All right. Good evening. It is Monday, August the 12, 2024. We are here in the Aberdeen City Council chambers for the regularly scheduled meeting of the Aberdeen City Council. Madam Clerk, can you call the roll, please? Mayor McGregor. Here. Council President Hyde. Present. Council Member Nganekamp. Here. Council Member Montgomery. Here. Councilwoman Virgely. Present. We've got a full council ready and able to do business. We've got on the agenda preacher Will Brown from the Aberdeen Church of Christ to lead in the opening prayer and then I'm going to lead the pledge of allegiance. Welcome Mr. Brown. Everybody please rise. Thank you. Let's pray. Our God and Father, we thank for this day. We ask you to be with our city, with the council and the mayor, God the decisions, help them to be the best for the citizens. We pray that our city continues to grow and do well and that it's safe and that we all look out for one another. We thank for all that you give to us and that we all look out for one another. We thank for all that you give to us and all the good things, their blessings. And Jesus' name, amen. 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, but liberty just for all. for which it stands one nation under the individual. Let's live a good day. Justice for offer. Okay. Council of the clerk has prepared meeting minutes for your review from June 10, July 15th, and July 22, 2024. It's our motion to approve the minutes as submitted by the clerk. Some moved. Thank you, Council President Hybe. Is there a second on the motion to approve the minutes? A second. Thank you, Councilman Montgomery. Any more discussion on the minutes? Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Council President Hybe. Aye. Councilman Lorna Camp. Aye. Councilman Montgomery. Aye. Councilman Lorna Camp. Hi. Councilman Montgomery. Hi. Councilwoman Ridgley. Hi. Four votes in the affirmative. The minutes are afrooted. Mr. Grover, we have a presentation, I think. Yes, we do. Mr. Vaughn, if you could step up, she's the executive director for Harvard Habitat. Welcome. Hi. Annie Susqueahanna. Thank you. Thank you very much for having me. May I have a great council, city council members, and esteemed city leadership? Thank you for this opportunity to talk to you today. I want to talk about what we do and have a tap for Humanity Susquahanna and how we can grow our partnership. So what this is what we do. We help struggling, low and moderate income families who live in substandard conditions and need a decent place to live, purchase a home they can afford. We also provide critical home repairs for low and come homeowners who can afford to fix their homes. So our first program is the one that most people are familiar with and that's our homeownership program. About 70% of habitat families are single moms. As you know housing costs of outpaced incomes so they are living in really crappy places that they can afford and shouldn't be living in. They have to make really hard choices. Are they going to pay their rent? Are they going to pay the utility bill? Are they going to buy food this month? And they just want a decent place to raise their children. They are the workers, the foundation of our economy. They are pharmacy technicians. They are school-appearant educators, the health care aids. They're office administrators, for example, and they just deserve a decent place to live. To dispel a myth, we do not give away homes. Our families earn and purchase their homes. They put in 250 hours of sweat equity to help build their home. They take financial literacy courses and work with a financial counselor. They put down a down payment and they pay a mortgage, but it's one that they can afford. Habitat, oh, by the way, our financial coaching and classes are free and open to the public. Part of that program includes a partnership that we have with Harvard Technical High School and this is where construction students build homes for us. It gives them the opportunity to have real life hands-on experience and the ability to give back to the community and they build a home for us every two years and the next one will be finished this spring. Our second program is our home repair program. We help your neighbors. We help families, individuals, seniors, veterans, a lot of them are seniors. We provide critical repairs for their health and safety. They may have no heat or they have leaky roofs or electrical or plumbing problems. They may have accessibility issues. They need access rent to get in and out of their homes. They may need a modified bathroom to make it accessible for a wheelchair or they need grab bars, those types of things. And the homeowners tend to be extremely low income. We've had homeowners that made as little as 9,000 a year. And they just, they can't afford to fix their homes and they can't afford to move, so they just live that way. We currently have 12 homeowners in Aberdeen on our waiting list, and we're in the process of qualifying three more. There are mix of seniors, single mothers with multiple children, people with medical disabilities, and even grandparents who are raising grandchildren. Most are on fixed incomes, such as Social Security or Disability, many have lost their jobs, due to illness or injury, and are just trying to maintain their homes. The things on their list, they have leaky roofs, HVAC issues, plumbing issues, failing flooring, and or accessibility needs. And we continue to get many calls from people who are asking to be added onto the list. So what are some of the things besides helping the citizens of Aberdeen? Another thing that by investing in us, we make an impact into the local economy. I gave a handout and the results of the economic impact of our work in just one year was just under $6 million. For every dollar invested by us, a dollar 53 is injected into the local economy. That's a 65% return. I wish I was getting that in the stock market. Out of 130 homes that we have built, 73 of them are in Aberdeen. The 74th is currently under construction on Liberty Street. That means more than half of Habitat Susquehanna homes are located here in Aberdeen. Our homes are designed to fit the styles of the neighborhoods and the increased home values and also increased tax revenue. Out of all the places that we build, we have done more for the citizens of Aberdeen than anywhere else. And I'd like to invite you all to our next dedication when Liberty Street is completed, which should be towards the end of next month. I'd love for you to come, take a look at it, meet the family, tour the home. It'll be a great celebration. So I want to grow our partnership to continue to improve the city of Aberdeen and the lives of its residents. So I have two requests. The first for our home ownership program, we cannot help our long list of families without new properties. They need to be on public water and sewer with minimal development costs because we have to keep the home affordable. We need five homes for fiscal year 26, including a lot for the next habitat, habitat home from Hartford Tech that will be finished in the spring. We'd love to have them located here in Aberdeen. I also saw that zoning is on your schedule for tonight. We need zoning that accommodates workforce affordable housing. So put that out there too. The second one is for our repair program. Since it's funded 100% by grants, we can only help as many homeowners as grant funding allows. There's a three-year waiting list. And the CDBG funding from the county for this program, for their programs, have decreased this year, so I'm here asking for help. The maximum CDBG funding allowed per home is $12,000.5. Many homeowners need repairs that cost more than that. So we only use the funding for their critical repairs, not for home improvements. The funding we need to help everyone with critical repairs in Aberdeen is $187,500. Our repair program is first come first served served but if we have funding that is dedicated for Aberdeen residents then they can be moved up the list to this year because we will have funding for them. Any help that we can get would just be tremendously appreciated. So thank you for this opportunity and your consideration. And if you have any questions, or also I'd like to know, how can we partner? This is Gull Chewfsky. Yes. Don't go anywhere. Okay. Council, any questions? Sure? I have a question. Yes, please. So have you made a similar presentation to the other municipalities as well this year? I have not. This is the first one that I've been invited to. I would love to speak to the others, but you got me first. You plan on speaking to the other municipalities this year? I think it would be a great idea. Yeah. Thank you. Can you get us a list of the repairs? We don't need identifying information, but in your repair program, if you had $184,000, what that would fund? Yes. Good. Any more questions, Council? Thank you very much for being here. All right. Thank you. I'll get you that information. Council, we have a public hearing this evening on ordinance number 24-014 entitled comprehensive rezoning. This ordinance was introduced on June 17, 2024, sponsored by Council President Adam Hyab and Councilwoman Tandra Ridgley. For the benefit of the public, the comprehensive rezoning is a process in the state of Maryland that affects all of the counties and the 157 municipalities in the state of Maryland. It is a process that is undergone on a regular timely basis. It's required by law every 10 years. It can be done more frequently depending on the desires and hopes and dreams of the municipal government to go through this process with all the great public engagement that comes with it. So it ends up happening about every 10 years. The, this ordinance was created by way of recommendations. So we open to the public the opportunity for the comprehensive rezoning that comes along in as part of our comprehensive planning process, which again is a document that's created every 10 years by a Maryland State statute. And the comprehensive plan having been created, the next step in that process is called comprehensive rezoning. We sent a letter to every owner of real property in the city limits of for the budget for the budget for the budget for the budget for the budget for the budget for the budget for the budget for the budget for the budget for the budget for the budget for the budget for the budget for the budget for the budget for the budget for the budget for the budget for the budget for the budget for the budget for the budget for the budget for the can be considered, for your property can be considered for a comprehensive rezoning and we had Mrs. Grover 20, two applications for the comprehensive rezoning out of all the 5,000 or so items of real property in the city limits of Aberdeen. Once it started there, they were reviewed by the department for consistency and compliance with the law. They went to the planning commission where they hung out for several months and were reviewed and debated and deliberated on. A recommendation came from the planning commission that said, these are the items of rezoning that you should consider city council as a recommendation. And they came to this body where we had a series of work sessions and meetings where we deliberated on what should be incorporated into the ordinance that is before us that was introduced on June the 17th. Tonight we have the public hearing on this ordinance 24-014 and it is unusual for this body, the Aberdeen City Council to have a public hearing the same day that we act on adoption of legislation. It is not normal for us to do this, but our law requires us to adopt a piece of legislation in Aberdeen within a 60-day window. So from start to finish, if it's not adopted at 60 days, a poof happens and it goes away and you have to start the process all over. And so we are at looking down the barrel of that 60 day window. So if I'm not mistaken, Council, the intention is to act on this legislation today following the public hearing and potential amendments to be made to the draft ordinance. So all of that is to say, Council, if there's nothing else before I open the public hearing I will open the public hearing is anybody want to add anything before I open the public hearing. I would yes. Okay so when this ordinance was introduced I voted no for it and I'll tell you the reason why I believe we are doing this backwards. So right now we're supposed to get the definitions for our uses as our and then look at the table of uses. So we're going to rezone the city of Aberdeen then we're going to look at the table of uses. So we will a zone might not even work for that. We might take it out. So this makes no sense to me the process we're doing. We should do definitions so we know we can build table of usage, what we want in that zone, what we don't want in that zone, then zoning. So I clearly think this whole ordinance should be on the docket today. So that's my thoughts on it. Thank you. So it's inappropriate to clap for comments. So those comments shouldn't have been made there in advance of public hearing. They should have been made during comments at the end of the public hearing. But I can already say. I can do it again. I can do it again. Please don't interrupt with clapping or jeering if Mr. Faw stands up and makes a recommendation. Please don't boo him. Similarly, if Mr. Gordon comes up here and says something you agree with, please don't cheer for him. It makes people feel bad. Not me. The people you're booing and jeering. If the lawyers though, you can jeer and you can jeer at the lawyers, they're here. I'll cancel anything else before we open the public hearing. All right, so this is a public hearing, which means that everybody, no matter what you wanna say, will be permitted to be heard. Don't feel rushed, okay? Don't feel rushed. Don't feel like you have to constrain yourself. If you don't get rushed, don't feel like you have to constrain yourself if you don't get through your remarks in the three minutes that's allocated, you may submit them in writing to the record. Okay? They will be incorporated into the record. What else is there to say with such a large group? Did I miss anything? Mrs. Grover, did I introduce that well? You did, sir. So, in the event that this is adopted today, or not, it's not adopted, that's fine too. Once we get done with the comprehensive rezoning ordinance that's before us. Mr. Dacey, plenty of seats on in. Come on in, come on in. Any other folks out there, come on in. Please come on in. I'm George and five dollars. Oh, the door man. Come on in, Mrs. Horn. So we're gonna get through this. It's going to be great. Everybody loves each other. All right. I'm going to open the public hearing. Anybody who would like to make a come up to the microphone. When you do, please state your name and address for the record. You'll get up to double checking my notes. Three minutes? Yeah. Three minutes. Thank you for not allowing anybody to throw things at me also. I appreciate that. My name is Thomas Fawz. I'm with cop defense properties, 67-11, Columbia, and we drive Columbia, Maryland. We own the three properties, the three office buildings in 35 acres of land at the end of route 22 and research research Boulevard ran outside the Northgate Aberdeen-perving-ground location. As mentioned at the last city council meeting our request is to be included in the comprehensive rezoning legislation approved for our properties to be rezoned from B3 to the IBD zone. As it was, recommended last fall by the Planning Commission, which had came community support and no opposition at all from the public at the time. The IBD zone, its flexibility and our vision for the properties consistent with the city's recently approved comprehensive plan. We believe that's very important. Our vision is your vision. The net effect, and there's many reasons that I can list here, but my three minutes, I got to get through other points. The net effect of the zoning, which I think everybody needs to understand, between B3 that we have today, an IBD, or really just two things, one, home ownership opportunities. And by the way, the previous speaker pulled at the heartstrings there a little bit. But home ownership opportunities, not allowed in B3, is allowed in IBD zoning, which is why we ask for it. Also, senior living opportunities, very few of which exists in our community. The whole ownership opportunities, what that also means, I wanna make a point of it, is much lower densities. Today with B3 zoning, apartments are approved, are an approved use. And on our property, we get 600, 700 apartments out there. We prefer to go in the direction of home ownership opportunities cutting that number basically into a third somewhere around two fifty or so and I want to make sure that's understood. While garden and high rise apartments are allowed in B3 home ownership opportunities are not senior living is not, and outside of that very little difference. We work with the community, the city, and city on this request, working to address concern so far, we've even agreed on a restriction on the property with the community that addresses their concern about town, home home rental apartments. We agreed to not do that essentially. Our desire is to add residential ownership product and senior living housing to the development followed by retail services to enact a truly product diverse mixed use community. We have development hurdles overcome. 30 seconds, six seconds. As a member of the community, I want everybody to know that our interests are your interests. We're part of this community. We have been for 15 years and we plan on being here for a long time. In addition to that, in the independent of the development process, we even vow on record to sit down with the community before submission and run up by you for input. We're interested in that because your concerns are our concerns. Here have expired your time. If I give you twice as much time, then we will be here all night. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Foss. I wish I had a yellow light to give warnings when you're down to your clock and then a Anybody still in the hallway please come on in please come on in we got plenty of seats up here mr. Brown won't bite you come in Come on come on Okay Chief Hey chief Okay. Chief. Chief. Can you make sure people understand about the door? Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next. Anybody else for public comment? This is the opportunity. Hello. My name is Paul Clark. I live at 61 Swan Street. Um, I'm a member of the Public Health Department. I'm a member of the Public Health Department. I'm a to go ahead and about what information or how this is going to materialize. Specifically, we all know that Braxton worked very well. And I think it is very important that we have a study that was presented here by Mr. Montgomery and Mr. Linden Camp to ensure that we can do this right. I don't see any reason why we need to rush into it. I can, first of all, I can further say, to at least in my mind, that when you look at other major cities, when they try to revitalize a community, they first focus on trying to deal with the root-called problems that exist within. You're not going to attract the people that you want to attract if we have a triple homicide as we have right in this area. We're not going to attract who we really want to have there if we continue to have drive-by shootings. And I think it is just worth it for the city to focus on trying to address those issues first before we jump into expanding TOD in such a fashion without knowing exactly what will happen with it. Because the worst thing that could happen is that we have vacancies just like we did with Bragg. We all know that we live in a post-COVID world where commuting more and more people work from home. We don't know how that impacts these changes. We don't know how so many different aspects as far as we're short-handed currently when it comes to law enforcement how are we going to ensure that we can protect the public with additional large amounts of people coming into the city. And I just have very, very large concerns that we're not going to be able to make this successful unless we first address these other issues because I just can't see people wanting to move to Aberdeen and commute all the way to DC when we have on APG most of the people that work there don't want to live in Aberdeen because we haven't addressed these concerns. to this by Andre Johnson, one of our delegates. And I know Steve Johnson is here today too, if he wishes to make some statements as well. And I think that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Clark. Anybody else for public comment? Excuse me, public hearing. This is the public hearing. There's another opportunity for those of you who may be new to government meetings. This is the public hearing for this specific ordinance. If you want to talk about anything not related to this ordinance, that comes after this. Mr. Pearson. Good evening, Council administrators. Danny Pierce, 436 Westball Avenue. I'm representing Westball Avenue Action Committee. We're here to reiterate or sincere interest in keeping Westbola Avenue Aberdeens historical district. Therefore we again oppose commercial rezoning on Westbola Avenue from Bellarab, Bellar, B&O tracks all the way up to hillside terrors. We have collected as a group over 300 signatures on a petition supporting our case against upgrading to commercial zoning. Some of our points are to stop increased traffic in the school district. We have three schools right over there. We have a Catholic school down there. We don't want to have increased traffic in that area. Currently, without the increase, traffic, increase traffic, bus drivers and parents picking up and dropping all students, experience extreme difficulties, getting in and out of Mount Will Avenue and Baker Street. Commercial traffic consists of trucks that weigh from 26,000 to 80,000 pounds that will drive up in and out our neighborhoods all hours of the day. These trucks are very noisy and they add additional burden to our roads. And they pose safety issues and should not be allowed to go through our neighborhoods or should not be going through our neighborhoods. Currently we experience thawed volumes of traffic on Bellar Avenue. That inhibits the current residents from the existing neighborhoods with only one exit and that is West Bell Avenue. So please consider all our concerns. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Pierce. Hi, Laurie Dawson, 627 Westbeller Avenue, Aberdeen. I'm speaking this evening in support of the three amendments to the Comprehensive Zoning Plan. Amendment 1, the current rezoning proposal for the pressure washing property was based on the Planning and Zoning Commission's opinion that zoning should match the property surrounding it. This pressure washing business is surrounded on three sides by residential properties. There is Alton Homes to one side, Hillside Terrace apartments to the other side, and directly across the street is Fairbrook Senior Apartments, changing the zoning to highway commercial B3 zoning conflicts with the immediate area. If the business is wanting to expand, there are properties downtown and on Route 40 to allow for such growth. This parcel located in the residential area is limited and should remain so. I'm also speaking in support of amendments 2 and 3 about holding off with the TOD part of the proposal. The proposed plan is based upon the projected needs of the city back in 2012 when we were preparing for the possible influx of commuters due to BRAC. As this projection did not come to fruition, the city must revisit the needs of the community today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. John Marley, 72 East Bowler Avenue, Aberdeen. I've asked us a couple of times. It's like, we always sit there and try to change our zoning to suit the possible needs. Well, what are our actual needs right now? What do we actually use right now? How many single family homes do we have? How many are being occupied? How many apartments do we have? How many do we have inventory of what's being used and what's not being used? It seems to me that there's, you're throwing all sorts of different things around with the new things with TOD and things like that. I have nothing wrong with development. But if you look at the paper that was handed out earlier, the businesses that didn't want to U.D. were all along Route 40 and they got excused from it because they paid the $25 and said not to be. Well, I never received a letter that I knew of, but the thing is that I still try to keep informed what's going on in the town. I don't think you really got a good answer from the rest of the town or what they think of what's good and what's not I have nothing wrong with TOD, but if you take all of Route 40 which you're trying to redevelop all the time and they just opt out of it Then what about the rest of town? Route 40 is where you've always talked the whole town has been talking for 1963 and the thing is that Route 40 has always been the place to go and yet Route 40 was taken out of Theod, that's ridiculous to me. That's the place to have the Theod, not in a neighborhood that's 165 years old. The thing is that you put churches up for things. You put houses that are old up for redevelopment and stuff like that. It doesn't make any sense. Like Tim was saying, we're doing this wrong. That's think better. That's think smarter. If everybody really wants to redevelop the Route 40 quarter, you're not doing it because you're letting people opt out of it. That's the places where you want to have businesses on Route 40. Not up and down Eastbiller Avenue, not up and down Post Road, not up and down Park Street. It doesn't make any sense. These are residential areas that have been residential areas forever. Where's not been a residential area? Route 40. You want to make it a residential emphasis? Great idea. Let's see. The parking lots has been there by the train station. Not the train station one, the one where the snowball stand is. It's been sitting there forever. The empty car lots that were there, now they're being worked on again. They've all talked about this, being developed, and it's not being developed, because you can't convince them to give up their access to the thing. Why are you taking our residentials away? If you're not taking the businesses away to build up more things, why are you taking our residentials away? If you're not taking the businesses away to build up more things, why are you taking the residentials away? You're saying, well, they're not against it. Also, are we? I don't mind development. Our development has been away from downtown for years. It's gone up to that side of town. It's gone up to that side of town. That's fine. That's where you could build shopping centers and make things grow and people will use them. Developing a neighborhood with business is ridiculous because we have one small store over on our side of town. That isn't really supportive from that side of town. You think anybody else is coming from that upside of town? No. Please consider this. Thank you, Mr. Marley. I'm going to ask you to ask you to ask me to ask you to ask you to ask me to ask you to ask you to ask me to ask you to ask you to ask me to ask you to ask you to ask me to ask you to ask you to ask me to ask you to ask you to ask me to ask you to ask you to ask me to ask you to ask you to ask me to ask you to ask you to ask me to ask you to ask you to on the public for the comprehensive rezoning ordinance 24-0-14. It's a huge document, 122 parts of it. They've considered modes of which are rezoned, request for a TLD transit oriented development. And of course, a couple amendments that have come up that are new to me. Anyway, so some general comments first. Aberdeen is a stark city with a hometown feeling, and that should be considered when comprehensive plans, development plans, rezoning, et cetera, et cetera are being proposed. The transit oriented development master plan is dated 2012. Many things have affected the city of Aberdeen since then, such as the lack of development expected from back. and the COVID-19 pandemic that altered the way we live, work and play in Aberdeen. The comprehensive plan was updated in 2023. The TOD master plan should be updated also before any further properties are resumed. Many of the proposed resonings will have a detrimental effect on the quality of life for all residents of Aberdeen, more traffic, more pollution, more noise, increased safety hazards, etc. But that's a whole other story. So now some specific remarks. West Baylor Ave is an historic area of Aberdeen. The 400 to 700 blocks are mainly residential with many historic homes dating back to the late 1880s. I live in one of them. This historic character should be maintained. Neither highway commercial nor transit oriented development should be allowed. So I've taken a little bit different tack. I looked at the ordinance and I'm going to address it by property numbers. So property number one, which is 729 West Bell Rav requesting rezoning from B2 Central District to B3 Highway commercial. This property should be removed as a proposed and amendment one, which is Councilman Montgomery and Councilman Linda Camp's number one. There's another number one I picked up from the counter this evening. That's not the cop to property I'm talking about. A little bit of history. It was originally Zoned R3 high density residential. In 2009, the owners at that time put in a request for B3 highway commercial. That rezoning was denied. They were given B2 instead, a central business zoning. And that, to me, indicates that highway commercial back then and not today and even today is not appropriate for that property. My next property of concern is property number two. Eight seconds, Ms. Hebe. Four, four, four, what's the other app which I believe should not even be included in the TOD zoning. I do have many more comments. I support the amendments one, two, and three. I would like to see 404 revisited since it is TOD. It should not be in my opinion and we should redo the whole TOD. So that being said, I came prepared because I knew the three minute limits. So I do have printed copies of not only my remarks that the rest of them I didn't get to make, but I have some background information. Six copies for you to hopefully read and consider before you make any decisions. So background information. Yep, you're going to give things to do with the decision. So, background information. Yep, you're going to give it to the clerk. Good, thank you. You stand up for public hearing back there, ma'am. Come on up. Hello, Jennifer Grudom. My address 156 post Hello. Jennifer Gurdom. My address 156 post-rude. But you could probably call me House the Abelone. This House. I'll grab that microphone and move it up close to your mouth. That's good. This House, you can reach for it. She was the Abelone because I found it in a serious road buck replica. The chances that this house was brought in by the B&O, or along the B&O railroad, possibly delivered at the recently restored trainhouse, is the high that I don't know for sure. But I can tell you that the house is built in 1928. There are many other historic houses along Post Road. And I think that I don't know what other people are looking at when I stand in my neighborhood. I see houses, so I understand that there are single family houses, but I don't see houses that need to be built or torn down and rebuilt higher. I just see a neighborhood as noted with other neighborhoods here, historic districts. I know that this is not a place to ask questions now, but my concerns are what do the R2, I believe, is my new amendment for my area. But we can talk numbers and letters, but we really don't know the big picture until we see even some kind of urban development plan on it. I feel like this is very rushed to say, okay, let's go ahead and move forward and then maybe plan it later. And what really interest to developers have in it? Because when I look at this area, I think of Riptans Stadium, which I have another history there on Gilbert Road, and those houses have slowly disappeared over the years. It was a beautiful neighborhood, a beautiful cornfield, and we understand what Ripton Stadium did for the area. But watching these houses disappear with two royal farms is really heartbreaking. We're losing our history in this city, and it's worth slowing down and not rushing to make sure that we're bringing in the right design aesthetics, beautification to the existing neighborhoods could be a plus, you know, if it's going to be historic neighborhood, you're going to continue to beautify it. If it's along Route 40, let's admit that area is ugly. Let's think about making that pretty, making that developed, focusing on that area and not the existing neighborhoods. And as another fact Habitat was mentioned today, there's a house two houses down from mine that was a Habitat for Humanity House. So if this area is to be redeveloped, what's going to happen to that house in particular? Is it going to get knocked down because three people next door sold to a developer and make more high rises right there. So I'd like to slow down, understand what the zoning is going to look like. And I also kind of feel like we're getting yelled at a little bit because some of us are just now really finding this out. So like, it feels very, very rushed to us even though maybe you've all had time to think about it. So I'd like to really reconsider the historic fabric of our city. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Grotto. I'm Julian Gordon. I live at 81 Swan Street. I concur with everyone here, especially Councilman Linda Cap, that there should not be a rush to vote on TOD. So what if it goes away? It gives us time to study it? Maybe even have a referendum with a citizen's get their input. We're basing all of this rush on our 10-year-old plan. The world has changed. COVID changed the way we work, as Miss Kay said. And Black did not deliver much of what thought we thought was going to be promised. I am against TOD simply because of the rush. What TOD does in some of the areas I like quite a bit. But because I like it, I don't want to rush into it. We have many other problems in this city. We have under protected citizens, right? We have citizens that pay for water, services, just like everybody else here, and they don't get the pressure and the flow rate that other citizens get. Let's take care of the problems we have. I saw a document the other day by one of our council members that said we could easily support 3500 more families with our infrastructure. You can't support the families you have now. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Gordon. 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 here on behalf, first of all, I did not get any letter about rezoning just for the record, but I'm here on behalf of several of my friends who live on the east side, in rented homes. So the question is, when you do these changes, the zoning changes, will the landlords then be able to say, I'm sorry, you have to leave because I'm going to redevelop this property, or you have to leave because I'm going to redevelop this property. Or you have to leave because I'm now zoned differently and I can rent this house to a lawyer or a doctor or an accountant to use it as an office. And similarly, could the landlord say, well, you can stay, I won't change it into an office, but your rent's going to double or triple. So I would like to encourage you all to slow down, think about the impact. We have to worry about our citizens. Many of those over there, friends in line, they're low income or maybe medium, low medium income. Where are they gonna go if their landlord puts them out in order to develop that property? We need to think about the impact on our citizens, please. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Reed. Anybody else for public hearing? Hello, consent agree, 64 Swan Street. One thing that I wanna mention is I also agree with Councilman London Camp. I think we're moving too fast. I think that we're using outdated information and there's an article on Baltimore banner on 816 discussing Maryland state government plans to make a more active voting development around transit and they're doing a study. And if the state is paying for study on development around transit, why are we not waiting until that study is completed, so we have more information. I don't agree with moving forward with the TOD, and this is just one of many reasons why. Thank you. Hello. My name is Christina Wilson. I live at 152 Post Road. I invested in the East Side of Aberdeen in 2019. I purchased my house. My house was built in 1908. I have watched the East Side of Aberdeen, which I've grew up here in Aberdeen my whole life. I've watched the East Side of Aberdeen in the last few years make quite a bit of progress, even though we have some problems over there. We've had some revitalization. We've had the horns have been active in the smaller homes down at the other end close to the overpass entrance. They've built those houses as up. The East side is really growing. I am concerned about my particular strip of property where historical houses there. We do have a, I live next door to Miss Jennifer. I'm concerned of what's going to happen. The eSIDE has some beautiful homes that need to be fixed up. I think that that's coming. I see it coming. And I am against what you guys are with the resounding I am. Thank you. I have to do with TOD rezoning. My concern is that the TOD feasibility study on which an awarding is based on its decisions for TOD rezoning is over 12 years old. And I question can it really be considered still viable for current which, uh, Aberdeen is basing its decisions for TOD resowning his over 12 years old. And I question, can it really be considered still viable for current and future needs? According to the Baltimore metropolitan, I did a study, I did a research, I did some numbers. According to the Baltimore metropolitan's counsel's access to Rails final, project final report, which is a feasibility study done in June 2011 of the areas within a three mile radius surrounding each of the Mark's stations. The Aberdeen stations average weekday ridership. Now we say weekday ridership. We're talking Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, not Saturday and Sunday. Mark Train does not presently run on Saturday and Sunday. But at that time in June of 2011, the Mark ridership for weekday ridership was 248 persons from Aberdeen. That was the average weekday. Speed ahead 12 plus years to March 7, 2024, when Merlin Transit Authority updated the numbers and we find the average weekday ridership of the mark had dropped to only 96 persons over 60%. So I'm just kind of puzzled that we want to do all this TOD and we only have an ridership transit oriented development. We only have a transit number of people riding 96 per day average. So what happened? Why do we have this drop of over 60 percent? Well, since the feasibility study was done a little over 12 years ago by the city of Aberdeen Harford County's Office of Economic Development and the MTA, a worldwide phenomena occurred. The entire world shut down due to COVID. Out of that arose the ready availability and regular use of online schooling, online shopping, of telehealth and telework. Students, consumers, the medical world, employees and employers alike took a liking to this new lifestyle and as much as possible refused to go back to the way we used to do things. We like working and learning and shopping from our kitchen table. Schools, businesses and employers have generally found it is more cost effective when I say schools we're talking a lot of universities colleges that sort of thing where students would ride from here to Baltimore. Right now they find it more cost efficient. Schools businesses and employers have generally found it more cost efficient and have quickly adopted the new business model. We, the student, consumer and employee, find it easier, less stressful and more cost efficient. Also, the bottom line is, we're not going back. If Aberdeen tries to create a lifestyle environment adopted by fewer and fewer people that's out of date unwanted and unnecessary, we can end up with more vacant structures that sit as hollow mockery to our fully streaming as well as main size debt. My last remark will be then, I recommend that we press pause on the TOD rezoning and reevaluate what our current needs really are. Thank you very much. Good evening, Mr. Mayor members of the Council Brian Young 808 South Main Street and Belair. I am one of the lawyers. Oh boy. Get your tomatoes ready. Please, please keep it a jeering. Don't go into Shakespearean levels. We don't need to kill anybody tonight. I am here for 729 West Belair Avenue. This property is currently zone B2. It is surrounded by R2 parcel that is not in the center of the city of Aberdeen. And it's something of an anomaly additionally because of the history of the property. It was previously a gas station and vehicle repair shop, B2 use. It's currently being used by Elite Powerwashing, which is a company which engages in powerwashing, mainly residential and commercial homes and properties. Cars come, its vehicles get picked up, they go out, they come back at the end of the day and exchange their vehicles, work vehicles for personal vehicles. So it's not a particularly intensive use. The city code, use classifications provide that a construction supplies and services is a B3 use. It is our position that the use that is being that the construction supplies and services use that we're talking about here is much less intense than the previous use. The city code does require B3 zoning for construction supplies. Our position is that that is not exactly what my client is doing but is in the same vein of what's being discussed because it's talking about painting services and additional supplies that my client has some capacity to add able to do that to make sure that they have a zoning classification that meets the idea of what it is that's happening at this property. It is a construction supply services use, the city code does currently with use classifications, put construction supply services as a B3 use, and we think it's appropriate that it be a zone B3. But again, particularly because looking at the map, it is the only B2 zoning outside of the central district in the entire city. We believe that it's much more consistent with the plan for this property B3 and we think that it's also makes sense given the past history of the property because it's not actually a more intense use. The owner of the business is a young man. He's intending to do this for most of the rest of his life. So we're looking at the similar use for the next 20 or more years. And we believe be through designing be appropriate. So I appreciate your consideration of that. Thank you, Mr. Young. Thank you. Peter Dacey, 16 Christmast Drive. I'm here tonight serving as the president of the Friends of the B&O Transnation and Beth Osborne is here. She's a director. We've asked for a TOD Recurately Zone B3. It's a 14,000 square foot lot and the TOD district will allow some leeway relative to parking and alignments with fixtures on the property and things like that. But really, you know, with the 14,000 square feet, there's not much you can do with it when the building occupies at least a third of that if not more. But TOD in our consultation with the city recommended that that would give us more flexibility to do certain things. So with that, it's currently zone B3. So the TOD in my estimation would be similar to a B2 relative to uses as well as going to give us flexibility. The adjacent property owned by the Heltons are that property is light industrial. Okay, so if it's not down-zoned to something else, then we're stuck with light industrial. We have a member end of understanding with the help and family to purchase that property. Our intent would be to be compatible with the train station, with the downtown area, with the transit-oriented designation for the intent of that. There is a lot of merit in the fact that it is back in 2012 when it was adopted. There's merit to that, obviously. However, I think it's important for the council to look at right now, light industrial can go there on the health and property. And I think a TOD would allow the mayor and council and the planning commission, especially an architectural commission, to really take a look at that if it was TOD and allow, not allow, but it would give more latitude to prohibit some of those uses that may be allowed in a B2 zone or a B3 zone and limit it because of the nature of the TOD in the neighborhood. Now I don't know relative to the application of TOD to the other areas that have been presented tonight, but for those two properties, I think TOD is really a good call it a compromise if you will. And one other, just I'm unaware of what the designation was, but across the street, I think it's 414, not the former Gettie Mark, but the commercial putting next store. I think that's being rezoned or it's zoned B3. So that's something it needs to be looked at as well. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dacey. Hello, I'm Julie Little, a director of Operations for Lavender Grove LLC. I'm the owner of the five properties located 713 Beards Hill Road. Mayor, ladies and gentlemen of the council and the fabulous supporting staff. I'm here to introduce our senior living project and I'm here to also ask for your consideration to make an amendment to the comprehensive resounding plan to allow for zoning change from R1 to R3 for the property. I'm going to give you five additional seconds because you're going to grab the microphone and pull it closer so the friends in the back can hear you. Sorry friends. Better. Okay. Go ahead, Thank you. So I'm looking for a zone change from R1 to R3 for the properties located at 713 Beard Hill Road that is much better So I'd like to take your imaginations on a journey We are nestled behind the homes off of Beard Hill Road and it's a peaceful retirement community with lovely, lovely park like setting and walking paths and bird watching stations and outdoor activities, lots of activity. Our community will have the support structure to allow the transition from independent living to assisted living if needed. This will allow couples with different health needs to stay together or for individuals to stay self-reliant. The facility will have modern club-like amenities, including a swimming pool, social, recreational, exercise programs, as well as a shuttle, and transportation with stops at the new medical center, target horizon cinemas, the Walgreens, the shops at Beard Hill Plaza and Ripken Stadium. Our vision is to develop a centerpiece of the retirement community, where our residents and the senior citizens of Aberdeen can make use of our facility. Currently retirement communities are not permitted in our one zoning. Without proper zoning, we won't be able to bring our vision to life and bring a custom senior living facility to Aberdeen. Taylor to support aging citizens so they may stay close to friends and family. Adding housing for seniors is a goal in our comprehensive plan, and we would like to help accomplish this goal for the city of Aberdeen. Please consider the future growth of the city over the next 10 years. This project is approximately a $40 million investment in the city of Aberdeen and not only will help seniors live their best life, but will also bring approximately 50 to 60 jobs to the area. I'm very passionate about helping the community and I'd love to bring a new type of senior living to Aberdeen. So if you could please, I'm asking for your support to amend the comprehensive rezoning this evening to include our properties at 713 Beard Till Road. Thank you for all your time and all you do for the city of Aberdeen. Thank you. Thank you. Hello everyone. My name is Anne Prime and I live at 69 Swan Street. I agree with Councilman Lenin and the Council and everybody about slowing down on this. If anything, we should be building up the historical stores and stuff right downtown. You know, it's important. Our town is historical. And no, we don't have, over on Swan Street where I live, we don't have the beautiful Victorian homes and stuff, but our homes are historical. Our historical also, they were built for guys coming home from the army to live in with families. And they're important. So we should want to keep those up. I love the lady from Habitat for Humanity. I love the idea of the lavender grove senior living, but who can, how is a normal person for maveredine on social security, minimum income, going forward to pay for that? Is there a way to even get in there? Or is it just going to be for the people that are born or are fluent in Aberdeen? And that's all I really have to say. Go USA. Go Maryland. And go Aberdeen. Holiday filing made it to the royals. Doing home runs. Thank you, God. I wonder if that's the trick to getting what you want legislatively. It's just conclude everything like that. That's good. I like that. I like that. Anybody else for the public hearing? I'm going to close the public hearing, man. No objections? Everybody got a chance to one-to-one? All right, I'm going to close the public hearing council. Next is the opportunity for public comment. This is an opportunity where anybody who would like to can come to the microphone to the front of the room to talk about anything you'd like for up to three minutes. Hello my name is DeNita McDaniels. I'm a third of our to the table. Hello. My name is Denea. I made a third of my 10. Hold on. Hold on. Say that again for me. What's your name? Denea. Make Daniels. Got that. She keeps a minute. If you speak too quickly, she's got to go back and listen to tape. That's good. Two questions. One of them is hearsay and I hope it's not true. I heard that all of our senior citizens, the all the ones that we have now are going to be redeveloped and going to the crisis going to go up for the seniors to have the same, they have to pay the same amount as regular citizens. I don't know if that's true or not. I hope it isn't. And I also want to know what happened to the community center that was going to be booked on bail air. So those are my two questions. So the way that public comment works is it's usually a one-way ticket. You get to come and yell and you don't have to yell. You don't have to yell. But you could yell and then we would sit up here and we would look at you peacefully because that's our job. And usually it's not a two-way street. So anybody else who wants to come up and ask questions, you might not get an answer. However, I don't know anything about prices changing for senior citizens. I haven't heard anything about that. Is it housing? Do you have any idea what it's relating to? The neighborhoods, the charity bags. Got it. Shop right. Yep. And what is it on that Baltimore street? Right. So, Fairbrook Senior Housing and then the one down Baltimore street and then the, I have a hard time believing that they would do anything out of line. So we can check on that if you follow up with me after the meeting. And then on your other question, the activity center is still going. So the county is building it. So the county government is the entity in Hartford County that runs all the activity centers. So they pay the staff to be in the building. They build the buildings. They program all the stuff that happens there. Aberdeen bought the land at 684, West Bellar Avenue, right at the end of Middleton Road, and they're gonna build it there. Mrs. Grover had a meeting with them last week. They're still moving forward, everything takes forever, but they're still doing it. Okay. Thank you. All right, thank you. Anybody else for public comment? Yes. I'm going to go to the public comment. Good evening. My name is Christina Amara. I'm at 125. I'm the founder of the COHOT Foundation. We are a non-profit charity organization that helps local Maryland families who suffer from infancy and pregnancy loss. We are celebrating our five-year anniversary of the Marmaid Run and the under-the-sea bash events that take place here at Aberdeen Festival Park on August 24th. We have professional live Marmaids, aquabats, face painters, character artists, pirates, vendors, food trucks, you name it, we have it. We just recently found out that we have over 17 mermaids coming, which means that we are the largest public entertainment of mermaid gathering in the entire nation outside of Wiki Watches Springs, Florida. So, in the past, in the past five years, we've donated over $20,000 to the Maryland Chapter of the Tears Foundation, which I was a committee member of, that committee has since dissolved, and we wanna take those funds and put them to families that are local, or hard for Dencesle County. So this year our registrations are looking great and we want to invite the community out. We created the events on our daughter Ariela who unfortunately passed away at birth in 2018. Our daughter would have been six years old this year and we wanted to have something to celebrate her life with so we stuck with Marmains and under the sea with the help of Vicky Horn and the city of Aberdeen. We just want to tell everyone to come out, have a great time. It's a free entry event. We have items for purchase and the mermaids are bringing their very large tank this year. So again, the time is August 24th at Aberdeen Festival Park. The run starts at 8 o'clock in the morning, and the bash starts at 10 a.m. to follow. This is this year's run medal. I've designed myself every year, the run medal. It is seven inches long and five inches wide. And for those runners who did do our run since COVID, we were the first run in person during COVID in Hartford County. If you've done it for five years or more, this is our mythic medal. I'll turn around. This is our mythic medal. And if you've run our run for five years, whether it was virtual or in person, you get one of these. So, okay, have any questions? So, to repeat, so everybody doesn't miss it. The date is August the 24th, which is Saturday a week. Saturday a week. A week, yes. And everybody is welcome. Everybody is welcome. We want everybody to come out and have a good time and just celebrate. We have raffle baskets, vendors. We have our food trucks this year, our 410 empanadas. It is the Anani's pretzel truck. We have quince ice, which is a lactose free ice cream truck. Interesting. And then a local catering company called Mason Intimate Catering, and they have a special menu. We wanted to include the community. So everybody who registers and brings their race bib in to totally baked by Tay, which she currently is in scoops, will be moving into Mason into make catering. She's going to give a 10% discount and the new the new store that opened up called the Fizzy Bubble Back Lab. If you bring your race to them, she's giving a 10% discount as well. We have the community that comes out, the churchville charm cheerleading squad comes out. We have the crab kickers this year that comes out. We're stationing two professional mermaids along the race to the city. We have the community that comes out, the churchville terms cheerleading squad comes out. We have the crab kickers this year that comes out. We're stationing two professional mermaids along the race course this year to tear on our runners. It's just a fun family event. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Moore. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. Hi, Laurie Dawson, 627 West Bell or Avenue. I'm actually speaking on behalf of my mother, Nancy Raymond, of 135 Law Street. We'd like to extend our sincere appreciation to the Director of Public Works, Kyle Torrster, and his team for addressing a stormwater draining issue in the 100 block of South Law. In the extreme heat of July, the public works crew installed another storm drain to redirect standing water in the area. This project was very much appreciated by all those who live and park their cars in what was once a moat in the spring and summer and then would turn into an ice rink in the winter. So again thank you public works for helping us with that. I would also like to thank you for addressing the activity center. It's been on my mind for a long time. It's been on the mind of many of the seniors, members of the Golden Age Club for a long time. So thank you for addressing that. I was also going to finish my remarks about the comprehensive resounding but I think that has been adequately covered with the many good remarks from other members of the city. I would just like to add my feelings that yes, I think we might need a do over on this using more current data and that's not rush this. Thank you, Ms. Hevy. This is Anne again from 16 Hunts von St. Speeing of the all the rain in the water, we have that runoff behind my house. And I've talked about it before, where it was higher on my side because they built it up. And then the neighbor right behind me is low and floods his house all the time. But it seems like if it's going to be there, it needs to be dug deeper because erosion is starting to happen. And it's getting the dirt itself. Sediment fills up the stormwater basin and it makes it so it's less effective in draining. Gotcha. Yeah. It almost flew, it almost flew to their kayak in draining. Gotcha. Yeah. It almost flew. It almost flew to their kayak that was beside their house and they weren't home. So what number you add and what number is the flooding? I'm at 69 Swans. 69. And directly behind me and several people, all my neighbors that on that side of the street. For those. This door property comes back and then there's a drainage swell and then the other properties on the other side of swell. Yes. Okay, and I don't I don't know their numbers got it's quite obvious I haven't heard anyone say that they want to rush this I think everyone has said that they're they think some good things can happen from this they think this is something that could be very positive for the community but we need to have that. I think that's said that they think some good things can happen from this. They think this is something that could be very positive for the community, but we need to have data to ensure that this is done right. And I think it would be a disservice to everyone here that has come out and speaking, because I haven't heard anyone that has said that they just want to rush this through to kind of vote for the, for not to vote for the London camp and Montgomery amendment. And I think that's all I wanted to say on that. And I thank you, Chia, hands who wanna see if you guys wanna have it so that we can have a replay like is everyone in supportive of a replay? Okay, who doesn't believe a replay is necessary? Okay, well I think that kind of goes and shows what the people at least feel and hopefully our government will take the people's considerations into consideration. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Clark. 156 post road. The Abel on. Just echoing I believe in the city council. I believe we can make this town wonderful. It can become a destination. We can be whatever happened with BRAC. But please consider the people that live here, how we feel, our historic districts, where the area needs to be redeveloped. I think trained development is awesome. We can really, you know, with COVID, it's a different world, but, you know, we don't need more rows, we need more trains. We can do something. So please consider how we feel, our concerns about our house, our taxes, our run-off, everything that happens. Okay, you guys are great, thank you. Thank you. Bob Hartman, 226 Paradise Road. Change the subject a little bit. Schools about ready to start. I've got young individuals living in my neighborhood now. I'm one of the oldest ones in my neighborhood. And I want to see each one of them get up every day and go to school and come home safely. I think we need to watch the streets, the kids on bikes and whatever, whatever they're driving or riding is a thing. Also, I heard something today that, I haven't heard anything in the paper, anything else. We had an explosion up at the stadium. And one of our moors got damaged. Did our employee get hurt? You know, hold on, hold on, hold on. Do you know anything about an explosion associated with the stadium? There was an explosion in Abingdon. No. House blew up. No, this was with fireworks up at the pond up there. Our employees were cut and grass, and the more was damaged. We don't have any information about that. OK, I mean, I heard it today, and I says now I wanted to find out, you know. I mean, these are our employees. If that happened, they weren't our employees. Okay. But even still, it's a safety concern. Okay. Because we've got kids that play ball and they go up there. So if the explosive ordinance didn't go off for the 4th of July and it went over to the pawn, the sentiment pawn, and then they were up there cutting grass or whatever. You know, it is concern because kids go and they play and they go everywhere. So. Thank you, Mr. Harman. Anybody else from public comment? Now, I'll call public comment to a close. I'm going to take a moment of mayoral approval, because we have such a captive audience here. Amtrak is a federally chartered organization. They control the right of way between Route 40, basically, and APG wrote on the other side. There's a train station in Aberdeen at the end of Route 40. Bus stop right there. Amtrak has a train stop that mispeeders very diligently reported on the ridership of the mark, which is the metropolitan area rail something. See, rail sea. And then, and it has been down over the years. The ridership on the rail has been going down. But Amtrak is doing a project at the Aberdeen Rail Station. Amtrak, the federally chartered institution, got federal money from the what they call ARPA, what we call lovingly Biden bucks. They got an appropriation of money to do accessibility improvements at the Aberdeen Rail Station. Okay? Accessibility improvements in this case means they're going to leave the existing rail building, the little train station we could go into by your tickets, and closer to Baltimore, between there and Baltimore, they're going to add 1,050 feet of rail platform. Visualizing 1,050 feet is basically from here to the Aberdeen Rail Station. It's a long way. 1,050 feet of new platform. Because right now, the platform that's there is only two train cars long. When you take the train up from DC, you've got to go all the way up to the dining car in order to get off. They make you get up when you come to Aberdeen. They say, everybody who's getting off an Aberdeen go to the dining car. It's going to be 1,050 feet longer, they're going to build a three story, two elevator stair building to transport people from one side of the train tracks to the other side of the train tracks so people won't have to climb up the concrete superstructure or go in the toilet underneath. You know I'm talking about the tunnel. Yeah that's what I meant. Okay so Mrs. Grover and I had a great telephone call with the representatives of Amtrak back now a couple of months ago and I said how much is this going to cost? And they said 30 or 50 million dollars and I said which is it? 30 or 50? And they said it doesn't matter. It's fully funded. And I said, what? And so this is happening. Okay, this is not speculative. This is not all that might happen. There's 60% design complete. Mrs. Grover got a report last week. They showed the design. It's 60% design complete. We pleaded with them to come to this body so that this community can see these changes are coming. They're going to do this project. It's supposed to be done by 2029. Not like pie in the sky might be done in our lifetimes. Supposed to be complete by 2029. The money has been allocated. The design is 60% design complete. It's going. This is exciting. This is tremendous. Like, this is an opportunity for Aberdeen and the greater area here. So the state is doing this TOD plan. The reason they're doing a TOD plan is so other communities will copy Aberdeen's plan. That is not an exaggeration. That is not an exaggeration. They have on their website. Aberdeen is the model plan to emulate. If you Google Maryland Department of Planning, go to the website, it says Copy Aberdeen. Council. When you, members of the community who are so interested in the TOD, go to read about the TOD and you go to the City of Aberdeen's website and click the link for the TOD plan, the 37-page document, the TOD master plan. It doesn't say we're doing this because of BRAC. It says we're doing this because we're great and coincidentally BRAC is happening at the same time that we're planning this. That's what it says. It doesn't say we're only doing this because of BRAC. It's great. It's a really exciting time and they're going to build that while we're still alive. It's very exciting. Now, because you're still paying so much attention to me, the reason they're doing these improvements is to make trains travel faster from Washington DC to New Jersey. And so as part of that, they're adding a new rail bridge over the Susquehanna River at a billions of dollar cost. That's happening coincidentally, and they're adding a fourth rail line. It was a press release about Amtrak, how they're replacing the Frederick Douglas tunnel in Baltimore, which is the slowest problem with the Amtrak line right now. They're gonna fix that and it's gonna make it faster all up and down. Now, I took a train for the first time, the last week of the Cherry blossoms in DC. First time, it's great, it's great. I don't know if I'll ever commute by train, but it's really cool to have this opportunity, a $50 billion ish, a federal investment, a thousand and 50 feet from where we're sitting, to improve our community, and we need to take advantage of it. We need to take advantage of it. Councilman McCummer and I talked about modifying our master plan, the regulating plan from 2012 that's referenced this morning. We're going to put our heads together. The city is going to take steps to update that to 2025 with collaboration with our friends at the State of Maryland's Department of Planning and Transportation. And I need you to not only be involved today, I need you to be involved through that process. I need you to provide feedback on the TOD plan as we grow through these steps, not what it's being adopted. Okay? I need it. I need to say, we don't like the idea of five-story buildings. Or we like the idea of four-story buildings. Or we don't think we want trained traffic to come to visit, say, delicious bakery or Frank's pizza. We don't want we want trained traffic to come to visit say delicious bakery or to Frank's pizza We don't want those people here. I need that feedback because otherwise all we can do is follow the plans that we paid for $140,000 for the comprehensive plan consultant that has incorporated in there updates to our TOD We're doing the stuff that we've been talking about doing for three years and if you want to come to our meetings I love the feedback. I love it. But not the day it were voting on it. We need it. The other, we sent mail. We sent two pieces of mail at every house in Aberdeen when the appeal for, or when the zoning opportunity came up and then when the ordinance was done. Every house in Aberdeen got that. We want to communicate better. So we need the feedback before today. So if you have feedback, call us and email us and we can make tomorrow better. Thank you. The council, we have the legislative agenda is next on the agenda here with letter J. We have some amendments to deal with. Council President Haive, I think the plan forward on this is to take the amendments one at a time and then to act on them for members of the public the way this works. The ordinance that was introduced is in the format that's published on the city's website and has been published on the city's website since it was introduced on June the whatever in totality. Since then, the council members have individually and collectively worked together on making amendments to the draft ordinance. What's going to happen is they're going to a member will present his amendment or her amendment and say, I'd like to take up amendment number one or number two, number three, whichever. There will be a request for a second. So that would be a motion to adopt the amendment to the package. There will be a second to take up the discussion on the amendment. Then discussion can occur and then the amendment will be acted on whether adopted and incorporated into the total package or not and will take each of the amendments that a council member has to offer and then at the end we will take up the total amended package for consideration for adoption and then if there are three votes out of the five of us up here then the ordinance will be adopted at that point as amended or not. Is that clear, council? Can I say all the right words? Okay. So are there any amendments for the ordinance before us, council? I have an amendment, Mayor. Yes, sir. Amendment number one, proposing that property number one remain unchanged at the current B2 level. I know you submitted this and I know I have this. Make sure I find it. Page 32. Page 32. Thank you, Councilman Linda Camp. You're welcome. Great. Okay, so we've got a motion to adopt amendment number one from Councilman Linda Camp and Councilman Montgomery regarding 7.9 Westpuller Avenue. Is there a second on the amendment. Is there any discussion? I have discussion. Yes, sir. The prevailing reason, at least for me, why I want the property to stay as it is as B2. After listening to the public comment tonight, and also looking at the documentation, I didn't hear any compelling evidence that it was necessary to upgrade from B2 to B3. It did not sound like the business owner was suffering in any way when it came to the current B2 level. Secondly, we heard a lot of discussion tonight in what I'd like to call character of the community. And I believe that going to be three highway commercial district, I do not see that area or West Bill or Avenue as a highway. So for those two reasons and in the third reason as some of our folks that talk tonight shared it is surrounded by R2 and by B2. So I think it's in the best interest of the community and the character of the community to not go forward with B3 and to leave the current zoning at B2. Good. Thank you. Any more discussion? Mayor. Sir. Thank you. I want to thank the council members for providing these well in advance and having us time to look at and review them and consider them. To start off, I want to thank everyone for the comments and everything tonight in their feedback. And however this plays out tonight, I encourage you all to reach out to any one of us for more dialogue and conversation about why we made the decisions we made tonight because this is a lot. And this is a process that has taken probably three years from the time that we started with the comprehensive plan to the point of if the properties being before the planning commission over a year ago I've reviewed these properties for a while as the liaison to the planning commission heard that feedback at the planning commission public hearings as well as have talked to Host of people in the room tonight and lose not in the room on these properties specifically related to this property You won't find someone else to who's more supportive than this council in preserving historic preservation along West Bell Avenue particularly between Middle-Soon Road and the downtown area if you look at the map of the city and you drove through our downtown area That's where all of our beautiful most are beautiful historic homes are and those should be fully preserved And if you found a property between there and there that wanted to be re-zoned to anything else, you probably wouldn't see the support on this council to do that. Speaking specifically to the Leap Power washing site, everything from Millison Road up on West Bell Avenue to 95 is either R3 or B3, except four. This one small piece of property that is currently already developed and it is surrounded by R3 and adjacent to B3. The Hillside Terrace Apartments would qualify for B3 zoning and Fairbrook and Aldenham's currently R adjacent to B3 zoning today. So this would be a consistent zoning classification to the area and would not result in an island of zoning by itself. And would leave the beach specifically to the downtown area of Aberdeen where it has always historically been. So with that, I would oppose to the amendment. Any more discussion before we proceed to vote? Madam Clerk, can you call the roll for the adoption of amendment number one? Council President Hyde? No. Councilman Unnie Camp? Aye. Councilman Montgomery? Aye. Councilwoman Ridgeley. No. With only two votes, the affirmative, the motion fails. Would you have second amendment? There was, Mayor. Amendment number two. Yes, sir. Amendment number two, we outline 17 properties based on the exhibit A, numbers 30 through 46. They're a long post road. And we recommend that the current R3 zoning be downzoned R2, actually per the planning commission's discussion in April of 2024. When we received this ordinance, as the mayor said almost two months ago, I took the time to listen in to the planning commission session. And there was a last minute recommendation that was presented. And my belief is, is that the commission, given that they had deliberated on this initiative for quite some time, wanted to move on and push this to the council level, which I totally respect. But I did hear the chair, the vice chair, and the liaison support to these properties to be down zone from R2 to R3. I know where we are. R3 to R2. R3 to R2. Thank you. They had taken a trip to the community that had built maps for their commission to take a look at that. And they really believe because of the age of the homes There was not a need to up zone into our three So having read that and talk to some of the planning commission members I figured that's one of the great things about We as a council having an opportunity to look at planning commission Recommendations and I felt like would be in the best spirit of The planning commission as well as our opportunity at our look to not let this idea go away and at least give it some consideration So for those reasons mayor of I'm recommending that amendment two for property 17 properties number 30 through 46, to be down zone from their current R3 to R2 per the planning commission's discussion. And so to clarify, the amendment takes the ordinance and changes the ordinance from recommending TOD to recommending R2 for these properties. Correct. Okay. Council, everybody understand what we're talking about? Yes, sir. Is there a second on the amendment number two? Second. Thank you, Councilman Linda-Camp. Any discussion on the motion to approve amendment two? None. Madam Clerk, can you call the roll to approve amendment 2, please? Council President Hyde. Aye. Councilman Leunicamp. Aye. Councilman Montgomery. Aye. Councilwoman Ridgely. Aye. Four votes in the affirmative. Amendment number 2 is incorporated into the ordinance. Is there a third amendment? There is, Mayor. Sir. Amendment number three proposes that all properties and exhibit a that are proposed for TOD corridor or TOD neighborhood be removed and they be placed on hold until a proper Upgrade to the current 2012 TOD master plan is completed I believe that a thorough assessment of how this community has changed over the last 12 to 13 years is not only important for us as decision makers, but would help the planning commission as well as make sure that we uphold the character of council meetings that when this TOD plan was actually put together, I was in uniform at APG and I was involved in the BRAC move. And what I saw on the government side is well-meaning individuals that believe that building something would allow people to come. And you heard me make the comment if you build it they may not come. If you take a look at what happened to the cop property outside 22, and if you look at the gate property inside 15 gate, those are two examples of individuals companies that had a lot of data available to them. And they were very assured that those properties would be filled because of the Brak move. If you take a look at, as it was mentioned tonight, the property outside of 22 and the gate that's inside 715 gate, 715 gate is probably at about 25% capacity and Certainly the COPD property is well below that. I Only share that with you because if there's ever a need to re-evaluate a plan for a city And you have examples of areas of well-meaning developers who did the analysis and paid a lot of money to invest and bet that they were going to be filled. It didn't happen. So I would not want that to happen to our city. I would not want that to happen to our citizens. And quite frankly, I think the council, the mayor, the staff, deserves data driven solutions with evidence-based details. We don't have that right now with our 2012 TOT master plan. As the mayor pointed out, yes, the main remnants of that plan could be very effective today. It's not really about BRAC. It's about where we were going to go as a city with the help of our partners in 2012 and 2013. But I really believe that in 2024, if we don't take the opportunity to reassess, reevaluate and see what other ideas we could explore to actually make our community better and our TOD more effective would be very beneficial to us. The last thing I would say to you is that when we went on our tour, you heard the mayor talk about a bus tour that we went on which was very good. As you all know nothing beats seem properties in person and having a chance to discuss. We were given a spreadsheet that all of us received which was basically a synopsis of the properties with details. On that table sheet based on the department of planning and community development recommendations I quote the department table sheet based on the Department of Planning and Community Development recommendations, I quote, the department recommends the property be re-zoned to be consistent with the TOD regulating plan in chapter 235 of the development code. Now with the help of the mayor, I learned a lot. I didn't realize there was also a pretty big portion in Article 235 of the code. When I went to the code, the TOD regulating plan is a one-page document with a picture of the TOD on it. On the west side of that picture is well filled in detail of a regulating plan on the east side of that picture it's blank. That plan is about 12 years old one year younger than the actual TOD master plan. My point is this is an opportunity to take plans that actually are updated that are helpful to our planning commission and more importantly helpful to our community. I believe I want to provide the tools for our planning commission and for our council and our city to make the best decisions for our community. And I'm a big proponent of TOD. I just feel with old data and with new ideas that have come up over the last 12 years, we're selling ourselves short if we don't give that opportunity. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Was that a motion to adopt? That was a motion to adopt. I have a comment. Hold on, hold on. Is there a second to adopt amendment number three? Yes, I second it. Okay. You want to talk now? Sure, okay. I have a comment. Your turn will come after the amendment. So he's making a second and as part of his second he gets to make comment. Then it'll be open for discussion. Councilor Levin can. So again, I second this. This is a neighborhood. I've been here 63 years, be 64 soon. It's been a neighborhood ever since I've been here. And I understand TOD, but I don't understand why we'd want to displace a whole neighborhood for a TOD. And I heard the mayor's great talk about the train, and I believe it's going to happen. But it might not be able to election coming up and things could change real quick. So I say we wait, we get a plan and then we visit this again later. Thank you. Thank you for the second councilman rigidly. You may begin the discussion. Yeah, thank you mayor. Just briefly, I believe the case for TLD has been made. We all know that BRAC was a disappointment, but that was not the reason for the TLD master plan. We have an opportunity to have a sizable investment of $50 million and no one has been more vocal up here than me about the east side and about those neighborhoods over there. So there's no reason why we cannot move forward and simultaneously go forward with the TOD while updating our TOD master plan. I don't believe we should trade one in for the other. We can do both. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. There is any more discussion on amendment number three? Mayor. Sir. Thank you. I certainly want to echo the thoughtful considerations from the sponsors. However, I'm also going to speak in opposition to the amendment for the following reasons. Data, and it was a big point of some of the concerns that are out there, but I wanted to provide a little data and to the nearest book a lot to this already, but Aberdeen's AMTRAC, March training service, has 19% of overall ridership along the northeast quarter. So we're talking New York to DC. We also have seen with Amtrak included an over 11% increase in ridership at the Aberdeen station since 2018. That's factoring in, you know, years lost from COVID that declined in some of the commuting to and from work as we've seen post COVID. Additionally, transit is not just trains, but it's also other forms of public transportation. The Aberdeen MTA and Harvard Transit Link Service stop at the Aberdeen train station is the busiest by far in this county over 8,000 years a month at that location. In addition, when we talk about TOD, we talk about, you know, redevelopment, accessibility and occupancy. We worry about occupancy. When we talk about higher intensity development, potentially on certain sites. We look at other apartment projects or mixed use products here in Aberdeen. If you look at recent developments at Beard Hill and Upper Rip and Stadium, you see that those projects are at 90% occupancy of the completed product today. Indicating a higher need for housing for those who are either using 95, using our train service or bus service to get from point A to point B. When you go up there today, you can see license plates from all over the place. I've been up there, I have visited the site. These are young professionals primarily moving in to the Aberdeen area who are making high income jobs. Additionally, the Aberdeen area by the train station is designated short trip opportunity area. This is through the state of Maryland. These are locations where short non-motorized trips, such as walking, is likely to occur based on the opportunity for housing and factors such as local population employment and importantly transit. And this could be maximized by the redevelopment into TOD. I've mentioned the comprehensive plan already and other people have as well. The comprehensive plan was developed with public input over multiple years and then approved by this council in 2022. And looking at that study which we paid for just a few years ago indicated the desire for future use on its site as mixed use meaning commercial, meaningful, residential above or in proximity to each other. This is based off of recommendations from the Maryland Department of Planning, our planning professionals and also one can read the consultants who do this for a living. And worked with us over an extended period of time to review current factors when making the recommendations on future land use. Additionally, the properties in the area will not impact water capacity in other areas of the city. They are required every project that comes into this city to pay an adequate public facilities Ornans fee meaning any improvements to the system to meet their Project is paid for by the developer not paid for on the back of anybody in this room unless they're a developer So the C's capacity is able to support growth if the developers pay for it and if we have the accurate supply our system. So it was really that we have 3,500 units in the system. That is correct. The thing is also going to potentially invest millions of dollars if we don't get outside money to make improvements to the system where there are shortcomings now that rightfully need to be addressed. And last thing I will end the comment to the point of the properties on Route 40. This ordinance includes dozens of properties on Route 40 to be redeveloped to TUD because we do want to see that redevelopment on the Route 40 corridor as well. So with that I will be voting in opposition to the amendment. So any more discussion on amendment number three? Hearing no more discussion on amendment number three, Madam Clerk can you call the roll for the adoption of amendment number three? Council President Hyde? No. Councilman Lennonick? Aye. Council President Hyde. No. Councilman Nguyen-Kamp. Aye. Councilman Montgomery. Aye. Councilwoman Ridgley. No. Two votes in the affirmative. The motion fails. What's the next amendment you have, Council? I have amendment one under consideration of the copped properties located off of fruit 22. These properties were a part of the application process, but forward by the property owners and you've heard a good presentation on that tonight. The properties are currently ZIMB3 with the recommendation from the planning commission to go to IBD. This site has been inactive for well over a decade, other than one site currently, one building currently in full use, one in partial use, and one structure not in use at all with undeveloped land on the site. I for one also agree with Downsman Linda Camp when it comes to the fact that we don't want to see a ton of new Apartments across the city and they should be targeted to where they are located to maximize both the use of public services and Transportation but as well as not being isolated to one area that doesn't have that accessibility Which would be of a cop site if it were to all become apartment units to today, that's only the residential unit that is available on the site. Additionally, we do have an empty building on the site that I hope we can work collaboratively with the property owners and the city on a future use of that structure, but also work with them and with the community partners on the uses of the undeveloped parts of the site. So with that, Mr. Mayor, I would move amendment one that I have put forward on the cost problem. I'm looking on the emotion to introduce amendment number one from Council President Hayab regarding the cost property. I'll second it. A second from Councilman Rigely, any discussion on the amendment? I have a discussion, Mayor. Sir, I'm not in favor of this amendment. I currently believe that the current zoning provides enough latitude for any developer to go ahead and do what they need to do. We had a recommendation, my understanding historically historically when the ripkin property was actually built and it was asked that it be IBD. If you take a look at that ripkin property right property that the current B3 zoning will fit quite nicely. And based on these future options, I think it would be better for our community as well as our partners at the county and the state and our city to allow that option to go forward. So moving this to IPD at this time would be in my judgment premature. Thank you, Councilmember McCummer. Any more discussion on the motion? Council, we received the request through the comprehensive rezoning process to amend the zoning for the copped property for your recollection coming out of Aberdeen Proving Ground. If you're driving out of the 22 gates on your right, driving into Aberdeen Proving Ground, it's on your left. There's three constructed structures on the site of about 100,000 square feet each. One of them is vacant, never been completed. The other two are completed, partially occupied, or one of them may be completely occupied, the other one partially occupied, which were constructed in order to take advantage of the flood of wealth that was gonna come to the off base office community as a result of the base realignment enclosure way back in the 2010 BRAC that concluded in about 2013 or 2015. And a lot of developers lost a lot of money by trying to take advantage of that wave of federal money that was going to come and land from Picatinny, New Jersey here in Aberdeen. The merit property we called lovingly, the 96,000 square foot office building that is now the home of the University of Maryland, Upper Chesapeake had one building built on that site and had I think six or seven more buildings of the same size on that site. The cop property has these three structures on the site and has plans for a handful more that were approved by the City of Aberdeens Planning Commission and City Council way back when that was built. We also had the field side commons property, the field side commons property being that which was going down, long drive towards the baseball stadium. Now it's a monster class, a office self storage facility, right? These developers lost their shirts on these I The the copped crew doesn't know this yet But we've been talking the city of Aberdeen's been talking state delegate Andre Johnson's been talking with the State of Maryland, Harvard Community College, the Harvard County government trying to come up with a play to instead of this site becoming stack townhouses or apartments or some other residential dwelling use outside of the military installation, which still employs 25,000 civilians and 700 or so soldiers on Aberdeen's western border. He's from Border? Yes. Western Border? Yes, depends on which way I'm facing. The border? Yes, the border. On the other side of 22 is still the economic driver of the region, of Maryland, of all the things that our future are vested in. All the restaurants that we want, all of the retail that we desire to have is the people build these buildings and put these businesses in to serve the defense contractors, DOD civilians, and the 700 or so soldiers with the subordinate unit that are still here. Where am I going with this? The site that we're talking about at COP has a high value to the future of the city of Aberdeen. And I don't know what the future of that is. But if the goal of changing the zoning from B3 to IBD is to permit staff townhouses, which is the only difference between the townhouses between B3 and IBD, I don't know exactly what we're trying to do. Is there any more deliberation on this before we vote? So what we have before us is the Council President, Adam Hyde of Amendment number one. Any more discussion? Madam Clerk, please call the roll for adoption of Amendment one from Council President Hyde. Council President Hyde. Hi. Councilman Linda Camp. We're between a rock and a hard spice here. So we hear that, you know, the government might do it. They might not. they might not. So right now, copyright now if you wanted to could put apartments there two day. You could put the shovel in the ground today and build apartments. But there's no market for that right now because interest rates don't permit or turn on. Yes, sir, forgive me. Thank you. So I'm totally against apartments. I am for whom ownership. Do I think that a work count houses an IBD on the cop property? Probably not. But they're giving us their word. I don't usually take the word of a contractor. But I will this time that they're willing to work with the community. If they go back on their word, then I'll probably never do any type of business with them ever again. So for that reason, I'm gonna say yes. Councilman Montgomery? No. Councilwoman Ridgley. Yes. Is that three votes, the affirmative? Three votes, the affirmative. The amendment is incorporated into the primary legislation. Is there any more? Is there a motion to adopt the package of the zoning before us? So moved. Council President Haib, what I want to make sure that we're speaking the same language. Sure. You just made a motion to adopt the amended ordinance 24-014. That is correct. That includes the second amendment from Council members. I'm going to keep a Montgomery and the one amendment from me. Good. Are there any other amendments to take up before we act on the package? Hearing none, Madam Clerk, forgive me. I have a motion. Is there a second on the motion to adopt the amended ordinance? Second. A second from Councilwoman Ridgley. Any more discussion on the motion to adopt the total package of ordinance 24-014 has amended? Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Councillor President Hype. Aye. Councillor Mellanda camp. No. Councillor. Council President Hype. Aye. Councilman Lennon-Camp. No. Councilman Montgomery. No. Councilwoman Ridgley. Aye. Because it's important that we do something on this, I'm going to vote in the affirmative. Three votes, the affirmative, the motion passes, the ordinance is adopted. Council, can we take a five minute break before we come back for the rest of the agenda? Sure. Council, can we take a five minute break before we come back for the rest of the agenda? You don't have to leave, you can stay seated or you can leave. We will be back here in five minutes. So what you'll see in your agenda packet is a bunch of information. I included as much information in this so that you and the public could see what we're doing on this, I'm pretty excited about it. You may recall the city of Aberdeen purchased 22 Howard Street, the former Longer Mat Building right the corner, Festival Park, Centennial and Howard Street right over here. We, since we purchased it, we have solicited it and we're still as of this moment, have not signed a lease with Watch Tower Brewing, but I understand we're very close to signing the lease of Watch Tower Brewing to fit out the building for a brewery. And what you see before you is a memo to the council for the bid package that we circulated, received, vetted and is ready for your approval to do the structural repairs on this project. The structural repairs consist of new walls, a new roof, new trusses, a new garage door, and then house wrap on the exterior to waterproof the building. The existing materials will be demolished, will be removed from the site, and will be given a broom clean building in condition to be handed over to the tenant. Some of the documents you'll see in your attachment are the addendum that we went back and forth with the bidders. We had three bidders on this project. One of them was Cascond Inc. who bid a total price of $314,995. The second was Frank J. Getner Construction that bid $497,995. And the low bid on the project came in at $272,200. This project is being funded exclusively by grant funds that we received from the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development, which is money that the governor appropriates into the state's budget and is approved by the legislature. So it is other people's tax money rather than Aberdeen tax money that's going to this project. And we believe that having vetted the contractor strider contracting aggressively on the scope of the project that they're taking on and their capabilities and other projects that they have developed that we will be able to get the job done under the amount that we have allocated, which is about $350,000, and for 272,000, we can do all the structural repairs and get the building watertight, safe, and order in that regard. So it's good that this is an opportunity. So, so you're aware for our procurement, if there is a procurement for construction services and the price of the construction services is greater than $50,000, it requires councilman to approval. Because this is $272,200. Of of course that's greater than $50,000 This is why I'm before you asking for your blessing on this project to begin if approved The month that the Tuesday following Labor Day, which I think this year is September the third September 2nd September 3, and then to be completed 120 days or less from then, which this year falls somehow on December 31st. And so, we hope to have in hand a dry new shell of a building delivered to us no later than the 1st of January to hand it off to the tenant to start their process of making their improvements and hopefully be nine months from there have an open operation. The reason I was late for this afternoon is I was meeting on site at 18 Howard Street where the Aberdeen Historical Museum is with the guy that operates and owns the Edgewood Creamery operation because we're trying to get them as part of the restore grant to open a retail ice cream shop in Aberdeen and there's been some hiccups with the restore grant and so we're trying to shop at 18 Howard Street for that as well, but that's not about this project, but that's on the other side of this block. Also happening in the same vicinity as 22 Howard Street we received a $100,000 grant for the exterior improvements for the public areas that is for the road that's called Centennial Lane that goes from the front corner to 22 Howard Street back to the alley and then turns down towards the back of West Bellar Avenue, it would say delicious to do a new pedestrian improvement back through there, including and not limited to electricity being run with conduit to go to lamps. That'll be similar to those in festival park to make that activated, activate this public money that we're allocating to this project by really making a cool thing. It's gonna be, it's very excited about this whole project. So with that, I'm looking for your approval council on awarding bid number 2414 to strare contracting the low bidder in the amount of $272,200. So moved. Thank you, is there a second? Second. Thank you, Councilman Ridgley. Is there any more discussion? Do we have any questions that we can answer? Mayor. Yes. Great. Can we under bid any? We have funding that was also put towards the acquisition of the site which has already been utilized. Do we have plans for the remaining funds since they became under bid for what we were budgeted for for the shelf fit out. Good question. So the shelf fit out. So what we intend to do is use the entire $500,000 plus $100,000 at this site. Because we also received separate from the $100,000 that's listed here, $100,000 for the exterior sidewalk pedestrian improvements and stuff like that. We intend to throw all of this money into this project. So this does the 272.2 gets me a building, watertight with a roof on it and house wrap. If this can be met, the next step is gonna be that we're gonna order HVAC systems totaling about $38,000 to be placed, two seven and a half ton HVAC systems on the roof. If there's still money after that and I don't know that there will be then we're going to side the exterior. If there's money remaining we're going to spend all the money that's been allocated on the project. It's just a first part of the fund. And so the reason we're doing it like this is so we don't run out of cash. We could have done all inclusive and then something could go wrong and then it'd be short. I'm sure. I think that we'll be well under the budget when we need to be and then we'll be able to make decisions as to how best allocate that money to ensure the viability of the building. So what could happen, we don't want to happen, watch Tower Brewing could sign a lease, they could start doing their fit out, then they could run out of money and we want the shell of the building that the city of Aberdeen Will still own to be able to be changed into a different use that could be productive for a different user down the road And so we're trying to do the landlord improvements that will be suitable for whether this tenant or a future tenant Good I got a bid in a second a and a second to approve the bid any other questions? Madam clerk, can you call a roll for approving the bid for strare? Council President Hyde. Hi. Councilman Linda Camp. Councilman Montgomery. Hi. Councilwoman Rigely. Hi Four votes the affirmative that bid is approved and we'll give them notice to proceed tomorrow. Mr. Torchery, you want to start on your budget amendments? Yes. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Before you have a request to amend the Water and Sewer fund. I have two line items. The first one is a line item to amend the water fund. Under our process equipment maintenance, we budgeted $30,000 this past year. Process equipment maintenance covers everything from the wear and tear and maintenance of the water treatment plant itself. In late June, our pump went out. We have three pumps and we've done some significant work to make repairs a couple years ago and those repairs have no longer are in a position where the pump can be further repaired. So we've worked with a particular vendor and that is to replace the existing pump that is currently there. In 2009 we ended up replacing the three motors and two pumps. The third motor, or the third pump was not replaced. The quote for that came in about just under $44,000. We're into the first month and of our budget year, so I'm looking to do an amendment out of our reserve funds. Our second item is under our capital funds for our sewer fund was approved a amount of $75,500 for a lateral camera launch retrofit. The camera itself is essentially a tracked motorized vehicle that travels up and down to sewer lines. And we ended up looking a couple years ago at the availability to what they use is called a lateral launch. So today our camera motorizes down and the operator can look up a lateral but can't really see beyond six inches, eight inches. So this device, we got a truck in a support system with cameras in it, with screens in it. And we take this device, which looks like a caterpillar, a big caterpillar, and it's got wheels on it, and it goes into the sewer pipe, and we slide it into the sewer pipe, and it crawls, taking footage from all sides. So we can see inside the sewer pipe or in the storm water pipe, there's a crack here, there's a ladder over there that we didn't have in our system. We don't know where that goes. And so we use this device to figure out what's in our system to track down problems so that we can repair them. So the device is non-functional now, and we need to replace it. And we budgeted for it. But when we budgeted for it, the vendor came back and said, actually, it's going to be $8,000 more than we told you it was going to be originally. And so the request is to increase that amount. Just the two items? Yes, that is it. In both cases, they would come out of our existing fund balance. The sewer fund. And the sewer fund. So one request is in there. Because these are enterprise funds, they don't have to go through the traditional op-bow ends up meeting a budget and a formalization. However, we've made it practice to see council approval as we're incurring these funds over this amount and this allows us to be transparent with you and our residents on these expenditures of funds. Is there a motion to approve the request for the two budget changes to support the wastewater operations? One is the water fund and one is the sewer fund. The process equipment pump is for the water fund and the cameras for the sewer fund. Thank you for the clarification. Council President Hayab, so moved. Is there any discussion on the motion? Excuse me, is there a second on the motion to approve the funding for these two items? Pro the memo. Second. Thank you, Councilman Montgomery. Any more discussion on the motion? Mayor. Sir. Thank you, Councilman Montgomery. Any more discussion on the motion? Sir, and just for the public's sake, the 75,000 requests is because we're only in the first month of the quarter that other things could come up throughout the year rather than just addressing a single project. Yes, exactly. And I prepared an amount showing how we expanded defunds they vary depending on what's happened. Yes, I'm good. Any more discussion? I have's happened. Yes, I guess. Good. Any more discussion? I have a question. Yes. So because I'm not mechanically inclined, my question is about the warranty. Is the warranty is just for certain parts of the contraption. Is that correct or the whole device itself? The warranties typically is covered for the device itself. So what's being replaced is just the pump system itself, not the motor. So, hold on, hold on. You asking about the camera? Camera. Oh, you have a warranty on your lateral camera? I believe there is a warranty on that. I think there's some of the entire camera. Yes believe there is a warranty on the side. I think there is a warranty on these type of works purchases. Yes. And that's a year. I saw one year. Yes. Okay. So that's on the camera. And so a lot of the components in this are guys in the street because they use them. They're their workmen's tools. and so they become experts in replacing components. And the reason that we're getting this piece of equipment instead of a competing one is because this has components that can be replaced of the device rather than having to replace the entire machine when it fails. I had that conversation with Josh Quessonberry. What is his role? Assistant? He is the Assistant Superintendent. Assistant Superintendent, I asked that question. So what are we trying to do with this? Why this one instead of that one? And he said, because there's a two conductor. So it's got two wires. And there's a different one has one. And the two conductors you can work on, and the other ones you can't and because they want to be able to repair these in the field that's why they want to go at this device Thank you throughout any more questions about the two items before you council Hearing none ma'am clerk any call the roll for approval Council President Hyde hi Councilman Linda camp Linda Camp. Aye. Councilman Montgomery. Aye. Councilwoman Richley. Aye. Four votes, the affirmative. That's approved. We're up to the updates and staff line item. Mrs. Grover, you want to begin? I will now. I'll make this quick. Several months ago, the City Council passed an amendment to the adequate public facilities ordinance. And in the city code, it's under the growth management chapter. So I prepare the request for qualifications that is available in the city's website for traffic engineering study services. And those will be closed in September, so I'll be having an announcement and hopefully an award before you in September. What's that for? Quess for qualifications. So request for qualifications is seeking specific traffic consulting firms in Maryland that know all the ash to standards for engineering, for design, for roadways, speeds that all of them conduct the traffic impact studies. In this case, we would be, it's like the interview process for picking the Aberdeen in-house traffic consultant. Yes, exactly. That would review the traffic studies on our behalf, paid for by the developer per APFO law. Exactly. And so we're gonna, as part of the request for qualification, it's gonna say, who on your team is qualified to do this? I haven't looked at it. And what work have you completed in the last four years? Good. Especially for municipalities and counties in Maryland. What qualifications do all of your team possess as far as preparing those type of studies? And ideally, we would get a handful of firms that were interested in working for us. And then looking at the qualifications, we would select one, and then they would be our vendor for this. So we will go through an interview process as well with Department of Public Work, City Engineer, myself, Kyle, and narrow those down. I hope that we get five or six proposals submitted with qualifications that we need and then we'll do interviews as well before we send them to you Very good, okay The other thing is you've heard me talk a lot about the 5.6 million dollars that we have been awarded through the US Department of Transportation We are now starting to get grant agreements from those different funding pots one of course is raised One was the other one was reconnecting communities and one was our federal earmark, Congressional and Directed Spending Fund. So we are starting to work through those grant agreements with the Maryland Department of Transportation and those other federal agencies. So I will bring you up to date on those, once those are executed by the mayor. That's all that I have. Great. Any questions? Council. Mr. Torscher, we got just a couple items last week. We were we Aberdeen and most of the side of Maryland dodged a bullet as it relates to this storm. I'd like to reach out and thank Mr. Steve Horn from Horn Construction and our state highway partners and as well as our public works staff members to facilitate the filling of the bags on West Baylor Avenue and I appreciate that effort. So thank you Mr. Horn. Also our project on Beards Hill is continuing as it relates to our sidewalk connectivity. The rains put a damper as it relates to the storm. There's a storm drain that has to be installed. Once that's installed, the contractor will be able to finish that up on Beards Hill. Also as an information, we had a pre-bit meeting on Robert's way construction to finish the waterline on Robert's way as well as to adjust an adjustment on Shirley Drive and doing this process for Robert's way phase one. is one we found a section of pipe where there was a constriction. So we hope to address that under this project. That project's out for bid. We had some contractors come to a pre-bid meeting last week and bids are still scheduled for the first week in September. Other than that, I believe that's all I have this evening subject to your questions. I don't have any questions. Councillor Gainne questions. Chief. Yes sir, a couple things. First of all I checked with Major Swain during the meeting and there's been no reports of any explosion at the stadium with landscaping equipment or any other type of equipment. So I don't know where that came from but If something up there happened it didn't report it to the police and if it was one of our DPW people involved Mr. Troyshire and I would have definitely found out about it. So I don't know where that came from. If you can find out for me, I can maybe reach out to them, find out what's going on. Second about tonight, we heard concerns about back to school and traffic and kids crossing West Bel Air safely. We do have eight crossing guards in their station along West Bel Air Avenue, and they do a very good job of getting our kids and our school buses across the street and add on the road. So I don't anticipate any issues with that this year. We've done pretty good every year. and lastly, there's reception and it may be real that we do see an increase of homeless people in Aberdeen. We're not sure why or what the calls is, but we have taken a different approach and Mr. Mayor, you have all this information already. I just wanted to say it out loud tonight so people understand what we're trying to do. We're not trying to resolve the issue through enforcement. It could be knew that doesn't work. So we've partnered with University of Maryland, Upper Chesapeake, Mental Health People, where we have a person assigned to the police department and we are, we are approaching it through a mental health and recovery type of initiative where we are going out and proactively reaching out to individuals to see who we can help, who is willing to maybe allow us to help them with their mental health issues or their addictions so we can get them in recovery or get them the right, put them on the right track where they can find adequate shelter in the future and take care of some of the issues that are very complicated. We're also working with county government through the Department of Community Services to try alternative ways to alleviate this problem without using, like I said, enforcement issues because they don't work. We've got to find ways to help these individuals through professionals who knew how to deal with mental health and recovery. And so it's in the efficacy stages right now. Mr. Mayor, you have the plans. I'll keep you updated on how it works. Maybe we can reach a few people and help them out and find shelter for them, or maybe we can reach a few people and help them out and find shelter for them or maybe we can get them trained or be able to maintain a job to help themselves get out of the positions they're in so Stay tuned. I'll keep you informed on where we're at and what kind of progress we're making and That would take care of that Very good. This is hard. You want to provide an update? Good evening, Aaron Council. I'm surprised you didn't mention your event this Saturday, correct? The public safety event. I didn't ask. I know you would. So the police department has their public safety event in the park. Great time to interact and meet some police officers, touch their cars. I think canine was there last year as well. I'm not sure how much the chamber's going to be on. Know that by tomorrow to let you know. But that is taking place 10 to 2. I think we have 16 different departments, local, state, and federal coming out. OK. And then of course after that, the following Saturday, we've got the Mermaid event. I'll be out there first thing in the morning. The sad part is all these people back here that are willing to support and love Aberdeen everything. I would love to see them help volunteer. Main Street's looking for an advisory committee board right now that I've got a try to establish. So anybody's listening to this, that was in this meeting tonight, I want to volunteer, I want to help out Main Street make Aberdeen beautiful. Please email me at... Oh, make Aberdeen more beautiful. More beautiful, very lovable. V horn at AberdeenMD.gov, a call city hall, and I can talk to you on the phone. But we got great events coming up that we need volunteers for. After our mermaid event, we have our great big October fest coming up on July 21st. Week before that, we have Shred Fest. Two weeks after that, we have our October event, which is our motorcycle ride and our cornhole tournament, which is coming up and then that we ran at the year with our Christmas Street. So we could always use volunteers and we've got so many loving people in Aberdeen that want to see us do better. Call me. We love to have you. I'd have fun. That's all I have. I have a question, Mark. Yes. This one I noticed on the Chamber of Enths, August 27th is a coffee chat. Where is that going to be located? We're going to try to hold that at scoops. Okay. Thank you. I haven't confirmed that yet. So that's why you put this in. Ms. Horn, what about your back to school event? August 31st. 31st. So I've reached out. Boys and girls, club have reached out to me. House Crossroads has reached out to me. We've got a DJ that's coming on site for some music and entertainment. It's coming together. We don't know what's looked like because we've never done one before. So all we can ask is the community to come out and you're going to try to film as much as much as possible. If we have some giveaways to give, we will do that. Freedom Lay has stepped up to offer some stuff to us. So again, first time doing it. Are you looking for any additional partners? I would love them. Okay. Just call me. Thank you. One more. Yes. I know you have the 24 September economic development award luncheon. You have a location. Is that going to be from 11 30 to 1? That's at the TB 3 event center. What are committees doing tomorrow? We have a strategic planning first thing in the morning from nine to 12. We, Sedan, and we pick the list of who we'd like to. Mr. Horn, do you know the time of the event? La, same as our always lunch. It's 11th or 11th or 11th. You want to clock? Great. Yes. That's it? Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to ask you to come in. I'm going to ask you to come in. I'm going to ask you to come in. I'm going to ask you to come in. I'm going to ask you to come in. I'm going to ask you to come in. I'm going to ask you to come in. I'm going to ask you to come in. I'm going to ask you to come in. I'm going to ask the comments you made. Everybody look around. How many people are here? I can probably name most of them, and they probably know who I am. Because this is the crew that shows up for meetings. Yes, ma'am. You called the public hearing for today. Everybody came to speak at the public hearing, and then you gave them a lecture for showing up at a public hearing and speaking because you scheduled the vote for the same day's the meeting. That was introduced at June 17th, I was here at that meeting. I messaged with like 20 second when it was discussed again because I had a family emergency. And then you scheduled a public hearing for the 12th and then got mad that people spoke at it because you scheduled a vote for the same day. You just discouraged the what, 50 people? 40 people over here to come back and talk again. The main goal is to get people more involved, not lecture them on when they get involved. I appreciate that. And I don't want to sound like an aunt. No, I'm not trying to stop. It sound like a jerk. But that's how I felt sitting there. And that's how people felt when we were out in the hall talking when we took a break. I regret that then, because the intention was to express how important it is for people to be involved for the three years we've been working on this. I'm sorry that that did not come across the way I intended it. It came across as how can I fix it? Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. started and I became more of a regular. And I discussed the problems that I had that didn't have anything to do with anybody else, just what I felt going on in the city. I don't know how to get people involved like that. I didn't do it forever. I didn't do it because I didn't have time. I used to run the wallfiles. I was working 80 hours a week. Then I used to work in Glenburni, running a restoration company. I was working 100 hours a week so I didn't have time. I don't do that anymore. I get it. So I don't know how to get people involved. I know how not to get them involved. I did. And that's by what happened tonight. Understood. I appreciate it. Thank you. Bob Hartman 226 Paradise on 22 Howard. I don't want that to be another fiasco for the city. Okay. It seems like every time we go and buy something, we give it away. And I'm tired of certain individuals who's got money, make more money. Okay. And they don't keep it here in the city. They take it with them. And I just think that we need to get a little smarter. I don't care if it's our attorney or whatever. But I would like to see the agreement with whoever you're going to put in there be presented to the citizens of Aberdeen before we sign anything. So we can get some feedback, okay? The museum. Who's paying for the museum to move to that to dilapidated building over there on Wall Street? You know, I mean to me is it's not big enough. And it's out of the way. If we're gonna have a museum, let's put it out where the public can see it. Not on a back street. If you wanna use that for a storage for the museum, that's one thing, but that's not where a museum should be. You're talking about that 1,500 feet, whatever they wanna put there at platform. I don't see how they're going to put that platform there. Because APG has a rail access, and if you put that there, that access is not there anymore. So now you've got another facility, the Department of the Army and the Department of Transportation. They don't get along. They can never agree on anything. So it's not going to be done in 29. That might be done in maybe 69, but it's sure ain't going to be done in 29. They talked about the key bridge being completed by the 28. They haven't designed yet. So they've got to tear the old part down. So I just don't see what the government and everything else, how it's going to work, and to get people's hopes up, it's just a sense of falsehood. I mean, it's just plain simple. We're living in today, okay? And we want to see things that we can actually see and complete, you know? For many years before Walmart came, we were going to have a shopping center. And how many years before, that was in the 60s when I was growing up. Nothing ever happened, okay? And, you know, I'm just saying, let's be realistic about these things, okay? And with a cop over there, you know, I'm just saying let's be realistic about these things Okay, and with a cop over there, you know Have we a sit there and explain to them that because we have a mulch area that they're not gonna be able to build within a thousand feet, you know, I mean to me is Let's be honest with people and up front and Maybe we can get something done here in Aberdeen. Karen Hibby, 634 Westpeller Ave. I will say that I am disappointed that the council did not choose to defer the vote on the ordinance this evening. It's not the public's fault that the vote and the hearing, the public hearing are so close together. These things are controlled by our code, they're scheduled by the city, not by the citizens. But what it did show tonight was that given the time, the opportunity, the notice, some information on what's going on, people do care. They did come out this evening to speak. And like I said, given the time, the opportunity. That doesn't always happen in this particular ordinance it's yes things have been in progress for planning and zoning and all these things for over a year. I attended almost every single planning commission meeting and I can only think of twice when the public was allowed to speak on these things. There was a public hearing that was very well attended. But in general, after the first meeting or so, there was no public comment allowed during these meetings. And I found that to be quite interesting because historically, it wasn't an official public comment meeting session, but when an issue was brought for us, people were allowed the developer or the owners, whatever. Did their thing and then residents were allowed to speak and ask questions. I have been to many of these meetings over the years. Somewhere along the line, that changed. And anyway, so it's late, I'm tired. You did say, how can we fix it? Well, near term, I don't know, I haven't checked the code exactly, but I think there is a way that you all can rescind what you did tonight, have a revote, and defer this issue down the road. And I'm not saying five years down the road, but enough time to take into consideration what people have said, and give them a feeling that maybe it was worth a while to come out and that you did listen to them. In the future, you could also check the code and see what you can do about allowing more opportunities for citizens to participate along the way. Go to a playing commission meeting and be able to ask a question, make a comment. And that doesn't always happen. I don't know why. And thirdly, just one comment about the upgrades to Centennial Lane and things to make the city better. There are so many vacant properties on West Bill or Ave. I don't know how I would not be induced to go down the side streets driving through Aberdeen, Main Street, seeing burnt out buildings still after two years still vacant and not fixed up. The pharmacy building has been vacant for over a year. And I don't know if we have to do something about West Biller Avs downtown too. Not just how to get them from the park to Westbiller ad where they're gonna say, huh, what's going on? You know, we have to look at things a little bit differently. But anyway, it's late. I'm sorry, I don't mean to offend anyone, but I guess I was a little bit offended tonight. So whatever. Anybody else for public comment? Hello, this is Julie Little, 713 Beards Hill Road. I just want to thank all of you for all of your hard work. I know the comprehensive re- rezoning and the comprehensive plan. There was a ton and ton of back work that had to happen for that. I know that there was a lot of moving parts and it's, you know, tough to make some of these decisions and I just wanted to let you know that I noticed that all of the work that all of you guys put in every day and I just wanted to thank you for all of your time That you guys you know the next fight is Definitions and code review yes, and I would love to help you with some of that called a debate not a fight They get that they get to pick on us for changing stuff and this is where the next fight happens if you wanted to change the code to Permit CCRC's or whatever it is that you were going to build that would be the opportunity to change that I would love that opportunity to work with you guys. I am on it. I will be there with a smile and you know I will help you guys imagine what can be. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else for public comment? Not seeing anybody get up for public comment so I'll call public comment to close. Business of mayor and council and liaison reports. Councilman Ridley, what's start? Thank you, mayor. I just have one item tonight. Excuse me. So on August 1st, I attended the MML housing symposium in Annapolis and the purpose of the conference was to discuss the housing crisis shortage in Maryland, which is at a 96,000 unit deficit. Maryland underproduces housing at a rate of 5,600 units per year. So there were panel discussions concerning the lack of housing coupled with the rising costs of housing rental units and sale prices. It has placed affordable housing out of reach for many people. So there were several presentations. First of all, the housing supply accelerator handbook, which is Governor West Moore's housing plan as a comprehensive study of the state of the economy in Maryland, which is basically stagnant. It grew just by 1.6 percent in the last year. The unaffordability factors are 99 percent of young people surveyed between the ages of 18 and 34 say it's harder for them to buy a home now than what it was for their parents or grandparents and 30% of those same young people are leaving the state of Maryland for that reason. The third is the need to have an increase in programs that provide more access to home ownership opportunities. And lastly, looking at these causes that create inequity and housing instability. So the study culminated into Governor West Moore's 2024 housing package, which include housing, expansion, and affordability act, the renters rights and stabilization act, the housing and community development financing act, and secretary of housing and community development, Jake Day basically advocated for Governor Moore's legislation encouraging the elected officials at the conference to translate those measures on the local level. But there was one presentation, actually two presentations, but this particular presentation presented some conflict for people that attended including myself. And the presentation was the ADU task force, the accessory dwelling unit task force. So from the definition that they gave at the conference, accessory dwelling units are basically separate structures that can be erected on a property, where a person can age in place, it can provide affordable, renter opportunities. where a person can age in place, it can provide affordable renter opportunities and for the owner, it can provide a rental income. So this course, they were chosen by the governor's office to create solutions for affordable rental housing with ADUs in mind and my gut tells me that they were possibly instructed by the governor's office to find solutions that did not involve any additional money coming from the state but that's just my gut feeling. So some of the recommendations that this task force came up with in their report, passed legislation mandating approval of ADU state, present some municipalities and localities, it's not legal. They did not want to mandate parking requirements for these structures. They did not want to mandate lot-size requirements. They also recommended to prohibit new and existing restrictive covenants in HOA communities. So if you live in an HOA community, the covenant or the accountability measures for that community would not be able to restrict an ADU being built in that community. They recommended limiting limiting impact fees. They wanted to include language in the legislation for new sewer lines. In my opinion, I feel as if that measure is somewhat intrusive. I did have the opportunity to get to the microphone and ask why there wasn't a component within this task force. Why didn't they create a component where local municipalities could look at areas within their cities that lacked investment and money from the state revitalized those areas that in turn would provide affordable rental opportunities or provide a pathway to affordable home ownership, not getting an answer as to why that was not considered within the town. opportunities or provide a pathway to a affordable home ownership not getting it as to why that was not considered within the task force. The last presentation that really impacted me was a presentation over Vialization in Cambridge, Maryland. So Ed Crosby and Gavin Wilford, where the employee spoke about Pine Street Realization Project. Pine Street apparently is an old historic district in Cambridge that lacked investment for years. It suffered from severe blight, and it had a lot of vacant lots. So initially the city would set aside $100,000 to support a housing initiative. And through a series of grants and partnerships they were able to come up with about 4 million dollars. And they embarked on demolition of old condemned structures. They embarked on new construction, hazardous material, embankment, and they rehabilitated those structures that could be salvaged. As an end result, 12 brand new homes were built. There were research resurfacing projects, installation of new underground utilities, new sites, and new and improved street life. I really enjoyed the conference. It was really enjoyed the conference. It was really an eye opener. And we'll see what happens with the proposed legislation for the ADUs in the next legislative session. Thank you, Mayor. Good, thank you. Councilor Lundercamp. Here's a couple things. Again, ordinance 24-0, 14. I was also disciplined. Like I said earlier, I believe we put the cart before the horse. And just follow my thinking here. So we just re-zoned a large part of Aberdeen. Now we're waiting, hopefully soon, to get the definitions of uses. Then we're going to go into the table of uses. So the zoning we just passed could change when we change the table of uses. So when should you get the definitions, table of uses, and then do the zoning? So now we're going to have to come back and we might have to revisit zoning, because we might change zoning. It makes no sense to me. School, we start fall sports on Wednesday so you'll see a lot of kids at the school, a lot of things going on. All right, you say sports? Sports, yep. And in the last two years we're busy with the school system. We've been doing EAP emergency action plan training. So it's working with churches and the whole school system. So you know what our churches are supposed to do if a young man would happen to have heat stroke during practice or a cardiac arrest, the things we have. What happens if you have a lightning storm, if you have an active shooter on school property, or an active shooter in Aberdeen. So it's a big form that we've been working on for the last two weeks. So hopefully, it'll all get turned in in next couple days. That's all I got. Thank you, Councilman Montgomery. Thank you, Mayor. On the 23rd of July, I attended the coffee chat at the screening bean. If you have not been to the screening being, Holly recommended it. I mean, beautiful owner, great super alternative to some of the other major coffee places that we have in Aberdeen and also applaud the Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce Board for their coffee chat program. It keeps growing. Every coffee chat that I've been, there's been more and more involvement of business people as well as people that may not be involved in business. But if you walk into a coffee chat, you hear a lot of discussion, a lot of chatter, people pass some business cards. And to me that's kind of the essence of our city, the kind of share and get to know each other. On the 4th of August, I attended the Eagle Court of Honor, along with the mayor, Norman Bergen, next door, troop A-20, got his Eagle Scout only about six minutes of the Scouts May. It was great to see him, his family, and everyone that came out in appreciation. Mayor, I would like to ask for you and I think I would take a look at the Aberdeen Heritage Trust recommendation that I give you. I can recent it. Or if it's not enough information let me know. I'd like to get that initial guidance to them. A post so that we can get that moving. How do you want to play that? Do you want to appoint them to the board, coincident with giving them the task? That sounds good. That our next meeting. Okay, super. Thank you. I'm going to have two points tomorrow. I'll be joining the Chamber Board for their strategic planning. As was already mentioned, I'm looking forward to kind of watching that and learning. And on Friday, I meet with Carl Manuel, the garrison commander at APG for the monthly meeting with him to kind of get an update on what's happening in APG as well as closer as a city. Thanks, Mayor. Great, thank you. Calcutta is out of high up. Thank you, Mayor. Quickly on the leaves on front, not too much overall, but for the city's planning purposes. This is now a good time next couple of months. Requests, and if we have any capital budget requests by the city to make to our Delhi Center for basically bond initiatives for the upcoming session. So if we do have requests, the sooner we get them to them, get the information moving, the better off we can be in potential funding in the governor's capital budget for FY 26 So I would encourage the powers that be if there's anything that needs to need state funding that applies to this typically things between You're 50 and $300,000 is typically where they're most likely to fund in You know for capital Let's work on those we get them ready for our house and senate members. Like in two weeks, when do you want to get them done? Ideally, if we had something by, after Labor Day mid September, that would be the most appropriate. We have time after that, but if we get it done in two weeks. The longer we postpone it, the longer it'll take to do. We can get that to them sooner, they can start to get things done. Good. Additionally, I want to thank everybody's work on this comprehensive process. It was a long time. There was a lot of back and forth. I think I've logged over four hours just this week on phone call. In text messages and emails, getting feedback not just from a lot of people residents and otherwise interested parties. This isn't as everyone has said to this process, there is a development code work. There is probably going to be a clean up conference award in the future on properties that we're considered tonight. So I encourage everyone to stay involved in the process. I'm going to go to Councilman Montgomery on the screen, make the grand opening. I look forward to checking out and a big coffee drinker, but I'm sure they got other things there and it's a great to have options of businesses in the downtown and a little bit along business corridor in the city. The Planning Commission will be meeting this week to discuss a right of maintenance to the development code as well as the number we drafted council and submitted over them relating to definitions and table of uses that is on the planning commissions that this wins. Lastly, I will say that in a different capacity, I'll be tending to make a conference from Wednesday to Saturday of this week. There is a course on municipal cooperation with county government relating to annexations, development and long term planning. I mean, a municipal incorporation, which has been a piece of legislation that MML has supported for a while as well as been sponsored by our delegates here in Hartford County, delegates Johnson and Johnson. So I hope to bring some feedback back from that course during the conference this week. And I would echo some of the comments from the mayor as relates to meeting with Secretary of Day, Harvard Community College, and others for the usage of the vacant structure on the Cobb's property. I believe it's public now. We should have a full conversation about how we can best work with the property owners and government entities and other interested parties to make that building a success not just a blend it gets torn down or Just becomes apartments in the future. So with that. Thank you all for your feedback tonight and have a good night We also learned tonight From Pete Dacey that they have a memorandum of agreement from the Friends of the B&O railroad station to acquire the Helton property Does anybody know anything about that? All I know is that it was something that worked out with Mr. Hilton prior to his passing and that the family was in continued conversation with the B&O Friends of the B&O Station. That's as far as I know I want to, but it's been a work and progress for quite some time. So if they have a memorandum of agreement then in Maryland that's treated as a contract and if they intend to do something on that site it would be who I think this body to understand what that is as we're looking at zoning decisions and definitions and table of uses I don't think that they would make it a park right if they were trying to do some development there and if it zoned M1 then they can't do the light commercial industrial or light commercial that one would like to see on a site such as this. How would you see approaching this? Do we have a liaison to the Friends of the BNO Railroad Station that we could deploy to get more information? I don't think we have one formalized. But we have had collective conversation between council and my Gumrie and myself. I think we leave in councilwoman originally as a relates to the Friends of the BNO. I know when we are having the initial conversation with this Ordinance that we have passed tonight was to come back to that Property as relates to making changes to the development code on Our end. Because I think the general consensus was that M1 wasn't the ideal usage in that area, and not compatible to the BNO station for long-term sustainability. However, doing it with enough protections and other changes in place, that it does limit the impact to, of course, the surrounding residential area. If it's the case that the friends of the Aberdeen B&O Railroad Station intend to go to the state legislature and get taxpayer money to purchase the property from the Helton's, I would think that it's something that we should be engaged in either through our elected officials who represent us in the state house or through the Friends of the Aberdeen B&O Railroad Station because my understanding is that these kinds of projects are not inclusive of Aberdeen projects and instead exclusive and would prevent the success of projects that the city might be interested in. And so it would be good to know what their vision is in terms of doing that whether through our elected officials or through the Friends of the B&O Railroad Station does anyone have a recommendation as to how we might get this information? In terms of what they plan on putting there on the property. Yes because it was purchased by a not-for-profit it immediately comes off the tax rolls. Well they had hired a consultant. And I believe that consultant had came to an EDC meeting because I was given a document by that consultant. So was everyone at that meeting about the various possibilities of how they plan on becoming financially self-reliant to keep the project up and it was about four or five different possibilities. I did place a copy in every once-mail box. Oh, very good. You may or may not remember. It's been several months or so. May or may not have checked it. It's been back. I got a lot of mail in my mouth. I did it in one of the times. I put it in every once-buck. Okay. All right, good. Mayor, can we just not make a formal row request correctly to the BNO friends from either you or the council? I'd be happy to be called in or the, yeah. I just get direct to the point of what you want. You guys will do that. Yes. OK. And I'll just add, while we're on the Botiation, the dedication of course was moved for the public sake if they haven't seen a raid to the 4th of October at 1030 rather than it would have been this past Friday because of weather. So at that year a calendar was for the dedication of the exterior structure that was completed just this past week. Council will Brown who's sitting right there didn't tell me he was coming to the meeting but since he's sitting right there he serves on the ethics commission. I'm going to appoint him to the planning commission. I have his resume. I'm going to circulate it at our next regular meeting. I'm going to make that recommendation. And so that's my only announcement besides the other announcements. The planning commission will meet this Wednesday, August the 14th. Here in the City Council chambers, the Council will have a work session on Monday, is that the case? It is our regularly scheduled one. At this point, I don't think we have. I will be absent, and so you want to cancel it? Probably the best of this time or something dramatic comes up Mr. Torrester and Mrs. Grover Chief Trabert. Do you guys have anything pressing for a meeting on Monday a work session If it's not pressing then we will without objection cancel the Monday work session Okay, you get that Mountler the on Tuesday August the 20th the Consultant man Rockiel will be back in town for the study meeting here at 6.30 p.m. for feedback on the implementation of the Main Street Urban Design. So if anybody has feedback, if anybody who was here tonight that has thoughts about the future of Aberdeens downtown or the TOD area, as we colloquially call it, it would be great to get that feedback at 6.30 on August the 20th. Economic Development Commission meets Wednesday, August 21st here in the Aberdeen City Council chambers and our next regularly scheduled Aberdeen City Council meeting is scheduled for Monday, August 26th at 7 p.m. You heard about all the great events that are coming up in the main street. I do want to address what Miss Casciri raised. I did get excited and I regret if I conveyed to anyone in Aberdeen that I don't want them to participate, especially when the public hearing is the same days of vote and I understand how that would be received as seeking to not have public engagement, and I regret the words that I used in that regard. I want more people involved all the time. I want more people like Miss Geary to show up to meetings and to volunteer to serve on our boards and commissions. I want more people to come to Main Street meetings. I want more people to get mad, to get angry, to get excited about the stuff that we're doing so that we can move together towards a more perfect city of Aberdeen. And the only way that works is if somebody comes to our meetings and yells at us and say, you're doing something stupid when we're doing something stupid. It does not hurt my feelings when people come to meetings and tell me that we're doing something stupid. Because sometimes, from time to time, I do stuff that's dumb. Mrs. Heavey comes and says, you're doing something dumb. You're not putting the stuff on the website where it should be. And I said, oh, that's smart. We'll do the smart thing. And so now we do the smart thing. And so it's very important. And I regret if I conveyed that to anybody. after today that the mayor's sorry for the words that he used and the tone that he conveyed and that he wants everybody to be involved, I would appreciate it. I can. I'd be happy to. I'm not ashamed to apologize. I have messed up from time to time. Okay. Any more business? 10? 13. That's all I want.