Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Public Safety Work Session of Monday, March 17, 2025. Happy St. Patrick's Day. I know all of you felt that this is the way you should celebrate to be at the Public Safety Committee meeting. Today we have three topics on the agenda, which are the first one, which is FY26 Capital Budget and amendments to the FY25-30 CIP fire. That's going to involve three different areas. White flin fires. an amendments to the FY 25-30 CIP fire, and that's going to involve three different areas. White Flynn Fire Station, Rockville Fire Station, and the Clarksburg Fire Station. The second topic is Bill 125 Public Safety, which is the emergency medical services insurance reimbursement of amendments. And the third is the bill 625 Consumer Protection, the effect of tendencies as deceptive trade practices. As we begin, I'd like to thank Ms. Farag, Mr. Ogo Zalik, which I'm sure I just butchered your name. And Ms. McCartney, grain for preparing the stair reports for the topics today, and for once again, and always assembling a most informative package for us. Unless the other committee members have any opening comments, I'm going to ask the Pat on to please introduce themselves, and ask if they have any opening comments, and the NASMIS for Og to walk us through the discussions. Are we good? Could you please identify yourself? Katie Brain Higgins, OMB Analyst. David Healthman, CIP Manager for Fire and Rescue. Good morning, Corey Smetley. Since I've been here, I've seen the department write the vision and make it plain. So every time you hear us, we will talk about how we're approaching things by. We can notice, we can relate, and we can adapt. So everything that we're aspiring to accomplish are based on those three categories of noticing, relating, and adapting, not only into what's happening with us or to us from exterior circumstances, but also what we realize and we need to adjust going into the future. Thank you. David Dice, Director Montgomery County Department of General Services and very much pleasure to work with Chief Smedly and his crew. Thank you. Charles Bailey. Very good and with that, Ms. Farronk. Good morning. Excuse me. Good morning, everyone. As you just mentioned, there are three projects here for your review today under the FireCIP. And the first one I was going to start with is my microphone working. Is Rockville Station 3 renovation? This is just an amendment that basically pushes the programming of $500,000 out from FY 26 to FY 27. The volunteer station is exploring different ways to do different types of structural repairs and renovations. And possibly looking for another site, it would be helpful to get a project update on that from the executive. Today the change in funding here is just pushing out the funding to FY27 due to ongoing project delays. There is an HVAC renovation also contained in a different project that is helping to renovate the HVAC at the existing station, which was past its useful life. Council staffs recommending approval as submitted. Thank you. Any comments please? Thank you. Yeah. Ms. Farag mentioned the HVAC project as a Which is in fact a separate project and the last time we were before you talking about station three I think mr. Katz you you mentioned the concern you had about that station and the conditions there So I wanted to update you were we're scheduling we're planning to start construction on the HVAC replacement at station three in the end of this year. So that's in design right now. And we should be completed with that work sometime around February of next year. So it is on schedule. It is going to happen. It's about $4.5 million and the work is underway. Thank you very much. I see Eric Benard is here. I don't know what your official title is for Rockville Station. Would you want to join the table, please? I know you have many, literally many hats that you wear. Eric, did you have any update? You're, I know you're associated with Rockville as well as your other hats. Yes. Thank you. President of the Rockville Volunteer Fire Department, we are working with both David and Chief Smeadly on the associated with Rockefeller as well as your other hands. Thank you. The President of the Rockefeller Volunteer Fired Promotion, we are working with both David and Chief Smetley on the projects we concur with the assessment. We thank him for helping with the HVAC. It has not had functional air conditioning for four summers now. So they are assisting us and pushing it back a year will help us. Thank you. Thank you. And Chief Smetley and I actually had this conversation not too long ago that I really believe because this is in the city of Rockville, this station, physically in the city of Rockville. I think we should probably make certain that we have a table and the Ike Leggett idea have a table large enough that we have City of Rockville obviously chief Smendley obviously the volunteers the list should go on to try to figure out how we can finally solve where this is going to be, how this is going to be. But we can't just say next year we're going to get to it and I appreciate Mr. Dice idea about the H-MAC. I mean that's really very necessary. We have a newer mayor and of course new members of the school board. So we have been in discussions for the last three months and we're actually at City Council tonight on their budget revisiting the Carver site, which the city specifically identified and zoned for only a firehouse. The previous chiefs, and I've met with the county executive who are in favor. We've had several meetings over the past seven years with the different administrative changes at the school board, looking at securing three to four acres on the southeast corner of the Carver site. So if you go down the pike directly across the Cameron seafood, the up front, closer heading south, three acres there. So we're hopeful our only impediment previously has been the school board. We've met with several members of the school board we've discussed with the governor, his chief of staff helping us push the school board to come and agree with everybody else that has found that to be the best site for a new station. That way we can stay where rad as it's under construction. And of course, having a new superintendent will obviously help as well. So please keep us informed if you need air, air help. We would certainly help as well. Any other? I do. Of course. Just since we're talking about HVAC. And I appreciate because many of you here met with me prior to the winter holidays. And over at the Hill and Dale station, we had a discussion about HVAC. And so I wanted, because that's not just an issue in one place, yes. And I know at Hill and Dale in particular, it's been exceedingly challenging. And we talked through sort of the maintenance contracts that DGS has for that and how that works with those folks who were there in the station, seeing and observing the things that go on. And so Chief Bailey, thank you for being there that day. And can you talk about sort of how it's been since we had that discussion in December, in terms of the processes for making sure issues related to age back in the stations are getting addressed in a timely fashion and that the work that's being done by the contractor servicing the county is up to standard. I can. We address a few issues that day. One of which was this notion that communications about projects wasn't good. So we fixed that with an internal sharepoint site. It's updated. I dare say almost daily. It's really hard to say that you don't know. We're telling everything. So back to that notice relate adapt framework That's a part where we notice people told us We've strengthened our relationship. I don't know how you do that But we strengthen our relationship with DGS to the primary partner in this. We have weekly meetings at different levels with them to go over problems. We have a renovation or a series of renovations that we're working on, Fire Station 20 on Cedar Lane, we're just in a meeting the other day, we're thinking on that HVAC system. And it's just important to remember that these problems are complex. Right. That we're beholden not only to DGS, but the availability of parts. Right. They change refrigerants in the middle of a process. What are you going to do? You're going to make adjustments until it takes a while. Right. So in terms of our adaptation, that we've adapted our processes to be a little bit more transparent and forthcoming with information and we continue to just work through these things as they come up. Thank you. And to add, Chief Bailey is being humble. He helped lead that. Did you say Chief Bailey was being humble? Yeah, it's been a little humble. You met Chief Bailey. I was just joking, yeah. One of the biggest components that I've seen that chief Bailey implemented was inclusivity. So the LFRDs and our IFFF have representation during these renovations. So they're right in the room while decisions are being made and they're helping inform those decisions which has minimized challenges and impacts throughout the organization. Thank you and thank you chief I like to tease you but thank you very much for all you do. I greatly appreciated the collaboration across the board from all the stakeholders and at its day I knew you weren't the person there from DGS that day but we did have good collaboration there from DGS and so I appreciate that. Thank you. Thanks, remember Mink. Thank you. Thank you. First I want to say that I'm glad that we're going to get the HVAC fixed and that you know just thinking about our firefighters and they're going for three summers without air conditioning. Oh my gosh. Is this really not like we just can't have this? And not that this is our schools. We have that in some hallways in our schools. But I just I think that probably your average citizen out on the streets does not realize when they know that they can call 911 for a fire emergency. And they know that they will be there. And meanwhile, they're going back to a station that doesn't have a basic air conditioning. So I'm glad that we're making that a priority. The station, once we do relocate it, are there plans for what we're going to do with the current location? That property and station is owned by the volunteer corporation. That is part of the bargaining that has ensued previously to secure space either with a private landowner. There were deals for where the current Asian market is over the years to do land swaps. The ideal scenario for the Rockville volunteer fire department is to have that as a revenue generating location, but that's part of the negotiations in securing land three to four acres to build the station. Got it, great. And I just want to be clear also with the taxpayers that the HVAC is still, well, it is worth it. I'm just going to say and it has been worth it for our members who are there. It's also that building is going to continue to be useful. Yeah. Great. Yeah, just thank you, Councilmember. In some fashion, it's over working on it. Yeah. I mean people might wonder, well wait a minute, you're spending $4 million on a station that you're planning to vacate. But the typical course of a capital project is you still have to negotiate the land deal, assuming that the one that has been mentioned is successful. Then you have to design it and design of a station usually takes 12 months or plus and then construction, so funding and construction. So assuming everything works, which been doing this for almost 50 years and it seldom does. So we're probably talking six years at best, so we'll certainly get our money's worth. And then you can add on the idea that the volunteers own that land. I mean, they're a partner and we certainly need to be. But it's extra layers, however, to your point. When someone calls 911, they don't care about those layers. They want their problem solved right then. And we're very much aware that this is a home for these firefighters that they live there as much as they would at their residence. So it's, it needs to, we design them and build them with that in mind and maintain them with that in mind, but it's a challenge. Well, Seth, and I thank you for making all those points. I think it's important to say, and I don't want to see this push back anymore. Thank you. And all of this I believe Ms. Frog is saying we approve this. Correct. Next, please. Thank you. The next project is the White Flint Fire Station. This is a new project that will be located at Route 355 in Randolph Road. Last year you conducted a full review of it at that time. There was discussion about the new master plan and building community and internal service resiliency and whether or not there might be some opportunity to look at this station, whether or not it could be re-envisioned based on the fact that call for service volume was not exactly what they had projected years ago when this was put into CIP. I did recommend a delay at that time the committee did not take that delay to look at this in a little bit further death. However, during the reconciliation process the project was ultimately delayed for two years and that was for fiscal capacity. So it comes back today with some project cost escalations because of the delay. It is expected to increase by 6.9 million. Yeah, 6.9 million from the approved CIP due to last year's two year deferral of construction and reflex escalation in the costs. There's also a funding switch there from GeoBonds to the Recredation Tax Premium for about 1 million. Council staff's also recommending approval for this project. Good. We're good. And then finally, Clarksburg Station, this is just reflecting a savings, the total cost decreased by 1.3 million to reflect those savings. Those savings were transferred to the Public Safety Communication Center face to electrical distribution and HVAC upgrade, which you have also already reviewed. I'm recommending approval of that as well. Good. Thank you very much. We're good. And thank you all for everything you do. All right. Next topic, please. The EMS members. Is Bill 125, please. Good morning. Good morning. You're somebody that knows how to pronounce your name. I'm not a full man. The Ivory side of me has heart for the Pope has a heart for the Pope. I'm a poor select. I was almost close. Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry. I'll just like to introduce themselves. Please. The President of the United States, Billionaire of the United States, the United States, the United States, the United States, the United States, the United States, the United States, the United States, the United States, the United States, the United States, the United States, the United States, the United States, the United States, the United States, the United States, the United States, the United States, the United States, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm morning, Ben Kaufman, Chief of EMS. Thank you. Does anybody has, you know, okay, we're going to start, please. Bill 125 Public Safety Emergency Medical Services Insurance Reversement Amendments was introduced on January 21st, 2025. Police sponsors the council president at the request of the county executive. public hearing occurred on February 11th, 2025. There were not relevant or significant public testimony related to this bill. Currently, the county code for Hibits Fire and Rescue Service personnel from asking for information related to an individual's insurance coverage. The county code also mandates that the county and post a green first-man charge for a room in the C-Service transport. This bill would allow fire and rescue service personnel to ask for information related to individuals insurance coverage for the limited purposes of providing transportation to an alternative destination for providing treatment in place. The fiscal impact was, it's the Minimists reported byimists, the budget, as the racial equity and social justice impacts, according to the Office of Legislative Oversight, as is the economic impact of this bill as is the climate assessment. There were no proposed amendments or have not been any proposed amendments to the bill, half this time. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Chief, can you walk us through when would someone be asked about the transportation fee? You're saying that we could now ask, but when would that occur? The we don't ask about the transfer. Okay, so who was asking? That specifically has to do with the bill, the company that. Yeah, I'll jump in. Please. Yeah, so the current law served us very well over the years. This amendment just changes a couple things, and it allows our personnel to ask the patient about their insurance information only in the context of providing some alternative service. So if you think about it, the standard 9-1-1 call where somebody needs to go to the emergency room, they're having some life-threatening emergency, this doesn't change anything for those for a majority of the calls. And it'll be clear on that. This is really a very small subset of the calls that we run where a patient is assessed to be very low acuity, very minor issue, and it might be something that we're able to handle outside of the emergency department or through some alternative means using a protocol that already exists through MEMS for alternative destination transport. The struggle that we're having with the current law is our ability to ask that patient where, you know, what type of insurance do you have because we're able to offer customized, alternative solutions for those patients. So if somebody has a very minor complaint after calling 911, we say, you know what, you might be eligible to transport to this alternative destination. The example I've been using is the Kaiser Advanced Urgent Care. I can only take Kaiser patients there. So if you have Kaiser, I can take you to the Kaiser Advanced Urgent Care and avoid the emergency department transport and all the delays we've talked about previously associated with emergency departments. I wanted to be very clear that if it's an emergency, that we don't ask, you're going to go be taken to wherever you need to be taken to. Okay, any, go ahead. No? We're good. Thank you very much. We're good, thanks. The highest is Bill 625 Consumer Protection, the effect of tendencies as deceptive trade practices and his McCartney Green is going to ask you to go to the committee. Is this the committee? Is this the committee? Is this the committee? Is this the committee? Is this the committee? Is this the committee? Is this the committee? Is this the committee? Is this the committee? Is this the committee? You can be able, man. Everybody laughed. I mean, you got ready to speak. And we cleared the room. Yeah. Did you really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I bet Eric's good at improv. Oh, yeah. I don't know that. maybe not let's not get here we go. The elevator was slow. At least they're both working now. Yeah yeah for the moment. It was 10 minutes ago. Okay. The weekend wait to..., patty, you're welcome to sit. Week and wait two minutes for Eric. Guys, consumer protection is interesting too. Yeah, it's a good thing. Get another bag on the back. That's a G-Sci. Unfortunately, it's become more interesting than it probably should be. It's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's become more interesting than it probably should be. Interesting, existing laws, anybody? You should get to the top slope. I went in to Eric to hear. She didn't go get coffee yet downstairs. I love that blazer. Yeah Well It's it is orange and green yeah, yeah, there you go. I did not come to do anything Nothing Green hair clips I was like let me set you up Any more they have Green hair. Well, anymore they have green hair. Yeah, yeah. You can go steal one of my laffricons of the fourth floor. That's like the beginning of a thing. It could be. Where's the leopard come from? I could bring it tomorrow for our hearing. It can sit between us to go with the Chinese New Year. Yeah. Let's do it. Chachaki. Yeah, that is the Chachaki side. Are there? Yes. Yes. There it is. Please have a seat. Not that anyone noticed you weren't here. If the panel could please introduce themselves. Good morning,cats and members of the Public Safety Committee. I'm Ken Hart, Minister of Office. Assistant Chief and Minister of Office. Good morning, Eric Freeman, Office of Consumer Protection. Good morning, Sean Crue, Operations Administrator Office of Consumer Protection. Good morning, Patty Vitale, Investigations Administrator with Consumer Protection. Thank you all for being here. I'm going to turn to Council Member Mink and then turn to Ms. McCartney-Grain to lead us through the packet. Please. Great, thank you. I just really wanted to thank the executive branch for their partnership and their diligence on this bill. And I know it's been a long work in progress to get down to what is really a very, very simple fix. But we really wanted to make sure that we were pursuing the right fix and very much appreciate the conversations and all the collaboration on that. And I will include John Markov's in that as well. And this is a, we're counting attorney, yes, our friend John. And this is a really, really important bill. And it's deceptively simple, speaking of deception. But it's really just removing a line in the code that is currently exempting landlord tenant issues and obviously getting into the specifics of what this means, but from consumer protection law. And what we're seeing out really writ large across the community is that we do not have the ability effectively to hold some of our most egregious law breaking landlords accountable for breaking laws. And so what we have, and again, most landlords are not doing this. So this is really not for most landlords, but there are some who continue year after year after year. We're seeing the same problems. And again, their breaking laws that already exist. This is not about creating new rules. We're trying to enforce our current laws. And what we're seeing is that tenants are buying into signing leases in what they think are going to be, you know, nice new, sometimes even luxury residences units and finding that not only are they not luxury, but they are not even meeting the very basics of what one should obviously expect in Montgomery County, Maryland, which is units that are following the law. This is a presumption that every reasonable person should be able to make. And when they sign that lease, they're thinking about what are the extra amenities that I'm getting, and that's what they're looking for. But in many of these cases, they're not even meeting the basics of health and safety. And that is really our major, major, major concern. We have to have a way for holding people accountable for that because it is an issue that is affecting people's day to day lives, their ability to raise their kids to not have respiratory issues. There's, I mean, just the pest issues that we're seeing are absolutely out of control. And again, all of these things are already written into our laws, written into our code. And we just need a way to hold folks accountable. So when I realized that there is actually an exemption for what is generally a person's biggest purchase, their housing, in this case, their rental housing from consumer protection law, there is maybe no purchase people need more protection from us from than paying for this housing. And so I'm really excited to have the partnership of Councilor Rulutki on this and that we can finally move to a place where we're going to be able to enforce the law and crack down on some of our very, very worst actors here. And I want to be clear also to the public because we have gotten some emails from folks who are like, but it doesn't include this protection for tenants and it doesn't include that protection from tenants. There are lots of additional protections that we would like to see for tenants, of course. But that's not what this is. This is not new tenant protection regulations. This is enforcing existing ones. This is a new ability to enforce existing laws that govern our housing codes and making sure that people meet the expectations that they are presenting when tenants come in to sign a lease. So thank you very much for being here today, and I will yield. Yeah, I just wanna echo, I just want to echo, as we were, I think, as we sat during the public hearings on this, I've always been a pro-consumer protection advocate and tightly wired that way. And while I didn't work in the consumer protection division at the Attorney General's Office, I've done a lot of public outreach and engagement when I was with that office in that area. And then got co-opted into doing that work while during the pandemic, during the price gouging, period of time. And this is really like, what I would consider a housekeeping, how do we make more functional that which we already have so that we can pursue that which we already have in place to deal with existing behaviors that we know cannot continue to exist and come at it from that direction in that positive, protect the consumer kind of way. And so, you know, while I heard a lot of testimony from folks who were very, this is going to make my life 10,000 times harder, I don't think it does. It really doesn't, because if you're doing the things you're supposed to be doing, this has no bearing on you whatsoever at all. And should not, because you're already running a tight business, You're already doing the things you're supposed to be doing. So this really focuses on a narrow group of folks but who do cause a disproportionate amount of negative outcomes for tenants. So I'm happy to support this measure and look forward to it going to full council. Mr. Bruner, would you like to introduce yourself, please? And if not that you have to have an opening statement, but if you had one? Pardon me, my apologies. Good morning, councilmember Katz. Councilmember Mink, councilmember Lutkey. My name is Scott Bruton. I'm the director of the Department of Housing and Community Affairs. And I'm happy to hold comments until after Ken Hartman does introductions and I'm happy to provide context and information about the background for this bill. You go to the music, go ahead. And I really appreciate the the the support from members of the committee looking for unanimous support today. This is as Council Member Luki put it so well. This is not going to be a duplicative process. This is the intent is not to create additional layers of investigators and additional layers of people, landlord has to look for, coming on their property. This to us is an additive process. This is the goal here is to follow our established process, but utilize this additional leverage that a consumer protection approach can add to ensuring that our tenants get the services they pay for. Just like anyone else who buys a car or a gym membership as I said in my testimony to the council, this is not intended to confuse tenants. They don't have to, our goal as an executive branch is not to give extra numbers for people to call when they have issues, but to be able to best utilize the consumer protection chapter. And the ability that we have under Chapter 29 to access the court system to get a better outcome when we're going after landlords that are just chronically not fulfilling what they promise to their consumers, the tenants of their building. With that, I'll hold until there are questions. Thank you. The amusement cart can't be green. Thank you, Chair Catson. Make sure my mic's on. But thank you, Chair Catson. The light doesn't show up so I just want to make sure you guys can. Believe me, welcome to the 7th floor. Talk about a consumer complaint. We have. Right. Now that the council members have defined the purpose of the bill, I just want to go through the actual specifics of the bill on what this would actually do. So bill 625 would expand the definition of person to include a landlord, which is important because a person is defined as a merchant. And so a merchant is a person, any person who offers or makes available to consumers either directly or indirectly consumer goods or services. And so that's important if the bill is going to be expanded to include landlord tenant disputes. In addition, it also clarifies that consumer goods and services include rental housing, council staff, and apparently what did deep digging and went back and looked at legislative history to show that back in 1973, the law was expanded to include real estate but it specifically exempted defective tendency. And so for this purpose, Council staff has amended the bill to include consumer goods also includes rental housing to be very specific there as well. In addition, it, like I said, removes the exemption and then it clarifies the enforcement penalties under chapter 11 and 29. More specifically, under chapter 11 when it comes to consumer protection, the county attorney's office now has the opportunity to file cases in a circuit court. Why is that important? Circuit court really focuses on the amount of controversy that exceeds $30,000 while district court is $30,000 or less. Circuit court also allows for more formal discovery, motions and legal arguments, and essentially expands the scope that's not presently under district court cases where THCA brings some of their civil suits there as well. In terms of the impact statements, just wanted to let you know that there has been an addendum to the packet. We did receive the fiscal impact statement late on Friday. And so that is in your packet. From my understanding, the expenditures will increase approximately $248,000 in fiscal year 26 and then in fiscal year 27 expected to increase to $380,000 and that will account for investigative staff and response to the increased number of landlord tenant complaints that the Office of Consumer Protection would receive. There are no revenues are unknown, obviously, because that is dependent on enforcement. And so right now, physical impact statement has clarified that revenues are unknown. Racial impact statement mentioned that there would be a positive impact, and their climate assessment indicates that there will be no impact contributing to addressing climate change. Public hearing testimony, we have 13 speakers. We had obviously the executive that testified in support of the bill. We also have several individuals and organizations that express testimony in support and that the bill would close loop holes and address holding the land was more accountable because of living in deplorable conditions. We also had opposition to the bill where property management companies and advocacy groups noted that the bill may be unnecessary and that it will harm housing development. With that said, the Council staff doesn't have any amendments, but really the discussion today is for the committee to get a better sense of process from DHA's point of view, process from OCP, and then any implementation questions that the committee may have. Okay, thank you, please. Thank you. I just have one thing to add to the excellent staff report. We saw the fiscal impact when you saw, as you know, the OMB sends out. It was a busy week last week. We have additional questions for our Office of Management and Budget. It seemed that FIS did not take into an account a collaborative additive approach rather looked at what would it take to have a duplicate approach if consumer protection had to receive and triage complaints themselves parallel to DHCA. That's not our intent as an administration. Our intent is to make sure this is as seamless as possible for the public and not as immense burden on the department on office of consumer protection. Thank you. You're actually a mine-reader because that was one of my great concerns. You know, I've said not just for this topic but for many topics, we need to give the proper resources if we expect someone to do the proper job, which we expect them to do. And office consumer protection, I will say very publicly, many times is always, oh, I'll give it to them. Well, and we don't give them any extra help. Let me just give it to them. That's not fair. And it's not fair to them. It's not fair to the public. So I'm though I was not a co-lead on this, I certainly are co-sponsor. I certainly am in favor of this legislation, but I do think there's certain things we need to work through for it. And one of them is when this passes that the consumer protection can actually advertise, I believe for at least two people as quickly as possible. It takes several months for us to hire somebody. You have somebody that says this legislation is now in existence. I want to do, I want to use consumer protection and DHA and everybody else, but there's going to be a confusion. We need to have people that are available. You only have one person. What if they get sick? What if things happen? So I think we need to advertise so that we can hit the ground running as quickly as possible. And to the point, and I think we need an MOU. I think we need a memorandum of understanding between the two agencies, not the one time you were in the same building. Now, you all get along, but you're not in the same building. It's not like you're going to see each other every day. So we need to have that so that it's clear between other, between each other. And to the idea that people said, we don't need this, that this is an additional burden. I was a small business owner for years. Office of consumers protection, though Gatesburg had its own and then decided to go with the counties, Office of Consumer Protection is not an enemy. If you do your business properly, first of nobody calls, and secondly, if they do, they look into it. They don't say that because someone called you wrong, they look into it, give you a fair discussion, and at some point you figure it out. I think, as I had very few, in fact, I don't even know that I had any consumer problems, but the fact is they're not an enemy, and I don't want someone to think that they are. But I do think that for as far as the people that will be doing this, that we need at least to, and I think we need to advertise for them as soon as possible. Does anybody else have anything to? Scott? For the record, please note that I was nodding when council member or chair cats was saying all those things. And for the record, no one else has ever nodded when I speak to the guy at any time. Yeah. Yes, we absolutely agree. We've been talking amongst ourselves. We absolutely agree that we need to have standard operating procedures perhaps a memorandum of understanding or memorandum delegating certain authorities. By all means, as Mr. Hartman mentioned, we don't want to be duplicative. We already have in the Department of Housing a community affairs, 37 code inspectors plus supervisors who also do code inspection. This doesn't need to be duplicated in the Office of Consumer Protection. Also we have, I think it's nine investigators, nine investigators in the Office of Landlord Tinnative Affairs. They also deal with chapter 29 enforcement. And so some of the things we've talked about would be having an agreement or standard operating procedures that OCP could refer issues to us for intake and investigation. and then their staff could evaluate based on our fact finding an analysis whether they want to consider. Also doing notices of violation or citations based on chapter 11's ability to enforce or to deal with deceptive or inconscionable trade practices under chapter 29. And this would all be done in order to save as much money, as much county money as possible and to minimize the staffing impact on the budget. But we agree that office consumer protection has often received additional mandates without additional staffing. And that this would require extra work and that so some level of increased staffing would be due to handle that. In addition to Ms. McCartney-Green, what she mentioned about access to the circuit court. There would need to be standard operating procedures and understandings between the Office of Consumer Protection, Office of the County Attorney, and the Department of Housing and Community Affairs about when to pursue circuit court claims as compared to just following up on unpaid citation fees through the district court process. And we can go into, if you'd like, some of the reasons why circuit court is important and appropriate, given some of the frustrations that we've had with district court being a deterrent from bad actors or bad practices. And also, I would say that if anyone's concerned about OCP and OCA going to circuit court for every unpaid fee, circuit court, as you probably all know, is a much more complicated process as Miss McCartney Green listed out.. A lot more fact finding, depositions, all kinds of things involved. And much more, I mean, we don't get before District Court for at least six months, just for an unpaid fee. Circuit Court is a longer process and would be used only for generally the most egregious of cases when fines and repeated citations and repeated trips to district court have not worked. And so if we go into the issues with district court we can explain more why circuit court helps to provide an extra layer of enforcement that would help the county code for chapter 11 and 29 be more enforceable and more efficacious. I want the record show. I was nodding yes when you were speaking. But the other thing is that for circuit court it's not going to be, if we have to go to, nobody wants any of this, all we want is have the problem solved. And it would be, everyone's benefit to solve it without going to court. It would be to everyone's benefit for an inspector to say something's a problem that you take care of the problem. That's air goal, not that we want to cite somebody, but unfortunately, there are some who force their hand to say, well, so what? And so we need the extra layer. Did you have anything to add? Thank you for the opportunity. We're here to be of help. We're here to be of service. That's the way our office has always been. And as you said, we'd like to say that we punch above our weight and that's always been the situation as well in terms of resources that we have. But our role really is to collaborate. We've always been collaborating with every other agency in Montgomery County. And we'd like to do whatever we can with respect to the concerns with landlords and tenants. So we're here to do that. I think we all recognize that silos are the worst thing in a government and that residents that live here and tenants don't really care what the name of the agency is or how is broken up. They just want to call up a government and they just want to get some help and they deserve that and whatever it takes to make that work we want to be able to do that as well. And yes, we have some concerns about resources and things of that sort. And we can work on that and implementation and things as well as that. But our office has been around for 57 years. And we know how to investigate and we know how to hopefully resolve complaints and we look forward to working with our sister agencies to whatever we can with respect to whatever resources we're able to obtain. I'm going to turn to Councilmember Luke in two seconds but can you, does anybody have an idea for when this time frame could take place? You have to hire people, you have to train the people, you're hiring. I mean, all of this. Any idea for a time frame? We can provide some information as you know our entire management team sitting next to me. They watch you pretty carefully though. We have two managers and our operations manager can give you a couple of thoughts in terms of what we've looked at in terms of Operation operationalizing I assume that's a real word what it would take to recruit and train You want to give a couple of here? I mean, so when we initially looked at it we looked at all the complaints complaints, OLTA received and through the trouble properties. There's a lot left here to kind of figure out for us how it's all going to work together. We were working on the assumption that we would receive about two to four into complaints the first year. I don't know what's going to materialize from this. We still have a lot of details to work out. But I don't see there's not gonna be a big communication issue between the departments. We're talking now. We just haven't quite had enough time to put it all together to really know the full impact. This would cost our office or DHA or TSEA to be honest. Okay. I'd like to do a cheese take the logistics of the how long it's going to take and the resources you're going to need is one side of the fence. The courts are completely different. That is not within anyone here's control, but certainly there's going to become a forced cadence that applies based solely on the docket situation there too. As you noted, the circuit court process takes a substantially longer period of time, and of course you'd be aggregating claims together in order to meet the dollar threshold presumably. Is there opportunity to recoup costs or attorney's fees in these cases depending on the theories you're pursuing? Yes the amendment specifically lists that if the county prevails, it would be able to recoup attorneys fees. And so absolutely extremely important point. Which I think is important when you're talking about what the overall costs are, of course, that AIDS or can assist in the cycle of how this would all play itself out. I am curious and Director Bruton you mentioned the district court sort of not being as stringent maybe. Is that a good way of phrasing it? Sorry for the record he is nodding along in case he can't see him So could you. I'm not a huge guy. Could you, could you, and understanding, of course, that discovery does not occur in just your court cases. You go in, you show up. It's a one day thing. Although honest to goodness, I once had a multiple day trial in district court. And the judge looked as perplexed as I was. But posing council was determined. This was going to drag on. and bless him, we sure did drag on, but I won. So. perplexed as I was, but posing council was determined. This was going to drag on. And bless them. We sure did drag on, but I won. So since you have more to work with in the Circuit Court, by virtue of the additional procedures afforded to you, what is it that, and knowing we have a different avenue by virtue of the amendments we're making here? What is it that you think will make the outcomes different based on the judiciary's role itself? Because I'm assuming these are not going to be jury trials or would you be requesting juries in these cases? Because you're allowed to have a jury in the circuit court. There's no jury in the district court. How do you view that as? That particular question, since I'm not a lawyer, I prefer to the office of the county attorney to make the decision on a case-by-case basis or to set up a standard operating procedure for how they'd like to pursue, whether they'd like to pursue a bench trial or a jury trial in circuit court. To get to your question about the issues we have with district court, I think we and the Office of the Consumer Protection have had somewhat similar experiences for us with housing code enforcement what we generally find is that the district court is understaffed, so we have sympathy with them. This is very common all across the United States. And it usually takes us at least six months for an unpaid citation to make its way to district And so if an unpaid citation that also indicates or unpaid fee with an existing citation, that also indicates that the existing violation has not been remediated. And so if it takes six months to get before court, that means that the original housing code issue has been unresolved for six months. And then if we get into district court after, when we get into district court after six months, if the property owner has remediated and they could wait, like until right up before, has remediated the issue, then the court usually either dismisses the fine completely, or they drastically reduce it to $5, $10, $20 instead of the potential for several hundred dollars. And the court seems to, I can't say exactly how the judges are thinking, but based on their behavior, they seem to look at the fines as a stick that if you finally do what we want you to do, then we won't really charge you anything. Sure. As compared to being a punishment for not doing it in the time allowed under the code. So if you have somebody who has, you know, like, let's see mold or, you know, like water coming through and they're unit or something like that. And you don't take care of it in the allowed time based on code and regulation, then we tend to think that there should be a punishment for that because the tenant is living with unsafe or unhealthy housing conditions. The court seems to have a different model on that. And there's in consultation with the Office of the County Attorney, there is nothing that we can do through our code to be prescriptive in what the judges to limit the judges. Discrash, thank you. That limit the judges discretion. So given the issues we have with the fine and the district court not producing changes in behavior, the circuit court, as we've been talking about, significantly raises the stakes because it takes a larger threshold for damages to get before the court. And so, monetarily, the issues are much bigger. Also, we have lawyers' fees. The property owner in this case has attorneys' fees. And there is the issue of going through the long drawn out case. But we can, and I'm oversimplifying this and saying, we can through the circuit court get injunctive relief, and that can either be to stop behavior or to start behavior. Sure. It's to make the situation for the tenants safer and more healthy. But then there's also the issue of damages and attorneys fees and the concern for paying out those will hopefully change people's calculations of the cost of doing business and how they impact their business decisions and their business model for the dealing with deferred maintenance and regular maintenance. Right, and I made it, but in theory, in the circuit court case, the attorneys fees are only going to come, should you prevail in a trial, right? But there is as part of the scheduling orders typically a settlement conference mandate. And so in theory there would be opportunity as it always is along the way to have reached a negotiated agreement, but then that is left between the parties to negotiate as opposed to in the district court where you're not really having that and the judge determines solely how to diminish if you will the level of fine based on time of compliance, et cetera. I will say the circuit court is also understaffed. So I just want to put that out there. They are not in any better staffing or volume situation than the district court. So these issues are plaguing both level court systems presently. But I think there's a lot of, there's other tools that this affords us in order to work with, to work through those things. And certainly the hourly fees of attorneys who have to then work through the circuit court system is a much more significant financial burden, which should in theory get you compliance faster. If I could add your comment on having mediation and coming to a non-judgment settlement, this we've seen that in the District of Columbia where inspiration for these changes came from changes that the District of Columbia made to its own consumer protection law to cover these kinds of housing issues. And they have had instance the majority, if I remember correctly, the majority of the cases they brought have been settled out of court to the relative satisfaction of both parties, but they also have taken some cases to the full judgment. Yes, something like 98% of civil cases settle. I just want to put emphasis on your question, Councillor Marlouki and Director Bruton's response. It's important to note from the RASJ report that DHCA through chapter 29 has sought nearly 1.5 million in unpaid fines for code violations, but only recovered $100,000 through that process. That's just an FY24. Yeah, separately, I think it is because this isn't a unique situation for Montgomery County, right? And separately, I think this is worthy of a conversation with the Chief Judge of the District Court, Judge Morrissey, to have a discussion about how better to deal with this because at the end of the day, if you're able to adjust the behaviors effectively, which does require some kind of actual enforcement of the financial penalty, you will then reduce the volume of the cases that are hitting your docket that are creating the other logistical problems for the court itself. So I think that that's something that we should highlight, we should have that conversation. And that since District Court has centrally managed as opposed to each county managing that's a good way to go. And I would imagine we have friends and other jurisdictions who would be amenable to this type of conversation. Great. Did you want to comment on that? I found myself nodding again and so I just wanted to say that I agree those are excellent ideas. Let the record show we have a nod. Please. Thank you. I just, I first wanted to say that our experience with the Consumer Protection Office has been so positive that this is really an office that works very well. And whenever we have had questions or needed support or information, this office is always extremely responsive, professional. We get positive feedback from community members. And so I will just say that I'm grateful for that, and I'm really excited to have your teamwork on this issue that isn't so need of support. And I know that the community is going to tremendously benefit. And I know that it's a project. It's a big project. It's a little line of code and it's a big project. But it's an important one. I know that you all are going to do a great job. And we will, of course, continue to assess as we go as with other spaces, your inspector general, the attorney general. However much capacity you have is how much you're able to do. And so we will just analyze as we go. we as in every department that's issuing citations, we're not able to be in every single place at every single moment of the day, and we're able to do what you're able to do, what we give you the capacity to do. And so, we'll just stay in communication and continue to leverage as best we can to make sure that what the public is getting, that they're getting a great return on we'll continue to invest, you know, as it makes sense to and as we're able to. But I know that the return on the investment is going to be great coming from this office because we have already seen that thus far. And then in regards to the conversation around the district and the circuit courts and that whole debacle, I thank you to Council Member Lutti going into that because that has been such a frustration. And if you could just give us a little insight to the numbers in terms of how much you bring with citations to district court and then about how much of that we're actually getting back. Sure. See, just in FY24, we can get you older statistics if you'd like, but in FY24, the most recent period that we have full information is that we in the county attorney brought suit for a total of $1.5 million in unpaid fines for housing code violations. but we only recovered in the end through judgments 100,000, 300,000, $175 in restitution. I mean, and that is wild. And I just wanna say that like in the experience on the ground, if that was because all of those were getting remedied and then they're not a problem again, I would be happy with that. The problem is that those are, they're not being fixed, you know, that we're seeing, you know, they might, they might fix it right before the court date and then the fine gets excused. And then the same issue comes up again like two weeks later. It is just a constant whack-a-mole. And we think, when we think about the amount of staff resources that we are using to issue those citations and then to deal with taking it to court only for nothing to happen and for there to be no true accountability. The amount of county resources that is being wasted here is excessive. And so this is a way to hold landlords accountable and to get changes on the ground for residents. This should also be helping us to save on those resources that are currently being wasted by just hitting the same nail over and over and over and over again and never actually having it end of the piece of wood. You want to comment on that or just, I want to leave the floor open if you want to complain as well. But I said. If you're not in this time, I'll just say I agree. Yeah. Well. All right, appreciate it. So the question becomes, we have some questions here. When we can start to advertise, I'm assuming that because you have two co-sponsors in me sitting here, you're going to, this is going to be suggested that it go forward. But we need to figure out when we can start advertising and I believe are we all in agreement that it should be two rather than one person for the office of consumer protection to hire? Are you okay with that? Yeah, I mean, I think just based on and Council member Mick and I were going back and over the weekend. Like I just believe that there is going to be an adjustment forthcoming from OMB once these issues are worked out. And so I don't know that we even need to make a decision right now. I think we kind of need to wait to get the adjusted information that's more reflective of the actual utility of the bill, have those conversations and get a more accurate picture. But obviously I strongly support this as does the lead sponsor. And so we look forward to having that discussion at full council. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, I think that if we can do what we're looking at doing with two and again given the trade-offs that we're seeing in terms of the wasted resources on the issuing of citations and the taking to court and all of that, you know, the conversations that we had over the course of the bill was like, is it one, two, three, you know, but it was, we knew that it was going to be, you know, it's not going to be ten, right? This is something that where we have a lot of resources in this area, we're just directing them in a way that's going to be more efficient and get us a better result. And so if we end up on two, I think that that is a tremendously positive return for the residents of Montgomery County. At the same time, we wanna have all the details where we make a final decision. So I'd be happy like moving this on as it is with the two, but noting that we've got a new fiscal note coming and so we'll just take another look at that and make sure that we're all on the same page in terms of the operationalizing that you all are actually intending to do, which is not currently reflected in the note that we have. So just to clarify what I'm hearing is that the committee would like to have an amended physical impact statement before full council takes action on the bill. I think that's fair. Yeah. Is that something that the department is able? Can we turn that around quickly enough to make sure that we're on the same line? Yes, we will. Okay, great. And then of course the MOU, and that doesn't have to be a part of this legislation, but we need that. You need that. So. of course the MOU and that doesn't have to be a part of this legislation but we need that. You need that. So absolutely. We've already, through the conversations with Council Member Mink, about this bill over the past several months we've already talked through a lot of these issues. We still need to, as Director Friedman mentioned, we need to figure out how to operationalize and we can work with the two of our two departments. Plus, OCA can work together since we're not starting from zero to try to establish initial standard operating procedures. And then SOPs, especially with new programs, always evolve. I think that's always a prudent thing to say that we will set up the initial SOPs and then as an SOP being standard on for any type of policies. Yes. We have a lot of initials. Part of government work. Yeah, I understand. Go ahead. Thanks. And I'll just note that yes to double down on that, that I know that operationalizing has already has been much of the conversation that the work that you all have already done in going through this process to figure out how this would be doable. And so nailing down those final details is what's left and just noting that some of the conversations that I know that you all have had are, they have been had and they're not fully reflected in the OMB statement. So yes, agreed that the conversations that I have heard are reflective of the fact that much of this work has the discussions have already been had. I just want to clarify just for the record. So this is not an expedited bill. So it will take effect if this is passed by the full council 91 days after the county executive signed the bill. So that just painting the picture of the time frame of when this would take effect. Okay. You're saying this is not this is not an expedited bill. This is not an expedited bill. Okay. Very good. I are we three oh and go ahead, please. Well, let me not stop you from confirming that it's 3-0. I've always said don't take yes for an answer. Right. But I just want to confirm that it's not an expedited bill and that said we would like to get this passed before budget so that we can make sure that we have the staffing levels right in the budget. And I agree with that. And I'm okay that it's not expedited because we have a lot of things that we have to be getting done, but we can't wait for it to get done while we're doing it. So, okay, are we good? Three out? Thank you all very, very much. That's just one second. Yes, ma'am. I wanted to clarify two things. One for Bill 625 to actually have a motion and a vote. And then procedure. Thank you all very, very much. That's just one second. Yes, ma'am. I wanted to clarify two things. One for Bill 625 to actually have a motion in a vote. And then, procedurally, for Bill 125 that was heard before, actually needed a official vote on that as well. I think the record wasn't clear, so just one to, for Bill 625. You're both three, but we can do a bill. We can do a bill. I mean, we'll do a motion. Motion to approve. Second. Six 25. Six 25. for Bill 625. We're both three, but we can do a bill. We can do a bill. I mean, we'll do a motion. Motion to approve. Second. 625. 625. Thank you. And then for Bill 125. We'd like to make that motion. I'd like to move that we approve Bill. I second the motion. And I predict that it's going to pay us. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all very, very much.