Welcome everyone. We have a special guest here today our new mini mayor and you're gonna learn a little bit more about her but her name is Mayor Duminie Metta and she's gonna open our meeting Good evening Rockville today is May 19th 2025 and we will Conveille mayor and council meeting number 14 to 25 Please join me as you are able in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands when nation under God is visible with liberty and justice for us. Thank you, Mayor Metta. I appreciate you opening the meeting. I just wanted to share a few words about Demini and how she came to be. So at least in terms of this many mayor role. So the Maryland Municipal League has an event called if I were mayor and thousands of students all across the state of Maryland participate. And we had several hundred here in the city of Rockville. And Dominie's essay stood out among all of those applications. And so I wanted to acknowledge her. She is selected. She's going to be participating and supporting a day with us here on Thursday. She's leading, helping us lead the meeting today. And I can say that she's got a lot of friends here as well. I want to acknowledge her family first on Iraq and Kathy Dumini at Mehta, sorry. And then we have her principal here, Ivansanya from College Garden Elementary School, very, very proud, and some of your friends, right? So I wanna welcome all of you to the City of Rockville's Mayor and Council Meeting. And I would just note that she was charged with writing an essay about building community for a new generation. And she had a chance to share all of her ideas. I had a chance to go visit her school. The competition was quite stiff. There are a lot of great ideas among our community. So I just want to say thank you to everyone who participated in If I Were Mayor Contest. And we're going to have her read her essay before us so that you can all hear it too. If I was mayor, I would make my city rock fill a better place for the future by doing many things. I want to solve as many problems as I possibly can. One of those problems is I want to try to stop pollution. Pollution is still a big problem in Rockville. Part of stopping pollution is adding more trash cans to our parks. I also want to increase the security in our neighborhoods. Part of that would be to hire more police officers. We can never have enough. We only have about 67 we can can, we can, we also need to have friendships like how other humans need other humans. Rockfills should partner with other businesses that might solve another big issue unemployment, which might solve another big issue homelessness. I would also like to create a better education system and how does that help happen? Give teachers more money in housing. Also give schools more money. That way they can buy better lunches and school supplies. That is what I would do if I was mayor of Rockville to make it better for the future. If I was mayor, I would make sure people felt like the community by having public park trash pickups, I would also feel more community dog parks because people need to go outside more often. Also, there are several people in Rockville that own dogs. I would also like to honor seniors because they are important to our community. I also know that a lot of people feel scared right now so I would like to do a few things. One of those things is that I would like to give public speeches to re-insure safety, to help with that I would like to have public events. I also would like to go door to door asking people what they think needs to change. I also know that bullying is a huge issue right now, and even at our school, there's a lot of bullies. Some kids even come at suicide because of bullying. And because of that, I want to stop bullying at least in Rockville as soon as possible. I also know that many people don't have enough food or water right now. So another thing that I would do, if I was mayor, is that I would make sure everyone had enough food and water. I also know that some parents don't have enough money to buy their kids Christmas presents. So I would make sure that there was a toy drive every single year for those kids. The last thing I would do if I was mayor is to make sure that kids had access to sports and summer programs. Now that's what I would do if I was mayor of the community. Excellent. Welcome. Welcome. Thank you. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. May a matter you have a long list and we love it. So I just wanted to bestow upon you a certificate of recognition on your role as the winner of the If Our Mayor Contest. Here you go. Thank you. And I'd like to invite her parents, her friends, her principal. Please come up. Paul. Come this way. I'm sorry. Thank you so much. I'm going to put it on. So, I'll do the rest of it. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. City Clerk, my Sarah Della Brown. Okay. City Clerk. City Clerk. City Clerk. I'm going to go to the meeting. I'm going to go to the meeting. I'm going to go to the meeting. I'm going to go to the meeting. I'm going to go to the meeting. I'm going to go to the meeting. I'm going to go to the meeting. I'm going to go to the meeting. I'm going to go to the meeting. I'm going to go to the meeting. I'm going to go to are new changes to the agenda this evening. However, there were several revisions with updates to attachments and all which have been reflected on our online agenda and on our agenda for the public as well for viewing. Thank you. Thank you. Next week on the same. Mr. City Manager. You're going to Jeff Mehlick. Mr. City Manager. Mr. Jeff Mehlick for the. Please proceed with the City Manager's report. Please proceed with the City Manager's report. Good evening. Mayors, plural. Okay. City Council members, just a quick up, couple quick updates. We continue to work on a number of park and recreation improvements, both to the swim center and Bullard Park. Hopefully it stays dry for just a few days. We can get some of that work done. We're also preparing for a number of really big events in the city, including Memorial Day, hometown holidays, and Rockville Pride. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Can you ask your colleagues if you have any questions? So, colleagues, do you have any questions? Colleagues, do you have any questions? Yeah, please, Council Member Valerie, please proceed. Council Member Valerie, please proceed. Thank you, Madam Minimair. I don't have a question, but I had to give a shout out this last weekend to an unsung event. It was the first time that the state's attorney's office, the Public Defenders Office, Maryland Legal Aid, and Mount Calvary, pulled together an Expungement Clinic. They're way too modest about how phenomenal this was. So I just want to give a shout out to all the volunteers and all the communities that came together to make that happen. Thank you. Council Member Shaw, please proceed. Council Member Shaw, please proceed. I also attended that event and I also want to associate myself with Council Member Valeris, comments and also share that Howard University Law School was also there. Thank you. I have council member Jackson. Council member Jackson. Thank you, Madam Mayors. Okay. No, so on Saturday, since we're giving credit, I attended as well as several colleagues. The terrific bike program, it was a giveaway, and it was sponsored by RIFA Bike Hub, as well as the city, and it was at Right K Park, and they gave away 80 bikes, but the mini-mayer was a recipient of one of the bikes and that was because they gave them out based on the character. They had to fill out an application and say why, what they had done over the past year to be considered for a bike. And I am really thrilled about this partnership and the fact that it's going on for almost 10 years. And it's a really great bike program and I'm really proud to be associated with it. Thank you. Do you want to show what you did to her in the bike? I picked up trash and at the school sometimes and also I was kind to people. That's good. It's very good. Yeah. You two can be a terrific kid. We have many terrific kids here, but if you want to be a part of the bike program, we do it every year. We do free bike giveaways as well as helmets. And I want to thank the Rockville bike hub who really leads that effort and collaboration with the city. And congratulations on being a double winner. Okay. I'll just also acknowledge the NWCP celebrated at 50th anniversary. It's a big milestone for them. And thank you to Mount Cavrey and all the collaborators on the Expungement Clinic. It's the first one in the area. And I think this is also going to be a future effort on Job support and entrepreneurship coming up as well. I want to acknowledge our staff and creating the nonprofit roundtable that's coming up. So if you are a nonprofit, and interested, that will be Thursday, 8 or 8.38 o'clock. And on that very day as well, we have our big trucks. So students are welcome to come over to our park, Maddie's Stepanick Park, and we'll have all of our trucks you can get on them, pretend to drive them, and ask lots of questions. So please come out to that as well. Okay. Well, I want to thank you for helping us to open our meeting. Thank you for submitting and being very thoughtful from mental health to pollution, to helping people in need. So we love the way you're thinking and we appreciate all the students who came out today. And I'm principal and parents are very very proud so thank you for joining us today we'll see you on Thursday. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to take care of it. Thank you. Thank you to all our staff in the city clerk's office for helping on that schools all across Rockville And it's really nice to see our young people being creative and so supportive and the future is bright with them We're now moving on to our next agenda item which will be boards and commissions appointments and reappointments We have several nominations for the Education Commission one to see if someone would be willing to make the motions and I know Dr. Miles you are the liaison for the Education Commission, one to see if someone would be willing to make the motions. And I know Dr. Miles, you are the liaison for the Education Commission. Would you like to get us started? Sure, Madam Mayor, let me bring them up. My numbers are off from when I read the agenda book on Tuesday. Let me go back. Excellent. And just a quick tip while you pull that up, they're all ending in 2027, May 1, 2027. Perfect. Alrighty. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I would, I guess I'll take them independently. Is that fair or? You can do the all three. Okay. Madam Mayor, I'd like to nominate Nicole Stone to a new appointment. It's her full two year term until May 1st, 2027 as a local parent guardian leader of a private school representative. Also, Chante's all apologized from Ms. Pignotri Neh-am, to a new appointment to serve a full two-year term until May 1st, 2027 as a Rothville parent, Cariann leader of the School of Representatives. And Tanya Aguilar, as a new appointment, served full two-year term until May first 2027 as a Rockville parent guardian leader of public school representative. Do we have a second? Councilor Jackson seconds, all those in favor, please raise your hand and say hi. Hi. All right, thank you very one, and thank you to our volunteers. We're now moving on to community form. This is a time to listen to our community for you to share your ideas, concerns, and suggestions. Please address the mayor and council on the civil and courteous manner and be respectful of your fellow audience members. Each person is allowed at three minutes. There is a stop clock up front that you can see and you will hear an audible beep at the end of your time. We will proceed with those who have signed up in advance and then we'll ask if anyone else would like to speak. Welcome Daniel Sharap. Thank you, Marrach and Council Member Jackson to those that I have had the pleasure of meeting and everybody else in attendance. Just wanted to make you guys aware that May is mental health awareness month. I'm a socialized survivor. We're here with my friend Matthew Buyers to take his life for the 22nd. One month to get one month to this day my next door neighbor did it happens every 12 minutes. The irony about that I believe that article should be challenged when I become the mayor not what if because Daniel Sherali airman, Airman First Class and the Seoul Air Patrol flying airplanes before I could drive, published in the New York Times at the age of 16, acted alongside Ben Affleck and state of play at the age of 20. The next 10 years were filled with a lot of mistakes. Let me start by saying pencils have a resource for reasons you will make mistakes in life. Show me one hero who is not that failed. Thomas Edison stated that I did not fail a thousand times, just rather a thousand ways I wouldn't work. I then started several small businesses corresponding with so a different form of form of presence. This is all thank you to my mother and father. I failed again, attempting to take my own life. God would not allow me. Matthew lost his battle. My friend lost his battle. It happens every 12 minutes. To the kids that were in attendance, don't say you can't do something, say I haven't done it yet. And parents, please understand that social media is a tool, just as powerful as those firearms that are law enforcement are carrying that my military brother Daniel served as a corpsman with. And to the attorneys, I would really like some help with those expungement services. Just the irony, I do not believe in coincidences myself. I do not. Marrasschen, you have inspired, you've re-instilled my faith in not only the criminal justice system, because I'm going to tell you, there are a lot of things broken about, there's nothing correct about the Department of Corrections in my opinion. There's not There is not isolation, which I have spent time in. What do you expect if you put an angry human, let alone a tiger in a box? Things need to change. Things need to change to those parents out there. Please educate your kids on how powerful social media is. It's, it's, I can't begin to, if you would like to follow my social media, please see the content. I'm using it to create content. I was grieving. That's the only reason that I'm not in tears. I'm in smiles right now. My face was destroyed in an accident in 2018, while celebrating with the capitals due to somebody on alcohol. But I thought I could never smile again, but I'm smiling. My doctor tells me, it stops my mind. So again, anything. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a doctor. I hated them, hated them. If I wasn't taking classes at NIST, I was taking art lessons by the age of nine. So again, thank you, Mayor Ashton, Council Member Jackson, I've had the form of pleasure of meeting the entire council on this severe rock. Thank you so much for sharing this story. Absolutely. Welcome, Kevin Goldberg. I'm going to withdraw my comments. Okay. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? Okay. All right. Well, thank you. We will now move on to our special presentation, Board of Appeals Annual Report. Welcome, Alan Franco, chair of the Rockfoot Board of Appeals, and welcome Jim Wasselick. Good evening, Madam Mayor. Members of the Council, it's always a pleasure to appear. Before all of you, it's been a while since I've been here. Before I start the formal presentation, I just wanted to say a few words about the board of appeals for those who don't know what it is. We'll get into its responsibilities in a minute. The board of appeals is a state mandated body that is required for every jurisdiction that has zoning authority, such as the city of Rockville. And as a result of that, the board of appeals is imbued with certain powers and responsibilities. And here in Rockville, we're very fortunate. We have three dedicated members. We're still waiting for our alternate. We have incredible staff in Jim Waslik in his office. And we have an amazing attorney in Nick Dumay. So with no further ado, we'll begin the Board of Appeals 2000-24 annual report. The responsibility of the Board of Appeals is basically to review and act on applications for special exceptions and zoning variances. And that's a nice legal ease way of saying applications for a change in a use of property and special exceptions only run to the current holder owner of the property and zoning variances, which is a change to the way in which the property can be used. It is not a change to the zoning itself, but is a change to the manner in which someone can do something on their property that is not in complete compliance with the zoning ordinance. Most of the time, we see these as setback changes. We review and act on appeals from administrative decisions per the zoning ordinance. I don't think we've had an appeal since I've been on the board. And all appeals from administrative decisions are denovo, meaning regardless of what's gone one before, we get to hear it all new and all over again, and are considered by the board, as I said in accordance with state law. In 2024, we had a pretty quiet year. We had two zoning variances, which were reviewed and approved. And one zoning variance application was reviewed and continued by the board at the request of the applicant. But later the applicant decided to withdraw their appeal, their application. And we had one special exception application, a major modification to an approved special exception was reviewed and approved. And that had to do with these swimming facility in Woodley Gardens, which was a really big deal. It made me very happy to be able to do that for them. Now we look at 2025, our goals and objectives. To consider our requests objectively, fairly and based upon the information and evidence presented and or available, we don't look to things outside of what is presented to us at a hearing. We allow applicants to present application requests fully and completely. And we're really good about this because we let people say pretty much what they want to say. We provide maximum opportunities for the public to participate in and testify at board proceedings. Our meetings are on the agenda, the city's agenda page, and members of the public are always welcome to participate whether coming here to the Mayor and Council's chambers or by WebEx. And we ensure that all actions on an application are based upon the required findings and made in a timely manner. The law lays out for us what we need to have proven to us for either a special exception or a variance. Is there anything else that we don't? The one thing I do want to say is I'm sorry that the mini mayor isn't here, because she was sitting mayor Ashton in your chair, and that's where I sit when I run the board of appeals. And there is something very powerful that comes with that chair. So with that, I thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to appear before you this evening. And hopefully we'll see you at hometown holidays. Thank you. Thank you. On behalf of the council, I just want to say thank you to the Board of Appeals for all of your work. You're an important quasi-digital body that makes important decisions. And I will share just one thing I had a chance to hear from Mr. Franco while we were doing reappointments is that there have been less appeals because we have been improving our code in our zoning. Yes. I just want to say. The changes to the zoning code. You go on the mic please. Thank you. The changes to the zoning code, specifically with respect to special exceptions, where we used to do a lot of accessory of apartments. I no longer required to come before us. So, we don't do a lot of that. We still see a lot of variances and we look forward to sing more in the future because I really enjoy serving the city as the chair of the Board of Appeals. Thank you so much. Thank you. Mr. Wasleich, are you good? Do you have anything else you would like to say? I think the chair said it all. All right, thank you. And please thank the rest of the board as well. We now have our Consent Agenda Item 9A. There are several items for review and consideration. 9A is authorization for the City Manager to execute a cost sharing agreement with m.sha for the final design of the Hurley Bridge Replacement Project. We have 9B, authorize the City Manager to sign the administrative order on consent for the cross-connection control program with the US Environments of Protection Agency. 9C, approval of year 50 FY25, Community Development Block Grants, which is a subcontract agreements and authorization for the city manager to assign those agreements. D, we have approval of minutes, and lastly, nine E, authorize the city manager to execute a grant agreement with the Maryland Energy Administration for the FY 2025, medium duty and heavy duty zero emission vehicle grant for the purchase of two Electric senior transit buses. I said that with full excitement. So Does anyone have any to pull? I'll have one comment that I'll make but I'm okay to take them all together All right, do we have a motion to approve Councilor Jackson I move to approve. Consent item A, B, C, D, and E as presented. Thank you very much. Do we have a second? All right. Councillor Embershaugh seconds. Just one comment I wanted to make in the community development block grants. There was one note where one grantee was not able to partake in this grant because not a full amount was funded. So I think they got about 20% of what they requested and so they're not able to move forward with the project. But it's my understanding, Mr. Cedeman, to that money will be reallocated to other grantees and potentially other projects. That's correct. Okay, all right. I just wanted to make sure that was transparent. With that said, let's vote all in favor. Please raise your hand and say aye. Aye. All right. Thank you. Dr. Maz, I didn't miss a hand from you. Right? Just checking. Perfect. There we go. Now I'll be moving on to a project plan briefing. I'm looking for my number here. Item 11. Briefing on Project Plan Amendment, PJT 2025, 00230023, to amend the Plan Development for Rockville Center Inc. to permit construction of a 12-story multifamily building containing 147 affordable housing units and a parking waiver to provide zero on-site parking spaces located at 41 Maryland Avenue in the the PVRCI, ZONE, SEG, development holdings, CompStack 41 Maryland LLC, and CompStack 41 Maryland LLC in the PV RCI, Zone SCG Development Holdings, CompStack 41 Maryland LLC, and CompStack 41 Maryland LLC applicants. Welcome, Christopher Davis. I know that you'll have Ricky Barker, John Foreman, join the US panelists, and we have the applicant here as well. Yes, that's correct. Good evening, Madam Mayor and members of the council. I'm a Davis again with Community Planning and Development Services Department As Madam Mayor mentioned this is a project plan amendment briefing PJT 2025 0 0 2 3 And this is for the momentum at Rockville station project located at 41 Maryland Avenue. So to recall the purpose of this briefing is to introduce this particular project to the Marion Council and provide an opportunity for preliminary feedback and to ask the applicant questions. lined and read on the screen is the subject property. It's 41 Maryland Avenue. It's located in the planning area one which corresponds to the town center. As you can see from the screen, the property is developed with a surface parking lot, which the applicant proposes into a new development. located at the southwest corner of East Middle Lane and Maryland Avenue, and it is located in the plan development Rockville Center plan development zone. The specific proposal by the applicant is a new development, including a 12-story multifamily building that will house 147 affordable housing units. The proposed site plan is shown here on the screen. As you can see, the new building will encompass most of the property with open areas occurring to the west and to the south of the property. In addition to the proposal, there is a request by the applicant for a parking waiver to reduce the required parking spaces on site to zero. To fulfill this request, the applicant proposes to amend the plan development for these changes and use and site standards. In addition to their proposal, the applicant also requests a replacement of certain MPDU units at the confronting property at 44 Maryland Avenue to be included at a higher rate with this proposal. So to outline the review process to this point, the applicant has fulfilled their pre-application area of requirements, including an area meeting, which was completed on January 21st, 2025. The applicant is now in their project planned amendment stage, which includes the fulfillment of their post application area meeting, which was held back in April. and also a planning commission briefing which was completed last week on May 14th. The applicant also has an applicant DRC meeting scheduled for next week May 29th. So to conclude, the next steps for the project include receiving feedback from the Mayor and Council at this evening's meeting and finalizing review to include comments received by the public and by staff. The project will then return back to the planning commission for their formal recommendation and then proceed back to you with the mayor and council for both the public hearing and possible adoption. taken on this application, the Planning Commission will then be able to consider a review of a site application for this project. And with that, Madam Mayor, that concludes staff's presentation. The applicant does have a presentation to follow. Thank you, welcome. Madam Mayor and council members, like to thank you for this opportunity to present our proposed redevelopment of 41 Maryland Avenue. I'm Kirk Salpini, Director of Construction for Stratford Capital Group Development. Co-developer of 41 Maryland Avenue with Comstock companies. Next slide please. SCG is focused on providing high quality, affordable and workforce rental residences that strengthen our communities. All our projects include 100% affordable rental housing. SCG and its partners have developed and continue to operate more than 60 properties in 12 states. Locally, SEG is completed 1,250 units in the DMV within the past seven years, including four Maryland projects with more than 450 units shown here, which you're welcome to visit. Next slide, please. When the PDP was originally approved in 1994, this site was approved for a minimum of 117 dwelling units with a height of 100 feet over 448 foot elevation. This application proposes four amendments for mayor and council approval to facilitate construction of this 100% affordable housing community and town center. The first is to increase to 147 dwelling units. Second to increase in allowable height by by 20 feet to 120 feet over the 448 foot elevation. Third, zero required parking and last modification of the MPDU covenant at Boulevard 44. A few comments about these requests. The 147 affordable units create a mixed income community with low, moderate and workforce housing units in one, two, and three bedroom unit sizes, affordable for a mix of resident households at a variety of income levels from 50 to 80% of area median income. This is approximately 90 more affordable units beyond what a market rate project would deliver with the required 15% MPD use as originally envisioned for this site in 1994. The increased height requested gives the project flexibility to choose the most affordable building system, concrete or steel that have different floor-to-floor heights. As recognizing the Town Center Master Plan, recommendations for this site structured parking would be an unreasonable obstacle for development of affordable housing due to site size and cost. Instead, the project will leverage underutilized parking in town center, already existing within the 3,400 parking spaces, located within two blocks of 41 Maryland Avenue, as analyzed in the parking memo prepared by our transportation engineer. the modification to the Bill of Art 44 MPD use will create extended MPDU affordability for the transferred MPD use. The 40 MPD use proposed to be transferred have a 30-year term that started when the building opened in 2015 and expire in 20 years. The MPD use transferred from Boulevard 44 will be subject to a 99 year covenant adding approximately 83 years beyond the current MPDU covenant. The project advances development of an underutilized urban infill site for affordable housing through a joint venture with Comstock, the property owner. Next slide, please. The site is currently being used as a surface parking lot that directly abuts the Victoria condominium to the west. SCG strives to build efficiently. At 82 feet wide, 41 Maryland Avenue site geometry presents an unreasonable obstacle to constructing structured parking, either above or below grade. Once circulation ramps and drive aisles are considered, you'll be unable to fit double loaded parking bays driving down efficiency and up costs. 41 Maryland Avenue enjoys a abundant nearby public structured parking available for least a third parties and ease of access to local and regional employment centers. For residents without a car, they will enjoy county bus service that will be enhanced by bus rapid transit. Nearby Metro, rail access, and a walkscore of 93 to goods and services. In essence, the city of Rockville has thoughtfully invested in town center. And the applicant believes we can leverage these investments to create a desirable and affordable housing project, particularly attractive to households who want a walkable, transit rich home where the cost of owning a car is not a necessity. Next slide please. The first floor plan reflects a sloping site affording a one and a half story lobby, club room and leasing area at grade and a half level rise to residential units and additional amenity spaces, including mail room, package storage, fitness and bike storage. Despite the limited site dimension, the proposed massing retains 27% open area, which is above the 15% code requirement. In response to comments we heard from the community, we added a pickup and drop-off space to allow residents convenient access to ride sharing and delivery services. We also added an ADA parking space on Maryland Avenue with accessible path of travel directly onto the sidewalk that can accommodate wheelchairs or other mobility devices. This will expand the number of handicapped spaces proximate to the project along Maryland Avenue and its intersection with East Montgomery Avenue from four to five. Next slide, please. The Level 2 plan shows the proposed setback of 41 Maryland Avenue from the property line and its relationship to the Victoria Condominium building as well as the condominium's vehicular drop-off in courtyard area. The second level of the proposed building includes residential units. Proposed second floor units next to the Victoria Gourage Wall, enjoy an outdoor terrace. The proposed terrace is about 12 feet below the Victoria Garage roof and the first level of Victoria residential units. Next slide please. After having a separate community meeting with and hearing concerns of Victoria condominium residents, the applicant remove the balcony locations that directly confronted windows on the end of the existing condominium building. Next slide, please. To wrap up, we'd quickly like to give you a look at the preliminary perspectives of the building. The proposed building is envisioned to include brick, cementitious panels, and prefabricated balconies. Since SCG is both developer and also owner and operator of affordable housing, we build for quality, long life, and low maintenance of the building. Next slide,. At street level, the building lobby and amenity spaces activate the surroundings with full height glass and metal panels engaging passers-by and generating interest. Next slide please. Our vision includes several residential units along Maryland Ave with loading and servicing at the southern end of the proposed building. Next slide please. The scale of 41 Maryland Avenue building is clearly contextual in comparison to the neighboring buildings as shown in the slide. The buildings a few feet higher than the 12th-story Victoria condominium and parking garage to the west, and well below 44 Maryland Avenue, which rises 15 stories to the east. While further east, the Boulevard Ansel tops out at 18 stories. The Circuit Court and District Court Building, the Executive Office Building, and 51 Monroe Street represent other high-rise buildings in the neighborhood. 41 Maryland Avenue has been thoughtfully designed to be attractive to future residents, aesthetically appealing, competitively immunitized, and contextually scaled to the neighborhood. SCG looks forward to working with the mayor and council to amend certain key components of the PDP to facilitate the delivery of 147 affordable units for low, moderate, and workforce households in town center. Thank you with the community. We have a lot of things to do with the community. We have a lot of things to do with the community. We have a lot of things to do with the community. We have a lot of things to do with the community. We have a lot of things to do with the community. We have a focusing on trying to bring more housing to the city and to think about different levels of income so that we can welcome more neighbors. I had a couple of quick questions and then I'll turn to my colleagues. In terms of the amenities that you have, I first of all, I love the balconies. I think that gives folks some nice fresh air opportunities. We learn how important that was during COVID for some of the multi-family dwellers. So it's really nice to see in affordable housing complex include that type of amenity. I did want to note about how well this building interact with the other Comstock properties. example, there are beautiful amenities right across the street, there's parking across the street. How do you envision residents of this building will have access to that? I think right now we envision that this building stands on its own. It offers the amenities that are necessary. We feel like are competitive. And to the extent we have adjacency with the Comstock building across the street and nearby. They may be parking opportunities in those buildings if there's underutilized or available parking spaces. But there's no intent to share amenities if that's maybe where you're headed. OK. And can you just describe the amenities that are going to be available in this building? Sure. We're going to have a mail room. We're going to have package storage. We're going to have bike storage of fitness area. Then there'll be a club room and obviously leasing office. Okay. Thank you. And Will they be offered parking at the same rate? The parking thing we did in Rockville Townsend and master plan the record, I also represent Comstock 44, which owns the Boulevard 44. It is their intent at this time since their own parking garage is as a functional matter underutilized. And so they have surplus parking. So they are very comfortable that they'll be able to lease to the any residents in 41 Maryland. Overnight parking, especially for handicap, they have 10 parking, handicap parking spaces that are underutilized there. And so they assume that they'll be able to lease for anyone who wants to have a car at 41 Maryland. And in addition, our transportation study on parking actually shows all of the parking spaces that are available within town center within two blocks, what their rates are, and whether they provide just hourly or hourly and monthly leasing. Thank you. You said at this time, is that going to be put in writing? Was it just going to be sort of a understanding? So we're not proposing to put any parking covenant on boulevard 44, but Comstock is going to remain as a joint venture partner in 41 Maryland. So it's going to be in in their interest to participate and cooperate. And for clarity, just the parking rate would be extended to them at the same level. I will ask that question specifically, but I don't know that there would be any difference. Thank you. That's very helpful. And then the question for me on the MPDU move, so you're looking to move, I think I read about 40 units from one of the buildings to this. Why not just build additional units because you're gonna build a 140 anyway? What is the rationale for moving those MPDUs? And I say that with, I greatly appreciate the idea that we're extending the 99, you know, to 99. That's, that's at least great. That's one good argument. But you could still have the same height allowance and, and still accomplish those additional fortables at 99 plus the original at the Comstock Building. And why I say that is the City of Rockville tries not to segregate part of the MPDU program is to create more units but also to integrate them economically. So I just wanted to understand more about the thinking on that and why it's necessary. So in fact, what is proposed here is that there are an existing 40 MPDU units in Boulevard 44. And what is proposed is that 46 units would be added to the 101 that SEG originally proposed for this site to get to 147. So there would be not 40 MPDUs, but 46 MPDUs that would be added to this 41 Maryland Avenue. Comstock will be a joint venture partner and part of the way that you design an affordable housing project. One is land value and then equities, oftentimes from low income housing tax credits and then debt service and then any other gap financing, etc. So land value is very important and Comstock has the ability and originally bought this property thinking that they would keep it in the pipeline for a future market rate unit, you know, development. Like whenever it came to make sense to do. But this opportunity came to do an affordable housing project and the way that they can justify it basically participating in this one way is to basically move what is a very small number of MPD units with you know only 20 years left and move it into their new project. Those units will be brand new instead of being 14 or 15 years old and by the time this project opens and we'll have an extended MPDs. And so between sister comp stock entities, it makes a lot of sense. And so it's part of the way that they can make this affordable housing project work. So, thank you. It takes a village, believe me. Understood, understood. Finance finance these things. Understood. I have other questions, but I want to hear from my colleagues, Councilmember Van Grack and then Councilmember Shaw. Thank you. I truly want to commend the applicant here. This is an extremely difficult site to actually put something together and to put something together and also deal with both affordable housing and being able to put the amenities in that you're looking to in the first floor is truly something to be committed. I truly think this is it looks to meet with the character as you said, which is what we're looking for downtown. It addresses a unique gap in our town center and an area that we were focusing on in the town center master plan that we just plan put together. I think that the specific waivers that you're looking for, the height waiver, the parking waiver, the MPDU switches are all reasonable and I think it's reasonable not only for the reasons you're asking, but for the affordability for what Comstock put together in a need for what the city was looking for to put in town center. So I know there's going to be more details down the road for less. This is just the introduction. But I'm basically just saying I really appreciate the detail and the thought that went into this joint venture. And I really appreciate the detail-oriented nature of putting together something that goes together with our town center master plan that we put together as well as our goals of affordable housing. So I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Shaw. I wanted to echo my colleagues and also thank you for the really great presentation. I do have a few questions. If you could confirm the affordability, I know you mentioned affordability and workforce housing, which are different income levels. Can you clarify is the affordability just at the MPDU level or is it higher at workforce? So we typically in building affordable housing, we typically are focused on percentage of AMI. And we try and target somewhere between 50 and 80% AMI. And most of our units fall somewhere between 50 and 70% typically. One of the things I was thinking about, I think I saw this somewhere for a public comment that this would be housing available for teachers. And I know that 80% AMI is a little bit lower than the average teacher's salary. So that's good to know to have that information. Could you share what the bedroom mix would be for most of the units? So it is studios, one bedroom, two bedroom, and three bedrooms, to give you an idea, 15% of those units are 22 of them are three bedroom, and 15% of them are 2 bedroom, 47% are 1 bedroom, and then 15% is the balance is the studios. So there's as many studios and 3 bedrooms and 2 bedrooms. So it's a mix of households and household sizes that could live in this project. And of course, you know that you're very familiar with affordable housing that those AMIs on a household level also range. When you do 50 to 80%, it gives you a nice range to allow you to get from someone who's below moderate income housing to workforce housing. You know, gives you a nice broad range of people with household incomes. My other question was, so as I understand, we are, you're proposing to relocate 40 family family units from Boulevard 44 to 41 are are they going to receive the same size bedrooms. We believe that the unit in 41 Maryland Avenue will be equal to if not larger actually than what are at 44. Correct. And so yeah, whatever household, whatever unit size they would qualify for, which they would have had to qualify in Boulevard 44, they would have the ability to choose and and our guess is, you know, without knowing the specifics right now that they would probably have first choice in this new project, and that they would be relocated, you know, over time as any existing MPDU unit households in Boulevard 44 ended or decided to move, they would rotate and move into 41 Maryland. So it would be on a rolling basis in terms of probably a lot of choice to existing MPDU households in 44 would be able to have a choice of whether they moved in immediately or they finished out their current term. Okay, so we're not planning to just shift everyone over. And there'll be a lot of notice because we're anticipating that construction is probably not done until 29. So we have quite a few years here until the units will be open in 41 Maryland. And I just a question on the approach. I know there's several different approaches to affordable housing and Montgomery County is known for inclusive zoning and having mixed income within the building, I know you mentioned a mixed community, but it sounds like the residents will not be able to share amenities. And I know that personally that the different of Comstock properties do not share amenities. And I, one of the benefits of mixed income is that particularly lower income or moderate income folks can expand their social network. There's a lot of health benefits, education benefits, social mobility benefits. So I was curious on why 100% affordable housing. So all our communities are 100% affordable. We're doing so for low income housing tax credit financing purposes. What we found actually is rather surprising, which is that we typically have very inconsistent utilization of amenities in our buildings. Certain amenities get used more lovingly in certain locations than they do in others. It's very hard to predict how to amend a given building, but we've got a fairly standard formula that we feel is responsive to the market and provides necessary amenities. And what I would say is the varying income levels provide the same opportunity for socialization as you would in a mixed income building. We have generally speaking a pretty wide variety of occupants and when you get into various financing tools which we're not gonna take up your time talking about today, sometimes the income levels can drop. Okay, thank you. Councilman Projects. Thank you Mayor. First of all thanks to staff and yourself for this presentation. I echo my colleagues especially Councilman McGrack who is really enthusiastic about this project and I am as well. I think it's a wonderful project. I think it's really in line with the Townsender Master Plan I know that you proposed it before we finished up with the Master Plan but I think the intent behind it is really strong and is really getting us a little bit at least to where we envision Town Center being. So thank you for this project. I know that as council members Van Grack said, there's a lot of details yet to be worked out, but it's a great start and I really thank you for the project. Thank you. Dr. Miles and then Councilman Valyri. Thank you Madam Mayor. Also echoing the thanks to staff to the presenters. Super excited overall about the potential. I think with every project, no matter how great there are, you know, things over which we can help that we should rightly discuss and work through. I think overall my excitement is there. You've already addressed one of the questions I have with regard to the breakdown in the number of bedrooms, I think studios versus one, two, and three bedrooms. Seems like the preponderance of studio one bedrooms, understandable. and I do recognize that it's difficult for families to find larger units. I'm glad that they are there. This is where there's no really good solution, but I imagine people with larger families, particularly if their children may struggle to be calmest, though I certainly would support it. I do recognize how expensive, you know, writing Metro can be. I don't know that there's a good solution here, but I think in line with our overarching goals of both increasing the number of affordable housing units, meeting our environmental goals, I think, I can, I think, I can certainly support the parking waiver I do like the MPDU the swap given that it's an extended number of years But I do recognize the concerns that appreciate my colleagues for bringing up great questions on that front The only point again, I have no questions you and staff have answered most of them prior to the meeting. You mentioned that the completion date, I believe, you said 20, 20. I think I read somewhere from a staff's past 20, 28. And the reason I bring that up is I, as many here may remember, I often quibble with some of the numbers, the student generation numbers in particular, given the strain that many families are having and finding a single family home, or slice of town home or anything else. I think we're seeing increasing numbers of families living in rental units. As an example, a colleague of mine, a principal at a middle school that whose student population came from Plakaroes, they were told that they were supposed to be, I think, I think a handful of students like 10 or 20 students in a rating that were three bus loads. So I just want to be mindful in our, you know, where we get our data. But I think that with the completion date being off 20, 28, 20, 29, presumably crowning the other high school be open, hopefully that will help alleviate some of the burden particularly at the high school level that increasing number of students. No, I don't think I'm not saying that students are bird, but they strain that the high school is from a crowded perspective or already experiencing. So I have no major concerns. I do look forward to having a discussion with you all and colleagues on this. And again, when it points my excitement and thanks to you all, that's all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Councilmember Valeriy. I'll just say didda to a lot of what my colleague said as far as the kudos. We're very appreciative of anyone investing in bringing more housing to Rockville, but very much appreciative of bringing affordable housing. And we know things are not easy and there's a lot of challenges given the unknowns of right now. So we're really appreciative of you bringing this project forward for that and for many reasons. I'm gonna go to my sweet spot, which is pedestrian and road infrastructure. I know that there is a sidewalk buffer on the one side that we have been looking at the most, the Maryland Avenue side. Yeah, it is the Maryland Avenue side. Um, in my direction stuck in my head. Is that buffer going to remain? We've actually proposed expanding the pedestrian sidewalk area at East Middle Lane. Oh, nice. Maryland Avenue. Uh-huh. Uh, just adjacent to where we're proposing this delivery pickup space. So it could act a little bit as a traffic calming on turning movements onto Maryland Avenue. I think that's a fantastic idea. That intersection at a Maryland and Middelline is very problematic. And I often record myself crossing there because I do often go to the Starbucks because driver behavior. So anything we can do to fix that, I'm a big fan. And, you know, I think that's something that I know we think about a lot, but I think the community should know that every development that comes into the city is an opportunity to fix these pedestrian infrastructure issues. So I like jumping at those those opportunities. I am also excuse me. Super appreciative a plus plus on what you're doing with parking. I think that I know this was a challenge for this mayor and council. But I think that this is the way we need to look at things moving forward in the future. So I look forward to hearing more details on how that's going to shake out as we go down the road. And also a plus on mixed use because I just really like mixed use. I will say my only concern, I'm struggling with it because everything else is really great, is the idea of the economic segregation that will be occurring. That Boulevard 44 will now not reap the benefits of having a variety of economic levels within their community. And just generally, I think as Madam Mayor said, that is part of the strength of the MPDU program is that it is a wonderful blend of people from all different walks of life. So I am very challenged by that in all honesty, but I do look forward to this project and maybe along the way we can hear a little bit more about what we can do to advance equity if we are segregating out by economics. Thank you. Okay, I just got a thumbs up smile. There. Council and Basha. Just a few more questions for the MPDU renters in Boulevard 44. Are they also paying $100 a month for parking? I think they're following whatever is the city code on parking. Which I believe is there is some free parking for MPDUs. Okay. And so you're saying that they would keep their parking space there? They would be able to. No, I don't know the details like we have not gone that far at this point. All we have right now is commitment from Comstock that they would be open to You know accepting leases For people that have cars. I think the idea here especially with parking, is there's lots of choices if someone has a car to look even at, they have a momentum, one of their own projects, a shady grove that has a surface parking lot. Like there are other choices if you must have a car and it's desirable. There are other places to have a place with a car, but if you're someone who wants to shed the cost of car ownership, this site is incredibly walkable and transit oriented to employment opportunities regionally, although like in 30 minutes you can be in a DC employment location. And so we're sort of looking at this as for those affordable housing income households who want to shed car ownership, like this going to be very attractive. And for those that want to take on and keep their car, they would have opportunity to do that by leasing a space somewhere in the city. Because I know with MPDU renters, since MPDU's are more scarce. Often there's less choices in, if you need a car, there's sometimes there's less choices in general. So folks don't necessarily have the choice of moving close to the metro if they want to move close to the metro like market rate renters. And so that's just one of my concerns, but I'd just like to learn more about some of the data and who has cars and who doesn't have cars. Sure. And SEG operates both one at the shady growth metro that has parking and this one that they're proposing that doesn't. So even within their own portfolio they have choices. Those are both 100% affordable. Will the MPDU renters, will they have to pay their own expenses to move? You know we haven't gotten down that far but we certainly will mention that to Comstock. I think that should be something to consider. Okay, it's a comedy. Yeah. Yeah, that was him. Thank you. Thank you. I had similar questions so thank you for raising. I was going to ask about moving expenses. I will just say in general this is a very lot. So I am happy to see something going there right now. It's been sitting as an empty parking lot for a very, very long time. So to be able to provide much needed housing for the community is amazing. And I know in early discussions, I know Comstock tends to do and partner with projects and groups like you. So we appreciate you coming together to help us meet our housing goals. We are looking at the potential 3000 for Rockville Town Center area. So this is a great first step. You know, I did the moving of MPDs is something I'm grappling with. I understand the financing is tough. I also looked at it from the perspective of it, well, by the time you're built, it'll be 15 more years that the requirement to keep MPDUs would likely, because you said it is 20 years. It's going to keep reducing down. So it'll be about 15 years. And then eventually Boulevard 44 will be 100% market at the end of that original 30-year term. And the previous 30-year term was a requirement a while ago. Last council, we increased that to 99 years until I know this will fall under. So there aren't that many of these 30 years left, but in town center, this one still exists. Yeah. I am very sensitive to the experience of those who have to move. Because it's going to be, it's not like you're just waiting for people to move out. Some people might actually have to move. So I do have concern about the moving expenses, the engagement with them so that we're getting their input. As I know, you had great meetings with the Victoria folks. I don't think the MPD owners necessarily know about this potential movement. So I'm just curious to see if there will be something dedicated at some point for them to show their feedback on how to best transition. Yeah, I was going to say Comstock is already thinking about this, but sort of waiting to see how we get through Project Plan if this is a viable project. And then they have a couple of years to figure out the actual functional plan to move or give offers to people to move over to 41. Thank you. And then related to that point, because they are moving from one place to another, will the rent be comparable is another question to answer. So that this move that they didn't ask for necessarily is not going to cost them another $300 dollars. Anything that is at the 65% median income MPDU will be following yours, but they actually at SEG will be using both federal and local. So their rental rates could go from 50% to 80%, which is what rents are affordable to someone with 50% of the median income. So someone may be in an MPDU in Boulevard, Ansol, and be very taxed to meet the MPDU rent, but they might be able to find a rental that they qualify for in Boulevard 41, I mean Boulevard in 41, Maryland Avenue, that actually might give them a break, you know, that they might qualify for something that is at a lower rental rate that SEG can offer that Boulevard 44 does not. Right, and I know there's a range of rent allowances within MPD's some properties choose to you know maybe charging within that range but I think it's important to at least consider what someone's experience is because this is not a move that they're asking for. No the property may be so beautiful and so new it's you know according to the pictures they'll be excited about it but I just really want to be sensitive to the experience of people who currently live there. Yeah it was kind of actually surprised to learn. Mr. Sopini mentioned it, but the unit sizes are actually proposed to be larger at 41 Maryland than they are at the level of art 44. Very interesting given that the narrowness of that lock is correct. Magic is happening in that planning. Okay. So in terms of the parking waiver, I know the Rockville Townsend and Master Plan, we have kind of dealt with that policy decision, but it's a waiver still officially required given that we did the floating zone. Yes, ma'am, because the applicant is not requesting the rezoning, they are applying under our flexible parking standards which do allow a waiver. Okay and this is the fastest approach I'm assuming. I just thought I wanted to make sure it's where we're streamlining whatever we can because we made a policy decision on this already so to reduce the undue burden I think would be helpful because I know that we want you to focus on other things and put money into the party. We've missed a faster approach. Would you please? Yeah, exactly. Well, on that note, yeah, if we can get before 2029, that's even better. The ADA parking, I know you said one ADA. Is that, did I hear that correctly? So there are four ADA parking spaces. On East Montgomery Avenue is one of them at the end of this property, three more across the street at the end of the Regal Rail. And this one is going to be different than pretty much any other ADA parking space that is available in town center. Because I wish we could bring it up. It's hard to see. But those vehicles that have mobility devices, motorized mobility devices that are on the in-board side, that you want to be able to lower down a motorized vehicle or a motorized scooter. Like none of the other ADA spaces have the ability to go up over a sidewalk. We're proposing to widen it out and take a ramp up the sidewalk. So anyone on the in-board side who has a mobility device will be able to get their mobility device out and go right up the sidewalk. So it's a enhanced ADA space on Maryland Avenue. Thank you. Can we see pictures of that? We haven't advanced design beyond what we've show you. Yeah. It could be another property too if you have a concept. Yeah, we can forward to circulated around. It is on one of our plans that you can sort of see, but you don't see the lines. I can see how they they've done it. I'm not sure what slide. We can, we can, we can, we can come back. Yeah, but you'll be able to see how the sidewalk has an indent and ramp to allow the enhanced mobility. Excellent. And then how are you accomplishing 27% open space on this area? So as you saw, this is a dog leg lot, meaning it goes all the way from East Montgomery Avenue to Middle Lake. And so between the terrace in the back, the additional green area between the loading dock and the small office building and the dog leg, we're at 27% open space. Very creative. Thank you. Thank you. And then the last question for me, the bottom level, it's hard to exactly tell. I was reading the piece there, but you'll have your lobby that we can describe what's on that bottom level. Sure. At the windows. Because the site slopes from East Montgomery Avenue down to East Middle Lane, I think it's a little bit more than five feet of slope, we're able to get a half level at the middle lane side. So when you come in the lobby, that should probably be something like 18 feet clear. So we're going to have leasing there. We're going to have a club room there and then the main lobby. You'll then go up a half flight of stairs or take an elevator up a half flight to get to the balance of the first floor, which is then all level and extends towards East Montgomery Avenue to the loading dock at the end of that space. So there will be certain units that are on that half level higher and there will be certain amenity spaces that are also on that half level which is ends up being at grade when you get to the loading dock into the building. Thank you. Right, and right now the club room is proposed to be on the East Middle Lane windows. So there'll be activity in that club room, as well as the lobby, which is proposed as a gathering space. Excellent, thank you. And question for staff, would we be allowed to visit the other shady government time? I have wanna make sure I'm honoring exp-partake communications but just to see an example of what this would look like you didn't have the answer now but I just wanted to propose that would be really helpful for us to get a sense of what these properties look like sir. We'd welcome that. Thank you. We may not be able to give you a tour. No but that's fine you may be able to visit. Thank you. Again, thank you for the creativity on this, for advancing our goals on affordable housing and bringing more units in. And it's a lot on a small space, so we appreciate the creativity there. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Miles. Thank you Madam Mayor. As you asked, most of what I was going to ask with regard to ADA spaces. What I wasn't clear about and I apologize, I just failed to hear is the energy to the one spot at the property of three or four that are nearby. Are these temporary spots or are they like meter spots and those sometimes sometimes meter spots you can't stay. You can't be meter by continued to park there. Some curious what this mix is going to look like. Yeah, they're signed. They're proposed as signed ADA on Maryland Avenue in front of this site. And the other ones are signed ADA, you know, Handicap parking spaces. So we say a sign like to a particular individual or there's still meters there. No, they're handicapped and I think that's the key to the key to the key to the key to the key to the key to the key to the key to the key to the key to other end at on Monroe Street, their additional ones and our survey. You can see how many ADA spaces are on the street and how many are available in public parking lots and there's over a hundred just within two blocks of candycaps basis. I'm curious again, this perhaps is a question for staff. I just didn't think about it beforehand. It would be to look at the utilization of those spots currently. I know I believe there's a affordable senior facility in the area to. And again, being mindful, recognizing that we're proposing zero parking requirements, when to make sure that those who have mobility challenges also have equitable access as well. That's all, thank you. Yeah, and I'll just give you some additional information is that in our transportation study for the parking, it was difficult to get utilization information shared by all these different parking companies. So our transportation engineer actually visited all of these parking garages during midweek when schools were in office, when the courthouses were in office, when it was a nice day, et cetera. He picked this day and he went and he actually counted cars to see what the utilization rate was and to see how it comported, you know, with the required parking and how much was actually being used. So that's all in our study. Thank you very much. Thank you Madam Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Valarie. I just wanted to follow up a little bit on Councilmember Dr. Miles. One of the benefits of the ADA space either you have the license plate or you have a hanging tiger or whatever is that you have the ability through that to park anywhere as well as long as for people who are using assisted mobility devices, you're able to get the clearance if you need that. But I think that that fact might get forgotten sometimes, so I don't know necessarily if it's just the ADA parking utilization that would give us the information that we might need here because again you are you're able to end through that you do not have to pay a parking for parking. That is another benefit. So I just wanted to flag that as it might not be something that everybody knows. Just looking to see if my colleagues have any other questions? Okay. Councilor Richardson. Thank you, Mayor. I don't know if this is a time for this, but can you go back to the other properties you showed a slide about the other properties that you have? Would be this second slide. Yes. So there's a beautiful mural, I think, on one of those properties. And I would just say, I mean, I think that is spectacular. And if, when it's time to discuss it, you know, if there is room for doing a mural like that, I think that we had excellent canvas in downtown Iraqville. We are big on the arts. And I just think that looking at the mirror that you have or the painting, it's really vibrant. And it really has a lot to the site. So I just wanted to point that out since you had been before and say that this would be a good second site for a mirror like that. Thank you. We'll take that comment. Thanks. Thank you. And I think with all private development, there has to be an art component of something you would do. So that's an opportunity to consider that that spend on that kind of project. The last thing is going to ask staff just since we're in public setting since we already allowed the reduction in parking as part of our process do they still have to pay fees to request for a parking reduction? I'm just trying to think is there anything we can do to expedite but also put an amenity or support back into the project versus honoring our policy intent? Yeah, so there was a fee to apply for the waiver, which the applicant has provided. Again, because this project isn't taking advantage of that rezoning, that interim comprehensive plan rezoning, it's not coming in under those provisions. But staff has looked at other ways to try to expedite the process, including the future meeting required to try to narrow those down to kind of get the project through the process. This Mayor and Council is trying to be very creative to get to yes, but also to get the affordability into the units and supportive residents. So we appreciate anything that staff can do on that. It's one of your cheapest application fees. $5.5. $5.5. Okay, good. Good to hear. Well, thank you again for your time. We appreciate you bringing this project to us. And we asked some tough questions, but it's really just in the spirit of protecting our current and future residents. So we appreciate you indulging us with the responses and getting more information to us. And the key here is speed. Yes. As quickly as we can get through the approval process for Project Plan, they can move to the next step and actually design the final building and get through site plan and then start construction because getting all of the financing in place requires the entitlements to be in place. So as quickly as we can get through this entitlement stage, we'll get us to the point where, you know, you'll know what is the current finance market existing at that time what is the cost of construction you know a lot of the unknowns that STG is facing right now and proposing this project the faster we can get to that the so we can result those issues is there an issue or a limiting factor in terms of getting us getting back to you? I'm certainly heard the body wants to move. So I do believe that we're moving along, but again, as quickly as we, you know, we can get through Project Plan because some Project Plans in the city can take up to the year which would like to not take a year to get through Project Plan. And so as quickly as we can move through the rest of the process and get to a decision from the mayor and council, we can then move on to a fully designed building and site plan. And happy you guys submitted everything you need to for a city's consideration. Our DRC meeting is May 29th. At that point staff will tell us if there's anything else. I will tell you from the project plans I've done before, SCG with all of these beautiful perspectives are as much further along in the design of the building and what it should look like and what will be in it. So that's good. We provided all that information in our submission. Okay. Perfect. All right. Well, we will be tracking this project. Thank you. we appreciate any red flags if there's anything that's slowing things down or Things that we can improve on. Okay. Thank you for your time tonight. Thank you We're gonna take a quick five-minute break and then come back when we rejoin we'll be discussing some of our zoning regulations. Thank you, everyone. Good evening, Rockville. Today is still May 19, 2025, and we are reconvening meeting number 14-25. We are now moving on to our Denda item 11C, which is discussion on zoning regulations for standard dispensaries of cannabis. Welcome to Jim Wasselick, as well as Ricky Barker, Denny Snap, and Nicholas Dumay. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor and Members of the Council. As you stated, we are presenting potential zoning regulations that would regulate standard dispensaries of cannabis. Standard dispensaries were recently approved as legal within the state of Maryland, following on the medical cannabis dispensaries that were approved in 2015. You may recall or know that the city had two of those that sufficed for the District 17 medical cannabis dispensaries and they both still exist and have converted to regular standard dispensaries. One of the legislation for standard dispensaries was put in place in 2023. It essentially was a zoning preemption and did not allow localities to make more stringent regulations than the state had adopted. However, that was changed in both 2024 and 2023, the 25. So the original legislation required that there be a separation distance of 500 feet between standard dispensaries and certain sensitive uses such as schools, childcare centers, playgrounds, rec centers, places of worship and parks, etc. And also required that there be a of this of 1,000 feet between standard dispensaries themselves. In 2024, the legislation was clarified to provide some flexibility to municipalities. Should those municipalities choose to enact them? And there is a menu shown here that provided for municipalities the ability to increase the distance between dispensaries up to half a mile beyond the 1,000 feet that was approved in 2023. And also establish a one-in-foot distance between standard dispensaries and area-zoned exclusively for residential use. And also allowed for the reduction of the required distance between licensed dispensaries and any of those sensitive locations. However, the legislation also did not permit municipalities to enact more stringent requirements for standard cannabis dispensaries than those enacted for the retail sale of alcoholic beverages. And that's kind of one of the driving points of our recommendation this evening because the city currently does not have separation distance requirements between alcoholic beverage establishments or for the retail sale of them. So this year, the legislation also allowed the municipalities to enact that greater separation distance between dispensaries up to half a mile. However, it must be done by July 1st. So another reason why, if the mayor and council wanted to enact that, it would have to be done very quickly. And again, that would also cause the restriction, or that same separation distance to apply to alcoholic beverage retail establishments. So beer wines, all of those things would be subject to those same separation distance requirements. One more item in the 2025 legislation, it also allows municipalities to prohibit establishments that allow onsite consumption of cannabis, which we do recommend. So taking all of this into account, we thought that there were at least three options for you to consider. The one that we do recommend is that you authorize a zoning text amendment that adds cannabis dispensary as a listed use, which it is not currently, and includes those separation distances that are allowed by state law. And also prohibits the on-site consumption, which the current legislation also allows us to do. However, if you wanted to authorize a ZTA that increases that separation distance between dispensaries to half mile, you would have to do that by July 1st, and also apply that to retailers that sell alcoholic beverages. So that would have a significant impact on those existing businesses we feel and we do not recommend that. And of course, there's always the option to take no action, and then cannabis dispensaries would be subject to the state regulations by default. So again, we recommend option one and we have prepared a zoning text amendment that reflects that option and I'd be happy to answer questions. Thank you for this presentation. Can you just also share with us the counties having public hearings on options, what those, what they're contemplating just so we have a sense of what our neighboring jurisdiction is doing? My understanding is that they are proposing to enact the 100-foot separation distance between dispensaries and properties that are zoned exclusively for residential. That that just recently has been authorized by the county council. All right, I'm going to I have some questions, but I want to pause and see if my colleagues have questions first. Madam Mayor, if I may, I neglected to to show you the map that we included in this in the agenda item just to provide some clarity on what this does show. The areas in gray are the areas that are the represent the separation distances. So we've shown all the ones that would apply to the sensitive uses, parks, schools, et cetera. That's the 500 foot. And then you see the two circular two circles. Those are the existing dispensaries and here we're showing actually the 1000 foot buffer and also the potential half mile buffer as they would apply for those two existing locations. And again, to apply a half mile buffer for dispensaries, we'd also have to do that for our colleague beverage sales. So I just wanted to clarify the map that was in your brief. And Kate, for the listening public, can you please relay the sensitive areas that we work through? So the sensitive areas that we work through. So the sensitive areas are all levels of public school and private schools, places of worship, childcare centers, recreation centers, city parkland, and, yep, that's it. Okay, just colleagues, councilmember Van Greck. So, just to clarify an understanding of what you've got here, how would the staff recommendation affect these current dispensaries and potentially make the possibility for future dispensaries in the areas that make it a possibility, like for example, on 355. So the current legislation as proposed would have no impact on the current dispensaries. They were already licensed and approved by the city. We really couldn't have any impact on those. Because by the state legislation, they were converts from the medical cannabis to standard dispensaries. And so they are allowed to exist. And we really can't say anything about it. What would happen for new dispensaries, they would have to occur outside of the gray areas in this map. So again, we have the 500 to be used to have to be used to have to be used to have to be used to have to be used to have to have to be used to have to have to be used to have to have to be used to have to have to be used to have to have to be used to have to have to be used to have to have to be used to have to have to be used to have to have to be used to have to be permitted and it is outside of the buffer area, a standard dispensary could look okay. All right, so just to make sure I understand this map because I know there's like a little different shades of gray. Those minute shades of gray that are surrounding the park areas, your childcare providers, the high schools and the middle schools. That's where they could not place it in those little areas of gray, but anywhere where there is a zoning where there's not one of those gray areas or there's an additional where retail is permitted, they could open dispensary in those areas. Yeah, the areas where retail is permitted in theory because we have mixed use zones are the areas that are shown in the kind of yellowish shade. You see my cursor that's the rock full pike. So all of those colors, those are where retail is permitted. So these white areas where there is no gray still would not be permitted because that particular zone does not allow retail. Unless there's a rezoning or something like that. So but we're talking about is in the area now are any. So if there's no gray and there's retail permitted, that's an area where there could be a dispensary. So long as it's not and you've already grayed out the areas that would be within the distance of another dispensary. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Vellery. I have a couple questions. How in the quickest most succinct way, how do the buffers for cannabis dispensaries in the existing city code vary from the buffers for establishments to sell beer and wine? Well, there is no connection between the two. We do not have buffers for the sale of alcoholic beverages, including beer and wine at all. Interesting. So so wherever retail is permitted, the sale of alcoholic beverages for offsite consumption is permitted as well. For offsite for on site consumption and establishment of the sales bear and wine that then also would allow you to consume onsite are there buffers in place? No. Those would be restaurants based on the county, how callic beverage? Based on the county rule. Well, it also is in how you define restaurant as well because you have establishments that kind of add food on as a side if you will where the main thrust of the retail is beer and wine but you know you can sell some pretzels and then you know you're okay and we're talking about the July first deadline are we currently out of compliance with the state regulations are existing code right now are we currently out of compliance with the state regulations? Are existing code right now? Are we currently out of compliance? No, we are not out of compliance. The state established these requirements that apply statewide and provided options for localities to enact, but we are not out of compliance. So this came from your department, not because we're out of compliance, but because there were options available to us, or was it something that was kind of on your list, or to-do list? Most been on to-do list, because we think it's good practice to at least mirror the state regulations. But a couple of things were driving, putting it on your agenda, and that is that July 1st deadline, which only happened as a result of the last legislative session in April. So that is kind of pushing things along if you wanted to, and it only applies to one thing, which is if you want to increase the separation distance between dispensaries from a thousand feet to half mile. Okay, and so we thought we would review that option. Yeah, you know that that makes absolute sense. I guess maybe at a future meeting. I would love to see this map but done a couple different ways. maybe in that we could look at a proposed ZTA to enact separation distance and buffer for, institute retailers that sell beer and wine, and especially those that sell beer and wine in addition to onsite consumption. I find it very hypocritical in our code that there's going to be one set of rules for cannabis and a whole another set of rules for beer and wine. I don't see it as very equitable, especially not in the state of Maryland where there is a growing number of cannabis retailers that the businesses have been started by veterans and have been started by people of color. people color. So I find that the that distinction inherently in that go to both. that the businesses have been started by veterans and have been started by people of color. So I find that the distinction inherently inequitable. I actually prefer to call these mixed use dispensaries because they haven't really converted. They've added onto their retail options. Medical has not gone away. At least at the two that are in the city. It's still very much a medical dispensary. It's just a separate line per the state law. And there is a discount for individuals that go for medical. I think my colleagues have heard me say this probably too many times, but I am always concerned about the impact of these regulations on the medical cannabis patients and how we are treating them in comparison to other people. We don't put buffers on CBS, even though they do have a lot of narcotics on site. So I would really love if we could just remain consistent with state law and maybe even look at propose. you have a lot of narcotics on site. So I would really love if we could just remain consistent with state law and maybe even look at proposed DTA to enact separation and buffer for beer and wine stores. Dr. Miles, your cameras off, but if you would like to speak, feel free. I just want to give you the opportunity. And anyone else have any questions? I have a few, but I'll go. Okay, all right. I'll go. So first of all, I want to say thank you for bringing this to us, because there is a deadline coming up and it was important for us to know it. So I appreciate staff's efforts to get this on our calendar and to just make sure that we're keeping up with what's going on in the state. That's something we've mentioned before in other areas. And I want to acknowledge you doing it here. So I just want to say thank you. to get this on our calendar and to just make sure that we're keeping up with what's going on in the state. That's something we've mentioned before in other areas, and I want to acknowledge you doing it here. So I just want to say thank you for it, and thank you for thinking through some options for us to consider, just so that it helps to make the process a little bit easier. I do think that I would support filing the zoning tax amendment to mirror the state because at minimum it provides anyone who's doing business in the city of Rockville not to have to look at a bunch of different codes, right? I think we've talked about this with our zoning ordinance rewrite to the extent that we can make this process easier and not have to cross reference multiple documents. I think that is a good thing for the city to be doing. So I just wanted to at least at minimum say, I would support that. So just that there. In terms of what the county is doing, that's something I just wanted to get a sense of. Do you have a sense of whether that is proceeding in that direction or that's just an up for discussion? I know that they're doing public hearings. I don't have a sense of which direction they're headed. Okay. Great, anyone else have questions? Councilmember Fulton. Can you speak a little bit to why staff's recommendation is to mirror the state and also add on a prohibition on out on site consumption? What's the rationale there? Well in terms of mirroring the state, I think that's all we really can do at this point. I think because in our view, there would be an impact on the existing businesses that sell alcoholic beverages that would be outsized if we were to adopt some of the options that the state has given us. We'd have to apply them to those businesses as well and would have an outsized impact on them. In terms of onsite consumption, again, the state has provided that option to the cities, to the localities without a timeline. So we thought that was wise to do so, but that's certainly a decision that the council could make. Do not do that. So just to be super clear, the only really thing that we have a choice on unless we wanna make changes to laws regarding sale of alcohol is the prohibition on onsite requirements. That's the only thing we can choose to do without impacting. And so staff recommendation is to do everything we can do to restrict without impacting alcohol and alcohol sales. That's great. Okay. I have a question about the on-site consumption piece. I understand like if you don't do the, you know, if you don't do the buffer on residential and I know that people have comments about smells and other cities. But are you thinking on site consumption also for gummies? I know that doesn't have an odor or doesn't impact other people or there's not second-hand smoke concerns. My understanding it would cover everything that has cannabis. So they couldn't even do edibles. Right. And you can't differentiate. I don't think so, but I will confirm that. Okay, I think that would be helpful. The other question I had is you had the option of, or what the county's doing with the 100 feet of residential. What would that do to our maps in terms of impacts on alcohol? I think it would have a major impact on a lot of our retail centers that do have either a beer wine sale facility or another type of alcoholic beverage sale facility. So there are a lot of beer and wine within a hundred feet of residential. But it says, and you had noticed something of like exclusively residential versus mixed use. So can you just clarify that please? The the state legislation specifies Zoned and use exclusively for residential Okay, so For Sorry, go ahead. I was gonna say we do have some residential communities that are exclusively residential But they're within mixed use zoning areas right So, at a minimum, just just to help move a comments, oh, Councilmember Fultzen, great. I'm glad they have another speaker. Go ahead. Just another question. Remind me, the mayor mentioned smells. What are current, what's it we decide about, uh, vaah shops, cigar stores, what are existing restrictions on those, sorry to put you on a spot? I believe we have a thousand foot buffers front we again have the sensitive use buffers in the city that are more extensive than these. OK. Thanks. It's going's very clear. Councilmember Fulton. I mean, Councilmember Vellieri, sorry about that. Yeah, look. So we have a thousand feet for new vape shops, correct? Or vape shops that want to do major modifications. Yes. We have nothing for beer and wine stores. and the state law. The state law is not made. The state law is not made. The state law is not made. The state law is not made. The state law is not made. The state law is not made. The state law is not made. The state law is not made. The state law is not made. The state law is not made. The state law is not made. The state law is not made. The state law is not made. State law mandate no state law does not mandate the 100 feet state law mandates the 500 feet from separate sensitive uses and then the thousand feet between the two So the city code is actually more stringent on distance on BAP shops. Interesting. Thank you. The state doesn't have regulations on, you know, those were our regulations that we got. Yeah, but you know, I think it is also, you know, those were our regulations that we've got. Yeah, but, you know, I think it is also, you know, there are other sense that people are not fans of. Some of us lived in the neighborhood where the smell of paint fumes went right into a residential area. And there was no, I mean, there was no regulation on how close a paint center could be to residential and that was nauseating. There's no rule in our code that I'm aware of on how close a gas station can be to a residential area. And when they refill gas stations, let me tell you that stinks. So I just wanted, there are a lot of things that we could probably regulate until the end of time, but these are the things that are going through my head on the various smells of my neighborhood. Councilmember Felton. Yeah, so I'll just, again, to move along based on this conversation where I am, because I also don't think we can really regulate smells because people can use it anywhere. I remember we had the same conversation about the vape shops, right? What I would be in favor of is in order to make the zoning more clear, just simply merit the state and do nothing else. That's what I would do. Thank you. I was just going to say that. So thank you. I think you got ahead., if we do nothing else, there's no chance to add it later. Is that correct? Does it, do we bind other future mayor and councils or can future mayor and councils make different decisions on this? They could make different decisions, including the on-site consumption prohibition. The one that we think is kind of off the table, if it's not done by July 1st, is that increasing the separation between dispensaries. And just to clarify, the state law does, can you repeat the distance for the separation? These state law is 1,000 feet between dispensaries and it's allowing up to a half mile between dispensaries, but that's the one that has to be inactive by July 1st. Got it. Thank you. OK, colleague. So I'm based on this is a quiet group today. So I'm guessing that most folks agree that we would do direct staff to authorize the first option. So I just wanted to just get a sense of, sorry, the first option that we discuss of just doing what state law requires. But that's not option one. So the first thing that we suggest what the state requires. Yes, right. OK, so number three. OK, perfect. So I just wanted to see this, who has different opinions? Councilman Van Graek. I don't believe we should take no action. I believe we should authorize a zoning tax amendment so it's clear but eliminate the prohibit on-site consumption. That's what I was trying to say beginning thank you for clarifying us to say that we're doing the state law which we started so. Councilmember Valeria. Okay that makes a lot more sense because we would still have to add it as a listed yes. Yeah, no, okay, that makes total sense. I am still I am all in on one minus the prohibition. And I really would like us to talk about adding a buffer or separation for Bearing Wine. Just for my colleagues to know, it's not contingent on my vote on this, but I just find it problematic that we're doing this on vape and cannabis and not on Bearing Wine. Thank you. I'm in favor of just as I mentioned earlier, aligning with state law, making it very clear. So it's in our zoning code. So without the onsite, there's consumption piece at this time. So colleagues, I can't make a motion. So we'll someone. Yeah, I'll see. I'll see you later. And Dr. Miles, did you have a question? Yes, Madam Mayor. I just wanted to come on a little bit out of left field. Actually, number one, as drafted. I mean, there's some of us who are federal employees and I don't know about y'all, but having to be subjected to random drug screens. I just don't like to smell, I don't wanna be around it, but that's why I would go for number one, but I'm in a minority, so be it. I'm good. Council Councilmember Rillary. I would like to make a motion to authorize the filing of a zoning text amendment to add a definition for cannabis dispensaries, authorizing the ZTA to add cannabis dispensary as a listed use, including the separation dintensis allowed by state law. Do we have a second? Councilmember Fulton seconds. Sorry. All those in favor, please face your hand and say aye. Aye. Nays. Councilmember Miles is a name. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. So, would you like us to take item D now? Or do you need anything? We're good. You're good. Okay. All right. All right. So now we'll be moving on to our work session, agenda item 12, which is the Rockville Emergency Assistance Program work session. If I just may say one thing, as I do want to monitor if there are any things that we, any problems that staff is hearing about, because this is still, you know, new in terms of application state law, if you would just notify the Mayor and Council of things that you're seeing. Of course. Thank you. Welcome to Jane Lyons' Raider as well as Tawana Seagler King as a panelist. Welcome to Wanda and Jane. Good evening. Thank you very much. I am Jane Lyons' Raider, housing programs manager with the Department of Housing and Community Development. And I'm excited to be here with Tawana Seagler-Kane, one of our Housing and Landlord-Tunnan Specialists who directly oversees the Rockville Emergency Assistance Program. This is her first time in front of the Marin Council, but not the Rockville Marin Council, but not her first time in front of a Marin Council, but we're excited to have her here for this work session today with that I will hand it over to her. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. Can you hear me? Michael, a little bit closer. Thank you. And by the way, welcome. We're excited to have you on the table. Thank you. Thank you. to go over our outline for the evening. So, requested feedback. The background program overview, program design changes, connection with the federal employees for our program. I'm looking forward the next steps and then the requested feedback from Mayor City Council. So, we have three questions in regards to the feedback from you all, which is, should there be 10,000 maximum asset level requirement for our applicants? Should there be an 80% AMI maximum requirement for our applicants? And then should child care be added to the eligible assistance types. So a little bit of a background regards to the rental assistance program. The housing is one of five focus areas. Reap was established in 1982. In 2024 there were three work sessions on the city's housing strategies providing additional assistance to renters via the REIT program, which was approved as a strategy by the mayor and city council. Since we've seen an increase in our demand staff has decided that the program design needed to best benefit our clients and the challenges that they're facing so that we can kind of meet everyone's needs. The existing program overview reproves emergency assistance to eligible city residents experiencing a financial crisis with the goal of improving health instability and quality of life. The rent payments at this time is $2,000 max. We have utility payments that is $1,500 max. Prescription medication payments is $300 with a max. And then funeral expenses at $1,000 max. And then there's other basic needs when necessary, when they cannot be sought out otherwise. So program overview and this is the demand for city resources decreased during pandemic and has increased significantly in the past two years. So this graph will highlight the approved cases on the left hand side and at the bottom you will see the year. And so as you can see there was a decrease from 2020 to 2023 and that is because Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services they had COVID funds and they were able to solidify all their careers for their applicants where City of Rockwell was not needed for our funds. And then in 2024. As you can see, it started to increase because of the lack of funding that the county had. And then we're projecting that 2025, we will reach about 108 applicants. And now I will give it to Jane. All right. Thank you, Tijuana, and just to clarify. So that dip that you saw with the number of approved reap cases, as Tijuana said, that's because of the county funds. And for those years, we had a requirement that if you were eligible, you needed to seek county assistance first and exhaust county funds before using city funds. So I'm going to discuss the program design changes that staff is proposing. And then at the end we'll go back to those questions of the points where we would like to receive mayor and council feedback in particular. The first section is going to focus on client eligibility. So asset level, there's currently no prescribed asset limit for applicants to reap, but we are interested in setting one since we're anticipating potentially seen an increase in the number of unemployed applicants applying for the program with the number of federal layoffs that have been seen. and we want to still be able to prioritize funds to those folks who need it most. And so setting a asset level maximum, and we were proposing $10,000, would help us to prioritize those funds. And that would be liquid assets. So essentially, your savings account, not necessarily your home or any other sort of assets that somebody might have. Second is to set an income limit. The program currently does not have any sort of income limit, whereas the county currently has an income limit at 60% of the area median income. And this is again, just to help us make sure that we are prioritizing funds for those who need it most. Since 2018 there have only been six clients with an annual household income over $70,000. So we're really seeing that program applicants are already the folks who are the most low and moderate income within the city and are typically well under 80% of the area median income, area median income, excuse me. In this chart here is to show what exactly is 80% of the area median income as established by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. So, for a household size of one, that's $74,800 and for a household of five, it can go all the way up to $115,350. And this is for FY 2025. And just a note here that income is assessed at the time of application. So if somebody is unemployed, they have zero zero income and thus they would be qualified. Next is to discuss the assistance amounts for the program as to want to went over our current amount for rental assistance which folks can receive if they are actively experiencing an eviction is $2,000 but we are proposing increasing that maximum to $3,000. The current level of $2,000 does not cover the median rock val rent of $2,100. And $3,000 would also match the county's limit. And so, rock val residents would then be eligible for a combined total of $6,000, which matches the median amount of rental assistance that applicants typically need as $6,000. And then we also are proposing setting a maximum assistance amount overall. So at the moment, folks could receive $2,000 for rent, 1,500 for utilities, 300 per prescriptions, and it's really just caps for those individual types of assistance. There's no overall cap for the program as a whole. So we are proposing a $4,000 limit to assistance for a 12-month period. And again, that would help us to balance the large need that we're seeing from residents as well as wanting to serve as many folks as possible. The next section here is focused on different types of assistance. So our first recommendation is to add childcare as an eligible expense. And this is in part to recognize that during a financial crisis, when a household experiencing a financial crisis, it can also be a crisis to lose your child care. Because then if you are, for example, having to search for a job and pay for a child or and take care of a child while doing that, that can make it very, very difficult to then secure a new position. And so for that recommendation of setting a maximum of $2,000 for child care expenses, we looked at the median monthly child care prices in Montgomery County. And so this chart here breaks down based on the age of the child and whether the child care is center based or home based, how much it costs in median in Montgomery County. And this is 2024 inflation-adjusted prices. And so we estimate that at a maximum of $2,000, the standard household would hopefully be able to pay for a little over a month of childcare expenses. Our next recommendation is to remove funeral expenses. This has been extremely rarely used if ever, and requested amounts that I have seen have been significantly higher than anything that our program could provide. And we do have the requirement that if we are providing funds, then we need to be able to clear the balance and help out with the full cost. So with that, we would want to remove funeral expenses since we are really not able to provide coverage for those full costs. Next is to add parameters for types of assistance that are allowed with administrative approval. So things that we've been talking about before, such as preventing an eviction, that's something that the case manager can just go ahead themselves with, and move forward with the case. The manager still needs to approve the payment going out. But for these types of expenses that we'll talk about now, there's an extra layer of approval to make sure that we are really preventing homelessness and preventing the worst type of financial crisis for a family. So first here is security deposits when we propose a maximum of $2,000 and this would only be used in circumstances where a client has demonstrated the ability to pay the new rent for the apartment that they would be moving into. This might be used in cases where folks really just can't get out of the whole of their end with their current apartment and there's absolutely no way to avoid eviction, but now they've gotten back into a more financially stable place and could afford rent somewhere else, but just need that help to get over the barrier of a security deposit. Next is moving expenses. Again, sometimes we are unfortunately unable to avoid the eviction, even through combined city and county funds. And so in those situations, we don't want folks to be at risk of losing their personal belongings. So we propose to have moving expenses including storage units as an eligible expense. Next is guarantor fees. This is something that we haven't seen a ton of but it's becoming more frequent that if there are clients who are deemed high risk for not having as good of a credit score or they don't quite meet income requirements for a rental, then that property will require them to have a guarantor. There are companies who specialize in this and you will essentially pay them a guarantor fee and then they'll co-sign onto your lease with you. So with that, that can be a significant barrier for folks. And so we're proposing adding that as an eligible expense up to $18,000, which based on our research would be enough to cover to the typical amount that is asked for. And last but not least is hotel stays. This is something again that has been very rarely used, but we want to make sure that we have parameters for when it is used. And here we are proposing $150 and night maximum, although with the caveat that we would try to find places that maximize the use of city funds. So places that are hopefully more affordable with a total maximum of $3,000. And this would only be used in extremely unique circumstances where the household has a transition plan in place. for the cases that we have seen, we've seen that the county might have, might have been helping somebody with a hotel stay, but the county funds have run out, and they're just, you know, two weeks away or so from getting a new apartment, and we don't necessarily want them to have to go into the shelter system for that two-week period. But if they have that welcome letter, they know that they're going to be moving in very soon. We want to be able to serve as a bridge for those households. So those are the program changes that we're proposing. Wanted to provide a note on the connection with federal employees. Federal employees may receive read funds given that they meet the eligibility requirements. Again, if somebody has been fired from their federal job, their income would unfortunately be zero. And that would mean that they would absolutely meet our income eligibility requirements, but they would also have to meet other program requirements. And then they would be treated in the same manner as all other applicants. So looking forward in the FY26 budget there was $145,850 budgeted for the REAP program. We're anticipating a $100,000 budget amendment this summer to boost that up to $245,850. And so with a maximum allowed amount per household of $4,000, that would mean we could assist a minimum of 61 households, although because very few, we anticipate very few folks use that total maximum, including for things like utility assistance and other folks, folks are usually maximizing out the rental assistance, but that the actual number of folks assisted would be much greater than 61. So next steps, staff will use the feedback that we received tonight to finalize our program design, and then we will implement those program updates and communicate the changes to the partner organizations that we work with. And with that we have our three questions of requested feedback. Thank you very much. I want to just say thank you very much for the thoughtful design and research that you've done. As you laid out in the staff book. This Mayoring Council has been trying to be thoughtful about the increase in social services for federal workers, contractors, and grantees, but also considering other factors where we noticed at the time the county was running out of funding and actually some of the nonprofit partners were running out of funding. I think they had reduced their AMI from 60 to 30 percent. They have now moved that back to 60 percent, but we really saw a lean in on people needing more rockful services. So it really warranted a deeper look at how rockful plays, primary, secondary, and everything in between when people are experiencing vulnerability. So I just want to thank the team. I know that you I've sent people your way and you know you all have help people with care but also referring people out to other services. So I just want to thank your team because I know you get those hard phone calls every day. Something that we send your way as well and I just can't thank you enough for what you do to show heart care and support for our community. So I just want to acknowledge the hard work you do every day and again welcome to Wana. I had a couple quick things that I wanted to run through for the hotel stays. Are you thinking that the county would be primary and it's only when the county money runs out that we would or is it just open? So that's typically what we've seen because the county is the main continuum of care provider. We are not a part of the Montgomery County continuing continuum of care providing homeless services. So typically if folks are experiencing homelessness they would go to the county first and be assessed for whether they'd be placed in a shelter or placed in a hotel. And so that would be part of the program design that you would have people go to the county first and then when it runs out, we would try to help and kick in. Correct. Excellent. Okay. And then the other question I had, we have seen some affordable housing provider people who were behind on rent significantly for a couple of properties. I think Bethany, some of the RIG properties. How does that interplay? I know in some cases the county and the city have collaborated with certain properties is to help bring down the overall debt. How does that interplay with the REAP program? Yeah, so with the REAP program, the clients that we are assisting through those partnerships would still have to meet these eligibility standards and would still be subject to the same maximum amounts. So if it's $3,000 maximum for a Viction Prevention, that would still be the same for the folks and those properties where we're working more directly with property management to make sure that we're reaching clients and helping them to clear rental arrears. Thank you. So that's same process and guidelines. It's just the initiation might be directly with the property. The affordable housing provider. Correct. Okay. That is very, very helpful. Thank you so much. And then I know that you have this, these three things. Aren't there other elements that you want us to also speak to? I know you have 10K, the 80% AMI, the maximum assistance amount at 4K, isn't that just something that you want us to approve as well? Just I wanna make sure we have the questions right. I mean, these are really the areas that we need feedback that's at administrative program, but if you guys want to offer comments, some of those things, we'll certainly take those we need to do. The other thing is that we need feedback. If you want to offer comments, we will take those26, because of the acute issues related to so many people who have been released due to federal actions. So we are infusing more funding into what we've traditionally done and we'll have to evaluate how things are moving the following year. But it's not just an automatic annual. Is that correct? That's correct, Mayor. OK. All right. Councilmember Jackson. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you for the presentation. I know there's a lot of work put into it. I had just a couple of questions. Let me start with the $10,000 maximum asset level. You said savings accounts. Can you spend a little bit like what would count towards the maximum asset level and what does it? So that would be anything in your bank account essentially anything that you have direct access to. So that would include savings account, checking account would include any money that you might have in in a an Azel or Venmo type of situation. So I guess let me be more specific. So somebody is working and is fortunate enough to get a 401k and maybe the 401k is $25,000. That's for retirement. So would you count that towards the, okay? No, we would not ask folks to liquidate their phone. 529s don't count either, correct? No, I agree. Is there a kind of line? Okay, no, that's good to know. And secondly, I am totally in favor of adding childcare to the program. I think you answered the question about funeral expenses. I had a question about how often that was used, and I believe you said rarely, if ever. And usually people are asking for much more money than just a thousand dollars. I want to clear though, so when they asked for it, you were fronting, you said that typically you would fund the whole thing rather than $1,000. I just, I wasn't clear there. So the current program guidelines say that we need to be able to clear the entire balance of whatever it is that we're paying for. So that way we know that, for example, with prescription medications, if we're giving somebody $300 towards that towards that But it actually costs $500 then they're not actually getting the prescription medication So same same situation with funeral expenses. We wouldn't want to provide them with funds that then didn't mean that they actually were able to hold the funeral Okay, now that that makes perfect sense and I'm I'm I guess I'm fine with deleting funeral expenses. I wasn't clear and so maybe you could clear this up. Could you have multiple types of expenses that you kind of apply for? Could you have rent, childcare, utilities, and prescription drugs? I mean, can they be layered on or is it like one or the other? Yes, you can layer them on, but that's why we're proposing having that maximum overall amount of $4,000. Okay. And finally, I was just curious, you talked about security deposit up to $2,000. What is the general security deposit, like average? So security deposits are now limited to one month's rent. And so the average rent within Rockville is a little over $2,000. Okay. All right. Thank you. Council Member Larry. I'll look at Never Turn My Mic Off. Point of my glad I didn't say anything on tort. I will say that on the hotel stays, I know that the county does provide fee assistance for longer if the family has a DHS case manager through child welfare services, for example, in certain situations. So, but I fully support that as well and in any flexibility there too, because you want to provide safe, healthy hotel living if you need to. So hopefully we can keep an eye on those costs. And thank you for the thank you for everything by the way because like councilmember Jackson said, it was a phenomenal amount of work and data and attention that went into this report. And I, you know, given that in it, reap is like juggling many different balls in the air. I was just very impressed. Thank you for the number of the projected total numbers for 2025. I have two questions. One, what I'm the council liaison to the Human Services Advisory Commission. So I do hear some of the concerns and what people are struggling with in our nonprofit partner world. But specifically, what kind of feedback to do here about the REAP program while you are pulling together the staff report? So we did communicate with our partners that we're looking into making these updates about the program to run past them what we were thinking in the direction that we were going. And I'll hand it to Twana for some more input there since she was the one directly speaking with them in those cases, but I think in general, they're always excited if we're able to offer more to their clients. Yeah, so like Jane said, they are kind of excited with some of the changes that we are projecting. It would be an additional help because the county is losing out on money, because right now currently, especially with utilities, they are coming directly to us because there's no fund through the county. That also includes security, positive, enforcement, and that's a county was offering as well. So the additional assistance and help that we can provide seems to be very acceptable and they're willing in wanting that as well. Yeah, no, that that sounds about right. And if I can't remember off the top of my head does the county provide utility assistance if the provider is the city rock bill for water? They will they will yes okay good um because I know WSSE has a bunch of programs and I'm always like that would be great um so what was really helpful was how translating the summer budget amendment into how many people that would help. I would be interested in knowing, and I don't need to write this second. I personally, math is not my strong suit, but I would be interested in how much would be needed for a budget amendment amount to assist at a minimum 100 cases because given kind of what you estimated at, you know, we can't predict anything these days, but at least if we could hit like the 100 mark, because I was really concerned about how many we've seen already in 2025. And we haven't really seen the full wave of a lot of people who are going to have no income shortly who have been let go or or rift. So I would be curious and you get back to me on that because if we need to make that adjustment, I think I'm pretty sure we said that during the budget process too. If we were starting to see a greater utilization in one area that we would kind of take that on, you know, we would consider it for the summer budget amendment. So that makes sense to me. And then finally, and this is not in the three questions, because the three questions, A++, I don't know why child care was never in there to begin with, but you know, I'm glad that we're turning that ship around. I'm a little concerned that we only support prescription payments for non-narcotic drugs, given the challenges of people living with chronic pain, and some mental health issue conditions would not be covered, and especially with the mental health crisis that's going on right now. I know many people that would not be eligible because of that. So however we want to as a body or whatever, I would like to discuss that because I think people would be surprised about what is listed as a scheduled to drug in this country. So yeah, no, thank you so much for all of this. And I look forward to, at any point, finding out what the budget amendment should look like if we want to hit that 100 cases. Thanks. Thank you. Dr. Miles. And just to note, I have a stat going. So I have Dr. Miles, Councilmember Fulton, Councilmember Shaw, Councilmember Vangrack, and Jackson, then I'll go last. Councilman Miles. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you for this report and data. It's very helpful on a number of levels. I generally support what was outlined in the recommendations therein. I, the only comment I have is it appears at least just thinking through it as a layperson. I'm not in housing. The $10,000 maximum asset level seemed to be almost implicit that people in need would have minimal assets in terms of some of the criteria that allow people to qualify for, but I do appreciate making things or to delineate things. So I have no other major comments or questions in the report to the remaining conversation of my colleagues and could support this as outlined all three points. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Miles, Councilmember Fulton. Thank you. Thank you for this. I'll go through the requested feedback and then give you a bonus. I am in favor of the 10,000 maximum asset level. In fact, you know, in a prior life I did a lot of work in consumer financial protection and I'm aware that like that's incredibly high. Almost 60% of Americans can't cover a thousand dollars unexpected expense. So that's incredibly high. So I'm fine with that maximum. The 80% AMI, I thought I originally was concerned that it was too low and we've missed some people. You made the good point that like people that are affected by the current federal workforce efforts, it's income at time of application, not like over the course of the past year. So I'm comfortable with that because you're right, it would be zero. Child care should be included. What you didn't ask for and we've already talked about it a little bit is the prescription drug coverage. I'm curious on that one. For the reason you said, like prescription drugs are expensive and un, and un, I don't know, precarious. It's unclear how much cost go in much direction. If someone needs a life saving prescription that they can't cover, that seems to me that it's almost more important that they get that than maybe even childcare. So I am curious where we got the $300 limit and if that reflects, like, TMI, but I've got some pretty expensive but like you prescription drugs. And like, so I would want to revisit that and make sure we're covering what we really think people would need on that one. If you have a response to that, that's great. Sure. So most of these proposed changes are reflecting things that we have seen from folks coming to us with. Like we have seen folks coming to us with much much higher rental arrears than we're able to clear, which is part of the reason we want to increase that limit. We don't do a ton of prescription drug cases. And so in the instances where folks have come to us, the $300 limit has been completely fine. But that's an area that we can certainly revisit. You know, the guardrails of this program are adaptable and we want to be responsive to the needs that we see. So if that's a need that we see, we can certainly revisit that. No, I appreciate that. I figure since it is, I gather such a small percentage that you're saying you get very few that are there. It wouldn't be a huge hit to the overall expense to make sure we're covering that if needed. So I would be interested in taking a look at it to see if it could be higher without it being a big problem. But otherwise, I'm happy with all this. I think you got a few back from me. So thank you. Thank you, Councilman Bershaw. I also want to echo my colleagues comments and thank you. And I know that this is something that's really needed this this safety net. It is for emergency situations. So could you clarify, so it's 10,000, it's 10K for one application or say someone it receives a failure to pay rent two times per year. Are they able to ask for assistance if they did not use the 10K? So the $10,000 would be to determine whether they are eligible for the program, just based on their assets similar to looking at their income level. If we had a maximum of $3,000, so take the current level of $2,000 right now. If somebody comes to us and they have $1,000 in rental or rears that need to be cleared and we help them with that, then they come back to us six months later, they have another $1,000, we can still help them with that. So those maximums are all for that 12 month period. OK. I have seen it in Rent Court. Oftentimes landlords will wait two to three months. So they can ensure eviction. And so tenants won't be able to get covered. Or amount is higher than what tenants are able to get assistance for. But I think increasing it is extremely helpful and I know we can do what we can do. But yeah, I've just, I've seen usually landlords won't evict the first month, They'll wait like a few months and it can quickly get up to 10k. And so there's a, but there was like a special call out for federal employees. But just to be clear, it's, it's not necessarily, there's not like a special program or anything for federal and plays. It's just that if you meet the requirements, right? Correct. Okay. So the biggest complaint that I hear with the process is the time it takes to cut the check and like how long it takes to get the money. I know that sometimes at Rent Court, residents are a little confused on where to go, like the county or the city. During COVID, there was an office. So after a court, they would be able to be directed if they were Rockville residents, or they would have more assistance in how they would get direction. But with these new measures, are you gonna have additional outreach and updates? Yes, we were. I can't even talk about that. Yes, especially at Rent Court. I think that it's needed at Rent Court. So we have our coalition of the Emergency Assistance Coalition with all of the different nonprofits and partners within Montgomery County who provide rental assistance and other types of emergency assistance. And we certainly want to improve our partnership with the courts since we do have plenty of folks who come straight over from court after receiving their eviction judgment. And so we want to make sure that those folks who are sending them over are up to date on what our requirements are so that they're not sending them to us and then we have to send them to the county because that's just not not the best customer service to provide. Okay. And when you're talking about partners, we're talking about hip, kasa and Maryland legal aid. Rangers aligns. Yes, those partners are a part of the of the the address aligns a part of the EAC calls or just the hip is a part of the, of the renter's alliance a part of the EAC calls or. No, just the, just the, hip is a part of the emergency assistance coalition calls, but there are other coalition calls that we are a part of with the renter's alliance. So all those types of organizations would be reaching out to and letting them know about our updated limits and program guidelines as well. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Engrake. Thank you so much for the detailed presentation. It's clearly thoughtful. I know there were a number of questions that I had when addressing where you were going, but you've addressed the rationale and reason that we need to make each of these steps. Your requested feedback. each of these levels make sense for what we're doing we absolutely should be doing childcare and I think your levels that you put forward are good. I also want to chime in and because it was on my list as well prescriptions is a significant thing and I know that myself when I was at one point in an emergency need, was concerned about my prescriptions, because that's something that can be a significant drain. And when someone's going through an emergency, whether they've lost a job, and don't have the insurance, or they're worried about the type of medication that could be on, even if it's a small percentage, it's something that I think we really should be addressing. So to the extent that we can add and make sure that that's covered, because just as long as we're dealing with child care, because that's a significant expense that's dealing with the health and safety of someone in emergency assistance, I view prescription drugs in a very similar manner. But what you put together really has a rational, rational basis behind all the levels that we're adjusting. The only question I did have is the recommendations that you're putting forward here. Is that based on any specific assumption with regard to the budget amendment or regardless of what we would do with regard to the budget amendment? These are the recommendations you'd go forward. Yes, so this would be regardless. These are based on exactly as you said the rationale of each of these funding areas, each of these eligible assistance areas. So we would want to be able to provide those funding amounts, although you know we take that into consideration, but this is primarily driven by those external factors. That's what I thought. So my support for them doesn't change. I just wanted to make sure that we're not making any assumption with either a low, high or middle amount with regard to the budget amendment. So thank you. The work here is really impressive and really much needed. So thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Jackson. Thank you, Mayor. I'll be brief, because I went before, but I have a question actually on number two that you ask about the 80% AMI. So what is it currently? Currently we have no AMI limit. And how long have we had that in place for the program? As long as the program's been around, I'm aware of. And so, would you say, like, as a senator of AMI, like, how many people above 80% do we have trying to access the program? Very few, I believe, I would have to go back and look at the data to give you an exact answer there, but I believe when looking at the, of how many people in the last, let's see here. No, I had it in the slide here. Can you give you that number again? Yes. Yes, since 2018 there have only been six clients with household incomes over $70,000. And so we haven't broken those down by household size or anything like that necessarily, but it's a very small amount that would likely go beyond that 80% AMI limit. No, thank you. I mean, I understand you're asking now for one into your limited to 80 percent. But I really haven't looked at the numbers that you've given. I don't really see it as an issue. So I'm open to that limit. But I really, you know, I'm just struggling with making the change when we've always had a, we've never had a limit before and it's worked pretty well. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Jackson. I have a couple of comments and I want to weigh in on your questions as well. If we can go to the slide with the questions, I'm trying to track everyone's comments. So I'm okay these, except I do not support the 80% AMI. We saw dramatic changes when the county had to change the AMI and there was some unintended consequences. And I know they had to do it because of budget. I understand that. But in this year, where we have a lot of uncertainty with federal workers and contractors, we also have seen some people that I refer to different places. People have a health issue, right? Health expenses go up. There's one person that I've referred to that got sick for three months, and really unexpected medical expenses, et cetera. I just think that given that it has not been an issue in terms of that's the majority of cases, I have a concern about especially this year. I'm willing to reconsider and subsequent years, but this year I personally don't support the 80%. The county does have the 60% and we're secondary, but I do think that we need to consider what's going on in our economy. People getting sick. They may still have a job at the, you know, in a situation where they've lost income of how to vastly increase expenses due to healthcare needs. I do not support that one. However, I think you're, you know, I really understand why you were doing it from a budget perspective. And I really support all of the items that you thought was so thoughtful in thinking through how people get help from security deposits to guarantees. I really love all that you've added there, the childcare piece. So I wanted to just at least flag that very, very thoughtful. I support everything except that 80%. The other thing to the comments of my colleagues, I do agree that reconsidering the amount for prescriptions and my colleague Valeria also has mentioned before from a health care perspective deductibles. I wouldn't differentiate prescription or deductibles because those can be very high. I know for example, I'm trying to save money in the past. I've had a high deductible plan and you know you may have to pay $2,500 before you can get help and if you're already struggling that could be a real issue. So I wanted to acknowledge at least that component of health care could health issues could really put someone behind financially. And having had you know my, remember my family go through surgery recently. You go to the hospital and you get random bills that you don't. It's like three bills now, four bills later. You don't always know who at the hospital is taking your insurance versus not. So I just think that we have to consider the health care piece a little bit more and how it could have a strain on someone's finances. So I also wanted to note just a couple of things that just to be mindful of, I don't know what's going to happen in the federal environment with the change in the emergency assistance that is provided in people who had COVID-19 support that was going to have potential to have an impact in the region. And I don't know what's going to happen with CDBG and other places of financing that people might get help. So I'm just wanting to acknowledge that there's some uncertainty into the environment we're going into this year. I also wanted to note that the reason why we added the rationale, why we added the additional 100 beyond the Increase that we were planning to make with FY 26 we added the additional 100 with the idea that potentially fed a workers contractors and grantees So we're not creating separate guidelines for them But we did add additional funding so I wanted to clarify that point One thing I've noticed is When people are coming for help And I've had to help follow up a couple times as well. It's the navigation among services because they're usually trying to cobble together. I don't know if we have the staff resources to help on that. When people are stressed and vulnerable positions, it seems like we could provide a little more navigation support in following through. Mr. Mahaluk will tell you, I'm like, where are you in this case? I'm wondering if we have this, when we do get additional staffing in DHCD, if that's something we can do in terms of the follow-through and checking in with people, because they're dealing with a lot, there's a loss, there's a stress. I just think that additional TLC would help. And also sometimes maybe combining in with other programs and referrals. So not only other nonprofits, but are they potentially good applicant for, or participant for bank on rock, fill and financial literacy support to help give people a leg up. So those are two comments I wanted to make. I wanted to also acknowledge that utilities, I'm hearing a lot about utilities, particularly electric and people feeling like those increases are really taking a toll. Not only for residents, but for small business owners as well. So I just wanted to note this may be an area where we see an increase in support. And I'm interested in knowing how to see, if we can track that and maybe even with the mayor and council letting us know, if there are any major things that you're seeing that programmatically will be helpful for us to think about in the future to flag those things for us. In addition, if the balance gets to a certain point and we're halfway through through the year and we're almost out of money which we haven't been yet but I just want to I think they'll be helpful to send a note to the mayor and council through Mr. Mahell to let us know hey things are really heat enough here so that we can have an opportunity. I've seen some nonprofits who have run out of money and they several months ago people were were not able to help through until July. So I just wanted to flag that request. And I didn't want to know that just to flag and context, the Council of Governments five days ago released the report on the unhoused population. And it was very startling to me. When you look regionally, while the entire region declined, we saw a 32% increase in Montgomery County. I'm interested to learn more about why that is because there are similar regional pressures and other places So if we could just help to keep a pulse on what is happening that's uniquely different here? And this was just between 2020 and 2024 and 2025 So I'm not always the what but the why and then how can we find solutions to address? I don't know if we're able to pull from that what rockful data looks like, but I just wanted to note there's a big of context and concern that came out of that report. I mean, just in example, Alexandria saw 11% decrease at not our right Montgomery County, not rockful. Montgomery County as a whole, while it had a 32% increase, we were higher than DC. DC had a 9% decrease. So something is interesting here, and I want to understand what is going on in this context. So we can look at solutions collectively working without county partners. Council Member Valeray and then Council Member Shaw. Just to, I just want to go on record. I am. Thank you to both councilmember Jackson and. Madam Mayor for kind of. Opening my eyes a little bit on my answer to number two. If we have never worked with a maximum before. Then I think. Creating one doesn't make a lot of sense. So I think that's what I'm going to do creating one doesn't make a lot of sense. So I would not be for an 80% AMI maximum. I think if it's working without one right now, then we can continue that. And then very quickly the comment, this is all being said in all of the current support, especially around healthcare. We're all talking about it and we don't know how drastic the Medicaid cuts are going to be. And that is absolutely huge. Like I don't know it, I don't know specifically for Rockville, but but immigrant county over 200,000 people are enrolled in Medicaid. And Maryland's portion of that from state funds is actually relatively small compared to other jurisdictions. So we could see this having a ripple effect in many ways, but you start seeing a bunch of people that are no longer eligible or can't get their services and health care through Medicaid, that could present a new challenge as well. So I just want to flag that as something I've been following and think I talk about it and just about every arena that I'm in. So, but yes, I am now a no on number two. Thank you. Come Member Shaw. I would be remiss on not to mention, you know, we are in top times and times are getting tougher. And I think it's really important, especially if we're looking at increasing the AMI maximum and wanting to continue to help as many people as possible that we also look again at rent stabilization. Rent stabilization actually helps to prevent evictions as experts have shared with us. They also help to prevent homelessness. And so, and they also save the taxpayers money. And so I just wanted to, as we're thinking about solutions, I just wanted to push that forward as an effective way to help to reduce the costs on tax payers and be able to provide the same amount of services. Thank you for those comments. I was actually part of what was really curious about the point in time count at the county level because it specifically looked at between 2024 and 2025 while the county in that period had the policy in place. There was still such a drastic increase. So I'm curious as what other contributing factors there are to this issue. And then the other thing I forgot to mention is I would like to see how we stand on evictions between Gathersburg, Rockville, the county into Co-Ampark. How do we fare? I know you sent us some information and that Councillor Bouchard requested and I requested as well on evictions but I think that's something just to get a temperature and understand the context and environment. Councillor Bouchard. One of the things that I do, so I think the law was implemented in the middle of 2024. And then had a few more months. So I'm not sure about, I'm not sure the time period that's covered, but I just wanted to note that. also Rockville rents are on average higher than what they are in the county. So that is also a contributing factor. And just, you know, the basic information that more than half of renters and Rockville is 50, close to 50% renters, more than half of renters are cost burden and 40% are severely cost burden. And so folks are really on the edge in terms of rent. And as long as we don't have rent stabilization and landlords are able to rent gouges and provide predatory rent hike to families. And we're increasing the amount that we're paying for the evictions. I think it's an unfair system on taxpayers. Thank you. I'll just note Montgomery County was 32% between 2024 and 25. DC went down 9%. Alexander went down 11%. Also, Loudoun County went down 17%, they've had a lot of growth as well. So I just wanted to provide context and this is available on the Council of Government annual count shows slight decline in regional homelessness. I just wanted to reference the report. I appreciate all of this. I just wanted to note note it appears that we support everything you've said. The question I'd have is whether the 80% AMI I heard three notes so I wanted to clarify if folks can weigh on this particular item. I know Fulton, you already did. So just want to say, where do others stand on the 80% AMI? Council Member Shaw? When we, I think by having an 80% AMI, just let me know if this is correct. If we don't have an income maximum, there are folks that will have actually higher rent. If there's no income limit, then there are some folks that may have, like if they're making more than the 70,000, their rent is typically higher, which is more of a cost, right? And then there's less people overall that we can serve. Is that correct? That I could see the argument for that that typically folks who have higher incomes are going to put that money towards potentially higher rents not across the board, but as a generalization that certainly is a trend we would expect to see. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Rangrack, did you want to weigh on this one? I already did. I supported the staff for I can go. Okay. And then if I could also just note, I'm going to go to Dr. Malznex. If anyone for if you both wanna speak to the prescription and deductible, are you okay with what staff recommended or do you wanna see an increase? Oh no, I thought I'd say before, I do wanna see an increase. I believe it should be added and expanded, much like we're doing, we're childcare. Perfect, Council, Michelle, on that one. I agree with the staff's recommendation. But in the event, actually, can you come back? Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. Dr. Miles. Thank you, Madam Mayor. It's mentioned before I support all three to include 80% AMR relative to the agnostic on medical expense. I can go with the majority on that one. Did you hear that? Can you say the last part again, agnostic on which part? On the prescription? The increase through medical expenses. I'm willing to follow the majority on that one and recognize it is an issue. Overall, yeah, I just support staff's recommendations. Thank you. So I have so far four people on prescription and potentially adding deductible for, So I have Fulton, Jackson, Valery and Ashton, at least coming forward maybe others have a comment and VanGrac as well. Yeah. Mayor Nattable Aver, but it would be helpful to know can I just just double it from 300 to 600? Does that work for everybody? Yes, for me. Yes. OK. Thank you. It's helpful. All right. And then so far, we only have three people on not including the 80% AMI Jackson Vellery Ashton. So I think with that, unless anyone changes them, did you want us to come back to you? You're good. OK. All right. the rest of the recommendations, Mr. Mejilek. Yep, if I could just clarify, thank you for all that piece, pieces mayor. So we're going to launch the program adjustment immediately. We will come back for the budget and amendment to add $100,000 this summer to a few that extra cash. And then I would also recommend that we develop a written staff report to council. On some of the areas you guys were concerned about giving us some more rich data. And really the outcomes of this program and have that to before the first of the year. Thank you. And if you could just track how many people also who would have needed help on the 80% AMI situation? For the reasons I mentioned, I'm very worried about the instability in the region and health care with Medicaid and not Medicaid, but just loss of health insurance, etc. So happy to do that. Just to get a sense of it's a problem or not. Yeah, I forgot a couple of other things. We'll follow up just in a separate email regarding if we get any more indicators on homelessness, the disparity across the DMV, more rich data regarding evictions, and just know as we're adding additional staff, we are doing cross-training for a navigational services. It can be a bit of a burnout. I'm sure Councilor Connors can appreciate that. We'll really understand. cross training amongst a number of staff to provide those to care for people who need that. Thank you, Mayor. I would totally support that. I do think our staff hear a lot of challenges and I've heard in other agencies as well that staff burn out with the number of challenges they're dealing with and its emotional toll as well. So they extend that we can build in breaks or cross-training or something that helps our staff refresh so that we can give stellar service to our community. Councilman Valeriy, then Councilman Rishaw. I would put forward as well for exploration the issue that I brought up around prescription drugs on choosing which medications that we would help to someone to pay for. I just realized and Councilmember Dr. Miles can correct me, but I believe that that would put people who are in medically assisted treatment for substance use disorder that they would not be able to get assistance, which could have a very extremely negative effect. So I just, I know that it has been an underutilized assistance up until probably now or whenever we know what the final number is, but I would hate to think that in an assistance program, that the most vulnerable among us who need a prescription drug would be turned away because of that. So if my colleague's degree or if that's just something we could get more information on, however we want to do it, I just fundamentally think it's a problem. Council Member Shaw. Thank you. While we're gathering information around the region, can we also look at rent increases generally for each of the areas like Montgomery County versus Virginia in the DMV area? Because I know there were a number of hikes in advance of the bill. Thank you. Thank you. Just about curiosity. One last question I have is do we know if people who are above the 80% do we know what other providers people can go to if there is any resource for them or this is like they're too bad. good luck. Yeah, there is then typically it's 60% or below. Yeah, I'm just I would just say on the record I'm very worried about this year particularly what the instability and job market for people. Okay, I think that concludes the conversation unless anyone has anything else. Dr. Mouser, you good? I have a question. All right. Dr. Mouser, one more. Sorry. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Colleague asked that medication assisted treatment, particularly with regard to opioids. People paying upwards like on average, I think it's like a hundred and just looking at that. About a hundred thirty bucks a week or six thousand dollars a year to support the point she made. That's all. Thank you. All right, we're going to take a brief break before this one. So give your time to set up the presentation. Let's give it five. Welcome back, Rockville. Today is still May 19, 2025, and we are reconvening meeting 14-25. We had one cleanup item from the REAP rental, the Rockville Emergency Assistance Program, that I wanted to just flag, that we talked about during our budget discussion, but it wasn't specifically called out for discussion here. So during the budget discussion, when we added 100,000 considering some of the changes and federal workers, contractors and grantees, we had also noted potential mortgage support for people. So I just wanted to note that. Council member Van Grack. Yeah, I was just gonna say, I also would support that. I think it's important because there are people who literally could become unhoused just on mortgage basis alone. And I also want to clarify, because I know there was a discussion with regard to whether we do with the AMI. My concern with regard to why the staff's recommendation for the AMI limitation is because we're an unprecedented in times. And there literally could be a flush of people who really need assistance. And that was the rational basis. To the extent there's a way staff can adjust to see what we might be addressing so that we can potentially help more people if that is becoming a restrictive line limitation to preventing us from being able to help people, I'd be against it. But by the same vein, the rationale is we need to be able to help those who need the assistance the most. I don't want us to just be helping one segment or not helping another. But if that line is becoming a restrictive line that we're not helping enough and there's a wafer staff to gauge that as we're going through then I don't think we should be having a line that's preventing us from helping people. Councilmember Shaw. I definitely agree with my colleague Councilmember Van Grack. I think there's just a lot of uncertainty right now and we're not sure about the impacts of unemployment and so I think waiting to see how many applications we get and tracking that data would be really important to make more informed decisions in the future. Thank you. Anyone else in the mortgage question? Councillor Mojangston, did you have your hand up? Oh no. Okay. All right. You guys good? Okay. And Councillor Van Crack, for the 80% are you saying that we should look at, don't include it now or you're thinking about a threshold in which people could get help and then we'd save some money I am still in the position that where we are right now with what staffs presented We should have it to the extent there's an alternative and a way that we can track that to make sure that it is not becoming a line of restriction then I'd be okay with it but I mean I know I know staff recommended it, and given what staff was presenting it, I support it, to the extent there can be a way to track or have some type of threshold that I could be in support of getting rid of it. So when we get to like, just making up 25% remaining funding that you would've restricted or restricted on the outset? I mean, I think we're, again, where staff is right now, but if there's like maybe a half way through and then we look to, and maybe there's a gradiation, maybe it's, you know, with 25, one level, 50, another level to make sure that with the amount remaining, we're helping those mostly in need and it's, and I don't want us to get to the point where those who are at 80% AMI and truly need help are being able to get it. Thank you. With that just a flag if staff can flag if the case comes in that is asking for help but we the threshold is a problem that would be helpful for us to know. I'm sorry. I'm not sure what the direction is on the mortgage support for people. I'm not. I only heard two. Was it you were speaking as well? Did you agree with the mortgage comment as well? So that's three. Me? I mean, yes. I heard councilman crack and I thought you agreed councilman Shaw. So there's three of us. Okay. All right. So so mortgage support is a part of the REAP program. Yes. Yeah. That's what we said in the budget discussions. Yep. Okay. Okay. We are now moving on to our next agenda item, which is our city election reform. I want to welcome our consultant, Jason Gantt, from the Gantt Group. Also, Mr. Mahalek, Mr. Matete, and I want to acknowledge also who are contributors, Mr. Dawson and our important office that manages elections are a city clerk, Sarah Taylor-Farrow. And I know that there's several members of the BSC in the audience, and we thank you for being here, and we thank you for all of your work. So thank you, Mayor. Just a really quick summary. This is the first of three times. I wanna say three times that will be before you to talk about some potential reforms to the election code Tonight we're really just going to focus in on the background to kind of level set everybody with the number of discussions and decisions that were made by Council BSE in the past number of years But we really want to get to the meat of discussion. That's really what potential modifications you want to see to the election code. If we don't get way down into the granular elements of the code today, that's okay, because we'll be back in June, and then you'll also see a final report in July. So I just wanted to level set that to know that, you'll get multiple bites of the apple on that, and we'll also do some community engagement between today's work session and the work session in June. I'll tell you when I'm on the frame. And I'll turn it over to Deputy City Manager, Brockman Tutate, who walks through the background. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Jeff. Good evening, Mayor and Council. As Jeff mentioned, I will walk through some of the apartment contextual information. They'll be healthily understanding the impetus for today's work session. And I will start by, you know, talking about some of the actions that are for the previous federal review commissions. And I will start by the 2012 federal review commission. The federal review commission was created in April, 2012. And there were tasks to review and evaluate articles, articles two section one, a and article two section four. These articles pertain to the length of the elected tons of the bank consult, the number of city council members and the schedule by which city elections are to be held. In December 19, 2020, 2012, that should review commission issued its report and recommendation and among other things, they recommended the tons of the bank and council extend from two years to four years, the council size increase from four to six and city elections be held every four years to coincide with the presidential elections. Fast forward to 2020, another charter review commission was created and they were tasked to review and and make recommendation on elected related topics. Some of the topics were the size of the council, the time limits, representative districts, among other, among other topics that are listed all in the staff report. September 30th, 2022, the 2020 general review issued its report and recommendations and part of the recommendations included increasing the size of the council to six, the creation of district, increasing the size of the BSE, among other recommendations that I included in the staff report. Then we move on to the board of supervisors of elections, BSE on October 24th, 2022, the BSE delivered our report to the mayor and council where they covered their accomplishments for 2021, fiscal year's 21 and 22, and outlines their goals for 2023. And part of that report, they recommended two changes to the city charter and several to chapter eight of the city code. October on February 27th, 2023, the BSE had a follow up discussions on the report with the previous mayor and council. Following the BSE and 2020 RReview Commission's presentations and follow-up discussion with the mayor and council, the previous mayor and council took some actions. February 6, 2023, the previous council passed a resolution that increased the number of council city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of the city of of the city code and on July 17th, 2023, they approved a resolution to proceed with fall ballad questions in the 2023 City elections that will be part of the conversation that you all will have tonight. Following the 2023 election, this current body received a presentation of the 2023 election results from the BSE, the BSE outlined the accomplishments of the 2023 elections, issues that up and the lesson learned. Part of their recommendation as well included a complete rewrite of chapter 8 before the 2027 elections among other recommendations as well. After some discussion by this current body the mayor and council director staff to bring to schedule a walk session on city elections in preparation for this walk session. The city issued an RFP and the Gant Group was selected to help the city's team on the election reform project and the Gant Group. Jason represented by Jason Gant of the Gant Group Inc is here tonight to help facilitate the discussion. Thank you so much. Yes, my name is Jason Gantt and very excited to be here. I've been working for the city for the past six weeks now and had an opportunity to visit the Jeff, Robert and Sarah and got to understand a lot about the inner workings of the election process, as well as I was able to attend the last meeting of the Board of Supervisors of Elections, and also receive information from them about their concerns with the elections. As Berk said, I've been involved in elections for over 20 years and from all aspects, from state level to counties to city levels, looking at mail-in voting, looking at cybersecurity concerns, looking at the overall administrative process of conducting an election. So I'm very excited to continue working with Rockville on this project and moving to our next phase, which is that of working with the City Council on understanding your thoughts and concerns and ideas for what the future of Rockville election should be. And as we can see, I've broken it down into these various areas. The election laws, there's been a number of changes with the election code and the charter campaign finance, definitely a hot topic, this past election, the overall election process and procedure. So everything from A to Z in that aspect, the Board of Supervisors of Elections, their roles, their responsibilities, and then talking about those 23 ballot questions and deciding what type of focus you would like me to go in. And then lastly, I wanted to make sure we left an opportunity if there were other areas that you wanted to share with me to add as a focus of the final report, happy to do that as well. So what I'd like to do with all of these, these five different areas is just kind of give an introduction of the area and then open it up for questions within that area. And then we just kind of keep going down, down the list. Obviously we can jump around as well, but my real focus at this visit is to get the input directly from the council. In a couple of weeks we'll be doing the community events and then we'll be coming back the middle of June to summarize where we're at and then I'll be asking maybe some more direct questions that yes we're going to be digging really deep into this area or no we're not in that area and to try and get some of that in preparation for the final report and recommendations which will come there on the end of July. So the first area is the election laws. I'm open to conduct this, however you'd like. I have a few ideas and questions and kind of nodding of heads if we want or if you have some areas that you want to jump in and cut me off, that's fine. But just some of the things that I've identified early is some of the definitions in the election code can get quite confusing, whether it's specific direction that staff needs to go, whether it's specific understanding as a candidate on what different steps I need to go through. And you all obviously know that quite well. Another issue that has come up is like a clear layout of how the election code is set up that maybe we should have a section just on election procedures and then we should have another complete section just of campaign finance. We're right now, we're kind of seeing that some of those things get intermingled. And especially, I try and take, you know, 10 steps backwards and pretend I'm a brand new candidate, or I just move to Rockville, and I want to be a candidate because I want to give back to the community. Well, we should have some relatively simple rules that we can go through on how to do that. So that's some of the ideas that have come up. Concerns about election year, whether or not it should be every four years. Then when we get down the road, we can talk about the districts and the term limits. And then if you wanted the council to be staggered Have in half the council elected every two year or On a two-year cycle so everyone was still a four-year term, but you would do those varying terms conflicts of interest That's another area that has come up that's going to be reviewed is making it recommendations on how that can be clear in the code so that when you're acting as both a council person and a candidate that you we have some clear rules on what's going to take place during that time frame so so those are kind of some high level areas of election laws. The RFP was very clear about not rewriting the code, but it just in the short conversations that I've had and the little reading going into some of these areas and looking at those 2020 reports and the 2012 report, you can see that it's just continually been building, because some of those same issues you have all been dealing with for the past decade plus so it's probably time to kind of start. Not can some of those off so you don't have to keep hearing about the need for election reform. So I would definitely open it up to any questions about election laws if there's more areas that you're interested in me looking into happy to do that otherwise we can keep moving down the list. Thank you so much for the report. I know many of us have comments. So I and I will just say we appreciate this is so needed. We've seen from the as you you said, it's been building up and I think times have changed, right? So there are new forms of communication, new things to consider and I think this is so important for us to keep up with the times. And I want to thank the BSE for sharing, there was a report and then some follow up item shared with us for consideration. I had a couple quick things. I'm not going to hit all of them, but relate to for me, what's most important to figure out is what was broken or caused issues or heartache that we must avoid going into next election. To me, that is Mission 1. Everything else is gravy. But I would love to get to the bigger discussion that we will do that tonight. But I really want to make sure that we complete our code on time. And I mentioned timely because during the last phase when people were running, there were some changes made during the running process that could have caused financial financial grievance or a penalty. And so we want to be mindful and we'll'll, you know, need to work with staff on this that everything gets done, at least on what must be fixed before the campaign season. So I wanted to start with that. There were a couple of quick things that I, just looking at our code again, that I wanted to flag and get, you know, expertise on. And then I'll pause and ask some colleagues questions as well. A question for Council Member Larry. Sorry, I proceed really. Do we want to split this between what aspects of the charter and what aspects of code are we just going to do all of the election laws? So I'll leave it to you but leave it to you. But I think there's a Hodgepodge mix, and it'll flow between these two. I think we handle the referendum questions separately. I would prefer doing referendum later, but definitely you can mix law and the charter. Awesome. Into this discussion. OK, so just a quick thing on these two questions. One is campaign materials. When you define campaign, when not you. What the coat, when we look at the campaign materials, robo calls are now campaign, you know, can be considered a campaign material. You don't list, we don't list it out in our code now. And I just wanted to note that has been used in some elections. And particularly the use of disclaimer, I think we should address on calls and text messages as well, so I think the BSE said there was lack of clarity on that. So I wanted to at least raise what we've heard from the BSE and also acknowledge that there's a newer tool that may not have been used back when this was first created. So I'm gonna just do three and then I'm gonna pause so that people may wanna chime in or add their own and then I'll come back. The other thing that came up is like, what if a candidate wants to drop out or they're inactive? And that caused a little bit of a heartache as on the past election for the city as well as the candidate and the BSC. But right now in the code it says that they can't withdraw after the final day of the petitions. So that's really early in the campaign season and so maybe some of the things could have been avoided if that candidate could have withdrawn.. So I've just, I question that. And then we heard from people who testified the need to better define committees and PACs. We did see more PACs getting involved than any other election that I remember in the city. So I think that we need to think about that as well. I have many others, but I'm gonna pause because I know my colleagues have a lot as well. And I think if we maybe each take three or four and then we come back to the rest of ours, Councilman Van Grech. Yeah, I also have a number from, but I'm gonna live myself to three to start. First and foremost, we heard from the Board of Suppires of Elections. I notice that we've got a number of them here with regard to strict deadlines and strict enforcement. The current code has significant problems. If you listen to their meetings, if you go back and look, they have been highlighted. Issues such as, and I know there's been a debate as to whether there is a grace period with regard to certain enforcement. Do what degree can there be enforcement? And whether the penalties and enforcement provisions are strict enough given what is going on currently versus what might have happened when the election code was first drafted and has been amended. really needs to be the ability for the BSE and for the city to not only properly enforce it, enforce the parameters on a timely basis, but make sure it's significant enforcement. If we're just gonna have slaps on the risks, then are people really going to follow the rules? If we're not going to make sure that there's timely enforcement, then people are going to not follow the rules. If an election code is going to have any ability, as the Board of Supervisor Elections has testified, has put in their reports, and has described in their meetings, there's got to be meat to it. And that goes to even definitions just as Madame mayor is talking with regard to definitions of what is a campaign committee. I think there's some loose definitions and loose enforcement provisions that really need to be tightened up. And going on to something the mayor has said, I think it's interesting to note in the presentation that the Board of Supervisor Elections brought a number of these issues to the last Mayor and Council in October of 2022. Yet we had changes to the election code. In the middle of an election, I know you talked about conflict of interest, if you're in the middle of an election, can the mayor and council change the laws? I would like to see there being some type of restriction. Now, I can understand there might need to be amendments to the election code, even the middle of election. Mergencies happen, a polling place burns down, they have to have another polling place. But if you're actually changing the substance as to what's happening in the middle of election, it just can't happen for a true fair election. And one last thing, I know you didn't bring in the presentation, but I want to bring it up for a discussion and maybe even get your thoughts on it. I know that we have order of the ballot currently alphabetical. And I know there's numerous studies that talk about being placed higher in the ballot or in order makes a difference. To the extent we could follow some of the other jurisdictions that places people on the ballot randomly. And it could be some jurisdictions do it randomly, you draw names, and that's how it is in the ballot. Other jurisdictions have numerous versions of the ballot, which different orders so that every single person, or there might be like 10 versions of it, and it's a different order on each. So there is parity throughout. To the extent we can talk about that, I think that would help make a fair and more fair elections. Like I said, much like the mayor, I know I've got another of the comments, but I'll stick with the restart. Thank you very much, Council Member. I have a stat going, Council Member Fulton, Jackson Valeria, if anyone else wants to be added, please let me know. I'm looking for hands. Okay. Council Member Fulton. Council Member Fulton doesn't mind. Did being alphabetical order, council member Van Grack. I am just kidding. I am just kidding. I support what he said. But so I will get. I was just reading the BSE report again and some other recommendations like just I'd start there right. I mean that's so I won't feel I need to repeat most of them, I think cover. But what I what I think is a primary importance is fixing those things that help the residents and the voters like yes, as a candidate going through it, like there are a lot of things that are tricky in their heart and like, you know, we should fix those two. But there are things like, you know, some people didn't get their ballots, right? Like let's start there and make sure people get their ballots. I will say there are some things about the campaign finance laws. Like it's there so voters know how people are financing their campaigns. And I don't know that our current rules like provide the right incentives to be transparent in a timely manner on those things for residents and voters. So I think I won't go into any of those specific things. I'm sure everyone has it, but I will say my goal is like that's the primary thing to fix to make it fair, transparent and easy easy for residents and voters to follow, what's happening in a campaign and an election, secondary also important, to make it fair, transparent, and sort of for candidates. But, thank you, my day. Just to insert one small thing, because you've been mentioned in a report. The report mentions a lot of technical issues. There are some things like reducing the mailings. So I don't know if you want to agree with everything I'm going to work. No, thank you because there are, when I talk about things that help the residents and voters. Yes, there are things in there that say reduce the number of mailings. I wouldn't support that. there are things in there that say reduce the deadline to register from 60s ahead to 45. So. that say reduce the number of mailings. I wouldn't support that. There are things in there that say, reduce the deadline to register from 60 years ahead to 45. So everything we can do to expand the vote, expand the access, and make it clear and fair. Thank you for that clarification. Thank you. I knew you would be on that, but I just wanted to check. All right, so next is Councilmember Jackson. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Councilmember Greg and Fulton for all those comments and yours, Mayor. I just associate myself somewhat with everything people have said, especially the deadline. The deadline for making changes to the election should come well before the election actually begins. And I know that you're right. There are emergencies, there are things that we can't anticipate. By and large, we should have at least, maybe it's two months, a month, whatever it is, where nothing can change in the election so that everybody is on the same playing field. And to your point on conflict of interest, I think that is a major conflict of interest that we could take care of by having kind of a deadline for changes to the election before it happens. The other ones, the timelines for reporting my colleagues obviously touched on the too, but I think we should have more transparency and faster violations or findings so that people can know when somebody's trying to to game the system. I think that, you know, we have these campaign finance rules for a reason. And that is to be transparent to candidates, but also to the public. And right now, I don't think it's working as is intended. So I don't really have the answer, but we should make sure that we tighten it up so that nobody can game the system and maybe hide their campaign finance report until after the election. So that's one thing. Also, the mail. And everybody knows that the mail is going to some difficulties in the moment. And it's probably only going to get worse. And I support vote by mail. I want to make that clear. I actually want to expand vote by mail. But I'm concerned about the post office and their ability to get mail to where it should go, especially with voting. And so we talked about it before and it's a big issue now, making sure that the post office that ballots that have been cast and mailed should be counted even if they're delivered later than the date. So if election day passes and it's post-mort before election day, then it should be counted. And I don't know how we do that. I don't know if it's a canvas or if it's delivered and then we count it, but we should not penalize people for taking advantage of the system that we've had the vote by mail system. And if through no fault of their own, the post office or whoever fails to deliver that ballot here, they shouldn't be penalized for that. And so I think that is really an aspect that we should take a look at as well. And I'll stop there. I have a lot written down, but I want to be fair to my colleagues. Thank you very much, Council Member Valerie. Good evening. This is going to be hard for me because as I noted to some in the break, I'm a democracy nerd. So I love this topic and I will restrain myself to three points that I want to bring up. One overarching comment, what aspects of the charter and the code should be subject to reform. I would say all of it. I don't think that there is anything that we shouldn't discuss. I don't think that we're doing everything so perfectly that there are any. Any any perfect points that we just don't touch that I think everything should be open for discussion because there are a lot of things that need to be changed. I echo, diddo, diddo, diddo, with some you know differences what my colleagues have said. You probably already know this already, but two of us were on the last charter review commission. So we're really steeped in some of these things, especially when it comes to voter expansion and the mayor and council. So at least we can be awesome there. One of the things that I am looking at is all of it from through the lens of transparency, accountability, and accessibility. I think that going book by mail made accessibility extremely very tangible for most people. However, there are still things that we need to do to, I believe, make our elections more ADA compliant, and not just the bare minimum of ADA compliance and that includes things like nomination petitions being able to sign a petition electronically. Right now it is only handwritten signatures that are accepted which make it very difficult with anybody with a vision impairment. I would love to see addressed under finance, I agree with all of my colleagues' enforcement, candidate committees, I would like to see contribution limits. I believe that surrounding jurisdictions have had them. They have been lawful and legal and would like to get your perspective on that in addition to that I would like to So contribution limits and public financing of elections are two aspects that are really important to me. I think I think the amount of money that you saw in this last election. I said it before, I'll keep saying it was obscene. It was absolutely obscene. And it prevents a lot of people from even putting their toe into the water if they don't believe that they can do it because they can't raise of money. And I don't think that that, I don't think we want an oligarchy at any level of government. And then finally, my third one, I kind of snuck a couple more in there but whatever. I think something in the last try to review commission struggled with. I'm still struggling with how to do this exactly but how to make sure that the BSE remains as independent as possible, when ultimately they are appointed by the mayor and council. Inherently, there's a conflict of interest there because we're deciding who then is making decisions around our elections. Sorry. So it was something that we grappled a lot with and I would love to hear your perspective on it because I think that that's a really important part of lack of conflict of interest too. And I'll stop there. Thank you. Council member Shaw. I do want to echo a lot of the things that my colleagues have shared. I'm not sure if this falls into procedure or but I'm just going to go with it. The first thing is having clarity around nicknames. I wasn't clear on how if candidate should go with what they registered with or their nicknames, I think some clarity would really help because that name stays with you throughout your political career if you get elected. So having some clarity around that. Also, just clarity in general as you shared initially, and I would like to hear more about European around a different layout. Let's see here. In terms of disclaimers, I do agree with my colleagues. I think there was some exception in the code if there's like an internal group and sharing information to an internal group that's already, like I think one example would be like a union or I think that, I think the code is actually targeted around like a union or some type of internal group if you're sharing outreach information to your group. Like if there's already an email list or a newsletter within that group where folks within that group have opted into that newsletter, I think there is an exception there. But it would be good to get clarity around that. I think with I do strongly agree with council member Valerii in terms of having public financing similar to that of the county. I think that brings more people in the election. I believe there already is a contribution for donors. I think it was like $1,000 or something like that. But I think it may also be good to look at contribution limits for IE's as well. Oh, sorry, independent expenditures. Yeah. Because yeah, there was a lot of a lot of money with the independent expenditures, the selection, the past election. Thank you. Thank you. I had a couple that comments that the BSC made about independent expenditures needing to look at that, definition of campaign materials. They also noted streamlining procedures for those who failed to file timely campaign finance reports, addressing how we handle municipal infractions was a hot topic. I know some of my colleagues mentioned that. So I just wanted to note that. This is just what's in the BSC report. I'm just including that as a group of what I also support, similar to Councilmember Fulton. And protecting election workers, I think, is also important. In this climate, we need to make sure that people feel safe to volunteer and not be bullied or badgered. I did want to note just again on things we learned to fix. The ballot tracking situation to my colleague, Councilmember Jackson, just wanted to comment on what he said as people when they send the mail, they want to make sure that it was received. And so I think the the ballot tracking figuring that out and Making rules about that or cross checking or I you know, maybe it's not in the code, but do we have a list of Guidelines to support the code so that there are things that must be done For example cross checking tracking. I know that the BSC talked about some protocols that they would put in place, like just making sure those are written guidelines. And there were several that you all mentioned, like USPS sweeps. Making sure that happens. The web delivery issue where people at the county level has signed up for web delivery. and then those were not included on the list sent to the city or they weren't mailed. Ballot. county level has signed up for web delivery. And then those were not included on the list sent to the city or they weren't mailed ballot. So I wanted to just again, continuing on, this is the part of the list from the BSC that I just wanted to make sure to call out and make sure that we address that. And there was an apartment building that, For some reason, there was an add-on in the city and somehow wasn't included. I just want to make sure there is a section in our code that really speaks to who's included. I'm not sure if we have to add anything into our code about that in a new annexing, but I want to make sure that if we annex or there's something that it actually automatically gets adjusted in our code as well, that I think that section 8.3. So I just wanted to flag that. And last comment is debate timing. So this was a topic that came up. I'm still on like the fixing from the past, but thinking about people who work, having a balance of Daytime for people who may be retired, but also nighttime people who are working that was something that came up And the last election that would be remiss if I didn't mention that Councilman Jackson then councilman Burr. Sorry Council for a very grack then councilman Jackson. Sorry. I promised him first. Thanks. I'll be going down my list, but I want to expand on something the mayor was saying and some of my colleagues were saying. As you may have seen, there was an issue in this past election with regard to ballots both in getting late to a certain section of the city, and then we found out later that one section with regard to an annex wasn't included at all. One of the difficulties, and I know that sometimes things happen, there's got to be some responsibility within the code as to who is to check. Because if you look at the BSC meeting, what you hear, it was, well, it's a state issue, it wasn't my problem, wasn't my responsibility. So if we're going to be responsible for putting out the ballot and making sure that everyone in the city gets to it, there's got to be some responsibility at this person whether it's the BSE, whether it's a staff person, whether it's the chair of the BSE. The vice-president, somebody says the buck stops here and it's someone or some group responsibility to when they get information with regard to whom is receiving the ballot that if it's later in error, well, I did it wrong or that it's not just something bucked because it's way too important. And so I think it actually should be in the code. I also want to bring up something else. There is, and I've seen it because it was even distributed recently, certain campaign policies that aren't in the code. For example, there's a campaign policy that was distributed that's revised February 2019 with regard to campaign policies at city events, with regard to city locations, and then the parade that if you look at this policy, first of all, it's not written as a code would be written, where it's clear delineated definitions and restrictions, but it's also not part of the code. It was just a resolution that is every now and then updated. If we're going to actually have a policy that has restrictions on campaign, it should be part of the code. And my understanding in hearing from staff and hearing from other candidates in prior years that there have been some different interpretations of that campaign policy at events, at parades, at city events. And so if there's going to be a policy, it needs to be in the code and something that can be pointed to in a public forum. Like a resolution that's just a campaign policy, if you're looking at what the rules are going to be with regard to elected, it should be in the code. I also want to, I go with my colleague saying, to the extent there's going to be communication, we need to communicate with the public as much as possible. I know there we we've done hanging door-knocking, or hanging door tabs, we've done mailing, we've done, I mean, the clerk's office is a fantastic job of going to events, letting people know where there are, to the extent if we're good to be doing mail by ballot and we wanna increase it, we wanna agree, we want to increase that population of voters. I also wanna bring up up something that I know one of my a couple of my colleagues have brought up and that's public financing. There is no question to the extent that we can do so. We should do so. The problem is we're in a municipality that has a far less and smaller budget than some of these other jurisdictions like Montgomery County that does public financing. And I know that even the county spends a lot of money on public financing. And if we're gonna be going into some financial concerns within the city with regard to some of the greater environmental issues that's gonna happen, we're gonna have to be careful. So while I thoroughly agree that it's a lot of a goal and to the extent we can bring more people in to the campaign opportunities through and do so but I'm severely concerned with regard to what the potential impact on the city's financing could be. I'll stop there. Thank you, Council Member Jackson. Thank you Mayor. So I thank thank Council Member Fenggrac for his comments. I want to echo what people have said. You know, looking at the issues that we had in the last election is fine. I'll listen to them out. But specifically, what are we going to do to address them, fix them, and not have them in the next election? And so I won't list everything that when sideways are wrong. But, you know, I think you've, you guys have done a good job of listing everything that happened. But the thing that's missing for me, and I think you hear it from my colleagues is is, okay, then what are we going to do to make sure that the systems in place, the processes are in place so that we tighten it up and we don't have a lot of the issues that we had last time around. And so, you know, for me, at least, you know, getting a report back from you guys, is exactly what we're gonna do to fix it is gonna be pretty crucial. It's not really the code, it's not really the charter, but just the problems that we had, how do we address them going forward to make sure that they don't have it again? And I won't let all of them, but they're in the report from the BSE, which was excellent by the way. I did want to ask one question about the BSE. And it was about the issue we had about the change in the elections when the rules will change kind of in the mid-medic-medic-medic-. So the BSA said they had discretion to look at the code and to kind of decide it is authority to deep materials as not validating the code. And I just had a question about that and maybe this goes to the city code or the city charter, but if somebody challenged that and somebody says no BSE you don't have the ability to you'll in your lovely decide what's in the code or not in the code. The mayor council said this is what is required and that is what you should do. Would they be right? Because they got a and overrule. So, you know, the candidates that had spent money already and were barried by the old rules, now has changed and could somebody, member of the public or either candidate, say, no, they have to abide by the new rules is passed in the law and the the the BSE has no discretion to decide otherwise. So that's that's just one question that I know we don't really have the answer for it but that's one that occurred to me was should we write into code that the BSE does have discretion in those situations, just to make sure that nobody can challenge that discretion moving forward. So that's just one that I was wondering about. Now we've talked about the contributions and that, um, living them and when was the maximum contribution actually set at $1,000? And, you know, we've really had inflation hit us hard lately. So should we, you know, increase the maximum to at least account for inflation. So I'm sorry, I mean, that we're talking about money. But when we have inflation and when we have amounts, we should be looking at, is it a realistic amount or should we actually increase or decrease it? But I do think that we should consider all of the options. Maybe we should consider introducing the amount that we can give to the CPI. That's something to look at. I do support public financing, but I agree with the council member Greg Crack that we're not really in a position with our broad budget and with the financial situation maybe looking south to pursue that right now. I'm really big on modernizing the election. My colleague Council Member Valerie did mention electronic signage. And I would even go further than that. I think the city of Gavisburg has now implemented electronic signature gathering. So, you know, having petitions that can be signed electronically, I think that is a good thing. I think they're having a lot of success with it. And I think we still have to iron out some of the details, but that's the future. And I think that if we count for that, we'll be serving our residents really, really well. Similarly, I know that we have a problem with the state and their absentee ballot provision. But I do think that that was a good idea. And so whether we can implement something like that, like the state did, to actually print out and send back in your ballot, is something worth exploring. I mean, that's, I think that will be easier, cheaper, and our residents will be used to doing things like that in the future. So I think it's flowing ballot that are emailed out, that you can print out, is something that we should explore. Protection election workers, I think somebody mentioned that. And I just have a little question on that, which is, don't we already have laws on the books that protect their election workers? I mean, I'm fine with, if we don't, then we should put in place something that protects election workers. But I thought that we had pretty strong laws on the books right now that protect election workers. So I really, unless I'm wrong, I don't think that that's really a big priority of ours. And I'll stop there, but I have more. Thank you. We don't have a shortage of things. So thank you for your patience. I hope someone's taking really good notes. I have next on the staff council member Vellieri and then council member Fulton. So I'll try to go through these quickly. One to my colleagues who are believing that public financing is, I believe, council member McGregor said lot of all, but too expensive. The pilot idea that I have would be a set fixed amount that would be called democracy vouchers, something similar. And that I think it's possible to do the very defined amount of money, unlike the Montgomery County system where it could go exponential because it's a match program. Anyway, just wanted to put that on the record. I think that another big thing is the issue of campaign signs, beyond whether are not people have disclaimers on it, as far as when they are in the public right of way. Somehow a lot of these issues got sent to our zoning department because they were looking at it under the sign ordinance as opposed to kind of giving the flexibility of exactly. So kind of where does the buck stop when it comes to sign compliance and should it be stopping where it's stopping? So there's that. I think an overall, my colleague mentioned it, an overall modernization. Big part of that is also technology, but also the various communication methods as well. I think that we found when we were talking about disclamers that, you know, there was not a strong understanding maybe of the potential communication channels that campaigns were gonna utilize. And I think that the days of there aren't enough characters are over and have been over for quite some time. So I think we can do disclaimers and we should do so. But it's throughout the code. There's a lot of very archaic. You're getting me. So I'll stop on that. But it just needs overall literally modernization. I would propose a moratorium on any changes. There's a bunch in like on the federal side of things that you cannot give leading into 30 days into an election. So why would we not do that on the other end of things, which is put a moratorium on any changes to chapter 8, starting like, you know, the day that petitions have to be handed in that you can become a candidate. And then everything stops, clock stops, no discretion, nothing, because then it's an even playing field for everybody. I think that would be easy enough to do. Then finally, I think also in addition to modernization is flexibility, strategic flexibility. In our code, we have specific locations for where a ballot drop boxes will be. Well, that's like the bare minimum. I think that out of the charter review commission came that our goal is that every community center would have a drop box. But the code is written in such a way that that can't happen right now because it very specifically says here, here, and here. So those kind of examples of like, you know, I wouldn't want to be prescriptive about location. We might annex other areas. Who knows? So I think that that would be a good thing to look at. And then of course, as council member Valyri, I endorse full-heartedly council member Van Grax idea of not doing alphabetical. I said B. Council member Fulton. It's like the benefit of waiting my turn. Most people said what I would have said. But maybe a couple things. What I'm trying to think of is like how to make this helpful for you. Like, because I think I kind of think what you're hearing is and people have said it like, we need a complete rewrite. Like this is not a surgical like here's three things we have issues with and we just need to clear up the definition. You're gonna hear comments about literally every aspect of our election, right? And so maybe the idea is like start from scratch, tee up the major policy issues. Cause like everything everyone said is an issue that needs resolving. But what we are not getting to tonight is how we would resolve it. And that's a policy choice, right? So I don't know how to get from here to there, but it is not a, oh, the body cares about five things. Let me focus on those situations. I think you're getting that. Okay. But with that being said, I will double down on a couple things people said. I'll call it the extra process stuff. The signs is an example, the campaign events on city property is an example. Like this body spent a lot of time trying to make sure our code is pretty easy to understand in other places, like you don't have to flip through different places to get the right answer. If we can pull everything dealing with an election together in one place, I think that would be helpful. And I will also say that since I think we're at the point of teaming up the things we think are worth talking about, not deciding on them, yeah, we should explore public financing for sure. Yeah. Thank you. Dr. M. Miles. Thank you Madam Mayor. Not a whole lot to add to what has been said. I would recommend as was outlined by the previous Councilman Fult, I think it's in senses that we probably do need a major investigation rewrite. So as well as the charter on this point, notwithstanding the financial pressures, the city is facing. I am looking for ways to open up the process, open up democracy such that everybody not only has a voice but feels that they can participate to that extent. Public financing or something like that to get more people involved such that as it was articulated, finances aren't a prohibitive factor. I'm in support of. And yeah, that's I'll leave there. I think everything's been said. Thank you. Thank you very much. I have a few and I'm sure of this, but one thing that was hit me and I want to just make sure our candidate package was not readable by screen readers. And there are mayors in the state of Maryland who are legally blind or have low visibility. And it was very hard for me. I know I raised it a couple of times to not have that ready. We should not be limiting people's ability to run because they have a disability or a different ability. So I wanted to at least make sure that that is fixed. And I hope I can get a commitment for that. So I just wanted to, it's not a, maybe it can be a code thing. Maybe we can say that election materials will be 508 compliant. I don't know. I just wanted to note that it's really important for people who are receiving information, but for candidates to step up and run. So I wanted to note that. I agree with many of the comments of my colleagues. I had a question about the preservation of ballots, whether six months is enough. I know that's getting into the weeds, but I just wanted to flag. I know that technically we keep them much longer, but that is a note. The other piece I wanted to flag is that the state made some changes to their election laws that will have to be passed down to us, so similar to other comments, we always said, let's get in compliance with state law and look at that as we're redoing our entire code. I just wanted to make sure that we were noting that. Our code does specifically talk about drop off, where the drop off boxes are. And I know that there are some limitations on you have to have either staff or cameras, etc. So I think that a center that is well utilized and has staff quite a bit is the swim center. And a lot of people use that. The swim center for adults and children and everyone in between. So I think that we should at minimum add the swim center as a drop off location for consideration. So I would be remiss if I didn't say that. I know we added to create equity across the city additional drop offs the last time and I thought that was very, very helpful. I will pause there and oh there's one other thing. Sorry, there was a question about whether the city attorney should be at the BSC meetings. I think that's something we need to discuss of which ones. I know that the city turns off. This is very, very busy. But I also know that when you're dealing with very hard situations or it's helpful to have legal guidance in the room. So I just wanted to note that as well. Do you have something? Councilor Van Crack. So just real quick, I want to support what the mayor said number 1 with regard to more drop boxes because I think that addresses some of the other comments with regard to mailing. More drop boxes we have, the less people are going to have the need to mail if it's the places that they're going on a regular basis. And so the issue with a lot of the information, this goes to what the mayor was saying about being able to be read, a lot of the information that's passed on electronically to candidates is from a scan. And at a scan, you can't have an OCR reading, whereas if it's converted to a PDF with an OCR scan, all of a sudden you can actually have a reader for those items. Again, going to modernizing our election. All right, so a few other things, one of the things I know the Board of Supervisors of Elections talked about, I think it's a good idea with regard to enforcement. Now, there's a lot of different ways to enforcement. Primarily, it's financial within our code. The border supplies election, and obviously, there's some situation where if you don't correct, you can't even be sworn in. But they talked about having some type of public, whether it's electronic or notation of violations. Because it's one thing, if a candidate is violating campaign finances, and if you're just penalizing them financially, they could be like, well, that's great. Penalize me financially, I'm getting the benefit of it, but they talked about how, if there's some public notation, where there is violations, you're all of a sudden having the public being able to see, oh, this candidate is constant without having to view the board as a virus of, like, meaning some method of enforcement. The board of surprise election also talked about the investor, the investor, investor, investor, regulatory powers that they have, which actually I think is important to note because a lot of the times they're getting their information simply from complaints that are coming to them. By the same vein, that might not mean equal enforcement in the public. Now, I don't know what the answer to that is because we don't want to require them on a daily basis to go to and from, but it's something at least to consider if there's a way to have some type of equal enforcement, and I don't really have an answer to that, but it's just something that I know the Board of Supervised Elections discussed. I also wanna talk about something that I know the Board of Supervised Elections themselves talked about, and that's responses and deadlines in the code. A lot of the issues that came about are there's timely either interpretation questions or timely violations that are being brought to the board of the vise of elections. They might not meet until two weeks later and all of a sudden you've got either a violation issue and an important issue that needs an interpretation, but two weeks later when an election could be a lifetime and they've lost the opportunity. There might need to be some way that either they can meet on a different basis or there can be some either small committee that can give preliminary guidance or look to the board of surprise electors a whole to either answer some of these significant questions or address them on a timely basis. One of the examples in the code directly is there is, for example, a deadline to when a candidate must get certified as a candidate to be allowed to participate in certain issues such as immemorial day and in the parade. But in the code it says to be certified as a candidate. Well, a candidate turning in their material and a certain date has no idea whether they could meet the deadline because one, they have to make sure that they get the certified information with their signatures. And then the board of civilized elected is to meet. So there should be some type of deadlines that may clear, you know, in order to meet this deadline, you must have to have it in this. Or the Buddha, or when a petition for canissee comes in, there's a deadline to when it must be addressed. That way there's an equal understanding of what deadlines happen. So that comes to both the deadlines in the code where there's a potential unequal timing of when it could happen, but also with regard to the board of supervisors' elections responses to mid-election concerns. And I also want to echo what my colleague is saying. You're hearing a lot of different issues. Obviously, there's kind of perspective as a whole, which kind of goes to what I know my colleagues are saying. you were kind of implying I don't know that these fixes are something that we should be going in on a note-by-note basis. I think this is a macro re-write that really talks about We've been filling swiss cheese holes for years and it's created as you as I'm sure you could tell from interpretations, enforcement, and everything. A lot of issues. Would you like me to kind of continue? I have one more thing. Sorry. Well, a couple more things. One is the BSC has asked us questions about compensation and it's in our code. I wanted to just at least address potential, a small transit stipend because they have to move around. I'm just putting it out there for exploration, not being prescriptive. But they do have to do a lot of outreach events. And at night, probably, if they don't have a car, take cabs to the county's election sites, I just want to be mindful of people's economics in terms of being able to serve on the BSE. I wouldn't want someone not to do it because they have those financial constraints. And I'll just say I support many of the comments my colleagues made for the record also want say, I really like that our elections are nonpartisan. We need a lot more thinking like that. But I appreciate how we do things. And then I see Dr. Miles has one more comment as well. Thank you, Madam Mayor. The one thing I don't know that was discussed in terms of eligible expenses is to whether or not to include child care as one of them can be used and parents can be used to cover. That's all. It's in our code that you can use child care. That was added. I didn't see it when I just said or chore it, but I'll take your word for it. I think delegate Polackovich Carr, right? Didn't she add something in there? I think that was for state. I thought those were for state elections. I didn't know they'd trickle down to ask. And that's why I don't see that calling or. Okay, well, let's double check. But yeah, I support that. Absolutely. I wanted to ask, just since our city clerk manages our elections, is there anything else that you want to ask or have comment on? No, I'm here listening and take a note and we'll work with Jason to make sure. And the board, we get everything incorporated and Jeff Robert and I will do our best. I'll just go down any other comments from our appointments that we didn't cover or that you would like us to? The only thing I would add is everyone seems to be, everyone agrees that conflicts of interest is an issue. And I just think that you might also think about the conflicts of interest that the appointees have since we work directly for you all. And if sometimes we're put in a position where, you know, if the BSE are elections one thing and the American House might want something else. And so perhaps figuring out a way to make us a little more independent as well. Just another thought. Thank you. I'd welcome the feedback of our election consultant about that. Can I ask a question about the, there are some nice adues, but there's some we have to fix is. What is the RFP that does not include writing of the election code? So just thinking about the timeliness of it, who was going to be writing the election code? So that will fall to my office. But since we're talking about a complete rewrite, I think we probably should start looking for a law firm now to figure out who can help us with that so that we're ready for the next election. Yeah, that was the spirit of my comment. It's like, we don't want to wait until the end of all of your discussions. And then you put out an RFP that takes X months. And then you have to review said RFP. And then that takes X time. So I just want to make sure that we don't need an RFP to go out and hire a law firm. So that's why I'll start looking now. Okay, I want to make sure our procurement process supports what we're trying to do in our deadline. I appreciate that comment. Excellent. Yes. Few curve balls that you sent me. So thank you for that. That adds a little more excitement to the project. But so many of the items that you discussed, I've also been hearing and seeing in the different things. But like with campaign finance up there on the screen, transparency, the independent expenditures, outside campaign committees, the filings, the deadlines, the enforcement, yep, we're right on the same page with that. To just go back one slide to the election procedures, talking about the drop boxes, the ballot security, cyber security, if we want to move towards elections, you're going to have to have a cyber component there. Voting locations, the mail-in voting process, the ballot return deadline, that was already on there. I'm a post-election audit to do one double check that, yep, everything went smoothly, something that we may want to consider. Public advertising and then diversity and inclusion definitely talked a lot about including more people those with maybe ADA abilities or something like that. We really didn't talk much yet about diversity so I I don't know if we're hiring the right representation of the city to be working on election day at the voting places to make sure that we have different language ballots, to make sure that we have possibly interpreters, maybe on election day or a couple of days before election day when it's really busy. So some of those types of things I have on the list as well. And then moving to the slide with the Board of Supervisors of Elections, the authority, the enforcement, defining that authority, whether it's more authority, less authority, we need someone in charge of the elections, whether it's a committee or if it's a person, but that's clearly evident that no one quite knows where the final yay or nay is. Then the next slide, the ballot questions. So those four ideas from the 2023 ballot with the voting age, just a quick summary, there was the voting age that failed 28% to 69%. Non-citizen failed 33% to 63%. Term limits passed 74% to 22%. And then creating districts also failed 40% to 51%. So I don't know if we wanna take a few minutes to talk about those ballot questions, if that's also some information that you would like on those topics. Thank you. I will just note that I wish it was all resident voting in the language, but I know it didn't win or not. But I'll just note that comment I want to go to my colleagues to see if there's anyone that you want to specifically bring forward on this list. Council member, Fulton and then Council Member Shaw. Thank you. So I will say that I am really glad we're having this conversation. I know my colleagues and some people have a step up to, I felt that it is our obligation to it when we ask all of the residents, what do you think about something? We have an obligation to come back and close the loop, and it's been 18 months since that's a election. So I'm glad we're finally doing it. Now, that being said, I do wanna make sure we're all in the same, I know everyone appears, But you said failed. They failed or they passed. They were advisory, right? And the prior body very much made it. were all the same, I know everyone appears, but you said failed. Like they failed or they passed. They were advisory, right? And the prior body very much made it clear that they were non-binding. So it still is an obligation of this body if we choose to make a decision on them. Not to mention the rest of the charter review commission recommendations. I would, if we all agree that they're non-binding and they each deserve a, do we want to pursue or not pursue? I will go and tell you what I think we should pursue in an pursue, but I don't want to do it if we don't agree that should be the path forward. So I ask my colleagues that. Thank you. I'll come back to. Let me just make sure we get to Councilman Basha. Madam Mayor, I actually had a question one slide back about the BSC that we just thank you. If I may. Yes, please. Okay. So I just wanted to mention here that the BSE, you have done tremendous amount of work around outreach and tremendous amount of work around outreach. I think I even saw a car with the election day driving around ton of work. One thing that I would think about as we talk about inclusion, I know there were door hangers and I just wanted to share from a lot of residents that live in buildings don't have access to that type of tactic because you have to go like inside the building and provide the door hanger. So just something to think about just ensuring that everyone is able to have an opportunity to get the similar amount or like equitable outreach. I would also say too, there was the drop box at the executive building where a number of tenants were using a number of Rockville Town Center folks were using because they were first time voters and they were just going to what they knew and there wasn't a sign there or anything and so they found that the drop box was locked and so they then had to, some of them weren't able to vote and just making sure there's some outreach there but I just want you to know that that area, a lot of folks who particularly voted for the first time just went to what they knew and they weren't able to submit their ballot by 8 p.m. So I just wanted to share that as well. I will support the comments of my colleagues. I also wanted to just add some jurisdictions make it a requirement that buildings have to allow the city to go in. Is that law yet or is that something for consideration? I miss Sarah Taylor for all. That is correct because these are private buildings and you have to get permission to get in. I mean, we do our best to sneak in and get up, we're not supposed to be but we have done it and we've worked with our community engagement and outreach to make sure we can get in there. I just want to I think that there should be a requirement to at least allow maybe not allowing every candidate to go in. I have feelings I'm not too maybe we do allow candidates to go but at minimum the city should be able to get in so that every resident whether you're living in multifamily or single family or missing middle housing should have access to the same information. Yeah, we're working with our community outreach with these association and groups and town center. some of most of those buildings in the one town in Twenbrook. So, you know, we have made some progress, but we're still working on it. Yeah, I'm just I'm curious if we can compel and require. Based, I've seen some other jurisdictions do it. I just would like to understand the question. Council Member Shaw. To your point, Madam Mayor, I also think the mailers that you sent, I think you sent four mailers were pretty effective in some buildings. And that's going directly to the tenant. Sometimes if you show up not in everyone's home. And so I think the mailers are like the most effective way to get inside of these buildings. Councilman Projectson. Yes, thank you Mayor. So this is a procedural question really. I support what Councilmember Fulton said about taking these measures, the referendum, But I know it's after 11 o'clock, it's almost 11.30. So how do we proceed? I mean, I know that there are other referendum, potential referendum that people wanna break up, about issues that maybe didn't make it. But people want to discuss so I'm just asking a question I mean especially in the interest of you know time what's the best brief receipt and this is kind of what I thought was going to happen it's a great conversation but I think we're running late so you know it's gonna be another session or should we just finish it up and go as long as it takes? Colleagues, I know you're in a tight timeline. So it's my understanding that you need some general direction from us tonight because I think you have some sessions coming up early June so that would be before this comes back to us. I will say several of us did note this was going to be a very long evening, given what was put on the agenda, and some things added later. So we signaled this and kind of knew this was going to happen. So I think that if folks want to share things that they're particularly interested in from the ballot initiatives, please go ahead. First, and then we can address things beyond what's on the solicit if needed. Councilmember Fulton. So first, it's disappointing that there would be a suggestion to not get to this today when it was like easy enough to know when it was already moved to the bottom back of the agenda. We also have 10 minutes left on this agenda item. So there's, we can get through four things to say what people feel about them. Watch, I'll show you. I think we should move forward with pursuing lowering the voting age 16 and 17, or at least pursuing that. I think we should move forward with term limits. And my move forward, I mean, explore how we would go about doing this. Those are the two that I would wanna move forward with from this list, the other two I would not. It's just that easy. Thank you, Council Member Shaw. The four of these were just to take a step back here. The four of these were decided by the previous body based on a lot of different options. So I think we should explore all of these. I was also on the charter review commission. I think we should explore all of these in addition to looking at scheduling the election time during a presidential year, as well as ring choice voting. Thank you, Council Member Vellieri, and then Council Member Van Grack. Okay, so hope springs the journal. I want to also note that these are non-binding, but to quibble a little bit with my colleague, Council Member Fulton, this was not a referendum of all residents. This was a referendum of everyone who voted in the 2023 election. That's not everybody. So for that reason, while I appreciate that people took the time to give us their opinion, quite frankly when we're talking about the expansion of the franchise, I'm going to talk to the people that don't have the franchise right away, right? It kind of makes a little bit more sense in my head. I very much want to advance number one. I think that it's something we should talk through, explore, and to do it in non-agest, straightforward language would be great. Question two, not until federal administration changes. Question three, open to exploring it. I think my own views on it, see also the charter review commission report. Question number four, it was defeated. But there was one district that was very much a support of representative districts and it's not going to shock you all who where it was. I think it's a really important issue. I think it's something that, you know, we need to hash out as a mayor and council. What is underlying that issue? The challenge it connects to campaign finance, it connects to representation and diversity. I would be sad if we don't at least have that conversation. Thank you, Councilman Van Grekk, then Jackson, and then I'll go to Dr. Mouse. All right, so with regard to the first two questions, I did not support moving forward with them. I think with regard to the 16 year old age and with regard to the non-US citizens to vote, I think they're potentially problematic and implementation and I just don't support going forward with them. With regard to term limits, I think there could be an avenue. I'd probably stretch it to four consecutive terms. I think there might be situations where you'd want those who are invested to continue with something longer than 10 years in a smaller jurisdiction where we might have a dearth of people who are invested in doing it. But four consecutive terms within each particular position, I think is not unreasonable. With regard to the representative districts, my concern again is if we make these districts too small, we're having a smaller area, we're not like a county or a state where you have a large proportion of people in districts and we could get to a point where we're having these small districts and a very small proportion of voters voting on it. If we do districts at all, they should be voted as a citywide as all, but I don't support moving forward with districts. Councilor McJaxson and Dr. Miles. Thank you, Mayor. So question one, I've ruffled with this for a long time and I think I'm going to know on question one. Question two, I'm going to know and exactly the reason that Councillor Member Relaybury said and a little bit of that grant. I think it's costly, but more than that, I'm really worried about the Trump administration. Question three, I'm for it, but with maybe three consecutive terms or four, but definitely no less than a three. And then question four, Representative districts, yes, I am for that, but I recognize the difficulty in divving up the city and then keeping the same number of people in each district from, you know, election to election, the rejoining of lines, the census and everything else. So I'm for it, So I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. I think that's a great question. Thank you Madam Mayor. Thank my colleagues for their comments. I am because they were owned about it as in line with Councillor Schaud explore all of them and I would be interested in also given that they were advisory exploring ranked choice will be as well. That's all. Thank you. I guess I think that's the point. I think that's the point. I think that's the point. So, I think that's the point. I think that's the point. I think that's the point. I think that's the point. I think that's the point. I think that's the point. I think that's the point. I think that's the point. I think that's the point. I think that in in Maryland. However, I I also question I want information from staff on are there ways to protect people because we are in a situation where it could make people vulnerable in terms of foils and identifying people who have different levels of status. What we're hearing now is that even with certain visas and permanent residents and just there's a lot of concern to communities I also want to be respectful and and Understand what risk we could put people in but I do want that information My my thinking has evolved on term limits. I want to make sure that we don't have a mass exodus of You know this body has five council members who came on at the same time. I wouldn't want a mass exodus of all of them at the same time. You know, we had some existing council members and people have been on council before for historical context, but I do think there's some risk when you have just complete turnovers without anyone here. And we had a lot of city staff changes as well. So that's the one that I'm not sure about. If we did it, I would do it like based on consecutive terms and people can come back later, but I'm not necessarily pushing that one strongly. But I wouldn't want someone sitting in for five and six terms. So those are the ones that I think. And then I made a comment to our state legislators on rank choice voting. I'd like to know whether they would pay for the software fix and, you know, to make that easier. I believe there was hand counting being done in another jurisdiction. And it took five days to certify an election. So that's, that would be a concern of mine. Councillor Fulton. Since we are talking about at least one fifth one, I would also want to explore rank choice voting very much. I was trying to stick to the list, but since we're there. Councillor Vangrack. I have no problem having discussion about rank choice voting. I think there could be a situation that it's something to be considered, but I think there's cost to be addressed. And I know there's numerous different aspects of a range towards voting. And we've got six candidates in a council election, which could make it complicated. Definitely open for the discussion, but I just don't know whether it's the right move to go, but it's definitely something to discuss. Councilor Jackson. Thank you Mayor and on right-hand it's voted. I really like the concept. I just don't know that we're there yet is complicated.. We, well, wasn't in a lot of engagement and explanation for voters. And, you know, I really hope that the state comes up with how to implement ranked choice voting and that it trickles down from that level. But I'm interested in exploring it. I mean, I think that there's a lot of opportunity for rank toys voting, but it's just new and it's untried in the round fill. So there's a lot of unknowns that I need to get comfortable with before I could see yes or no. Thank you, Mr. Mahillic. I just want to make sure I heard what I thought I heard if your body else says Tally's I heard For us to bring back options at this point on 16-17 year old voting Terminal events Representative districts and ranked choice voting just options for you guys to consider. I'm not sure I heard For on representative districts, but I'm not sure. Okay, great But on representative districts but I'm not sure. You're not? Okay. Great. But it's like, do you want to weigh in? Just if you, if anyone want to flip or, okay. All right. I'm going to be so aggressive about it. Sorry. I'm going to be right back. Yeah, I'm going to be right back. Okay, keep going. The same thing else you want clarity on. Okay. Wow, 1130 guys, you guys rock. Rock full rocks. Thank you very, very much for your time and appreciate. I appreciate all of the work. Thank you to our BSE again. Amazing volunteers who do a lot of work. So, all right. Now moving on to our macadendas. Is there anything else people want to add? Okay, nothing on macadn. Thank you, Councillor M Shaw seconds. All those in favor please raise your hand and say aye. Councilmember Shaw second. Councilmember Van Grack made a motion. Thank you all.