this meeting is being recorded. Good evening. This is the Council's May legislative session in which we introduce new legislation and give final consideration to legislation previously introduced and heard. This legislative session is being conducted as a hybrid meeting which is available in person and virtual VIA WebEx. It is also available to the public through live stream on the Howard County Council website and broadcast on channels 44 if you're rising 99 and 1071 if you're Comcast. The council will hold a hybrid public hearing on Monday, May 19th, 2025 beginning at 7 p.m. on the legislation introduced this evening. Test Monday can be given in person or virtually via WebEx. Written comments on the new legislation can be sent in to council mail at HowardCountyMD.gov. Anyone wishing to testify at the public hearing will have several options available. You may sign up in advance through the council's website or you may sign up in person in front of the Bannocker Room via a laptop on Monday, May 19 prior to the start of the public hearing. When signing up to testify, you will be asked if you are a student in grades K through 12 so that you can be called to testify early in the meeting and whether your testimony will be provided in person or virtual via WebEx. If you select virtual you will be provided instructions for logging into the WebEx. If needed the council will hold a work session on new legislation on Tuesday May 27th beginning at 9.30 a.m. in the Sea Vernon Grey Room. Public participation for these meetings will be available virtually via WebEx and viewed live stream through the county council website. At this time, I will do a roll call for our council members, Dr. Jones. Good evening, everyone. Miss Young. Here, I'm skipping. Miss Rigby, here. And Mr. Youngman. Here. We will now recite the Pledge of Allegiance before we proceed with our agenda this evening. We have an honorary resolution recognizing the 100th anniversary of West Friendship Elementary School. And we have joining us tonight, Dr. O'Burn and Ms. Cox, the principal and AP. If you would like to come up afterwards, we can take a quick picture. This isn't that long. But this is an honorary resolution in honor of West Friendship Elementary School, and it's 100th year anniversary. Whereas in 1925, local farmers used horse drawn scoops to dig the site located at 1,500 Frederick Road that would become the West Friendship Consolidated High School. And whereas the West Friendship Consolidated High School united several one-room school houses into one two-story building with six classrooms serving grades one through nine. And whereas in 1928 the school added the 10th, 11th and 12th grades and in, the first graduating class consisted of 13 students. And, whereas, as the West Friendship Area grew over the subsequent decades, and the school became an elementary school, it underwent substantial renovations in 1950, 1962, 1971, 1978, and 2003. The school has since become a regional center for an academic life skills program, serving students with multiple needs. In 2007, the school became a certified green school, and in 2010, it was awarded the Silver Award for its positive behavioral interventions and supports program. Now, therefore, be it resolved on this fifth day of May 2025 that the County Council of Howard County, Maryland, congratulates West Friendship Elementary School on its 100 year anniversary, which is a testament to the school's legacy as an institution in our Howard County. Yay. Thank you. I'm going to be fair you make them look pretty cool. I didn't know what he'd done that whole while. I hope that the school and the people who were there, right? Get in here and move away. Yeah, I feel pretty good. Now I'm going to do my pooping out. Very great. Thank you, thank you ladies. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, thank you. Great job again. Hopefully I'm going to approve the Journal of Legislative Session April 7, 2025. Second. Ms. Herard, please call the vote to approve that journal. Journal? Yes. Dr. Jones. Yes. Ms. Young. Yes. Ms. Ruby? Yes. Mr. Rickon. Yes. The motion to approve the general passes. I move to approve the minutes of budget work session, capital number one on April 21st, budget presentation by the county executive on April 21st, and the legislative public hearing also on April 21st. Our monthly meeting on April 22nd, our budget public on the capital budget on April 23rd, our budget public hearing on education on April 21st, our monthly meeting on April 22nd, our budget public hearing on the Capitol budget on April 23rd, our budget public hearing on education on April 30th. Second. Mrs. Herard, would you please call the vote to approve the minutes previously noted? Chair Walsh. Yes. Dr. Jones. Yes. Ms. Jones? Yes. Ms. Rikby? Yes.. The motion to approve the minutes passes. Will the council administrator please read the legislation for introduction? The following legislation is introduced by the chairperson at the request of the county executive unless otherwise noted Council resolution 81 2025 Resolution confirming the appointment of Jennifer Jenkins to the local behavioral health advisory board. Council resolution 82, 2025, a resolution confirming the appointment of Frank V. Eastham, Jr. to the Howard County local children's board. Council resolution 83, 2025, a resolution confirming the appointment of Kristiana Little to the La Alonza Latina Commission, Council Resolution 84, 2025, a resolution confirming the appointment of Jeff Rubin to the Asian American and Pacific Islander Commission. Council Resolution 85, 2025, a resolution confirming the reappointment of Nina Basou to the Human Rights Commission. Council Resolution 86, 2025, a resolution confirming the reappointment of Dr. Daryl J. Willis to the Board of Directors of the Economic Development Authority. Council Resolution 87 2025, resolution confirming the reappointment of Jimmy Reed to the Board of Directors of the Economic Development Authority. SAO 1 FY 2025, an act transferring $2 million from the General Fund contingency reserve to the Department of Public Works for unanticipated expenses related to snow removal. Council Bill 32 2025, an act making emergency appropriations pursuant to section 610B of the Howard County Charter and amending the annual budget and appropriation for physically year 2025 to provide additional spending authority in the risk management self insurance fund due to unanticipated and high value claims and declaring that this act is an emergency bill necessary to meet a public emergency affecting life, health or property. Council Resolution 88 2025, a resolution of proving supplemental appropriation to increase the Howard County Board of Education BOE, operating budget for physical years 2025 by $5,533,181 to cover estimated overage in certain categories with supplemental funding identified from increased state aid, higher than budgeted interest income, and additional use of BOE fund balance, and also approving certain transfers between major categories and generally relating to the fiscal year 2025 operating budget for the Board of Education. Council Bill 33, 2025, introduced by the chairperson at the request of the county executive, co-sponsored by Opal Jones and Christiana Rigby. An act for purposes of the property tax credit for real property owned by certain public safety officers, amending the definition of public safety officer to include auxiliary officers, providing the tax credit in certain instances, making certain clarifying amendments, removing redundant provisions and generally relating to the property tax credit for real property owned by certain public safety officers. Council bill 34, 2025, enact amending the pay plan for Howard County, providing pay scales for employees and members of certain collective bargaining units to be effective July 1, 2025, and January 1, 2026 in certain instances, amending provisions that govern compensatory time, providing for the application of this act and generally relating to the pay plan for Howard County. Council Bill 35 2025, an act amending the classification plan for Howard County to establish the class code, pay grade, qualifications, duty, and general requirements for the director and deputy director of the Department of General Services and generally relating to the Howard County Classification Plan. Council Bill 36 2025 and act adopting the current expense budget and the capital budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 2025 and ending June 30, 2026 to be known as the annual budget and appropriation ordinance of Howard County, physically year 2026. Council Bill 37, 2025, and act for the purpose of authorizing and empowering Howard County Maryland to borrow money in the principal amount up to 103,139,518 dollars on its full and credit and issuing sell-its bonds or other obligations there for to be used to base certain costs of certain county capital projects including bridges, bridge projects, general county projects, storm drain projects, school system projects, fire and rescue projects, road construction projects, roadside and sidewalk projects, library projects, community college projects, parks and recreation projects, police projects and traffic improvement projects which are specified and described in the county's 2026 capital budget including without limitation borrowing for certain capital projects previously authorized in other calendar years, which such authorizations has lapsed or will laps, and to pay cost of issuance of such bonds or other or obligations authorizing the county to issue bonds, bond anticipation notes, or to enter into installment purchase agreements for payment of portions of such cost and To levy taxes upon the accessible property within the county sufficient Together with other available funds to pay the debt service on such obligations and providing for and determining various matters and connection there with Council Bill 38, 2025, enact for the purpose of authorizing and empowering Herrick County, Maryland. and connection there with. Council Bill 38, 2025, an act for the purpose of authorizing and empowering Harrah County, Maryland to borrow money in the aggregate principal amount up to 54 million, $650,000 on its full faith and credit and issue and sell its bonds or other obligations therefore to be used to pay cost of certain general county projects or more particularly described in the county's 2026 capital budget and to pay cost of issuance of such bonds or other obligations authorizing and empowering the county to issue bond anticipation notes or to enter an installment purchase agreements for payments of portions of such cost. to levy taxes upon the accessible property within the county sufficient, together with amounts collected by the Howard County Department of Recreation and Parks, and other available funds to pay the debt service on such obligations and providing for and determining various matters and connection therewith. Council Bill 39, 2025, an act for the purpose of authorizing and empowering Howard County, Maryland to borrow money in the principal amount up to 8,131,789 dollars on its full faith and credit and issue and sell its bonds or obligations therefore to be used to pay costs of certain county road construction projects which are specified and described in the county's 2026 capital budget, including without limitation, borrowing for certain of such capital projects previously authorized and to pay costs of issuance of such bonds or other obligations, authorizing and empowering the county to use issue bond anticipation notes or to enter an installment purchase agreements for payment or portions of such costs and to levy taxes upon the accessible property within the county's sufficient together with building excise tax and other available funds to pay the debt service on such obligations and providing for and determining various matters in connection there with. Council Bill 40 2025, an act for the purpose of authorizing it and empowering Harry County, Maryland to borrow money in the principal amount of up to $81 million, $31,000, and $54. on its full faith and credit and issue and sell its bonds or other obligations therefore to be used to pay cost of certain county water and sewer capital projects which are specified and described in the counties 2026 capital budget including without limitation borrowing for certain water and sewer capital projects previously authorized and prior calendar years which such authorizations has lapsed or will laps. And to pay cost of issuance of such bonds or other obligations, authorizing the county to issue bond anticipation notes, or to enter into installment purchase agreements, or payment of portions of such costs and to levy taxes upon the accessible property within the county sufficient together with benefit assessments, advalorum taxes levied upon the accessible property in the metropolitan district and other available funds to pay the debt service on such obligations and providing foreign determining various matters and connection there with. It's a Bill 41 2025, an act for the purpose of authorizing and empowering how are County Maryland to borrow money and the aggregate principal amount of up to $23 million, $200,000, when it's full faith and credit an issued debt obligations there for to be used to pay certain costs of certain general county projects as more particularly described in the county's fiscal year 2026 capital budget and to pay cost of issuance of such debt obligations and to levy taxes upon the accessible property within the county sufficient together with other available funds and to pay the debt service on such obligations and providing for and determining various matters and connection there with. Council Bill 42 2025, an act for the purpose of authorizing and empowering Howard County Maryland to borrow money in the aggregate principal amount, pardon me, of up to $40,27,000, when it's full faith in credit and issuing sell its bonds or other obligations, therefore, to be used to pay costs of certain county watershed protection and restoration projects as more particularly described in the county's 2026 capital budget and to pay cost of issuance of such bonds or other obligations, authorizing and empowering the county to issue bond anticipation notes or to enter into installment purchase agreements for payment of portions of such cost and to levy taxes upon the accessible property within the county sufficient. Together with amounts held in the watershed protection and restoration fund and other available funds to pay the debt service on such obligations and providing for and determining various matters and connection therewith. Council Bill 43, 2025, enact for the purpose of authorizing it in the power of County Maryland to borrow money in the aggregate principal amount of up to $1 million on its full faith and credit and issuing sell its bonds or other obligations therefore to be used to pay cost of certain county broadband projects as more particularly described in the county's 2026 capital budget and to pay cost of issuance and other such bonds or other obligations authorizing and empowering the county to issue bond anticipation notes or to enter into installment purchase agreements for payment or portions of such costs. And to levy taxes upon the accessible property within the county sufficient together with amounts held in the non-county government BBI fund and the private sector BBI fund and other available funds to pay the debt service on such obligations and providing for and determining various matters and connection we're there with one moment while I take a quick drink. Okay, more bonds. Capitabh, Council Bill 44, 2025. An act to authorize and empower Howard County, Maryland to enter into installment purchase agreements to acquire development rights in agricultural lands located within the county, project number G0164 for an aggregate purchase price of not more than $16,947,400 plus interest there on providing that the county's obligation to pay the purchase price under the interest when such agreements shall be general obligations of the county made upon its full faith and credit and to levy taxes upon the accessible property within the county's sufficient together with the portion of the transfer tax imposed on transfers of real property in Howard County which is dedicated to agricultural land preservation and other available funds to provide for the payment of the purchase price under an interest when any agreement so entered into and providing for and determining various matters in connection there with. Council Resolution 89, 2025. Resolution approving the capital program for Howard County for physical years, 2027 through 2031, and extended capital program for physical years, 2032 through 2035. Council Resolution 90, 2025. A resolution approving the physical year 2026 operating budget for the Howard County Community College. And indicating appropriations for major functional categories. Council Resolution 91, 2025. A resolution approving the physical year 2026 budget for Howard County Library System and indicating appropriations for object classes. Council Resolution 92 2025, a resolution setting forth the physical year 2026 operating budget for Howard County Board of Education. Council Resolution 93 2025, a resolution approving the fiscal year 2026 budget for Howard County Health Department and indicating appropriations for object classes, Council Resolution 94, 2025, resolution approving schedules for charges pertaining to the metropolitan district to Water and Sewer Service and to shared sewage disposable facilities. Council Resolution 95, 2025, a resolution approving schedules of fees for the functions regulated by the Department of Public Works. Council Resolution 96, 2025, a resolution approving schedules of fees, fines, and charges for functions regulated by the Howard County Department of Inspection's License and Permits. Council Resolution 97 2025 resolution approving schedules of fees and charges for functions regulated or administered by the Department of Planning and Zoning. Council Resolution 98 2025 resolution approving schedules of fees and rates for functions regulated and administered by the Department of Police Council resolution 99 2025 a resolution approving schedules of fines and penalties for violations of an administrative cost related to enforcement of Howard County's parking laws including administrative handling fees for parking citations and citations under the automated red light enforcement program Council resolution 125 a resolution improving fee and rate schedules for applying for approval of an industrial development revenue bond or MIT FAA bond or loan Solicitor and peddler identification card weekend prisoner room and board person or loan. Solicitor and peddler identification card, weekend prisoner room and board, prisoner health care provider fee, participation in work release program, participation in home detention program, marriage license fee charges for funding of domestic violence program, annual registration of trespass towing companies and maximum rates to be charged by trespass towing services, fee and specifications for transcripts of administrative proceedings and reproduction of public records. Council Resolution 101 2025, a resolution adopted schedules of various charges related to watershed protection and restoration fee, Council Resolution 102 2025, Resolution Adopted in fee schedules for functions of the Health Department Council Resolution 103 2025, Resolution Adopted in a schedule of fees for inspections conducted by the Department of Fire and Rescue Services, Council resolutionolution 104, 2025, resolution adopting a schedule fee or functions related regulated by the Department of Finance, Council Resolution 105, 2025, resolution approving reimbursement schedule for the Emergency Medical Service Reimbursement Program. Council Resolution 106, 2025, resolution levying a tax on certain admissions and amusements, establishing classes for admissions and amusements, setting tax rate for different classes, and pertaining for certain exemptions from the tax. Council Resolution 107 2025, a resolution adopting the schedule of rates for building excise tax, Council Resolution 108, 2025. A resolution levying a fire and rescue tax for physical year beginning July 1, 2025 and ending June 30, 2026 and setting the tax rate for the fire and rescue tax. Council resolution 109, 2025. A resolution levying the property tax for physical year beginning July 1st, 2025. And in June 30, 2026. Setting the tax rate for property and providing for the collection of the property tax. Council Resolution 110 2025. Resolution setting the fee in lieu rate for moderate income housing. Council Resolution 111-2025. A resolution adopting the transfer tax. The tax on every instrument of writing, conveying, title, or real. To real or lease hold property offered for a record and record it in Harrow County with the clerk of the circuit court. And providing for certain exemptions from the tax. Council Resolution 112- 2025. A resolution is establishing a recreation tax rate on instruments of writing that are recorded with the clerk of the circuit court. Bravo, thank you, Ms. Herod. That concludes our legislation for introduction. Ms. Herod, I'm sorry to ask, but would you please read the legislation for final consideration? Council members, unless there is an objection, Mrs. Herod will read all of the appointment resolutions together except council resolution 70 and we will vote them together. Hearing no objection, Mrs. Herod please proceed. Council resolution 65 2025, appointment of Gabriel Moreno to the Asian American and Pacific Islander Commission, Council Resolution 66, 2025, appointment of Dr. Brittany, Francine Birch to the Commission on Aging, Council Resolution 67, 2025, appointment of Valerie, Etine to the Commission on Aging, Council Resolution 68, 2025, appointment of Madison, Boris and Esquire to the advisory board on consumer protection council resolution 69, 2025, appointment of Matthew, Nickway to the advisory board on consumer protection council resolution 71, 2025, appointment of Dr. Dana E Edwards, D-O-L to the Commission for Women, Council Resolution 72, 2025, appointment of G. Wang to the sign advisory panel, Council Resolution 73, 2025 appointment of Brian Lee Thompson to the Howard County Agricultural Preservation Board, Council Resolution 74, 2025, reappointment of Barbara Allen to the local Behavioral Health Advisory Board, Council Resolution 75 2025, Reappointment of Ayesha Holmes to the local Behavioral Health Advisory Board, Council Resolution 76 2025, Reappointment of David B. Vest to the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Commission, Council Resolution 77 2025, Reappointment of Chuck Chandler to the Human Traffic and Prevention Coordination Council, Council Resolution 78, 2025, Reappointment of Sarah Cochran to the Human Traffic and Prevention Coordination Council, Council Resolution 79, 2025, Reappointment of Vanita Nandam, Ndom, to the Human Trafficking Prevention Coordination Council. I move to approve Council Resolution 6566, 6768, 6971, 7273, 7475, 7677, 78, and 79. Second. The previously read Council Resolution 7 moved and seconded is there any discussion? Mrs. Tarrer, please call the vote on these council resolutions. Chair Walsh? Yes. Dr. Jones? Yes. Ms. Young? Yes. Ms. Rikby? Yes. Ms. Riyangman? Yes. The previously read council resolutions pass. We get ahead of where we're supposed to be. Council Resolution. Youngman yes the previously read council resolutions pass Council resolution 70 2025 the appointment of Ashlyn M. Hood to the advisory board on consumer protection I Move to table CR 70 2025 second the motion to table CR 70 2025 is been moved and seconded Mrs Mrs. Herod, please call the vote. Chair Walsh. Yes. Dr. Jones. Yes. Ms. Jones. Yes. Ms. Rigby. Yes. Ms. Reganmin. Yes. The motion to table CR 70 2025 passes. Council resolution 80 2025. Endorsing and authorizing application for the Maryland Transit Administration. I move to approve CR 80, 2025. Second. CR 80, 2025 has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Mrs. Herd, would you please call the vote on CR 80, 2025. Chair Walsh. Yes. Dr. Jones. Yes. Ms. Young. Yes. Ms. Rigby. Yes. Ms. Trig Youngman. Yes. CR80 2025 passes. Council Bill 22, 2025, adopting the Howard County flag. I move to approve CB22 2025. Second. CB22 2025 has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? There's no discussion. Well, I'm not going to vote in support of the flag tonight and I thought I should give you guys advance notice of why. One of the reasons is some of the comments that we received by email about the process and that although a process had been set forward and a certain flag had been picked both by majority in calculation design, designed by a young woman from Owen Brown, that was not the one that ultimately was elevated to us. Other concerns were raised to us in public hearing and otherwise, which was there was expert advice, I guess, extended the flag commission, but not necessarily followed having to do with color choices and fabrication of the materials and general design in total. But another reason that I have a problem with this flag is by charter, this is one of our very few actual rights. And the charter, Section 909 that's referenced in our analysis, says the council shall do this work, not the executive. And that's not what happened here. So I wish that we would stand up for ourselves more than we do. Again, we have such limited authority under that charter. But guess what? Picking a flag is one of them. And that's section 909 of the charter. I was going to read it for you, but it's been a long day. Well, okay, hold, yeah. Okay. Sorry, I got to sign into my computer. I had it up, but it's all gone. I had no idea. Well, because I was thinking about it, and I was like, well, the process was, we're going to pick this flag, you know, based on these processes, and then that didn't happen. Well the problem is didn't we. What can I do this? The body. Now we approve a resolution like authorizing the creation of this commission under that process. I mean I was probably the only note that I don't know. Yeah I mean I don't know. We're looking at a thousand different things every day. And for whatever reason, what I looked at today before this hearing was section nine of nine of the charter, which is the county seal and county flag. In accordance with the powers granted, a chartered county, so this state by law, this wasn't in our right up. This is just something I came up with. Like, come on. The council shall, the council shall, by ordinance enacted at or before its first annual legislative position, adopted county, stay on county flag. And thereafter, it may use an alter the same at its pleasure. It hardly ever says we can do anything at our pleasure in the program. I don't know if it does at all but this county seal and county flag is one of those very few if not only times that it does that and and again I just I can't I can't do it not going to do it I don't think it's probably going to have an effect on this. But I wanted to again explain my vote before we got out there and took you guys off guard. So I believe where Miss Youngman was headed and which is what I'll say now. I was under the impression that given all that we do, given the interest that was in the creation of a new flag, given all the discussion that was had over the past couple of years, that we more or less outsourced, if you will, the spirit of volunteerism and dozens, if not hundreds, of submissions and commission member applications and people who wanted to be involved in the process. It is in front of us for approval this evening and, you know, we all appointed people for the Flag Commission, if you will, or we suggest the names to be appointed. But I was in the impression that given our power, the body that is, that we more or less outsourced it to the bigger body of the spirit of power, accounting, the volunteerism, all those that want to be involved versus the five of us saying, it should look like this, it should be like this and then just go forth. That was what I remember from when all the discussions started happening. This is months and months of this. And here we are tonight. So I'm not under the same impression that we weren't involved. I thought that we were quite heavily involved with the creation of the commission and all the beautiful work that they've done. Well, thank you, Chair Walsh, for bringing that to our attention. I am really sorry that we did not know that that particular state was in our charter because I absolutely 100% agree with you that our council rarely exercises the little power that we have. And given that this was a little power that we had by charter, it would have been nice had we actually exercised it. I for one was not aware that our charter said that. Mr. Youngman is correct that there was a resolution before us to create a commission that would have probably been the time for us us to examine what our role should have been. I don't know if there was somebody in the county executive's office who knew that actually it was the council who should have been. Did you see that? No, what did I miss? It is zoomed in on Christianity for some reason. Okay. I don't know if there was somebody in the county executive's office who knew that it was really our choice, not his choice. I think that unfortunately we are way too far down the road. The commission has met now for over a year. They've had many, many meetings. They, a flag has been chosen and I certainly understand, as wash, why you are feeling a little out of sorts regarding this and regarding the process. But I think that we need to wind it up tonight for the people who were involved for so long. I also don't think that appointing one person on a commission of 20 or 18 or however many there were really does reflect the full wishes of the county council but that's also typical. I'm not even, like if we had fully created the commission, I don't know what we technically did but like if it was five people each designated by one of us like I could see how that maybe works in the charter of like we designated that authority to that commission, but I don't even know how that resolution got legal sufficiency. If it's such a good question, it doesn't even strive. Or at least the question was it raised like, hey it's kind of because it's your right to do it. But, you know, but ultimately, with you, I mean, I don't really love where we ended up, but when you get a bunch of people to volunteer and do this much work, and I don't want them to feel like they wasted their time. Well, that was my concern as I heard from members of the commission that said this isn't the process that we agreed to or these are the recommendations that were made that we didn't follow through with. I want to be very clear. I mean again this is me preparing for this in midst of all of the many other things we're doing. It literally says in the memorandum that we received from the administration. It says in our write-up that we received from our, you know what we're saying. Section 909 of the Howard County Chatter, empowers the Howard County Council to alter the Howard County flag. It technically says that. It just didn't resonate with me when I was like, what actually is supposed to be the process that we're honoring here. But I will note two other things and I think we should go to the vote because I don't want to believe this. I just again didn't want to catch you guys off guard. A number of amendments were proposed during the public hearing that I thought made a whole lot of sense. One of which was actually attacked a picture of the flag here as someone who was not really supportive of this whole endeavor that wasn't going to be me. But there are other things that consider when it's going to be issued and all. I assume that can be worked out without amendments. But the bigger crack, though, and I think that's where my first resistance came was when asking the administration staff about how this one was selected before we knew about all the other anomalies. I was like, well, can we amend it? Can we say there should be a striped here note, you know, know and it was like no take it or leave it And so that first conversation I had with Administration staff coupled with me actually reading that phrase at its pleasure is is just It's not gonna get my votes tonight, but I don't think it needs it. So if everyone's Ready, I think we should go ahead and call the vote Well, yeah, let just say this last thing. Given what has transpired over the last few minutes of our discussion, I mean, look, if we as a body or if the future body wants to take this up at some future point, whether it be a year from now or 10 years from now, maybe that process does look different. But as Ms. Youngman said, I would hate for the hours and hours of work that people have put forth in the different submissions and the votes and the different conversations I had amongst the commission members to go to waste. But if in a year or 10 years or five years, that the body wants to do something different, I guess, given section 9 on 9, they can. Okay, let's call the Chair Walsh. Now, Dr. Jones? Yes. Miss Sean? Yes. Miss Rigby? So I think I just would like to add that I think that the process supported by the council in the beginning really expanded the democratic involvement, which means that we had more people from our community having input going through this process, building consensus on a flag design than the five of us. I'm not sure that I would have supported a process that said, the five of us up here have to all agree on a flag, as we are certainly not flag experts. But, you know, we designate our authority at all different times to alcoholic beverage hearing board. And this is a process that we approved. And I think raising these concerns now at the 11th hour is profoundly untimely and disrespectful to the process and everybody who participated in the flag making selection process. So I really appreciate everyone in the county who submitted a design, who engaged in the survey process, who served on the committee. I spoke with many of the committee members in addition to receiving the testimony that we had both at the public hearing and within our inbox. And I think that ultimately, it's a process decided by committee. And you're never gonna to end up with 100% support for anything in a committee. I think our recent experiences on HB 1450 would suggest that. So, you know, my vote is yes. I appreciate the work and I look forward to seeing a new flag flying high above Howard County. My vote is yes. Mr. Youngman. Yes. CB-22 passes. Council Bill 23, 2025. Adopting the Howard County Fire Prevention Code. I move to approve CB-23, 2025. Second. CB-23, 2025. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Miss Rigby. Yes. Miss Trigundman. Yes. CB 23, 20, 25 passes. Council Bill 24, 20, 25 adopting the Howard County Building Code. I move to, am I moving to extend the life before we take over? Okay. I move to extend the life of CB 24, 20 once to July 21st 2025 Second Mrs. Howard would you please call the vote to extend the life of CB 24 20 25 wants to July 21st 2025 Chair Walsh yes, Dr. Jones yes miss shown yes miss Rikby yes Yes, Mr. Youngman. No The motion to extend the life of CB 24 once to July 21st 2025 passes. I moved to table CB 20 20 G I moved to table CB 24 2025 Second second the motion to table CB 24 2025 has been moved and seconded Mrs. Herod would you please call the vote on CB 24 2025 chair wall. Yes, Dr. Jones yes Miss young yes, mr. B. Yes, mr. Youngman no the motion to table cb 24 2025 passes, 20, 25, adoption of the Howard County Property Maintenance Code for rental housing. I move to extend the life of CB 25, 20, 25, once, to July 21, 20, 25. Second. Mrs. Herard, would you please call the vote to extend the life of CB 25, 20, 25 21st, 2025? Chair Walsh? Yes. Dr. Jones? Yes. Miss Sean? Yes. Miss Rikby? Yes. Miss Rik Youngman? Yes. The motion to extend the life of CB 25 2025 once to July 21st, 2025 passes. I move to table CB 25, 2025. Second. The motion to table CB 25, 2025 has been moved and seconded. Mrs. Herod, would you please call the vote on CB 25? Chair Walsh? Yes. Dr. Jones? Yes. Miss Sean? Yes. Miss Rigby? Yes. Miss Rigandman. No. The motion to table CB 25 20 25 passes. Council Bill 26, 20, 25 adopting the plumbing and gas fitting code. I move to extend the life of CB 26, 20, 25, once to July 21st, 20, 25. Second. Mrs. Herard, please call the vote to extend the life of CB 26 2025 once to July 21st, 2025. Chair Walsh? Yes. Dr. Jones? Yes. Miss Jean? Yes. Miss Riegby? Yes. Miss Riegman? Yes. The motion to extend the life of CB26 2025 once to July 21st, 2025 passes. I move to table CB26, 2025. Second. The motion to table CB26, 2025 has been moved and seconded. Mrs. Heratt, please call the vote on CB26, 2025. Chair Walsh. Yes. Dr. Jones. Yes. Ms. Jones. Yes. Miss. Rikby. Yes. Miss. St. Youngman. No. The motion to table CB 26, 20, 25 passes. Council Bill 27, 20, 25, introduced by Liz Walsh. Open meetings, waiver, and variance request. I move to approve CB27 2025 2025. Second. CB27, 2025 has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Would you like to just remind us what this bill is about? I would. Ms. Walsh, okay. Thank you for asking that. Okay. It makes just a singular change to the two processes that have been amended since we've been in office as to how waivers approved and that amendment earlier provided that three department heads versus one approved those waivers submitted for environmental waivers. That process in my view is not resulted in a real change in what we've seen. The analysis that we've received to date is that two thirds of the waiver submitted still are approved and maybe more after revision and resubmission. We have tried on certain projects and particularly sensitive watersheds, tried to at least track some of the waivers as they've gone through that amended process and we get nowhere we are still maled. We have repeatedly asked office of law whether or not those meetings shouldn't be subject to the public or the Open Meetings Act. I think a strong argument I would say a definitive one says that already they should be. It's a body of more than one making policy decision. In my view, that's black letter law, and that should have been daylighted from the day that this process was implemented. It's not. And if anything, it's gone darker. I mentioned that the public hearing or in its introduction. My office is asked for dates, for materials, relevant to waivers submitted in the old Ellicott City watershed, immediately above really expensive safe and sound projects, and we are told we will not tell you. Not let me get back to you just, we will not tell you. That is the DPC Director, Linda Eisenberg, to my chief of staff. They, so Ms. Wash, they won't tell you whether the waivers have been submitted or they won't tell you when the waiver meetings are going to be held all of that. And when you do find out about the waivers, the only way that I've found out about waivers is in the course of a lengthy letter that describes other things and then also describes the waivers. or on their website long after the waivers are approved so that there's no opportunity to actually try and stop or insert yourself in the process before the waivers are approved. Exactly. Exactly. The answer that we get, which is not sufficient from DPC, before this process changed, and afterwards, is there's an interactive map on our DPC website that you can go and input in any address. Well, how am I to know that a waiver has been submitted? I mean, am I supposed to just regularly search like District One every week? Like we really literally tried to set that up. It's not it's not feasible There isn't after the fact chart that again our legislation put in place Hey, guess what every time I say this one stinks. It's not on that chart So the conversation I've had with director Eisenberg is isn't it weird that I can pick out Every single time the one that's not on this chart Like what kind of of coincidence is that? And guess what, they're always in the old Ellicott City watershed. Not always. Well, the ones that I'm looking for, and that I can't find. Well, the ones you're looking for, but there's plenty and district four now too. So we say, who is there? Who is there doing any analysis? You're reading a technical, you're reading some kind analysis done by the same DPC director that this authority was stripped from or at least deluded from. And that person is now saying, I will not tell you the circumstances of the waiver when it will be decided, you know, wait for me to put a mysterious piece of paper somewhere that you will never find. It's also material to me that they don't track this, the same way they do all of the other documents in planning and zoning. When I first started and finally learned to get access to P docs, which is how you would track something that's in process now, you have to ask for permission to get to every single new plan. And if that plan gets redlined and you don't know it, then you don't have access to that plan and you don't know that plan was redlined. And even though there's a little folder that says waivers, there's not anything in it. You have to go to the zoning desk right here in the first floor and say may I please see the waiver file for X. Even though there's a little folder that says waivers, there's not anything in it. You have to go to the zoning desk right here in the first floor and say, may I please see the waiver file for X? And maybe you will or maybe you won't. And I think you have to pay for copies and all that. It is impossible to track this stuff. And in my view, that's intentional. And in my view, that is had hideous consequences. We're in the midst of budget. That is not why I am upset. Right now, the Lacey property that comes on the tree run for offices being cleared. Three acres of old forest in Ellicott City on the old Ellicott City watershed disappeared in the last week because of this kind of stuff. Happened on the corner of Freed Town in Suter Lane. It happens everywhere all the time without pause. And so all that we ask, you would say scraped the earth. Clear and scrape the hills above my town. The only change we asked for in this bill was to say the directors and administrators shall meet to consider waiver petitions under this section. The meeting shall be open to the public and comply with the requirements of the Open Meeting Act. Agenda shall be made available at least 10 days prior to the meeting. In electronic medium readily available to the public, minutes of the meeting shall be made available as soon as practicable in the same manner, blah, blah, blah, applicable to necessary disturbance exceptions. I apologize for its late arrival, but just today, Common Cause Maryland, wrote in in support of this bill. Of course, and it ends with bill number 27 will vastly increase Marylander's access to the meetings and materials that make up the environmental waiver approval process we urge a favorable report. This shouldn't be hard. I'm guessing it will be. I don't even think it should be an issue because I think from day one, there should have been part of Open Public Meetings Act, but that's where we are and that's what we do here. So I would just add that even if you are not, even if you're a council member who's not that concerned about waivers, that we should all be concerned about open meetings. And these are big decisions that are being made by these three people who change the fabric of our community by their decisions when they say, it's okay to cut down forest conservation. It's okay to fill in wetlands. It's okay to cut down our big beautiful trees. It's okay to scrape the land. That changes so much in a community, in a habitat, the way that our little animals interact with each other. The nature that we were able to experience for decades, and then suddenly it's gone. This is something that for our community deserves to be open meetings. I agree, thank you, Missing. You want to go? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to say really quickly. So I won't be supporting this bill, but not for the reason why one may think. I do think that transparency is always a good thing. However, I feel when you have elected officials that appoint the directors, just like we have our staff, I think that the trust that's put in the body, in this case the demographic, the Howard County voters to vote for the elected offices, who then turn around and appoint the directors and have their subject matter expertise and all those different things that come with it. They're entitled to their meetings, they're entitled to do their work. It would fall down a slippery slope. I'm gonna say this again later for a later bill. It would be a slippery slope, a bad precedence to have open meetings for situations like this. I do agree that transparency can increase. Maybe more conversations, maybe more something over the next couple of years where we're all together as a body But having a subject to open meetings opens a Can of worms that would Literally have almost every entity in the George Howard building with public meetings and open meetings act Which would be almost impossible? So but I do agree more transparency would be better in this space, but not for me, not open meetings. You stole a lot of what I was going to say is, you know, if these three folks that are making decisions, that the executive has vested authority and have to have open meetings then it's like where is it end whenever three people in county government are meeting to have to have open meetings. Two, I've always felt and maybe I'm just wrong that those processes are supposed to be separate from politics and separate from Influence by us and I'm a little concerned that If the stuff sabotaged ahead of time and it's open meetings, you know every project that that that somebody wants to kill because they, it's next to their house, it is where it's going to come to us. And despite what the zoning is and despite what all the other entitlements are, you know, it's going to be this, you know, you need to try to go influence this waiver process. And I just don't think we should be in the position of influencing waiver processes. If we think that the three people that are making these decisions are incompetent or not trustworthy, then they need to be replaced. And if the county executive won't replace them, then the county executive might need to be replaced. And I know that that's, you know, a lot of steps. But it's just, I just feel like it's kind of how government works. You know, everything can't be us running things or the public running things. I mean, it's, we just, we yields a lot of that authority to these people that are appointed and hired these offices. I what you're saying, David, but they are already getting appealed to and lobbied by the people asking to be excused from law. I think it's a reasonable expectation of our constituents that most of the time we would applaud the black letter law of state and local environmental, you know, requirements. But according to the fiscal analysis we have two-thirds of the time we do not. That's a problem to me. That's two-thirds of the time we do not file, we do not honor whatever the original requirements of either state or local law are. And that's part of why we're trying to see this process is what is that law being looking like on behalf of the developer? Because there is no counter. And there is no counter. What's it cost for, let's say that a waiver gets approved and neighbors or somebody wants to then appeal after the hearing examiner? What's that cost? I don't know why. Because that's your public process. Because that's your public process. Is the hearing examiner the board of appeals? No, because there's no way for that person to even know it's going on, unless they go and talk to Steve at the zoning front desk. And that puts the onus on the constituent to follow the law. This is the argument I have over and over again with Office of Law and probably with lots of you. It is not on our constituents like reasonable burden to come and enforce the law. That's not... I mean go back to fifth grade social studies. That's the executive branch and in my view, although those things you said before, yeah, the executive branch is falling flat on its face in terms of enforcing state and local environmental law. Is there a way to force the property to be posted? So like you know to look for those reports that we now require, right? But if you're the average person driving around, like don't even know a project's gonna happen down the street from you, you wouldn't know to go pull that report, right? And that's after the fact, the published report is after the fact. But it would still be in enough time to appeal it to the hearing authority. But there really would be no reason for a neighbor to ever look for that report, until the trees come down or until it's posted for some other way. I mean, I want the public to have that option. I just don't want the process to become log jammed and there to be some intimidation involved by like us or the future us is. So let me just, your bill does not, it does not contemplate the public coming in and testifying. It just contemplates putting daylight on this decision making. Because right now for all we know, the director of DPC calls up the director of rec and parks and says, hey, what do you think about this waiver? I'm fine with it. Then the director of Reckham Park calls up the head of the office of sustainability and says, hey, what do you think about this waiver? And then he says, I'm good with it. And then they all three write an email to Linda Eisenberg and say approved. I mean, we, or in my little scenario, they didn't meet. They just had a phone call and then they wrote an email, okay, which is probably what they do. Or they might not even do that. They may just all get the waiver request, there are three of them and they might just all three send out an email saying approved. We really don't know how the three of them come together if at all, discuss this situation and then make a decision and relay that decision to the director of DPC. All this bill does is say you continue to do exactly what you're doing. But you need to do it in a way that people can be aware that it's happening. That's the transparency. The transparency happens when the notice goes up that these three people are meeting. And here's the waiver that they're discussing. There's nothing that would in this bill allow public testimony or the public to try and make their case to these three people. All it does is it gives the people who are interested in this project the opportunity ahead of the specimen trees and the forest conservation being scraped, the wetlands being filled in, and the development being built on steep slopes, it gives people who live in the community the opportunity to see, oh, that's what this waiver is for. And if I don't want to see that happen, I might want to contact DPC. Or maybe DPC will set up a meeting with the community and the developer so that we could talk about saving some of those specimen trees and figure out a way to do that. Which communities can do and developers can do that too. It doesn't have to be all-out fight. But when it happens without the knowledge of the community at all, that's when it feels like you have really... That's when you start losing your faith in your local government. Well, I agree. That doesn't feel right. But the public won't have a chance to testify. Like, you know that email boxes will be lit up. They won't have a chance to testify. The email boxes of those three people that are making the decision and all of ours and accounting executives. Once they've made the decision, they've made the decision. But no, this will be before the decision. This will be during that 10 day period where people know that of meetings coming up and there will be a lot of pressure. And you've got a property owner there that is just trying to develop their property. Well, the other possibility, and this bill doesn't do it, but the certainly DPCs could do this, is come up with some procedures that you can't, just like the zoning board, you can't communicate with the members of the waiver board prior to the time that they're making their decision on this waiver. Well, I think you're right. I think there's, there might be a solution to this that we're circling around, but I just don't think making these public meetings with, you know, the ability for a uprising of the community against what might be a tiny little kind of no-nothing waiver, but if they don't get it, then the project blows up. Now we're trying to kill projects over, you know, moving a driveway. And I just, that's a lot of waivers that get done are not things that are consequential at all. A great. But still could kill a project if people want, if that's their only tool in the toolbox to kill it. It's just, there might be a solution here, but I just, I don't think this is it. So. All right, Mrs. Herr, would you please call the vote on CB27 2025? Chair wall? Yes. Dr. Jones? No. Miss Young? I tried Council Member Walls. I'm not sure why. I, because I think that this is a really, really good idea. And it's a first step in the right direction. So my vote is yes. Mr. Rueckby? I think when I start by saying I disagree with many of the characterizations we've heard tonight, we as a body really seek to engage people in the legislative process, especially when we're determining laws that touch on these very subjects. Department of Planning and Zoning is practically begging people to participate in the planning portion. And that is the time that you can have the most impact and most influence on the process is at the planning stage, not the project stage. But even at that project stage, you have a pre-submission meeting that the county requires. And that pre-submission requires the developer to have a community meeting, which means that the community is meeting with the developer before the developer even meets with DPC. That is an opportunity to have these discussions at the project stage. And aside from all that, the reason I'm voting no against this is because I think it undermines the county's leverage in these negotiations. I think if you create this as a public meeting, I can tell you who else will be there. And I think it'll be a bunch of developers looking to see how these negotiations are happening. And that's why I think it's really going to undermine that process. So I don't really want to invite other developers to developer, developer negotiations. I don't think that's in the county's best interest. And so my vote is now. Mr. Yaneman. I am going to disagree with one thing that you said, which is at the pre-submission meeting, the project is still pre-soft. You know, like it's, they don't even know if they're going to need waivers at that point, much less what they might ask for, and there's no pre-submission meeting or another neighborhood meeting for waivers. So with that caveat, but for the aforementioned reasons, I'm still in no one to bill. CB27, 2025 fails. Council bill 28, 2025, fiscal analysis, council legislation. I move to approve CB28, 2025. Second. CB28, 2025 has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Well, I am planning on voting now because I do agree with the testimony that was presented by HCCA. I believe that the auditor's office is the most qualified to perform a fiscal analysis of legislation. And it is the auditor who is duty bound to report irregularities. And that to me is very important in the course of doing this type of work. Keeping fiscal notes under the purview of the county auditor ensures freedom from undue to political influence, it preserves transparency, and it provides for government efficiencies. And I really strongly believe that the fiscal analysis should be maintained with a oversight by our county auditor. Also, this bill was filed on behalf of the council, which indicates that all five council members agreed to the filing of this bill. I was never approached about the filing of this bill. Not only do I not agree with it, but I will be voting against it. So I don't appreciate that this was filed apparently on my behalf as well. Okay. Yeah. Have we, and I apologize for not knowing this, and so off the top of my head, where are we in the hiring process, excuse me, where are we in the hiring process or the filling of the positions for us to be able to house this type of expertise on our side, if you will. I can answer that. Sure, James. We are actively recruiting for the vacancies, which is a deputy county auditor and then a deputy county council administrator, two physical manager, two in a physical manager, one position. We're interviewing between budget meetings. Right, do we, exactly. Do we think just to throw it out there, is there a date that all of this will be completed by? I believe our last interview is scheduled for the beginning of June. So we're hoping to get it wrapped up by beginning to middle of June. So if this passes, then, you know, the last sentence of every bill, it says that it'll take 61 days after it's enactment, by that time, it will be more than enough time to have this be infused into what we plan to do as a body. Correct. They'll have staff in place. I'm glancing around at the staff members at a present. I only see two head nods and smiles from others. Okay, thank you. Anyone else? Mr. Tara, would you please call the vote on CB28. 2025. Chair Walsh. I have every confidence in our newly hired auditor that he will begin to actually fulfill the requirements to fourth under charter to perform various audits on behalf of the citizens of this county. And I think moving some of those responsibilities over to the legislative side conforms more to how other jurisdictions do it. And again, free our auditor to do what he is there to do, which is audit. My vote is yes. Dr. Jones. Yes. Ms. Young. No. Ms. Rikby. We've heard from numerous auditor candidates, including our ultimate hire, that it's unusual to have fiscal analyses within that department. I share Ms. Walsh's hope and I'm looking forward to our audit department completing audits and my vote is yes. Thank you. Mr. Youngman? Yes. CB282025 passes. Council Bill 29, 2025 introduced by Liz Walsh, subdivision and land development regulations development regulations waivers and repeal I move to approve CB 29 20 25 second CB 29 20 25 has been moved and seconded is there any discussion? I will give you a brief reminder on what this bill does and yes It is related is related to the one that you already have voted down. But in this case, we very heroically after the second fatal flood in Old Ellicott City modified our waiver provision to say, in part, that you couldn't get waivers if you were in the Old Ellicott City water said, the type of branch water said it's called in our law. Except if you provide at least 10% more storm water control on your site than you otherwise would be required to do and guess what that's what everyone does. So the waivers continue to be awarded even within the type of branch water said even at the top of the hills in the timber branch watershed and in exchange for that we get at least 10% more in flood control on that site. I feel like that was a terrible trade. It was a giant loophole when we enacted it and I think the projects that have been afforded since proved that and I would hope that you would support removing that loophole. Is that a question, Faith? It is. If the project mitigates all its storm water for the flood to the 2016 flash flood record, I think that's what we used to call it plus 10% isn't that a isn't that an improvement? I think that's the argument but at what cost there's no there's no commensurate here does it say you can take out one tree or you can intrude into 15 square feet of stream? So the issue isn't the control stormwaterwater, the issue is like what they're taking down to install it? Yeah. I got it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Anything else? Which all the numbers change? It looks like switch, switch, switch. But the reality is it's just four that's coming out and so everything after it gets renumbered. So it's not as frightening as it looks and we actually did get those calls. It's really eliminating just that former provision four and leaving all the rest in that, you know, you're rebuilding something. It's a public works project, whatever, whatever. This is the exemption that's allowing all of the private development up in the hills to advance just like it did before 2018 and yeah okay is there any more discussion on CB 29? Mr. Herd please call the vote. Chair Walsh. My vote is yes. Dr. Jones. No. Miss Young. I have to admit that before Looking at this and thinking about it. I wish that maybe we had had this on a work session because I sort of had the same impression that that Mr. Youngmanman did that this gets mitigated plus this 10%. And it doesn't make sense to really take this out of the code to the extent that it might be helping things in old, delicate city. And then I guess my second thought was, aren't we spending 240 or what we don't know yet, maybe 300 million on flood mitigation, ponds and other measures in Ellicott City to make sure that water going down the hill isn't going to harm people. Not that I think that's ever a good excuse to take down trees. And I don't know that we ever will be able to really make a difference. And Ms. Walsh, you have tried everything when it comes to trying to save specimen trees, trying to stay forest conservation, and we have yet to really see success on that. But on this particular one, I am good about now. Mr. Rigby? It's interesting, because we also have, you know, storm-motor regulations in this county that are essentially referred to as, you know, never before seen and, you know, looked at by people on the outside as, you know, significant, I guess I would say. And it's also painful because we all know that the vast majority of development that occurred in that watershed that occurred without storm water, as a county to invest in managing the storm water there. But we don't. We do a little. The outcome of this bill, and I think this is at least the second time it's come before us. No. No? Maybe it was part of another bill, but the outcome would be that it results in less stormwater management within the Tiber Hudson, that I would oppose and for that my reason I vote is now. Mr. Youngman. No. CB 29 25 fails. Council Bill 30, 20 25 introduced by Liz Walsh membership human rights commission. I move to approve CB 30 20 25. Second. I move I move to approve amendment 1 to CB 30. Second. I move to approve amendment one to CB 30. Second. I move to approve amendment one to CB 30. That's mine but that's mine second. I'm just moving down the chart here. That's all good. Amendment one to amendment one to CB 30 has been moved and seconded. Do you want to tell us what's going on here, sponsors? Okay, so Ms. Wash filed an amendment to the membership section of the Human Rights Commission and it made some, it put in some new requirements to the Human Rights Commission membership. This amendment, the original amendment, amendment one, broadens the membership criteria to add that the individual who might be applying to serve on the Human Rights Commission should have one other way to actually qualify to be on the Human Rights Commission, would be to have a special interest in human rights, giving more people, I would hope, the opportunity to actually serve on this particular commission. And I think it's important that we want to attract as many people as possible to serve their community. And we don't want to discourage people from serving by creating barriers. It just so happens that both Dr. Jones and I served on the Human Rights Commission in our, in the olden days, in our early years. And we, when we saw this, Bill, we were a little concerned that maybe one or both of us might not have been able to serve on the Human Rights Commission. this was in place at the time that we were interested and ended up serving on the Human Rights Commission. So that is why we paired up on this particular amendment. And I'll add to it. So I filed an amendment one to amendment one to just take out all of the qualifications piece for two reasons. One, which Ms. Young just stated, when I was appointed by then County Executive Ken Omen to the Human Rights Commission, I probably would not have been qualified, even though I was very interested in doing this work. And it's actually where I got the real itch to our one for office and rest of history. But too, I think if we make these qualifications for this commission, as I stated earlier, you know, it would just set a precedent where in every commission would need certain qualifications to match up to this one. And there's a lot, there's tons and tons of people that just want to volunteer. They may be qualified, they may be interested, or they may be just want to just serve in some form or some capacity. I do know that there was some angst with the Human Rights Commission over the past couple of years, and I appreciate the filing of this bill, which is why I think that the training should stay, and that's important. But the qualifications is where I have trouble because they could slip over into other commissions as well. And then before you know it, instead of just being a Howard County resident and being of age and having a certain residency requirement, you're narrowing it down to a fraction maybe five or two percent of the county that can then qualify to serve on said commission. So that's my only thing. Okay, so if I'm right, neither amendment one nor the amendment to one, deletes the new language about members shall be required to receive training necessary to carry out the functions and duties of the commission. Okay, so then the only second change was we proposed members shall be professionals in or have relevant experience knowledge or training in such fields as civil rights, human rights, mediation, conflict resolution or investigation and conciliation of discrimination complaints. and if I understand correctly, Miss Rights, Mediation, Conflict Resolution, or Investigation and Conciliation of Discrimination Complaints. And if I understand correctly, Ms. Young, you added members, Shelby professionals, or have special interest. Have special interest. Have special interest. Yes. So does applying for a position on the commission equal having special interest? I would yeah, I would think if somebody was applying for the position that they would have a special interest in it. Okay, so it just wouldn't be random. Hey, here's your commission. I think all that's my point though. If the only thing that you have to do to show special interest in a certain commission is to apply for it, I don't think that that really should suffice. Well we do have every we generally have everyone come and sit before us and you know we hardly ever grill anybody. I'm not think I've only seen it once in our seven years together six years together but you know we can ask the question what is where did your interest come from you know we can have conversation offline or in public for that. I understand what you're saying. I understand what you're saying. I do sense what you're saying. And it is possible that maybe the office of the county executive or a council member or someone says, hey, we need you to be on this commission to stick our finger in the eye of this other commissioner. I don't really think that's happening like that, like that. Like it may happen, but it would, it very, really happens. We don't have time for that. So I'm under the impression that those that are involved in the commissions and boards, even the Human Rights Commission just really, really want to do the work. Now, I hope I'm correct in that statement. Like I said, I know there were some angst about this particular commission as of late, but I really hope I'm correct in saying that. Okay, so I got Miss Young's amendment one. But then I think, Dr. Jones, your amendment then strikes out everything, but members shall have special interest in. Yes, I figured I'll support Miss Young's amendment if I would like for it not to be there at all. The qualifications piece so if that but if that doesn't pass then I will support or the special interest. Which in essence someone could be qualified according to your bill or they may not be they just have the special interest. Okay, all right so then yeah, I think there's a departure there because you see my concern that merely applying for a board should not in total you to position on something that I think is as important as human rights and I think angst is a kind of way to take turning a blind eye towards a reported human rights abuses in our detention center. It hasn't been a random thing. It's been a repeated thing. And I'm not sure what measures that commission took after the first gap if that's another kind word to put it, but there were no appreciable improvements in the performance and the actions of a really important commission all the time, but a really, really important commission when human rights particularly seem to be, you know, targeted at the federal level. So I mentioned to all of you during the last month's docket when we had two appointees that didn't have some of the qualifications I'd seen in earlier appointees. Christy Little from our office is a rather new member of the Human Rights Commission. And her day job was providing legal assistance to young immigrants. Like, she's steeped in that. And I think that perspective should be more prevalent. If this reduces down to training, then I think that's an improvement to what we have now. But that's a sad state of affairs. But is there any more comment on this? I just would like to add that while this requirement that you, the concept of this requirement that you've introduced, members shall be professionals in or have relevant experience, knowledge or training in such fields as civil rights, human rights, mediation, conflict resolution, or investigation and conciliation of discrimination complaints. Having served on the Human Rights Commission for a full term of five years, my recollection was that we actually had an appeal of discrimination complaints and the Human Rights Commission sits as like an appellate group maybe three times in five years. So this is not a big part of what the Human Rights Commission does. Primarily what we did when I was on the Human Rights Commission is a lot of education and outreach. So we would ask groups to come in to give us various presentations. We would ask people to talk to us about why they thought if we were at the time introducing a new area of the human rights law. We would ask people to come in and tell us why they thought we should, if there was discrimination in the community, why they thought we should be introducing a new section of the human rights law. We did a fair housing calendar. We did, we would show up to other people's events to let them know that we were around, that we were interested in what was going on in the county. But we didn't do a lot of human rights investigation because there are hired professionals at the Human Rights Commission who perform that sort of work. Right, I'm sorry, the office of human rights, human rights and equity. And I don't know how many people are there now who are the professionals who do that work at the time when I was on the Human Rights Commission, I think there were four people in the office who investigated discrimination complaints and other abuses. So the Human Rights Commission itself was not charged with that sort of activity. Okay. Anything else? Mr. Chair, would you please call the vote on CB30? The amendment one, two. Oh my gosh, we have to go through all these amendments. Okay. I'm skipping ahead. Can you please call the vote on CB 30? Amendment 1-1. Oh my gosh, we have to go through all these amendments. Okay, I'm skipping ahead. Can you please call the vote on Amendment 1 to Amendment 1 to CB 30? Chair Walsh. No. Dr. Jones. Yes. Miss John? Yes. Miss Raky? Yes. Miss Frigiannman. Yes. Amendment 1 to amendment one to CB 30 passes. Could you please call the vote on amendment one as amended? Chair Walsh. Also no. Dr. Jones? Yes, because it was amended by amendment one to amendment one. Yes, OK. Ms. Sean. Yes. Mr. Rigby. I certainly would have supported requiring the expertise for at least half the members, but I don't think there's group consensus around that yet. So I'm supportive of the consensus that was created. I go with yes. Mr. Youngman. Yes. Amendment one as amended to CB 30 passes. Is there any further discussion? Mr. Chair, would you please call the vote on CB 30 as amended? Chair Walsh. I'm glad Ms. Young mentioned the education portion of the office or of the commission of human rights because I will say that one of my favorite PR campaigns that I've seen issue from this county came out in November 26, 2024 from our office of human rights and equity that works hand in hand with that commission. That PR campaign had a series of posts on social media which read like this. Performative allotship involves broad gestures that are symbolic in nature, but did not actually motivate meaningful action towards cultural, societal, or political change. You cannot extend safety to a person from a historically marginalized group while they exist in a system that was deliberately created to make them unsafe. And my favorite, performative allyship, while generally well-intentioned, can end up overshadowing, silencing or suppressing the voices of the actual communities it is intending to support. I think our commission has failed those communities in the past, that was the genesis of our bill. I suppose I should be happy that there will be some training, but I don't think that's enough, especially in these days and times. I don't know how to vote. I will vote yes. Dr. Jones. Yes. Miss Cheyenne? Yes. Miss Riekeby? Yes. Miss Riekeby. Yes. Mr. Goodman. Yes. CB-30 as amended passes. Council Bill 31, 2025, introduced by Deb Young, Inspector General Advisory Board Technical Correction. I move to, go ahead. I move to approve CB-31, 2025. Second. Sorry. CB-31, 25 has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Once again, babysitting the IG bill, which apparently has become my life, it seems like every month. I am introducing a new bill to fix something that wasn't fixed when we introduced it originally. And this one, we, as in this council, actually agreed that the language in CB 31 that is in this specific amendment is what should have been in the original legislation. But there was a drafting error. Who knows who it was? Mine. I'll take responsibility. And the Office of Law alerted me to this issue, so I am correcting it. And if you read the sentence, you can see that there was a drafting error because it says an external recipient or board member of an external recipient of county funds benefits or services and it was supposed to read an employee owner or board member of an external recipient of county, funds, benefits, or services. So it's pretty simple. Thank you, Ms. Young. Anyone else? Mrs. Tarrad, would you please call the vote on CB31-2025? Chair, Walsh. Yes. Dr. Jones. Yes. Ms. Young? Yes. Ms. Rigby? Yes. Ms. Rick Youngman. Yes. Ms. Rigg Youngman. Yes. CB31, 2025 passes. We need to move. Okay. Thank you. I move to remove CR20, 2025 from the table. Second. The motion to remove CR20, 2025 from the table has been moved and seconded. Mrs. Tared, would you please call the vote. Chair Walsh. Yes. Dr. Jones, yes. Ms. Young, yes. Ms. Rigby, yes. Ms. Reganman, yes. Council Resolution 2020-25, appointment of Margaret Old Gold to the Housing and Community Development Board. I move to approve CR20- 2025. Second. CR20- 2025 has been moved and seconded, is there any discussion? Mrs. Hair, would you please call the vote on CR20? Chair Walsh, yes. Dr. Jones, yes. Miss Jones, yes. Miss Rikby, yes. Miss Rikkyung, yes. CR20 2025 passes. I move to remove CB20-25 from the table. Second. The motion to remove CB18-20-25 from the table has been moved and seconded. Mrs. Hared would you please call the vote. Chair Walsh? Yes. Dr. Jones? Yes. Ms. Jones? Yes. Ms. Rikby? Yes. Ms. Riyang. Yes. The motion to remove CB 18 from the table passes. Council Bill 18 2025 introduced by Christiana Rigby, Transit-oriented development TOD residential unit exemptions. Okay, as a reminder, Council Bill 18 has already been moved and seconded. We have already voted on amendments 1 through amendment 2 to amendment 3 and are starting with amendment 3 as amended. Amendment 3 to CB 18 2025 as amended has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? My discussion is, could someone tell me what that was about? Sure, amendment three. So amendment three, so a lot of the question was about the 15%. And that's where we talked about having the 5% disability income housing units and then referencing another bill that we have passed to allow for, it's essentially a one-to-one on the low income housing units and the disability income housing units to the moderate income housing units. But you would risk that way there'd be a minimum of 5% disability income housing units and then a mix above that. Getting up to potentially 20 but 20% total but also if you wanted to if there was desire on the county's behalf or on the developers behalf to do some of the low income or disability income that we are significantly missing in this county then that option, there wouldn't be prohibited from that option that exists in the code. Do we have a piece of paper in here that says what a amendment 3 is? There is a amendment 3 is still in there, right? My recommendation would be that we vote down a amendment 3. I was just going to say, I thought we were not going to do. You've written a whole new amendment, right? The amendment separated the discussion and everything. Okay, all right, so let's just move on. Okay, that's what I thought. Yeah. Thank you, Miss Young. All right, so, well let's vote it down. Is that what you just said? I'm replaying the conversation, my head. All right, amendment three to CB 18, 2025 as amended has been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? Okay, Ms. Herred, would you please call the vote on amendment three to CB 18 as amended? Chair Walsh? No. Dr. Jones? No. Ms. Scheng? No. Ms. Rikby? No. So. Devastating. A amendment 3 to CB 18 as amended fails Okay, which is you miss you. I knew okay, so I moved to approve amendment 4 second All right a amendment 4 requires a fixed amount of disability, income housing units, and moderate income housing units, and amends the proposed payment in lieu of taxes exemption. And this has been what, this was what we talked about more or less a month ago when we were first debating this. We shall set aside 15% of all dwelling units as disability income housing units and they will be eligible to enter into a pilot with the county. The developers shall also set aside an additional 20% of all units as moderate income housing units, regardless of the number of units in the development. So then we discussed in Amendment 3, Harkening back a month that in order to qualify for a pilot that the developer should have a minimum of 5% of disability income unit houses and 15% MIO shoes, which could be a mix, but that altogether that would be 20% total of the units in order to qualify for the pilot. And this, these amounts are higher than what we discussed when we were talking about amendment three, but I would be happy to bring them down to the same level as what we were discussing when we were talking about amendment three a month ago and have the disability income housing units at 5% and the MIHU units at 15 in order to qualify for the pilot. Okay, sorry, I think I'll let Ms. Riegley go since it's your bill. No, I think I'm just, I guess I'm a little confused because you only want this to apply to with more than 250, but were you saying just the first percentage or both percentages? Both percentages. Five and fifth, well right now it reads 15 and 20 so that would be actually 35 in order to get the pilot which would be very high yes yes I recognize that especially in this wonderful fiscal economic environment I'm not even sure what I was thinking when I put those two numbers in there to be honest, but Five and 15 is what we were talking about four weeks ago 5% disability income unit houses and 15% moderate income houses and that's what you would have to do to get the pilot I mean, I personally, I'm much more comfortable with the language that's in the bill. And that is within amendment seven. So it's not only. No, it's an end, but yes, I mean, you have, yeah, we took it out, I suppose. So it is within amendment seven. I'm more comfortable within the language within amendment seven. And that would apply to whether you had 200 or 250 units. Okay, so it's the only difference between those two proposals. It one would only apply to greater than 250 units. I'm saying your revised version, Ms. Young. Right. Actually, this was my original version. This is what I filed for weeks ago. So I don't know how well this matches with your amendment 7. I'm saying your 5 and 15 would be 5 disability, 5 modern income right yes, but isn't that what's set forth in your pages 9 through 14 on page 2 of amendment 7 Are you looking at your looking at amendment 7? I think I am am I so what amendment 7 would allow for is The ratio that's approved in code versus doing an additional 20. So if there was the desire to have more disability income housing units, rather than moderate income housing units because we have a fair number of, you know, the moderate income housing units are required throughout many zones. we've only been successful in achieving wine disability income housing units are required throughout many zones, but we've only been successful in achieving one disability income housing unit. So, Amendment 7 provides that flexibility for the disability income housing units additional beyond the 5% required, but I don't believe that amendment 4 extends that same option. No, it does not. It requires five and fifteen. Yes. I mean, if somebody wanted to do more than five, that would be great. But in order to get a pilot, that minimum would be five percent disability income, housing units, 15 percent moderate. Okay, so here's the point. I'm making and this is based on just district one trying to draft our own amendments here is those provisions of the code that hung us up last month because they were cited incorrectly in the original draft. Those are the like, I don't know, the optional or the mixed income options. They have all these words, right? that's like for O2A B&C I think for OCE and okay. Yes, so my understanding is that DPs and this is based on conversations with people who should know is DPs is going to interpret that term of art modern income housing units to be subject to those provisions of the code whether they're written out as a amendment seven does or is there stated without that provision as you're proposing in yours. So I think unless you almost say notwithstanding those provisions, you're going to leave open the possibility of a mixed use option. So that would mean, and this is the math I got hung up on last month, is as written, I think what you're both trying to achieve is a minimum of 5% disability income housing units period. Just 5% disability income housing units. Additional to that is 15% in this case, modern income housing, and it would be the most number of affordable, so-called affordable income housing units. But by virtue of those other provisions of the housing code, modern income housing units could be swapped out for a lesser number of either low income affordable housing units or disability income housing units, right? Yes, because the subsidy is higher for low income and disability income than it is for moderate. So the math would only work out to be 20% of your total number of units if you adhere to the five disability and the 15-moder income. If you exercise one of the options available to you under housing code, you would have some lesser proportion of the 20% affordable. More heavily subsidized units that we're missing. Yeah. And that whatever you all decide is the mix would be fine. But I feel like if a developer is going to get a pilot, that's big deal. And particularly a for-profit developer, because typically that's not something we do. And that in order to do that, in order to qualify for that, you need to have a bigger footprint of moderate and disability income housing in your project. But I think we just heard from this wash that it would be, if the percentages are the same, then there's no functional difference. But also your amendment 4 doesn't have 15. I mean, not right now, it's saying 15. Right. Right now it's not, it's not 5 and 15. Right. No, but the price was made I didn't file another I didn't I'm used okay I figured that's something we could figure out on the days okay okay is there any further discussion on amendment four yeah I just what I was going to say in the beginning and I'm not sure if I fully understand it is I thought I heard it it, but with your amendment seven, I know you worked hard on it, and you worked over the month on it since it was tabled. How does your amendment seven job with the, you know, four or five and six? And I mean, is it because those were already there? And then you came with amendment seven. Yes. Seven sort of replacement of three than it is dealing with four or five. Okay. Anything else? All right, Mrs. Herred, would you please call the vote on amendment four to council bill 18? Chair and Walsh? No. Dr. Jones. Yeah, pass. Miss Jones? Yes. Miss Rigby? Ms. Riegby? No. Ms. Riegby. No. Ms. Dr. Jones? No. Amendment 4 to CB 18 fails. I move to, do you want me to move amendment 5? Yeah, go ahead. I move to approve amendment 5 to CB 18 2025. Second. All right. Amendment 5 makes the APFO exemption perspective for subdivision and site plans submitted after the effective date of this legislation. And that's to ensure that projects that are in the works right now would not be advantaged by this legislation, which seems like the faire various way to go. Is there any discussion on amendment 5? Okay, Mr. Herd, would you please call the vote on amendment 5 to CB 18 2025? Chair Walsh? No. Dr. Jones? No. Miss Sean? Yes. Miss Rikby? No. Miss Treyonman? No. Amendment 5 to CB 18 2025 fails. I move to approve amendment 6 to CB 18 2025. Okay. A minute six. Are you good? You're going to move a amendment seven? I just, I didn't know if there had to be like a world of light. But I'll make move. Oh, a amendment six has no second. I move to approve a amendment seven. Second. A amendment seven adds a requirement that 25% of all dwelling units be constructed according to either the UFAST, Uniform Federal Accessibility Standards or International Code Council guidelines. This is from the disability advocates. This is a more appropriate and timely reference, I think, than our universal design guidelines last updated in 2007. And it also does the requirement of 5% of the dwelling units to be disability income housing. Sorry. I'm sorry. Disability income housing units or low income housing units with the remainder being 15% either moderate or a mix thereof. It also adds in a sunset provision of 2033. And then includes the second reporting requirement that we had previously done in amendment three. So that is preserved within amendment seven. Is there any further discussion on amendment 7? I don't know. We have amendment one, two minutes. Oh my gosh. Are we moving that in that? Oh, yeah. Yes. I didn't put golden rot in my binder, my bad. Thanks Amanda. I moved to approve amendment one, two amendments seven, to CB 18. Second. And this is a lot. This is mainly technical amendments that the administration requested for implementation versus significant substantive changes. What were the insignificant substantive changes? pulling it up right now because I didn't put my golden rod in here. Unless someone else has a copy of it. I have it. You want the golden rod? I think. Oh, okay. Now I see why I wanted both. Okay. So on page 1, line 6, it says, shall add a minimum, incorporate the required universal design. And then it has, then it goes down lower and adds that UFAS and ICC code. And then, yeah, for that ICC code, we wanted to strike 2009. So it just read 117.1, type 8 guidelines. And then for page 3, line 14 to add in whichever comes first. And those all go to this updated version of universal design guidelines. Is there any other conversation on amendment one to amendment seven? Mr. Chair, would you please call the vote? Chair Walsh. Yes. Dr. Jones. Yes. Ms. Jones? Yes. Ms. Rigby? Yes. Ms. Trigangman. Yes. Amendment one to amendment number seven passes. Is there any further discussion on amendment 7 as amended? It is what am I lost my face? That's correct. Oh, okay. That's right. Is it no? Mrs. Herod would you please call the vote on amendment 7 as amended? Chair Walsh. Yes. Dr. Jones? Yes. Ms. Jones. So this developer, and I say this developer, because I do find it pretty interesting that this bill expires after eight years, which does say a lot in particular about this bill. Looks like a special law, doesn't it? 15% a MIHU is already required in the TOD so that's nothing new. But for the extra 5% DIHU, this developer gets an FO exemption for eight years, a pilot, and a frozen surcharge. That from my perspective is just too much. And I think that given the overcrowded nature of the schools in the TOD area and what hundreds of new apartments could do to add to that already dire situation that the trade off is not worth it. And I know that we have seen lots of lobbying on this bill as well as conversations with the developer. and I am wish that it was something that I could support because I think the housing is important but I think that the other items that we're looking at here is not worth it. Miss Riekeby. So just to clarify, the reduction of the sunset, I wanted 12 years for this bill, but to get to yes, I had to lower the time. So just to put the truth out there. And then additionally, I would really encourage anybody who has opposition to this bill, especially as it relates to schools, to please, please read the associated documents with this bill. And you can find the Student Generation Rate for Annapolis Junction Apartments, which is the only apartment building actually built within TOD. And You can see the incredibly low number of student generation. So if you value sending money to the schools and you want to increase their budget items, then you should want to increase the general fund. This bill seeks to do exactly that. We want more residents paying for fewer students in our schools. So I appreciate the efforts of my colleagues. I accept the compromises. And we're still on Amendment 7. And so I'm voting in support of Amendment 7. Thank you. Mr. Kingman. Yeah, I am on the sunset I Wanted a sunset Yeah, I thought 12 years was too long but but eight and considering it takes three or four years to get through the process And we don't want to be judging we don't want the next council to be judging this off of just one project We want to get a few on the ground so that they can then say, hey, you know, was this a bridge too far? Do we want to, you know, take away this waiver or not? Four or five years would have probably let this building get built. But I just didn't think it made sense to put the next council in a position to decide based on one building. It's not a very example size. So, how about yes on the amendment? Amendment 7, as amended to CB 18, 2025 passes. I move to approve amendment 8 to CB 18, 2025. Second. I'm actually attaches as exhibits for the purposes of our deliberation here, the applicability of this act. And you may recall that these were the three maps that were shown to us at work session. And I will say that I was confused based on initial representations of this bill that it only applied in District three. And it would only apply to schools closer to District three and only an published junction was relevant to this discussion. These maps show otherwise. And particularly the map that's in your district, I believe, Dr. Jones, is quite extensively developed already, but yet still has many portions remaining to go. And no one in that corner of this county thinks that schools are in a position to bypass existing apfo exemptions. So I just wanted us with clear eyes to understand exactly what we're doing to our own constituents if we elect to go forward with this TOD in these locations as proposed. Go ahead. Sure so just to clarify I believe that this portion that is not helpful. Oxford Square? Yeah. Is Bill Tell? Is that correct or is that incorrect? Okay. And these maps were discussed each of them including each TOD in the work session. So I guess I'm wondering where we didn't discuss. I mean, I haven't, I am not prepared to, that is too far north for me, I guess. implicates whole different areas of schools and areas of already misconceived development for which we continue to wreak consequences. And I don't know the extent to which more development could or could not happen in the two side versus the three side. But I definitely did not appreciate until that work session what we were talking about and that's why I wanted to make sure it was with clear eyes. You'll note and it was a good I think solution that our legislative analysis, why can't I say that word? Analysts, proposed, Mr. Almond, even the whereas clause or the introduction of the top says for deliberation. I don't know that we necessarily need this to be included in the actual bill. I just wanted to make sure that we had that conversation out loud. And I think that location implicates very different concerns than the other two. So are you suggesting that then these pieces should be taken out because of the already overcrowding that's taking place there? I guess you wanted to discuss it. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. Or I mean that's, we're already exempting them. Like the theory is that that FO would put some hold on them and that's what we're excusing. So you're included why so why did you include these maps I guess like again I think those southerly two locations are very different than this northerly location and so to say that anapolis junction and a singular buildout in that location has any applicability to something as far north as that third site, it is not a fair representation. And so yeah, I don't know if we say we take out, I don't know, I think they called it TOD3 or a majority of this body is like, yeah, we know we don't care. I don't know. My preference would be to at least remove that top North third, but this body seems intent on proceeding. It seems, I don't know a problem with maps. It seems weird to put the maps in code. Should they be like in a non-uncodified section? Or because I think you're putting them out for information, right? You just want to make sure people have them. I mean, does it matter? Well, I wanted us for our information was my point. If there was a solution to remove that top north one, again, I think the entire conversation has been as though those three sites were the same and they are not. I think we've all known that Dorsey was a TOD, right? I think that was the first TOD I knew existed. Nothing, not big TOD guy. So we don't have them. You don't have a lot of transit outweigh. We drive. Go ahead. So again I think when we are looking at these student generation yields they are significantly lower. That's the purpose. We want if we continue to not increase our overall taxpayers and our overall accessible base, then we will be coming to the same taxpayers and asking them to pay more. That's the alternative. I mean, I hope that that was driven home today during the work session. To me, this was, I mean, but again, I agree that Oxford I have my own Felix, but Oxford Square I'm not going to get into them because I'll do realist. But to me, that is not TOD. That is picking a site and calling it a TOD. But you have to start around that station and you are building for that station. So, you know, I think that we want... This is where we said we want development to occur in the general plan. And it's very challenging if we say that. And then we try to block it. We know that without policy changes, our revenue problems will continue. Frankly, even with policy changes, our revenue problems will continue. This is really, this is not a silver bullet. It is working to ameliorate the policy find we've created. We've put ourselves into. I think that legally, I'm not sure what the process would be to remove. Dorsey, because to me that would say that I tried to write a bill that would affect all TODs, that would affect all parcels within TODs, that would affect all potential projects within TODs. Because this is where we said we would allow development. So I I'm down always down for discussion. It is where we said we would allow development but we didn't say in the general plan that we were going to exempt all development from that vote. And that's what and that's what this bill does. So this is a little different. The general plan. The general plan also says that we will seek incentives. Many of these incentives are straight from the Housing Incentives Work Group. That was formed by the general plan. So, you know, there's only so many knobs and levers. And again, we should be encouraging development that doesn't contribute students to schools. That is smaller in nature for each home. And that is what this does. Okay Dr. Jensad, I are trying to pull up an interactive map that would show that, in fact, the portion of exhibit A in a M-M-M-I-1 by Oxford Squares, not 100% developed out. I mean, yet it is. It's good to know before you say that it isn't or is like that. Well, that is why I tried to confirm with you. It's those kinds of. I know I'm sorry, go ahead. Quick sand that causes me to have no confidence in this bill. We had to put it aside because of all kinds of errors and I feel like along the way you lost my vote because of the representations about it being exclusively in district three. I'm gonna withdraw. I move to withdraw amendment number eight. I don't remember who seconded. I think I'll do. Do you want to withdraw your order? Yeah. Okay. Is not what I do. Okay. So I think that brings us to CB 30 as amended. 18. 18. CB whatever it is. CB 18 as amended. CB 9 11 PM. Is that right p.m. Is that right CB 18 as amended we're done with the amendments Okay, so CB 18 2020 25 as amended has been moved and seconded is there any discussion? I mean, I'll just reiterate my point is this is a very different bill than was presented to me. And I think constituents and others who brought that point to my attention, particularly that site near Oxford Square and along with 100, that foretells worser problems then already exist because of putting development like this in the wrong location. No one is going to walk from those so-called undeveloped portions of exhibit A in Amendment 8 to a train station. And nobody in Oxford Square walks to a train station now. It's done that route. That is a disappointing aspect of this bill that probably intention was all there, but maybe we're getting back to Office of Human Rights and Equity propaganda. My vote is no. Dr. Jones. So I want to give Kudos to Councilmember Cristiana Rigby and all the work that she did and the research that she put forth with this bill. Having lived near Oxford Square before and also several years ago almost, was it a twenty twenty pop, almost fifteen, twelve to fifteen years ago relying on transit to get into DC. I would say that while I'm in, I'll be walkable. It's definitely a very short drive to get to the mark, which will shoot you right into Union Station and you could transfer wherever else you need to go in DC. I don't know, on a nice day, it could be a good walk or you ride a bike or something scooter now. The TOD, I think, is important, one because many more housing, and two because the student generation for those schools, whether they be overcrowded or not, Given the percentages, have a very low yield. A family is in coming with 6 school children per family in a one bedroom studio. Or maybe even a two bedroom house. Maybe one kid, maybe two over time, then the family expounds, expands, and they need a bigger place to live. So for that location, I think it's perfect. My vote is yes. Mr. So we know that there have been instances along Route 1 where a lot of children have actually emerged from apartment buildings in town home complexes unexpectedly and unexpectedly over helped to overcrowd the schools in that area. We also know that the schools in the TOD heavy area that Miss Riggby represents are some of the most overcrouted schools in Howard County. And we also know that this particular bill will provide an APO exemption for eight years, a payment in lieu of taxes which could be a loss of tax income to the county somewhere between one and $2 million. And we'll freeze the surcharge that we charge right now for square footage when developers come in to build at whatever the rate is right now. I think that's a lot. Might have gone for the pilot. Might have gone for the frozen surcharge. Maybe gone for both. But exempting APFO for all TODs for eight years, that's just too much. And my vote is no. Mr. Rikby. Howard County is facing a housing crisis and without any action, it will only worsen. We are in a unique position to be able to strategically incentivize housing in controlled areas, our transit-oriented developments, like this whole body agreed to in the general plan. I recognize the concerns with overcrowding schools, but the student yield report shows that high-rise buildings in these areas send the least amount of students to our schools. Route one is not a TOD. It's not. They're different. They're near, but they're different. This isn't hyperbole or conspiracy. This is real data. Additionally, Howard County has a desperate need for disability income housing. Through the Patuxent Commons project, we all saw how difficult it is to get these units built. And at the moment, Howard County only has one disability income housing unit. One, by encouraging a mix of disability income, low income, and moderate income homes in mixed use transit accessible places, we are creating a better Howard County. I appreciate the forward thinking, the thoughtful approach that looks at real children, real data, and my vote is yes. Mr. Chairman. Yes. CB 18 as amended passes. Before we conclude for this evening there is capital O other capital V business I would like to address. According to rule 1.007 B1 June legislative amendment prefal would be Wednesday July 2nd 2025 Due to the building closure by the county executive for energy savings days, that week is no longer available for staff to be on site for printing and distributing. For this reason, I am proposing to set June legislative amendment pre-File to Friday, June 27, 2025 at 2 p.m. Therefore, I move to suspend rule 1.007B1 to change the June legislative amendment pre-file from Wednesday, July 2nd at 2 p.m. To Friday June 27th at 2 p.m. Second. Do we have the opportunity to discuss? I see Ms. Myhouse saying no. Mr. Territ. Would you? What's she? Oh, Mr. Territ. Would you please call the vote to suspend Rule 1-007-B1 to change the June legislative amendment pre-fall from one stage to the second, 2020-25 at 2pmpm to Friday June 27, 2025 at 2pm. Chair Walsh, I see. During voting, a member may explain their vote. I assume that this is driven by not just convenience, but courtesy to our staff who would be the ones in some weird close building. And I will decline comment on the close building part. So my vote is yes. Dr. Jones. Yes. Miss John. Yes. Miss Rigby. Yes. Miss Rigby Youngman. Yes. The motion to suspend rule 1007-B1 to change the June Legislative Amendment pre-file from Wednesday to July 2nd to Friday, June 27th passes. We have one other capital OB business. That's so weird. Mrs. Herod, matter, I would like to address. According to Rule 1002C1, November Legislative, this is another energy savings, Taiwan. I should read read these in advance so my complete disgust is not show as I read them. Sorry. November, Legislative, pre-FOD would be Tuesday, November 25, 2025, due to the building closure by the County Executive for Capital E, Energy, Capital S Savings, Capital D Days. That week is no longer available for staff to be on site for printing and distributing. For this reason, I am proposing to set November Legislative Amendment pre-File to Friday, November 21st, 2025 at 2 p.m. there for I, moved to suspend this very dramatic at the end here. So I moved to suspend rule 100 to C1 to change. I'm skipping ahead, is there, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm as 2 November's pre-fall date. Chair Walsh. I'm trying to do this math in my head. I'm assuming this moves everything further before Thanksgiving. It does. It moves it to the Friday before Thanksgiving. Can we move it after Thanksgiving instead of before? Can we just slide this later? Can we look at a calendar? I didn't know this was coming. Yeah. I mean, I would. Yeah. Can we just do this next? We can you would just have to withdraw your motion. Okay. I would withdraw my motion then. On that change. On that change. I'll keep it intact but I feel like this is another one of the second that was drawn. Okay and I am not going to reach any other capital business right so now that means that we have concluded our capital M may legislative session. We are adjourned. Thank you and have a good night. This meeting is no longer being recorded.