Good morning. It's October 15th. It is Council session. We're going to begin today's council session with a proclamation recognizing international pronouns day by council members Stewart and Mink. Good morning, everyone. Everyone who's here for the Proclamation, please come on down. My name is Kate Stewart. I'm the Council Vice President and District 4 Representative. And I want to welcome you this morning to our proclamation for International Pro-Nound Day. And before we get into remarks, I'm going to ask all the folks who are here to just quickly introduce themselves and then we'll begin. Jessica name is Jessica Wilsen. Wilson early easy hard. My pronouns are she her and I have the honor of working for CCI Health Services Community Health Center based throughout Montgomery County. Good morning. My name is Will Green. I'm Missing Your Pastor at Silver Spring United Methodist Church. My pronouns are he him. Our congregation is particularly committed to addressing the needs of our LGBTQA community through housing and building affordable housing on our campus in the coming years. Hello everyone, my name is Mark Eckstein, my pronouns are he-him and I'm a parent here and we have students at MCPS. Good morning everybody, my name is Philip Alexander Downey, my pronouns are he-him and I am the CEO of the Montgomery County Pride Family, MoCo Pride Center Inc. Good morning all, my name is Olu Adubio, my pronouns are he, him. I am the executive director, Rainbow Play Shelter, we're in the process of building out a young adult shelter for those 1824 primarily members of the LGBTQIA plus community. Good morning, I'm Lionel Sussman. I'm Mark's husband. My pronouns are he, him, and L. Good morning. My name is Leigh Blender. I use they then pronouns and I'm the executive director of Transmaryland, which is a part of the MoCo Pride family, and also I'm the Chair of the Maryland Commission on LGBTQI plus affairs. Good morning, everyone. My name is MPs. I use they, she, and Z pronouns. I am the Director of Research and Assessment at Transmaryland, as well as a Commissioner on the Maryland Commission for LGBTQI Affairs and a PhD student in counseling psychology at the University of Maryland. I'm really excited to be here. Hi, everyone. student and counseling psychology at the University of Maryland. I'm really excited to be here. Hi everyone my name is Brooke Petrillo. I'm a my pronouns are she they he and I'm a programs and outreach coordinator at Living Your Truth. Welcome to all of our guests and Christa Ming kind of council member for district five I'm gonna hand it back to our vice president. Great and I'm going to say amazing things in my hand. Again, I'm Kate Stewart, pronouns she, her, and welcome everyone today. This is the second year in the row that the Council has recognized international pronoun day. And it's so important that we do this every year to remind ourselves of the actions that we can take to be an inclusive community. So in many languages around the world, people use pronouns to identify and refer to others. And lots of times in different languages, pronouns generally have a gender implied. So he generally refers to a man or boy, she refers to a girl or a woman. However, these associations are not always correct. And when we make assumptions, we're not always correct in that. And we want to make sure that when we call someone, like we do by their name, their pronouns, it's the ones that they want to be called by. And so today, we are lifting up the importance of that and taking actions to not only use our words but to actually do something. And so we have pins today if anyone would like to take a pin and wear their pronoun, we also have a handout here on ways that members of our community can take actions. So there are simple things like practicing, asking people their pronouns, and we all use email, and you have a signature in your email. You can include your pronouns in that signature, and like many of us do, put a link to why we use pronouns, and it's important in our community. This was something that was actually asked when we did our LGBTQ plus community survey last year. Dr. Amina Johnson couldn't be here with us today, but she led that effort. And when our LGBTQ plus community was asked, what are some things we can do for all of you? Visibility and using pronouns and having events like this were the top responses we received and so we really want to reflect on what the community is asking us to do as we work with them to fight back against the hate and misunderstandings that are out there and unfortunately I said this last year when we were here, what's going on in our country right now is, I don't even have words, honestly, with what is being passed in policy and legislation that is creating so much hate in our country directed towards individuals, especially our trans and our gender non-conforming community. And so here in Montgomery County, it is so important that we take the time to do this work and do it with our community. And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to Council Member Mink. Thank you to Vice President Kates to it for spearheading this effort. It is deeply appreciated and deeply needed at contentious times like these. And I will note that unfortunately even in recent days we've seen a couple ads come out from Democratic candidates that contain anti-trans dog whistles in them. So it is really, really important that we continue to stand strong and really be proactively supportive of our LGBTQIA plus community and make it very, very clear that we are going to have no qualms and no shame about making sure that we are standing up for and being inclusive of every single person in our community. Two questions that I am asked by our would-be allies and our not-a-wobiles, by our allies, who are working to make sure that they are keeping up with the pronouns that people want. They, sometimes I hear, it's difficult for me. I wanna get it right, but they as a singular pronoun is difficult for me. Well, we actually instinct, but they as a singular pronoun is difficult for me. Well, we actually instinctively use they as a singular pronoun when we don't know, for example, who a belonging belongs to. So somebody leaves a backpack out on the playground. Somebody left their backpack outside. That's one person's backpack, but our brain does instinctively use they as a singular pronoun. So it can be done, and there is a part of your brain that already does it. It's just training it to refer to a person when you know what person you're talking about and that really does just take practice, just talk into yourself and using those sentences and you will get there and it is okay that that requires practice. You have to give yourself permission to have practice. And relatedly, the other question that I get with some regularity is, what should I do if I mess up? I really want to get it right. I feel really bad when I mess up. And the answer that I have consistently heard is just, please don't make a big deal out of it. We know you want to get it right. Just quickly correct yourself. Say the correct pronoun and keep on moving forward. Don't make a big thing out of it. Just keep practicing and get it right the next time. So thank you all so much. Thank you to Vice President Kate Stewart to everyone up here who is doing the work. It is much appreciated and we can hear Montgomery County and Maryland will continue to stand strong together. Thank you, Council Member Mink. And now we'll hear from Lee, who I have to say, I don't know if people can see but is bringing this sparkle this morning so thank you Lee. Thank you so much Vice President Stewart. Good morning as mentioned my name is Leap Linder I use they them pronouns the aforementioned sometimes difficult for folks singular they and I do agree a little practice really helps. Sometimes people think that because I am a member of the community that I never have to practice anything, it's just somehow like downloaded immediately. And that's definitely not true. I have friends who change pronouns. I still have to do the work. My partner and I, we have a close friend who just changed pronouns and Change their name and this is someone who I've known for a long time And so we each correct one another if we mess up and we're both transgender people so again, this is like not work for you all separately from us We also have to do the work and I'm also a proud non-binary transgender and queer person. I'm from and raised in Montgomery County. And I'm also a graduate of Montgomery County Public Schools. So I was a trans kid in Montgomery County Public Schools. And so it's really important to me that we continue to do this work that we make Montgomery County as affirming a space and a place as possible. And today I'm also here in my capacity as the executive director of Trans Maryland, which is again part of the MoCo Pride family. And I'm also the chair of the Maryland Commission on LGBTQI plus affairs. I'm also the first openly transgender chair of any Maryland Commission and also a first non-binary chair of any Maryland commission. I hope that one day we won't have to have these firsts also. And so pronouns are a really integral part of how people express themselves and communicate with one another as you heard before from Vice President Stewart and Council Member Mink. And it really saddens me that folks in our community and in our broader society choose to double down on their fear of an evolving world instead of choosing a very simple act to respect another person by using their affirming pronouns. Your next speaker will address some of the impacts of those fear-based decisions, and I'll take this opportunity to encourage you to step up or to start your allyship to the trans and non-binary community. You do not have to fully understand us in order to take these steps, but we do need individuals who are willing to share that they're eager to affirm us and that using our affirming pronouns is a simple act that is worthy of your time and your attention and to try to combat the negative messages that surround us from all sides. And as I always do, I really like to take a moment to send a special message to trans people. And anybody who's loved ones have refused to respect their pronouns, their names have denied them shelter, food or care simply for being themselves. Your worth is not measured by those individuals. There is a welcoming community here for you. And while we cannot ever make up for the hurts that you've experienced, we're here to catch you and to offer care and offer resources. This Translash to quote, Amara Jones' very successful podcast. Very much recommend you check that out. This Translash will end, and the Trans Community will be here as we always have been experiencing joy and gender euphoria. Thank you so much. Thank you Lee for those words and now we'll have M. Thank you all so much there with me a moment here. I'm a therapist in training as well so I never go anywhere without a clipboard so so I get to see that today. But yes, as I mentioned earlier, my name is MPs. I use Leshi and Z pronouns. Again, I am director of Research and Assessment at Transmaraland and a commissioner on the Maryland State Commission on LGBTQIA plus affairs. It is such a pleasure to be here today to celebrate International Pronouns Day with you all. This day in the words of its founder and also one of my dear personal mentors, Shige Sakurai, is to make respecting, sharing, and educating about personal pronouns commonplace. Recognizing that referring to people by the pronouns they determine for themselves is basic human dignity. As a trans non-binary lifelong resident of Montgomery County, I actually am also a graduate of MCPS. I went to high school over at Richer Montgomery Drove past this morning, nice little reminder of those days. I have experienced firsthand the strides that we have made in recognizing and honoring the amazing diversity of our communities. As well, a team of researchers and community members that I was a part of recently conducted the 2023 Maryland Trans Survey, the largest survey of trans people in our state to date, which has given me the opportunity that I particularly appreciate to go in and see some of the experiences of our community across the state. Actually, earlier this year, we published our initial findings report. This is a flyer that's based on it, and I would encourage you all to check it out. Is it discusses a lot of the different experiences where, again, we see that theme of the strides that we've made as well as the disparities that folks continue to experience? You can find this on Trans-Maralyn's website, and if you find me after this, I can also share it with you. But knowing that I was coming here today to talk about pronouns, I went ahead and pulled the data specifically from the Montgomery County folks in our sample. And in that subsample of participants from this county, we saw over 40 gender identity terms and over 10 different pronouns sets represented in our data set. As well, we saw that 45% of the sample used more than one pronoun, such as myself. This is exciting. It shows that people in our county are experiencing the basic freedom to define themselves more expansively, to begin to live more openly and authentically in who they are. And at the same time, we know that things are not perfect. When asked a qualitative question about what would you want your county officials to know about the needs of the local trans community, several of the participants in Montgomery County pointed out a lack of trans health providers and gender affirming care practices in our county, as well as being unable to find affirming primary or specialty care. Others noted the need for more accessible and affordable housing and gender inclusive public facilities. Others still discuss the need for more safety and inclusion in MCPS for trans-young people. In the words of one participant, at a time when trans rights are under attack, trans people need to be able to come to welcoming places like Montgomery County. As we celebrate International Pronouns Day, it is important we recognize that we all benefit from an inclusive community. A community where we show our love and care for one another through our policies and practices. A community where the humanity and dignity of each person is cherished. A community where everyone truly experiences the right to thrive. Thank you for being here today. Thank you, M, for those words and all your work. And thank you to all the folks up here. I think we could spend the whole morning talking about the amazing work that's being done here and the work that we still have to do. But we will read the proclamation now. I'll start. Whereas International Pronouns Day began in 2018 and takes place on the third Wednesday of October in order to make respecting, sharing, and educating about personal pronouns, a standard practice, and. Whereas just as we don't want to assume a person's ethnicity or race by appearance or name, it is important not to make assumptions about the gender identity of another person based on that person's appearance or name. And whereas referring to people by the pronouns they determine for themselves is basic to human dignity, it not only shows that we recognize others for who they are, but is also a sign of respect and courtesy. And whereas being referred to by the wrong pronoun, particularly effects transgender and gender non-conforming people, and, whereas we encourage elected officials and residents to consider how they can help normalize the practice of sharing pronouns such as including them in correspondence. And, whereas Montgomery County takes pride in being a welcoming, caring, and diverse community that strives to uphold individuals human right to dignity. Together, we can transform society to celebrate people's multiple intersecting identities. Now therefore be it resolved that the County Council of Montgomery County Maryland hereby recognizes October 16th, 2024, as it international pronouns day presented this day by myself, Council Vice President Kate Stewart and Council Member Kristen Mink and Council President Andrew Freetzen on behalf of the entire Montgomery County Council. Thank you everyone for joining us today. We'll take a picture and please grab a button if you need it. Hand out. I'll hand out the side. you you Thank you very much. We're going to move on to our second proclamation, recognizing fire prevention month by council members Katz, Mink and Luky. And I believe we have the fire chief in the house. He's gonna join as well, welcome chiefs, Bradley. And I believe we have the Assistant Chief Administrative Officer, Dr. Stoddard, on behalf of the County Executive. You're getting used to this, or what one of this is? This is one of your gigs. The plan department. And we have our volunteer fire rescue service and a number of others from our public safety team here to join us. Thank you for joining us. Well, thank you very much, Mr. President. And as the chair of the Public Safety Committee, I'd like to take the opportunity to recognize and thank the courageous firefighters deployed to Georgian. We're going to hear I know from the chief in a few moments to Georgian North Carolina and Florida due to hurricanes, Helene and Milton. At FEMA's request, Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service authorized a task force to these areas to assist with wood or rescues, delivery of aid, and conducting searches for victims in accessible areas. This morning we're presenting a Proclamation for Fire Prevention Month. As fire safety is a vital concern to everyone in our county. After a fire strikes, lives are suddenly turned around and recovering from a fire can be physically and mentally challenging a process for a family and for the entire community. MCFRS handles over 120,000. That number was 120,000. That number was 120,000. Emergency calls for service a year and is staffed by nearly 2700 certified and trained career and volunteer responders. Firefighters want you to know the importance of smoke alarms which would be tested monthly creating an effective escape plan and learning proper fire response techniques for your home and office. The Gummi County is committed to preventing fires before they occur and supporting families affected by fires and we extend our gratitude to the firefighters and first responders risking their lives every day to help others. What I'm going to do is I'm going to pass around the mic so that the the crowd behind me can introduce themselves and then I'll ask our council members Lukey and councilmember Mink to say a few words as well as the Earl Stoddard who's standing in for the for the county executive and then chief smidley. Do you want to introduce yourself? and then chief smidly. Assistant chief Tim Burns. Assistant chief Ben Kaufman. Dan Nessel. David chief Gary Cooper. Jim resnic community risk reduction. Kimberly Kelly community risk reduction. Dr. Steven Deeparko pronouncing him his DEI manager. Lieutenant Orville Smith. committee of the committee of the committee of the committee of the committee of the committee of the committee of the committee of the committee of the committee of the committee of the committee of the committee of the committee of the committee of the committee of the As Cormendez Community Risk Reduction? Christine Ming, County Council Member for District 5 and I said on the Public Safety Committee. Hi, I'm Council Member Lutke and am I supposed to talk now? Is that what you want me to do? Okay. You're interested in the meeting? Yes. Yes, I am going to listen to you, Mr. Chairman. Can I put this back in the... All right. It's your shift. Improv at the County Council this morning. I want to thank everyone up here who's representing way more people in this ecosystem of public service for our community. And as to echo what our chair said, great thanks to our members who serve in Task Force One, who have been going above and beyond the call of duty over the past. I think it was a 17-day deployment, 18-day deployment, so wishing them rest recovery and rejuvenation right now as they take a break from what they have been through. It's incredibly important to have professionals like we have in MCFRS who go out into the community and aren't just there for the emergency response calls but are there to educate. They're there to make sure our community has great understanding of how best to protect themselves. And we recently had that in my own district where there was an apartment fire at one of our residential complexes in my district and following that event, the care and compassion that was shown by our MCFRS members in making sure that not just the family immediately affected by that event were taken care of but making sure they were going door to door after that to raise awareness about how best to protect yourself because in that moment when it is fresh in the minds of that community, that's the best time that you're going to have in order to make sure that it resonates and that there's action as a result there from. And I can affirmatively say my husband recently proved the functionality of our smoke detectors while making dinner. So I know everything's working well at home, but normally we do in fact test them once a month. I try to be a good rule follower, but he ticked off our late September all on his own. So I wanna thank all of you for all that you do, every fair that you're at, every community event that you table, every time you bring out the CPR dummies to help explain to small children who come up and want to touch it, how it works, what it's for, and what you can do to further educate the community. It's tremendously important and you are an invaluable resource to our community. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I am so tremendously proud of our public safety here in Montgomery County. And I think really a testament to that kind of community involvement that Councilmember Luki was just mentioning is the work that Fire Rescue has continued to do at one of our favorite star properties in my district, which is a large multifamily building that tends to have a lot of fire rescue calls that are not necessarily for actual fires, but sometimes are for actual fires. And fire rescue is there a lot. It uses a significant amount of their time. But the residents there have come to know them and come to rely on them. They see them there not just when they're responding for calls, but for meetings, for education and prevention work. I have been with them when they have held multilingual educational meetings with the residents there in a culturally competent fashion. I got a call a few days ago from a constituent who had a fire related question and said, I just wanted to let you know, I already texted Chief Smendly. And then not only that, she said, he didn't just text me back. She said he called me back. So just incredibly, incredibly impressive work on the ground and connection with the community. And I also, I have to give a shout out to our vice president who brought forward a really important tenant notification bill related to fire safety. And also thank the fire department for their work with me. Bring an amendment to that that allows for the county to require certain minimum requirements around outreach, education, or other public safety interventions. If a particular building reaches a threshold of a minimum number of fire related calls within a year. So that's an incredibly important bill and an important piece of that bill that I'm really excited to put into action and I'm just very very grateful for and proud of the work being done here by Montgomery County Fire Rescue on both the career and the volunteer side. So thank you all so very much. Good morning, Earl Stodder on here on behalf of the Kenyute Mark L Rich, to recognize Fire Prevention Month. When you all hear that, you're often taking fire. And that's one of the things, okay, that's the key word in that statement. I'm gonna spend a lot more time talking about the prevention side of that. We appropriately laud our men and women in uniform who put on the equipment, run into the fire. But what we really should do when we want to recognize them is think about what we can do back at home to prevent the fire that they would have to respond to. If you worry about their safety and you worry about the safety of your family, that's what you would be thinking about when you hear fire prevention month. Today is in the 40s. Pretty soon we're going to be lighting up fireplaces. If we haven't already, fire pits, great, great fall activity, also a source of a lot of calls for service for our fire department. So when you light those fire pits, make sure they're a good distance away from the house. When you let your fireplaces, obviously make sure you've gotten them clean before the first time they're ready to operate. And when you dispose of the ashes, please don't do so in a bin right next to your house while they're still warm. That is a significant problem. Obviously, space heaters, other things like that, we heard, we heard the Cook safely tip. That's a key one. We get a lot of those actually at the building that Council Member Mink also alluded to. And so as we sit here today thinking about the people who provide us this key service, please do go back to your home, please do go back to your family. Think about a plan, think about the things you can do in your individual life to make sure that your house is fire safe, and that will go a long way to keeping them safe, keeping our community safe, and really recognizing fire prevention mom. Thank you. Thank you. We're at 140 plus thousand correct? So I wanted to I numbers are even more than the hundred and twenty thousand that the council member spoke where we're more into moving toward the hundred and fifty thousand calls for service That's a lot and I've asked the question to someone that has 60 years in this profession for one of our local volunteer fire departments to someone who was brand new and I asked the question, have we ever been ahead of having more resources to respond in the history of the fire service? And you could imagine what was stated. No. So your Montgomery County Fire and Rescue has a prevention state of mind and I challenge each and every one of you to also have a prevention state of mind. I came to Montgomery County because I was informed that we have the will and the resources and no matter how many resources we have there's always a not enough. There's so many other things that we have to do so I'm challenging us Not not only the community, but the Montgomery County final rescue to rethink how we approach things We need to make sure that our response is where it needs to be and we will continue to do that But we're going to do some creative things to focus our attention resources and abilities to prevent us from having to keep that number from rising. So, you know, smoke alarms, this fire prevention month, year smoke alarms, make them work for you as the theme. So look up, because that's what the smoke alarm should be. Make sure the smoke alarms are on every floor and every sleeping quarters or sleeping room in your home and plan a safety plan. You are the first first responders. We're normally not there when the emergency happens. So we're going to reimagine ourselves and we are powerful preventors. And so I need you all to understand that and I challenge you to help us in that rephrasing and reimagining our identity so that we can prevent the call for service so that you all can continue to be safe. And I thank you all for being here. Thank you very much, Chief. And I do think it should be noted. He is a superhuman person. However, he's not going to call everybody back. I just, I think that should be, I know that's your goal, but I don't know that that's going to work. We're going to read a proclamation. Whereas October is designated as Fire Prevention Month, and this year's national theme for Fire Prevention Month, the smoke alarms make them work for you, emphasizing the lifesaving importance of smoke alarms and. And please, what are you? Whereas Montgomery County was the first major jurisdiction in the United States to adopt a retrofit smoke alarm law, which required smoke alarms to be installed in all homes. The law was implemented on July 1st 1978 and today we also celebrate the 46th anniversary of the 1978 smoke alarm law which has had a profound impact on reducing the number of fire deaths in the county and whereas fire is a serious public safety concern both locally and nationally and people are at greatest risk from fire in their homes. Home fires killed more than 2,700 people in the United States in 2022 according to the National Fire Protection Association an average of more than seven people perishing and home fires each day and whereas public awareness and education are key to fostering a culture of safety and powering individuals to take proactive steps in their home encouraging residents to have a planned and practice home fire escape plan and take personal steps to increase their safety for fire and. Whereas through education, engineering, regulatory enforcement and emergency response, Montgomery County has significantly reduced fatalities. In 2024, 46 years since the legislation went into effect, smoke alarms remain one of the most critical residential safety devices in the fight against home fire deaths. Now therefore be it resolved that Mark L. Lidge County Executive Andrew Freetz and Council President Sidney Katz, Council member of Montgomery County Maryland, as well as Council members Kristen Mank and Dawn Luki, hereby proclaim fire prevention month. And he has all county residents to make review and practice their home fire escape plans with everyone living in the home and check smoke alarms and make sure they are operational. Thank you all for everything you do. Chief, you can hold this one. you Thank you to everyone involved in fire prevention, which as we just heard from our public safety team involves everyone in order to address fire safety and fire prevention. So thank you for those efforts. We're not going to move on to general business, Madam Clerk, will you please share today's announcement? Thank you, Mr. President. Good morning. Councilmember Sales is expected to join today's council meeting virtually this morning, but should be in person later this afternoon. Thank you. Thank you. The minutes from the September 24th council session have been circulated to colleagues. Are there any objections to approving these minutes? Seeing no objections, these minutes stand approved. We're going to move on to agenda item number one, which is a work session on the 2024 to 2028 growth and infrastructure policy. This is the first session that is scheduled. The council is expected to hold another work session on the growth and infrastructure policy on October 22nd next week. The goal is to go through the recommendations and begin taking straw votes. With this meeting, we'll continue our work session next meeting to take straw votes. Then, if we are completed our work, which hopefully we will be by that point, we will ultimately provide the staff enough time to be able to develop the resolution, to post it for public consumption and feedback, and then ultimately come back a couple weeks later to approve it prior to the November 15 deadline. As a reminder, the planning board transmitted a draft, growth and infrastructure policy to the council on July 25th, which they're required to do before August 1st. The GIP implements the provisions of chapter 33A Article 3 of the county code, which is also known as the adequate public facilities ordinance. And we have to approve it by November 15th, which we are working diligently, methodically, and thoughtfully to do so. Now, they also included in their transmittal just for clarity, development impact tax, changes and adjustments. That is not part of today's conversation directly, although there are certain elements that have a relationship, but would ask that comments and questions on those issues be held for the relevant discussion, which is currently being undertaken in the government operations and fiscal policy committee. I want to thank Vice President Stewart as Chair of government operations and fiscal policy and the vast majority of colleagues who joined that conversation. And that meeting, I know that those conversations will continue later this week on Thursday. So it would ask that we focus the development impact tax conversation to the development impact tax bill. And then we focus the policy changes related to growth and infrastructure policy to this. I wanted to thank my colleagues on the Planning Housing and Parks Committee for their diligent work through multiple committee sessions where we took up these issues and thank the Planning Department and Planning Board Chair, as well as the Executive Branch, multiple departments within the Executive Branch who actively participated in those discussions, and we were able to move forward thoughtfully and first and foremost, and always, not maybe not first, but foremost, Council staff, who really has done a really terrific job working extremely hard to manage our process through what is a very constrained timeline that we are required to undertake by law, but that we are doing well in keeping up with. So with that, let me turn it over to Council staff to walk us through these recommendations and we can pause at any point that colleagues have questions comments or wish to make any motions Through that if if there are no motions we will take the committee's recommendations without objection but if there's comments and interest in motions, we will take those up on a case-by-case basis and we will straw them, straw vote them, item by item. With that, let me turn it over to Council staff and appreciate all of your work, Ms. Dunn. Thank you, and good morning, Council. Very excited to be here to have the Council work session start on the growth and infrastructure policy. As Council President mentioned, we do have to have the Council take action on this by November 15th or the current growth and infrastructure policy will stay in place for four more years. You have a staff report. It's quite large. We have covered all of the recommendations that came out of the parks. Planning, housing and parks committee in this packet. I don't think we will get through them all today, as the President mentioned. We will come back to you next week. What you also have is this table. This lists the planning board's recommendations, the current 2020 growth and infrastructure policy regulation or rule if it's applicable, where the committee landed and then page references to the staff report. Ultimately, this table will have that last column replaced and what will go there in a couple weeks will be the straw votes for the council. We'll use this then to write that resolution that we need to post for the community to see before it gets adopted later in November. So with that, I will start. And today we're going to cover first the schools recommendations that came from the planning board. There are five of them. And the first one is really a little bit lengthy and it goes into parts. So we'll, we'll seem a little slow, but we'll get through this. First one and the rest should be pretty straightforward. So with that, just as a reminder to that people, the school section of the Growth and Infrastructure Policy provides guidance to the planning board for administering the adequate public facility ordinance. And it requires an adequacy test of public school capacity. The Growth and Infrastructure Policy establishes the ground rules for the annual school test. The annual school test determines the advocacy status of each school service area. We no longer do it by cluster, we do it by school service area for every fiscal year. Each development application that is reviewed by the planning board or any amendment to an application is evaluated against the results of this annual school test to determine whether the school serving that project have sufficient capacity to accommodate the proposed development. When a school service area is deemed to have insufficient capacity or it's overutilized, the growth and infrastructure policy establishes mitigation that's required for development to proceed. We've heard of that typically as a utilization premium payment. The 2020 growth and Infrastructure Policy Institute has several fundamental changes to the administration of the annual school test. As I just mentioned, the moratorium residential construction was eliminated in 2020. The cluster level adequacy test was also eliminated. The new tier utilization premium payment system was developed. So those were quite big changes. So in this growth and infrastructure policy policy the planning board has recommended fewer changes to the school tests to give it time to work its way and see how these changes that have been made just four years ago are doing. So with that the first recommendation is focused on the school impact areas. This was something developed in the last growth and infrastructure policy and the recommendation is to modify the school impact area boundaries so was something developed in the last growth and infrastructure policy. And the recommendation is to modify the school impact area boundaries so that they align with the proposed transportation policy area boundaries and classify each area into infill turnover or greenfield based on an updated analysis of their latest growth context and potential. And just to set a little context, these school impact areas, once they are identified, they are used to calculate to create the student generation rates. The generation rates are applied to development applications and that in turn determines what their impact on the school system will be that gets weighed against the annual school test. So that's the connection. The committee considered this recommendation, as I mentioned earlier in two parts. The first is the geographic areas used to assign the school impact classifications, aligning them with the transportation policy area boundaries. For context, the 2020 growth and infrastructure policy use census tracks or aggregations of census tracks and combinations with planning areas and identified 35 areas for analysis. The alignment of the school impact areas with transportation policy reboundaries simplifies the number of geographic areas an applicant must consider, evaluating the adequacy status of any site in which they want to put forth an application. And there is precedent for using the transportation policy areas for more than just transportation purposes. Typically using the transportation policy areas for more than just transportation purposes. Typically, the transportation policy areas are comprised of transportation analysis zones, underlying smaller geographies. And these are the basis for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, Employment Population and Household Forecast. So again, it just supports the use of these policy areas for more than just transportation policy. Council received testimony from the Maryland Building Industry Association in NEOP in support of the recommendation and the executive branch recommended deleting this change. Part of the recommendation from the County Executive was based on finance, is estimate that in doing this change, the change to the geographies would result in a loss and potential revenue of about 300,000 per year for the capital improvement program. This is because if you are in a turnover area versus an infill area, ultimately your impact hacks will be less. The impact hacks are another piece that are based off of these school impact areas, but today we are focusing on these impact areas for their implications to the APFL. So the committee considered this and asked for more information as they tried to evaluate the impact of this change in boundaries and to isolate that they asked planning staff calculate the designations using the 2024 classification methodology, so this methodology that they're bringing forward this time, but apply it to the 2020 boundaries and apply it to the 2024 transportation policy area boundaries. You can see the results of that on the third page of the staff report. And if you look at the maps at the top, there are some greenfield areas on both maps. But what I'll point out is the red transportation policy areas for both the 2024 and 2020 will be overwritten as in-fills. This is our Metro Station policy series. That was a policy decision made in 2020 and carried forward. And also the purple that you see on the right-sided map of this green field, when the planning board brought this map forward, you'll see down below. In the map below, the purple no longer is there, because they overwrote the green field as turnover, because there are insufficient records to get a reliable student generation rate from those records. So they categorized it as a larger area to get a reliable student generation rate. And Class Fingert is a larger area, it became turnover. When we look at these, the Council requested 2020 boundary with the current methodology, the proposed methodology versus the 24, it may seem at first that perhaps the older boundary does better because you see three different area types coming rather than just the two. But if you look closer what we see is, and we use North Bethesda as an example, in our closer and areas the geographies using transportation policy boundaries, they get smaller and so they have more nuanced ability to determine what's happening with the growth, the student growth, housing growth, and housing turnover in those areas. So you'll see, using the 2020 boundaries, the housing growth in the rock spring area is captured. But it classifies the entire north Bethesda area as high housing growth. But when it looks at the type of housing in the area, that type of housing is predominantly single family. So it mischaracterizes that area as high housing growth of single family detached homes, which is not really the case. We know that in Rocksburg we have not many single family detached homes being built there. When we use the transportation policy area boundaries, what we get is the distinction between Rocksburg and the surrounding area, and you get Rocksburg being classified as infill, and you get the surrounding area classified as turnover which is really how we understand the areas that we working today. Planning staff also compared what would this impact be to revenue? It's a look at 10 years of past pipeline data. So it is not a forecast. It doesn't tell you what's going to happen in the future with revenue. It just says if we just take development for 10 years in the past and we apply these student generation rates with these boundaries, what is the difference? You'll see that on page four. It is a very high level like let's just compare one element that we're changing here. What happens? Sort of analysis. It doesn't account for the fact that MPD use wouldn't be paying the impact tax. It doesn't account for the capping carry-over that we know exists, which would help cap some of the costs in that impact tax rate going up. So in a sense, it is an over-calculation, but it does remain, just like finance had determined, the 2020 boundaries do yield a higher expected revenue from impact taxes. Again, we're talking APFO today. So the committee's recommendation was not unanimous on this one. It was two to one. Councilmember Joanda was dissenting, but the majority was approving the use of the transportation policy area boundaries to determine the school impact area classifications Councilmember John to would support using the current 2020 boundaries and I'll pause there Appreciate that we have a couple colleagues in the queue council members sales Yes, I was just hoping there was more information about the 300,000 How are we going to replace that revenue if we, you know, change this recommendation. If we approve this recommendation, do we? So what I would say is there's been actually quite a bit of conversation going on with the government operations fiscal policy committee related to that. They're taking up impact taxes in whole and so it's not just this one component that we change the one part of school impact tax. They're also talking transportation and they've been trying to have conversations about what they think the future could hold to figure out a different method for receiving revenue. And I don't want to speak for that, but there are ongoing conversations on how to address that. Okay. Councilor Rinc. Thanks. I just have concerns generally, numbers aside, but I have concerns generally with us moving forward with components of this that are going to decrease our revenue, especially on the school construction side, before we have something that's going to replace that. This is a conversation that we were having in the Geo committee as well. But these, you know, we've got a very tight budget. We've got a lot of needs. And so I have a lot of concerns about moving forward with any pieces again that are going to decrease revenue in this particular area at this particular time. Councilmember Funning-Zell. Thank you, Mr. President. I just want to remind people this is not a policy to raise revenue. This is not a policy to look at your data and see how much money I'm gonna get for this. This is not what this is for. This is about making sure we have impact taxes that are accurate for actual development. And the way has been drafted by the planning board this year, and again, this is my third time doing this, is the most accurate system or formula that I have ever seen. In this government, we are, we have the responsibility of making sure that what the decisions that we're moving forward are actually based on accuracy. Not how much money I'm going to get. So this much money I'm going to get. So this is why I'm going to stay with the planning board recommendation and with my vote at the BHP committee. Councilmember Gras. Thank you, Mr. President. I appreciate staff walking us through this very complex policy. I want to take a further step back. It's been referenced about the changes that were made back in 2020. What preceded that, right? And the reason I'm asking is because land use policy making is an evolutionary process. As we continue growing, we are refining. We are seeing the type of growth that is occurring, and we are working to update. And the proposal that has been put forth continues the update from 2020 to recognize that the catch all areas that we had been looking at were should not have been painted in one broad stroke. That's how I interpret this. And so looking at the packet on page four and having listened to the PHP committee session, the white flint and 355 central corridor are is actually a number of different communities, each very different. And it has been listed here, one is Twinbrook, another is North Bethesda by the Metro station, another is Grovesner and then has has been referenced Rock Spring. I think that people in those areas would agree that they are different communities and the growth that occurs within those boundaries are different and should be different. As I understand this policy, that is the goal. To my colleagues who are concerned about revenue, I agree that we need to keep an eye on revenue and I invite everybody to go to the government operations committee where a majority, let me correct that, a super majority of us were because we were very specifically intense on tracking the money to make sure that we still have infrastructure and money for that infrastructure. Extremely important, bold, underlying exclamation point. We need revenue for schools and roads. That's why I went to the government operations committee. This conversation is about our specific communities and the differences that exist within our communities and devising smart policies that notice the difference. Ms. Dunn, I asked a question 90 seconds ago. Giving you time to try and think through the policies of a go. But more specifically, can you talk to us from your perch year and before that at planning about the evolutionary process as we undertake this proposal? Yes, absolutely. And planning staff can feel free to join me. It has definitely been an evolution in every single growth in infrastructure policy. We used to have student generation rates that were countywide. We had the school system using them by geographic groupings of school clusters. The last time in 2020, the Planned Department came up with an idea that they really wanted to try to classify them based on the type of housing growth. And we're going to get into this in a minute because it's the second part of this recommendation. It is the type of housing growth and the housing growth in general it is the type of housing growth and housing growth in general and then the type of housing that's growing in addition to enrollment growth. Those were three indices used last time to come up with these impact areas rather than I wouldn't call them arbitrary but just groupings of clusters for a different purpose, right? MCPS has a different reason for wanting to group the clusters together and look at them, but for looking at what is the impact of a development application in our community, let's look at the nature of that growth and look at how these communities are expected to change in the next four to six years. It's really what this is designed to do. Last time we got rid of the moratorium. That was really recognizing that stopping housing development period wasn't necessarily the best way to change what we think is gonna happen in these communities. Another was to get rid of the cluster level test. Really the school service area test is at the experience that the families are experiencing each school that their child attends, and that's the level of the test that the council approved in 2020? Thank you for that and each of those are policy decisions that were made without necessarily Looking at the revenue that is raised it was about whether or not those communities and areas should have development and what kind of development. And so just want to make it very clear, I am making this decision based on the policy of growth and development right now. There is a very separate conversation about the level of impact fees and where and if according to some there should be impact fees and where those taxes and fees go they are different conversations Thank you Thank you at the majority of the committee's recommendation was based on the accuracy of the data and trying to come up with an approach that had the most accurate data and the refinement that is reflected here. And I think you're hearing that in some of the comments from colleagues. Let me continue to turn it to Council Vice President Stewart. Great. Thank you. First, I want to thank the PHP committee. I was able to sit in on some and watch the others. And I just really want to thank you for all your work on this and to the Council staff, the Planning Department, Planning Board, and everyone else, DOT, who really spent a great deal of time on this. I just want to associate myself with the comments of the council member, Fannie Gonzalez, and glass on really thinking about this, you know, the policy of this and as chair of GO. I know we're going to think about the other pieces of this in more depth on Thursday. But I wanted to speak since the packet included my district to this and I really appreciate Ms. Dun, your remarks on having a more nuanced view. Because what I'm hearing from residents and I know other colleagues are too, is that when we're looking at some of these areas, they're saying, this is my community and I need a better understanding of what's happening right here, what's happening at my local elementary school, what's happening about the growth here, and I think this moves us closer to it. And I do think this is an iterative process that we learn each time we take this up. And so I will be supportive of the committee's recommendation. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Druanda. Thank you, just chime in here since I was the the sending vote just to explain. It was said that none of this is perfect. It's hard to know exactly how this is going to shake out. And as we've taken the approach in other areas, we made big changes in 2020. I supported many of them, and we're trying to let that play itself out. One of the things that we discussed in committee, in addition to the cap and carryover in the MPD use, there's really not a perfect way. If you go by Councilmember Nancy Florene, she said that she, who says none of these are accurate and the transportation is the worst as far as how accurate it is. So I think given that context and the fact that we're gonna need to really fix this whole thing, I took a do-no-harmer approach here. And again, the schools desperately need to have CIP dollars and I know we're having that conversation. But if we need to look at this whole thing, I don't think this is necessarily the most accurate given we're trying to let the 2020 changes play out. I appreciate planning's work on this. It certainly has a basis and they always do really good work and justify where they're coming from. But I just think given the overall context, it's just not something we should be looking to do right now. And so that's why I said, let's keep it in 2020 recommendations. But appreciate the conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Albernais. Thank you. So prior to this conversation, I was concerned about the sequencing because we are having this very broad discussion on impact taxes, a committee that we expect to produce some recommendations on how to look at the entire system and hopefully make some recommendations for a potential paradigm shift. But I really appreciate the comments from colleagues and staff. I'm less concerned about that sequencing because this does I think make a strong attempt to better reflect our current reality. And as you were discussing the moratorium conversation we had four years ago, that was a tough conversation. We had passionate advocacy from a number of very important constituencies pushing back extremely hard on us not alleviating the moratorium. But as we found, everything's okay. It's made not perfect. And that's the beauty of this process. This is that every four years we get another bite at the apple. So I am going to be supportive of the committee's recommendations for those reasons, but that doesn't stop us from still looking at that paradigm shift that everyone seems to agree needs to happen. Thank you, Councilor Caz. Thank you very much, Mr. President. I too am going to agree with the committee. At go in this gets confusing because we're talking similar concerns, but not identical concerns in some cases. We discuss the flawed process in general. And we said we have to figure out what we can fix first. Under a timeline for this one. So we need to fix this one first. Revenues are important, and that'll be a discussion in a couple of days. It go. But we've had tough conversations on this topic for before my time, and I have a feeling you're going to have tough conversations on past us. But I think that, though though nothing is perfect on this, I think this is the best solution we can come up with at this time. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor Reloucée. Thank you, Mr. President. I agree with Council Member Joando that we do have CIP woes. That's undeniable, but I agree with the remainder of my colleagues that this is not the appropriate analytical tool for trying to resolve that because it's not. And so I appreciate the committee's work on this and and want to make sure that as we move forward we're engaging in an analysis that doesn't stray outside the analytical bounds of the assignment we are given with respect to this particular policy. We have other work to do. We have other many, many hard conversations to have about the current state of our CIP, our school's construction and other infrastructure in the county and how we got to this place and what we need to do to boost revenue outside the context of this. This is not supposed to be a money maker fill in revenue. We're not getting from somewhere else tool. And so I want to make sure that we're using the appropriate lens on this and making sure that it's focused solely on growth and impact and fairness and reasonable in the analysis. So with that, I'll support the committee's recommendation. Thank you. I'll just briefly note and then turn to Councilmember Mink for the final word on this and we'll vote on this item. The revenue piece of this, which obviously is a separate but related conversation, is a point in time that is based on the previous calculation. And so, yes, this is a flawed system, as some have noted, but the revenue calculation is not an accurate reflection either. It's a best estimate as could be done, but the idea, and this is what staff was trying to demonstrate in the Roxbring, North Bethesda example, the impact tax rates will be recalculated based on the actual student generation with a more refined tool. That in and of itself will change the dynamics. In some areas it will be higher, in some areas it will be lower. It's hard to know based on the past what that will mean for the future in terms of revenue. Because if more growth are in the higher impact tax rate areas that some will be adjusted up, some will be adjusted down, but the intention here is to be more refined and to make sure it reflects the actual reality on the ground. It could very well be a revenue positive change. So it's not a guarantee that this is a revenue negative change. Providing an exemption is a guarantee that that is a revenue negative change in the impact tax conversation. Changing how large the area is, some things that would have been a higher rate would be a lower rate and some things that would be a lower rate would be a higher rate. The net impact of that would only be determined by where the growth is happening, which this, you know, chart, uh, in terms of tax revenue comparison, uh, that we see in table, doesn't reflect that and couldn't possibly reflect it. So I just want to make sure, because that has been part of the conversation. I think it's a relevant piece just for consideration before we vote. Let me turn it to Councillor Mink for the final word here, and then we will take a strong vote on this item. Thanks. Yeah, appreciate the conversation. I certainly understand my colleagues points here and at the PHP committee in regards to use of tools for their proper purpose. I certainly understand that. I still do question given the extent of the unknowns in this situation or the imperfections as we're calling them, whether it's worthwhile to make this change, you know, given the impact on revenue with the understanding that revenue generation is itself a separate conversation which we're having in in G.O. But I still do a question again, given the the number of unknowns here whether whether it's worthwhile. That said, I respect the the work in the thoughts of my colleagues and I look forward to the conversation on Thursday in G.O. And I'll go ahead and move forward with the PHP committees recommendations. Appreciate that. Also note, school and bank exit are increasing, increasing 20% as part of the the rate and there are a number of conversations, the government operations, the fiscal policy committee about what we are doing specifically related to the school's aspect of the school impact tax. And I know that we'll have continued conversation with that on Thursday and then before the full council subsequent to that conversation. So appreciate all the discussion here. I am going to entertain a vote before us is the committee recommendations. I will not ask for a motion. We'll just take a vote on the committee recommendation, but we'll give the opportunity since there were some dissents in the comments. To vote on it, all those in favor of the committee recommendation, please indicate by raising your hand. All those opposed, that is 10 to one. Let's move on to the next item. Thank you. So not quite done with recommendation one. We're doing the second part now. We should hopefully go quicker because this was unanimous from the committee. The second part stated that the classification of school impact areas would be updated based on an analysis of their latest growth context and potential, which at first I thought maybe just be an updating to the data. However, in further evaluation it looked like the number of indices used to create those impact areas. The factors used to create the indices and the weights applied to the index factors had all been recommended for change. For good reasons, but they had all been recommended for change. In 2020 there were three indexes that were used. It was housing growth index, a housing type index, and an enrollment growth index. In 2024, only two indices are being recommended. And primarily because the enrollment growth index at this point in time given the COVID pandemic would be a poor indicator, I think, of future enrollment growth in the next four to six years. We know that the school system is slowly, there was a Washington Post article, slowly regaining its enrollment growth. But if we look at what's happened in the recent past, that decrease in enrollment might give us a false sense of where enrollment might go in four to six years. And so the Planned Department rightly in the planning board have chosen not to include that enrollment in this growth policy could be in the future. So in 2020 the Housing Growth Index was comprised of three factors, recent growth, that was growth between 2013 and 2018. The development pipeline, which is our pipeline of approved, but yet on built units and future capacity, which is what the land is owned to produce for residential development. And weights were assigned to these factors at a ratio of one to two to two, meaning that the recent growth factor was weighted half as much as the development pipeline and the residential capacity factors. In 2024, the Housing Growth Index comprised of the same three factors just measured slightly differently and measured by this transportation policy areas. And while the factors were not identical, they were very close. However, the weights that were applied were different, and they were applied in a three to two to five ratio, which meant that future capacity from development was weighted twice as much as the development pipeline in 40% greater than recent growth. And when staff asked planning, the rationale was that this was to give more consideration to the intended context or vision of a policy area based on its master plan to zoning. And in discussing this just before, I'll note that the 2020 and 2024 housing type index is pretty much mirrors the housing growth index. So anything we're saying about the housing growth index applies to the housing type index is pretty much mirrors the housing growth index. So anything we're saying about the housing growth index applies to the housing type index. The weights applied are the same and the factors used are similar. One is obviously based on growth and one is based on type of housing. So the question before the committee was and staff was whether development that we expect in four to six years, what we think is going to happen in area in four to six years, should that be weighed equal to something that has yet to come in as an application, or should it be slightly something that we know is more likely to happen. We know the recent growth has happened. The pipeline has approved development. We've had meetings with the Planning housing and parks committee on housing targets where the development pipeline had been evaluated and noted that at least 50 percent of our pipeline does come to realization. So staff's view was seemingly that the recent past growth plus the pipeline together would be a more known quantity to impact our student enrollment in four to six years, which is really what we're looking at when we have a annual school test, then a development application through zoning that is yet to come in. So staff changed the, just shifted some of that future zoning weight to the pipeline and it really didn't change those impact designations. I have the amazing spreadsheet that was created by the planning staff, all their hard work. And so again, this was what I said to the committee. Why would you even raise this? It philosophically might make some sense to do that, but if it doesn't ultimately changed how things got classified. My point for you all and for the committee was you really should know what you're basing all those components on because you are also approving that philosophical view of how something gets calculated. And in this case, the question to the committee was should school impact area classification methodology be based on our best estimate of enrollment impacts in four to six years, or should it give equal weight and importance to the vision of a policy area via its zoning? And the committee unanimously decided that the change in the housing growth index and housing type index waiting to the 3-to-4-to-3 ratio and to make a modification to that recommendation, the first recommendation, that you'll see in the staff report. It's basically to remove the words latest growth context and potential and replace it with growth and enrollment impacts, which just gets what we think is going to happen rather than what we hope is going to happen. And I'll stop there. So it changed the language, it changed the ratio. There was consensus on this both by the committee and planning staff and council staff worked together, no objections there as well. There's no current impact on this directly. But there could be a future impact, but the idea is that this more accurately reflects what we think the facts are on the ground, which is what we are intending to do. So with that, I don't see any colleagues wishing to speak here, so we will take this as the committee recommendation without objection. Let's continue. Great, thank you. We are now moving on to the next recommendation, which is focused on the annual school test. As I already noted, the moratorium was eliminated in the 2020 growth and infrastructure policy. And it's placed a utilization premium payment system was set up. It's a tiered system that has multiple thresholds for adequacy. The adequacy is set in terms of school utilization, which is projected enrollment divided by projected capacity. And student seat deficit. It also has a corresponding mitigation payment system associated with each tier. And what the planning board's second recommendation here is to adjust the seat deficit thresholds for each utilization premium payment tier to align with MCPS's CIP guidelines for classroom additions and maintain the existing utilization rate thresholds. And the committee looked at this and recognize that it did make sense to be more in a line with what MCPS is evaluating and as it requests an addition to each school service area. And with that, we also received written testimony from the Maryland Building Industry, NAAP and the Executive Branch all in support of this recommendation. And the committee supported this unanimously. Again, I don't see any colleagues wishing to speak, so we will accept this committee recommendation without objection. Let's continue. Thank you. The next was a recommendation that was more focused on utilization premium payment as a condition of approval that we've noted. Because the UPP or utilization premium payment is a fee, it is a mitigation fee. It does have that nexus requirement. And so when those funds are collected, currently they must be used in the school service area in which they're collected. And what we notice and what MCPS and the planning board have stressed is we are seeing larger expansions of schools and new schools being built to accommodate surrounding school service areas and then boundaries being redrawn to take in some of those students. And so the recommendation here is to allow the funds collected as a UPP to be used for capital projects, adding capacity at schools adjacent to the school for which the funds collected as a UPP to be used for capital projects, adding capacity at schools adjacent to the school for which the funds were collected as outlined in the school utilization report. Planning Department does create the school utilization report and does note every adjacent school for every school service area. This would just give that flexibility. You did receive testimony. The executive branch is in favor of this change and the committee also was unanimous. Thank you. Again, do not see any colleagues wishing to speak on this item, so we will take that committee recommendation without objection and let's continue. Right. The next is focused on the student generation rate itself, which is it, it's the area represented, the average number of students coming from a housing unit of a certain type in that area. When the 2020 growth and infrastructure policy was come forward, there were a couple questions about some of the components of this. One was whether there was a difference between the student generation rates for older and newer multi-family units. And the idea was that certainly units built from 1990 on are acting different than the much older ones, and this is to apply to new development. And so it really was determined that that universe of multifilialinous would be those constructed from 1990, or sorry 1990 to current year. But at this growth and infrastructure, planning staff would go and reevaluate whether that relationship still held in their calculation of student generation rates. And what you'll see is a figure in that figure four in the staff report. Planning staff did evaluate this and did determine that in fact that relationship does still hold and that the student generation rate should be calculated on these units built from 1994. The board supported this and the committee concurred with that. Don't see any colleagues wishing to speak. This is an item that will ask planning to continue to monitor and we can take up as a council or the next council can take up. Four years from now there might be a point at which there is an appropriate cutoff that isn't 1990 as we get farther away from 1990. But as of right now, it seems it's the appropriate date to look at and the committee recommended keeping it. I don't see any colleagues wishing to speak on this, so we will accept this recommendation without objection. Great. And there's another similar one which was another direction to the planning department to look at whether There is a difference and whether the low rise and high rise in multi-family construction should be again Delineation that's done with student generation rates. They looked at those again and did find that there is a difference They do generate students differently and so they recommend keeping that that construct the board, sorry, the committee agreed. Thank you. We'll similarly ask and have for planning to continue to monitor this and it's an item for continued discussion. At the next time we take up this item four years from now, as part of the quidrenial process, don't see any colleagues wishing to comment or speak. So we'll take this committee recommendation without objection. Great. The next one is the actual recommendation number four for schools, which is to keep stacked flats in the multifamily low rise category for the purposes of student generation rates and impact taxes. The reason this one is here is there had been some discussion amongst planning staff and the department of permitting services on how to actually treat what are called stacked flats, which are two over two units. And ultimately, what planning evaluated was there weren't quite enough of these units yet to get a reliable student generation rate. They view them because the zoning ordinance views them as multifamily low rise, and therefore that's what they should maintain until they have enough of these units to see whether they do in fact generate their own student generation rate. They could create a whole nother structure type if that's the case. So in testimony you did receive support for the planning board's recommendation to keep them as low rise multi-family units and the committee unanimously agreed. Goal here was consistency and this is the consistent approach. I don't see any colleagues wishing to speak on this item so without objection we will take that item up 2.4 and move on to the next item. Great and this is the last recommendation related to schools and it was a section on the early childhood program enrollment. And as the council knows, the blueprint for Maryland's future was passed in 2021. And it really is about a great expansion to the early childhood programs. The recommendation number five is to monitor the countywide early childhood program projections through the school utilization report. And when the enrollment is projected to be more universal, include the projections in the elementary school student generation rate calculations. The executive branch supports this recommendation. The committee discussed this and made one change to the wording of this, which rather than immediately, including this enrollment as part of the projections. But to provide an update and an evaluation of the potential impact of these programs on school capacity enrollment as they become more universal. Recognizing that not every school will have an early enrollment program summer still private. Really the recommendation here is we recognize this and let's continue to evaluate it and see how it should and does impact our school capacity and enrollment projections. It's unclear at this point what the universality of these issues will be for years or now. This updated language meets the same goal with some allowance for nuance to understand where we are at that point and make an appropriate policy decision as a result without presupposing the outcome. I don't see any colleagues wishing to speak on this item so without objection we will accept 2.5 as recommended by the committee and we will move on to our transportation element recommendations. Thank you. Thank you. We'll get through as many of these transportation recommendations as we can. There are 20. So we will get started. So the starting with the transportation policy areas, the GIP defines context-based geographies known as transportation policy areas. These areas are used to determine transportation adequacy needs within the GIP, set development impact tax rates, and create guidelines for other county policies like transportation demand management. Since 2016 these policy areas have been categorized by color, red, orange, yellow, and green on a sliding scale of current and master planned land use intensity and transit availability, with red being the most land use intense and available transit to green being the least. The exact parameters of each of these policy areas, how we define them, how we set them, and what each policy area designation means for policy differs in each GIP and that's what a lot of these recommendations here today are tweaking. The current transportation policy areas are included in the packet on page 11 in figure five and are sorted and designated via loose definitions that are laid out in table four. The planning board recommends updating these policy area boundaries and designations to reflect recent and envisioned changes to the built environment that have come since 2020. I will note that in 2020, the Planning Board and Council took a step to add purple line areas as red policy areas, which had previously just been metro station policy areas. These are almost trans-it-served communities, so adding purple line communities to those to achieve the vision and match the vision for those communities. So the changes recommended by the planning board in recommendation 3.1A, which the simple text of which belies the substantial changes to the map and definitions and designations. So these changes would, the exact changes to the definitions are outlined in table five on page 12 of the packet But effectively what these changes do are add BRT to the list of Transit station areas and transit-served areas that are eligible for Red policy area designation and add all of the quarter-focused growth areas as designated in Thrive Montgomery 2050 into the orange areas. Reflecting these new definitions, The planning board recommends the designation of several new policy area designations. It would recommendation 3.1A would establish three new red policy areas from formerly orange areas. These are the Great Seneca Life Sciences Center, White Oak Downtown and Rock Spring. It would also establish several new orange policy areas from areas that were formerly yellow, which are Aspen Hill, Clarksburg East, with Clarksburg West to remain yellow, Fairland and Briggs Cheney, Germantown East and West, and only town center. And it would also change Damascus from a green policy area to a yellow policy area. And these changes are summarized in the map on figures 6 on page 13 of the packet. The council received written testimony on 3.1A, all of which is included in the packet. This testimony came from Phil Hummel, from Miles and Stockbridge, on behalf of Johns Hopkins University, from Glenn Orland, from Christopher Rulan, from Lurch Early in Brewer, from Dan Wilhelm, from the Greater Cold Civil Citizens Association, and from the County Executive. I'll note that the County Executive opposed recommendation 3.1A and its entirety due to the fiscal impact of escalating policy areas and the reduction in motor vehicle adequacy tests associated with creating new red orange and yellow policy areas. During its review, the committee noted that the planning board recommended policy area definitions were vague and represented an unclear methodology. As written, the areas had significant overlap, particularly as it applied to town centers, which as a term applied in both the orange and red definitions. And if these definitions were applied strictly, could create issues for drawing policy area boundaries. In addition, committee members expressed concern that the three recommended new red policy areas, great Santa Colife Sciences Center, White Oak Downtown and Rock Spring. We're not far enough along in their development to yet warrant a red designation. So, planning staff raised the concern that reverting the Great Life Sciences Center, White Oak Downtown and Rock Spring to Orange would require developments in these areas to conduct motor vehicle adequacy tests and perhaps widen roadways. Doing so would contradict the pedestrian master plan in each area's master plan, which classify these areas as downtowns, planning future development around walkable and transit-oriented communities. Therefore, to sort of thread this needle, the committee recommended modifying the policy area definitions to be clearer and more consistent, reverting the three new red policy areas to orange and adopting a new recommendation to exempt all downtowns from motor vehicle adequacy tests. These definitions, new designations, and additional recommendation are spelled out in table six of the packet. Okay, I'm going to jump in. I think we've exhausted this. The information is in the packet. Really appreciate the thorough work here. I do have a colleague in the queue. I just want to note, there was robust discussion at committee on this. There was a disagreement among colleagues on this, there was a disagreement among colleagues on the committee to start and we worked together, I had suggested a compromise. One was to go with the two options that were before us from staff. One was the planning recommendation to move these three areas into the red policy area. The other was to keep them as is. I had suggested as a compromise and ultimately we agreed three to nothing to that compromise to keep as orange these areas but to eliminate the auto tests in these in downtown areas which only currently impacts these areas but does potentially have an impact to other downtowns that get added later on, the idea being that it is a jump to go from the metro areas, which we expanded four years ago to purple line areas to then say that these emerging downtown areas are the same as or similar to metro areas. That is a pretty significant leap. But it is not a leap to say that we are desperately trying and we are already asking of applicants to make significant pedestrian and bike safety improvements in downtown area specifically to change the way that they look and to change the way that they are in order to facilitate the type of growth that we want, the type of livable walkable communities that would be required. And so, eliminating the auto tests for one of the major changes within the red policy areas in the last one would be an appropriate way to move that part forward without making quite that level of a leap that would have otherwise been made. So that is the three nothing recommendation that the committee ultimately landed on. I see Councilmember Mink in the queue. I'll turn it over to her. Thank you. I appreciate the committee's work on this issue and it's a complicated one and it was a balancing act. And so I've had extensive conversations about this piece as well with constituents as well as our other stakeholders. We need to make sure that there is stability and predictability for our developers, for our communities, as we continue to pursue our large regals for the community and So I am going to be supportive of this compromise position by the committee. Thank you Appreciate that without objection. I'll see any colleagues wish and speak so we'll accept the committee recommendation and let's continue Finally on recommendation 3.1 a There was a Council received testimony from Elizabeth Rogers from Lurch early in Brewer. The owner and developer of the project known as Black Hill in Germantown requesting that the Germantown Town Center policy area be expanded to include one area that was within the town center area type in the pedestrian master plan given this overlap in designation and the fact that this is all within the town center in the master plan council staff and planning staff agreed to recommend expanding the German town town center in the master plan, council staff, and planning staff agreed to recommend expanding the German town town center policy area to include these three highlighted areas on figure seven on page 15 of the packet. This would not change any of the transportation policy elements because both the German town west policy area where these areas are in the planning board draft and the Germantown Town Center area all of them are orange however, this would have an impact for school designation where these shaded areas would be moved from turnover into infill and be assessed impact taxes accordingly. This matter was brought up after the committee review, but planning staff and council staff concur and recommend that the council add these areas to the Germantown town center policy area. There is a suggestion from staff as noted in the packet. This was not taken up by the committee that it was not a completion of the analysis by planning and council staff prior to the completion of the committee's work. So the body would need a motion to accept the staff recommendation on this item if we were to take it up. I see the district council member of the affected area in the queue, councilor Rebalko. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to appreciate everything that everybody's done, particularly the committee. This is a very dense packet and we've all been following it home. All the nuances. So I've looked at this and I think that it, for me it makes sense to include it in the town center area. The only caveat I would say is that we're in the process of doing a study for the German town town sector which I hope will turn into a sector master plan in the next year or so, which would really look at this entire area. From a personal perspective, it makes sense for this to be in the town center. The expected growth in the area would lend itself to additional housing, which would activate the area. So I'd like to make a motion that we included in the town sector in the town center area. We have a motion on the floor to accept the staff recommendation here. It's moved and by Council Member Bacchum, seconded by Council Member Fondin-Gonzalez. I don't see any comments, all those in favor of the motion. Please indicate by raising your hand that is unanimous to accept the staff recommendation. Let's continue. Great, thank you. Moving on to recommendation 3.1B, which would define the geographic extents of the White Oak Local Area Transportation Improvement Program, Late-Tip Area, and therefore differentiating it from the White Oak Policy Area and retaining the program's current boundaries. This recommendation does not functionally change the White Oak Late-Tip or policy areas, but resolves a technical issue that occurred from splitting the White Oak policy area into two, granting the downtown area and therefore messing up the reference in the law between the policy area and the late tip. Okay, late tip not to be confused with latter LATR, a lot of acronyms here, we're trying our best. Check the packet if you don't know at any of these items, me, but we'll try our best to know what they are. We have a three-nothing committee recommendation. I don't see any comments without objection. We will accept recommendation 3.1B. Let's continue. Thank you. So moving on to the local area transportation review, the latter or LATR. It's the core mechanism and the GIP for determining and addressing gaps in offsite transportation adequacy for new development projects. The first sort of step if you're a developer in encountering the LATR and determining is determining whether your project will be above or below the threshold for completing an LATR study and therefore going on to make improvements. These thresholds have changed over the years in sort of the history of which is outlined in Table 7 on page 17 of the packet. Ever since we introduced non-motor vehicleatic was he tests in 2016, it's been a sort of back and forth in terms of how exactly to determine thresholds for those tests. In 2020, we merged that with the motor vehicle test into just a blanket 50-person trip. The planning board recommends raising that threshold to be 50 vehicle trips, which is equivalent to about 77 person trips, to reduce the number of developments that must complete LATR studies, easing the burden on smaller developments. This is codified in recommendation 3.2. There are some contexts in the packet in terms of the projects and their trip thresholds that they've hit in the past four years. Testimony on this item is included in the packet. The committee agreed with the planning board's decision to revert to a vehicle trip threshold, but disagreed with raising the threshold and decreasing the number of projects that must complete an LATR study. The committee recommendation therefore is to approve recommendation 3.2 with one change, decreasing the threshold from 50 to 30 net new peak hour vehicle trips, essentially keeping the threshold the same, but changing the name from person to vehicle which we know is easier for developers to measure. So we made it simpler and easier. It did not accept the change to change the universe of projects that would be included in terms of number, although the universe is impacted by vehicle trips versus person trips because those aren't necessarily the same. There's a three-nothing committee recommendation. I'll see any colleagues wishing to speak on this item so we will accept as recommended by the committee and continue on to recommendation 3-3. Thank you. Previously I referenced motor vehicle adequacy. This is a measure of adequacy in intersection delay and congestion standards in the local area around a project. LATR studies, intersection delay standards are higher for orange policy than yellow or orange areas than yellow areas. And so recommendation 3.3 would adjust the areas that are being changed from yellow to orange accordingly. Adjusting the intersection delay standards to be higher, seconds per vehicle. And that's recommendation 3.3 and the committee recommends approving this recommendation. Don't see any colleagues wishing to speak on this item. We have unanimous committee recommendation and without objection we will accept recommendation 3.3. Thank you. Moving on to the non-motor vehicle adequacy test. This is good to think of it as the other half of the LATR. Currently, the LATR guidelines require three non-motor vehicle tests, bus transit, pedestrian and bicycle, and the current pedestrian system has three components, pedestrian level of comfort, illuminance, and ADA compliance. The planning board recommends simplifying these three tests into one non-motor vehicle adequacy test as referenced in table seven on page 17 of the packet. This is contained in recommendation 3.4. This simplification does not impact the requirements of the test, but instead changes it from three requirements, one of which has three parts into five requirements, making it just a simpler for developers through the process. And the committee recommends approving recommendation 3.4. We have a unanimous committee recommendation. I'll see colleagues wishing to speak. This doesn't change the benefit to the residents or to the workers or to the visitors or to the public. It just makes it easier to comply with what were added rigorous standards to improve walkability, bikeability, livability, and safety in these areas, which was a significant add. There's a lot of conversation of what we took away or didn't do or reduced in the last time we took up this policy item but not enough conversation from my perspective on what we required and why we required it and what that does to help us move towards our public policy goals and our interests in creating safer, more walkable, more livable communities. This is an example of that and we made it a little difficult. So now we're making it a little bit easier, but keeping the same goal in mind. We have a unanimous committee recommendation. Don't see any colleagues wishing to speak, so we will accept this item and recommendation as recommended by the committee. Thank you. In addition for the non-motivocal adequacy test, the planning board recommends modifying the non-motivocal adequacy test extents. You can think of these as the radius around a development within which a developer must mitigate and identify inadequacies. The current GIP has different study extents for each policy area category. It also places some numerical extents on the number of bus shelters or feet of sidewalk that must be improved. I will note that since the 2020 GIP, the planning board has also developed the LATR proportionality guide, which also governs the limit except instead of geographical limits that is a dollar value limit. So there are different ways in which we are constraining the amount that developers are having to study and improve. So recommendation 3.5 is to modify these extents, these test requirements. These changes are summarized in the packet, but I will call out the most notably in table 9 and 10 in which in red policy, red and orange policy areas, this recommendation would reduce the extents for ADA compliance pedestrian level of comfort and illuminance to reduce burdens on developers in those areas while maintaining high standards and getting the adequacy that we want within those areas. And table 10 depicts how in yellow and green areas, the extents would increase for bicycle and bus transit adequacy to keep up with with County standards across the county. And the committee recommends approval. We have unanimous committee recommendation and without objection, I don't see any colleagues wishing to speak. We will accept recommendation 3.5. Great. So the moving on to the vision zero statement, this is something that a developer application must provide. And the current statement mentions the need to manage vehicle speeds, but does not specifically tie speed management to outcomes. So recommendation 3.6 would replace the current Vision Zero statement with the one quoted in the packet, which specifically tides speed to safety outcomes. And the committee recommends approval. We have a unanimous committee recommendation. This really doubles down on our Vision Zero goals from the last time we took this up and really focuses on safety in particular and calls it out specifically. I don't see any colleagues wishing to speak on this and so with that objection we will accept recommendation 3.6. Thank you. Moving on to the Safe Systems adequacy test. The 2020 GIP approved by the council included a placeholder for a future Safe Systems adequacy test. is a placeholder for a future Safe Systems Adequacy Test. However, in the meantime, over the past four years, the county has developed other Adequacy tests that address safety and county design and county design guidance, like the Complete Streets Design Guide and related code updates that provide direction for development review. So the Safe Systems Adequacy Test has currently referenced in the GIP, would be an additional development expense that would not provide meaningful additional safety benefits. And so recommendation 3.7 is to remove the reference to that test in the GIP. Don't see any colleagues were going to speak on this. And so without objection, we will accept the recommendation. Thank you. Previously I mentioned the LATR proportionality guide. There's an overview in the packet of exactly how this works. But essentially it is a, it places a dollar value limit on the amount in improvements or mitigation payments that a developer may have to make as the result of an LATR study and development review. It takes into account the extent of the development and the policy area and community and local context in which that development is occurring. While the LATR proportionality guide has made the cost of constructed improvements more predictable, according to planning staff and development community, it continues to generate disproportionate and excessive costs for some projects. Thus the 2024 GIP includes recommendation 3.8, which directs planning staff and the planning department to develop a vehicle trip-based proportionality guide calculation that better accounts for impacts. There is not a specific directive for exactly what that will look like, other than it being vehicle trip based, in addition to looking at generally your occupancy and local area. And planning so planning staff, if this recommendation is approved by the Council will work with consultant to develop a new LATR proportionality guide methodology by examining similar systems and conducting a review. Thank you. I don't see any colleagues wishing to speak. We will without objection except recommendation 3.8. Thank you. Moving on to mitigation payments, which I mentioned previously, the planning board and planning department and MCDOT strongly prefer that LATR, that the LATR process result in constructed improvements that developers are actually building to address deficiencies that are identified in the local area. However, there are situations in which, due to right away, or other physical constraints, that these improvements are not immediately possible through, by, to make the development improvements, developer constructed improvements. In cases like these, the GIP allows developers to make a, what they call a mitigation payment, in lieu of constructed improvements. In cases like these, the GIP allows developers to make a, what they call a mitigation payment in lieu of constructed improvements. These payments are currently allowed to be spent on similar, most specific improvements within the same policy area or on an adjacent policy area for red policy areas and orange town centers. These relatively small payments attached to tightly constrained parameters for spending make tracking, budgeting, and spending challenging. Thus, the 2024 GIP includes the following recommendations. Recommendation 3.9, which would allow fee and loop funds to be spent in both the subject policy area and adjacent policy areas and recommendation 3.10 which would expand rather than limiting the use of funds to specific modes allow these mitigation payments to be spent on any non-motor vehicle or any collected for non-motor vehicle deficiencies to be used for any non-motor vehicle improvement within the subject policy area. And the committee recommends approval of both of these. We have a unanimous committee recommendation. The goal here, we've been doing this in a number of other areas as well as to try to make sure that the payments that we're receiving can actually be utilized for the purposes that they're intended so that the public benefits from the receipt of these funds and they don't sit in an account and not be able to be used. We have examples of this on the school side of things and examples of this on the transportation side of this. And so we have a unanimous committee. recommendation I see one colleague wishing to speak. Let me turn to councilman Valkyrie. So thank you. I think that this is certainly logical and that we don't want the money to sitting there and that we should make improvements. My only concern is that if taken to the extreme, the area that is needs to be mitigated is never improved. And so the next time that somebody comes forward with a development, it still needs improvement and that new developments has to pay a mitigation fee. And the original area never gets the improvement. So I will vote in favor of this recommendation, but I think that that's one of the areas when we look at fees and specifically the impact tax of, we have to make sure that if there, if there's an area in need of mitigation that at some point that area gets improved. And I understand that, for instance, for schools, we can't build a portion of a school for a road. We can't build a small portion of a road. But we can't not improve the roads and lanes and intersections. So I just wanted to bring that up as one of the flaws in this system. Thank you. Appreciate that, a broader challenge. This is trying to help with that, but doesn't solve that for sure. Thank you for noting that. We do have unanimous committee recommendation. I'll see any other colleagues wishing to speak. And so with that, we will accept without objection this committee recommendation on 3.9. Thank you. I will note that the next section LATR exemptions is substantial and I will leave it up to, not sure how we're doing that time relative to other. I would suggest we start 3.10 and see if we can get through 3.10 and then we'll probably cut it off. 3.11. 3.11 excuse me, we just approve both. 3.11. Right. So let's start. There's a number of sub items, but let's see if we can get through one or two and then we're going to do a hard stop on this at 1110. And if there's a clean break before that, then we'll break then to move on to our state legislation conversation. Thank you. So moving on to the next section, and we'll, you know, I guess cover this across this and the next week. Some types of projects may be exempt from LATR requirements, from beginning the LATR process or from some of the requirements. The council created the first such exemption in the GIP in 2020, a temporary suspension for bioscience facilities in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the expansion of bioscience in the county. The GIP also exempts affordable housing units from the calculation of a project's required mitigation payments if possible because mitigation payments are based on the number of units through the proportionality guide and so the number of units can count towards or against that. So the planning board recommends creating four new exemptions in addition to extending the bioscience facility exemption. The packet sorts these recommendations into three categories, new exemptions for certain units, new and complete exemptions, and continuations of existing exemptions. So, starting in that first category with new exemptions for certain units, development, or I'll start with recommendation 3.11A, which would expand the current offsite exemption for affordable housing units, which currently only includes mitigation payments to include constructed improvements. This would adjust the proportionality guide by subtracting trips attributed to new affordable units. And the trips generated by these units will still count towards the 50 vehicle trip LATR threshold. So the way that this works is, instead of, like we used for bioscience, we exempt bioscience projects from starting the LATR process at all. So the recommendation 3.11A would apply to any project with affordable units, mostly refers to MPDUs, but also in code refers to a couple of other types of affordable housing. And so they would go through the LATR process, they would conduct a study, and when it comes time to calculate the improvements that they would need to make, which is done through the proportionality guide. Affordable units in a development would be subtracted from that calculation of the total amount of improvements. This would, yeah, then if we do recommendation 3.12 as well since it's similar or would you like to stick to the first one? I think we take two unanimous recommendations are fairly closely related so we'll take them up unless there's an interest from colleagues to split them. Sure. Thank you. So recommendation 3.12 functions similarly, except instead of affordable units, this would refer to multi-units, multi-family units with three or more bedrooms, against subtracting those from the total required improvements and mitigation payments. For context, Council staff has included some information on the total number of these such units in the county since 2018. Some high-level analysis from Council staff suggests that the impact of LATR exemptions on development feasibility is small for affordable housing units and three or more bedroom units while also raising concerns that the committee discussed around reducing the adequacy improvements that may be made through these projects for uncertain efficacy in in achieving outcomes uh... so the committee recommended uh... unanimously to not approve recommendations three point eleven and three point twelve uh... for those reasons three point eleven a and three point eleven a and three point eleven a and three point twelve apologies so you clarified for me i'm gonna clarify for you it's a team effort we both appreciate it so thank you it's a lot of uh... numbers and recommendations. I don't see any colleagues wishing to speak on this item. I will note we had robust conversation and committee ultimately landed on a unanimous view on these items. And so with that, without objection, we have unanimous committee recommendations on 3.11a and 3.12, and we will accept those without objection. And we, let's begin discussing 3.11b. If this turns into a longer discussion than eight minutes, then we will cut off conversation and pick it back up. Next week, I just want to warn colleagues that that may mean that everybody can't speak who wishes to speak on this item if it evokes additional conversation. Great. Thank you. So in addition to these exemptions for certain units, the GIP recommends two new exemptions, two new complete exemptions for certain types of projects. These are recommendations 3.11, which would exempt 3.11b rather, that would exempt mixed income housing community projects, and 3.13, which would exempt daycares from the requirement to complete an LATR study. The committee recommended two to one, to not approve recommendation 3.11B due to, for similar reasons as the affordable housing, given concerns about adequacy and efficacy Councilmember freets and Descented on I'm sure he'll he'll speak to that and And recommendation I guess I'll keep it at recommendation 3.11b for now is there were some additional follow-up items for 3.13 that that might Let's let's keep the 3.11b. I'll just quickly know there's a robust discussion about this. Very respectful conversation among committee members. And my view here was this was different in the sense that we had a zoning text amendment that Council members sales and I worked on together to expedite the review period for projects that meet mixed income housing, affordable housing, criteria, and these tests require a longer period of time, which slows that process down, which undermines the effort that that zoning text amendment was intending to accomplish. And so for that reason, I thought that it was important to accept the planning board recommendation. I don't think that was as much a part of the initial description of this recommendation from the beginning, which wasn't just about affordability. It was about a policy decision that we had already made and carrying that out to fidelity. Once we fleshed that out, I personally felt like we should accept that recommendation. I have a couple colleagues currently in the queue here. Let me start with Councilor Refining and Zellas. Thank you, Mr. President. This was the only recommendation in the entire packet where I pause and I say, wait a minute. And I have to, after we've ordered on it, I went back and I read all the testimony that we received, which was quite a few. And then I went back and read the law that we used to prove a sponsor or let by council member sales and council president Fritzent. And at the end of the day, this project's that are mixed income and remember, when we talked about mixed income projects, we're talking about deep affordability. We're talking about people making $40,000 a year, like deep affordability projects. So they present a unique situation and for that reason Mr. President Chair of the P.H.P. Committee I'm going to change my vote and go from instead of supporting the Council staff I'm going to support the planning board recommendation, which means I'm going to agree with you. So be happy. Big smile. That doesn't happen that often. So I'm making that switch and I encourage our colleagues to make a motion to support the planning board for commendation on this item on 3.11b. Second, there's a motion and a second. I'm going to turn it over to Councilmember Glass for comment here and then I have Councilmember Balkham in the queue if that's it and we can get it done in a few minutes. We can take a vote if we're ready. not we will wait and take it back up next week with the motion standing on the floor. Councilor McLaughlin. Just so I understand you want us to proceed with the motion on the floor and engage in this conversation. Yes for the moment but we're going to do a hard cutoff at 1110. I'd like to reserve my right to pick up this conversation. Next week, as Chair of the Transportation and Environment Committee, I have a lot of concerns with the motion that's just been put forward. I want to dive a lot deeper into what this means for walkable livable communities, especially for those who would most benefit from the type of development that has been referenced, those people who are most benefit from the type of development that has been referenced, those people who are most dependent on public transportation, who are most dependent on walking and how the LATR affects those future communities. Councillor Mabagra. So I might not have a short comment either. I just, just the difference between A and B in terms of affordable housing units and mixed income housing communities. And I'm trying to read through the language. And I don't think I have a question, but if somebody can. Yeah, the mixed income housing communities are specific communities, specific projects that meet the zoning text amendment threshold. And the recommendation here was to exempt those because there was a zoning text amendment that was put forward to significantly and dramatically expedite the review process for these affordable housing projects that meet rigorous standards of affordability through some of the many projects that we have. I will note that these are projects where the county is subsidizing much of the cost of the projects overall, which would include the mitigations that would be required. So there would be an opportunity if there was a desire for the county to step in to handle some of these efforts. But hopefully that includes that's different than anything that meets an affordability standard including MPDU and some of the other programs as noted in the code as you heard from staff earlier. Yes. I didn't tweak on that. That it was specifically designed to that CTA. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Rujwanda, the last word you have one minute. All right. I also look forward to it sounds like we'll vote on this next time. Just I think we don't want less walkability by mobility for folks who are low-income. And that was why I think the counts, I won't speak for counts of staff, but I guess why I agree with the recommendation, DOT had similar concerns. We had a robust discussion about it. Timeline understanding that, there was also some discussion in nuance about that it doesn't restart the clock and how it might not necessarily lead to that much longer of a timeline. So I think we should discuss all that and take that into account when we vote on it. Thank you. Thank you. All right, we're going to cut it off there. Sorry, Council Member Albernos. We'll pick it up next week. I'm in a commitment that we were going to stop at 1110. We are following that commitment. Thank you to staff. Thank you to staff, thank you to planning, thank you to the executive branch for your participation, thank you to colleagues for thoughtful conversations. This is an important topic that we will pick up next week along with the rest of the recommendations, which we will plan to get through with straw votes at our next meeting next week. Now I am going to move it on along with our agenda to item two, which is state legislation. I'm going to invite Miss Wanger and representatives from the Office of Intergovernmental Relations to walk us through the executive's proposed state priorities list. Please come to the table as quickly as possible. And colleagues, we have a hard cutoff at 11.50. the review that is reflects the county executives recommended priorities for capital projects for the 2025 session and also for what I kind of consider policy priorities for the 2025 session. So glad to change the order around but the first documents we have here on the agenda will be the capital priorities list and I have Rachel Silverman with me with the Office of Management and Budget who can provide much greater detail if there are questions about these specific projects. Do you want to just quickly go through them? You don't have to go through exhaustively every aspect of every project that would take us weeks. Not the time that we have today, but if you want to just quickly walk through it for the record. And then I think it's fine to go through the capital projects. Just want to note, we're very fortunate to have a chair of capital budget, Craig Zucker, on the Senate side, as a representative of Montgomery County to be able to fight for these projects in Annapolis. We heard loud and clear at our meeting that we had, which I appreciated. We haven't done a meeting jointly with the delegation in quite some time. And this was something that I thought was very important for us to do again. And I thought was very substantive and helpful. One of the things that we heard loud and clear was that the fiscal realities of the state would be tighter this year. And we needed to brace ourselves for that and prepare ourselves for that. With that being said, it was made also loud and clear that our delegation uses the state priorities list as their guiding force throughout the legislative session. So the decisions we make here are quite important and really provide a road map to our partners in Annapolis who do a great job in trying to deliver for us each session and we know we'll do so despite some of the fiscal challenges that we're going to be facing this year. But why don't we quickly just note each of the topics and list them. They're in the packet, but I think it's important to note them publicly. And then we can see if there's any colleagues who have comments or concerns. I'll just note, we're not intending to vote today. We're intending to present these to the council today. Any questions that you have, you can ask today, or follow up with, and we're gonna come back to vote and agree and approve. This is our joint and shared priorities list. The idea is to have a united front with the executive and the council on the priorities that we have in anapolis so that our partners have clear guidance, particularly on the capital projects that they should be advocating for and that we are asking for as a county government. Okay, so the first three projects are cultural arts projects that I think you're all probably familiar with. American Film Institute Silver Theatre, its additional seating, Strathmore, this is roof replacement. The National Park Service Spanish Ballroom, this is obviously kind of a complicated project because it's with the National Park Service. So it looks like the National Park Service has green lighted this so it's a $2.5 million request. White land acquisition. Again, if there's questions about this, I'm going to turn this one over to Rachel. But it is the purchase of property for a couple of projects. And that's 5 million storm, storm water pond refits. I think that that goes without explanation. That's 5. 5 million. Storm water pond refits, I think that goes without explanation. That's 5.2 million. Wheaton branch fled mitigation about 1.8 million. And then this is really a wide oak kind of infrastructure to help support the VIVA White Oak Development Project for 13.5 million. And this is just a source of funds to work the Diva White Oat Development Project for 13.5 million. This is just a source of funds to work to revitalize treble and distress community ownership communities. And that's 5 million. The design and construction of a Western County Recreation Center that's 7.5 million continuing to work on electric vehicle infrastructure, one and a half million. A childcare playground renovation and replacement, this is an important project. It's smaller in denomination, about 800,000. And a diversion center walk in support room. And it's basically is kind of a renovation of another room that exists for $2 million. Then small congregation, men shelter. This is just facilities planning for $200,000. And then let me go to my other list because there's an addition of a park project. That is, sorry, yeah, it's Wheaton. Right, it's the Adventure Sports Park construction. So, and that's one and a half million. On the transportation side, this is a large request. New Transit Maintenance Depot, I think this might have been on the list last year too. Another important project, it's large, it's 200 million. But we feel it's important to make sure that the state and our delegation does know that these are high priority projects for the county Whether or not we would get $200 million this year for that or not the north But that's a metro station the north entrance. This is an ongoing project that request is nine million Storm during Colbert replacement it you know sounds not very interesting, but it's very important 6.8 million and Continuation of the bus rapid transit build out. It's 110 million. The South entrance, 12 million, that's an ongoing project too. The Bluey Mill Road bikeway, this is a project that's received funding over the years. And it also is pre-authorized for funding in the FY26 state capital budget. So it needs to actually be appropriated. So it's not a done deal, but it's on a path to a good end. That $6 million in that amount is in addition to the amount that's pre-authorized lower down on the sheet. And then the Randolph Road CSX Great Separation is $750,000. We also include a paragraph here that expresses support for the public school construction projects. This is a much lower number this year than I think I've ever seen. And there are reasons for that. It's 24.7 million. And they're all, I think, system preservation projects. And then Montgomery College has two projects that are listed there, Rockfield Campus Library, and also the, let's see here, and the Germantown Campus Student Service Center. Then the City of Gathearsburg has a request this year that they have asked for support from the county on so we've included that request for their municipal complex for 8 million on this document too. And then at the bottom of that sheet it just shows what the pre-authorizations are and which one of those are pure county projects and which ones of those are projects that are we're not requested by the county but are in the county and will benefit the communities. So that's that list. So this is the county's priority list. This is other priorities of partners, municipal and outside agencies of which we are indicating our support for those requests. It's important that our delegation understands that there's support since they are fighting for us and with us on these items, appreciate the executive, including the schools in City of Gathersburg and Rockville campus and Germantown campus projects for Montgomery College, which are quite important, but are not necessarily county projects, but they are benefiting of our broader community. And then as well as the other items, the shady grove only and Don Bosco, Christa Ray High School items. These are not county projects but they are within the county and things that are of benefit that it's important that we show our support because it's a, this is the official document that our delegation uses to pursue our priorities. I don't see any colleagues wishing to speak. We'll take some time to digest these capital projects and we will come back for formal votes. I would ask that if colleagues wish to make changes to the item that they send them in writing to to me and to Miss Wanger and her team so that it could be shared with the be able to prepare prior to that conversation so that we're not taking up new items from the floor which I don't think we will be able to do and get proper and appropriate feedback from the executive, the executive branch and from the relevant partners as needed. So I think that is all for our capital projects and we will follow up with questions individually and if there are changes, both deletions or additions, please share those in advance in writing prior to the next meeting and we can send a time for that once we consult with Ms. Wanger and understand the time that it would take to get feedback from the executive. Okay, so the next few pages are what I would kind of describe as policy priorities. And the process for doing this actually starts early on where we ask executive branch agencies for feedback on this. So that's kind of how the list is tailored with some input from staff to because as we watch how the 2025 session is going to set up, we want to make sure that this document is somewhat relevant to what we believe the session issues will be, which I think will be largely focused on the state budget and also all things energy and everything that falls out from energy. And then of course there will be other surprises that we hope to be nimble enough to be able to react to. So the document tries to anticipate some of that and the things that are longstanding been important to the county. And the first one is education because they're in reconciling the state budget this year there is a lot of discussion underway about the blueprint which is a very, very large driver of budget both locally and at the state level. And it sounds like that there are discussions underway about what revisions may or may not be made to that program we want to make sure we want to make a statement that we certainly hope that the objectives of that program remain intact. And then I'm just going to kind of sort down through the contributing staff here. Garrett Fitzgerald who does the environment asked Garrett to cover the climate change energy and environment section of this document. Sure. Thanks, Melanie. So under climate change energy and environment, we have three priorities. The first one is the big one where we'll see a lot of activity this year. It's all about supporting bold and equitable progress, reducing the pollution that leads to climate change through clean energy, like solar, building decarbonization through energy efficiency, electrification, transportation improvements, etc. As Melody mentioned, energy prices, energy is going to be a big topic this year. Energy prices are going up for a variety of reasons in Maryland. And those cost impacts are likely to be a big topic of conversation in all the legislation that we're going to see related to energy this year. We do anticipate some pretty significant bills in this area, one related to the sighting of large solar projects, which I'm sure some of you have heard about already. I'm happy to answer questions about, all fine. Also related to the state's clean energy strategy, possibly we'll see legislation related to energy requirements for new and existing buildings, for data centers, for all these things that are ultimately causing energy prices to go up. Little probably fewer bills in the other areas, but our other two priorities here, one relates to supporting efforts to try to increase the resilience of Maryland to the impacts of climate change that are already happening here and we'll continue. And the last is supporting other environmental protection policies and investments and we're likely to see a couple of things related to water quality related to waste production and waste management. And I'll pass it to I believe Kathleen. Yes, Kathleen is covering health and human services for us right now because Leslie Fry with Department of Health and Human Services is out on maternity leave. So Kathleen's back up and I'm the secondary back up on this one. So I'll do my best while Leslie's at home with her new daughter Naomi. So this first bullet under Health and Human Services is a budget issue. It's, we're looking for opportunities to develop and implement a statewide plan to address the shortage of inpatient beds needed for mental health needs, including adults, youth under 18 and older adults who require assisted living care. And that includes the older adults who have co-occurring somatic and behavioral health concerns. Second bullet, this relates to an issue that most of you heard about when Senator Kramer spoke to this issue at your meeting last week with a state delegation. There's, the county has a grave concern about the state of nursing home inspections in the county and the lack thereof surveys and investigations of complaints. And we're looking to, for opportunities, create more transparency in the state's process in terms of communications with us, what information we're able to get from them, what are they going to be here, what have they done, what types of complaints are they getting, just transparency and collaboration with the state, but also importantly supporting efforts to seek authority to do inspections ourselves at the local level. Again, to what Senator Kramer spoke to the fact that the county previously had an MOU with the state that was terminated under the Hogan administration in 2021 that allowed us to do inspections ourselves. That was terminated. There's work underway to try to renegotiate that MOU. If that's not successful, there may be a need for legislation to force it. And if there's questions on that particular topic, we have Dr. Patrice McGee and Dr. Nina Ashford here from DHHS. And then the third bullet supporting greater investment in housing solutions for folks experiencing homelessness, including rapid rehousing and permanent supportive housing and initiatives to increase production and preservation of affordable housing. And then the final bullet supporting a greater investment in rental and home energy assistant for folks facing eviction That's the health and human services Any questions before moving on? We're gonna hold questions until after all this Yeah, Kathleen you're moving into housing. Oh, no, no, okay So this first bullet is again, we're looking for opportunities to provide tenants with housing stability and security, including efforts relating to what is known as just cause legislation that would give the county clear authority to enact local law that would prohibit landlords from failing through a new or residential lease during lease period or seeking to terminate a holdover tendency with how it could cause. This is a bill that, and this is an idea you're very familiar with, I think, last year, a bill got out of house, got to the Senate, failed to the Senate. And it's a local and it's an enabling law. It's a, the state bill would enable clear authority for local governments to enact, just cause legislation at the local level. The second bullet here, the second bullet relates to limited equity cooperatives. And the county has become aware of this policy issue because DHA has been working. And I think a number of you have been involved with this as well with a rental building into Co-Ampark, the Leland, it's got 15 units. And in the past year, the county worked with that, that the tenants association there to purchase the building. The intent, and they've purchased it, the tenants association has purchased it. The intent was that they become a limited equity cooperative where each tenant, each member of the co-op had an ownership interest, a model that would keep the low income or low to mid-income characteristics of the building, but provide an ownership interest to folks who live there. That was the intent that they would purchase it and turn it into a limited equity cooperative. What we're hearing back from the folks who represent the Tennis Association is the state law under which they have to operate now, that the state law that applies to market rate conversions of rental building to a co-op is impossible essentially to comply with in this context. There's all sorts of things that the folks who work with the Lealand believe are inappropriate in the state law to burden some just don't work. So they're having trouble completing the goal of becoming a limited equity co-op because of the state law. They have several options. They even need to get changes to state law that would apply in the limited equity low-income situation versus market rate, where they have to go through a complex legal analysis of trying to mimic a limited equity co-op, through changes to the Argos and Corporation, their bylaws, their certificates of occupancy. Yeah, comply with state law, change state law, or go through a complex legal analysis of trying to mimic an LEC. A lot of background and some across our chief of housing from DHCA is here if you have any questions, but the idea here would be that if legislation is introduced to help facilitate throughout the state the creation of limited equity crops that we would want to support that. That it's a way of helping retain naturally affordable housing in the community and we'd want to support that. We actually don't know yet whether they'll be legislation, but it's here for now until we sort of sort that out in the next couple months. On the economic development section, this first bullet I think might be a bit of a work in progress. The reason I say that is because there was a report that was just released that might better inform. I think this, the way this first bullet is drafted from the Maryland Economic Council. I think it might have just come out yesterday or the day before that provides an interesting kind of criticism of the state system and how they deliver economic development services. And I think in light of the recommendations that they are making, we might want to rethink this, but the thought of this first bullet was the need that I think some people identify for the state to have some type of fund that can act as a resource for incentivizing large, large companies to come to the state or to the county in a much more kind of nimble, flexible way than the programs that exist today. Again, however, in light of this report that just came out, like to take one more shot at this and I'll send it out and also get any kind of feedback you have about this piece. The second, the second, I think, is very important. It involves the Ry Zone. We were Montgomery College. The Germantown campus was the site of the first Ryzone, and in the intermittent years there were changes to that state statute that now are making that Ryzone not as effective as it could be. And we think one of the issues in the state laws that it requires the technology be actually developed on the campus so it was much more kind of directed to the flagship and to University of Maryland Baltimore types of projects and not so much to any community college in the state. So we would be potentially seeking to change in that statute in order to kind of free up the opportunity that exists at the Germantown campus for the college and the county to attract the type of projects that were originally envisioned to that campus. And I'm gonna ask Hayley to just go ahead and go through, headly Pecker with the Mayor Montgomery County Department of Transportation to go through the transportation and vision zero section. Since she's- This one's really long if you could please go through. I was going to summarize. Summarizing is good. Haley Peck at MCDRT. The first four are all supporting additional funding, investment, transportation, building on success. We had some legislation last year that guaranteed a minimum level of lots funding, which was kind of on the chopping block early on. But we also are noting that as more folks, especially in the BRT space, are getting into that space, we do have funding from state lottery for BRT, but we want to keep growing the pot and encouraging this type of investment. Womata still does not have a long-term stable funding source continuing to be funded with one time. So we are looking to support that as our partners at M.Dot move ahead. And I just want to mention the American Legion Bridge project. So the state does not have a clear path forward. They clearly are struggling with funding. But as they are working on certain TAN of Path Forward, we want to make sure that their previous transit commitment to us maintains a front seat at the table. And we keep those for a front and center of those conversations. You can see some of the other details in here. front seat at the table and we keep those four front center of those conversations. You can see some of the other details in here. Moving on on the safety side, we are certainly continuing to support Vision Zero and both for motorized users as well as vulnerable users. And we do want to emphasize automated enforcement on our high injury network is not currently enabled or we're supportive of efforts to make that more of a priority and able that type of automated enforcement. Looking at prioritizing investments to help address historic inequities and then I just want to highlight that bullet seven whereas bullet five is focused on safety including safety vulnerable users, bullet seven is really focusing on some of the mode shift as well as your emissions. So trying to get people out of cars or into more fuel, efficient zero emission vehicles and making walking biking and transit more attractive. And then finally, I just want to highlight that state of good repair remains a critical need, a high expense in terms of maintenance. So we don't want to focus too much, or only exclusively on new investment in transit we also want to make sure our existing resources are maintained. Sarah, that's great. I want to say, Sarah, one extra. So under public safety there are three bullets. These are all return items that the county supported last year. The first being support efforts to enhance penalties for reclassage and aggressive driving, including fleeing and eluding police in a vehicle by increasing fines and posing imprisonment and revoking offenders. Drivers licensed, council member Lutki has been working very closely with the county executive's office and trying to come up with two bills again. We have sponsors in the Senate and in the House to try and push this issue forward. We have not seen draft bill language, but we're working on bill language at this point. The next, Haley just alluded to with automated speed traffic enforcement on high entry networks, included in that, just sort of along that vein, is also looking to allow graduated fines for speed camera tickets with automated traffic enforcement. We have sponsors in the House and the Senate to pursue something like that. It would be along the lines of what the legislature did last year with work zones and ATEM enforcement. And the third is again looking at fentanyl related cases and what's going on. Councilmember Fanigon-Zalis has been pushing this a lot as other members as well, but on prosecuting fentanyl related deaths and dealing with jurisdiction issues that we have on that issue. Local autonomy, this is an almost standard language that we use every year to try and guard against preemption. We have language again here, including trying to gain greater authority for things like our own revenue generation and things like that. So I'm certain that this year again we will have all kinds of small battles including solar issues and things like that on that front. So this paragraph, just this full, just tries to cover the bases on a preemption issues. And that is the story. We have a lot of colleagues in the queue in limited time, so I will note to colleagues, we're not voting on this. Today, if we could try to keep comments as brief as possible, I am going to cut this item off as mentioned 1150, so in the interest of getting through as many comments as possible, turn it to the first in the queue as Council Member Blas. Thank you very much, Mr. President. I'll just tick through three quick things. And first, energy and the environment building energy performance standards. This Council, the T&E Committee in particular, has been doing our due diligence for the better part of this calendar year, going through the very lengthy building energy performance standards. And we know that there are regulations that are in Annapolis with a longer timeline. So we're going to be watching what happens there and lots of conversations engaging with stakeholders and leaders in the general assembly. Vision zero, we glossed over it really quickly, but just last week public safety and transportation and environment committee held a joint committee talking about road safety and the number of items we identified as must-haves are all coming from the state. So again, priority for everybody. But the specific question I have is something that Ms. Wenger mentioned earlier and it is about the blueprint. We all know that there are going to be changes to the timeline and changes to the requirement and also likely some budgetary changes that will ensue. As MCPS right now is, and the superintendent in particular, is developing his budget for that system. What have, what conversations have taken place with regard to the information you all know about what is coming out of Annapolis and how that should inform the superintendent and then the school board and then the county executive and then finally us with regard to the MCPS budget. I would just say that I don't have, we do not have a lot of intelligence on exactly what the direction might be. The spending affordability committee is due to me, I believe, next month and my guess is that's where that discussion will start to really take place. That's just the Department of Legislative Services with the legislative branch. That's one of their first salvos at how the budget, the subsequent year budget is setting up. And I think that the blue print will be a lot about, a lot of that conversation. I think that that's where we're going to start to see the beginnings of what that plan is. I am certain that there are discussions underway, but we have not been privy to any of those discussions. Sure, I understand the nature of that and I'll just conclude by saying I would implore every level of Montgomery County government to be speaking with each other about the potential changes that are coming down the road as budget sessions, as budgets are being developed right now across the street, both at the executive and with MCPS. And all of that will be greatly impacted by what comes out and while we might not know the details, everybody must be mindful of the potential impacts that that will create. So thank you. Thank you, Councilor Smith, for your answer. Great, thank you. Thank you for this list. I particularly appreciate the focus on mental health issues and homelessness under Health and Human Services. The one thing I wanted to ask, maybe Ms. Peck at this goes to you, is as we finalize this, if we could look again under transportation at items 5, 6, and 8, and whether or not there is something that specifically looks at and talks about state highway, we've had conversations in the PHP committee as well as transportation and environment. We had the working group last year from delegate Lopez. There's been a lot of conversations about how do we really have shared responsibilities with state highway when we look for improvements. What does that look like? What does it look like on timelines for state highway to review projects? So I think it's kind of implied a little bit in bullets 5, 6, and 8, and just would like maybe another look at that to see if we want something more explicit. Thank you. Thanks, and I do believe we are working to move forward the sidewalk maintenance bill from last year. I just know with the budget situation, it may or may not have a lot of legs. Thank you, Councillor Member Auberna. Thank you, Mr. President. Just first a procedural question. When are we going to take this up again? Because I know we've only got nine minutes left and we're all going to get to what we need to get to. That will be scheduled at a later day. As I mentioned earlier, we need to consult with OIR and with the executive branch to make sure we have time to get to the delegation and time to get the feedback that we need from the executive branch, but we're not taking it up next week. Yeah, there's there's time. Yeah, there's time. Good Just a few thoughts first obviously concur with the four points laid out under health and human services appreciate every once leadership on that and I just want to underscore the first bullet point and thank Councilmember Funding Gonzalez and a number of other colleagues that have focused on the issue of the shortage of inpatient beds needed to treat individual mental health care needs, which is having a compounding challenge with substance abuse issues. And rearing its ugly head in so many different ways, devastating families, and it's not something the county can fix on its own. There are policy issues, there's funding issues. It's a regional challenge and so I certainly appreciate that. I'll just mention for now since we don't have a lot of time, there are two items that I'd like to expand upon and include on the list and one is the issue of food insecurity, delegate block of edge car introduced legislation last year that sadly did not make it through committee but to propose the concept of universal meals which we have heard in the national election discussed often. Minnesota has been able to do this and it's a key component if we are going to Enchalhoed Humber here in Montgomery County and in our region. And can't happen without it. And so I'd like to propose that we discuss that again. And then the issue of emergency wait room times. We obviously have a series of recommendations as put forth by a committee of really remarkable leaders. And there are recommendations that are relevant to both the state and the county and actually the municipal level as well. And so we're going to be taking that up shortly within the council as much as we can. But obviously that issue crosses over a great deal with our state as well. And the last point, which is a broader point, we have a big election coming up in three weeks, and depending on the outcome of that election, that quite frankly may impact very significantly this list and have to reprioritize, depending on where things go nationally. So look forward to bringing this issue back up and hoping for good news in November. Thank you. I yield back to you, Mr. President. Thank you, Council Lutkey. Thank you, Mr. President. And thank you, Council Member Albernace and Council Member Fanny Ozzellis for highlighting the need for our additional beds for capacity for our behavioral health and substance use disorder patients. And in addition to the policy and funding challenges that existed, there's a licensing issue as well related to that for each of those types of facilities. And I thank you for emphasizing things like assisted living care. There are some pilot programs that are already running in the state, not here, but they run in Southern Maryland and on the Eastern Shore that are assisted living facilities where they now have additional staff present who have additional training in order to deal with individuals who have significant behavioral health diagnosis co-existing with either cognitive impairments that may be related to their underlying issue or other acute medical care issues that require them to be in an assisted living facility. So we do need to expand that. My ask for the economic development list is simply to focus on housekeeping. At the state level, the state needs to do a significant amount of housekeeping within the Department of Commerce. I'm saying that loudly for a reason. I haven't been shy about saying that, but we may have programs that have existed that aren't getting the return on investment that's needed, and there may be new programs that are needed that will yield the return on investment that is needed for Maryland, for Montgomery County. And so we need to take a look at that and say, what can we do here as a county to point those things out that don't necessarily yield benefits to the county as the economic engine of Maryland, and I've heard the state call us that multiple times, and do better about incentivizing those things that will yield a better result. And to the ER wait times issue, I wasn't sure if you know or if you could report back to us whether MIMS has planned any departmental legislation or any other working with any other legislators on issues that would affect their ecosystem in the EMS world. And last but certainly not least, thank you for your collaboration on the vehicle safety laws and criminal of us, and to Councilmember Fenny Gonzalez for her continued collaboration on the fentanyl issues. And I look forward to seeing the draft language. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Mc. Thank you. In regards to the ER wait time and hospital issues and my colleagues have also remarked on, wanted to note that I think that it's important that our language in this reflect that we have a need not just for addressing the shortage of inpatient beds, but also for addressing the number of hospital beds and the hospital reimbursement system in general. We have to have a statewide plan for that. And I believe that Montgomery County that we're really going to have to be the champions for that because the current plan doesn't harm every jurisdiction the way that it harms hours. So I think that we really need to be out in front on this issue right now hospitals have to go through two processes to seek permission to build the hospital beds and to seek reimbursement for the number of patients that they're serving. And essentially hospitals are being reimbursed for the number of patients the state thinks they should be serving instead of how many they are actually serving. We are serving a lot of people. And our hospitals are not able to get them reimbursed for all those in white oak Adventist. They have a floor of hospital beds that they got permission to construct. They are not able to be reimbursed for the use of those beds. And so at the same time that our ambulances are being diverted away to other hospitals away from White Oak Adventist, there is a floor that is sitting ready, empty, and unused. I'll give you one more example in my last minute here, which is that also at White Oak Adventist, they're able to perform a really revolutionary cardiac procedure that is minimally invasive in opposition to the way it's been done historically. And it's in very, very high demand. They do fabulous cardiac work there. In fact, I had a family member who went there and had an amazing experience. So this procedure isn't high demand, but they're only being reimbursed for a hundred of those. And so anybody over that 100, it's actually costing the hospital over like 30K to perform those procedures. So we should not have a system in place that is causing patients to not be able to be served at the hospital, nearest them, that can serve them the best. And that is the way the current structure is set up, which unfortunately is, you know, it benefits some hospitals and some jurisdictions financially, but very much not ours. And so I hope that we can really be on the forefront of that. And if we could add some language referring to that, that would be great. Thank you. Thank you, final word, Councilor McKenzie. Thank you. I will be very, very quick. I did want to thank under the public safety side. I did want to thank Councilmember Luki for the, basically, the Patrick Kep, a law that we're working on. This is very necessary. I think the chair of the Transportation Environment Committee touched on this, but we heard at our last joint committee meeting that I believe the number was 233. That there were 233 people that were caught going 40 miles an hour over the speed limit in Montgomery County. And the largest part, not all 233, but the largest part of that was on Georgia Avenue. It is tough to go 40 miles over the speed limit on 270 and they were going on Georgia Avenue. I see the police shaking their head with me. So that is obviously something that we need to work on. And finally, I do want to thank Councilmember Finne-Zalas for the fentanyl-related cases. I know that we all need to work together to figure out what's the best way to keep ourselves and our children safe. So I look forward to seeing that legislation as well. Thank you, colleagues, for keeping to our time. Thank you to our office of intergovernment relations and the executive branch and the executive for sending these along on the capital items. As I said, if you could share those in writing for understandings, we know the specific projects that are being requested on the policy side since it's very difficult to word-smith based on written individual request. We will do some follow-up work amongst our staff and amongst OAR staff and amongst the executive branch staff to try to come up with that. I'll just make my one high arching comment. I said this before. This is supposed to be a high level document that gives our broad priorities. I think it's way too long. One page is what it should be. Three or four bullets is what most places do, including our state representative organization. This has gone from one page to two page and now from two pages to our third page, I think, a less is a lot more effective here and so my Suggestion would be a number of these things. I actually think our better suited as bills to support as opposed to priorities To share on our document, but that we can take that up VS staff and smithing and figure that out at that point. With that, we have concluded on this item, appreciate all of the work that has gone into it. We're going to move to item three on our agenda, which is the consent calendar. Before we get to the consent calendar, I did want to note that we received a exceptionally last minute request from the executive to remove item H from the consent calendar and to delay consideration on the Board of Investment trustee appointment that the county executive sent over. I will note that this appointment was confirmed with the executive branch late last week. It was included in the gray box at last week's meeting, but we did receive a last minute request at 8.55 AM, five minutes before today's meeting. It would have to be moved to remove it from this and then we would have to take a vote on it. So if there is a motion, I would entertain it at this time before I entertain a motion to approve the consent calendar, Councillor Ember, Joanda. I'd move that we remove it to consider whatever the information was. Okay. Moved by Councilmember Juwando, seconded by Councilmember. Sales, all those in favor of removing item H from the consent calendar. Please indicate by raising your hand. That is nine, all those opposed to removing it. That is two. It has approved nine to two to remove item H from the consent calendar. So we now have consent items A through G, I'll entertain a motion to approve items A through G. Some moves. Move by Councillor Romberluchi. Seconded by Councillor Rebalcom. All those in favor of the consent item, items A through G, please indicate by raise your hands. That is unanimous. We are now in recess until 1-15 in the interim. The Council has a lunch on Potomac River Conference room with Senator Van Holland and we will return here at 1.15. We are back in session. We're going to begin with a proclamation recognizing National Farmers Day by Council Member Sales, Malcolm and Luki, along with the County Executive. And I'll say welcome to the farmers. It's good afternoon for us and probably good evening by now for you. So welcome and thanks for joining us here at the Council chambers. Yes, everyone here for the Farmers' Day Proclamation. Come on down. Come on down. Everyone from the luncheon, come on down. Come on. I'm sorry. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. all right. Thank you so much everyone for joining us today for the farmers' day. We are here to show our appreciation to recognize our farmers who are doing so much every day to not just feed our families in the community, but also fuel our economy. And so we just enjoyed a delicious lunch catered by Gilles. Thank you so much for that delicious lunch. And we will be hearing from my colleagues, the county executive, also Mike Sheffield, the director, Dr. Trifina Chaudy, one of our farmers, Mike Jamison, another one of our farmers with a special recognition, and also wanting to highlight the importance of streamlining our permitting process for our farmers as they are able to purchase land, cultivate crops, any issues that we can alleviate with relation to acquiring permits for new and existing farmers. We heard just earlier at our luncheon with new potential farmers who are looking to purchase land. And so anything that we can do here at the county to help you realize your vision of becoming a farmer, or if you are already a seasoned farmer, and there's anything else that we can do to help make your job any easier. We are here to help before we read the proclamation. We're gonna hear from Council Member Balcombe, Council Member Lutki, and then county Executive Elrich. Thank you. Thank you all for being here. Thank you, Council Member Sales for recognizing National Farmers Day. One of the great honors of representing District 2 is that I get to represent half the farmers in the county, along with my partner, Council Member Donlucky. We split the ag reserve, and even though we split the geography, we are complete partners in supporting all the farmers. So I appreciate that. And we also know that farmers are not a monolith. We have with us throughout the ag reserve, but but with us today we have large farmers, small farmers. We have all different types of crops represented. We have legacy farmers who have been on their land for generations, and we have brand new farmers that are just moving in and just getting started. So we represent a wide variety of farmers and we're here to support you. While all these farmers may have differences, one, they also have many, many things in common. Two very important things, we need to protect the soil and we need to protect the water. And that's our job to make sure that we continue to make sure that we have high quality soil, we have access to water and I know that this group is never shy, they're very happy to let us know what they need and want and I so appreciate their willingness to come with, come to the table to talk it out regardless of how difficult the discussion might be, the level of trust and support that we have with our farmers is great. And I'm speaking for the whole council in that regard. So thank you. Thank you to my partner in Ag Reserve representation. And it's truly a blessing to be able to have a partner in that work. And also, I want to express most sincere gratitude to all of you behind me and those who couldn't be here today, who are a part of our agricultural community, who do rely on us as a team. And aren't looking at this just as a, well, where is my particular farm located? But say, hey, how can we leverage our resources to make the best possible outcomes for all in our community? You all are our producers. You are our stores of our land. And you are also community problem solvers and work with great dedication with our food systems providers to help make sure fresh local produce gets to those in need and those partnerships are invaluable. And you're also great at reaching out and making sure you're caring for the land, its purpose, its promise. And in so doing that you're doing so with great intentionality and thinking about long-term solutions and making sure that we are aware and our colleagues are aware of what that exactly means for that particular community, for the sustainability of local agricultural production. And for that, we are incredibly grateful. So thank you all for coming here today to celebrate National Farmers Day. And we are blessed to call you our friends and colleagues all the time. Thank you. Thank you to my colleagues. Now we're here from County Executive Elrich. So I'm really happy to be here. I started on the council as, you know, back in whatever it was. I did spend 12 years here and what I remember is that I had the Ag reserve. When you're an at-large council member, you have not half the Ag reserve. You have the whole Ag reserve and the whole of everything else. And we were really interested in my office and what we could do to support the farmers' dailtivates who works on my staff still does. Spent a lot of time up in the Ag Reserve because we thought it was important to make sure we understood what was going on with farming. It was part of the long-term strategy that was embedded in creating the Ag Reserve as making sure that it was preserved for farming and so I was very happy to be a part of that effort and to make sure we kept the preservation in place. You contribute a lot to Montgomery County about 71 million dollars and food value comes off the farms here. 10,000 people are employed here. It's a real part of our economic fabric of the county. Your practices are some of the most advanced in the state. I remember one of the things that people talked about early on was that the state was pushing for farmers to do cover crops and make sure that in the winter that just everything wasn't dead and things blew away. Our farmers led the state and how much cover crops they were putting up and I thought that was pretty remarkable. I've been on farms where people are using high-tech satellites and geopositioning in order to determine how much fertilizer and how much of anything is put down, which is a far cry from loading up a fertilizer truck and just running over the fields and putting it everywhere because they didn't have a ability to meet it. Now you see people being sensitive, not putting more down than what they need to make sure that farming is not negatively impacting the streams around the farms, which is important. It's important to do the farmers too. So you've been great partners. I am excited about this, but I'm also looking forward to what we do in the coming years. I'm going to be at a compost event. Later this month and I know some of you are going to be there. The county will be moving to full composting of food and that's important what I'm hoping we can do because I know in agriculture, greening it's been one of the challenges been your dryers for the crops that need drying and you use natural gas to provide heat and it's not feasible to do it with electricity. We're hoping we can take some of this food waste and actually with our own digest or create the natural gas that you could use off your own waste and off waste that comes from the county. So you're no longer taking fossil fuel natural gas, but we're able to help produce it for you. We'd like to work with you to see if we can do this as a cooperative because this is something you all have a stake in and we could do this together. So those are kind of exciting and interesting things I think that lay ahead of us. So thank you for inviting me to be here today. We are all partners, so thank you County Executive for being here and now we are going to hear from Dr. Truufin Choti. Good afternoon again. Thank you for the opportunity to share with you. I represent Avery Thrive, which is a nonprofit organization that is in the county. We are a food and farm non-profit and it's a pleasure to join today as we celebrate the National Farm as Day. Our farmers are the backbone of our communities because of the indispensable role, nurturing our land, feeding our communities and making sure that life continues to grow. At Avril Tribe, we have the privilege of walking with many farmers, including immigrant farmers across the county. We have seen the role that these farmers play, especially those who are from, you know, agrarian like Africa, where they have a wealth of knowledge and they bring that wealth of knowledge here to be able to grow diverse vegetables. We bright ourselves and we're so glad that Montgomery County is the most diverse county in the nation. And we are trying very hard to diversify even the sources of food by bringing black farmers on the table to be able to grow our okra, to grow our vegetables that really we enjoy. And we recognize that these farmers also face quite some out of our challenges. We know that food is culture, and there's no agriculture without culture. And so the farmers lack the space to be able to start their incubation to grow. And so getting access to land, getting access to finance is one of the challenges we are seeing begin a farmers facing. And as we journey this, we are calling upon everyone because this journey goes with everyone that we get the support to support the farmers who are beginning to diversify the food sources in the county because that's how we can strengthen our communities. It's a great privilege to be with everyone and appreciate Council Member Sales for putting all of us together, especially for this proclamation because it's a journey to go forward and make our community stronger. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Chaudy and now we're here for Mr. Jameson. Well, thank you. How are you doing? I'd like to thank Councilmember Sales and the rest of the Council for having us out. It's nice to be recognized and executive early. Thank you for coming. It's kind words. It's always great to be welcome. All right, I got it. But getting over my voice being lost. Well, it's always great to be welcome and have opportunity to have face time with our elected officials that we have here. But we felt that that's sort of the success that this act community has with our elected leaders is at face time we get that open-door policy. Sometimes on topics we're agreeing, sometimes we're disagreeing. But having that open dialogue is I think a key to success to roadmap that we have with generating that dialogue on issues that we're facing with one another. And it's just, I think we look at some other counties and I know other farmers in other areas and they don't quite have what we have here. So I think that's fantastic. And something to point out too is we're well aware of the agreservus created in 1980 on a concept. That concept has come much further than what we had imagined, but it must be expounded on. I've always felt one of the greatest tools and preserving agriculture is having a profitable operation, a viable operation, and so kind of ties into with working with our elected leaders on having that open dialogue is just phenomenal. One in particular and it seems like it's sort of kind of a theme that we've been hearing. Our greatest asset to land on just having access to it. Ag preservation has been a phenomenal tool in the past of the programs that the county has administered. In this day and age, it isn't as robust as it used to be for a number of reasons. We won't delve into obviously today, but I think that's something that we can't fall short of with moving forward in the future. Also working with the stakeholders is just varying curse work with you. Lastly, I would like to acknowledge a variety of agriculture in this county. It's not one type that stands above all but it's the multitude of practices ranging from a first-year farmer to a seven generation strong operation. Farm produce grown on a half-acre plot, so local farm markets all the way to commodities being grown, shipped to the Southeast Asia overseas. It's just a pretty remarkable diversification that we have here in this county. As the first crops and livestock to raise, we all share in the battlefield years, we all share in the drought years, which I think we can all attest to, as with this year, and we all answer to the call of farming and appreciate the gratification of dirt under our fingernails. So appreciate all the farmers coming out and this opportunity to speak. So thank you, Council Member Chales. Thank you, Mr. Jameson. And now we're going to hear from Director Shephild before we read the proclamation. I want to thank the Council, Council Member Sales, Malcolm, Loukey, the entire Council for Hageness here today. I want to thank the County Executive for his continued support for agriculture. And really thank you, farmers, for showing up today. The folks behind us here don't want to be here. Despite the kind words they'd rather be working. And really they're rather be working. Really, they're not behind us. The farmers here are so far out in front in terms of the technology they use, the processes they use. The folks behind me are awesome farmers. We couldn't ask for a better set of farmers just as an example for the county to push forward. So I want to thank every single one of you who are here today. Again, thank you to the council and thank you to the county executive. Thank you, director. Chef Bill. And now we are going to read the proclamation. All right. Proclamation, whereas National Farmers Day is a day to honor and thank and the health of the community. We are in the community. We are in the community. We are in the community. We are in the community. We are in the community. We are in the community. We are in the community. We are in the community. We are in the community. We are in the community. We are in the community. We are in the community. We are in the community. We are in the community. And we're as 1980 Macarney County established the 93,000 acre agricultural reserve equivalent to almost one third of the county's land resources. The agricultural reserve is home to nearly 600 farms, more than 10,000 residents contributing almost $300 million annually to the county's economy and whereas before during and since since COVID-19 pandemic farmers across Montgomery County have been at the forefront of combating food insecurity they have partnered with numerous government and nonprofit entities to provide locally grown nutritious food to more than 100,000 people in need of food assistance and whereas Montgomery County has more than 1,000 agricultural producers but less than 8% are people of color with fewer than 100 representing black Asian Latinx or indigenous ancestry. Therefore is crucial to provide targeted resources to historically disenfranchise farmers of color to promote equitable participation in the agriculture sector and There you go. Here on that one. Yeah. Whereas Montgomery County has more than 1,000 agricultural producers, but less than eight percent, you'd just read that one. Montgomery, whereas Montgomery County is dedicated to investing further into local farming industry, including expanding the farm to table program, purchasing food locally through government agencies, promoting local businesses, supporting farmers of color, ensuring that farm workers receive a livable wage and expanding the presence of farmers markets, equitably, to reach underserved communities. Now therefore be it resolved that county executive Mark Elrich, council president Andrew Freetzen, council members Lori Ann Sales, Don Lutke and Marilyn Balcom, and the entire county council of Montgomery County, Maryland here by recognize National Farmers Day as a significant occasion to express our collective appreciation and commitment to our farming community and their a measurable contributions year round. Thank you. We're going in. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. Thank you to all of our guests for joining us. move our agenda along to item number four. Item number four on our agenda today is a public hearing on a resolution to approve supplemental appropriation 2510 to the FY25 operating budget. Montgomery County government, State's Attorney's Office, Maryland Governor's Office of Crime Prevention and Policy, Competitive Victims of Crime Act, Voka Award, in the amount of $466,602. This is a state grant. Council action is scheduled immediately following this hearing. There are no registered speakers for this hearing. So this public hearing is now closed, and I will entertain a motion from colleagues to approve supplemental appropriation 2510. I see a motion from Council Member Katz, a second from Council Vice President Stewart, all those in favor of approving supplemental appropriation 2510, please indicate by raising your hands. That is unanimous. We're going to move on to agenda item number five. This is an introduction of bills. The first item is 5A, which is an introduction of Bill 2124, general provisions naming of county facilities. I am the lead sponsor and a public hearing is scheduled for November 12th, 2024. At 1.30 pm, I'll just briefly thank the co-sponsors who've requested to co-sponsor the bill in advance. Council vice president Stewart and council members, Malcolm, Mink, Alburnaz, Luki, and Katz. Really appreciate your support and just wanted to note that this is an effort to enable the county council, to name a county facility for an individual who has made a significant and extraordinary contribution to our community. So fitting function for the council to have this authority similar to most legislative bodies across the country and given our role as the entity of 11 that carries budget authority and is expected to safeguard our public assets. Bill 2124 mirrors criteria currently in the administrative procedure that currently allows the county executive to name county facilities. Executive authority would be retained under this proposal, so the executive would still have that authority as well as the council. And I wanted to note my appreciation to my conversations with the executive branch on this proposal as well as my council colleagues. To note, this bill requires that an individual must have made a significant contribution to the program represented by that facility or the community in which the facility is located, or that they are a significant person in the county states or nations. History, it requires that an individual should have been inactive in her or his or their field of contribution for a period of at least five years. And it requires a public hearing on resolutions to name facilities and a super majority to support the resolution of at least seven council members. And it also includes and appreciate feedback on this to explicitly note a requirement to consult with the county executive. So appreciate the feedback from colleagues. As I noted, appreciate the conversations with the executive branch prior to the introduction of this bill. And unless Miss Wellens has anything to add, I see council member sales would like to speak on this item. Council member sales. Thank you, Mr. President. Just wanted to be named as a co-sponsor. I don't know if that was mentioned during the introduction. Terrific. We will add you as a co-sponsor if you weren't already listed. Thank you for your support. I thought was mentioned during the introduction. Terrific. We will add you as a co-sponsor if you weren't already listed. Thank you for your support. Thank you. I don't see any other colleagues wishing to speak. So with that, Bill 2124 has now been introduced. We're going to move it on to item 5B, which is the introduction of Expedited Bill 202224, which is taxation collection of development impact taxes. The lead sponsor is Council Member Glass. A public hearing will be scheduled for a later date and let me turn it over to the lead sponsor now, Council Member Glass. Thank you very much, Mr. President. The council is currently engaged in a number of policy discussions about growth and infrastructure and impact taxes. And the impact taxes that are collected go toward building new schools and transportation projects. And as we are having this discussion here at the council, we all know that the cost of building new housing is too high. So the bill that I'm introducing today will help reduce the cost of housing by changing the time at which impact taxes are paid. Currently impact taxes are paid six to 12 months after a building permit is initially issued. What that means is there are higher upfront costs that are needed to finance a project. So to put this in context, a 200 unit multifamily housing project pays approximately $1.5 million in school and transportation impact fees. That means that tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars are paid in loan interest alone for the project to pay for those impact fees. The legislation I'm introducing will help shift the timing of when impact fees are paid from the beginning of the project to just before final inspection, the end of the project. It is really important to note that this change is revenue neutral. It does not change the amount that is currently paid in impact fees, but it will also reduce the overall cost of that project. It's very straightforward. We know that higher building costs in turn cause higher costs for homeowners and renters. And if we want more housing that is affordable, we need to make it more affordable to build housing. That's the direction this legislation takes us in. I look forward to continuing this conversation as we continue to discuss the growth and infrastructure policy, and look forward to a fuller discussion at the GO committee. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, appreciate it. And this was at least initially discussed as a proposal, but not necessarily a legislative vehicle in the government operations and fiscal policy committee last week. Appreciate you putting this forward. I see a few colleagues in the queue, Councilmember Luki. Thank you, Mr. President. I'd just like to be added as a co-sponsor. Thank you, Councilmember Fondingenz-Ols. Thank you, Mr. President. Can you please have me as a co-sponsor? Thank you, Councilman Rackats. My too would like to be added as a co-sponsor. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Rowernaus. Same. Great, thank you. I also will be added as a co-sponsor as well. With that. I don't see any additional colleagues in the queue. So Bill 2022-24 has now been introduced and a less misnidue. There were any additional comments on that. We're gonna move on to item 5c with expedited Bill 2324, contracts and procurement, minority owned business purchasing program, Extension of Sunset Date. The lead sponsors are Council members, Joando and Sales. Public hearing has been scheduled for November 12, 2024 at 130. And let me call on Council member, Joando, and then Council member Sales, the two sponsors for this item. Thank you, Mr. President. I was very proud to work with Council Member Sales, as well as with assistance from the County Attorney's Office. Our, obviously, Council Attorney Ms. Wellens in the Department of Procurement to introduce this bill to extend the county's minority female and disabled persons own business program or MFD by five years to 2029 of December 2029. The recently completed MFD disparity study, which is required to implement this program, highlights our significant progress in improving access to county contracts, the over billion dollars in procurement that we do for businesses of color, female and disabled owned businesses. Since the program's inception, we've seen an increase in participation across several sectors, particularly in construction, professional services and goods procurement. We still have obviously work to do. It reflects our commitment as a county to ensuring that contracting processes are inclusive and provide equal opportunity to all business owners. And through our concerted outreach efforts, technical assistance and policy reforms, the administration has created new opportunities and removed many of the historical barriers that have disadvantaged businesses. While we are proud of this progress, the disparity study also underscores that we have a lot more work ahead. Despite our successes, disparities still exist between the availability of MFD businesses and their utilization and county contracts. These gaps highlight the need for us to continue and double down on this work. I'm also appreciative of the Department of Pro Curement as they do every year, every several years, looking at what the goals should be. And while this bill doesn't codify the goals, I'm happy to say that there is an intention to increase the percentage that goes to our women owned businesses of color and disabled businesses. So this study provides a solid foundation despite attacks nationally for extending this program and confirms our progress in that this is the right policy goal. So we invite all colleagues to co-sponsor and thank you for allowing us to get this under the wire before the program expires in December. Thank you and turn it over back to you, Mr. President. Council Member Seales, the other lead sponsor. Thank you, Mr. President and thank you to my colleague, Council Member Chawondo. I'm of our county attorneys since the last study was completed in 2014. Given that over 45% of Montgomery County businesses are minority owned and employ about 50,000 of our residents. We have to ensure that we are also in the business of closing the racial wealth gap and in position to better support minority entrepreneurs by providing them with the resources they need to be successful. And so with this disparity study, we would be expanding the program for another five years. And hopefully with the support of our colleagues, we will continue to evaluate the findings to reinforce the ongoing needs of the program and any recommendations that we can implement to ensure that we continue to make improvements on the investments to our minority-owned businesses. And with that all yield, thank you. Thank you. I'd be happy to be listed as a co-sponsor, and let me turn it to colleagues, Councillor Moura Balkham. Thank you. I appreciate you both bringing this up. We need to... This is one of those situations where we're clearly not getting the word out. We need to be much more proactive, much more engaging to our entire community. And I think that this is very important. And I'd like to be a co-sponsor. Thank you. Thank you, Council Vice President Stewart. I'd like to be at as a co-sponsor as well. Thank you, Councilmember Al Stewart. I'd like to be at it as a co-sponsor as well. Thank you, Council Member Albernace. Me as well. Quick on the trigger. Sometimes it doesn't show up on my list if you hit your button too quickly. Council Member Fonding Gonzales. Seeing. Council Member Fonding Gonzales asked to be listed as a co-sponsor. Council Member Mink. Glad to co-sponsor, Council Member Mink. Glad to co-sponsor as well. Thank you, Council Member Katz. And I would like to be added as well. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Glass. Please add me as a co-sponsor. Thank you. I think you got a mall. So congratulations on that. I don't see any other colleagues wishing to speak additionally. So Bill 2324 has now been introduced. We're going to move on to item 5D on on our agenda, which is Bill 2424, taxation, paper, carry out bags, and prohibition of plastic carry out bags. The lead sponsor is council vice president Stewart. Coast sponsors, council member Council Member Sales Class, Funding and Dollars in Juando, Public Hearing will be scheduled at a later date. Let me turn it over to Council Vice President Stewart. Great, thank you very much. So this bill that we're calling bring your own bag, would ban the use of one time single use plastic carry out bags, reduced obstacles to compliance for retailers, and increase funding for the water quality protection projects in our county. And while Montgomery County has been a leader in the Serena dating back to 2011, many other jurisdictions continue doing this work and actually have been making a little bit more progress. Then we have here in Montgomery County in the elimination of single use plastic bags. We received an OLO report, an office of legislative oversight report, a little over a year ago that looked at how this program wasn't exactly living up to the expectations we had for it. As we worked with residents, environmentalist, retailers, restaurant owners, and our chambers of commerce, we looked at the best way to move forward here in Montgomery County to meet our environmental goals as well as our public health goals. And so this bill, BAN's single use plastic carryout bags, it provides a definition of reusable bags, and we are borrowing a definition from other jurisdictions, knowing that many of our retailers work around the region and want to make sure that what we put in place is similar to what other places already have on their books. It would increase the bag fee for paper bags from $5 to $0.10, and the back fee for paper bags from five cents to 10 cents. And these are for the paper carry out bags only. It changes the distribution of the fee. Retailers would now receive under this bill five cents versus the current one cent. And five cents would go to the County Water Quality Protection Fund. This would also exempt SNAP and WIC recipients from the back fee. And while plastic bags would be prohibited, plastic paper bags that are used for leftovers carry out or food delivery by restaurants would not be required to pay or remit the bag fee. I want to thank Ms. McCartney-Green for all of her help on this. There was a bit of back and forth as we were in mind to make sure we got this right. And I want to also thank my staff, especially my deputy chief of staff, Paul Ellis, who did a great deal of work on this. And I thank the co-sponsors and look forward to continuing to work on this with my colleagues. Thank you, Councilor Katz. Thank you. I'd like to be added as a co-sponsor, please. Thank you. I don't see any other colleagues wishing to speak on this item. So bill 2424 has now been introduced. We're going to move on to item 6, which you call bills for final reading. We have item 6A, bill 1424, vehicle noise abatement monitoring, a joint translation environment, and public safety committee recommends enactment with an amendment, and I will turn it over to the Chair of the Public Safety Committee Chair Cats to share the Joint Committee's recommendation. Thank you very much, Mr. President. The Transportation and Environment and the Public Safety Committee held a joint committee meeting on Monday, October 7th to discuss the bill, vehicle noise abatement and monitoring, a pilot program. The joint committees were pleased to be joined by Vice President Stewart and Councilmember Fannie Gonzalez, who were the lead sponsors of the legislation. The joint committee unanimously recommended the enactment of the bill with one amendment to clarify the status of noise monitoring. A quote unquote recorded images under the public information. Thank you, Ms. President. Thank you. I don't see any other colleagues wishing to speak except for the sponsor who has now requested to speak at my humble lookover. I want that. Let me turn it over to her, Councillor Price, President Stewart. Thank you very much. I just wanted to thank Chair Katz and Chair Glass for the joint committee session and all my colleagues. I want to thank also the police department and most especially to thank my colleague, Council Member Natalie Fondin Gonzales, for working on this bill. and most especially to thank my colleague, Council Member Natalie Fondin Gonzales, for working on this bill. This is really a, we wanna emphasize it's a pilot project, Montgomery County, thanks to Delegate Julie Polakovich-Car and all her work to get the enabling legislation in place. It enables us to do this pilot with three cameras. So it's three cameras for all of Montgomery County to be placed and to look at how we can basically address the excessive noise it is already illegal under state law to modify a muffler and to have the noise go above the 80 decibels that are in state law now. And unfortunately this has been an issue in our community. We've received a lot of inquiries about how we can address this. It has been a difficult one and we hope that by putting in these noise abatement cameras that this is one step forward to addressing this issue in our community. And again, I just want to thank everyone for their work on this and I look forward to the cameras being put in place and us moving forward. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member forward. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Glass. Thank you, Mr. President. I just wanna thank Vice President Stewart and Council Member Fonding and Zalas for moving this bill forward and utilizing this as a pilot program. We will have more joint work sessions to monitor how this is being implemented, recognizing it is new technology for our community. But I just want to speak and underscore that as we prepare for the next session of the General Assembly, we need our members of the State Senate and House of Delegates to provide us with more opportunities to keep our streets safe. We need more automated cameras, both speed cameras and light cameras. We'll see how this program works and thank you for your leadership on this. Thank you to the other sponsor, the aforementioned Councilmember of Huntingtonville. Thank you so much. I just want to say thank you to Council Vice President Astur. It has been great working with you on this bill and I would like to re-emphasize how important it was to have the community involved. I had done quite a few town hall meetings on public safety and this issue, this particular wheel was brought up, both in English and in Spanish conversations, lots of press about it. Just speaking, that speaks about the importance of this issue in that community. We hear you're loud and clear, and this is another way of also showing the partnership that local government has with the state government. We wouldn't be able to do this without the state allowing the county to do this. Just big highly of how the government does function many time. And this is one example. So with that, thank you so much for your time and I look forward to voting yes on this. Thank you very much. I don't see any other colleagues wishing to speak. Thank you to the two lead sponsors to the joint committee chairs. This is an important issue that I spoke about quite a bit in introductions. I won't repeat now, but it's something that we've heard a lot, especially since and during the pandemic where these issues really came to the forefront. It's not just a quality of life issue based on the noise and the disruption that it causes to communities, particularly with children trying to sleep and other issues in the late hours and early morning hours of the day. It's also a safety issue because these are often issues that are closely associated with extremely dangerous activities on our roadways, including drag racing and other things that we're trying to root out. And this is just one tool we've actually been asked to do more than what the state has currently authorized us to do and we haven't even moved forward with this. The city of Rockville has asked to get in the QS have many other communities as well. And so appreciate the leadership in moving this in moving this forward. We have a recommendation from the joint committee, which does carry as the motion and serve as the motion currently, so I will move it over to the clerk to please call the roll for this roll call vote. Council member Luki? Yes. Council member Luki votes yes. Council member Ming? Yes. Council member Ming votes yes. Council member Stale? Yes. Council member Stale's votes yes. Council member Glass? Yes. Council member Glass votes yes. Councilmember glass yes, Councilmember glass votes yes, Councilmember, Jawondo Councilmember, Jwondo votes yes, Councilmember, Katz yes, Councilmember, Katz votes yes, Councilmember, Alvano Yes, Councilmember, Alvano To votes yes, Councilmember, Funning, Gonzalez yes, Councilmember, Funning, Gonzalez votes yes, Councilmember,con. Councilmember Balcon. Councilmember Stewart. Councilmember Stewart. Councilmember Freason. Councilmember Freason. And that bill has now been approved unanimously by the council. Congratulations. We are going to move on to item number seven on our agenda, which is a district council session. So the council now sit as the district council to consider action on zoning text amendment 2404 dormitory and community service retail overlay zone. The planning housing and parks committee recommends approval with an amendment. I'll just note that this is an effort to essentially implement aspects of the Tacoma Park Minor Master Plan, which we discussed robustly at this body through a series of work sessions out in the community and here in Rockville. And this is an effort to do that, including allowing dormitories as a limited use in the CR and CRT zone, removing obsolete and duplicative overlay zones. The PHP Committee held a work session on October 7th, and unanimously recommended approval of ZTA-2404, with an amendment to also remove the Tacoma Park East Silver Spring commercial revitalization overlay zone consistent with the master plan recommendations. I'm going to turn it over to Miss Nidoo to walk us through this item and the decision point and points before us and also to highlight a change to the agenda item that came forward based on feedback received from planning after the committee's work. Thank you. So you should have a corrected copy of the memo. The correction is on the very last page. So at the PHP committee work session, Council staff had checked the master plan, which noted that this was an obsolete overlay zone. And so the PHP committee recommended removing the Tacoma Park East Silver Spring commercial revitalization zone. Planning double checked the maps and it turns out that some of that overlay zone is actually not in the master plan area. So council staff's recommendation is to undo the PHP amendment and actually leave the ZTA as it was introduced. I will note that that overlay zone does need to be removed from the SMA, which will be introduced later this year. It was just transmitted by the planning board. So unfortunately a motion to undue the HP entities motion. All right, do you want to explicitly state what the motion would be and then I'll entertain whether or not colleagues want to move that motion? Yes, the motion would be to not remove the TPESS overlay zone from the zoning ordinance and then a corrected copy will be posted online later today. I will entertain a motion by Councilmember Joandos, seconded by Councilmember Luky, all those in favor of that update to not remove from the zoning language. Please indicate by raising your hand. That is unanimous, so that amendment now carries any other items that you wish to highlight. No, that is all, thank you. Okay, then we have an amended committee recommendation before us on this zoning text amendment. I'll entertain a motion to move forward with that. We have a motion by the District Council Member, Council Vice President Stewart on this particular item seconded by Council Member Bauchom all those in favor indicate by raising your hand and we'll have to move to a roll call vote so now that that has carried we will move it to a roll call vote. Councilmember Luki? Yes. Councilmember Luki votes yes. Councilmember Mink? Yes. Councilmember Mink votes yes. Councilmember Sales? Yes. Councilmember Sales votes yes. Councilmember Glass? Yes. Councilmember Glass votes yes. Councilmember Joendo? Yes. Councilmember Joendo votes yes. Councilmember Katz? Yes. Councilmember Katz. Yes. Council Member Katz votes, yes. Council Member Alvinos. Yes. Council Member Alvinos votes, yes. Council Member Fahnec-Gazalis. Yes. Council Member Fahnec-Gazalis votes, yes. Council Member Balkham. Yes. Council Member Balkham votes, yes. Council Member Stor. Yes. for free from those, yes. Zoni Text Amendment 2404 has been approved unanimously. That is all of the items that we have on our agenda for today. So this council meeting is now adjourned.