasible? And since I do like this overall annexation plan, what type of delay would it put forward on this plan if we're going to look to such a broader look of annexation. Just broadly, we like that idea. We've talked internally about that option about making the annexation bigger, if you will, to try to recover some of the costs. The challenge are simply that the area that we've outlined for potential annexation is part of this application is really limited just to the metro station. So there would actually have to be two separate annexations. This one and another one following that. As I've shared with with all of you, but I think it's important for the public to hear this as well. As we all know in the state of Maryland, we can't forcibly annex a piece of property unless it doesn't generate revenue like the shady Shady Grove Metro station. That we can annex forcibly. Those other properties that you're mentioning, do we think it makes sense to annex them? Yes, absolutely. It's in our comprehensive plan. It's in our strategy to do that. But it's important for everybody to realize that we would have to have much more engagement with those areas to make sure that they're interested annexing and they would have to forward a petition to us. So that timeline would take quite a bit of time. You guys may also want another fiscal impact analysis of that area. So it could be a couple of years, but I'm gonna see if the planning staff agrees with that timeline and my approach to it. Yeah, I agree with you. This annexation has to be left at on an individual basis. The rest of the properties that you talked about, they are in our municipal growth element, and they were identified as pro-activ annexation areas. But however, we need consent from property owners to proceed with the annexation, and we cannot do it without that. not have to engage with them more. As a follow-up, you mentioned. Sorry. As a follow-up, you mentioned that it would have to be separate. Is there a reason we couldn't, even though they're not fully connected properties, do one annexation, but have it be with multiple separated properties? I think you really have to start over because these are all different projects. You have to kind of go through a process of public hearing and developing an annexation plan for those specific properties because we developed an annexation plan for the Womada property, which had specific requirements. We had to study the annexation area, study the land use, study, you know, the future zoning could be, and provide recommendations for that specific area. So if you're looking at different areas, we have to develop annexation plan that are more specific and target the various features for that area. Let me add one more embellishment if that's okay, Mayor. I think if it's interesting, well of a council to look at other areas, the annex either directly with this or immediately thereafter, I'd recommend that we do some engagement with those areas. Just to talk to the community, talk to the prop owners and talk about the advantages of annexing into the city and just really hear from them if one of their interests and how quickly they might move. And then we could put the two together as quick loads we could. I hope that makes sense. No, it did. Thank you. On that note, a call on Councilman Fulton X. I did, I know we talked about Rock East and Medical Center Drive. I think that the potential there is because Rock East has a lot of the small scale manufacturing space, which is a growth area. I know that Reddy has done some work and there's some businesses in Rock East, a part of Rockville and some are not. And the county has also provided funding there. So I do see that strategically as we've talked about in the past, an area that I am interested in discussing, and I wonder if we have engaged with Ready already because they've been working with those businesses. I think there's actually a mural opening coming up very soon that was funded by the county. And then for the Shady Grove Medical Center Drive area in particular, that center, drug center, drug center, drug center, drug center, drug center, drug center, drug center, drug center, drug center, drug center, drug center, drug center, drug center, drug center, drug center, drug center, drug center, drug center, terms of the timeline on development. And Walmata, as you've noted, has a ten-year plan. This station is not in it. We know that Rockville and Twinbrook are, and even that is kind of slow. So if we are to move forward on this, I'm wondering, Jeff, would your team be able to, I mean, the only way to get something moving in the near future, or even, you know, shorten where we are in group four would have to be some kind of partnership that the city proactively goes out and sec us. And so I think that's another kind of an addition to tax duplication. That's another sort of rate limiting question for us to consider, right? Like is staff able to do that kind of work to go out and solicit partners and see how we can do an unsolicited RFP? Yeah, thanks for that question, Mayor. We actually had that conversation with Wilmata because when we talked to them about this property, we were a little disappointed that wasn't so high up on their strategic plan. It's not, again, dispiriting them. They just have so many stations and a district and two other states, et cetera, just hasn't risen to the level. But I very specifically said to them, if we were able to find a developer that would be willing to come in and put together development proposal, would they be willing to collaborate with us in that way and then have the property turn around sooner? They said absolutely they would consider that. That I'm aware of because they've come and said that to us. The question is, is your staff have the capacity and the will to be able to do the, because that does take time. It's probably going to take a mixture of ready, you coming together and looking at potential people to partner with. You guys know how we operate, if it's a priority to council, it will be a priority for us. Thank you. Council member Fulton. I'm trying to think about where to start. So I am very much interested in like, since I started, I've been thinking about Rockfield 20 years from now. So I have no problem thinking long-term. I do however wonder in this time, in this moment, in this environment, whether it's the time to make that gamble, absent some sort of urgency, or pressing need to do it now. And I don't see it other than a defensive move against Gathersburg, but I think there's other ways around. Like that's not persuasive to me. However, I am really interested in this idea of doing a taking a bigger swing for some offset costs for a bunch of other reasons. And I understand the complexity of either starting from scratch or sort of pausing this and doing the other set so they can come together. But I guess my, I don't know that am I missing something about urgency and timeline for now? And the second question to that, which I am sure there is an easy answer to that is just not coming to me right now. One of the justifications for doing it now I see is, you know, sort of the branding and a marketing for economic development saying we'd be the only municipality with three. Does anybody else currently have two? So aren't we the only one with two already? So we already can lay the claim to having the most, right? Yeah, that's right. Okay. I guess we could lay the claim for having three under that. Yeah. Yeah. The special.. Um, so then other, is there an, is there, is there a legal or regulatory or does the plan expire? Is there something I'm missing about the nouness of this? That, I mean, I'm not trying to sidestep it's truly a policy decision. It really is. I mean, I think, I think, Manishu did a particularly nice job of laying out the pros and cons of any of these options right and I think it's really um consoles um ability I'll say that way to kind of weigh that and then make the decision give us direction. Can I just add one thing and then I'll go to council of Larry just in another county in the state. I'm not going to name any. There was a annexation fight. I don't think that would happen here. But I just want to be transparent and say it has happened where there was a municipality that was having discussions working with developers to have conversations and was doing the work. work. other municipality and this is based on public information so there may be additional detail that I'm not privy to actually filed and then they were lawsuits against each other lawsuits from the county it got messy they did resolve it but that I don't think that would happen here but since you asked question, I wanted to respond. Councilmember Vellieri. Thank you, and that's actually extremely helpful. I had a similar thought process to my colleague Councilmember Fulton, and I actually had in my notes, why is this timeline? Or does the urgency come from? So somehow we're having a mind meld over here, which is always fun. I have two questions, and then I'll just take my answer offline. One, can you explain a little bit in more detail?? What is the CSX issue that I feel kind of got slipped in there? Knowing the challenges with CSX, anytime they're mentioned, I get a little twitchy. Yeah, sorry if I wasn't clear, but annexation law says that if you are annexing a private property, you need to get their consent. And we know that for modern properties tax exam, but the CSX rail line that goes through the middle is not tax exam. So to be able to get the right of way and get adjacency to the east side of the property, we needed the right of way to be a part of the RNXation. So we reached out to CSX officials asking us if they were right as a letter of consent, to be able to annex that property and they agreed to it. So without a letter of consent, we would not have been able to move forward with the East side because we need to get a J and C to the East side and we could only get that by including the railroad right of way in our annexation. So you're saying that we have a letter of consent from CSX? Yes. Okay. Well, that's fascinating in and of itself, because CSX, I know, is not easy to pin down. I will say in reference quickly on the development side of things, there are definitely other factors that make us much more attractive to developers in the county right now. So that is a factor in my head as far as whether or not, you know, development would roll along. I would like secondary is the issue of our CPD and our police. And I have no doubt, and I'm not saying it just because the chief is sitting in the back of the room, but I have no doubt that we could recruit additional officers. Having said that it is my understanding that often our CPD are the first on the scene For any of the border areas currently with city of Rockville because we're going to be there faster than the county. Is this correct? And then if that is correct, does that change the calls for service from what we got, the answer that we got previously. So we've gone really deep on that one. So the calls for service are for the in your staff report. It's for the entire property. So any call and that's what these guys analyze and did a fantastic job looking at that. Right. If we decide this, if it's the will of the council, the split the property, if you will, and only do one piece relative to the other, one side of the direct relative to the other. Then we'd work hard to have there be actually two separate pieces of property within the 911 system. So if a call comes just on the east side, then county, please respond. The calls comes on the west side within the new city limits, then we would respond to it. Hopefully that answers the question. But realistically, if our officers are closer, they're going to respond. It depends on the type of call for sure. We're going to type a call. True. However, I'm just thinking, you know, realistically versus half the time we can get through to 911 and that's a whole nother issue that I should have brought up with Senator Kagan. But I'm trying to get down to what is the actual impact on what the actual impact will be on our CPD. Because as someone who has lived very closely to a metro station and stayed on top of public safety issues at a metro station. I can tell both in the data and anecdotally that it is a much larger impact on calls for service. I'm not saying that that makes it a bad thing. I just want to be be realistic with that. My gut tells me that this whole timeline was really predicated by people before we got elected. Frankly, so because all of it planning and commission, all of it happened with the previous mayor and council. So now we're going into it as a new body, but with it all outlined by the previous body. I, if there was an option that I would feel comfortable with, it would be to NXC entire area. I'm not a fan of NXC in only the West side, only I think, for a variety of reasons, I think that that makes the most sense, but really to get back to a little bit of what Council Member Fulton stated, is there something being signaled by Gay Thursberg that any of us are missing. Okay. So the urgency is, they try to parse it because of the previous work and the timeline that we're on. Or is this, I'm really trying to figure out like, you know, for a planning commission to say this is a one-centred generation opportunity, I believe, that you stated why. Sorry, I didn't mean to be so blunt, but I'm just kind of like, what what makes it a one-centred generation opportunity? I guess they must have said that because they were very excited about the project. And looking at places in Rockwell and around Rockwell, there's not much developer about area left anymore because a lot of it is spelled out. So this does present a unique opportunity for Rockwell to have that much area for development. It's about 48 girls that could potentially be developed, which is very hard to find in a developed area like the city. So with respect to the schedule, there is, I mean you could delay it if you choose to. This is a schedule that was developed saying that, you know, hey, if you really wanted to move forward, we could potentially have the annexation effective by September, but we could also delay it for as long as you want. No, no, and I understood this schedule. I guess I was thinking through the schedule that got us to this point, right? Like, so all the lead up to it. I know that I almost likely have additional questions going forward, but I guess my last one right now. Why were we presented the direct cost option when the other option? So we're not even, I kept seeing the two different options when it came to the financial end of things, but we're not being asked to make a decision on that. So, okay. Yeah, let me try to unpack that. When I thought that was interesting too, and I first saw it from staff, but the idea is simply this, to give you guys more data to make a policy decision and form policies decision. On the one hand, if we're annexing the property and we're taking on quite a bit of cost, specifically police services, then you could spread out that cost over the entire city and the recovery happens a lot sooner, right? The other thing you might be asking yourselves in some cities do it this way is if we're annexing property, the resultant development of that property should pay for the new cost, right? That's the direct cost, right? So we wanted to show you just both options. Both of them assuming development over time will end up paying for the cost out of pocket, but some has a return quicker than the other. I hope that helps. Yeah, no, that does help. When we started getting into that, I made a note to myself that it would might have been helpful and I don't know if they're online, but it would have been helpful to have gotten the perspective from our finance team. And... I made a note to myself that it might have been helpful and I don't know if they're online, but it would have been helpful to have gotten the perspective from our finance team and no events intended at all, but seeing as we work very closely with them, Alruz or the rest of my questions, thank you. Thank you. I did want to just to the comments my colleagues have made. I think we were presenting with new information in terms of the cost. I think that the timing that we're in is different, right? We weren't having the situation of the risk of federal funding that we now know. So I think this is new information for this body that consider and to decide what the timeline would be because time's change, right? It's a great to have, to be able to do transit oriented development. A lot of us love it, right? But I think the other thing that's new is just how far down this property is in terms of a developer ability for Walmata's focus. That was not necessarily shared previously. That's new information for us consider. So I just wanted to at least note that there are an additional set of facts for us to talk through and consider how do we do it now later? Do we space it out? I really love the idea of doing a big swath because I don't know how many times the county's gonna be like yeah go ahead and add next this and add And then next that, or is it better go to them once or to go to them two and three times? I don't know that answer. I would love to know if you have it, a perspective on that. I'm not sure that I have a perspective on it. I can just tell you my reaction is I think the more understanding we have of the developer ability a number of properties within our growth area, I'm sure the county would rather us annex bigger chunks than smaller chunks just because there's more certainty there, right? Is it in the county or in the city or both? But I think several people, including you may have mentioned some really critical things. Times are changing pretty quickly, right? There's a lot of unknowns within the past year and unfortunately I think some for the next two years. And I'm speculating, so I want to be careful about that. But yeah, we're getting more and more information as the days go. And our recommendations to you guys, we were uncomfortable making a firm recommendation on this. I was candid with all seven of you on this. So we thought, you know what, let's give you guys options. Here's the debate with you guys and then take the policy direction and move forward. Thank you. Dr. Miles. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll answer a number of questions or ask the number of questions I would have proposed and made a number of statements with which I am on board my state of position. The logic is it is un unchanged from prior even in prior mayor council sessions. I think we all recognize that land is one of the few non- renewable resources we have and have, and to the extent that we can get it while it's there. I am certainly in support of it. But despite my conservative leanings, physically, I think it would be prudent to go ahead and in the next whole thing. The question then becomes when, but I didn't have a sense of, and I ran through the agenda book several days ago, and went through the presentation. I was trying to get a sense from staff that helped answer my when question, because I didn't see that neither of the models has presented that the cumulative fiscal impact role to be resolved even as far out as 2050. Is that correct? I guess one thing I figure out is when would the city, when we recover the upfront losses or costs that we would have invested police among other, you know, the best scenarios. You know the, you know, in the next five years. Do we have a firm answer on that? I wish we did council member. The challenges we don't know when a developer would express interest and when they would get a shovel in the ground. We can reject it from there, but the unknown is one will a developer express interest work out an agreement with Walmata, and then start construction. I think this council knows we've done everything we can quite a bit over the past year to improve our development review process, adding additional staff as of a couple of Mondays ago, etc. So we're we're primed to take this on. The unknown is when is this going to be ready for market, right? We just don't know that at the time. Again, I'm not trying to avoid the answer to the question, but it's really in a developer's hands to determine when they want to make the commitment to take on the property, invest all the cost upfront to get the return in the future. But if you look deeply in your staff report, Mnision team put together three different scenarios on when a project would start and when the recovery would be. But you're right, it's at least a minimum of a decade away, if not more before we'd see any financial recovery from it. Yeah, I take that point. I recognize even the best case scenario with development starting in the next five to 10 years, what I was trying to get a sense of is this cumulative financial impact. I think it was like a green line. It used to be on packet pages 463 through 465. It starts out super negative if the slope does and then it kind of bottoms out. It's asympt stuff and then pops back up a little bit. But at no point does that line, you know, crosses zero thresholds? Is that am I reading that correctly? I'm looking at cumulative financial impact? I mean, you should want you to go ahead. It's going impact rather. Yeah, I'm initial lock you through that council member. So, under the per capita scenario one, where development starts five years after annexation, potentially in 2031, the cumulative impacts, as you can see, are higher on year one with 20% of development completed. So the cumulative impacts start increasing 20% after our development is completed. But then the assumptions for this project that once development starts, it gets completed in five years. And that may be true or that may not be true. We don't know that. I appreciate that. Thank you, ma'am. I guess I'm trying to resolve this graph that you have there versus, I mean, I guess it's current packet pace for 67 where that the line just stays negative. We look at the same, this on the y-axis and millions is cumulative fiscal impact. Yeah, one of those. Yeah, this is, sorry, sorry. This is with the direct case scenario in which okay. That is the other methodology where the annexation, where we're trying to study if the annexation in itself would be able to pay for itself and be self-sustaining. And the conclusion is that in any of the direct cost scenarios, the annexation comes out viscally negative. And, and, and thank you. So it's a difference between direct versus spread out. You got it. And the direct on this council member is really does the actual property pay for itself on the land itself. So, I want to be clear, we got there together. It's under this scenario. It's still a little underwater, but if you spread out the cost throughout the entire city, it does pass full positively after a subsequent number of years. Understood. The last point or question I have point and question perhaps is at least when I read it back on Thursdays, this used to be page 410, it seemed to be no significant difference return in terms of lease costs between a certain area that was one and two. I think in the previous version or earlier in the engine, but it would suggest that the similar number of police officers wouldn't be needed. The option one versus option two. But tonight, we're saying that there could be a slight savings if we just did the Westside property was that was that Marie? That's what I'm saying. That's correct. Now, Paul, this is the last question. When I look at the property from the aerial footage, it seems, I recognize that option two was to just do the west side. Am I reading it wrong in that? It seems like the big person to train rail yard is on the west side. So I'm trying to figure out how the west side is more easy to develop relative to the west side. So I I'm trying to figure out how how the west side is more easy to develop relative to the east side The Vomata Currently the Ray Leard serves Vomata for Trains the trains are serviced over there and Vomata would continue the function at its Ray Leard In spite of that, if you look at the service parking lot, that's over 30 acres. So we still, with 30 acres, is significant potential for development. And that's on the west side, this is a parking lot, there are no parking garages. So there is more potential for development on the west side just by looking at the surface parking lot which is I hope you can see my red arrow kind of goes through. I'm sorry, I'm not able to see it on this end, but when we're saying East or West, I'm saying East and West of whatever that show. Yeah, you're right there, understanding that. But if you look to the right of that, which I presume is the East side, it seems like there's twice as I recognize it, two of those structures, I guess are parking garages. But I don't know, just eyeball and it looks like there's more space to develop. But can you walk me through again? Why that's less? Why that's more difficult to develop relative to the West Side? The East Side, I mean, is more difficult to develop than the West Side? Is that your question? Yes, ma'am. Can you me to do that again? Because when I look at it from the aerial view, both several days ago and even now, it seems to be more land despite I see those two bar structures with a white console. Yeah, if you see there is the there's a scream that by sex the property. So because of the scream, you would have to provide stream buffers, probably 100 year flood plains, 100 flood plains on each side. So that takes away some part of development. Then there are two parking garages right in the middle of the property. So if the parking garages would need to be relocated, that's a substantial cause for the developer. Because with any new development, as for now, the parking has to be replaced. You can take away parking and you'd have to provide new parking for new development as well. And our preliminary analysis has shown that there are some constraints with WSAC mains on the east side. We don't know that for sure because with any new development, and is proposed WSAC does a hydraulic analysis. And then... with any new development is proposed. WSAC does a hydraulic analysis and then it decides how much development it can take and whether it needs to upgrade its pipes, but based on preliminary analysis, there are water pipes that go under the train tracks and they may present Development constraints and they may require easements around them just because of the quality of the pipes and because They are the nature of the pipes are such that they require are easements around it. So if you look at easements that might create development constraints, but developers walk around it by creating the constraints, the easements is right away or open spaces. So you wouldn't have a developer who would be creative enough to mitigate those constraints. I understand. I appreciate that. Sorry, but you haven't be redundant with me. OK. I think I still begin where I stand. I think we should, if it's fiscally, if we're able to eke it out fiscally, to do the whole property, I do recognize that there are some constraints, e-side, I'd be fine with doing what's out, but again, I'll start work again. Property land is one of the few now renewable resources we have, that's all, thank you. Thank you, thank you Dr. Miles. Question for you. Since you mentioned these streams, it's my understanding in February that FEMA updated their floodplain and their maps. Do we know how we take a look at the land from that perspective to see what is really developingable. We have not gotten too old from that much detail because what we did was very concept plans, looking at, you know, belly foot brands and trying to analyze what could be built, but we have not done detailed analysis. That might be interesting. Like that tax duplication question and what we might get back, but the theme of floodplain question might be interesting because we might be excited and then there's like, you actually can't develop a good portion. So good luck. Yeah. And they're just going to the weeds up that one a little bit. It depends really on the type of, is it a flood way? Is it a flood plain? You know, that mod a little bit. You'd be surprised Creatively how engineers can create compensatory storage for their downstream and really modify that But we don't know until we have a development proposal So it would be it would be almost impossible for us to get an answer that specific question until we see a Development proposal from development to see what they want to add and whether there's some upstream of downstream improvements I could help that. But there was another property that I've heard of in Rockville that's been exploring this and they had setbacks just from what FEMA put out publicly that they had to consider. I'm not saying we're going to do all that analysis but just to at least at a basic level look at what do they say about this property? Understood. Thank you. Councilmember Fulton. I just want to ask a clarifying question or make sure that my understanding is right based on some of the most recent exchanges. It's all a question of timing, right? I mean, I don't think that there's maybe I'm wrong. I don't think that there's anyone that would ever really say, only take the West Side ever. Right? Like the idea would be West Side now is a stopgap defensive move and eventually get the rest. So just based on, I want to make sure I get that from the exchange with Council Member Miles. Like it's a sequencing and timing question question, not what is the appropriate amount to take over all question. And I think, if I have that right, I will just to have been clear because councilmember miles did a good job. I am in favor of either nothing now, wait and see, the environment is what it is. There's too many unknowns, it's too costly. Or all of that plus two other parcels and however much time it takes to bring that whole together. What I'm not in favor of is just this proposal of both the East and the West or the West now. Just to be clear on where I stand. Thank you, very very good points I agree with those points I won't belabor them. Have we had any development interest that we know of in this property? That's another question. We have now. Okay, all right. That's helpful. And in terms of calls for services question that came up. So the staff report, I think it's on page 429, notes that the call for service at the proposed annexation within that 200 buffer. That says 324 calls. Is that calls? Because I know that there was some other discussion that Rockville is still responding to some of those ones. Are those are the responses for the calls that Rockwell is currently doing, or is that the county are both? That 324 and 2024. Chief, you know that I'll talk your head if I can quick look it up. I don't know. Okay, well, Mayor, if you can move on, I'll look up the answer to that. Okay, I'm trying to juxtapose the number that I got from my questions about the 1,400 calls versus the 324 and maybe Rockwells already covering a portion or not. I'm just trying to understand the the hit on our staff. So the hit on is the 1,400 calls for service is the number of calls that the County police responded to over a given year. That's the number that we based our staffing level time was that number. And but sometimes is that it has rock fall because you've during our exchange of shares I mean that rock fall has been going out there anyway on some of those calls on occasion correct and sometimes it's you have rock fell and Montgomery County together so correct. So I'm trying to define what is the real plus from what rock falls currently? I think the 1200 calls for service are original unique calls to that address from the county. So, because it, okay. We're not double counting. We're not double counting. We're not. But could you take the 1400 and subtract the 324? I don't believe so. Nope. Okay. Councilman Councilman Busha, then Councilman Fulton. Did you want to go? Yeah. Okay. I'm just walking in. Sorry. Councilman Busha, then Councilman Jackson. Sorry. Not me to do for questions. Well, thank you for the presentation. I had a few questions. Staff does recommend delaying. Can you just share some more details on how you came to that recommendation? Yeah, so I want to be clear. We really just throughout these three options to you, we're not in love with one, two or three. We just want to make sure our eyes wide open. Here are the impacts on the city, both costs and benefits for any one of these three options. When Councilmember Ranker, I can a couple of the others said, hey, whatever if you make this annexation a little bigger anecdotally to recover some of the costs. And we talked about it like, yeah, that's not a bad idea. It would just be an added process to this this we can't just bolt it on. So I do like the idea of annexing the entire property. I do have a lot of concerns around cost particularly now and considering that a lot of our residents are facing a lot of financial challenges that I think are going to increase. So I'm very concerned about the timing. My other question was around the three metro stations providing more of a, I think the word was prestige. Is there any information around that, going back to Council Member Fulton's comment around us having two? And one of them is Rockville Town Center where we are looking to increase some more development in that area. And there's been some challenges around that. Could you just share why having three? Why, why you think that this would be prestigious? So I'll just say anecdotally, I think it actually is just an opportunity us to market the city for folks that want to use the train for commuting, for leisure, for any of those reasons that, you know, look, we have three opportunities along the red line for people to use that. That's number one. Number two is I think we all realize that as we travel anywhere along the Womada system, there's some pretty phenomenal developments at some of the metro stations or star, especially those that are mixed use. And I think there's some advantages there. In addition to that, if you think about, and I'm again, I'm just as opinion now, I want to be clear about this. If our goal is to do more housing, particularly affordable housing, then to council member Miles Point, we know there's not a lot of undeveloped parcels left in this community. So if we can work on an agreement with Womada and we can find a developer and we can identify some incentives, then the opportunities for us to have three metro stations within the city limits that are all pretty phenomenal mixed use developments with some affordable housing, that is best case scenario. And I think there's a lot of cloud behind that. and the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of the state of I went into it with my mind not made up. Not really sure what I wanted to do with this parcel of land, and it's not made more clear with its discussion. I do want to ask you a question though about the affordability of housing that you talked about. So why would annexing it now? Why would that mean that we could develop more affordable housing on the land? And I think you've mentioned something about the fact that the developer would not be taxed or a tiff, I just want to make clear. So can you explain that a little bit more? I don't know that I ever chimed in on the perfect timing. I'm not sure that I did. That's the policy question. It really is for you all to kind of sort of end on pack. What I've suggested to you is that I think there are some advantages for a developer to develop within the city of Rockville relative to other cities and certainly the county, right? Now there's tax abatement in the county, but there's some other tools in our toolbox that we could use, which could be a good development review process, right? Very reliable infrastructure, not all of ours, but WSCC as well. But there are some tools that we've even never used in Rockville, but are used throughout the country and that's tax increment financing. And those tools are particularly good when there's significant infrastructure burden to redevelop a piece of property. And if council is interested in that, then we could certainly have a work session on pack. I know Robert has some experience in that area. I certainly have experience in that area, but it's something we haven't used here, but that's something that we the city could offer and I'm quite confident that the county would not. I hope that makes sense. Yeah, I mean, so I'm not worried about Gathersburg or I think my colleagues were, It wasn the packet, but I don't think that it's really a concern of ours, or it shouldn't be. I don't think we should react just because of what we think somebody else might do. But I mean, the urgency of building new housing is what actually needs to drive our decision. But the costs are really, that gives me a lot of pause. You know, not being able to recruit the money for maybe a long period of time, it's not really appetizing to me, especially given this situation that we're gonna find ourselves in. But the proposal that my colleagues have made about delaying it and about looking at other parcels that we could annex, that seems to me to have some curiosity and some legs. So I'm just, I want for more information, I don't think that I can really make a decision right now. I mean, Annexing the entire area still is attractive. andocene the only the west side is less attractive even though I could be talked into it. Right now I just don't know because I need more information. Thank you. Can I just add on in terms of the why I think this has opportunity for housing and economic development. And that only happens if we're going to do the work to get the proactive solicitation. Otherwise we are signing ourselves up for about $10 million plus, right? Because we already know that Ramada has grouped this number four. So I know that we have had this discussion regarding rock-flow metro, and I don't know that staff has had the capacity given all the other projects we put on your plate to proactively solicit for a rock flow metro station. So for me, I do have this idea of getting information about FEMA, tax duplication, and then bringing in a bigger swath to give us some time to look at, you know, can we get other income sources that support the city? It also would, for me, also Rock East having some in and out of the city that's a lot of confusion there to be able to bring that in and it would be great. But I do think that long term this would help support our housing and economic development goals. But I also, we haven't talked about this, but I know we have raised it in the past. It allows the opportunity to help make some safety improvement for our current residents who are trying to use this metro station and have complained about lighting and pedestrian safety, et cetera. So there's a number of positives, but it's the how we do it. And there's some additional information, I think for me that I think would be critical. Councilman Van Graek. So I want wanna kind of continuing from some of my colleagues have said with regard to this proposal, it is absolutely a great idea for us to be annexing this property. Literally what we're looking to do with the Metro Center and Town Center, but we're looking to do with the Metro Center and Twinbrook and what we could be doing with the Metro Center in Shady Grove, which is the last stop on the red line. And everybody coming in from the region would, the final three stops on the red line be in Rockville. And the development potential both with housing, with economic development is significant. and Justice Justice Councilmember Miles has opportunities like being able to have the last stop on the red line be within Rockville and have the Retail mixed use and housing development within our city borders Could be a significant benefit to the city in a lot of different avenues. That being said, we also know that this development isn't ready immediately. That's why we're talking about these costs. And I really think, just as my colleague said, we're not in the media urgency. We're in a slight urgency because we want to see this developed. It is going to be sometime in the future that Metro's going to be focusing their headlights on it, similar to how we're doing right now. There isn't development here, so it's not something that we should put off to the side and ignore, but there's an urgency, but it isn't an immediate right now urgency. And I go back to what I brought up and what my colleagues have been talking about. There is potential, some opportunities for us to be looking for annexation to offset these costs. I know with the additional annexation, that also means additional police force, additional costs in the city as well, but there's revenue streams that could come here. And with us taking as someone, one of my former colleagues, as a contemplative moment to look and measure whether there's other opportunities while at the same time potentially saving costs because we're not doing immediacy. If there becomes an immediacy, like we know of a development, we know of a developer. Another neighboring municipality is looking at this avenue. We've got things set up here beautifully by staff. has set us up that we can, within a number of months, move forward with this plan and development if we need to. What we can't necessarily do is look at other revenue streams if we go forward with this. There is an opportunity for us to take that contemplative moment, while Metro isn't having their headlights on this this property and see whether there can be other revenue streams to help offset this cost in an environment when the city itself needs to be conscious of this cost as well. That being said, I also want to echo the opportunity that we have here to annex the shady Grove Metro station and some of the surrounding areas and have mixed use development here is a significant opportunity that I don't want to necessarily be lost that being said having a contemplative moment to look to see other revenue streams is a I think a good idea. Councilmember Larry been falton. Okay, Okay, Councilmember Fulton. I just wanted to acknowledge if I'm listening to my colleagues right but it seems like we might be taking a contemplative moment here. But but I do want to say thank you for all the work and like it there could be something could be misconstrued that like somehow nobody ever here wanted this and staff pushed something forward on agenda. It has been on our agenda. We've been asking for it. You did great work. You built us a plan that gave us enough information to decide that maybe now we need some more time. So I just wanted to acknowledge that, but based on how the conversation goes. Thank you very much. Thank you, Council Member Felaire. No, and thank you for that. That's why I wanted her to go before me. We totally planned that. I don't recall that it was always on our agenda per se but I do think more broadly the idea of greater development, greater housing. I'm going to push back on all my colleagues because we already have a lot of housing coming in and already online at Twinbrook, twinbrook quarter and things are rock and roll in there, but in addition to that on the other side of the station, I had to push back. Not that I don't think that we can do it, but was the the best guest event on when basically things, things would start going on the up swing? Did that take into account the lag time in police recruitment? It doesn't, but our recruitment recruitment has I've shared with all seven of you. Our recruitment has taken a change for the positive in a big way. The wild card and I've shared this with all of you as well. Is we are trying to do a combination of recruitment of brand new officers and laterals. We've talked I've talked in great detail with the command staff about this. We think that's the best way to build the team When you have to send folks to academy there are not on the street quickly I think that's your point on that. Mm-hmm. But we're getting a lot of laterals really interested in working for the city of Rockville so I'm confident that we can provide the police protection that we need But if if the will of the council and sounds like it's what I'm hearing is to potentially make this annexation even bigger. We would do additional analysis on both revenue generation, but also what services we need to provide to take that in, including police officers. Yeah. No, and that's kind of what I was thinking, because again, and not all laterals are being equal. A lateral coming from Virginia versus a lateral coming from Maryland is going to take a different amount of time. I think where I am falling is I do want to hear. Perhaps a separate analysis from our CPD. I mean, I appreciate that this is a combination effort, right? We have a fiscal impact, but then I get that, but I wanna know the practicalities of the effect that this would have on RCPD. I don't think that, I don't know. I don't think that that's too onerous, but I think it's something that I'd like to consider. Having said that, I see all the possibilities of annexing the entire area as proposed. I am in agreement with my colleagues. Let's look at Rock East, where there are a lot of opportunities for small scale manufacturing in particular. Because I think that is. I think there's other. I definitely have other ideas about one off at Excessions that I know I have brought up with some of my colleagues. There's some historical reasons why the boundaries are what they are. And any opportunity we have to correct historical wrongs, I think we need to take advantage of that. But having said all that, I am leaning very heavily toward NXC entire area as proposed. Yes, let's get some more information. I'm always curious when my colleagues say, you know, I need to hear more information. I would like to know specifically what more in addition to what we got tonight, I'm saying more specific analysis from our CPD specifically would be helpful, I think, because again, I presume that you worked with our wonderful finance team to build out the fiscal impact. Having said that, there is a human capital aspect when it comes to our CPD that I want to grapple with a little bit more. But I do see it as being at the end of the day, a net positive. I think we're just, some of the facts and figures are not quite making a whole lot of sense. So, and maybe I'm misunderstanding, the calls for service decreasing because of increased patrols. I hear what you're saying, but I don't know. That's my meandering way of saying I want to hear more specifically from our CPT. But I am in for option one. Thank you. Just because I'm watching our time and we could probably talk about this till tomorrow. Who won't? But I am hearing just generally speaking that people are interested in the entire property. There's a question on timing, right? I'm also hearing this a request for information. I want to make sure that my colleagues, if you haven't raised or if you disagree with an area of information request, please flag it. I've noted just the important question about can tax to potentially offset portion of this. I've raised a FEMA flood map. I heard some of my colleagues ask questions about RCPD, and then maybe staff's recommendation on Rock East and annexing the medical center drive, where those are two economic potential drivers. But I just wanted to pause and see if, and I'm going to Councilman Projects and next, but are there any other areas that we continue me to explore that's something you disagree with on that list? Councilman Projects. Thank you, Mayor. No, I don't have anything on that list to add. I just want to go back to something you raised and that was the safety issue. It's a small issue, but when you have to walk from the Metro to King Farm at night, especially, it's hard. The street lights or non-exist distant when you walk on a metro drive. And the sidewalks are kind of warped and the crosswalks are basically not in existence either. So, I mean annexation aside, if we can do something about that, if we can do an MOU or whatever, whatever, I believe that it would be to our benefit, both from a pedestrian safety set standpoint, but also showing to potential developers and others that, I mean, we do want want wanna make improvements that we do want this site to be something that will be ready for the development someday. But no, I just wanna thank the mayor for opening that door and because it's been a concern of mine for a while both because I have to there, but also I have residents that complain all the time. So thank you for that. I'm just looking around to see if there's anything to add, but it sounds like potential more information and continue discussion on this. My only clarifying question, Mary, I took good notes, I agree with your list. The only thing I didn't hear clearly on, does the council want us to start engaging with property owners in Rock East and Medical Center Drive? Because we can think it's a good idea, but if they don't want to get annexed, it's not happening. So we're happy we're happy to do that. Yeah, I heard, yes, majority on that. I would also just recommend collaborating with Ready because they have a set of Rockies businesses they might be able to help you make some introductions and help support your outreach. OK, so we're going to do all the homework that you guys asked for. We're going to create an engagement opportunity in Rockies and Medical Center Drive. And once we have all that information, then we'll bring it back. So the schedule that we showed you earlier is not the schedule anymore. Yeah, we're not holding you to that. I know. I know we. Just making sure. Yes. I don't want to speak heard by this was extremely helpful to staff. We have clear direction and I'll continue to follow up with all of you. Is this continues to move forward? the process is going to take a while. So thank you, Mayor. I think that is okay. And if we can add next and that Ashuzana, I thought we'd be great to. All right. Thank you so much. We're now moving on to agenda item 13, Mark agenda. We did have a meeting during a leadership planning team meeting this morning to discuss this. I think we covered it, but just pausing to see if anyone has any additional questions. Okay. Just to summarize, not all of us were able to be a part of the call this morning. Staff will be updating the brief book and this is for the public as well to provide additional content regarding election issues that should probably be addressed for the election code. So that will be coming to us, correct? All right. So just noting that there will be an update hopefully by midweek. Old new business. Okay. I have one item that I wanted to flag. I know that the county's going through a very difficult period at this time as they look at their budgets and potentially looking at cuts. Our core tax duplication is intact. The potential area of exploration is the additional 330, which was to more realistically look at the benefits and cost full cost of police that was negotiated with them. So I would like to recommend that the staff develop a letter to the county, noting that we have already approved our budget with that addition in mind, and how we have been collaborative partners in providing additional public safety support and taking on the work that they used to do, and how vital that funding is to the city's public safety. So I wanted to see if my colleagues would support sending a letter like this to the county tomorrow. They're all thumbs up on this one. Do you have any questions, Mr. Mejellik? It's my last time to come really soon. We'll do the best we can and we understand the urgency. Thanks. Thank you. Happy to help in any way. Do we have a motion to adjourn? Council member Vellieri. I move that we adjourn. We have a motion to adjourn? Council member Valeri. I move that we adjourn. We have a second. Council member Jackson seconds. All those in favor, please face your hand and say aye. Aye. Thank you so much, Colleys. Have a good night, Rockville.