Today is Monday, September 23rd, 2024. The Aberdeen City Council regular meeting is scheduled for seven o'clock, so we'll rock and roll. We've got, I don't know that I know Reverend Dr. Brawley O'Tourist from Gratian Island Methodist Church. Very good. Don't come up yet. Don't come up yet. Here with us to lead in the opening prayer and then Council President Hayab has been conscripted to lead the Pledge of Allegiance. So welcome, Reverend Dr. Broly, I'll tour us from Gratian Island Methodist Church. Everybody, please rise for the little dude of roll call after that, why not? Welcome. Let's go to God of Breyer. Holy One, known by many names and beyond all names. On this night we thank you for our city. We thank you for our elected officials and ask your blessings over those who have been called to lead the Aberdeen community in which we live, work and play. And because we all forget from time to time, especially in the noisiness of what passes for a political debate today, remain them in us. Now, there are not only leaders, butpents, that it is their responsibility and hours to serve the common good of all. Remind them that no matter where we live, everyone, gay, straight, transgender, black or white, Hispanic, Asian, Muslim, You Hindu, atheist is our neighbor. It's our sibling. That throughout the atheist, prophets have called the leaders of the people to respect and protect the least of those among us. Our children, the elderly, the poor, those who are hungry, those who have no homes, those who are ill, the strangers and immigrants in our midst, those who live in the margins, those who are alone, those who are forgotten. I pray for this council meeting tonight. Keep the council members wisdom and guidance as they deliberate on the items before them. Courage to know and do what is right and good and true. My day and I speak out when it is time to speak out and listen passionately and receptively when it is time to listen. This we pray in the name of all that we hold sacred and holy, all that we hold good and right and Justice for all. Madam Clerk. Can you call the roll, please? Council President Hype. Present. Councilman Linda Camp. Your Councilman Montgomery. Here. Councilwoman Richley. Present. Mayor McGregor. Here. We have enough council members to do business. The clerk has prepared for the council the minutes from the August 12, 2024, August 26, 2024. The closed meeting from August 26, 2024. The council meeting from September 9, 2024. And the, excuse me, September 16th, closed meeting minutes. Is there a motion to approve the minutes as submitted by the clerk? Make a motion to approve, Mayor. Thank you, Councilman Montgomery. Is there any more discussion? Or is there a second on the motion to approve the minutes? I'm sorry. Thank you, Councilman Linda Camp. Any more discussion? Madam Clerk, please call the roll and approve the minutes. Council President Hyde. Aye. Can't we have a chance to do a vote? No. We can't do a vote. We can't do a vote. We can't do a vote. We can't do a vote. We can't do a vote. We can't do a vote. We can't do a vote. We can't do a vote. We can't do a vote. We can't do a vote. or a commission or a planning commission or a board of appeals holds a meeting that's closed to the public, because they are governed by state law, there's a law called the Open Meetings Act that requires a closed meeting to be closed for one of 15 specific reasons that a meeting is allowed to be closed. The section of state code is the General Provision's Article Section 3305. And in this section it defines that if you do close a meeting to the public, you are supposed to at a future meeting produce a statement of closed meeting indicating what was done in the closed meeting. There are prohibitions on things that can be discussed and I'm pretty nerdy about following these rules. And so if you ever see from us a statement of closed meeting it's pretty accurate to what happened in the meeting intentionally with the assistance and support of the clerk in producing this statement of closed meeting. So this is the statement of closed meeting for the September 16, 2024 council meeting. On Monday, September 16, oh, and so I don't have to read it into the record, but because I'm such a nerd about it, I want people who might be listening at home to hear the statement closed meeting. What a lot of places do, jurisdictions will just include it as part of the agenda, and then that's the end of it. But I like to tell people if we're going to close the meeting to the public that we did something important and here's why. So on Monday, September 16, 2024, the Mayor and Council held a scheduled council work session, the second floor of the Ministry of Conference room at 6 p.m. members present for the work session, Mayor Patrick McGrady, Council President Adam Hyab, Councilman Timothy Linda Camp, Councilman Bill Montgomery, the third. Councilman Tanger-Rigely was absent. All voting members of the council who were present voted by roll call on the affirmative to close the meeting and the closed meeting was convened at approximately 7.39 p.m. in the second floor of Ministry of Conference room. Councilwoman Rigely participated in the closed meeting via telephone. The meeting was held pursuant to the Open Meetings Act, statutory authority, Maryland Code, annotated, general provisions article Section 3305B, number one, to discuss the appointment, employment, assignment, promotion, discipline, demotion, compensation, removal, resignation, or performance evaluation of appointees, employees, or officials over whom this public body has jurisdiction. Any other personnel matter that affects one or more specific individuals, the topic was an ongoing HR issue and the reason for closure was because it was protected to talk about HR issues. The council discussed the matter and no action was taken. The closed meeting was adjourned at 8.18 p.m. We don't have any public hearings scheduled for this evening council and so this is the opportunity for the public to comment. Anybody who would like to address the Aberdeen City Council can approach the microphone in the front of the room up here. When you do I encourage you to state your name and address for the record. We'll call it a public comment session to a close. For people who might be new to our council meetings, there's another opportunity for public comment and the end of the meeting. If you, if something revelatory comes to you between now and then. The new business, we have a preliminary site plan for the Hickory Ridge technology park, a lot for Mrs. Grover. I'm going to turn over to Amy DePetro, a professional engineer with Mars and Richie Associates. They represent the preliminary site plan to the planning commission and the planning commission recommend approval of it with comments There's comments have been Dressed that plan was reviewed in June by the planning commission and staff and I will Let her go through an explanation of their project and then also the owners of the property here as well, Amy. We'll hacker. Or at least I play one. Good evening. My name is Amy DePetro with Morrison Richie Associates. I'm here representing the Hickory Ridge Project. Also, me this evening Mr. Brad Weber with MRA, Mr. Brian Conklin and Mr. Christina Moore with a tapco properties and Mr. Mark Keeley with traffic concepts are here as well to represent the project. Mr. Conklin did want to take a couple of minutes and introduce himself and his company to you guys So I was asked him to come up right now and do that and just briefly before we go through the project I think she was telling you to be brief That's what I heard yeah pull it up so you can talk in the microphone Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Good evening council members My name is Brian Conklin vice president with the Tapco Properties. Again, my colleague back here, Christine Amor, is also with the Tapco Properties. A Tapco Properties is the development and real estate investment arm of American trading and production corporation. We are, that entity is the, you know, based in Baltimore City. It's structured as a family office. And again, we're developers and owners and investors of commercial real estate throughout the mid-Atlantic, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania. We have some projects in North Carolina. And the project that we're going to be talking about later today in a few minutes is very typical of the type of projects that we own and have developed and operate. So this is right up our wheelhouse and we're very excited about it. We closed on the site a little less than 12 months ago. There was an existing office building on that on the site and it was built and I think it was 2011 when we bought it building was a little over 60% least Within it's a 60 days of ownership We have at least in place to get occupancy up to in the 80% range So we're excited about that. So I think we've been pretty proactive in terms of just investing capital and resources to commit to this project and see, make sure it's successful. So we hope to do the same with the plan that we're going to be talking about in a second. So again, thank you very much for your time and we'd love to answer any questions maybe at the end of the presentation. Hold on, Mr. Conglon. Sure. While he's standing here, anybody have any questions maybe at the end of the presentation. Hold on, Mr. Conglun. Sure. While he's standing here, anybody have any questions about the project? The family office designation. Is that a technical designation or is that a structure? That's a structure. Okay. That's what I thought. Thank you. Yeah, sure. Thank you, Brian. So just a little background on the project and we did go to the architectural review committee in April And we have gotten their input and taken that the architectural review committees input into the architecture We also did go to the planning commission in June June 12th and did receive approval of the preliminary site plan. Why is it going? So it happens when you brag about being a hacker? I know, I know. There we go. It did not work. It's pretty real hacker. All right. So the site is located about Thank you, Madam Clerk. She's the real hacker. All right. So the site is located about a half mile west of the intersection of 40 and 715. So, oh, geez. I managed to go forward. So just to orient you, 7 and 40 is located here. This is 40. The yellow line 95s at the top of your page here. So here's that intersection. That was referencing. The site is located right here, and it's about a third of a mile east of the intersection of 7 and 40. It's home to an existing building that's about 58,000 square feet that's addressed 1104 Plaski Highway. And it currently has access from US Route 40. There's 178 existing car parking spaces that surround that building today. Again, just to orient you about here, the north air is rotated a little bit, so this is Route 40 at the bottom of your page. Here's the existing access drive. This is the existing 58,000 square foot office building that Mr. Conklin referenced earlier and then the 178 car parking spaces that surround it. The site total is about 15.72 acres. It's so M1 which is light industrial and that's also an area planned for industrial development within the city limits. We are proposing an approximately 110,000 square foot building, which is the darker one here, showing the orange color. Car parking out front, so all of that will be at grade where you would enter it like a typical building. And then the back is 180 foot, five foot truck court with loading dock. So when you look at that building, you're gonna see a four foot drop, so that tractor trailers can back up into that and unload. And then you'll see for EMS purposes we have circulation all the way around the buildings so it could be accessed from all sides during during an emergency event. We are proposing a total of 157 parking spaces to accommodate this building. 27 dock positions, so 27 dock locations up against the building. 22 opposing trailer drops which are these spaces here. And then additional 108 car parking spaces that are located at the front of the building. So here's a copy of the preliminary site plan that was submitted along with our application. I'll take this opportunity to just quickly run through the utilities. So this is an interesting property. It's actually served by Hartford County for the water. So we've actually already met with Dave Berg and Chris Donback and the Hartford County staff to go over the commercial service application requirements and got news over to our mechanical engineering and plumbing team so that it can start that process. So there's an existing Eden's line that's located in that access drive that we plan to tie into. And then sewer is provided by the city of Aberdeen. Again, there's an eight inch mean in that existing access drive that we plan to tie into. There's a couple existing stormed of management facilities. This one's the large facility and then there's a smaller one located in this area. We are going to be modifying those to accommodate this design. We have submitted a concept storm management plan to staff for review. I'm future I need you to break that down into English. What you're saying is you're going to take your existing stormwater facilities and because you're changing your impervious surface area, you're going to modify the configuration of those, what we used to call ponds, facilities in order to accept all that stormwater on the site. Correct, because regulations have changed since the original design was constructed as well, so we'll have to provide some environmental site design in addition to the requirements that were 15, 20 years. Largely, this facility that's in the real-the-quality facility will stay the same and then we are proposing to build a quality facility in this location here. So because the regulations have changed, it used to be the case that they tried to just slow down the water and now they treated for water quality. So the filtration components of the biomass that lives inside of that other facility is supposed to clean the rain that falls on the parking lot and on the building. Thank you. Absolutely. We have submitted a forest and elimination to the city which has been approved and we have also prepared a forest conservation plan which has been submitted for approval. We have met all of our forest conservation requirements on site. And this is a helpful graphic that a tap can put together that kind of shows what the truck traffic will look like for this project. Again, the project is located down in this area. Oh, I'm sorry, this area, I'm not looking at it sideways. But it highlights your access to get up to 22 and then on to 95 and then how you would access to get out to 40 and then up to 543 and 95. We did prepare a traffic exemption request. Traffic concepts prepared that and that was approved in August of 24. And then for the remaining slides, just architectural renderings of the prepared building. So you can get an idea of what this would look like. So here at the bottom of your page, this is the existing building's roof. So this would be the front of the building that you would be looking at. Should you be working in the office component of the building? Again, this is the front of the building, but from the corner, this is the corner that would be on the north side. But again, you can see some of the architectural features. This would be one of the locations where an office would be located for people to go in and out the building. And then this is the opposite side of the building and again showing another entrance. And then we have two slides here and these are also all in your packet. If you're so inclined to review the later, but this is the existing signage package that's out there today. Our clients are pursuing some changes to that would like to kind of freshen it up and give it a new look. So they have prepared some preliminary renderings of signage and how they propose to freshen that up. Again, this will be refined as we go through the engineering and architectural design process and we'll put this back in front of ARC for final. But again this is just where our ideas are sitting right now. So stay on that slide for a second. So council, because in our development code regulations for signs in this area, it requires a what is called monument sign, which is that style of sign attached to the ground versus one on the end of a poll. That's why those renderings are like that. That's why they're proposing that. The existing sign is like the one that was on the previous slide and then that's what they'd be permitted to buy rights billed in terms of signage. Thank you. No problem. And really that's all we had. We would like to go to construction as soon as possible. Entitlement schedule is looking at like we probably be somewhere in the spring time looking at breaking ground. So with that, I, in the lines of tack out, doesn't have anything to add. I'll take any of your questions. Is the idea, a tapco is not going to use the facility. They intend to build it on spec and then find a tenant to occupy the entire 110,000 square feet or is it going to be broke up into multiple pieces? What's the idea? Yes. Ideal. We've been able to have it be one tenant. Is there a case where it could be broken up to multiple tenants? Yes. It's designed to do either. Some of the DOD folks that I've talked to in the contracting world, the challenge that they deal with, Mr. Conklin, is that the federal government contracts are shorter terms than the big commercial warehouse operators like. For example, you might get a five-year deal to fit out a piece of hardware for the Department of the Army onto an existing piece of military equipment that drives. You'll be outfitting radios onto the back of it, and you get a five-year contract for that. Well, they want to get a five-year contract, but all the logistics facilities that would be suited for that light manufacturing, light manufacturing space won a 10-year lease. And so one of them, specifically about two miles up the road from this site, was looking for 100, thousand square foot space and couldn't find one. And so I don't know what we could do to talk you guys into looking at a shorter term lease to support those uses. I saw in your map you've got a straight shot onto the installation at APG for delivery of such devices. That could be a really cool thing that would support the local existing DOD contractors that need those kinds of services and so I mean not trying to wreck your business plan But you know five year deal versus ten year deal because they they up for renewal often But you know just you can't sign for a ten year lease if you can really count on the revenue for five years Please consider this Thank you mr. Pee Joe anybody else council any questions Right Any other questions mr. Torchard mr. Grover All right counsel I circulated by email we talked about it a little bit in the work session I've been working on for a long time the Cost benefit analysis. We're trying to get our hands around the long term costs and long term revenue projections from new developments that occur in Aberdeen specifically. What's the damage, what's the benefit to a proposed project? In the case of this one, the 40 year cost benefit analysis, the buyer best estimates looks like it's going to be net positive to the city, In the case of this one, the 40-year cost benefit analysis, the biobest estimates, looks like it's going to be net positive to the city, to the tune of about $6 million in today's dollars. So this is not useful on its face as we talked about in the work session. Looking at that number is not useful. It's only useful comparing it to other potential development outcomes. So because the private water service on the site, we don't manage any of the eight inch water line that they're going to tap into, that they get from Harper County government. The sewer line, we will only be responsible for once it leaves their site. We're not going to be responsible for paving any of that beautiful asphalt. We're not going to be responsible for cutting the grass or maintaining the shrubs or repairing the sign when one of the tractor trailers runs into it. And all of that will be on the developer as a result. It's all revenue for us. And the costs are only limited to what could potentially be assumed to be a reasonable amount of police attention when there are calls for service on site, things like lockouts, things like fights that happen in the parking lot at normal places, whatever. When comparing the commercial uses of this type in a calls for service environment, it looks like it does not draw a lot of calls for service. And so I've penciled into the cost benefits spreadsheet, something like $10,000 a year for the cost of the police attention to the site. Anyway, it's hard to find a better net revenue to the general fund from a use such as this given that we're not responsible for Maryland State Route 40 and I hope to be able to amplify the cost benefit financial analysis tool with future developments so that we can get a better idea of what the decisions that this body and what the planning commission are recommending have the impact of those decisions on the people who will be sitting in these seats 30 and 40 years from now rather than just thinking about the pretty shiny thing that's in front of us today. It's good. Anybody have any thoughts? Is there a motion to approve the preliminary site plan as recommended by the Planning Commission? Yes, please. So what would be the impact of this project on our water and sewer? Mr. Pietro, the projected water consumption I believe is fewer than 5E2 use? Correct. Okay, so 114,000 square feet would ideally consume in total buildout because it's going to be mostly logistics would use fewer than the equivalent of five houses worth of water. Amplifying that further, the water comes in a pipe that Hartford County has in root 40 and so we would process the sewer effluent from the site 5E to use as opposed to let's say we took a 15 acre site you could build 75 apartments and that would consume 75E to use worth of water and sewer capacity Okay, and they're gonna have to pay us for the sewer connection charge If they did want to hook up to our sewer system Thank you It just to elaborate that on that a little further a sewer connection charge if they'd want to hook up to our sewer system. Okay, thank you. Just to elaborate that on that a little further, traditionally these type of facilities are very low water users. That said, should they come in with a user that's a high water user, we're likely going to have to do some redesign to accommodate that high over water usage. We'll probably need a bigger water line. They need to rework some of the plumbing interior of the building. So that would be something that you guys would come back before you. Okay. Before the city. Thank you. Those kind of modifications. Any other questions, Council? Is there a motion to approve the preliminary site plan? Some moved. Thank you, Council President Hayab. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Council President Haib, is there a second? Second. Thank you, Councilman Ridgeley, any more discussion? Madam Clerk, please call the roll for approval. Council President Haib? Aye. Councilman Linda Camp? Aye. Councilman Montgomery? Aye. Councilwoman Ridgeley? Aye. Four votes, the affirmative, that's approved. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Don't feel like you got to stick around. Thank you Thank you, Mr. Peter Welcome Mr. Torchery when talk about the traffic engineering and Mrs. Grover whoever wants that Thank you mayor Can everybody hear me clearly? I lost my oh Grab the one off of that one I tried So several months ago the City Council amended the chapter 302 growth management which is in the code of the City of Aberdeen. You established a requirement that the City of the traffic consulting firm to prepare a traffic impact study for all new residential and commercial developments that are required to provide a traffic impact study. So it's based on peak trips, average daily trips. It's also based on the number of residential lots. So anything over five residential lots and depending on the volume of traffic requires that traffic impact study. So after you prove that amendment to the code, I prepared a RFQ which is request for qualifications. The procurement officer of the city, Mr. Sean Berger, reviewed that. He submitted it out to a lot of different organizations in Maryland, traffic consulting firms to be exact as well as post it in various sites, looking for interested firms. We had seven that responded to the RFQ with their statement of qualifications, all of which, Rommel Klepper and Call, traffic concepts, EXP, U.S. Services, Century Engineering, Groveslade, the traffic group, and Wallace Montgomery. Several of these firms we have work with in the past. Kyle and I and Sean sat down and reviewed each one of the responses. We gave you a high level summary of each and their qualifications in their firm. And significant projects that they've worked on in the past four years as far as traffic analysis work that's been completed So with that we ranked them We recommend on the fourth page That we utilize three firms so that it is fair across the board This is not a cost proposal. We will go three firms so that it is fair across the board. This is not a cost proposal. We will go out to them, give each firm a chance to provide us with a cost estimate to do a traffic impact study based on the development plan that they are going to be reviewing and the traffic work that's going to be involved with providing us with that analysis. So we are recommending the traffic group incorporated, EXP, US services, and RK and K for transportation engineering studies, and that'll be on call professional services contract. Would you like to add anything? The only thing that I'd like to add is in reviewing these qualifications, the public works department would in essence highlight those intersections to be studied. The firm would go ahead and provide a quote that in turn we would provide today developer and in concert with that, the focus is to ensure that not only is the intersections looked at, but also the potential improvements that you were in, that you to council were very interested in knowing as far as related to whether a traffic signal would be warranted. Maybe there was some additional reconfigurations of the intersections or roadways for those that's part of the rationale for going out and seeking these firms. So. Thank you. Anybody have any questions? I've got a few there. Yes. Maybe just my understanding, but ranked one to seven, one being number one, but yet what you recommend is not one being least. Please. One being least. Yes, sir. Thank you. Senator Clevver. I asked the same question. It being lease. Yes sir. Thank you. Senator Claire for case. I asked the same question. It just countered two questions. It's on the first page. Yeah, lease favorable to most favorable. Yes. The bigger number, most favorable. Yeah. Okay. And please explain to me again, what is it that what's the work that these folks are going to do? They're going to do a traffic impact analysis on city streets that a development would have an impact on. So for an example, if you're looking at a 200 residential units, let's just say it's off a long drive. They're going to look at the background traffic, they're going to look at the intersections. There's a whole host of background traffic information, they're going to be pulling and data, crash data, accidents, things of that nature chime in whenever you like. And that information would provide a level of service. So in the engineering world, a level of service is a rating of that particular road, a being very little impact and level D and F being failing intersections, failing roadways. And that information would be compiled into a report that would take the existing information overlay the new information in concert with all the other developments that are occurring in that particular area. And then based on that, the development would have an impact. And what is that impact? Hold on, hold on, hold on. I think the answer to the question that you're asking is, right now, the developer goes out and hires somebody to do this traffic impact analysis. This is part of our ordinance, so we are part of our ordinance. So before they had to do it, and what this does is authorizes the city to hire the engineer to conduct the traffic impact analysis on our behalf rather than the developer hiring them and then working on their behalf. Okay. And then developer will have to pay the fees from doing the report as well as the improvements that have been outlined in the study. Okay, so thanks. Quick question. Yes. We're going to go to all three, I guess, each time and just someone's going to pick it up and take the study and do the study. Yeah, we're going, we'll have the procurement officer send out the notification to each one of these firms, come back with a call so we can share that with the developer. Of course, we're going to pick the firm, but we certainly want them to be aware of the process. So be a regular routine to the whole. Yes, exactly. Thank you. The initial consideration on this was to select one that would be the entity that does traffic evaluations for the city. And then we talked about it and we said that would not feel right to have one entity that you have to work with, you know, that could charge basically whatever they wanted. And so in order to keep the traffic consultants honest and introduce some level of competition to this, what we're asking for is to say, yes, these three that the staff have vetted are qualified to do this and each time a new development is contemplated, we will say here's the scope and working with the staff, working with the county, working with the developer, we will agree before any money is spent on the scope of the traffic impact analysis. That is to say these intersections are the ones we're going to look at because we believe that they will be impacted. Then the request will go out to the entities, 5, 6, and 7 on this list, and then they'll look at the scope and they'll say, all right, we think we can do that for $4,000. We think we can do that for $14,000. And then we'll go back to the developer and say the lowest qualified of our traffic impact analysis producers here says the number is going to be this number. And so we need that money from you so that we can pay them to conduct the impact analysis on our behalf or on your behalf through us as the conduit to make sure that the incentives are aligned. Is there a just for a general? Sorry, good. No, no, I didn't want to interrupt you. Just for general timeline, is there a requirement once a request is put out for them to complete a traffic contact? I was just going to say that. And if they can't, we're going to go somebody else on that list. As part of the scope of work, we're also going to add ask for timeliness to prepare the traffic impact study and get that back to us so we don't want one consultant to do it in 30 days the other one will take six months right so that'll all be weighed out to besides the cost but timeliness to deliver thank you so with that said you've got some parameters you know you're not totally bound by this if if one of the seven does not cooperate you basically have the ability to say okay you're not totally bound by this. If one of the seven does not cooperate, you basically have the ability to say, okay, you're out. I'm picking another one of the three. There's three that we've selected. No, but to keep that three philosophy, which I think is great, you get rid of one of the three for a good reason. Yep, I hope you have the ability to say, well, you know what, we've got another one on the pile here. Let's keep that three going so that I was up three. Yeah, agree. Yeah If we approve this when would this take effect? With the next project I guess project then we would be the ones in charge of the traffic. Yes, okay So there is some overlap right with traffic studies that have been conducted over the past year and stuff. Would we say it's for plans that are submitted starting tomorrow? Like how would we work this? So there are projects that are in a queue, like you just said, that we've been reviewing for six months to a year. Yep. I'm saying those have already been submitted. So once you approve this, this is from here forward. Yeah. It's not a new project coming in. Yes sir. Okay. Good. Anything else? No serve. So what do we need on this then? Do we need council approval to adopt the recommended plan? I think that would be appropriate. So moved. Thank you, Councillor Lina Canva. Thank you, Councillor Presidents. The clerk can note that the motion is to concur with the recommendation on the September 18, 2024 memo regarding the traffic engineering study services. Any more discussion? Madam Clerk, please call the roll for approval. Council President Hyde. Aye. Councilman Lenny-Camp. Aye. Councilman Monk-Umeries. approval. Council President Hyde. Aye. Councilman Lenny-Kamp. Aye. Councilman Monk-Armeries. Aye. Councilwoman Ridgeley. Aye. Good for votes, the affirmative. The next item on your agenda, council, you may recall mid budget that the Department of Public Works has been challenged by the hydraulic, that is the water and sewer system model. We use a effectively a fancy computer program to understand how changes in our water system, that is the system of water tanks and booster stations and pipes with differing elevations throughout the city behaves to changes. So we're going to add another use somewhere in the system. What that's going to look like, the way this works today is so that we can understand what that system looks like. We go to one specific vendor who's got our model in their computer system and we have to pay them for time to click on their computer and make the proposed change. And so as part of the budget process, we included money to go out into our water system, into our sewer system, into our sewer system, separately and jointly, and evaluate the existing flows, to evaluate the measurements of the sizes of the pipes, the diameter of the pipe determines how much water can flow through it, the sewer pipe, the water pipe, all throughout the city of Aberdeen, and then come up with a updated what we call model. A image, a tool to look at potential changes to our system, so we can better understand it. So the Department of Public Works put this package of scope together and interviewed a bunch of different people about what that would look like. And then I'll throw it to you, Mr. Torster. Yes. And so what the department has been working off of is that the model we received about a dozen years ago told us the system behaves a certain way. And over the last 12 years or so we need to update that model and that model has to be calibrated so that when the actual usage is out there we can balance it against what the model is predicting and this allows us to project things like, what is your capacity of your pumps, your booster stations, how, what is a pressure at a specific point? And then we take this information and we look and we say, okay, if you put an eight inch line or a ten inch line and you add this, do you have enough water, what balances, what changes in that particular area. So it's a predictive modeling technique and so we went out to, we went out for a proposal for professional services. We received three bids and based on that information, we received a comparative amount of to Barton and Lagudas as the low bid. This project itself would entail the engineer going out and measuring flows, measuring going out the hydrants, measuring the actual flows, and then putting that information within our computer software and to be able to read it and then ultimately at the end to calibrate it. And once we're able to calibrate it, when a developer comes in and they develop and they want to add to that particular load, they would take a portion of that model and they would add to it. And based on that, we could tell if there needs to be an additional adequate public facilities requirements. I.e. new tanks, new booster stations, new water lines, new sewer lines, new lift stations or increases to the water plant or waste water plant. So that's the purpose of this modeling. And so tonight we're requesting Council's approval for that particular effort. So, council, we budgeted $375,000. We budgeted out the water fund $100,000. The amount that the water fund came in actually was $114,000 out of the $275,000 they came in at $206,000. So we're under budget on the sewer side we would need a request for and out of fund balance out of the water fund of about $15,000 to do that work. Or we potentially if we're not going to get that then we would have to de-scope a particular effort in a particular project. So. How often does it have to be calibrated? I believe it's once every 10 years we're required to have it calibrated. Like in the next 10 years we'll have another fee like this then? Well, once the model is updated, the cost is not going to be this significant. Okay, the reason is this significant is because we've not been able to keep up with what's happening in the system over the last 12 years. So specifically, the, we don't today have the software, it's called Water Gems G E M S, that is utilized by an engineer to make changes to the model, to run the analysis, to say if we turn on this hydrant, what do we think's gonna happen over here? We don't have that software. The subscription to that's $8,000 a year. If we're gonna do this, we're probably gonna do that. So that's the long term, short term. Once we have that, what they're going to do is they're going to go out and make a bunch of measurements. The reason it's so much money is because they're going to physically send a person to the manhole and put in a sewer meter for a year. It's going to be 18 months worth of work involved in this. They're going to have people on site measuring the flows during high rain events, during low rain events, so we can measure inflow and infiltration, so we can measure on the water side, so we can test what happens when the water tanks run out, those kinds of things, so we can see in real terms what happens. Then that goes into the formula, the model, the algorithm that says, this is how big this pipe is. So what I'm saying is, because we don't have that software today, we have not been able to have Reliable modifications to the model so we have said over the last 10 years our superintendents have said Hey, we discovered that this sewer pipe is only eight inches when your model says it's 12 inches to arrow our client And then a year they say great got it and then a year later they look again and it still says eight inches and so The engineering team does not have a lot of faith in the existing model got it and then a year later they look again and it still says eight inches and so the engineering team does not have a lot of faith in the existing model. So this is a request to make sure we know what we've got in the big picture so that we can understand as we make change of what that looks like. And then in the future eventuality that we had to hire a wizard in that it might be 20 grand to update it, once we can tweak it internally. Now, the model, yes. Does it continually run like, does it monitor like, what are the pressure through the line? Does it, good question. So the model is a snapshot. It says you have this eight inch pipe that connects to this six inch pipe, that connects to the water tank. Okay. And then the way that it works is they have their computer system on their machine and the software says, how much water do you want to put through the system? And you say, well, our normal flow is 1.4 million gallons a day. So we plug in 1.4 million gallons a day coming from the water treatment plant or 400,000 gallons coming from having a grace or whatever so then they do that and they say all right based on that How much water pressure we're gonna have to hillcrest tank and they say well based on this with this new housing development This happening here. You're not gonna have any water going into that tank So then we have to we go back and we say all right the developer is to pay, is gonna need to pay to construct a 10-inch water line where we currently have a six-inch water line because not enough water can get from here to there to provide fire flow and those kinds of things. And on the sewer side, we try to evaluate along the system. So if you think about how far that comes from, so the rudders is their sewer pipe is connected to our wastewater treatment plant. And the Frito Lay is connected to our wastewater treatment plant. And so all along the route, there are situations where we think we've got capacity in the pipe. And some places where we know we don't have capacity in the pipe. And this is a tool that's supposed to help us model to say all right if we make this change if we put a new pipe that connects Hillsdale Elementary School out to Route 40 is that going to alleviate the issue we have with stormwater or whatever with with sewer overflow is when it rains at this location and it's because of the the it works. It can help with that. And the reason I was there is going to fit like a model that continues running. So let's say you've got the line on paradise room and it's supposed to be just something simple. 10 PSI going through it. And also when we look at the model that's 5 PSI, does that say we have a leak down the line somewhere? Right. It's not an active running system. We have SCADA, SKADA, D-A systems on our water tanks and on our booster systems that communicate using the Internet or radio frequencies that say exactly how much flow is happening at any of those, it's really cool. It says the booster station turned on three times overnight on long drive, right, and it ran at this pressure. It's really cool. And all that stuff is read at the treatment plant. And so it all is broadcast to there. So that's where we have some information security concerns if they were unsecured networks because all that stuff could turn off our water. The computer at the wastewater treatment plant could turn off the water or turn it all on. Anyway, so- I guess the system has had any preventative things in it. That's what I was saying. No, it's not live. And so what it's going to do is as they're going out, they're going to have a bunch of guys that are going to go out, could be gals, Councilman Brasley. And they're gonna put a meter on the hydrant and then open the hydrant and then check how much water is going past it and at what pressure for a minute. And then for five minutes. And then once they measure all that, that'll go in, they'll say, all right, based on what we know about the system, this is good, or based on what we know, we got something wrong, because there shouldn't be that much water there. Gotcha. And ideally, this is to be able to support the engineering development. So as our staff are out there testing their annual testing, they could take that information saying, this is what we're seeing in there in that particular system system and we can update it into the model as those conditions. But it's a every time we run the model it's a snapshot and you could what we say is it's like a big sandbox so you can say we're going to add 500 homes over here at this node and we're going to add a thousand homes over here at this node, and we're going to add 1,000 homes over here. How is that going to play into system? What's happening with our pumps? Our pumps are going from 60% operating speed to 80%. Those are the type of things, and so it allows us to kind of be able to predict those impacts kind of be able to predict those impacts to be able to make those improvements beforehand in anticipation for what is anticipated to be brought in front of the council as far as approval for plans and stuff like that. So Mayor, does this have any safeguards in place in terms of hacking? So, good question. This is not connected to our system at all. So, this specifically, this specifically, the SCADA systems that I was talking about that have control over the water system. Yeah, they've got passwords, they've got network security stuff. We've applied for a federal grant recently for hardening what we call that in've got network security stuff. We've applied for a federal grant recently for hardening, what we call that in security, IT security stuff. But this is separate and distinct. Like you could come in and smash this up, change all the numbers and it would not affect our system at all. It's an analysis tool that we use to determine what we would need to change in order to get more water to the Hillcrest Booster Tank or water tank. Those kinds of questions. Interesting. Yes, it really is. If you ever want to see the skater stuff, we can go and look at it. It's the amount of infrastructure that we have. So every booster station that we have has skater equipment in it. SKADA stands for something. I have no idea. Any idea? I don't know. That's what it's got. It's got wireless remote control technology. And a generator at each one. And so in the event of a power outage, they would come on and run for one or three days. We've got a very sophisticated infrastructure system that is, I would say, top notch. Yes. The disgated system for us, we monitor if a booster station or a lift station is moving high flows, for instance, our Chester booster station during high events, we already know that that station is not catching up and so we have plans in place to be able to respond. We can see if a tank is drop in water rapidly and I say drop in water rapidly so there are certain levels, certain thresholds and when it drops to certain levels we know that based on the flows that there could potentially be information that there's a water main break. And so, you know, at cranberry run apartments, there was a water main break in the driveway. And it was on their property, but it was, you know, the standpipe was there, the northeast standpipe, and the pressure was, or the height of the water was dropping very quickly, because it was like an eight or a 10 inch water pipe that was just cracked in half, and the water was just running down the road. And so the skated system, sentence and alerts, as your water levels are dropping rapidly, and then those are the kinds of things we can measure remotely. Like a pacemaker. Yeah, absolutely. Except it doesn't shock you. Yeah. So what I would look for is a blessing to proceed with the low bidder, the lowest qualified bidder in Barton and Laudue Dice. How are they like $200,000 cheaper? It's just kind of strange. Any idea why they're cheaper? No, not whatsoever. So there were a couple of things now. So I mean, ultimately these are professional services. There's probably a level of overhead that these could be small firms. So you don't know? It's because their bid came in lower and they're qualified. I'm sorry? Because they're qualified. They're qualified. It's probably the difference between going out and having a $250 lawyer and an $800 lawyer. Is it the difference because I'd get the $800 lawyer? Okay, that's all. So, well, what we would look for is the approval, but I'll tell you, Council, even if we get approval tonight, I'm not sold on all the specifics and details on this and so Mr. Torcherny are going to talk with his engineering team to make sure this is something that we that I'm confident that we need before we pull the trigger on it so what I would look for is approval for the low bid with understanding that until everybody in city hall including me agrees that we're going to go in this direction that we're going to hold off on that. So like could be tomorrow, it could be in a week until I'm comfortable with it. But it's a lot of cash to spend on something that's going to evaluate our system. So is there a motion to approve the low bid for Barton and Lou log you dice? Log you a dice? So moved. Thank you, Councilman Linda Camp. Thank you. Is there a second? A second. Thank you, Councilman Montgomery. Any more discussion on the motion to approve the low bid and the amount of $321,200. If we approve the project, we'll come back with the budget amendment for the $15,000 for the water fund. It's interesting. In the water fund, the sewer fund, I don't know that we need a budget amendment. No. No. No. Mr. Jack is shaking his head. No. Saying that I'm correct, because we've- Just that poor beauty is okay. It's a good thing. Okay. Is that wild? Yeah. Yeah. I said the same thing. But this would serve as the approval to change the allocation of money. Yeah. money. Yeah, it's a 69 up and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but between the balances it up. Yeah, I got a motion in a second. Any more discussion? Madam Clerk, we call the roll on approval of the low bid to Barton and Loggedeis for $321,200, please. Council President Hyde. Aye. Councilman Landy Camp. Councilman Montgomery. Aye. Councilwoman Rigely. Aye. Four votesueblo. Councillor Pueblo. Councillor Pueblo. Councillor Pueblo. Councillor Pueblo. Councillor Pueblo. Councillor Pueblo. Councillor Pueblo. Councillor Pueblo. Councillor Pueblo. Councillor Pueblo. Councillor Pueblo. Councillor Pueblo. Councillor Pueblo. Councillor Pueblo. Councillor Pueblo. Councillor Pueblo. Councillor Pueblo. Councillor Pueblo. Councillor Pueblo. Councillor Pueblo. Maryland State Highway Administration to complete way back in 2019 and 2020. So, State Highway was going to repave West Belor Avenue for the first time in a generation. And in advance of that, the City of Aberdeen called our friends at State Highway and said, you know, it'd be really cool if we had some traffic calming improvements, some bump outs to make it safer for people across the street. And stuff like that. And they said, great, we're doing these improvements to asphalt the road. And we will roll your stuff in, but you've got to pay for the bump outs that you want and the crosswalks and stuff like that. And way back in 2019, they said, here's the approval for that. And way back in 2019 they said here's the approval for that. Well, this week or last week Mr. Torchler got a email saying, oh hey by the way you guys owe us this money from four years ago in the amount of 35,000. How much do they say in his due? 35,811 dollars 38 cents. And so what else do you want to add to that, Mr. Torture? So some information, what happens is, and some of you may have not been here at this particular time. So I'll just bring some information up. When we go through this process, state highway comes up with an estimate. And at that time, it was about $75,000 for it. But ultimately, it really boils out to what the actual cost is. So the engineers put out a proposal, and then the contractor submits the overall cost, the state highway then allocates the certain amount of money for those particular line item improvements. They also add a percent overhead cost to the state to manage that particular effort. And the actual dollars came out to about $112,000. We've been paying, there were 13 12 invoices that were submitted somewhere between 2019 and 2021, of which all those estimates at that particular time. From what I could tell is that state highway typically takes two to three years to close out a project. And so as they're closing out these projects, they're tying out these invoices, open invoices. This particular project came to final closure and this is the final invoice. All these costs are been validated. There was about 25 or 30 pages that are not attached to this particular invoice that talk about specifically linear feed of concrete or stuff like that. And so I'm looking for approval to pay for this information, pay for this invoice. We signed an agreement and so that's the information that I have. Okay, thank you. Anybody have any questions? Looks like total cost of the project was 112. It was, it was a, based on what I can see here. We've already paid 76.9. Yeah, it was, it was $112,715. 21 cents. 21 cents. And we paid about $76,000. And all those were essentially, when we get those invoices, they quote unquote use the word estimated invoice because they build us forward. The only other thing I'll say is that when this project came to closure, at least on the contract side, I did reach out to the agents office, the MOA office. And I said, am I going to get a letter from you saying that I've paid all the invoices? Now, like, no, why would we do that? I said, well, then, how do I know that we paid everything? And I didn't get any answer. So I felt everything was closed at that particular time, and three years later, I got this invoice. So I felt everything was closed at that particular time and three years later I got this invoice. So. Mr. Jack, can we use how I use a revenue to pay this? Let's do it. How do we pay for the first 70? That's a good question. 706903. We've already paid. Uh-huh. That's over what time? Yeah. 2019 on now. I believe we ended up using city funds out of those particular dollars in 2019. So we didn't budget for this because we did not know that it was coming. Is there anything that we can do to prevent this surprise going forward? Maybe we put a tickler on projects that we do with stay high waste and know that they're still open? Is that a thing we can do in when we pay invoices? We can. I mean, I did the best that I could at that time and I tried to reach out to whoever to say that is there anything else that that's outstanding and I got well we'll get to it but crazy yeah. So I noticed in the scope of the project the common improvements are along Park Street and Howard Street. Can you send us just a graphic of what that looks like since I'm new to this. Okay, so when it will begin construction. It's already completed. Sorry, done from Route 40. Oh, it's up. From Route 40 towards the CSX Railroad tracks, right? The first intersections Howard Street where it's got the bump out in the flashing light right there at crosswalks. That's where Pam's where? It didn't used to have a bump out. Oh, or the flashing lights. Or the brick crosswalk. And so they were going to pave it and we said in your process you're doing your project, can you add that so they designed it and then they did the work as part of their contract. Okay. Okay, and then this is the bill to pay for that five years four years on I would have thought we would not have had the work done Yes, since we haven't paid but okay, this is work already completed all right Ultimately becomes at this particular time that the State has certified that these funds have been spent and then based on the agreement that we sign we said that we would pay for this So we said that we would pay for this. So- You said that we would pay them an estimated $76,000. Can we just not pay them the other $33? We went to bat for the improvements on Route 22, and ultimately we were unsuccessful. So the answer is that this is a bill that we would be required to pay. All right, Mr. Jack. So does this require a budget amendment? It's coming out of the general fund, yes. So it's coming out of highway user revenue. And you're going to make sure that we're legal. You're going to make sure that we're legal. Yeah, it's coming out there. You're going to need to budget amendment. Where did the money initially come from for the project? Where do we, I'd like to know that, because I'd rather use the how we use your came out of the journal. Come forward. And we're going to evaluate that and get an answer for you. Yeah, right. I just rather would use how we use your funds for projects that we have going forward that, you know, they're already in the pipeline rather than back paying for projects that are already done. Why? Because there are a lot of other projects that still need to be done. And if this wasn't paid for with high-reservinous, then I wouldn't change it up. I'd keep it with whatever the funding source was initially for this project. So you want a budget amendment to increase taxes to pay for this expensive? No, because we have to go. Because we have the fund balance to do it. We're not breathing any taxes to do this. We have a very healthy fund balance. If I can use other people's money to pay it, I think that's what we're going to do. But will evaluate that. There's always lots of projects to use other people's money on. Yes, I agree. Anything else? No. So we'll come back to you if we need to do a budget amendment. In the meantime, we'll evaluate where we allocated the money earlier to pay for that and then if we can use highway user revenue on it and And just just for your information. I know there's a bill closed-day generally Communication with state highway is very long so if if it takes a couple weeks to be able to get that money to state highway four years Yes, okay, All right. Thank you. So Mayor just don't want to have heard. Are we certain from a reconciliation standpoint? Yes. Because I heard some of your comments and it's not like you're trying to piece the puzzle together as best as possible but we're very certain that from a reconciliation standpoint these figures are accurate by what we think. Because I heard you say you tried to best you could, they kind of waited some time. So the answer is that when they submit a packet to us, it's about 35 to 40 pages worth of information. When we were going through this information, it's hard for us to tell from those 35 or 40 pages if there's any outstanding amounts that the contractor hasn't billed or billed. So they, in essence, bill those amounts based on an estimated amount. And so that's the information that we have. So I think what I hear you saying is I got the estimated amount. Now we have a real amount. Yes. We had no way to know what our real amount was going to be. So we basically paid all the bills. Irregularly. Yes. Yeah. 11 bills. Yes. Yep. OK. So basically no control over, 11 bills. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So basically no control over the final balance. Right. Yes. And and back on their projects. Yeah, and and part of that is that the state tax on a 6% overhead cost for managing these projects. The MOU is based on an engineer's estimate that until it's been finalized and a lot of these are line item costs. So there's X number of feet of concrete, linear feet of like curb. And so you can say, well, it's 100 feet of this curb based on this value. But when they start measuring it, they got to kind of break it out because there's a portion that they pay for, and then there's a portion that we pay for. So it becomes an accounting issue. Mayor, I don't know the Maryland State System for checking this stuff, but if they have an internal review office, I would highly recommend that before you pay this, you give this to a different office. Because every government agency has internal review for this kind of stuff, just to have somebody to take another look at this thing and make sure that we're not overpaying. Mr. Jackie, you'll look into something like this. Good, thank you. Got it. We have updates from staff Mrs. Grover, you're going to start? Mayor, just a reminder that you and I have a mean to mar with Amtrak tomorrow morning to get a status of their project. I know they are in 60% design on their improvement project at the Aberdeen train station, but I think they're going to give us additional updates as far as historical trust and where they are with their environmental reporting remarks. And then they're going to come and give a presentation to the City Council. Are you going to ask for that tomorrow? Do you want me to ask for that? It was supposed to be September. October. Yeah. October? Good. Yes, we will get that answer. Okay, thank you. No other updates. I know that Mrs. Horn. No, that's not yet. Sorry, go ahead. talk about the successful October fest that we had on Saturday. So I want to come up. Yes, please. Thank you, Mayor. Sleeping back there. We did have a great Saturday event. I want to thank my volunteers. I had some to stay there the entire time for eight plus hours, which was really fabulous Councilmember Gummery. I know you were taking the wristbands and you stayed away through cleanup Thank you so much for that we do appreciate that because that by the end of the day we're kind of pooped So that very much helped us look pretty good at the end of the day But great turnout last year we did 500 wristbands this year we bought a thousand we did about 800 So that was a good turnout for us. Food vendors, I know vagabonds sold out of some items there. The lemonade, lime made woman, she sold it out of everything. Couple of my vendors on the other side were very thrilled that good turnout people talked to them and everything. So got some good feedback of how to improve next year, which is always ways to improve. So look for something a little bit better to come on, but I'll take feedback from anybody if you see something that maybe we can do a little better or something we need to cut out. We're going to do that. Yes. Did we schedule our meeting to recap this? We need to do that. Yes, we do. We'll schedule that in the next week. I know it's painful after the event. You don't want to think about it, but if you wait, then we'll forget all the details. Well, no, I had two emails come to me from two separate people with a lot of ideas, and I was trying to get them down. Very good. Also, tomorrow, if I can just hit on this, the Irene Chamber Commerce has their economic development award Luncheon. We're giving out four awards to some of our local businesses. If you can attend to be great, networking starts 11, 30 lunches at 12. Is that TB3 event center? Thank you. Hold on. This is Horn. Good work at the October Fest. Good work in the preparation. Good work in the planning. Good work to all the volunteers who ran the show. I think very highly successful. Good job. Did you, did you notice all the German people that were there? There were many later, Hosenlated individuals. No, I mean speaking, they were actually from Germany. We had several. The one gentleman came by the great big table, one this picture taken and he had a very strong accent taken by the backdrop, yes. Yeah, actually, Madam General, I knew it was from November of my first studio assignment. And we did take note. We had a couple come out of New York friends from down here told them about it, so they came down. And as they came down from New York. Yes. Wow. And as they were checking with the ID's and everything, taking you know how to do you but a lot hurt our salt on the billboards over in Cecil County. So that was successful. Did you get your hands on the surveys that we had those guys from Watch Tower conducting? It got shoved into a box that went to my storage units. I don't have that yet. It exists though. So what we did is at a busy time, I don't know, 2.33 o'clock, I conscripted the guys from the Watchtower Brewing Company to carry a clipboard around and ask people how they heard about the event so we can see if we could figure out which promotion was most useful, whether the billboards that we have in Cecil County or the big banners that we have on Route 40 and Route 22 or the Facebook ads or the Google ads or the emails or the emails. Some people came from the MWR on APG. I was talking to a couple guys I met from India. So the ones I met were further than New York, but they didn't come specifically for this. Harriet and his friend were from India. Their friends called them down and told them this was taking place so they came down. But it was great having DPW there. Things got cleaned up, they kept the trash down to a minimum. So that was a big help. And the police, we had nothing all day long until an evening thing, but quickly taken care of. So that was a big help as well. So everything went smooth. It was a slam dunk. I mean, really, in our events, continue to get better. We keep learning from our mistakes and from our successes. And thank you for doing what you're doing. And somebody wants a great big arch built over top of your entrance there so you might want to think about that. Let's do it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Don't get Steve highway to do it. Yeah. Mr. Torrell, oh, Mr. Grover back to you. One more thing. I left for you and you're in the conference room upstairs. The final safe routes to school. Safe streets and roads action plan. Absolutely. and road action plan. Absolutely and there's a great implementation section in there. I will be working with three municipalities the other two municipalities I apologize to move forward on how are we going to apply for federal grants to make some of these intersection improvements? It will definitely involve the state highway administration as well as the U.S. Department of Transportation. So I'll keep you posted on that. Great. Thank you. You're welcome. Mr. Torres, where you got? I don't have anything tonight. Thank you. Chief, where you got? I'll think so. Sure? Yes sir. Mr. Jack? No, tonight. Excellent. Do we forget anybody? No. Okay. Public comment. This is the next opportunity for public comment. Anybody who likes to can approach the microphone when you do please state your name and address for the record. Welcome. Thank you. Michael. I'm Grace or dry 248. So regarding the traffic calming invoice that you guys debated this tonight quite regularly or detail. So it was a few years ago that originally the contract was let, I guess. I don't know exactly how long ago, but I assume that you were here and maybe Councilman Linda can't be here, maybe not the other folks. And I know this is not a question and answer session, but my questions are and you can choose to answer them or not. Who agreed to the, who made the request for whatever the traffic calming devices are? And, you know, what were they? Who agreed to do it? And did you know ahead of time what the cost was going to be? And did you know that the city was going to get the invoice or did you assume that state highways was going to pay for that? 2019 the city council approved it the city manager signed it the mayor signed it the MOU explained what our obligations were and what state highways obligations were very clearly this is what we're going to pay for is what we're going to be responsible for we knew what we wanted and as part of their repaving, they did the design and we went to four or five public meetings held here and held all over the place, looking at these improvements on the map before they did the work. Okay. Yeah, we know what we were in for. Thanks. It's just seeming- We're expected to get billed up front. have been a surprise or something. The bill, that was a surprise. Okay, thank you. Thank you. The problem is that the bill sit out there for four years. You already spend the money on something else, you know? Welcome, Mr. Hartman. I'm Hartman, 226 Paradise rather. Stop signs. I was coming out of Walgreens the other day and a person came out of patient first and if I didn't slam on my brakes I would have had my whole front end torn off. He wasn't going slow or anything else. That's not the only location but there's we need to look at all the businesses and everything else in Aberdeen. There's no stop signs on a lot of these parking lots and everything else. We need to get up on that. Because if you go up to the hotel, if you go out the back way, there's nothing out there to say stop before, because people live there. One of our police officers lives out there and everything else. So, I mean, we just need to look around our community and let's get, you know, a handle on this and any of these new development matters. What we need to do is before they get occupancy or anything else, okay? If you don't have this stuff, then you're not going to be able to agree. Yes. Or if you see these locations that need stop signs, please write them down and give them to an Aberdeen police officer or give them to Mr. Torster and we will push them on it. Okay, and also for a water main break, I go over the weekend on Belor Avenue. Not too far from where you live and everything else. I've seen water rolling and everything else, but is there a local number or a special number? Do we have to call the police? Let me tell you what I did. Let me tell you what I did. Let me tell you what I did. You know who identified the water main break? So I called the Aberdeen Police Department number because you used to call police department to get the after hours number. And then I was like, I don't know what to push. I don't know what to push. I pushed records because I know there's a person that stays there in records. I called 911 and I said is it your job at 911 to dispatch the after hours person and she said I can do that And I said don't do it if it's not your job is that your job? And she said it's my job and I said okay, so I told her and then I saw it Aberdeen DPW guy go look at it So yes 911 okay, that's just cuz you know we used to call like down here and I know things have changed mayor It's 1600. Yes, sir. It is 1600. That was changed about a year ago and when the person... After hours, press one button. There's an after hours number and when you press 1600, you press the, I believe it's option nine. Option nine. So listen for five minutes to the call. And then when you get to option nine, press nine to talk to the after hours person, leave a message and then somebody will go look at it. It's a whole 911 list. At least it's B2BG and E. You can be on her six hours. So the first thing that a person will get, we'll get if this is an after hours, DPW presses button so they do not have to listen to it and not do it for an option. I did not know this, let's promote this. And what happens is that it will ring automatically to our on-call person who will pick up. Now if our person is down in the wastewater treatment plant where there's no cell your service it will go to voicemail but then the voicemail is picked up. So yes that option has been in place for about a year. 272-1600-option nine. Okay. That's what I want. No, thank you. Thank you. Anybody else in public comment? Out there, come to Beth. Welcome Beth. Come on, Beth. Beth Boyson, 631 Westwood Drive. Two things. First of all, in the cost-benefit analysis on properties, please be careful regarding the enterprise zone. Because most of these are commercial buildings, and if they apply for the enterprise zone because most of these are commercial buildings and if they apply for the enterprise zone That gives them a 10-year graduated tax break agreed so ten my notes good So if they apply for it, and you don't approve the enterprise sound But just so you know that when you're looking at that that that's One of the part of the taxes. Spaghetti supper October 22nd for the Lions Club wetlands golf club. All right and we'll have taken shortly but put it on your calendars please. Thank you. Spaghetti at wetlands. What's today October 22 what time? 4 to 7. 4 to 7. the social event of the season. Anybody else for public comment? Hello, Darin Walson 387 Oxford Avenue. I just want to say I participated in a ride long with the Everton Police Department Friday night, who those who have not done it, I highly recommend it. The officer was very informational welcoming. Got a tour of the police department, and it was just a great experience. So keep that program going on, and thanks for Aberdeen, please. Thank you. Seeing you makes me think of the Hillsdale neighborhood. In Hillsdale, at Hillsdale Elementary School. The Lisby Elementary at Hillsdale traffic and no, no, no. Parking a lot of improvements are ongoing right now. They're doing their storm water management for that site. They're adding parking spaces and another drive through right there. I got an email from a resident who walks to school about a curb. That's a step-down curb where a crosswalk should have a like an ADA accessible one but doesn't and so I called the project manager last week and they said we're gonna add that to the project and so they added that to the project and so there'll be an ADA accessible pathway all the way to the front door. He said that that school built in 70 whatever, okay? And there is no accessible entrance in the front half of the building. So they're not allowed to use it for fire drills. They can't go out the front. So they have to go out the side doors where there's ramps instead of just adding a ramp in the front. This has been their methods in 1970 whatever. They don't use the front door. But they're going to fix it. Now they're going to fix it. And they're going to put a handicap accessible ADA ramp in the front. And they're going to be able to escape out from fires in the front. It's crazy. But Darren lived down that neighborhood and I was thinking to him when I saw that, that when I saw him. Okay. Any more public comment? Everybody in the public comment to a close. Councillor Montgomery, you would like to begin this evening. Thanks, Mayor. Ladies and gentlemen, I met with APG already improving ground. Gerson Commander, Carmine Well, on Friday. Had a chance to learn but the Office of local defense community cooperation was and I learned that the mayor already knows this because he went on a special community leaders trip about two weeks ago a week and a half ago but they basically distribute grant money to communities that are adjacent to the military installations. So we talked about a few projects of interest at the APG level, and I'll continue to work the mayor and the council based on feedback from him. And a few weeks ago, I was able to get use of the APG installation weekly update, which basically is a weekly update that goes to over 15,000 email addresses on APG, military surveillance contractors, and the good news is we were able to get October Fest published in there so the good news is as future events come up and I know Christmas is the next one we can get that and I'm going to start working with the Corvius Housing Department next to get the folks that actually live on the posts to actually get information on things that are going on in the city. Echel Miss Horne's comments on October Fest. The board members for the Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce were out in full force, along with friends, spouses, and other individuals. And she mentioned I checked ID cards, and I could not believe the amount of licenses that I saw. Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, of course Maryland, different countries, Mexico, Germany. So, you really learn a lot about who comes to your events when you look at their IDs. After you filled off the questions of do you really need to see my ID? And of course, I got the briefing and then yes, we do need to see your ID. And last Sam working with the county council, our local district, D rep basically on feedback that she got from the last session. She went to our Aberdeen Golden Age Club, kind of gets a feedback from her and also just kind of a way ahead on what she got when it came to comments. That's all I got, Mayor. Great, thank you. Councilman Ridgley. Yeah, Mayor, not much tonight. We have Cape Aberdeen beautiful scheduled for the first Saturday in October, which will be October the 5th. That segues into, excuse me, I was contacted through Councilman Montgomery about voices of hope that had visited a homeless encampment site, awful Bush Chapel Road that I had mentioned during our last city council meeting. And, you know, they offered to go and clean up the site. However, it's my opinion, it's my desire for them not to go into that site due to the contents that may be there. When I look at that site to me, it's somewhat of a hazmat type of situation and it requires a professional company to go in there and clean it up. So having said that if in the event you stumble across these sites when you traverse Aberdeen, just please let us know. If it's something that keep Aberdeen beautiful, kin tackle, we will, however, depending on the contents, depending on what's there on the site being able to take care of the situation. I just wanted to acknowledge the attendance for the Caribbean festival. I did not have a chance to attend the event. I did not have a chance to attend the event. I did not have a chance to attend the event. I did not have a chance to attend the event. I did not have a chance to attend the event. I did not have a chance to acknowledge the attendance for the Caribbean festival. I did not have a chance to attend. I drove through on my way to Upper Chesapeake. My father was hospitalized, but it was a huge event from what I could see. I didn't have a chance to get over on the east side on that same day for shred fest, but from what I understand, that was a success as well. So I'm so happy that Aberdeen is putting on these events and we're drawing people from various areas so that they can come and enjoy our city. And just thanks to everyone that was involved in making those events happen. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Linda Camp. Park and Rec, basketball signups have started. That's usually one of their bigger sports than us. The other sports they have soccer football are going well. Basically, school system just pay attention to the alerts. There were 10 schools that modified lock down the day. I don't have the reason why, but our school is not one of them. Thank God. And that's all I got. Thank you. Council President Hyab. Thank you, Mayor. Also, Charles, congratulations to all the people involved with a lot of events the last couple of weeks. Vicki, of course, with October Fest, phenomenal turnout. Great participation by everybody. Of course, feedback from all over. And participation from all over. So that's really what we want to see. And look forward to it next year already. Thread Fest was well-tended. I think there was a lot of excitement from people of all ages there, from little kids, four or five years old to middle lady in her 60s. It was out there, role-quiting for the first time in years. So getting back into it. So it was a great well-attended event. And same thing with the Caribbean Festival. It got the chance to drive by the event as well. It was packed Saturday. But it was absolutely just packed. So it was great to see some people coming to downtown Aberdeen on a regular basis and starting to put a little bit of a competition all with Aberdeen Grace now and the frequency of people coming into the city for events. So it's great to see Beth already hit on the Aberdeen Lions club supper on the 22nd from 437 at the wetlands golf course $8 for the tickets that event always There's the social event of the fall season The planning commission at the last meeting approved the site plans for the guard school and auto sales shop Both with added provisions to that so that will be eventually coming to the council as well in the future Council President Hyab if you can stick your finger on your notes where you're out so you don't lose your place. Did the planning commission, so what kind of conversation happened at the planning commission regarding the variance that was granted associated with the 80-foot wall that they're going to build at the Goddard school? the feet of the property. So, the property was a There was, it was reverence and disgust during the planning commission. I'm, and of course, they had stipulations that they need to work out in additional feedback. They needed to get done comments from staff that needed to be addressed before it comes of course to the council for review. I would like to connect with you some point, Marison, on cleaning up and getting our package together for the legislative priorities so that we can get them to our representatives. And we talked about the pool and a couple of things that are not necessarily bond initiatives. package together for the legislative priorities so that we can get them to our representatives and we talked about the pool and a couple of things that are not necessarily bond initiatives but funding sources that we would like to get built right into the governor's budget rather than through the bond initiative path because of the magnitude of the. Let's you and me schedule a call with Tim Perry our lobbyist to talk about the best path on the handful of things that we need to get funded and then we can figure out what we We're going to have a meeting with the committee. We're going to have a meeting with the committee. We're going to have a meeting with the committee. We're going to have a meeting with the committee. We're going to have a meeting with the committee. We're going to have a meeting with the committee. We're going to have a meeting with the committee. We're going to have a meeting with the committee. We're going to have square footage of the lots. on that for the Planning Commission to review that for changes to the development code. So something for your radar, for something for us to discuss, sort of potentially look at if we want to go that route to adjust that. And lastly, for the Public Safety Council's aware, one light one week from tonight is a work session at 6 p.m. And second floor conference room to continue discussions and to get definitions over to the Planning Commission and staff for review it at a future Planning Commission meeting. So they may provide feedback on table of uses for the new definitions. So if we can clarify that, what does everybody need to do in advance of next week then? So right now I will be sharing out sometime this week all the definitions with the tweaks that the Council discussed this evening and ones that still need, you know, clarifying we can nail those down next week so that we can submit those to the planning commission. Additionally, there are items in the table used so that we need to still hash out if we have time. We'll discuss those as well next week. So you're doing all the work? I will do the work to prepare the documentation for everyone to review. And then you're going to email them. And then I mean, you might not. We're going to discuss that and hopefully make some direction next. We're going to have a checklist of decision items. Yes. And we're going to decide and then we're going to be done. So 15 minutes? How much work do we do? No, no, no. I suspect they'll take more than 15 minutes. And that will be submitted to the Planning Commission for them to provide feedback on the new definition of table of uses that will come back to the council. And then to grant scheme of things, we'll have ordinance for the development code that relates to the new definitions and the table of uses sometime in the coming months. Which months? I would like to have it introduced by November or not before. But we'll see how we get there. Put a deadline. We've learned that unless we have deadlines, I'm not going to get done. As I put this together this week, I'm not going to throw it out right now and see how the land of how far we are out still. Plans can always change. But if there's no planned, I understand. Flopping in the wind. Well, go at the latest. Early November. All right, early November. At the latest. At the 14th. I'm team. I know the date is off the top here. Otherwise, that's all I have for now. Good, thank you. Just because Councilman Montgomery mentioned it, I was invited by Larry Muzello who works for the Harvard County Department of Economic Development. Formerly he was the top civilian attached to the two-star general that runs the primary tenant at APG, cyber electronic communication command. ZECOM. ZECOM. And now in his role as economic development, he's tasked with helping with how we can get better cooperation between the federal installation at Aberdeen and the outside community, Harvard County, Aberdeen, Harvard Grace Belair. And the purpose of this visit was to meet with folks from old CC, which this is this other DOD entity that deals with communities that are attached to DOD faces. And so they have a program by which they do a study of the needs off the installation. And then once you do your study, then they can help you pay for the stuff. They did this in advance of the BRAC, they used to call it a joint land use study and now they call it a compliance evaluation with or something sounds like compliance evaluation. But in the joint land use study they said well the booming and the bombing that happens just off the base the booming flies across the water over to Kent County and that's disruptive to the neighborhood and so they spent $50 million of federal money buying up farmland on the other side of Kent County as part of this joint land use study. Anyway, there's opportunities to do stuff off base. It's only off base. They won't do any improvements on base. Things like resiliency to having multiple streams of electricity or multiple streams of water coming into the installation. Those aren't real issues, but there's environmental stuff and there's access, there's quality of life, it needs things like the potential middle gate being reopened at the APG road could be potentially taken down the big concrete structure. There's all kinds of stuff that goes into it, but it's crazy dealing with the federal government is crazy. And so Mr. Mousello is going to produce a recommendation to include in the old CC report, which is then going to be worked on by the project manager. And then in 18 months there might be a study that can be actionable for spending money on these things. And then we've got to get that stuff funded. And that could be another couple of years. But it's important to take advantage of these opportunities as they come available and later as a professional in this regard And he really cares about making a difference for the community We're rocking rolling in terms of events in terms of progress if you come over look at 22 Howard Street The structural improvements at 22 Howard Street are moving right along. I expect that foundation repairs will be conducted This week and then next week they're apparently going to be Amish framers on site to build a new building and put a roof on it. They say by Thanksgiving they're going to be completed with that. And then hand the keys over to Watch Tower Brewing who signed a lease and I have the lease right here that gives them the option to purchase the property in less than five years and itemizes all the terms of that so that Aberdeen is not going to be in the real estate development business. Instead, what we're doing is taking the opportunity to use state grant funds and city resources to activate the space. At the end we'll walk away with all of the money that the state has invested in the property that we can redeploy. It'll be our money that we can redeploy into another project to get something else going. It'll be, it's really exciting opportunity. In that vein, you'll also see if you make your way over to Festival Park, we removed some crept myrtle trees that were alongside the bathrooms. They got relocated over here behind the lobby, between Veterans Park and the Howitzer. And now there's a pathway beginning to be initiated right there from the the sidewalk inside festival park back towards Cypress alley where we're going to make our pedestrian improvements with lamps and ballards and benches to make it a pedestrian alley in the back there from the brewery and the festival park all the way out to West Bell or Avenue so we're rock and roll and you can see the progress happening on that daily I mean we're we're kicking butt there. It's really good. It's done too, as well. Which one? The Pavilion? Yes. Go check out the Pavilion. The Pavilion improvements were finished just in the nick of time. Mr. Horn and Horn Concrete Construction. LLC had a bunch of guys working on that. Finish the rebuilding of the roof. So it's got a new roof on top. It's got three-quarter inch plywood underneath of that sheeting that was repaired. And then it's got drip edge and then vinyl soft. It looks really attractive on the sides. The railings were removed. Sand blasted and painted. The surface was epoxy coated. And so now it's got a textured epoxy coating that matches the inside of the two bathrooms now. The floors in there were done also. and the paint was updated in the bathrooms. The railings were painted black and reinstalled, and then the last thing that has to happen at the pavilion is the posts are gonna be wrapped with a square columns rather than the, I don't know, Doric or Ionic style, I never, architecture was not my thing. Doric or Ionic columns that exist. And so then that project will be completed. But if you look at that, Mr. Horne also helped us pour that concrete pad through the, it's really nice by the 9-11 Memorial and taps landscaping worked expeditiously on short term notice to rebuild the retaining wall. It was holding up the mulch near the 9-11 Memorial. It's a really nice feature. And then the gutter guys were here, word seamless gutters to move the gutter all within a week period. We were hustling to get that done last week in advance of the October fest, and it's really nice now. Thank you for raising that. We've got some announcements. The paint-to-town pink is Saturday, October the 5th. What's today? The 23rd. So two weeks. Paint the town pink is what is entailed in that, Mrs. Horn? A motorcycle ride at the Eisenhower. A motorcycle ride at the Eisenhower, Harley Davidson, in Darlington at the end of 161 and 1, I guess. What else? I'm sat down here to test the car we have to turn. Cornhole tournament also the same day, right? The police department, Cornhole tournament and family fund day from 11 to 3. The planning commission will meet on Wednesday, October 9. The regular council meeting next scheduled is Monday, October 14, but we have added a meeting seven days from today on September 30th at 6 p.m. 6 p.m. Economic Development Commission will meet on Wednesday, October 16th at the council chambers. Perhaps what we can schedule for that meeting is a good recap on all the events that have happened and how we can double down in terms of volunteers and getting more people involved. I was very pleased to see the amount of people you had helping out the October Fest. We had an outbreath meeting with the Caribbean Festival, Miss Powell, Caribbean, something and soul festival. Music and soul, Caribbean music and soul festivals that official title events, the fourth year that's been done, she's not going anywhere, she's staying here in Aberdeen, she lives in the field High Grand Apartments. She's got a business in Bell Camp. Very active. People came from all over. People came from Delaware. People came from Silver Spring. There's this crazy, the amount of people who are interested in tiny little components of their thing. Her husband is from one of the islands, St. Kits maybe. And so that was his baby to do the Caribbean music stuff. But we have a real opportunity to continue to blossom that into a really cool big event. And my big picture of his encounter is that we've got all these disparate entities. We've got the shred-fest people, which are weird people. They're weird people. It's cool. I don't know where my painting is. Is my painting up here? You're painting in your sculpture. Okay. Your 3D sculpture. Okay, so this is a 3D sculpture that was given to the office of the mayor produced by some skateboarder and this was painted by Frankie Sketch who was a tattoo artist of the North D and skate park over here and it was ceremonially given to the office of the mayor and so we'll hang it up somewhere in City Hall but the weird people, the skateboarders, heavy metal music, loud killer music. So contrasted with the Caribbean Fest, which are generally brown skinned people who were hanging around sitting not skateboarding. You know, listen to their jam and music. And my vision is we get the different audience with the October Fest, right? These are, you know, upper middle class white people. I want everybody to participate in Christmas Street. I want to bring everybody together and say, we're going to bring the 600 people from the Stradth Fast and the 1,000 people from the October Fast and the 2,000 people from the Caribbean Festival. And we're going to invite them to bring a float to the Christmas Street. We're going to promote their events at Christmas Street and it will be the series of events. The mermaid event will do all this stuff as tying it all together and building what we're doing in Aberdeen. It's really exciting. It's really great. So I've been beating people over the head with this idea that Ms. Powell from the Caribbean Festival and I don't know if they like the idea but they're going to do it. Anyway, good stuff. Trunker treat, October 26th at Thessal Park. The VFW is in charge of the Veterans Day ceremony this year. And I don't know what's happening with that, but I talk to our friend Billy Thompson next door at the American Legion. They're having some improvements done. He wants to do something big. I don't know if we're going to be able to do a big festival this year. But there's going to be another November 11th Veterans Day event here in Aberdeen, whether it's the normal event or it's something bigger and better, it'll start at 11 o'clock on Monday November 11th. Any other business council? All right. Hearing none, we're adjourned. Thank you.