Good evening, Rockville. Today is April 28th, 2025, and we're going to begin meeting 11-25. Please join me as you're able in the Pledge of Allegiance, which will be led by Troop Lead 1450 Jonathan Cole. To the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God in the visible with liberty and justice for all. We'll begin with our agenda review, Miss Salah Terra-Furrow. How have it been? Any changes? Madam Mayor and council members earlier today, we had a consent item that was removed because it was a duplicate. So that has been updated. So that is reflecting you had through. Jay, we it's only through I so that was removed and then we just updated in the last half an hour to include Q&A for our common action so that's also been added. Thank you very much. Welcome Mr. Mahalik. Our City Manager please proceed with the City Manager's report. Mary Afton members of City Council. Good evening. Two items to reports tonight. Mother Nature got the best of skate jam last Saturday. They're not going to take away this Saturday. So we're just inviting everybody to come to the rescheduled skate jam. This Saturday 9 to 5 at the Rockville skate park. There's something for the whole family, of course, the focus is gonna be on boarding, but there's yoga, there's competitions, there's face painting, there's food. Hopefully everybody can join us for a great event. And again, fingers crossed on the weather. And then I typically don't mention things that are on a Consent's agenda mirror, but I'm sure it'll be pleased to say, we're really excited about the grim up between the city and CSX that were lost to paint the bridge. That's really exciting. I know the community's been talking about that challenging bridge with all the graffiti for quite a long time and we're... a grim up between the city and CSX that allows to paint the bridge. That's really exciting. I know the community's been talking about that challenging bridge with all the graffiti for quite a long time. And we're just really pleased that we have a new partnership with CSX to get that work done. Hopefully this fall. It's all I have, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to on behalf of the council say a huge thanks to the entire team who worked on the TAF Center. Opening, it's improving a quality of work experience for employees, but also fostering greater collaboration. So... Thanks to the entire team who worked on the TAF Center. Opening, it's improving a quality of work experience for employees, but also fostering greater collaboration. So great work by the entire team. Just also wanted to note, Rockville Science Day was great yesterday. If anyone is interested in doing the green permit, you have a few days left. There's a lot of opportunity to potentially help support our environment with EV solar, geothermal, heat pumps. There's a lot of things you can do, permit free-free. And lastly, I want to mention a lot of nonprofits are doing important work and Governor Moore today visited one of them, Manna, which is serving many people in schools around the city. So just want to acknowledge those efforts. Councilor Van Greck. Just one of the no mayor in addition to the skate jam happening this weekend, I just want to make sure everybody is aware of the Rockville Arts Festival. It's happening this weekend throughout Rockville Town Center. Come, it's a fabulous program that's put on every year with over 130 different vendors throughout Rockville Town Center. So it should be a wonderful event and hopefully the weather holds up. It will for Escape Jam and Arts Festival and then also looking ahead, hometown holidays will be coming up. Also in Town Center, you can learn more at Explore Rockville. All right, so we're excited to have some volunteers for Boers and Comm we have appointments and reappointments Several nominations for the Community Policing Advisory Board Education Commission the Human Rights Commission as well as the Senior Commission So Councilman Vellieri Yes for the Community Police and Advisory Board, I move the appointment of Eddie Friedman to the Community Police and Advisory Board to serve an expiring term until December 1, 2027. Do you want me to do both? I'm sorry. I really, I really, I really, I really, I really, I really, I really, I really, I really, I really, I really, I really, I really, I really, I really, I really, I really, I really, together or Do you want me to do both? I'm sorry. We did. We did. We did. We did. We did. We did. We did both. We did both. We did both. We did both. We did both. We did both. Excellent, 2026. Thank you. Councilmember Jackson, now seconds. All those in favor, please face your hand and say aye. Excellent, all right. We now have the education, Dr. Miles. I know you serve as liaison. Thank you Madam Mayor. I move the reappointments of Lisa K. R. High and Michael Burmanerman both to be reappointed for three-year turn. Thank you and just to clarify Miss Lisa Kahayas Farhai would be May 1, 2028 and Michael Berman April 1, 2028. Do we have a second? Councilman Grahack seconds, all those in favor please raise your hand and say aye. All right perfect it's unanimous. Thank you very much. Next we have the Human Rights Commission Councilman Rashad. I move to appoint Dominic Russoly to the Human Rights Commission to serve a full three-year term until April 1st, 2028. Thank you. Councilman Jackson seconds all those in favor please, please go to your hand and say aye. Excellent. Thank you. Retirement board. Council Member Jackson. Oh, all right. Thank you. I move the appointment of Mike Walsh to the retirement board to serve a full three year term until May 1, 2028. Council Member Fulton, seconds, all those in favor. Please face your hand and say aye. Excellent. Thank you. Now we have the Senior Citizens Commission. Thank you, Mayor. Councilmember Jackson, go ahead. So I move the reappointment of Allen Kaplan to the Senior Citizens Commission to serve a full three year term until May 1st 2028 and I move the reappointment of Richard Rosano to the Senior Citizens Commission to serve a full three year term until May 1, 2028. Thank you. Councillor Schauss seconds. All those in favor please raise your hand and say aye. It is unanimous. Thank you very much to all of our volunteers. We have many of them throughout the city who help make us better. We appreciate your service We'll now be moving on to community form all persons are to address the mayor and council Please speak in a civil and courteous manner You're respectful to your fellow audience members and our team Each person will be allowed three minutes and we ask that you stick to the three minutes allowed There is a time clock in front of you. You will hear an audible beep at the end of your three minutes Please also state your name and whether you live in the city of Rockville We first have Margie Graf from the Rockville Chamber. Welcome Good evening, Marin Council. Good to see you all Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Good to see you all. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Margie Graff, the President's CEO of the Greater Rockville Chamber of Commerce. I'm here to advocate for prioritizing local businesses in the city's bidding process. As a proud supporter of the by-local movement believe it is vital for our city to lead by example. Local businesses are the backbone of our community and by prioritizing their bids, we achieve several key objectives. One, economic impact. Choosing local businesses ensures that more money stays within our community, circulating and reinventing in Rockville. This strengthens our local economy and creates a sustainable foundation for growth. Number two, community knowledge. Local businesses have a unique understanding of our communities needs and values. They're not just vendors but neighbors who genuinely genuinely care about Rockville's wellbeing. Three, diversity and inclusion. Women in minority-owned businesses, which are often local, may not always offer the lowest bids, but they bring invaluable contributions such as inclusivity and representation. By supporting them, we foster a city that values equality and diversity. And for long-term value versus short-term cost. While cost is an important factor, it should not be the sole determinant. Local businesses provide long-term value through reliability, accountability, and community engagement. I recommend adopting a procurement policy that incorporates a scoring system, waiting criteria like local presence, community involvement, and diversity alongside cost. This approach ensures that we make informed decisions benefiting the city holistically. By prioritizing local bids, we are investing in Rockville's future, supporting our residents, and cultivating a thriving community. I urge the council to make this a priority in all city contracts. Thank you for considering this critical issue. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much for representing the local business community as it portrays our workshop discussion. Thank you. All right. I do want to acknowledge there are several people who are written in testimony. Is there anyone who would like to speak here today? All right. A question from Ms. Sarah Taylor-Farrell. Some of the written comments really would potentially pertain to the zoning ordinance rewrite. And I just wanted to make sure that we're getting those in that we're actually pushing those into a companion of documents for that discussion as well. Okay. We will make sure of that. Hearing it, yes. Thank you. We'll now move on to our special presentation, the Annual Climate Action Plan. While they're getting set up, I just want to say thank you so much in advance. This body value sustainability and we'll continue to do so and we're excited to learn more about the progress. Great. Maya Manda brings up the presentation. My name is Erica Schengera, Chief of Environmental Management. I wanted to welcome our newest member, Dundin Seljan. He just started today, so this is his first day and night of work. He's the new sustainability program manager. He has an energy engineering background, and he's worked for Johnson Controls for Energy Efficiency Project efficiency projects on commercial buildings And most recently as a contractor for the FAA deploying EV charging infrastructure So we're delighted that he's going to pull along our programs in some of our capital projects So I'll turn it over to Amanda. Thank you very much. Thank you. Welcome Amanda. Thank you Erica and welcome Mr. Denzel John Thank you so much for having us to present to you the progress on our climate action plan report. We'll see. Can you hear me okay? Okay great. So there have been some challenges and there has been remarkable advances and we have a lot to be proud of as a community. Overall, we're moving forward a pace and that's thanks to Mayor and Council Actions and the actions of so many in the Rockville community, as well as the hard work of staff and the many partnerships that we're involved in. I have about 20 slides. I'll provide a brief background on the Climate Action Plan, summarize our action status, and provide our 2024 accomplishments highlights in each different category, and we'll describe next steps, and I'll hand it over to Eric at some point in the presentation. This presentation just provides a very brief overview, and there's much more detail online in the dashboard and in the annual report. So a quick reminder the climate action plan was adopted in January of 2022. It contains 42 actions and seven categories to equitably reduce greenhouse gas and improve the community's resilience to climate impacts. It contains these seven categories, energy efficiency, renewable energy, transportation, land management, materials and waste, resiliency, and public education and oversight. There are 16 actions focused on municipal operations and 26 folks focused on community actions. And we added in a bonus action, which was involving electrified landscape equipment. So we're actually monitoring 43 actions. So this pie chart summarizes the progress of those 43 actions in total. In the green area, those are the actions that are in progress. The phase actions are, it's 9% of the actions are phased, which is another way of saying in progress, but it goes in phases. And then 21% are completed. And keep in mind that this plan goes to 2030. So we're, I think, making some progress here, but still lots more to do, of course. In the, now jumping into the highlights by section, starting with public engagement and oversight. So we have a wonderful environment and sustainability newsletter that comes out about quarterly or so. And we encourage everyone to encourage everyone to subscribe. We were up to over 3,000 3,200 subscribers so far. We held 12 in-person and virtual outreach events in 2024 with over a thousand impressions. We hosted three climate solutions education sessions with 56 participants and the Environment Commission hosted outreach booths at six farmers market events. In terms of our dedication through the city's budget around four million has been allocated to climate action related actions in the last few years in our capital operating budget. and we were awarded 1.2 million in new grant awards last year. And over 100 over 1 million was invested in our community electric vehicle charging on city property through PEPCOs, our partnership with PEPCO. And the grants that were awarded are listed here. The next category I will speak to is energy efficiency and of course buildings and lighting are responsible for almost 60% of our community greenhouse gas emissions. So this is a really key area and we're fortunate to be in Montgomery County and in Maryland and they've both developed building energy performance standard regulations in the last year that apply to existing commercial buildings like the larger commercial buildings. And 204 buildings have been reporting energy data through Montgomery County's benchmarking law and you'll see in the graph here from 2018 to 2023, there was a 25% decrease in energy use in our commercial buildings. So we're well in our way. In terms of new construction, this mayor and council adopted last May some building code amendments that included several different energy provisions that were going above and beyond even the voluntary energy efficiency code. So we strengthened building efficiency and we are, I believe the first jurisdiction in the DC metro area to require electric vehicles charging stations to be installed in new construction for multi-family and commercial buildings. So we also are requiring solar ready homes and new buildings need to have an electrical outlet next to a gas appliance so that you could easily convert as well as having storage space in a commercial building for electric battery and also some grid integration provisions for, I think, its thermostats and water heaters. In terms of the community energy efficiency programs, the community really stepped up last year, you'll see in the graph on the left below bottom here, that last year over 1,800 homes participated in PEPCO's home energy efficiency programs, including home performance with energy star and the quick home energy audit. And so those folks are probably already seeing some comfort and maybe reduce reduce energy costs from that we encourage people to check that out. Also, we've promoted the Montgomery County's home electrification and incentive program and we had at least three Rockville homes participating in that and that is available to convert gas appliances to electric and they're still funding available for that. In terms of municipal energy efficiency, we have been systematically going through all rock fill facilities and doing lighting upgrades where we're moving from the CFLs to the much more efficient light emitting diodes LED bulbs and this also improves the lighting overall. And so we have completed the senior center twinbrook. We've completed several other city hall, Lincoln Park, and so forth. And next is going to be the Thomas Farm. So, and we've also, so another project that actually happened a little bit faster than we might have anticipated was the replacement of the city owned street lights. And out of the almost like 3000 or so lights street lights, most of them should, are we expect to be replaced in the next couple of years. And you can see we've already replaced a lot of them. In terms of the land management category, the Reinskapes Program is very popular and it issued almost 50,000 in rebates for actions such as conservation landscaping, permeable pavor retrofits and tree planting in homes in Rockville. And then in terms of the city landscape management, the recreation and parks department won a couple of grants to plant a couple thousand trees and shrubs at Redgate and other city properties. And so that's where you see on the below right graph that long purple line is the benefit we see from that really great grant. And also we had 465 weed warrior volunteers remove invasive plants from parks and we're very grateful for their assistance in bolstering our parks resilience. In regards to sustainable transportation, you'll recall we adopted the electric vehicle readiness plan in March. It was drafted last year. And Rockville has a very high EV adoption rate up to six, about almost 6,000 registered electric vehicles and plug in hybrids. And so we have a pretty high rate compared to the rest of the county, and the county has about three times as many electric vehicles registered there as the next highest county in the state. So we adopted this plan none too soon, so we can streamline our permitting processes and make sure that we're able to support this increase. municipal, we have our electric EV charging infrastructure CIP, and we are in the process of designing several EVs charging stations to support our fleet. And as I mentioned earlier, Pepco installed 17 ports at five different locations last year as a partnership with the city for community charging. The city fleet has now 21 battery electric, one plug-in hybrid and three hybrid vehicles. And if you look at the chart below right, I know it's a little hard to see the numbers, but the top row is 2024. The bottom row is 2021. So a big improvement and we still have, you know, many more vehicles to go, but this is a really strong start. In regards to community climate resilience, we have made a number of of strides this year. The flood mitigation assistance program is available for homeowners property owners to install flood mitigation projects such as French drains or Sump pumps and that provided 22,000 in rebates last year and Eric is going to speak more to this expansion of this program. We also, it worked with the EPA to conduct outreach around the new floodplain maps that were issued last year and a reminder that you don't have to be located in a floodplain to be susceptible to flooding and sometimes good to consider flood insurance. Also that we worked with the county as they adopted and updated their hazard mitigation plan. We also updated our continuity of operations plan in Rockville. The flood resiliency master plan is now underway and there is data collection happening for the flood models so that we can identify, you know, where the points where projects could be strategically placed to improve the city's flood resilience. In regards to materials and waste, we opened a third compost drop- station at Twinbrook Community Center in November 2024 and collected 114 tons of food waste for composting. And I used a calculator online to show that that produces about, that removes about 300 tons of carbon dioxide by composting. We have about a 43% rate of diversion from landfill for waste overall with our number of programs. So for the next category, I'm speaking to as renewable energy in the community. And the first thing I wanna point out is the Greenfield waiver program for permits throughout the month of April. And also right now, one program is available, the Solar Switch Solar Co-op program. It last year we had a really pretty high sign-up rate, 682 participants in that solar purchase. a group-purch purchase program that provides people that join a discount and help some walk through the solar process and the options available for them. So we encourage people to sign up this year and to let you know that those prices that are quoted are secured through June 4th this year. There's not going to be any changes, any surprises, because that's already been set for this program. But we still have a ways to go in terms of reaching our solar goal and we'll have to have more participants in that. And we're launching a solar app pilot program to help increase the efficiency of our permitting process for solar. And I will hand it to Ann. So another measure is renewable energy for our municipal facilities. The Department of Energy approved a grant to install rooftop solar at Lincoln Park Community Center. And on the, this is an image of what that would look like on the gymnasium. The roof is being replaced, kind of like what you see at City Hall. Our rooftop is being replaced. So this sets us up for our next round to actually install solar. So we're excited that that one of those key projects, two of those key projects, are being completed right now. MEI, also the Maryland Energy Administration, also awarded a solar technical assistance grant to evaluate solar visibility for both rooftop and solar canopies over parking and they're finishing up their study at City Hall, the Swim and Fitness Center, the Senior Center, the Recreation Services Building behind Glenview Mansion and the FSCOT Fitzgerald Theatre. We should get that report finalized at the end of this fiscal year. And this will turn that around. In addition to the solar cannabis plant at six taft and the Rockhead Maintenance Facility, there is a delay because of MCPS contracting for solar cannabis and some market conditions and some uncertainty with solar. So we're gonna wrap all these projects together and plan to issue an RFP for all our solar projects, which is good because now we can bundle all these projects together. So there's kind of a strength in numbers and the number of projects and the sites. So we plan to do that within the next fiscal year for solar. The next slide please. And rounding out, you may remember this slide from last year, our outside funding and partnerships. On the white, white clear side, the completed in 2024 is all the completed grants and rebates that we have worked on, whether it be through Pepco or the Maryland Energy Efficient Program or the Chesapeake Bay Trust. We're thankful for our partners to help leverage their funding. And looking forward, our new partnerships are really going to focus on the flood resiliency master plan in the next fiscal year and several projects funded by the Maryland Energy Administration. Lots of lighting projects that we're excited to complete and some more EV charging stations and solar projects. Also, we're working with Montgomery County and other partners to coordinate with Rockville Housing Enterprises and help them access funding to help other members in our community. And we're excited, either through EV Charging or Energy Efficiency and other programs. We'll also be, we're working on our grants, but for projects that we might not have grants, we'll explore DirectPakay when eligible and we're building on a model with the Chesapeake-Bray Trust and on the Montgomery Girene Bank to leverage more programs for property owners for larger that need technical assistance. So there'll be things looking forward in the future that will be excited to work on. As far as next steps, for 2025 or FY2026, you've already seen the budget process and seen some of the elements that will continue. Again, we'll be continuing our $300,000 for that supports our flood mitigation assistance, rainscapes and the water quality grants that we provide for resiliency and planting, continuing the compost program and opening up a fourth site. This location is to be determined. Continuing our facility energy audits, we're working on the swim and fitness center and we know that City Hall, Sixth Taff Court and Senior Center will all have to comply with the building energy performance standards. I'm excited about the 280,000 for the Green Space Management Plan to look at over 1,000 acres of our public parks in Parkland and working on invasive species management and developing a management plan for that. And some of the other projects you'll see now that we've got some funding in place and designs, more EB charging stations for fleet. We're hoping we have an electric senior center bus and we're applying for grants for a second one more led street light conversions led lighting upgrades and solar procurement in terms of plans will be implementing rv readiness plan and of course we're always implementing our vision zero bikeway master plan and pedestrian master plan that offset some of those greenhouse gas emissions from transportation which is so important and we'll be we're for a flood-resiliency master plan and we'll be looking through the next year on the stakeholder engagement component. So we'll be excited about that. And other policies and code amendments that will be coming to the mayor and council in the future. Chapter five, the green building regulations, this is one section of that. Community planning and development services is working on that. We'll also be working on our floodplain ordinance. We will need to update to comply with FEMA requirements. Chapter 21 streets right away and public improvements will be updated and improvements to chapter 21.5 for forest and tree protection and last but not least zoning will be incorporated to. So there's lots to work on still and these are all foundational. So last but not least we wanted to thank everybody that has worked. We have lots of great partners whether it be at the state, the county, nonprofits or Metropolitan Council of Governance and of course our Rockville Environmental Commission and all of our volunteers. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for the special presentation. I'd like to note that on the climate action page you can see our dashboard under the progress section. And it's my understanding that added to that climate action and progress page will be our Q&As. Just a quick overview on what you might find there. So you'll see all the action items and their progress. There are some questions about that are responded to on what percent of our budget is going towards. Climate action, how we leveraging grants. Updates on a solar app permit. Also looking at the county electrification grants, just flagging rockfall. As you heard, got three grants. So more people please apply. And then there's also commentary about composting fourth location looking at a composting pilot and what the county is doing. Support available for for homeowner associations and as well as affordable housing, climate justice, direct pay, the grant impacts from the federal government changes as well as accelerating LED. So please go if you'd like to learn more, the Mayor and Council submitted those questions and you can see the staff's detailed responses on those. Thank you so much for moving us forward. As I noted earlier, this Council fully supports sustainability. Even no matter what happens at the national level, we know how important it is here in terms of reducing costs and supporting our environment. And we appreciate the staff again welcome to our new team members. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. We'll now move on to our consent agenda. We have several items, but some exciting ones as well. I know our city manager previewed one of them, but consent agenda item A is about creating an agreement to support a more permanent streetery on Gibbs Street and Rockville Town Center. Consent agenda item B is awarding or authorizing an award for the City Manager Executed Riders Agreement in terms of support for our parks and playground so that we can continue to improve those around the city. Decommissioning the Hatter RockA-Rockville as there will be a new mural in Rockville Town Center. Deauthorization for the city manager to release existing easements and there's detail on where those are. E. Approving the College Gardens Park mural design. F, authorizing the City Manager to execute mod 2 to support the natural resources no cost extension. I believe that's for the flood mitigation plan if I have that right. Next is the CSX bridge trying to help provide a welcoming entree into the city and cleaning up some of that graffiti. H, authorizing the city manager to amend the Forest Conservation easement and land records from Montgomery County for Project Plan PGT, 2020-0015, as well as the I approval of minutes. Colleagues, what say you? Does anyone want to pull any of these items? Okay, Councilmember Vellieri. Madam Mayor, I would like to pull item E, the approval of the College Gardens Park mural design. Colleagues, anything else? Are you okay with that for discussion? All right, so let's proceed with approving as said A through D and F through I. Councilman Van Graek. Madam Mayor, I move for approval consent item agenda items A, B, C, D, F, G, H, I, as noted in the agenda as and as you describe. Thank you very much. Council Member Fulton, seconds. All those in favor, please face your hand and say aye. Thank you to staff. There's a lot of information in there, and we appreciate all the background and work. Council Member Larry, please ask your questions. Thank you. So my question is to Mr. City Manager regarding the college gardens part, mural design. First of all, I want to say thank you as always for including visuals, especially when we're talking about art. But in general, it was just great to kind of see the evolution of the mural. And I was really appreciative of it. I know that we also have another mural kind of coming online within the next month in Quinbrook. So I kind of wanted to get a sense because I got a little bit of a flavor of it from the staff report. But I wanted to get a better sense on the outreach that was done within the community on this mural. I want to make sure that we're doing that to the best of our ability. And maybe there were, where I read maybe that there were some gaps, maybe I'm missing something. So I wanted to kind of get your sense on what the outreach looked like because we had heard the feedback. I think the previous time that this item came forward. And I think that that was our direction at the time was like, okay, we need to do a little bit more outreach and just wanted to hear from you how that went and is that part of staff report. Thank you council member. Yep, exactly right. On July 29th, 2024, Mayor and council are presented with a mural design for the project that's on your agenda for tonight. At that time, Mayor and council did not approve the design and asked for there to be some additional community engagement. So staff took that back. And on February 19th held a community engagement session out in the community. Didn't have fantastic attendance, but usually don't at those events. We had seven people attend and provide a number of different comments. But the summary is really, really this that that while some new and potential themes were identified. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. I'm going to go to the next slide. developing this original concept without making heavy modification. I think emphasis on heavy, there are some additions. It was made larger, wrapped around, but by and large it went back to the original design after additional community engagement. Thank you. Thank you. That's very helpful. I think, and you know correctly, I think the challenge with outreach is that, you know, there's different levels. You have a ladder of engagement coming out physically to an event is a very high-wrong on the ladder of engagement. So perhaps going forward we can look into online ways of gathering feedback that way you don't have the issue of just individuals that may have that time that night or day or whatever To get their feedback. I also noted that the flyers were put at the senior center and we're in Rockville reports and I Think maybe we could you know even brought in those especially the college gardens community. I think there's other opportunities there. My second question is, because again, and I was like, am I missing something here? Is the artist actively working with the community on the creation of the art? I know that that was an aspect that we heard in the Twimberg particular at the Rec Center. But seen as the college gardens mural be kind of in a recreation space. I was wondering if there was a plan to incorporate and include. The community members in the creation, especially for children. All to's a circle back on that one. No, not a problem. Thank you. Thank you Madam Mayor. Thank you. With that, do we have a motion to approve agenda item 9E, College Gardens Park mural design. Councilmember Shaw. So moved. Thank you. Do we have a second? Councilmember Jackson seconds. All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye. Thank you. I know staff is working on a number of art projects across the city and they're popping up beautifully. So thank you for that. I think it's making our city brighter and shows our commitment to the arts. We're now moving on to our section of the agenda that's focused on work sessions. 12a is about the minority female disabled and veteran own program local preference. Welcome Jessica Lewis. Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of Council. I'm Jessica Lewis, I'm the director of procurement and tonight I will be kicking off the work session for MFDV program and local preference procurement information. And with me I also have my assistant director, Mr. Jonathan Pearson joining me tonight. Well thank you for having us. So just to provide a brief outline of tonight's discussion will be requesting some feedback from the mayor and council regarding these programs. I'll cover the MFDV outreach program that the city currently has some background, some criteria for establishing a formal program, disparity study, so background key steps resources needed, examples of subcontracting programs and its impacts and points to consider when implementing a MF-DV subcontracting program, then I'll switch gears to local preference, while I give an overview of our local preference, advantages and disadvantages, and as well as local vendor preference examples. Also, environmental and social outcomes based procurement and we'll be also just requesting that feedback, again, at the end of the presentation. So the requested feedback the staff is seeking tonight is one. Does the mayor and council want to conduct a disparity study for the city of Rockville? Are alternatively expand upon current city outreach practices? Does the two does the mayor and council want to expand or maintain its local preference policies? or three, does the mayor and council want to expand or maintain its environmental and social base for camera practices. So just to give some background on our current MFDV outreach program. So on October 20, the mayor and council unanimously approve the creation of an informal MFD outreach program. And so the goal of the program was to increase procurement opportunities for MFD businesses through education, communication collaboration so that MFDV owned businesses may compete effectively in the city's bidding process. And in FY 2022, the MFDV outreach program was enhanced to include veteran owned businesses. So to provide some information on what the procurement department currently does in terms of our informal outreach program, we host an annual Rockville Me's business event and during this event businesses can learn about doing business with the city, receive information and tips on city processes, and meet user department staff. We also collaborate with participating agencies and exhibit and participate as panelists. So we work closely with Montgomery County, the Hispanic Chamber, Maryland, Washington Minority Company's Association, the Rockville Chamber, is outreach at these events. And during these events, we participate. Like I said, as an exhibitor, we provide information on the procurement department, what we do, how we operate, provide information on upcoming procurement opportunities in the city, and we answer any questions from the business community. We also facilitate how to do business sessions, and we partner with the Maryland Women's Business Center. So we've done some quarterly training and quarterly how to do business sessions with them. And in June, I will be conducting a webinar and partnership with Ready and the Black Collective. So that will be forthcoming. We conduct one-on-one sessions with businesses. So at a lot of our outreach events, we receive requests from vendors who will like information or where they need to be walked through the city's procurement process. So during these sessions we provide tips on doing business with the city. We discuss the city's processes. We provide additional information and resources to vendors that are interested to enviewing our upcoming and current opportunities. And for example, we utilize E-Marilen Marketplace or Emma, which is the state's e-procurement system. And so the majority of the jurisdictions also in Maryland also utilize this resource as well to advertise opportunities. So we will actually sit with the vendor, walk them through the website, show them how to get registered through Emma so that not only are they receiving notifications on opportunities from City of Rockville, but other jurisdictions in Maryland as well. And we utilize our partner resources to advertise our city's bid opportunity. So again, we work closely with Ready, the Rockville Chamber of Commerce and the Maryland Women's Business Center. Within the past year, we've added language to our solicitations, encouraging betters to utilize MFTV subcontractors of possible, and during outreach events, we emphasize the MFTV vendors that for a lot of our projects, especially our larger projects, construction projects, we do hold pre-bade or pre-proposal conferences, and at these sessions, it gives the vendors an opportunity to partner with prime vendors, if they're looking to serve as a subcontractor. We also post the attendance sheet for those sessions so that vendors looking for subcontracting opportunities would know who to contact and who they they may to work with. Within the past year we started tracking the Spent of All MFDV awards and not just Mayor and Council Awards. So previously we were just tracking the Mayor and Council Awards. Now we're looking at all awards, Mayor and Council Awards, City Manager Awards, and so on. And then we also offer a debriefs to unsuccessful bidders and offer so that they have an understanding as to why they did not receive an award and recommendations for submitting future bids and proposals. So we will walk them through the process as it relates to our procurement and active procurement process that we're wrapping up. up. So as you can see we do dedicate a significant amount of time and effort towards our current program and we continue to build on this program. So criteria, I'm going to switch and start talking about a little about formal MFD programs and the criteria around this. So the approach begins with a disparity study, which serves as the foundation and continues to be a critical step throughout the life of any formal program. And so a disparity study evaluates the procurement and contracting practices of a government agency, particularly involving their use of minority and women-owned businesses. So usually formal programs do not include veteran-owned businesses as a category, but however, some programs may consider disabled veteran-owned businesses. So just some background on the disparity study and how it came to be. In 1989, there was a US Supreme Court case, City of Richmond versus J.A. Croson company that prompted the need for disparity studies, and which is why jurisdictions go through this process of completing a disparity study before implementing any formal program. So the finding was that governments cannot apply a remedy to harm the hadn't explicitly proved existed. So as a result, municipalities who choose to conduct a disparity study where disparities are found are obligated to establish a compelling interest to support the legal establishment of a minority and women-owned program that can be defended in the court if ever challenged. And so the study involves a full assessment of the contracting activity of the government and determines if there is any discrimination within the procurement process that excludes minority-owned or women-owned or disadvantaged businesses. So these steps here are conducted to help identify government contracting discrimination or passive discrimination due to a system of inequality. So the steps include review of the procurement regulations policy, including applicable federal state local laws and the geographic regions that study covers, analysis of current contractors that receive awards and contractors available in the area, disparity analysis of how many minority and women-owned businesses receive awards, and anecdotal evidence, including interviews with local businesses and regression analysis, showing links if any between discrimination and contracting opportunities. And then the study normally follows up with legal and programmatic recommendations, so suggestions for implementing or revisions to any certain programs or policies. So if the city were to conduct a disparity study, this just gives an overview of some of the resources that were needed. So there's an initial cost which includes the cost of the study as well as personnel support to assist the consultant. So once a program is implemented, the best practices to conduct the study every five years. So periodic costs may be less than the initial cost. Annual ongoing costs will require at least one full time position to manage the program and this includes tests such as outreach, compliance, and reporting. The estimated provided, these costs here were obtained in FY 23. So they may be slightly different, um, than what you see here. If a disparity study exists, the city must implement a remedial measure to address the disparities. It's not really a matter of thinking about it or, you know, let's decide if we're going to do it. At that point, once an identity, there's been a disparity that has been identified, we're obligated to move forward and establish a program that's going to correct these disparities. In doing that, there may be a category-based subcontracting program, may need to be implemented. So the way the category-based works is, for example, construction services. You may have 20% across the board for construction. And the city will require prime contractors to just identify a certain percentage of subcontractors that will participate in that category. Then you have project-based goals. So you're pretty much looking at project to project. So for example if we're doing a building renovation project the city would say okay just based on the availability of possible subcontractors we're gonna assign 10% and we're expecting that prime contractor to do at least 10% of subcontracting work for that project. So this is an example of a subcontracting program and its impacts and like I said for example for construction, if we have a 20% city wide goal, these are some of the responsibilities that this program would include. So one of the responsibilities of the city is ensuring that each solicitation included includes the subcontracting plan that would be required by the prime contractor to complete. So at that time, the prime contractor would be responsible for identifying a certified minority or woman owned subcontractor and certification requirements in agencies could vary. We would expect them to complete the plan indicating the percentage of contracts been that will go to the subcontractor and submitting periodic reports to the city detailing payments that have been made to the subcontractors. So that's part of the compliance. We're requiring, if the vendor is saying, we're doing, we're gonna do 10% for this construction project, then we're gonna request them to submit documentation to prove that and the payments that they're making to that subcontractor. Once the city receives the bid response from the subcontracting plan, the proposed subcontractor, we need to be verified by the city to ensure that they are certified with the certifying agency. So I know some of the certifying agencies currently in Maryland. I know MDOT certifies and I believe Baltimore certifies as well. So the city would be responsible for tracking and managing compliance during the project and this includes, like I said, review a payment submitted by the prime contractor. The city would also be required to manage any disputes that may arise between the prime and subcontractor during the project as well as reporting, training and outreach. So some points to consider if the MFDV subcontracting program is required, opportunities would be supporting economic development and minority women own and disadvantaged businesses, new perspectives and innovative products and strategies and demonstrating the city's commitment to supplier diversity. But with the opportunities, there may also be some challenges, so need for additional time, funding and resources to not only implement the program, but to maintain the program, risk of protests and disputes between primes and subcontractors, increased effort, time and resources required, may discourage a prime contractor from participating in the bidding process and then also making sure that we maintain consistent consistency with monitoring efforts to make sure the goals are achieved. So now I'll be transitioning to the local vendor preference information portion of this presentation. So just to give an overview of local vendor preference, the vendor local preference is a policy or ordinance enacted by a legislative body that provides bidding preference to a defined group, businesses within the city limits. Typically government entities utilize a percentage markup that is applied to non-preferential bidders or markup for preferential bidders and currently the city our city code provides preference to local businesses when there is a tie low bid between a local and a non-local business. So some of the advantages and disadvantages of a local vendor preference program. So advantages include creating jobs and representing commitment to the local businesses, encourage businesses to stay or relocate in the city. Some of the disadvantages are governments may end up paying more while decreasing competition. Some governments, if it has deemed, some governments have actually deemed this unconstitutional because it conflicts with fair and open competition, which is a key principle of public procurement. So there have been some a few white papers that have been released from professional procurement organizations. So NIGP, the National Institute for Government Precurement, which we are a member, as well as NASPO who do not support or not in support of local preference programs. There's also a risk of reciprocal actions by jurisdictions. So if the city of Rockville implements a 5% preference, a Rockville vendor could go to another jurisdiction who does not have a local preference program. And that other jurisdiction can implement the 5% to their bid just because city of Rockville does it. So that in some forms can be kind of retaliatory. Administration of a program can become cumbersome and will require increased oversight and consistency. So for example, including or establishing boundaries, so determining residency of the local vendor, and then making sure the preference is actually being applied. So here is just a scenario of a local vendor preference, an example of a 5%. So we have the three vendors here from Gathersburg, Hagerstown, and Rockville. So here are their original prices. And then as you see here from the 5% preference markup, so we would actually mark up the non-local bitters leaving the Rockville vendor at their original bid. And then for adjusted bidder for evaluation purposes, this would be the amount that we would utilize to determine, you know, if we should apply the preference. So in this case, the Rockville vendor does win, but we do end up paying more than that Gatheurs bird vendor. So in following up, understanding that environmental and social outcomes may intersect. This slide just outlines some of the current programs that we use to achieve our goals in terms of these, this criteria. So for in terms of sourcing, we do utilize the email and marketplace We utilize the vendor connection portal, the county's vendor registration system, and contracting resources with sustainable products and initiatives. So like office depot, Granger, and Ferguson, they do have green initiatives that we take advantage of and that we utilize. And then for solicitation development assistance, we currently work with our departments, especially, and I know there was a presentation just previously about the Climate Action Plan and goals that we have as a city. So we do work with the departments and we're currently having those discussions about what we can do in terms of sustainable procurement. So looking at our specifications, looking at our requirements, looking at our terms and conditions, and assisting with development of sustainable procurement processes, including metrics and key performance indicators. So that concludes the presentation. So I'll just take us back to a staff's requested feedback. Number one, does the mayor and council want to conduct a disparity study for the city of Rockville? Are alternatively expand upon current city outreach practices? Does the mayor and council want to expand or maintain its local preference policies? And does the mayor and council want to expand or maintain its environmental and social base procurement practices. So thank you. Thank you. I know this is a very data driven council, so I really appreciate the presentation and the questions you've asked us will go through each. Justin general, have you prepared data on how we are doing in terms of MFTV, for example? I have taken some notes and gone through all of the previous procurement reports, but I think it's important to say like what problem are we solving? Is the outreach achieving the affected goals and are we okay? And then on the locality preference, how is the, what we have working? Is it working? So if you could just share some data with us on how you think we are doing. So as far as if you need me to pull numbers, I did go around and mark them down, but I just wanted to give you an opportunity to share some data with us first. Okay, so like in FY22, we did about 7%, and FY23, we did, but I just want to note that this was only for mayor and council awards. So with the mayor and council awards, all awards, we are looking at 21% and that's of, that's all awards, solicitations, riders, contracts, everything that's included in that number. How much does the city spend in procurement, generally speaking, in total? Not just thinking about mayor and council awards. So in FY24, we had a spend of procurement contract related, spent about 80 million. Okay. So for example, in 2024, that was we had about it was 24% but that really only represents 3.4 million. Yeah. So it'll okay. And I will just note that I have seen some progress as you noted, but we tend to stay in the worst year was 2022. I'm not sure what happened there. But that was at 7% total of 1 million. I will say previously we were in the 2-4 million range. So we've kind of gone back to where we were in some sense in terms of the total, but from 2022 we were at 7%, 2023, 16%, and 2024, 24%. But as you said, that's not the total procurement. Is it possible for us to get data on total procurement percentage because I think it kind of skews only the mayor and council specific procurement just so we can have both of those numbers. And I don't expect you to have that now but I think it's important for us to as we as we're looking at this challenge and, you know, what is the scope of the problem? What are we trying to achieve? It's helpful to have that data. So I just want to make sure I'm understanding. So you said total of procurement. Is there a way to do that or is that impossible? I'm not saying peak excluding peak cards. That's probably too hard to do. Okay. That's what we're providing. Yeah. When we're providing that nail. Okay. So 80 million out of 80 million 3.4 is going. So what about the contracts that we're writing from other agencies? Are we tracking the MFTV there? Yes, we are. Okay. And when you do the annual procurement report, I know 2024 is not yet posted, it will be. It only has one year since this is something that we might want to be tracking. Is it possible? And some of the metrics you include the multi-year, just to see, you know, not look at one year in isolation, but be able to look comparatively speaking how are we doing over the past few years? Is it possible to have a chart that tracks multi-year so that we and future mayor and councils can see, are we on the downward trajectory, upward trajectory? Yes. Okay. And then in terms of locality preference, is that program working? I know that started, as you just say, 2012. So right now it's just for our code only allows us to use preference in the event of a tie bid. So if we receive a tie bid from a local bidder and then a non-local bidder, we would give preference to the local bidder. And have we exercised that opportunity and has it come up? Has it worked? Is the question? We have, but it doesn't happen often. How rare is that? In the 10 years I've been here, is probably maybe once or twice. Yeah, it's infrequent. And even if it doesn't happen, is it possible to at least note that in the procurement report because it's a policy and it may or may not be working, but at least it signals us to look at it. Sure. Okay. Okay. I will just also note that in doing my homework for this I was looking at other jurisdictions. I think you know any time we look at a new policy it's helpful to look at other jurisdictions. I happen to review and talk to the head of procurement at Montgomery County. So I will be sharing some of my thoughts and ideas that I've discussed from that perspective but but I just wanted to say are there any from my colleagues, any key lessons learned so I thought that you have from other jurisdictions on these topics? Just in my talks with my colleagues, it seems to be, I'm receiving the same theme, is that they've implemented these programs and they're not working as they've intended them to work. And I think because a lot of what they may bid out, the local vendors may not do. They may not provide that particular good or service. So I know some, you know, localities, they've, you know, closed their programs out. They, you know, just due because it's infrequent. I mean, it happens infrequently. You know, it may have resulted in a higher cost. So it's some things that I think have concerned some other jurisdictions. I know here, at the city, we look at any opportunity that we can to use local vendors. So we're doing an event and we need catering or food. I know we use some local vendors for our camps. So we do look for opportunities to provide to local vendors. But yeah, across the board talking to colleagues, you know, it doesn't happen too often. If there is a local situation, it's very infrequent. Okay. Thank you. I will just note because I was trying to gauge and I've went to some municipal association meetings and others and talking to the county of the programs what is producing the best results and just to share with my colleagues what I have and this is just today. So I was trying to consolidate and do my own interviews that the locality preference has the capacity to support both objectives, supporting the local economy. And in particularly in Montgomery County, what I was learning from the county's experience, and they actually have their disparity report posted online and their reports posted online. That because Montgomery County is so diverse, that it's also increasing the number of diverse businesses that are in the procurement system. I think about 33% are local and they're seeing high diversity in those numbers. So I just want to tell Lisa as we go into the conversation, say that it seems to be an area that we could achieve both objectives. Now they have different approaches, which I'll pause and have my colleagues ask questions, but they have different approaches to the local that we might want to explore. And I think in general, maybe doing a little bit more, I'm like, what are the best practices, what works in other places to see how we can leverage other people's experiences and not do the things that are not working? Councilman Van Grech. Thank you. To expand on some of those comments, and first of all, thank you for putting this together. Because I think it's an important area and the outreach that you guys are doing, it's fantastic. the extent that we can expand to those, I think that's definitely something we should do. But I want to expand a little bit to what the mayor was saying and ask some questions with regard to kind of both the other jurisdictions and also what we're doing because you laid out in your presentation and I understand that might, as you said, might even be low, the amount of money that it would cost the city, not just with the disparity study, but also from an annual basis both with staff and a study and depending on what the results would be. To me, it looks like we could be spending between three to four thousand four hundred thousand dollars per year While we're going through this process that we would be beholden to it. Now I noticed that other jurisdictions, such as the state of Maryland and the county, have a much larger budget. Are there other jurisprudence municipalities that have a similar budget to us, which is significantly less than a Maryland County budget or a state budget that are incurring somewhere in the neighborhood of half a million dollars a year for these types of studies and evaluations and having a staff person. I know one other jurisdiction that I do know of, they spent, and there's probably similar in size to City of Rockville. They spent about 300,000. Sorry, I just, I did ask questions and they spent about 300,000. I think was 250 or something like that. Yeah. Was that Frederick? I think I can't remember. City of Frederick, I think. Yes. So are we aware of any other jurisdiction? Even outside of, you know, Maryland municipalities that are spending that amount of money per year through such studies? Outside of Maryland, I can try to find, get some additional information on that, but just in Maryland and just colleagues that I've talked to, I think the lowest has been like about 300,000. Well, I guess not just the lowest, but you're only aware of one municipality that's undergone that expense in a similar size. Yes. Okay. And then the other question I had is with regard to the local preference policies, with regard to the, I know you put forward the idea of 5% are there any other municipalities, opposed to counties, any other municipalities, similar to the size of Rockville that's implementing a similar 5% or anywhere between one to 5% or even more than that on their local preferences. I have seen where some may do two. Okay. Two percent. Yeah. Normally I would see five, but I've seen two percent, five percent. That's really what I've seen. And is it common for the municipalities to do such a local preference or abnormal or somewhere in the middle? It's not common. No. OK. OK. Thank you. Councilor Valeroy. To piggyback a little bit in talking about the city of Frederick, they actually are one of the municipalities statewide that spend the most on economic development as well. So I think that that also kind of says something to where their commitment is to building up the local economy and focusing on that. So I just want to give them a shout out not that anyone in Frederick is watching us right now, but you never know. You never know. You never know. But I think I think it is there is a direct connection to it. And I think that all throughout this presentation, thinking about this subject that's been something that's been in the back of my mind, is that depending on how our very hyper-local economy is looking like as we go into these uncertain times, I think that that is something that is really weighing heavily on me as far as you know do we need to expand or maintain these sort of things. I'm still kind of noodling on that a little bit. I have one question and one comment. My question was because I see the chair here in the audience this evening. Did the financial advisory board weigh in on the disparity study? Do we know? No. Okay. Okay. And apologies. Can I just add, I did call the chair to say we're having this item, but they haven't reviewed it as a body. As a body? That's what I was curious about. Okay. That's fine. I was just thinking more because visuals are helpful. I'm a visual learner. The other comment more so is that even as recently as is last weekend, when thinking through the social-based procurement, I heard from community residents, several different community residents that asked me specifically whether or not the city was investing in or utilizing the services of companies that have been connected to the federal workforce reductions. And I think to put forward to my colleagues, if there is an expansion of the social-based procurement practices knowing what the reductions have done in our doing specifically to our city, that would be a consideration that I would like to see expanded. So that is all for me for right now. Thank you, quick points by both my colleagues, Councillor Bouchard. I want to echo my colleagues and thank you for this really great presentation. Just wanting to pick you back on the data points. Do you and you don't have to share this now, but I would like to see it. I know you shared the overall percentage. But could I see that data disaggregated based on minority, female, disabled, veteran businesses? So we don't categorize it that way. So there's no way to see. Yeah, to write, get that sub information. Can I just clarify and add to my colleague? So we don't do it yet. That's an ask. Yeah. Because I think it would be good to see if there are any disparities among that group. And so that's that's a data data point I would like to see as we move forward. My second question is, you talked about one of the challenges is the risk of protest and dispute between the prime and subcontractors under a formal program. Can you just share a little bit more details around that? So for example, what I've seen in previous positions is you may have a prime who has said, OK, I'm going to use X subcontractor for whatever service as it pertains to this contract. And they end up either not using them, they use them and they're not paying them. Yeah, or they're not, yeah, the subcontractors not getting their their payments timely. Okay. Thank you. And then my other question was, so there's this question to the body around and a disparity study or expanding our outreach. Can you provide more detail in terms of what you're envisioning when you say expanding our outreach practices? Especially considering that Montgomery County, as you mentioned, Montgomery County just created a disparity study last year. I think it was less than a year ago that could help inform our outreach practices. But could you share a little bit more? So just so some of the things that we're working on and it's actually in our strategic plan. So I know one of the initiatives that we have is we wanna start serving, like at these events start serving, some small or MFDB vendors just to get an understanding, okay, what challenges are you having doing business with the city of Rockville? What would you like to see the city of Rockville do in terms of that space or having a formal program? So that is one of the outreach initiatives that we are looking at expanding upon is getting more feedback from the business community. Thank you. I just wanted to add just one more, just a comment that I did see that Montgomery County, at least years ago, they did have a minority-owned business task force to help kind of inform some of the practices. And this could be something that the city could think about. Thank you, Councilman Brascha. I did want to note when we, and Dr. Miles will recall this, when we saw the numbers in 2022, we did ask for more outreach and more diverse outreach in general. And I know that you have been coordinating with the different chambers of commerce, the Asian, Chamber of Commerce, the Hispanic Latino and the Black Chamber of Commerce. So I know that is now happening more regularly. So I appreciate the work that you were doing there. I have a question on this comment on outreach. Because is there a way for people to sign up? Because when you go to our page, you can look at open bids. Can they sign up and get alerts when a new one is posted? Through our esourcing system, yes. When people come to our outreach events, do they sign up for our esourcing system? Was that a way that we could help them on that follow-through? So they would have to sign up, they can sign up in time. So they can come to events, they can sign up through the esourcing, but typically they, we find that most vendors only sign up when they're bidding because you do have to sign up to bid, but we do encourage them to, if they can, sign up. And in addition to our eSourcing system, also sign up through email and marketplace, because if they're signed up through email and marketplace, our bids go out through there, they're notified there, and they're not, they'll also be notified of other jurisdictions bids as well. Is there a cost to get those notifications from those other sources? No. Okay, so that's good. So they can at least get a push communication. Yep. That's great. I want to go back to the data on how we are doing now. So can you tell me about the purchase? So I was looking at our numbers in terms of the 2024 report. And it looks like the majority of our spend is coming through purchase orders and master agreements. When you do the math of what is spent through the purchase orders and master agreements, It is not what is going to MFTV organizations is not 20 something percent because that adds up to about 74 million dollars. So what is the number that you're using to help calculate, what are the numbers using to help calculate the percentage of 20 plus? So is the number of MFTV vendors and then of that percentage of MFDV vendors is the three million But three million so three million to 74 million that's not 20 something percent So this is the so it's not So the mass or grimace and purchase orders. It's it's everything. It's not just Rider contracts is not solicitations though That spend is everything. The POs and the master agreement. Right, it doesn't include Gax payments and doesn't include P card payments. But I think there may be great clarity because I want to make sure we're using the largest number possible and what percentage of those are going to MFDBs and then what percentage of are going to local. Those are data points that I think will be very helpful for us to know and to also have a dedicated page on the local. I have heard from a number of businesses that are like, we're here, we chose to be in Rockville and we heard from the Chamber today on how important that is. So I am interested in learning more about a local process and how we can improve that and leverage the best practices from other entities. We have the county and other local jurisdictions and being Frederick as well. So I did want to also just ask a few questions about our how we contract. So a large portion of our contracts go through writing contracts, right? We do that a lot. We do, yes. Right. So do you happen to know if we're seeing a lot of MFDV and local companies come through those contracts that we're writing, or is it harder to be one of those two categories? I do see for writer contracts, like if it's construction or construction related services, I do see a heavy MFDV participation there when writing contracts. But it can vary. It just really depends on the good or the service that we're requesting and the contract that we're writing. Okay. And then when we're calculating the MFTV and local, do we look at subcontractors or are you only looking at the prime number? We're just looking at the prime. So I'm wondering, there may be better numbers than we see. But is there a possibility to ask the question from the contractors as we're serving them as well to understand if they're using local companies? Because we put in there in the update, I think, was two years ago, we were trying to encourage local subcontracting, but we're not measuring that. so we don't have a sense of whether that encourage is working. Is it possible as you're doing your data and research to look at that? I mean, it's possible. Do you need any, do you need us to ask you a formally direct you to do that? Okay. I just want to make sure we're clear. All right. That is super helpful. The other question I have is about living wage. So when we do contract out with other organizations that may not be in Montgomery County and are not required to have the same level of payments to their employees, That's part of our values that we believe in a living wage. Do our contract vendors also have to provide that minimum wage that we use here? So we currently don't have a living wage in our contracts. Right. Well, at least the minimum wage. Do we have, do they, are they required to use Montgomery County's minimum wage? That's, that's not, I mean, I can go back and see if I can get more information on that, but my understanding is that we don't have any particular stipulation in our contracts that require that. So it's something I'm interested in learning more about and I'd love to hear what my colleagues think about this. If we are people are bidding competitively and people choose to do business in Rockville but Ormock-Army County and they're paying the minimum wage which is higher than maybe other parts of Maryland, other parts of the country. Then their bids will always be harder to win. It'll be harder for them to win compared to other places. So I just wanted to ask that question. Councilman Van Grack and Councilman Bershaw. I think that's a lot of questions. Perfect. All right, go to him next. As I understand, I think they are required to pay the minimum wage if they're in Montgomery County. And I just wanted to know that there is a large difference between minimum and living wage. And I think the living wage is around like close to $29 an hour or so. But I just wanted to make a note that there is quite a difference between the minimum and living wage and I believe that there should actually be a lives in where on that topic I believe that there should be a living wage instead of a minimum. The data I got from the county today is the living wage is 1815, which is higher than the minimum wage, but it's close. This is what I heard today. So this is just a living wage. The 29 is a living wage if you have a family. Right, I'm just telling you what the county defines as a new contract. And that's an individual. Yeah. Council member Miles. Thank you Madam Mayor. I want to echo what makes to staff procurement. And my colleagues were having this discussion. As the mayor said, it's a discussion long time in the making. And without further ado, I'll just jump in. I will restate a portion of the answer to a question I posed last week regarding whether or not we needed a disparity study stated otherwise. If we identify that there's a problem, why did we need to go through this, you know, non-tribule financial expense of, you know, $300,000. And the answer in part, and so this can correct me, I'm wrong, is essentially it paraphrasing helps ensure that whatever program is established meets legal muster such that you know if if we do decide to go forward with this that we are on some established legal footing so it's that's that's that's just want to put that out there we're not wanting to spend money just to spend it but it is out of a bunch of caution and to get data that has been told by staff, we just don't have the staff, the person powering place to do. That's point number one. The question, or one of the other points I was gonna make is that there are other jurisdictions in Maryland that participate in a local preference. And obviously the question, the answer is yes, including Baltimore City. I do respect and take the comments and feedback of the procurement directive about the intermittent success of such and not other jurisdictions. And I'll leave it at that. The question I have is if we as a body agree, we haven't made that, it's a determination, but if we do agree to do it a spare study, to what extent could we expand it to include environmental criteria? The answer I got from staff is that this would not necessarily include study about whether or not we're meeting in the of our climate goals. So I do understand and did clean from both the presentation and the reading that there are certain practices that are in place currently. I think Ms. Lewis said, you know, contracting certain procurement providers do are meeting some sort of environmental standards who do range your all-steable and Ferguson. But I guess the question is, could could it be expanded to include environmental criteria and have sell how much would that cost? I'll stop and you know see if she's able to answer that question. I apologize I'll put you in the spot Then I have a follow-up question for you. Thank you, Dr. Mouse. I'm Lewis. I'm sorry. So the question is can the disparity study a version of this very study or the place that we contract also look at the environmental practices. So giving a preference for people who align with our proposed environmental values. Is that right, Dr. Miles? Let me take that one. The disparity study really doesn't focus in at all on environmental issues at all. So they're actually very different things. But if the council wants us to lean into a procurement practice that gives extra weight, extra credence, extra points, to corporations, businesses, vendors that subscribe to certain environmental and social based values, we can do that. But a disparity study, I'm not aware of just because I'm not aware of it. None of us are aware of a disparity study that does that analysis. Do you have any jurisdictions who have an ESG preference in their procurement? Is there any example, are there, are we on any legal footing to follow some certain precedents? So, our currently in our code, we do have language about, you know, doing sustainable procurement and sustainable procurement initiatives. But yes, there are other jurisdictions that do have policies around this, yes. Dr. Miles, do you have another question? Yes, thanks for that follow up in clarification. The other one is what extent this is a point brought up by a colleague that wasn't familiar with the county participate or having done a disparity study. If as in the practice in some of our contracts, how we we sort of ride on other contracts that are already existing, are we able to do something similar with the county who reportedly has conducted a disparity study? Dr. Miles, I did try that approach and I was told no. So I said, Mr. Mayell, go ahead. Yeah, so I think Councilman Bman Brasov, Mayor and Dr. Miles all are onto something that I think is a really good idea. You've heard me talk about it before. The county and the city are virtually in the same market, right? So if the question is can we learn about disparities in our region from a county disparities study, we absolutely can't. I think it's very informative, right? Could it lead to us to change our practices? Yes, it could. But if we're going to require MFED practices within our procurement, then we have to do our own disparity study. That's exactly what I heard as well. And I've asked a number of lawyers, including our own. So yeah, but I do take your point on we should learn and talk and I don't know if the area procurement leads talk to each other, but it seems like, you know, that's great. I'm glad that you do. Dr. Miles, did you have any follow-up questions? I know, Councilman Fulton. Just one follow-up. Thank y'all for your patience. In the example cited in the presentation with regard to working with vendors who have demonstrated some sort of environmental or meeting some sort of environmental criteria, how do we determine what those criteria are or are we kind of of taking them at the word? This is not to, which all is popping, I'm just curious. So, right now we are looking at ways to establish criteria so we don't have the criteria yet, but that is something that we're looking at incorporating possibly into our solicitations and our contracts. And I apologize I did say it would be my last one. Is there any, as the mayor would say, any direction any from this body to help move that process along about sacrificing those criteria be it request of for staffing or whatever direction we can know, share with City Manager or your team. I think that's one of the questions Dr. Miles is question number three. So I will just know it's hard to say that and I will come back to it but because we don't have data on how it's working. So I want to go to Council Member Fulton, if Dr. Malz you're done, but I do think we need to understand better what's working and what's not. Council Member Fulton. Thank you. That was in some ways a good segue to what I was gonna say. I'm gonna have a question, but I just want to, to the mayor's point of the outset, it's knowing what's the, what is the problem we're trying to solve, right? And I think it's important to get clear on that for me to know what my, my feedback is going to be. And it sounds like to me there are three proposals out there, one not stated, but the sort of green proposal for the MFDV, the point of the program is to rectify harm. That's why you need the disparity study, right? There needs to be a harm that you are rectifying legally. So one, we would need to know if there is a harm. And I think we've talked about ways to get to that legally. You need the disparity study. For the second possible program, the local program, the goal or the problem, I gather, is promoting the local economy or local residents. That's a policy goal. It's not a harm that exists. The same is true for sort of the green or environmental goals. But to me, though, that one, if you want a contractor who has certain like green standards, we just put that in the procurement action. Like, do you need a separate program or you just put it in the procurement action, right? Yes. And we're researching best practices on that currently. Yeah. So that's not like a preference. It's a factor in the thing. So then it gets back to what the mayor was just saying is, if those are the three problems or the goals, I would need to know whether these proposals are the best solutions. And I don't, we don't have anything in front of us that tells me that I want to spend $300,000 and then more in perpetuity, because I don't know that it's going to solve the problem for the MFD. I will just also share that for the local preference, I, I share the concern about fair and open competition. Like, yes, we have a goal. Yes, we should be providing jobs and opportunities for our own residents and the businesses that are here. We also have an obligation to our residents here to like be fiscally responsible. So I struggle with that one as well. So can I add some, thank you. I appreciate the thoughtfulness of all of my colleagues. I'm wondering if what is put here as an example as a local approach needs to be. I think you don't have to necessarily allow a percent over, right? That's not the way we have to go. We don't have to spend 10% more, 5% more. We could look at approach that's slightly different. I think that we could learn from some of our neighbors as to how they're approaching the local program and to give credit to Mr. Ari Shetty. They are, they have been working and fine-tuning, you know, looking at the disparities, looking at local economy. As they said, they got 33% local and they're very, that is something they've worked very hard at and their things they've had to do to adjust. There are three things that stood out to me in terms of what the county is doing and I think, I don't, for me, I think I want to learn more and see if we can get more detail so that all of my colleagues have the same level of information. But one thing they do is a local small business reserve. So any contract under 100,000, and we can determine what the number is, they advertise it locally for X-days. They go out first to locals. Doesn't mean that others can't apply. But after three days, then it goes broader. So they're not necessarily doing a points difference, but they are saying, we're gonna give our local people a little more time. So that's one approach that they take. The second is they have a local preference points program. So local businesses get 10% points in terms of the grading, not necessarily 10% higher. And so that allows them to be fiscally responsible, but also look at supporting the local economy. And I think the comments I'm trying, the comments on, is it fair that if someone lives outside of Maryland and abiding on something, they don't pay a minimum wage that is anywhere close to what we have. And our local companies are constantly disadvantaged because we believe and support them in the wage among Montgomery County and the state of Maryland. I don't think it's fair to disadvantaged our local businesses. That's just me personally. So I think I really appreciate those two approaches in looking at that. The other piece is contracts over $10 million. And again, we don't have to set a line exactly, but they will require 10% to work with a local vendor. So a prime could still be out, but a local vendor could be included as subcontracting. So I just, I want to flag that these are some things that appear to be working. And it would be very helpful for all of us to get information on what is working. I also don't have a sense of how many local vendors are we using now. So I think getting a baseline would be helpful as well so we can see see, is it a problem? And if it is, then that'll give us a baseline to see how we're improving over time. I wanted to see if any colleagues have any comments on that? Councilman Vellieri. I agree with a lot of what you said, the other thing that, while you're speaking, you kind of jog my memory a little bit is, you know, how we're defining local as well. I would be curious to know how many people have, our entities have, have one contract that are outside the state versus even disdain within the state of Maryland, because I think frankly, from the state and the county and on the city levels, we are going to have some unique economic challenges based on our principles that other states may not have. So we could see in theory, a shifting, not only minimum wage law, but other living our values through policy, that other states will not enact that could go forward, give even more of a greater advantage out of state entities. So I would be curious to know, even just looking at it from that perspective of both the prime and the subcontractors, who, how many, what are the historical trends on, in state versus out of state, in the county versus, out of the county, you know what I mean? A local is such a catch all that I would want to kind of, I'd like to see a little dig a little deeper into that because I think again going to like is what is the problem and defining the problem and we can share with you what our goals are and how we want to to, you know, be fiduciary and leave responsible as well as, you know, living our values through how we're going to utilize taxpayer funds. So that's just kind of my thoughts. Councilman Gregg. I'm just going to be a brief supporting and echoing some of my colleagues' comments. I don't know that I'm prepared at this point with any information to support a disparaging study going forward. I think there is a question of whether there's a need for that particular expenditure, which is a lot, but to the extent there's either more data or information to guide us about potentially expanding the city's outreach policies that currently exist with regard to disparity, whether there's a way to do the local preference, I think if we're going to do it, I think at air on them less is more aspect where we're talking about whether there's some way to do points other than just do money, or if we're actually going to do a money percentage, I don't think there would be anything above maybe a 1% advantage, kind of like a little more than a tie because we want to occur, but by the same thing, we got to be fiscal responsibility, physically responsible to all our residents, just as Councilman Rufoltin said. And with regard to the environmental and social based procurement practices, I think it's definitely something that we need to look at, but to the extent that can be part of the procurement process, I think that's a way we can potentially do it. But just like some of my colleagues said, I think there might even be some more information as to what actual a very important thing. I think that's a very important thing. I think that's a very important thing. I think that's a very important thing. I think that's a very important thing. I think that's a very important thing. I think that's a very important thing. I think that's a very important thing. I think that's a very important thing. I think that's a very important thing. I felt like I should see something. I agree actually with what my colleagues have said. You know, their graph. the data that you do have. But I do want more data because I think this is a complex decision. And as Michaelic, a Kazemann, a Iraq and a Kazemann member, Fulton said, you know, we do want to be physically responsible. And whether it's the study or whether it's the local preferences, I just wanted to have more data and more understanding of how much money we're talking about because we are entering a financial period that might be rough. So we should actually look at what we're spending and why. Thank you. I have a follow-up question in terms of the riding of contracts. So, who do we ride the most? Is it the county? Is it COG? It's a variety. And like it depends on the good or the service. So Montgomery County, Baltimore County, Howard County, we use COG contracts as well. We use a lot of the consortium contracts or like source well. We use, so it varies. And those, when we write those agreements, are those represented through purchase orders? Master agreements? Both. Both. It could be either. Okay. And we don't have a sense of what percentage of our total spend that represents at this time. Because I think it could be pretty big, right? Yes. It tends to be the larger contracts. Yes. Okay. So one thought I also had is I don't know whether the city includes some of the language that the county has, this is just one example, right? So some of these larger organizations that we're writing, they already have local or MFDV goals, but you have to, so when I was asking this question, you specifically have to sort of adopt those clauses, you call piggyback clauses, and I don't know if we do, but that could be a way of leveraging their program that they are spending that staff time and work on and getting the results that we wanna see if we piggyback on those clauses. So for example, if we have a prime contractor at the county that is not local IMF-TV or you know, veteran owned, I'm just giving an example. And we say you won, but they can say, oh, for the county I have to have this local preference or this veteran preference. But for the city, I, you know, I mean, may not. So can we look at how we're working on that? Like do we currently require them to do what they're doing for the county in terms of the subcontracting plans that they submit? No. No. But that could be something we could look at, right? That's one of the strategies we can explore. And that doesn't cost us a lot of money. And it's a huge part of our spending. So I think just from our conversation to me, this is a great discussion. And I know I really appreciate all the work we're doing. But it sounds like perhaps it could be a bit more analysis. Mr. Mejellik. Are you ready for a summary of what I thought I heard? Or not yet? OK. Go for it. Wait. Wait. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I you thinking about in terms of our outreach program and ways it could change? I do think there's a lot of great benefits about what we're already doing and you're doing excellent work. But I want to see ways that you think that we could build on it, especially again using the information accessible to us from the county and their disparity study. It has a lot of great data in there. It does list a lot of the general barriers like access to credit, relationships, lacking relationships with financial institutions. that can create a lot of these disparities. So, yeah, if you could also just add a few more options. Thank you. Thank you. And just to add one more point and just looking at page 20, the 2024 procurement report page 13, it looks like 50% are ones that 53% we go out for a bit. So that's the percentage that would be affected by what we do with any programs we create, but there's still a large percentage that we're either writing. And so my comments on looking at our practices there, I think I would, I do think that's pretty serious because there are a lot, you know, cooperative writers is 26%, so sourcing, 2%. So there's a lot, even if we do all this program work that we'd be missing, if we don't also look at how we ride contracts. So I wanted to make that point. Mr. Mahalek. Thank you, Thank you, Mayor. Really good feedback. This is exactly what we're looking for. When it work with a work session like this, when we ask these big broad questions, we only expect big broad guidance and we got that tonight. So here's what I heard. We definitely want more data, more data on this, on this critical, these critical decisions are important to you. So we'll do that. Number two, you want to hear more about best practices, not just here in the county, but what are other cities doing that are similar size as us? I did not hear that we should run out and do a disparity study. I heard that loud and clear. Alternatively, you did want to say, hey, what are some other ways that we could enhance our outreach practices, but bring that back to us and we want to take a look. Same thing with local preference policies, you know, bring back some ideas, what that might look like. It doesn't necessarily have to be 5%, maybe it could be smaller. There's different ways. What are some options where the best practice is there? And the same with ESG. What are some different criteria that we may be able to build into our bidding process as a standard process to make sure that we're getting contractors, bidders, pervaders that understand environmental and social needs and can provide that in their bidding documents and there's our way for us to provide additional preference in that space. And then I also heard, how do we track this more more deliberatively right? The one thing I didn't hear and I can't answer it yet and we can't until we get into a program. If we move forward with doing additional practices in this space, what is the actual cost to the city? We really don't know, right? So unless we do something really firm like the disparity study, which you know is hundreds of thousands of dollars, if we do these lighter, but could be equally effective outreach practices, and we set our standards and thresholds of in knowing you guys want more data, we'll be able to track that over the next couple of years. So we'll come up with some ideas. We'll bring this back to council and give you guys some options and then we'll ask for more direct feedback at that time. Thank you. Can I add a few things? Okay. So we also talked about the annual reporting process and looking at multi-year in these categories. So there's some that we can, some of those things we can do now without doing a big survey, but if we could at least update and and start doing them all tie year, that's important. I don't know if you captured, I think. we can do now without doing a big survey, but if we could at least update and start doing them all tie year, that's important. I don't know if you captured, I guess you put best practices that could be under, but the writing of the contracts is huge because it represents a large portion of how we do our business and can we improve our practices there. And then in terms of the subcontracting, that's another discussion. I didn't know if you captured that in one of your pieces, but I just wanted to flag that also represents an important part of this picture. I heard my colleagues talk about, I don't know if there's broad support for this, but just as we're looking at MFTV, dividing up the category, so we have better understanding of the bigger picture. I don't know if that's easier or hard to do, but you'll come back to us and tell us whether that's feasible. Maybe not what the data we have, but going forward. And then, Jess in general, looking at is what we're doing now working. And one thing I didn't hear necessarily majority feedback on or not. So I just want to put it out there is looking into whether we are requiring our contractors to have a minimum, you know, the minimum wage. I don't know if you're doing that or not, if you're going to tell us if you do or not. But I just want to see if for us a little off topic, but we'll still study it and bring it back when we bring this whole package back. It's exactly related to locality. Because if someone is out of state and they're paying, I'm just joking, but like I'm just going to make up a random note, but they're paying $10 an hour. And we're requiring the minimum wage here, then our companies here are disadvantaged. That hurts a locality. So if you could get back to us and tell us what you're doing, and we can make decisions, and maybe a higher cost for that, and maybe we, you know, that's something we're pursuing now. But I just, the living wage minimum wage discussion is something I think we should probably just track and learn more about. Yeah. No. Colleagues, Council Member Larry. I just wanted to say that was really in particular why I was thinking through the in-state versus out of state in County versus out of County because local preference, you know, I'm going to be having County having its own minimum wage. And I'm going to just say minimum wage at this point because that's the metric that is universally used. When I was thinking about, you know, the advantages of other jurisdictions, that would be an advantage rate for like a state with, you know, no minimum wage law. They could look a lot leaner perhaps than something local. So thank you for raising that again. Dr. Mouse, did I see your hand up? No, Madam Mayor, I appreciate the discussion. We didn't quite get to where I wanted but that's okay. But since this is all about the poor two things coming back. Thanks so much. Thank you just to clarify, an ESG that coming back to us with more information because we don't have a sense of is the current policy working. So more to come. Thank you. Councilman Brascha. Madam Mayor, I do support your point around learning, around getting more information around the minimum wage, but just noting again that there is not a living wage. Just so expectations understand it's going gonna be several months before we bring this back over, we're on it. So thank you. Thank you. I'm wondering, the annual report will be posted online. Is it possible just at minimum to update the chart for the MFDV, this publicly information, but just to put the 22, 23, 24 data on that that page. Yes we can update that. Thank you. Any other comments, colleagues? Okay. Thank you so much to the finance team. We cannot do any city business without you. And I know every department was flow through you so we really appreciate the work that you're doing to produce high quality RFPs and to support our goals. Thank you. Colleagues, we have another work session. I'm seeing that we might need a break. So if we can be back by 840, is that work? Okay. Good evening, Rockville. Today is still April 28, 2025. We are reconvening meeting 11-25. We are in agenda item 12b, homeownership programs, community wide, and city employee work session. Welcome, Ryan Trout. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Thank you very much for the opportunity to talk to you this evening about downpayment assistance and employee home buyer assistance programs. So April is National Fair Housing Month marking the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968. But more than 50 years later, the legacy of segregation still shapes our communities. Determ people can live, who can access wealth through home ownership, in which neighborhoods receive investment or face displacement. Today black home ownership rates are nearly as low as they were when the Fair Housing Act was first passed, in 1968 41% of black Americans owned homes. More than 50 years later, that number has barely risen to 44%. While nearly 73% of white American families own homes, this results in a widening racial wealth gap continued displacement of black and brown families and sustained disparate outcomes based on race. Additionally, as you guys heard in an earlier work session, a few months ago, the human services, sorry, a special presentation, the human services needs assessment identified a lack of affordable housing and a need for navigation services. I'm hoping this evening you'll see that our approach to homeownership to being informed and focused way of supporting the economic mobility goals of residents. So we're going to start with some feedback. We're then gonna go into some various backgrounds. So it's gonna be some national data, some local data, some about some various programs, and then we'll turn our attention to programs. We'll talk about next steps, and then we'll circle back to that requested feedback. So the requested feedback that the department is looking for this evening is, do you agree that the Homeownership Assistance Program, the down payment assistance Homeownership Program should focus on households earning up to 80% of the area median income? Do you agree that the Homeownership Assistance Program should focus on down payment and closing cost assistance up to 10% of the household's maximum purchase capacity? And do you agree with layering the employee down payment assistance program, the first generation buyer, and the opportunity area bonuses, which we'll get into further in the presentation? First, housing is one of five guiding principles, not three, I apologize. In 1993, the mayor and council provided total of $520,000 to establish the real estate effort for affordable community housing or reach program. In 2022, the mayor and council approved funds to assist employees with downpayments, downpayments when buying a home in Rockville. In 2024, there were three work sessions on the city's housing strategy, supply, subsidy, and stability. And home ownership assistance was approved as a strategy by the mayor and council. So we're going to back up real quick. Before we jump into the rest, I just want to go over a few key terms. AMI is the Washington Metropolitan Area median income. Household size is the number of members in the family or household. This includes children. Number of bedrooms, this is the total number of bedrooms per unit using the loan-come housing tax credit parameters, except by the state. This is usually one less bedroom per the number of members in the household. Purchase capacity is an estimate of the maximum dollar amount a household could purchase a home while maintaining an affordable monthly payment, which is about a third of their monthly income. DPA stands for down payment assistance and a GSE is government sponsored enterprises like Fannie and Freddie. So we're going to take a step back and we're going to look at some national statistics. First time home buyers decreased by 24% of the market. The lowest since the National Association of Realitters began tracking in 1981 prior to 2008, the historical norm was closer to 40%. According to recent research from the National Association of Realittersors 52%, a first-time buyers utilized a conventional loan to finance their home, 29% used FHA, and 9% used VA loans. A newly published report from the Urban Institute highlights disparities in black housing wealth across different U.S. local markets, despite improvements in the black homeownership rate. While the national black homeownership rate rose from 41.2% in 2015 to 44.3% in 2022, Black households still hold a disproportionately low share of total housing wealth. In 2022, they own only 5.9% of housing wealth while representing 11.9% of households. The analysis calls for localized policy solutions such as down payment assistance in areas with declining black home ownership rates or support for home improvements in markets where black home owners own lower value homes. Here in Rockville, this is using some US census data. We had trouble layering in some of the demographic information it wasn't collected. But I just wanted to give you kind of a flavor for what our homeowners here in Rockville look like. So of the nearly 27,000 oner-occupied housing units, just over 14,000 are oner-occupied. The median value of those is just south of $660,000. And of those with a mortgage close to $5,000 or spending more than $3,000 a month on their mortgage. As a percentage of their monthly income, we just talked about kind of that housing cost burdens. 4.2% spend between 30 and 34.9% while over 21% spend more than 35% of their monthly income on their mortgage, meaning that they are housing cost burdened. Nationally, down payment and closing cost assistance programs are designed to help low-end moderate income families overcome one of the primary barriers to home ownership, saving enough for the down payment and closing costs. These programs can take various forms, including grants, lower-no-interest loans, and deferred loans, which are often provided by local housing agencies, nonprofit organizations or state housing finance agencies, sometimes through participating lenders. Eligibility typically involves meeting income limits, home purchase price limits, and other requirements such as being a first-time buyer, using the home as the primary residence, and completing home buyer education or counseling. In early 2025, the department conducted a survey of the Cog Housing Departments. We received responses from 13 jurisdictions which included 15 different programs. So of that survey, what we found is that most jurisdictions offer one or more down payment or closing cost assistance programs, while three jurisdictions do not offer any down payment programs. All the programs have income limits, though they do vary. Some programs have home buyer education requirements or geographic restrictions. And very few jurisdictions offer separate home buyer programs specifically for their employees. I will flag the question in the survey may have been misleading on my part. I called them in first time employee home buyer programs so that may have been why we didn't get any responses there. Shifting now to the reach program, as I mentioned earlier, it was established in 1993. It had a total of $375,000, $75,000 a year for five consecutive years for down payment assistance and $145,000 for infrastructure and program administration. This program was transferred in 1997 to the Housing and Community Initiatives Inc. or HCI, where it resides today. HCI manages all aspects of the program, which includes first-time homebuyer, limiting first-time homebuyers with 100% of the AMI. They provide down payment and closing cost assistance with soft loans up to $12,000, 0% interest with principal payments due after seven years or upon sale. So after seven years, there either is a bulk payment to pay off the loan that they received or homeowners then go into monthly payments on top of their mortgage payment. These funds are distributed on a first-come-first-serve basis and applicants apply after finding a home and qualifying for a mortgage. There are currently six outstanding loans, totally more than $61,000, with an outstanding balance of more than $40,000. These numbers are a little dated, this is as of November of 2022. The department has a few concerns. HCI has not been audited. They haven't provided annual reports, which are required to be submitted to the city. There's no clear data on program usage or effectiveness. And the promotion of the program is unclear, relying on the website and informal communications. In 2022, they notified the city that they no longer wish to administer the REACH program. So we are in talks with them to transition the program funds in administration from HCI to the city of Rockville, and to convert those six outstanding loans into new program loans with updated terms to aligned with the redesign programs that we'll be getting into. Also in 2022, the mayor and council asked the department to conduct an employee survey for the home buyer program or a home ownership program with a response rate of 138 or 27.5% of full and part time staff. The survey response demonstrated strong support for an employee assisted employer assisted housing benefit to help address housing affordability and encourage employee residents near the place of employment. Nearly 64% said cash for down payment and closing costs was an obstacle to purchasing a home and over 79% answered yes to the question. If assistance was provided through your employer, would you consider purchasing a home closer to your employment? So we've talked about a number of things kind of in that first section in the background, but some of the major points that the department was taking away was declining first time home ownership rates, stagnant black home ownership rates, large wealth gap, and cost burdened homeowners. So we tried to use that to inform our program design. So next we're to talk about down payment assistance program design, which is built for the broader community, then a first-generation home buyer bonus, opportunity area bonus, and then the employee home ownership assistance program. So staff examined income thresholds for household size to determine purchase capacity, and different DPA amounts to design the most effective inefficient program. Staff use HUD published DC Metro thresholds at 80%, 100%, and 120% AMI for households with one to eight members. We use the Maryland DHCD loan come housing tax credit bedroom to household size equivalents, determined a maximum affordability threshold using lender based debt capacity and household income. Then we reviewed 2024 BrightMLS sales data for various bedroom size and purchase capacities in order to make a determination of the percentage of the market households would be able to access. Household, what we found was that households with incomes at or greater than a hundred% AMI already have access to the entirety of the market. At least based on the sales data from 2024, right? Very limited data set without the down payment assistance. However, households with 80% AMIs lack access to homeownership and they saw substantial growth in market access when provided with 10% down payment assistance, specifically those in larger households. So based on that, staff recommends to set the maximum income threshold at 80% AMI, allow up to 10% in down payment assistance, allow assistance to be used for both down payment and closing costs. These loans would be deferred until the homeowner sells or refinances the homes. The loans will be structured as a second mortgage where repayment happens after the primary mortgage is settled. Then we would recycle the repaid loans that they can be used to help more families multiplying the impact of's community and the state's community and the state's community and the state's community and the state's community and the state's community and the state's community and the state's community and the state're going to talk about first-generation home buyer bonus. Generational wealth refers to the financial assets passed from one generation of a family to another. Wealth disparities among historically underserved consumers are often linked to the absence of or interruption of generational wealth accumulation that is primarily achieved through home ownership. First generation home buyers are less likely to receive financial assistance from parents to help with the down payment and other upfront costs. A lack of generational wealth through home ownership also contributes significantly to the perpetuation of wealth disparities. So staff recommends using a GSC defined definition of first generation home buyer. They define that as one in which each borrow meets the following requirements. First is purchasing the property. They have to be a home buyer. They'll reside in the subject property as the principal residence. They have no ownership interest, soul or joint in another property during the last three years preceding the note date, and one of the following must also apply. No parent of the borrower has owned a property in the last three years preceding the note date. The borrower or the borrower has aged out of the foster care system, or the borough where it has become emancipated. Can you repeat the last beat about parents? Sorry, I just wanted to make sure I wrote that down. Yes, let me see. So no parent, parent of the borough where it has owned a property in the last three years preceding the note date, the borough where it has aged out of the foster care system, or the borrower has become emancipated. Right? So those are both disruptions to the transfer of generational wealth. So what staff, the department recommends is providing a $10,000 first generation home buyer bonus to qualifying home buyers. The bonus can be added to the down payment assistance program or the employee-based program. These would be 10-year forgivable loans. So these are not like the silent second that would be repaid. This would be about after a 10-year period allowing that to be the home owner to then gain that $10,000 in equity of the home. And then all borrowers in the loan must complete and sign the GSE's first generation home buyer certification to attest to their status. Next, I was hoping to discuss the opportunity area bonus. In a series of studies, beginning in 2014, opportunity insights has shown how the neighborhoods in which children grow up shape children's outcomes in adulthood. In collaboration with researchers at the US Census Bureau, they constructed the opportunity atlas. This interactive mapping tool presents estimates of children's chances of climbing the income ladder for every 70,000 neighborhoods across America. This is per by each cent just track. Social mobility varies widely, both across cities and across neighborhoods within cities in the U.S. On average, a child from a low-income family raised in San Jose or Salt Lake City has a much greater chance of reaching the top than a low-income child raised in Baltimore or Charlotte. However, the opportunity Atlas shows that there are neighborhoods within Baltimore and Charlotte that have higher rates of upward mobility than the average neighborhood in San Jose or Salt Lake. Children's outcomes in adulthood vary sharply across neighborhoods that are just a mile or two apart. Moving to a better neighborhood earlier in childhood can increase a child's income by several thousand dollars. And traditional indicators of local economic success, such as job growth, do not always translate into greater upward mobility. So next what you'll see here is a map of Rockville using the opportunity atlas. Now first, I want you to notice notice there is no red on this map. We don't have a single census tract that has negative economic mobility. So that immediately is something to be applauded. However, you can see that there is a difference in certain neighborhoods and that the highest opportunity areas lay to the south and west. So staff recommends providing a $15,000 opportunity area bonus to qualifying families with children that purchase homes in the city's highest opportunity areas. This would be added on top of the down payment assistance to increase the buyer's maximum purchase capacity, but like the down payment assistance, it would be a silent second, it would be repaid at the time of transfer sale of the property. Next, the Employee Home Wondership Assistance Program. As mentioned in 2022, the mayor and council set aside $250,000 for an employee homeownership assistance program. Now it would provide $25,000 in down payment assistance, down payment and closing cost assistance to city of Rockville employees who purchased in the city. We provide the assistance as a soft second, zero percent interest repayable at sailor transfer. Eligible staff must work for the city for at least six months and the loans can be combined with the Rockville down payment assistance program or the other bonuses mentioned. So that program bonus and interplay, the down payment assistance and the employee programs can be combined under certain circumstances. Right, you'd have to qualify for both of them separately in order to combine them. All bonuses then are mutually exclusive. There's only one additional loan or grant that can be added to the down payment or employee programs. The idea is here is not to like triple and quadruple stack these things in order to make sure we have the resources. Down payment programs can also be layered with the city's moderately priced dwelling unit and the Rockville housing enterprises housing choice voucher home ownership programs. So we've talked a lot about like the subsidy side, just a little plug for the supply side, is that the zoning ordinance rewrite will also help allow for more housing typologies, which should provide more affordable home ownership housing opportunities. So you might be scratching your head saying, well Ryan, that was a lot. How does this actually work? So it take an example of a police officer one, single officer with an income of $66,768. Without down payment assistance, the maximum purchase capacity would be about $280,000, which is still about 75% of the market in this, you know, studios and one bedroom. However, they would be eligible at that income for the down payment assistance program, which would provide them with $31,833, which would give them access to an additional 5% of the market. And then with the employee program layered on top of that, they would then have access to 90% of the one bedroom market in the city. And that would come to a total city support of $56,833. Can you just clarify, did you say this would be for, this is mostly before a condo? This would be like, in this scenario, that's a one bedroom unit, one bedroom for sale unit. And not factor in condo fees. It does not, no, it does not. Though I'm happy to rerun the math with condo fees. Another example using a maintenance worker, one, public works or recreation and parks. In this scenario, the individual income is $5,340, but their household income is $105,650. So their partner makes up the other $52,230. They're married, family of'd be looking then in that bedroom equidolence for a four bedroom unit. Without down payment assistance, they have purchasing capacity of about $442,000 or 12% of the four bedroom market. However, with the down payment assistance of nearly $50,000, that expands to 27% of the market. And then when we add the employee program of $25,000, they now have purchasing capacity of $516,000 or 34.5% of the market, which totals the city's support to $74,098. And getting away from employees and just member of the community, qualifying Rockville resident, they have a household income of $97,800. Their family of four. Without the down payment assistance, they have access to about 13% of the market with our down payment assistance that increases up to 33% of the market. And this person is a first-generation home buyer. So we're going to give them that $10,000 forgivable loan, which brings it up to 37.5% of the market for a total city support of $54,449. In the first year of the program our program goals are to provide 10 down payment assistance loans with an average of 46,594 two first generation bonuses an opportunity bonus and to assist five five city employees. This would be an estimated total program cost in year one nearly $626,000. So that would be combined with the $250,000 that was set aside for the employee program. The money brought in from HCI and then a little bit of the additional half money. So our next steps. The department will use the feedback we received tonight to finalize the program design. We'll create and establish processes, procedures, application tracking documents and all the things we have to do to run a program. We'll work with CCE to develop and outreach plan and communicate with lenders and our goal is to launch these programs on October 1, 2025. So, welcome back. A huge thank you. I know that took a lot of brain power and finagling and a lot of research. So, just want to say thank you. I know for some of us who've been on Council before, it's been like we're waiting for this for two years and we're so excited. I know all of my colleagues have really been supportive of all of our housing, you know, at the housing goals we've discussed and this is an important part of that. So just want to say thank you for the thoughtfulness that you put in here and also giving some examples so that we can see how it plays out. I also know that employees have been waiting for this. I've heard from so many who said, when is that coming out? It's my understanding that several of our union employees have been waiting as well and are very interested in this and maybe watching tonight. Just wanted to say that and I think it, one of the things we're looking at is we want to be the best place to work and we want to support our employees. I have a question about the AMI recommendations that you have. I think 80% could be kind of tough and I was wondering if we might more look at 120%. If anyone is a police officer that's not at the level one, if they're in our daycare or other places, there are so many more employees who would just automatically be cut out of that. And just to clarify, are you suggesting the AMI for both the citywide as well as the employee or can you just clarify that? Yes, so the employee program would be, all city employees would be eligible for that program. So that $25,000, if you would find yourself at the 120% AMI, you'd have a significant purchasing capacity already and then we would provide the $25,000 on top of that. The down payment assistance program is for the one that is primarily focused at low income buyers in the city. And that can be both community members or employees who qualify. Okay, I appreciate that. So this is when you're talking about the AMI, I really talk about the citywide program. I still question that 80% just because then you're looking at teachers, and a lot of teachers wouldn't even qualify with that. If they're in a, I mean, I think 120% AMIs, and that like 154 family of four is that about right? Give me a moment. I'll pull up my spreadsheet. OK, well, I'll give you some time on that. I really like, you know, the iterations that you have. For the employee program is there a requirement that employees stay in the city for a period of time, because that's I've looked at some some Some programs and that that does tie. It's a benefit for people who stick around here They can't just be here in six months and leave in one Under the proposed guidelines they could They could leave yes, so it'd be they have to be here for six months past the probationary period. Right, it's more of a tool to attract staff, not necessarily to retain. These are silent seconds. So as soon as they sell that home, we then collect the money back. So if they were to move away, say they were to take a job somewhere else and move away, we would then get those funds back into our recycled loan program. However, if they say were to stay in the city as a resident and then go work for the county, as long as they had the home, the silent second would remain on the property as it's currently designed. I would like to, this is just me, but I think there might be some benefit to also using it as a retention tool. So some employees would stay for a period of time. I've seen a number of organizations use that both for tuition assistance payment and employee assistance payment, but I welcome the feedback on my colleagues on that. And then the other big comment I wanted to make is on the opportunity program. I really, I get what we're trying to do, but it does trouble me because we would essentially not be supporting people who want to live and basically the east side of the city, based on the map that you showed. Can you? A long-w a pipe too. So the program essentially supports people who move to wealthier areas. Yes, the opportunity bonus. The premise is to provide, based on the research, by opportunity insights and Raj Chetty, particularly for families with children under the age of 12, moving into a higher opportunity area has the most significant, like long-term, benefits on upper mobility. So the opportunity bonus is a targeted way to say families with children that move into this higher opportunity area that we're going to assist you with additional down payment assistance. It doesn't take any of the other down payment assistance away from anybody that wants to move elsewhere in the city. It just provides additional assistance because those units are more expensive. We also use the word better in ebahoots and I just it just challenges me. I really I think I value the entire city and I think we have great schools all over the city thinking about rock full high schools on the east side and that was in a different quadrant. They have an IB program. They produce outstanding scholars. So I do see where that could work nationally, right? I have been in one of those neighborhoods where most of my neighbors did in graduate high school, right? But I think this is a little bit different here. So I just, that's the one that kind of gave me pause that I'm not, I don't necessarily support at this time. But I have some other questions, but I want to yield to my colleagues and overall, I'll just think you did a fantastic job. I'm out of here. Oh, sorry. Councilman Van Grack and then Councilman Polta. I'll try to be brief, fantastic job because I think this is a lot of what we want to focus on and look at. One question I had is because much like the mayor, I've heard from employees and city staff that are really waiting for us to jump with this. And I know that in your program goals, you talk about assisting five employees. However, if we talk about the down payment assistance, generally it's going to city residents as a whole, has there been any talk about prioritizing city staff and employees so that we can help more than potentially five city employees, especially at the start of this? Because if we're prioritizing our city staff, either people coming in or our current city staff, our police officers, to do more than just five and prioritize that with the down payment assistance, we could potentially help more of this targeted area as opposed to, and don't get me wrong. We also wanna be helping the public, but this priority of being able to help our employees has there been any talk about prioritizing employee just for the down payment assistance? Can I just while you're getting the data or pulling that up, when we initially approved the employee assistance program, we had a target of 10 employees per year. Just. I mean, the one that shows how we pre-finable is 10 residents towards the end end. So consumer vangrack, the answer is yes you could, a straight forward on that one, but I thought was since these are both new programs that we're just not sure what the appetite's going to be. If you're prioritized just giving it to five city employees, then arguably you may want, you may need to take away how many loans you go out to the community at large. Because I do think our budget at this point, considering you guys are bots of it, out the budget is 625,000. I would recommend is we try this for the first year, see what the appetite is, and then adjust from that. Well, and I guess, I know you're talking about, I'm not necessarily talking about moving numbers here. I'm saying you've got 10 DPA loans. We could say with regard to those 10 DPA loans, we're first going to prioritize employees for the opportunity for those DPA loans. And therefore see what the appetite is, whereas it could be within the first six months we've lost it and we're really only helping five employees. And just as the mayor said, we could be helping significantly more if for those 10 DPA loans, we're initially giving those opportunities to city employees. Is that right? You see what I'm saying there? I do. I do. And similarly, kind of as the mayor was getting out a little bit, I know we've got a lot of these additional opportunity bonuses, this idea here, I would rather be helping more people to employ. mayor was getting out a little bit. I know we've got a lot of these additional opportunity bonuses. This idea here, I would rather be helping more people to employees even stay or get to the city of Rockville than some of these other micro goals because I think this macro goal of being able to get more people into home ownership and especially our employees, our police officers, our staff into the city of Rockville is a more of a macro goal than some of these micro, which are also important. I mean, staffs done a wonderful job here talking about all of the different goals, but just as you said, with some of the more macro goals that we're looking at here, that might be a better idea of use of funds. Yeah. And you could, to your point, I'm sorry, Mary, so just you could take the bonuses and then shift those into the overall loan program that way you're not adding more money, you're just shifting it away. But I'll wait for the direction from college. That was my similar thought. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I just will just note that I support the original 10 the program for 10 employees at least. Councilmember Fulton. So, I like those some people and I'll just be super brief. So I lost your feedback slide. But I'll take a stronger tone, even then I think some of my colleagues, I don't support the opportunity at bonus. Like at all. I on the employee on the employee home ownership, I understand. And I also want to support our employees. I do. One of my concerns is that, you know, we're offering this money to employees that want to live in Rockville. And I understand why. But at the same time, that same amount of funds is not available to any of our employees that aren't actually interested in home ownership right now, but they might need to wish this. And they might actually want to buy some sort of a little light. I worry about the narrowness of the program and the benefit to our staff. There's a, it's very restrictive in that regard, which is, but I'm okay with it, but I wouldn't wanna add another restriction in the retention respect of, I think, if you've been here and we've given you the money and you bought a home in Rockville, that's sufficient. We shouldn't like tie it to continued employment. Everything else that you had on here, yes, I support one, yes, I support two. I just don't support the opportunity area. I also have reservations about the first generation home buyer because of the limited amount of money and where we want to put it. I understand the tie. I do. But What we're trying to do is support people that we know do not have the ability to get into home ownership because of their, and we don't know that that's true of frustration, fires. I was actually intrigued that the definition is three years that they could not, it's not necessarily a frustration home, like they could have owned and then just didn't for a little while or their parents could have owned and then just didn't for a little while. Particularly their parents could have owned and then just didn't for a little while. So particularly with that definition, I'd like to see what my colleagues said, but I would also be willing to remove that bonus and add it, so we could spread more of it around. Thank you, Councilman Vellieri. Okay, so I will follow my colleagues format. On number one, I am in agreement with the mayor. I think that as somebody who's like many of us, whose child had multiple teachers who were commuting in from Frederick and further out, I would love to make it so that more teachers in particular, everybody, of course, and especially our police officers, but I know for teachers in particular with the day starting early, it's really tough, the fact that you live from Rockville and they don't wish to 70 on anybody. I would say up to 120 would be where I would want to go with that. I, I also agree with what my colleague said on, folks, my colleague said on, on number two. I understand why you would want to have for like tracking purposes and maybe utilization tracking, having these being separate and existing programs might be helpful. So I'm open to that. Well, I completely under, my monitor just went away. Now it's back. Well, I completely understand what my two council colleagues were stating as, you know, unless we can move it here We can move it there. I think until we see what utilization even looks like See as we've not had this kind of program. I would want to keep them separate Until we get you know again that maybe at the end or at a midpoint of the program, kind of doing an assessment to see what utilization I'd look like would be really helpful. I had a lot of thoughts in my head for how I was going to respond to the opportunity area discussion as the only person up here living on the east side of the city. I think the thing that did disturb me the most was saying that we are not a good neighborhood. And the assertion that opportunities are not occurring. The inferences that opportunities are not occurring there. It was, I can tell you, as someone living there, that is not true at all. And I think that you see a wide array of incomes actually, probably more so than maybe some other communities, but we want every neighborhood to be an opportunity. And we want every, you know, multi-family building, every neighborhood. That should be the opportunity. Because I was sitting here going, well, what opportunity would occur in other areas of the city that would not be occurring in twin record East Rockville. And because I was sitting here going, well, what opportunity would occur in other areas of the city that would not be, you know, occurring in twin-record East Rockville. And I just wanted to reflect my own my feelings on that because I think I reflect a lot of what people on the east side and frankly, along the 355 corridor as well. You know, is that how are we defining opportunity really at the end of the day. So I just wanted to say that I also concur with my colleagues. I cannot and I will not support the opportunity area bonus for that reason. But I appreciate the creativity of of thinking, but frankly, in the way that this was framed, it's really hurtful. I can be honest. Thank you, Council Member Jackson, then Council Member Shaw. Thank you, Mayor. First, thanks to the presentation. It was a lot to take in, and I'm sure there's a lot on your end to put down research and everything. So thank you for the excellent presentation. Just a question on the program itself, and not including employees. Is it open to anybody who applies or just to rock for residents? So we would have to work that out in the full program design. The thought would be qualified folks buying a home in the city of Rockville. So I don't, as currently designed, we haven't really talked about do you have to be renting in the city for a certain period of time before you can purchase a home here. I know some jurisdictions might broaden that a little bit so you have to be renting say in the in the county at least before for a certain period of time before you can purchase or use the down payment assistance that way you don't have people like. hopping. We have some similar requirements in our reprogram and so we'd probably look at using similar ones. No, thank you. I mean obviously that would be my preference. I don't know about the rest of the body but you know looking at the rock throw first and then going out. I wanted to focus a little bit, you know, because I think, let me just drill down, you know, the first generation buyer and everything else that you've kind of reposed, I think you are thinking differently than some of the body here. And so I just want to ask a question. With this program, isn't about getting a house in Rockville and being close to work, or that might be true. But it seems like you're really focused on targeted wealth building for different generations and people who don't really have any wealth to begin with or need to need to establish well. So can you can you talk about that? Yeah absolutely. Yes and yes is the answer. Right so the initial impetusetus for the kind of digging into this was the mayor and council's direction or in 2022 to establish an employee program When we also learned of HCI looking to end their time with their Community focus program. So this is a great opportunity for us to bring all of this in-house and really look at how we design a community-wide program that also benefits our employees. Particularly if you're of low income, if you're at the proposed 80% threshold, the ability to save, to purchase a home is a significant barrier. And so it's an opportunity for the city to step in and be able to help provide that opportunity that is, might not be afforded to you. When it comes to the, the first generation bonus, that's specifically, despite the GSE's definition. And other jurisdictions do define it differently, and so we could look at something more, that's maybe a little more targeted, and not as broad as the GSE's definition, but that is really looking at the historical fact that black and brown communities have been disproportionately cut out of the home buying process. And so how can we help bridge that gap? And so the idea of layering a little bit of additional funds on top and saying, hey, this is about generational wealth creation. So we're going to let that loan disappear after 10 years. And you're going to get to keep that equity instead of having to repay back that small portion. Now, thank you for that answer. I think it's important to just remember that. I mean, it isn't just about having a home near where you work. It's also about wealth creation for certain families. And I think that's really important to keep in mind. Similar to my colleague, as Councilman Van Grack, you, and maybe the city manager answered the question, you imply that this was kind of a pilot, really. And then it would be skilled up. Yeah, afterwards, so can you maybe spend on that? And what mechanism, if it is a pilot and you anticipate it spanning it in future years, what mechanism would you have to fund that? Yeah. If I made it seem like it was a pilot, I didn't intimate that. I apologize for that. I meant it's new program. Both of those programs are new and we just don't know what the take rates can be. We just don't until we activate the program. It's on anecdotes and I've heard this, I've heard that. But we put the program out there and people actually apply take interest and we award these different programs. We just don't know how many people are going to take it. Right? It is infinitely scalable up and down, but at the end of the day, it still costs money to fund it. So every budget year, we'll say, here's what we learned from these two programs. Here's how many people took it. What do you think, Council, data wise? And then Ryan and I may make a recommendation., we think you should increase this program next year from 600,000 to a million, etc. We could continue using the the Hoth Fund and we could also use additional general fund dollars to see that. But as you know, council members, since we're not quite down with the budget, we have to continue to reprioritize everything in the city to figure out what that sweet spot is for funding. And my last question is kind of aside, but I was reading through the document that you put together before and you kind of mentioned it here in this presentation, the PowerPoint. And I just really want to focus on it. So what is the history with ACI? They were founded in 1993, went up to 2022. It seems like there's no data, no audit that went on. Like you had $280,000, $480 and 37 cents in the current fund, I think it was about $200,000 to begin with. So what happened and was there funds that we were still giving them even after that? I'm not really clear what role they have. So my understanding, because we kind of unpack this ourselves, try to learn a little bit more about this. The mayor and council, between the years of 1993 and 1997, gave $75,000 a year. Yeah. $75,000 a year to the local realtors association to run the REACH program. So it was an outsourced program. In 1997, the realtors had kind of a handshake agreement to give it to HCI. HCI has now been running it since 1997. The original documents, it appears that we are supposed to be getting annual reports from this, from the third party conducting the program, but we have been unable to find said reports. So we have now upon learning that HCI no longer wants to run this program, we are working diligently with them to get that, get it back. To try to get those resources back, so we can account for everything and can kind of move forward in a more deliberate way. Yeah, I don't want to label the point, but it just seems like there's a kind of warmth that has been opened there and you're going to go back and try to actually figure out what's going on and where the money went, where it doesn't go, and we can get some of the back as we should. And so let me just answer the questions. I think number one, yes, I think I support what the mayor was saying, going up to more than 80%. number two I'm fine with. Number three I don't really support the opportunity area bonuses for different reasons, but yeah, I just don't like the opportunity area bonuses concept. So that's it for my thoughts. Thank you, Councilmember Shaw. I wanna echo my colleagues. Thank you. This is fantastic. I wanted to just comment that it gives me pause that we've had this program for three decades and have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at least $100,000 of dollars and we don't have any data. And I think it does not show a very seriousness around affordable housing or building intergenerational wealth or any of the values that we say that we have. And so I am very appreciative that we are now looking at this program and this body. I know although we may have some different views about housing that we agree with this direction in terms of home ownership and building intergenerational wealth. So I do have a few questions for this, I was trying to figure out the scope of, so how many families or loan recipients would receive this funding? Is it like around 20 or so? So I'm going to kind of answer two things, kind of a comment by Councilman Van Greck and your question. Based on the currently defined goals, yeah, it would be about 15. And that would, because those bonus programs and potentially the employee programs could be layered in, so kind of a maximum of 15 households. These are also goals, right? To say that we're going to help all 10 employees sitting here today and then I'm back before you in a year and I only helped seven. Like I don't want to put myself on the hook for that. So, so we say five and then we hope to do better. But yeah, as currently designed, the goal would be to try to serve 15 households. And I appreciate that and that this is an ambitious goal and I support this program and I just want to say within the context of the need, especially when we were going through the stability, just to be clear there are tens of thousands of families that need stability and need to build intergenerational wealth. And I think this program would be perfectly paired with something like rent stabilization because it can help to increase the pipeline and the criteria of people who have the ability to save money and be able to maintain a home. And I also just wanted to share, I had some questions about supply. I know based on what I was hearing of our own market conditions, it's actually more profitable for a lot of developers to build rental units than for sale units, especially because they can charge as much rent as they want. And so I wanted to know, based on the pipeline, how many for sale units, and perhaps you can answer this question later, but how manysale units we have versus how many rental units that we have? Just to find out within the context, like if we grow this program, if we have some opportunities for housing. Oh, and then I also just wanna share that I do strongly support the first generation buyer concept. I do think three years is a little too small. I think it should just be our UFIRS generation home buyer period. And I recognize and appreciate the populations in which you are seeking to create equity with that stipulation. So I strongly support that. And I would also like to know in terms of the 80% AMI, just in general with our rental population, how many renters, if it's possible to get this information, how many renters would fall into that 80%. But I firmly believe and support that this program should be prioritized between our city employees and our current renter population to transition into building intergenerational well. Thank you, Council Member Dr. Miles and then Council Member Van Greck Thank you Madam Mayor. Thank y'all for the presentation and Generally speaking I am in favor of most any program that will allow First time or other why folks to get into the To be able to afford and to purchase a home to build wealth. And, and then supportive of all strategies to that end. It as outlined, I pose a question to staff and I'll just lay it out for the viewing and listening public that, you know, and I agree with targeting targeting such programs towards city employees. If we take you know say a police officer making a certain ink, let's just throw out a hundred thousand that if we help you know give some down payment assistance to other things with the median home price being I think it was $660,000 as quoted in the reading. I don't know how they would qualify for a loan, how that officer would qualify for a loan, even with the down payment assistance given that the amount of their mortgage would probably be north of you know $3,000 per month. So actually I mean it's about more north of $4,000 a month at 7% interest rate on the 30-year loan. So I appreciate the intent that we have but the reality is that housing is so expensive that these programs while while intentioned, I don't know that they will make a significant dent given the housing prices that currently exist. I do support, I recommend, by step, pairing programs, the employment, down payment assistance, first year renovation on fire, and others. I'd also add in, you know, throwing in the NPDU program. And it's difficult. I think as I've indicated in the past NPDU program, it only helps out the margins at improving homeownership, just because it addresses such a few number of units and such a few number of people. But I think if there are ways to modify the APDU program, I think there's currently a 30 year window that people would have to stay in the property before being able to realize the full value of the property if they re-sold, but perhaps modifying that window to maybe 10 years. I think, you know, perhaps I think the average homeowner stays in their home maybe eight years. So make it, you know, lowering it down to 10 years to make it more of an incentive. Because if we think back to the AMI discussion that was had before, I'm certainly a favor of raising the AMA eye cap beyond 80%. The reality though is that for people making more than 80% AMI, if they were to go in certain programs like the MPDU program, it's more cost advantageous for the long term to just buy something further out because they can realize the property, the equity in that home a lot sooner and given the some of the restrictions and some of the other programs that we have. So I answered the question. That was just a broad statement about sort of ease of building the context of current market conditions that don't seem to be improving. But I mean, for question number one, up to 80% great, I think I did just outline my concerns about increasing it beyond it, but I'm in favor of anything that increases a number of people entering homes number two. Down payment closed costs has said yes. Again, I think the reality is that I don't know how helped much in the context of that. How much housing that would be median home cost is here in Rockville as outlined in the presentation. Number three, yes to all, I do recognize the implications as outlined by our council member about doesn't need some neighborhoods prioritizing some about the others. I do understand the intent of the staff's presentation as well. Again, I'm generally in favor of any program that will put people in homes to extend that actually we're working. The broader point was a question, another question to ask of staff earlier, which has been echoed by my colleagues. The broader question, my house is successful, how the program has been thus far. As it was outlined, we have limited data. I'll end there. Thanks so much. Thank you, Councilor Vangrack. Just to kind of echo and focus of the discussion as we've been doing on the requested feedback, I do support increasing the AMI. Where that is, I'm not sure, but I think we can potentially do more with a larger AMI number. I'm fine with the closing costs and assistance we're talking about up to 10 percent, with regard to some of the more specific questions. As I mentioned before and was implying, I currently am not in support of the bonuses. I think that I'd like to focus on helping more people, and we can do that with the bonuses being distributed to the DPA and assisting the employees. And as I mentioned before, I would like to help more employees and have the goal above five. So the extent we can prioritize or focus the DPA on our employees or people coming to be an employee in all groups of the city. That's something I would support. Thank you. I appreciate the comments in my colleagues. Some people said things that I had written down to say. So I thank you for saying that. I had a couple of thoughts as well. So I will say when we initially thought about the employee program and wasn't that 10 had to do it all in one year. It was just that it could be five and five, but we weren't just giving it away. And so I guess the question, if you put all the money in one pot, you could have a few city employees. Are you planning to separate the pot so that we can meet the intent of trying to support employees as well. We could separate the pots. I don't think that was the intent. We know there's a couple of employees that are anxious and excited to do this program. Our goal would be to set out the applications, see when they come in, try to get at least five city employees. If we don't get 10 others in the citywide program and more employees want it, then we can then take six seven or eight so we don't have to set aside and separate we're just trying to make sure that for creating two separate programs we wanted to make sure that people in both categories can take advantage of the program yeah it was just concerned that if everyone let's say a bunch of people who don't live in the city, apply, and then the people who work for the city, they're come after those people. I have concerns about that. Understood. Understood. So I'm seeing some shaking hands. So I just want to make sure that they have been employees waiting for this program for two years. I also have concern that we have held up this program implementation trying to figure out the other part of the HCI mess. So I just I want to honor what we said we were going to do for employees in a more timely fashion and make sure that if we're saying the seed is 10 right that was set was set aside and through an appropriation that we allow them to work through that 10. Now it may be five this year and five next year, however that flows, but I just, I want to be careful of the expectations that employees have been having and have been patiently waiting for when this thing is going to finally launch. Understood. The other thing I wanted to chat about is there are other programs. And part of this thing is awareness. My colleague mentioned the MPDU program. I think that is not well advertised enough. I know that there's been recent efforts to do more and I so appreciate that. But when I talk to teachers who work in our community, they have no idea of the program. And we have town homes and condos coming online. And if they're not in the list, they're not gonna get them. So in general, I think this has the outreach of this has to be paired with the other programs that we have so that they can maximize the benefits. So I just wanted to comment on that. The second is that related to outreach and awareness as we're advertising this opportunity to help low-income communities to communities who have lower incomes, sorry, as well as our employees, there are other programs they could layer on top of this. So we don't advertise that. So why couldn't we support what the county is doing and what the state is doing, and now you can layer in? So there's a way to layer in without us having to do all the layering. So I wanted to note, the state of Maryland has at least three programs, the first time home buyer program for 30 year fixed low loans, a flex 30 year with down payment and closing, a partner match, and then be Montgomery employee down payment assistance program. I mean, I know that's why there are things that we can model and potentially leverage with our stuff. And so I wanted to just make sure that we're not just thinking that we're an island, but really helping more people in the city of Rockville take advantage of homeownership opportunities and building that economic opportunity for their families. Is that something that you can do? Yes. Okay, I ask because sometimes people say, we don't advertise the county as the state. So I just think that this is, in this case, it seems to be perfectly paired to support our goals. The other question too, I think Councilman Greck mentioned and I think Councilman Jackson as well. Are we just doing these loans that get paid back in no interest or whether you're just granting money? And so there is an impact with granting money without getting paid back. And I'm wondering about the split on that because I do want this program to to layer itself and pay itself back so that we can help more people over time. We have to also be fiscally prudent. Yeah, understood. We do think the coupling of grants and loans is important. Sometimes folks just don't want to take on loans at all. They just want them when you grant them that set. What I can't stress enough is that this is our first foray into these programs. We need to get something out on the street. Our commitment is to have these programs up and running October 1st. And then there's a really good chance we may have the we may have the just that year two year three or four, but we had to get something out there and started and then adjust as we go along but I still think a combination of grants and loans to start to see what the appetite is is the right thing to do right now but we're willing to adjust that as we move forward. I'm willing to start with the forgivable loans. I mean, I forgive the loans that low interest, no interest loans rather than the grants because we don't know what the financial forecast is gonna be. We have to also just be very mindful of our budgets. So I just, I wanted to flag that as a start. I would be willing to do some forgivable, for example, for employees who stay, but I just, you know. As currently recommended in the presentation, the community down payment assistance program, the employee program, and if I count, there's no opportunity bonus, right? So those two would be silent second, 0% interest loans that would be repaid at sale or transfer. The only one that seems to still be on the table is the first generation home buyer bonus, which is just the 10,000 forgivable after 10 years. And that's to allow for an increased amount of intergenerational wealth transfer. Okay, so I think we have most people don't want the opportunity piece, so that's out. I would, how much do you think that would cost us over time for the grant portion? $10,000 generational, first generation. So as currently proposed, let me see. Two, in the first year is the goal. So it'd be $20,000 a year. So after 10 years, it would be $200,000. So if we did two each year, now if word got out and it was really successful and more folks wanted it, right? And we're eligible for the bonus then we would see more people qualify for that. But I think that- It's not about starting with I have this much for this year in that pot versus we don't know what the amount of the first time grants will be so that you can budget. Yeah, so roughly I started with a rough kind of program cost and then kind of backed into where I thought we might see demand in the program to set the goals. This actually ties back to some of the conversations that you all have been having about increasing it from 80% to 120% AMI. That is a substantial increase in their purchasing capacity. We're talking about folks who at the 80% AMI level for a family of four, make about 105,000 I believe it is. At 120% AMI, that jumps significantly. And that means when you divide that by like the constant rate of the 7% interest for a-year mortgage, you're looking at a substantial increase in their purchasing capacity. When we take that purchase capacity and now we take 10% of that endowment payment assistance, we have dramatically lowered the number of households we are able to serve. So back to your question, can we serve more than 15? And then in a program goal if we increase it to 120% AMI we're looking at five Like that that so we'd have to write size than the down payment assistance from 10% Down to 5% or 3% And then that allows it to layer into other things But now we're help we're providing less per household, meaning we could then help more households of much more modest means versus deeper subsidy. So I think when designing this, I tested all those different variables. And what I concluded is based on sales data in 2024, anybody with incomes at 100% AMI or higher had access to 100% of the market. No. I don't know where that is. That doesn't mean that doesn't necessarily mean that they can save the down payment, right? That because that is a significant barrier. But it does show that they have access to the whole market And when you drop to 80%, you see it fall off very starkly, particularly with households of higher numbers. So at 3, 4, 5 person households, we're talking about 7, 10, 15% market access. Yeah. And the down payment assistance helps them get more access to the market. In most cases still not up to the median but it does get them substantial access to the market 30% 40% access to the market compared to say 12 on their own. I think that the down payment is the barrier for many people. There are renters who are paying what people pay in mortgage, but they can't save up for that down payment, especially with security deposits and other things. So I think we can underestimate that. I also think that when we're looking at, you're basically limiting people to condos with some of those. And I just wanted to bring some reality that I'm just looking at one of the condos that's not far from here within, you know, it's not the newest condo, but it's fairly newer and it doesn't have the same, you know, big causes. Some other ones do. Theucondophys are 280 to 420 a month. And there are some condos where the cost is 900 to $1200 a month. I don't think that if we limit it and we kind of basically pin it so that you base, you can only afford a condo, that's, they're still gonna have a lot of of cost. They're not going to be able to realize because they can't get a loan for condo fees. So I just, I want to be mindful of if we're looking at real opportunity considering that there may be some cost that are not factored in here. And what is the real income that it requires and down payment required to get there? So I still, for me, I'm still at 120, but I see your point and maybe it's that we're not saying we're giving you 10% that maybe there's a target base and we're saying we're giving up to $25,000. That's a way to be able to plan how many people you're helping in a given year. Councilor McGrack, did you have a comment? I would just agree. No, I would simply shake them my head. Thank you. But I appreciate that comment. The other question I had on HCI and I, that was before, I know that we learned about this on our council and that's what we talked about bringing it back in so I know that I am concerned about what happened in years past you said that ended went what year What year did that mayor previous mayor and council stopped giving to 1997 those 1993 to 97 75,000 each year for five consecutive years. Okay, so that's not it's it's a's about 300,000. It's 375,000 in funding for the down payment assistance and then 145,000 for admin and operations. Okay, all right, well that's helpful. If it's managed by the city and information by the city is for you, Bill, how will you protect people's personal information? It'd be like any other program where certain information we can redact and we don't give out names you don't give out so security numbers even in a freedom of information act request. That's that is true we can redact okay perfect that I that was the the one thing that gave me pause. I want to make sure that we're protecting people. And I definitely support first gen. I question whether that's a grant or a loan. I'm open to, you know, your thoughts and my colleagues thoughts on that. But I was trying to find ways that we keep more money in the pot and help more people is by intent, but I definitely want to help first gen homeowners. Councilor Bishaw. This is just a thought. Could we explore possibly 80, some number of loans that are 80% AMI and then some number of loans that are 120 AMI? Yeah, I yeah, I'm toyed with the idea of like 10% for folks, 10% down payment assistance for folks at 80% AMI and below and 5% down payment assistance for folks between 80% and some other AMI number. Like I toyed with those. Okay. The thing that deterred me was the market access. Yeah, that is really concerning because there's just more available at that higher income and there's less loans that we can provide. So yeah, I think it's like a balancing act. Thank you. And your numbers do not take into account condo fees, which is basically the purchasing power for the total amount someone can afford and the range you're showing are basically condos. So they're basically condos at the one and two bedroom size. And these are based on, again, the sales data from last year, right? The market access. And so most of those are condos. As we get to the larger ones, they become attached units and detached units. Okay. I just, I wanted to note that you have to have a certain amount of disposable income to be able to live in a condo and pay that fee. And that's, we actually see that challenge when we look at MPDUs and certain types of apartments that we were discussing. And we see it in senior living facilities that we have MPDUs and senior living facilities. But if the amenities fee or in the caretaker fee is so high, then people can actually afford it. So I just accost in us to be mindful that there are condo fees that people can't take out loans for. And we want to make sure that the program works for people. So I've answered one, 120 for myself. I do also, for number two, I was just saying, we may need to toy around, is it 10% or is it like a flat 25,000 or just so that you can manage your budget because where this is not, we don't have a blank check. I wish I could use a Rockville Science Center printing machine, but we don't have that here in the city. We have to be mindful. So I just wanted to note, I'm also open to a targeted upper limit of what we can provide because with we we're also going to educate people on the county and state programs. And I do support helping our employees with the other layered programs and minus the opportunity area because I just don't want to give an impression that any one neighborhood is better than the. And I think we have all great neighborhoods in Rockville. Councilem Brasal. I know we're not calling it a pilot, but I actually think that we should, considering that we have not had a lot of data and information and haven't been able to evaluate. And if we move forward with this, I just wanted to share specifically the information or data that I would like to see. The total number of households assisted, the average assistance amount per household, the success rate, meaning those who are maintaining their home ownership, unfortunately not everybody. Even if you have the income is able to maintain Their home especially now when we have really hot or we have Increased unemployment and we don't know what the future will hold and then also what I would like to see since equity is one of the goals, a breakdown of the demographics disaggregated by race. Thank you. I will add age as well in that. And since you're talking about different prices city where people are moving, I would also like to know how many employees leave and how many residents flip over time that I think that's an important market to look at. And in general demographics, I will also note that I support Rockville, helping Rockville renters first, like we do in the MPDU program, now it's available to other people, but we, first on the list is people who are already living or working here. I would also add. So if you're a teacher and you have to live in Frederick in Clarksburg, Clark is not that far, but far out. I kind of want to support people being able to move closer,. I don't want to exclude people if they work here. Councillor Moura-Lary. This is kind of a side tangent, but it is connected. I cannot remember. I should, as the H-SAC Council liaison was an income inequality wealth gap analysis part of the assessment that was as completed. And I apologize for putting you on the spot. I was trying to like look through my notes furiously because I think if we haven't done one that would probably be really helpful. I know it's not a very easy analysis to do, but we know, you know, nationwide what the trends are that it just keeps growing exponentially over time. I think that would be really helpful as well, because we already know that know that the wealth gap in the county is significant and So that would be really if we could do it for the city I think that would be great and then my last Side note but still connected Because it goes to disposable income Is that this is why in part? some of us are really looking at enhancing our childcare options in the city. That is first and foremost, one of the most expensive things for a family to have to pay for. And that is, I can speak for myself, that was really predominantly, while my son was an infant, why there was no way that we could ever get close to saving. We still ended up really not being able to afford to save, but it's childcare is extremely expensive, and that is one of those things that, you know, like kind of fees, we might be able to get that information out, but if you have a family of four and three children, maybe a single parent and two are under the age of three, they're not going to be able to save for a down payment, not with the cost of child care right now. So. Thank you. One other data question. If possible, I I've asked this for the electrification grants in the past on the county, like how many rock for residents are benefiting? Is it possible to find out how many rock for residents are benefiting from the county and state if they're collecting that information? I think that would be helpful for us to track. One, is it well known and people using it? And maybe we need to do, if it's not we need to do more awareness than we are, and be like how people might be layering these programs together. All right, do you have any other questions in terms of clarity that you need from us? I'd like to summarize to make sure that's okay. Sure. So I heard the majority of council say that the AMI should be set at 120%. I heard support on question number two about closing costs. I heard about I heard support for first generation buyer. I heard no to the opportunity area bonuses. I then asserted that we'll take the money that we've designated for the opportunity area bonuses, which was that much more roll that back all the way up into the base assistance program. also heard that we should prioritize city employees. Let me stress again, I think I found the right definition. This isn't a pilot, it's actually a beta program, right? It's our first try. So we know we're not going to get this perfect. I think let's just say speed to market is important from all of you. So we do want to launch this October 1st. We'll gather data, all the data that you guys requested right away. And there's a really good chance we'll have a report to you within a year to let you know what the traction is like on this. And if we have the just, we'll certainly adjust after that. Thank you. I'll look at my colleagues, but I just want to clarify also, there's a data component that you're going to be tracking the data. I think you capture that with your annual report. There was a question of preference for rock full live live a work. I just want to ask Mike, do you need clarity on that? Would you want us to do a straw poll? I heard priority for people that live or rent in town already. I thought I heard that.. Yeah. I just want to make sure you got that. And you heard us prioritizing the employee from the majority. But is there a possibility, because you know, some people said this, is there a possibility to roll out the employee program, at least start collecting names, of people who might be interested first? Because they've been waiting on this. I'm just wondering because the the the larger population is much more complicated. We're getting way down in there. Let's launch the program and then we'll circle back if you guys have that. Well it's about when we launch the program. So could you just I know I heard it from my colleagues. I just want to see is it like's too much to even do employees alone or? I mean we have to hire an employee just yet so we'll give you. Okay, you don't have the staff to do this. Okay, that's what I want to understand. Is it a resource limiting factor? Yep. And in some places HR is involved as an employee benefit, but this is going to be all done by DHCD and you have to do our code updates. So CC and HR, both from retention recruitment and marketing standpoint, they'll be involved, but HCE is going to be the lead department. Okay, that's helpful to know. And then I'm not sure we have clarity on loan versus grants for parts of it. I thought we did. Just to clarify, are you guys okay with the split on loans and grants? I heard some people say I prefer there's a payback. I just wanted to just get a sense of the body. Councilman Greg. I would just go to, just as you said, the extent that there can be a preference towards the loan given our physical responsibility that be preference, but obviously the ideal to staff if you think it's necessary otherwise, but I agree with what the mayor talked about with fiscal responsibility. Thank you, Council Mochelle. I would just like to hear from staff and also think about being this being based on the need. And so yeah, I would just like to hear back from staff and just really quick. So I just wanted to confirm again. So if we, in it sounds like we're increasing the AMI, so for this specific program, I understand we can layer on, but for this specific program, it's, it drops from 15, right? Very likely. Very likely. So do you have like a. Well, that depends if you're doing a 10% or you're doing a 25,000. I mean, that's the tool that we talked about, right? OK, whenever you come back with more information, could you just include that number, like an estimate number? Absolutely. Thank you. And then just one of the comment, if we do go with the grant, there's also the question of, are we doing two per year, or it could be 20,000 a year, it could be 150,000 a year. We don't know, right? If 15 people come and say, I want to do all first time buyer. So. Well, no, that couldn't happen, right? So there's still only so much funding we're going to put into this program. So whether we cap it at $25,000 per loan, once we hit our budget number, we're out of money for the program. We can either look to the off and potentially do a budget amendment at another time of the year, or we just close it and wait to the next fiscal year, and so folks can be prepared. Or if it's a fluctuating number based on your income and your actual purchase capacity, we can fix that. And so it floats a little bit, but the same thing is once we hit our budget number, the- And this is just for the grant portions, what I'm talking about. No, this is the loan. I'm talking about just for'm sorry, no, the grant. The grant portion would be based on eligible applicants. Right. So it could be 20,000 a year if there's two people or 150,000 if there's 15. With current budget constraints, we won't be able to serve 15 people so it won't be 150,000. Okay. Right. limiting factor at this point is if yes, if 100% of the people who apply are also first-time, first-generation home buyers, then it would equate to 100% of people, right? And so say we had lower down payment assistance amounts and we were only able to help seven people that we would then spend 70,000 extra in that grant component layered on top of the significant down payment assistance support that we would be providing in that scenario. Okay, I'm just saying if for some reason we go with the grant program maybe there is a we put a budget for that so that it's it's it's defined. It's not just we don't know what it's going to be. Is it 20,000 or 50,000, whatever that is, but it's come it's defined so we know what our budget is and we know that we can support. Excellent people to the grant through the the. For that no interest loan program. We can get some more people that way. Councilmember Jackson. Thank you, Mayor. So refresh my memory. What is the total budget dollar figure that we're talking about using for the program? Six and a half. I think so. I have an estimated program budget of about six hundred and twenty six thousand dollars. Now, does that include the three hundred and fifty thousand dollars that is sitting there in the Signe Springs and first national bank accounts? We are hoping. So it does include it already. Yes, so currently as, yes, my current funds that I would like to use for this is the 250,000 that we have set aside for the employee program and then approximately So a little less it's less than 350,000 because there's some current outstanding loans at HCI already has but yes, yeah, then approximately The funding that they have remaining would then be ported to this program to help us get it off the ground And then we would have additional support from the off so you were you were were thinking and I don't know so I mean I guess you're right that there'd be no problem getting that money back or using it for this program no hurdles no red tape I mean nothing like that so the 650 is firm rather than just a hope. I don't want to pretend that there's no hurdles in red tape with trying to get this funding back. And not that they're being elusive in any way. They are, they would like to transfer the program to us. We want the program. We are working out the details on how to get that to us. So you feel comfortable that by October, that it would be worked out and that we will have access to the full 650 that we're talking about. I do. Okay. Council Member Larry. I think it hit me on the grants versus loan aspect discussion. Possibly we could consider it using the way that tuition assistance is determined. Some people are ineligible for Pell Grant, so you're taking out more loans. It's based on household income. So there's that that we could do. But something that the mayor said in particular struck me and that is we might not be the right entity to do the layering, but we could help people to layer. So we won, we won't necessarily have enough money so that somebody could layer from within the city's resources. But you could have access to one of the city resources and then maybe a navigator to say you are also eligible for this, this and this from the state and from the county. That that would then make up for it because then it would, it would be easier to pledge it as well, right? Yeah, it relatively easier to do that. But I would, I would, I would definitely support that and, um, I think it's more realistic, um, given kind of, uh, you know, our, our fiscal constraints here. And again, like I just wrote that out there for consideration that loan versus grant might be in conjunction with, you know, accessing one of these assistance programs. And then it could be an income based decision. Where you want this topic? So we're at the point where the only place where there would possibly be a grant is for the first generation home buyer. And we all agree I think it's hard to get there but I think we really there's a limit like there what there is a budget for the amount of grants we can give in a given year. If that's the case, I'm fine with grants there. Anyone else have any other comments? I think we are in good shape. Thank you for launching this program. I know our employees are waiting. So thank you for expediting, and I'm sure there'll be a lot of communications going out to get them ready. I'm sure there's a list already waiting to be filled. Thank you very much. All right. We're now moving on to Mak agenda. I think we had a chance to look at this today. Anyone else have comments? I know for six months you're just mapping out some of the matters we talked about adding and you'll get back to us on that. Old new business. I have one item. We passed the Rockville Town Center master plan. I just wanted to see, I know, Reddy has reached out to the small business property owners. I also thought, not small business, the property owners in Town Center. I also wanted to think about the nonprofit partners. So, Minority MHP, who owns Bill Grant, and HOC, Housing Opportunities Commission, owns 90-month row. 90-month row is currently used as storage for some of their maintenance, but it once was a 100% affordable housing complex. So I just wanted to suggest that perhaps the city could send a letter to both MHP and HOC, notifying them of what's possible through our Rockfoot Town Center master plan, because I know some people had different thoughts on what was allowable, as well as encouraging them to support affordable housing, to move forward on some things to add more affordable housing. So I just wanted to see if that notification can come from the city. Have you, Jeff, do you know if the city has done that yet? Okay. Okay. Colleagues, would you support sending a letter to MHP and HOC to that effect? Okay. So can we make a motion? Councilmember Vellieri. I got it, I got it, Mayor. Are you sure? Are you hurt? All right, so I have a question. Will you be capturing this in a minute so we don't have a motion? You will capture it. Okay. Sometimes motions are only captured. All right. Thank you very much. Anything else? Do we want to have a motion to adjourn? Who's ready? Councillor Bervillari. I'm ready. Madam Mayor, it's like to make the motion to adjourn. Who seconds? Councillor Jackson seconds. All those in favor please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. Excellent. We are just just under 10 minutes over. Thank you very much for watching, everyone.