Of 20 uh 2021.

And that's uh legislation enacted by the legislature, the Maryland General Assembly that governs uh what uh under what circumstances when it comes to discipline um that the police department must embark upon and of course the history of that is in the aftermath of the George Floyd in custody death back in 2020, and there was a uh big push on in America to improve policing, and Annapolis was no different than most legislatures across this country to demand police reform.

And basically the short is there's two uh components is the administrative charging committee and the police accountability board.

Administrative charging committee, once we investigate uh an incident misconduct, we forward it to them.

And and I'm paraphrasing and and feel free to jump in if it's something that I miss.

Um it gives it limits what the chief can do.

Once there's a sustained finding, um, the only thing that the chief of police can do, if it involves the public, not internally, exactly discourtesy, uh use of force, um, you know, those kind of things that affect the public.

The only authority that the chief of police would have is to increase the punishment, not lower it once it's determined by the ACC, the recommendation.

We have to the recommendation is legal and binding.

Um the only thing that theoretically I can do is increase it, not lower it.

Did I miss anything?

Okay.

Um those are the core the the uh core value, the four core areas.

Um what we're going to do, we're looking at currently um our policies and procedures, particularly the the the hot topic and the elephant all is always in the room, um, immigration customs and enforcement, aka ice, and what our role is um in uh dealing with uh uh that very uh hot topic uh across America at this time, you know.

Um and the short version of that is um we don't enforce uh federal law.

The only time you will see us get involved in ICE if there's a warrant, and not I'm not talking about a cuss uh uh uh uh uh uh immigration warrant, but say for example, I can uh give you an example better than I can explain.

If somebody of Hispanic descent commits a crime, a robbery, a murder, a rape, a state crime, um they're they're subject to the same prosecution as any other ethnic group, you know, anybody.

Um but what we don't do uh fundamentally is we don't detain them uh because we suspect that they uh have an immigration warrant.

Uh we don't uh uh city council priority, or I noticed a couple of folks had priorities that were really process-based, so I like the idea of discussing those.

Oh, yes, that we have the mayor.

Yeah, thank you.

Um so the questions I have for the group are are you all all right with just one minute per priority, or do you really feel like we need more?

And two, is it worthwhile to go through all three priorities, or can we cut it down to each person just doing two priorities and spend a little more time on discussion?

Any preferences Auto Roman O'Neill.

I'm worried that one minute is not enough.

Um as I read through some of the priorities, it's gonna take Keanu at least two minutes to be looking for.

Well, the intention is to narrow it down to what's most uh important.

Um I I but I do think that it's important that we start the discussion and start talking um and maybe less cons concerned about the time limit on it as opposed to a discussion moving on to the next one after priority.

I would think that if there were some adjacent priorities or overlapping of priorities that we could maybe skip past that one and talk about another one and just give a me to that, so that then when we come back around at the end.

Yeah, uh that sounds good to me.

And I'd say if somebody lists a priority and you have something you want to say about it, uh I think we should all feel free to jump in on that.

What I don't want to have happen is we allocate five minutes per person and everybody feels the need to talk to fill up five minutes.

Um more time for us going back and forth is is really my goal here.

So let's say let's bump it up to a minute and a half, uh, but with the understanding that if someone if if Otto Roman O'Neill says a priority and Altman Thorpe has something he wants to clarify or jump in on that, uh we're not gonna time limit that.

Um and if that means that we only get through two priorities.

Once we go through everybody's first, everybody's second, we can evaluate see how much time it's taken, see if we want to all talk about third priorities too, or just move on to discussion of that point.

So I will ask that yeah yeah yeah sorry go ahead.

I I would just add that I think we need to be concise in our discussions but at the high level so for instance one of mine is parking and transportation.

I could go through First Street, second street, third street um which would not which we would bore the heck out of everybody but I but being able to talk about traffic and parking challenges that need to be addressed and that working with the city staff to identify you know we can reduce that and somebody might ask questions about it but to stay as high level and informative as possible.

Yeah I think that makes sense that we don't want to get too too parochial with it.

Yeah.

Altman Savage Mr Chair yeah I I think that's a good idea to start with the minute and a half I do think for some of these it might be a little difficult because there are um you know I think we have to keep in mind that that for especially the newer members that looking through the list of of priorities there are there's a lot of background uh some of the things we already have funded in some way or another I think a lot of the answers are a lot of those are going to get answered through the budget process as we sorry it's hard yeah I hear you it's always hard to talk with an echo.

I think a lot of those things will be answered as we go through the process.

So for the discussion what I would what I would suggest is that and I think you'll be in a good position because you're very familiar with these is to uh try to establish some points of um consensus uh which you've already stated because I don't think we should get in too much back and forth right now because uh as far as like you know I know you were just being glib but you know as far as um uh saying oh Shandemeyer that's not I don't want to fund that it's not worth you know you know I think we should just keep in mind that um it's it's good to hear everybody out today and um we can then this will build off we can have conversations later on in the committee and elsewhere about yeah point taken that we want to focus more on in things we agree with than things we disagree no anybody got any other process thoughts before we uh turn it to Mr.

Trudeau no all right Mr.

Trudeau you want to just give us a quick overview thank you yes sir uh for the record acting finance director and budget manager Jake Trudeau uh so I'll talk through the timeline a little bit here.

Um in December all of the departments submit their budget requests for the upcoming budget cycle um and then my team right now is is going through those requests um making sure that they're you know fully substantiated uh we have all the information that we need the next step then typically in end of January early February is um that we will have meetings with those departments to walk through and and discuss their budget submissions so that would be uh finance director uh budget team um the departments the city manager and and the and the mayor and chief of staff from there um and that's the same with with capital right the submissions were due back in December for updates to existing projects as well as new submissions and then January we're we're scrubbing those submissions um February we're you know in in January we're meeting with those engineers to talk through uh what they submitted then uh February is and in March are are really typically we're finalizing trying to finalize numbers we're building the budget books and supporting documentation April as you all know is when we submit the budget the next step then in March I'm sorry in May is that uh finance committee will have um deliberations where departments will come in and talk through uh and present their budget to you and then you you know can ask questions and we'll we'll talk through everything there um and mid-May is when amendments are due um and then June is when we you know talk through amendments you all vote on amendments um and then we pass the budget hopefully hopefully all right thank you very much anybody got any questions for the budget director budget manager slash finance director for anyone who may be wondering hey Jake for anyone who may be wondering at home how do I access this or how can I see the timeline for myself where would you direct them to go sure so we we do not have the timeline uh to my knowledge out on the website um but that's that's a good idea that's something we've never been asked before but we do have the I'm sorry the internal budget timeline we do have a resolution out there that is the budget timeline that talks very much more high level kind of what I've gone through um that does talk about um deliberations and what resolution numbers are 4925 this year thank you um the particular one I'm looking at right now is an internal document but we do have the one that is more high level that's out on the out on legislature

Um but that's that's a good idea.

That's something we've never been asked before.

But we do have the I'm sorry, the internal budget timeline.

We do have a resolution out there that is the budget timeline that talks very much more high level, kind of what I've gone through.

Um that does talk about um deliberations and what resolution numbers?

R 4925 this year.

Thank you.

Um the particular one I'm looking at right now is an internal document.

But we do have the one that is more high level that's out on the out on Legislature.

Thank you.

I'll also throw out I believe the uh finance committee reports that we put out each year has said timeline, and that's public on the on the website.

It wouldn't be for this coming budget cycle, but it is going to mirror the previous years will roughly mirror it.

And that's just you look up annapolis budget, it'll come right up.

Any other questions for Mr.

Trudeau?

All right, Alderman Thorpe, I'm gonna put you in the hot seat first.

Uh normally we'd start with Ward 1, but since I'm up here, we'll start with Ward 8, work our way back around.

We're gonna do like I said, a minute and a half.

Nobody needs to feel the need to take up your whole minute and a half, but focus on what you want and why you want it.

I know really.

This isn't this is new.

That didn't count against my time.

Uh my first priority is uh traffic and parking projects in Eastport.

There's a 2016 traffic study and a 2018 parking study that need to be implemented.

Some of the items have been done, but the the largest issue for the residents of Eastport is solving what I call the frustration of parking and traffic.

Um I've been in discussions with the director of public works with planning and zoning.

There's a lot of work left to do what has to be uh paid for, but we do know there is going to be a bill.

Some money is available in some areas.

Um, but it's it's significant.

The recommendations are one-way streets as compared to two-way streets, uh, smart traffic lights um on Severn and Chesapeake Avenue that are going to be significant uh funding requirements.

Thank you.

Wow, talk about not taking the whole minute and a half, that was great.

Alderman Savage.

Uh all right.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

So the first item I'm gonna dig into a little bit, I'm gonna try to be as concise as I can.

Is the uh priority I sent in is the uh overhaul of the watershed restoration fund.

And just as a little bit of background, real quick, the um uh for especially for the newer members that may not be aware, we have a number of utility fees funds set up, and so you'll it's like a your trash fee, stormwater fee, uh sewer fee, um uh water, and those all go towards those specific utilities as far as planned extensions, planned maintenance, improvements, so on and so forth.

So, what I'm focusing on today is the watershed restoration fund, and that is also known as our stormwater fee.

So that money we collect uh and it goes towards stormwater projects that are gonna help improve our water quality.

And so that's basic that's based on actual impervious surface.

So the parking lot, the actual asphalt people have on their properties.

And so we've been changing that over time because it used to be kind of a flat rate, depending on land use.

We're trying to change that based on the actual asphalt you have on the property.

We've improved it for commercial properties, but the next target's gonna be residential properties.

Because right now, somebody who has a town home with 500 square feet of paving pays the same amount as somebody who has a 10,000 square foot house with a couple thousand feet of asphalt.

So what we're trying to do is make it again be based on actual square footage.

Um I don't know that might help us in the budget, it may not, but my point, I'll I'm gonna wrap it up.

My point with this with that, but also to point out that fee now includes the tree canopy program.

We agreed to a tree canopy goal 50% by 2050.

So I'm saying that because you will see with all these fees, they typically do increase year after year as our infrastructure needs go up as far as your placement.

And so just one thing that didn't get covered when we were talking about the budget overall for anybody new, is we also at that time set our fees and fines via resolution.

And so there is there's the budget ordinance, and then there is a fee for or a resolution for fees, a resolution for fines.

And so some things like what Alderman Savage is talking about, which are um they feel a little bit more separate from the budget, but is happening at the same time, uh, which is all the more uh fun stuff to do in a short period of time.

You got a question, Alderman Thorpe?

Yeah, can I ask a procedure question on that?

Is so if we want to change fees, just for instance, like the $300 for uh parking on a uh uh for a park fee.

If we want to change that, when is the best time to move that forward?

It's is it now talking to the the city staff that are responsible for it?

I would say I mean uh well I'll defer actually to our senior Alderman.

Well, just so on that, I would you can certainly keep things in mind, but my suggestion would be we do get reports done by a consultant for each of the utility fees, but if it's a separate if it's a new fee or something associated with yeah, I'd say let's let's put all those utility fees separate from your question.

I think you're asking more about parking fees and SDR violations and things like that.

And so in a way, really what you're asking about is it's fine.

So fine.

So right, that's exactly right.

Yeah.

So unless you had a different answer, uh, but well, yeah, so I mean the fines and things we can certainly look at now, although I believe this might be a question for the city manager as far as uh because typically the departments do conduct reviews of the fines and fees every year to determine because the point of those is to cover the cost of the service.

Well, for the fee, the cost of the free support for the fees and yeah, not necessarily fines, but it's it though those fines do go back to the program.

But is that so I'm assuming that's I think that's typically done every year.

Yeah, so there's a um you are correct.

Every year as part of the budget process, um, the departments review the fees, fees and fines that are within their purview and recommend potential changes.

So there are a number of changes that happen every year.

Um as um Alderman Savage uh and and Alderman Huntley alluded to that um for some things uh utilities in particular, um, we do do a rate study every year, and it is that's a bit of a different beast.

Um, but for fees and fines, we do an internal review.

If there are places where um where you're feeling like things are out of line, I think it's fair.

That's probably not something that's gonna be like a grand priority, you know.

But but if you've got particular things that that you think we should take a look at, I think passing that information along is totally fine, and we can go take a look at that and see if we would recommend any adjustments to it.

But at the end of the day, council does um pass fees and fines as part of the budget process every year.

In addition to that, when special topics come up and new things come up, there are adjustments that are made throughout the year, but at the bare minimum, they're they're redone every year.

Okay, and we bring those up to you.

Um yeah, that'd be fine, or or um, or the budget manager, or but yeah, me would uh sending those to me would be perfectly acceptable.

Thank you.

And and I'd say as a matter of procedure, you can go talk with the mayor and city manager and work on having it incorporated in the marriage budget.

Oh well, mayor's fee resolution.

Also, once those fee resolutions come out, you can amend it just like any other piece of legislation.

Yeah, you have someone to add alderman savage and then that's what I was gonna say, and just as and and also point out last we haven't done this, we haven't updated our budget in this regard yet.

But last year we did get permission.

Our fines used to be capped at $1,500 by the state.

We did get that increase to $5,000, I believe, last session.

And I don't think we did a full analysis yet um to see which because for example, I'm gonna be proposing part of the budget uh increasing some of the tree fines for like very large trees to actually have it cover the cost of the impact of of the removal, right?

So that's something we can propose as a tip as an amendment in the budget.

Alderman Conti.

My first one would be the stipend um initiative.

It's basically um to support HECA with a lot of the things that they say that they can't fund um the recreation for like the kids to do their homework and have recreational just having like things that's dealing with nutrition, they get none of that.

So this is a big thing that I wanted to make sure it's you know, put on the budget to support them with a lot of the things that they say they they can't pay for.

So it would be like um staffing to help with it and staffing for some of the things that um their administrative people are doing that they could have somebody that's getting a stipend to handle.

You already did you already talk about the trade eight?

Alderman Thorpe talked about traffic, but I know that was one of your priorities also.

So I'd say why don't you wait until we come back around.

And my next um one would be the homelessness of what we're doing.

Well, let's wait until we come back around for the next priority.

So just doing one at a time.

Um Chandlemyer's not here.

I'm gonna check with him if he wants me to do my best representing his, or if he would like to do it when he gets there, if he's getting here.

But for now, we're we'll skip over him and go to Autor Roman Also Johnson.

Good evening.

Um I find that in my neighborhoods, we have a lot of seniors, and they are complaining about um curves of where um you know you have certain areas where you park and can't park.

Some of those paint paintings need to be readjusted.

You have to need some paint, more paint to um, and if it could be you can change some coloring with some paint, like the walkways as they walk across the street, some lines are missing for walking across the street.

Um some of the curbs, uh missing some stone.

Um it's I don't know if that's homeowners' business or our business, because you know I'm new, I'm learning.

So um, but I need to know how to handle some of these issues that they bring in to me.

And um, but it would be nice to really fix some of the streets.

Um, some of the speed bumps, I call them speed bumps, I'm old school, need to be repaired.

Um, and we can't add certain speed bumps to certain streets, I know that, but the ones that we do have are have way they say the war has been worn down.

So we need to just go out into some of the neighborhoods and look at some of the um curves and the walkways.

Oh, okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh uh Alderman Smith Brown.

All right.

Thank you, Karma slash Alderwoman for uh mentioning the depth of priorities that we need in our city across my ward, particularly, and thank you to the residents who have shared all of these concerns with me as I do my best to address them.

Uh so upgrading our uh lighting, traffic control devices, and traffic calming mechanisms.

The priority um overall, though I will share the overarching priority, which is infrastructure, streets, sidewalks, and lighting.

So we need to increase our street lighting, particularly, and it's not limited to these communities, but I'm gonna call them out seeing this is where a lot of the persons have shared this with me in the Parole Heights community, uh, the bywater uh forest villa community and the Admiral Oaks uh community, uh especially where I grew up in Admiral Oaks, uh, and I still see uh there's an issue with lighting uh right off of Admiral Drive and more than partway.

Um alongside that we have the traffic control devices.

Uh, we want to implement these intelligent uh traffic systems, however, we so do so however we do so.

Um, and this is um particularly in the areas of the upper west street uh area.

So if we're talking about uh West Street but also Forest Drive, I think that would be important.

Um Old Solomon's Island Road, uh these are areas where accidents have occurred um with persons that um are young um as well as older.

Uh we also have traffic calming mechanisms, um, particularly in the uh Chick-upin Round Road uh area, uh the Dorsey Heights area, and uh that's what I'll I'll stop there, uh seeing that the bell or the ringer has gone off.

But I do want to emphasize uh sidewalks and crosswalks, walkability and transit, as well as our pipes, sewer drains and mitigation for flooding and resilience.

I'm happy to tap in when we get to uh pipes and and sewers.

So I'll talk about that.

Auto Roman O'Neil.

Thank you.

Um I'm gonna move to my second one because my first one has been discussed already as far as sidewalks and crosswalks and pedestrian safety.

Um, I really think that we need to do um a huge makeover on our CIP projects and creating a long-term maintenance plan.

Um we have projects that are in the works or have been recently completed, and there really is not, as far as I can see, a long-term maintenance plan for them, uh, specifically in our parks um in buildings such as Sand Center, um, even City Dock.

I do not know, and maybe I'm wrong, but I do not believe that there is a long-term maintenance plan that has a budget attached to it.

And I really think that we need to hone in on that and look for our future so that we can make sure that we are maintaining these properties that we are upgrading and changing.

Thanks.

In the interest of maybe doing a little bit of discussion now, is that uh that the priority that was just shared by Old Roman O'Neill is something I've heard the mayor talk about as well.

Is that something that staff are already thinking about for the mayor's budget?

Is that something that we you guys have already started making progress on?

Yes.

Um that's something that uh that's a a particular frustration that I share from a long-term uh budgeting perspective.

Uh I would like for us to go into those projects with our eyes open about what the long-term costs are.

So um don't worry, you're not on timer.

And I'm done now.

And um go into that stuff with our with uh with our eyes open um so that we can do we can do that long-term uh planning and um make choices on the front end about what we're building in light of what we think those long-term costs are going to be.

Are are we gonna get completely there and be completely clean this year?

Probably not.

That's something that ends up being a work in progress because we have a lot of projects and there's getting that solid is is uh not an overnight task.

Um, but it certainly the departments um that are in charge of those are are well aware of that ask.

It seems tricky.

Oh, go ahead.

If I could add to that, um there used to be a team of city employees that used to be primarily responsible for doing things like cleaning weeds out of sidewalks and cleaning sidewalks in places where it was not homeowners, and I'm gonna specifically call out Clay Street.

Um used to be a four-man team that would show up every week and do it.

I know that probably six or eight years ago it got cut out of a budget, so it doesn't happen anymore.

If you look at photos from 10 years ago, um looking down Clay Street, and you look at photos today, you would be amazed at the difference and the feeling of blight because they're they're not maintained, they're the red curbs are half painted, uh the weeds are growing up sometimes two or three feet tall.

Um there's that study, the broken glass broken windows window syndrome.

Um that is happening in many, many places in the city.

I happen to know about war two, but I really think as that long-term maintenance plan, and we're talking about you know making sure that we're taking care of our city, that that's something that we need to look at bringing back.

And we probably have past numbers as far as what that cost and how it was operated and what whether it operated out of parks and rec or DPW or planning and zoning, I don't know, but that's part of that.

Thanks.

I I was just gonna say really briefly that I think one of the challenges with that is it requires us to really tie together the capital and operating budgets if we to you to use your example if we create a new park.

We're having park staff maintain it.

How do we think about to what extent do we need to increase that operating budget?

It's like we'd be looking at it in the Capitol, but we would really have to reflect it in the operating.

So it just strikes me as something tricky that I'm sure you guys are thinking about.

Um, I just want to put an explanation point on that because I I think it's exceptionally important that whenever we move something forward, we are honest with ourselves and fully recognize the financial burden we're taking in the out years on any project.

Um I I think that's I think the city's already moving in that direction, and I think we need to move there really fast.

Um because otherwise it just really puts a uh lack of accuracy in our budget.

Yeah.

All right, I'm gonna try and do my priorities one and two within just a minute and a half.

So if you want to get me get me started.

Uh my priorities one and two are infrastructure improvements and tax cut.

Um infrastructure improvements has really been elaborated on in many different scenarios here, but I think uh what I haven't heard as much on is making sure that we have a really clear picture from our director of public works about what we need to do to keep up.

I think this was the way we talked about it last year.

Are we keeping up?

Whether that is sidewalks or streets or sewer.

Um we've done a lot of really exciting work on that, and I'm grateful for all that good stuff.

But uh I think that we want to make sure that the council is clear performance metrics to understand are we doing enough?

Are we doing enough?

Period.

Uh are we keeping up with it?

Um moving on to tax cut.

So what I mean here is reducing our property tax rate.

Uh we know that because we're FY27 is gonna be the third year of an assessment cycle that our tax base will be increasing.

Um and it's likely to increase somewhere.

Gosh, I don't have my spreadsheet in front of me, but somewhere around five percent.

Um, if I remember correctly.

And so that means that we could see city revenues potentially jump if we leave our rate the same, or we could lower our rate a little bit and not have them jump as much, not have the bills people are paying jump by quite as much.

So I do think that's something that's doable because we have that increased uh tax base growth built in.

And I think it's something that residents will appreciate.

Autor Roman O'Neill, back to you.

Thank you.

Um another priority I have is um really reforming the grants program.

Uh for many, many years, the city has run a grants program, and I think that um there's a lot of nuances to it that um don't make sense in 2026.

Umright it was put in there uh to give money to organizations that were providing services that the city itself couldn't handle.

Um there's a lot of overlap in there.

Um there are some grants that we're giving that are completely different than what the city is providing, but there are others that are providing services that are in conjunction with what the city is doing, and I just think that we need to take a really hard look um things, money that could possibly be freed up for some of the other budget um priorities, like in Ward 6 with Alderwomen.

Conti, you know, talking about um recreation programs and things like that, where we could really work with city partners and nonprofit partners to better handle the operations that the nonprofits are doing in that grant program.

Thank you.

Um, and yeah, that's definitely something I think when we get to the discussion, I want to talk even more about because I I think we could spend a while going back and forth on what the ideal process for that could look like.

So let's definitely do that tomorrow.

Altuman Smith Brown, what you got for us.

Okay.

So prioritizing public safety, families slash youth and education.

Uh, we uh should focus on increasing our foot patrols uh in our communities, particularly uh in the Federal Town and Evolution Peters Way area, so Greenbrier um area, as well as the Oxford Landing area and our public housing communities in Apollo's Gardens, Admiral Oaks, um Allen Apartment, um, as well as our partnerships with schools and community organizations in my ward, we're talking about wraparound services, Walter S.

Mills Parole Elementary School, and Monarch Academy, um, opportunities for mentorships, um, internships, apprenticeships, stewardships, fellowships, scholarships, um, finding opportunities for that, as well as uh the grant process is is definitely key, uh supporting our nonprofits who are on the grassroots level doing the work and make sure that they're supported uh every step of the way as well as uh recreation and extracurricular.

Uh we want to support our community centers as well as um our after-school programs, summer programs, um, and uh want to make sure too that we focus on the homelessness issue um and the crime issue.

Uh you look at West Street over there at the town court apartment area um where you have the liquor store.

I talked about this yesterday.

I want to make sure that we're going into our wooded areas where there are encampments, our police uh department is taking seriously the need for us to support them mentally.

Um and that's what I'll stop at.

Oh, good timing.

Autorominal Johnson.

Okay, uh Smith Brown did touch upon some of the items I was gonna talk about the more lighting, more lighting is needed in the communities.

Um we just need more lighting.

If you can do some type of, and I know it'd be costly if you come up with solar lights, but something we we have the same problems, yeah.

Him and I, and um it's not easy trying to explain things to the consensus, but it's not easy.

Um, and that's the main things they are looking for, you know.

But um if we can get more lighting, especially um in the different communities, woodside gardens and buy water out there where I'm live in an apples walk.

I mean, because if you come outside so dark, and I have called several um people, I have called the BGE people, the company, and I explained that lights were missing along Forest Drive, where it's like three of the pole lights are missing bubs.

So I haven't seen them repair yet, but I've been calling around different areas when I see bubs are missing.

So I'm doing the best that I can at this time, and also I see that um some of the signage is damage on some of the uh poles that need to be repaired.

Oh on the lighting one too.

So that is something that I noticed a bunch of folks talked about.

So maybe when we go get to discussion, if um uh deputy city manager guy could join us briefly and talk a little bit about you've been working on potentially running more of our own street lights from BGE.

Maybe you could come up and talk with us some when we get later on about how that could harmonize with getting more streetlights up.

Doesn't have to be right now.

Um Alderman Chattermeyer got back to me and asked that I do justice to his priorities.

Uh so I'll do my best.

Uh but uh Alderman Chadelmeyer, I appreciate always keeps his nice and tight.

Um so one was $50,000 for continuing the maritime apprenticeship program that he started last year, which is uh really exactly what it sounds like it's trying to get young folks into the maritime industry.

It's partnering with Alderman Thorpe.

You might remember this uh this group that we partner with for that.

The uh Maryland Association of Maritime Industries, something like that.

That sounds that yeah, it's rather self-explanatory.

Yeah, um, I think the the challenge with this one is we've we did it in one-time funding last year, so we'll have to find some way to do that via continuing funding this year.

Uh the other one was the children and family success grant, which is child care assistance, and this priority is $50,000 for that.

This is we know uh our families are spending lots on child care if they have young kids.

This is a program that was started some years ago.

I think it was started by former Alderman Gay and um Alderman Channel Meyer's picking up the baton to make sure that we keep funding that.

And then the last thing that he suggested as one of his priorities was funding a peak time medic unit within the fire department.

So this is an additional, it's not actually an additional unit.

We have the um ambulance, but it's additional staffing that would be able to operate during the most busy part of the day to be able to make sure we're doing less cross-staffing where we're having somebody who would otherwise be manning a fire truck manning the ambulance.

Um did I really do at all?

Oh, I'm just like, well, I did all three in a minute and a half.

All right, uh back to you, Autor McConte.

Um my next one would be the homelessness support.

Um I see that we have the lighthouse shelter, and that's really it as far as resources to help with them.

Um I've been taking time to be at the warming centers, and they have some resources, but I think like just like we have wraparound services for people getting rental eviction and stuff like that, they deserve to have the same type of wrap around services, even if we can't put them in a place, we can give them certain opportunities where maybe we can get them like hotel stays or food where they know that they can eat or places where they can go to that would offer them certain services.

Awesome.

Um Alderman Savage, you want to go next?

I think Mr.

Well, you're next in line, so you should want to go next.

Yes.

All right, so yeah, for my second item, it's on the umbrella of sustainable mobility and working on that transition.

Two areas underneath that one is pedestrian safety and mobility, and the other one is kind of robust transit system.

So a little more on the first one.

Uh, we've talked a lot about this.

I think this is one of the common themes, but and I'll get into this by the next item, but that would include sidewalks, bike lanes, and also speed cameras.

Uh, for so for the speed cameras, you know, we learned that the city is utilizing a contract from 2013.

Uh, very old.

I think we need to get that updated and figure out how we're gonna what the associated costs are.

Do we need what are the costs of the infrastructure?

Do we need more staff as we expand those cameras?

Um, but going back to sidewalks and bike lanes, uh, I would love to get a process where you can we can get those built much quicker.

Uh and in the engineering world, we have what are called standard details.

This is how you build a standard sidewalk, storm drain, all kinds of things.

So if we have those, we should be able to just build them with no permitting, no design, or you know, more or less, a lot less than we do just to reduce costs, and we can have a anyway.

I have we can get in that more.

The other part of the robust robust transit system, I really do think we need to look at going to reducing uh sorry, removing our fares.

The bus system, 80% of the people who use it don't have cars, they need it, but it doesn't serve the greater population too efficiently.

But my point is like if it's used primarily people who need it, why are we charging them a fee?

But it's free to get around downtown on the shuttle.

Um we call low price elasticity of demand.

And yeah, and just quick last item on that is just also possibly getting funding to look at a creating uh the framework for regional transportation authority that would be the greater Annapolis, which would include the county surrounding area to pool resources and route infrastructure.

Alderman Thorpe.

Uh thank you.

Uh so my my next priority is really deal with the walkability uh and enjoyment of ESport versus sidewalk construction and repair.

We need to complete the sidewalk network in the high pedestrian usage areas.

We need to fill the gaps.

Um I would like to see the city offer the opportunity for city to pay for sidewalks if residents will give an easement where some of those gaps are.

We need to remove the signage from uh from the sidewalks.

And we have a significant problem of utility poles and in sidewalks in Eastport.

That will not get solved in a year or two, but I would like to fund a plan, not a study, uh, but to work with public works to fund a plan for a multi-year effort uh to fund the removal of utility poles from the higher usage uh sidewalk areas.

Uh similarly, there's 16 water access points in ESport that are basically continuations in a lot of cases of sidewalks or roads.

Um almost all of them need work.

Some of them are currently in the funding process, but a lot of them aren't.

I like to focus on four improvements: Hawkins Cove, Jeremy's Way, Severn Avenue Park, and Bill Jones Alley to so that people in Annapolis can have better access and enjoy the water.

Thank you.

Great, hard argue with that.

Um, we have just gone through everybody's gone through twice.

I think some folks squish things together a little bit.

Sometimes we have some that have already gotten repeated.

So let's just go now go a little more ad hoc.

If you have something that is left, go.

And if your things already been said, we can wave you off.

Um, or you can wave yourself off.

And um, I don't know, we'll start right in the middle.

Uh Alder Roman also Johnson, you got anything else, or I do.

Um short and sweet.

Um the different um playground areas and the basketball courts, if they could have some type of locks on the gates, because things go on all night long at those two locations, because I'd be walking to areas and it's not good.

It doesn't look yeah, some things that shouldn't be in at least areas are in those areas, and and I'm tired of cleaning it up.

So I also see the guys from the city come out and they also clean and maintain the areas too.

So also if we can um also have a involve the youth and elderly in a mentoring program in one of the locations in one of my communities and host some events for them.

That would be nice because they um need to get these minds sharp and try to get the community back.

Great, thank you.

Uh-huh.

Um, anybody just raise your hand if you still want to go.

Alderman Savage.

I think Mr.

Chair.

Yeah, my last item just to connect to some of these things.

Uh has to do with kind of process.

Um project and policy implementation and tracking.

Uh, we'll love to see some improvements.

I'm I alluded to some of the quick build, um, but I think we need to look at some of the purchasing procurement practices in the city.

I've heard Alderman Huntley refer to this in the past.

Um, I so I think looking at um getting contracts for various services, getting a list of pre-qualified contractors we can just go to and get things designed, built very quickly instead of having to go out for bid every time we want to get something done.

Um getting blanket permits from agencies so we can get things done more quickly.

Um again, so we don't get permits for every single thing that we're doing.

Um setting up our contracts so that we have larger pools of money that we can again already contractors are pre-qualified for using this this pool of money on various um methods, various uh activities and projects.

But part of this comes down to the project tracking.

Um previous budgets, we often have things pass new pro new projects, new positions that don't get implemented.

Um I think we really need to create a process for this next budget to make sure that doesn't happen.

And I know committees are gonna be working on that too.

Yeah, let's let's uh come back to that one because I do think we could have a bigger discussion on what that could look like.

Autor Roman Conte, you had your hand raised.

Um I have two things, but they're small.

So um I wanted to be able to support the organizations that's already doing a lot of the services for the communities.

I got two in particular, but um, it could be any of them that we know are providing services.

Um the next thing would be the signage on the eSport Recreation Center.

It shouldn't say eSport community center, it should say Rosalie E.

Mitchell community center.

When you look it up, it says that.

So I don't know why it's not showing it.

I just want to editorialize for one second to say I really appreciate things like what you just said and what you said, Auto Roman, also Johnson about the locks.

These are things that monetarily are not a huge chunk of money, but they're very discreet within these communities where we can really make a difference.

I remember Auto Roman O'Neill, you had something last year about magnetic screens, and it was like a thousand dollars.

It was a very small uh amendment, but it it made a difference in that community.

So I just appreciate that and appreciate that.

Thank you.

Um anybody else?

Yep, Alderman Thorpe, still got one?

Yeah, I would uh like to mention two things.

One is is uh we don't have anything to specifically propose yet, but hope to in the in the months ahead, and that is recognition of the economic impact of the maritime industry to the city of Annapolis.

Um, and I think it's gonna take some investment on the part of city government, whether it's uh supporting planning and zoning in their efforts uh to support uh maritime industry, uh economic development.

Um, but I think we need to recognize as a group that uh both economically and culturally the reliance we have on the maritime industry, and I will be coming forward with something on that.

Uh the second thing is is uh Alderman Huntley, I would like to applaud you on one of your priorities being uh budget cuts.

Um I I think as we go forward, um, we need to together recognize that every time we spend 40,000, we're spending one dollar for every resident in Annapolis.

And I I'd like to see us thinking um that uh from a competitive uh point of view, just to pick on the locks.

Is the locks a good investment for the city of Annapolis?

Absolutely.

Let's do it.

Something else.

Is it is it's a it might be a great idea, but is it the best use of our taxpayer money?

I think we've all heard over the last year um the concern about taxes as you mentioned, and I would really like to continue to compete every possible expense with other expenses and with not spending anything.

Yeah, yeah, I'll say uh to some of my colleagues who are newer on the council that I found very helpful last year is to have a heuristic in my mind of are we better off spending this X amount of money, whatever is useful for you.

For me, it's takes 120,000 to redo one side of one block of brick sidewalks for every 120,000 dollars we spend, are we better off spending it on this thing or on fixing a block of brick sidewalks?

Um, and so whether your heuristic is as you just said something else, or it's nothing at all, and we can return that three dollars to each person.

Uh having that in your head, I I found very helpful.

Hold on, but let's let's see if anybody else has priorities they wanted to share before we jump into full discussion.

Thank you.

Alderman Smith.

Um I would rephrase that.

I don't believe you should ever say budget cuts.

I think we should prioritize and allocate wisely our money.

So I I think there's way too much to focus on to cut anything, at least for me, uh and the residents that I've spoken with to detail um a little bit more.

I know uh when we talk about recreation, I think extending the hours of our uh Pitmoyer Center uh would be very valuable if we want to get a little bit specific specific.

There's so much uh that could be specific about, but um right now we close it eight at eight o'clock, and I think that me actually enjoying that, and I think all of us and our city employees, I think that you all should take the opportunity to to utilize the free membership that you have at Pit Moyer um our recenter.

Um we have other gyms that open till nine, 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock at that.

I mean, you have working people, families.

I think that having it open till 9, 9.30, even 10, depending on the day, maybe it's a little uh test trial uh working with our employees.

I think that that would be understanding.

Um, and people would appreciate that.

At least I know that myself and others uh who I've spoken with would as well.

Uh when we talk about uh drains and pipes, I know you said you wanted to talk a little bit about that.

We can wait uh on that, but no, I'm just saying I agree with you on that.

Oh, okay.

Um, so I know for my community, uh the greater Germantown, a community, uh, which is actually near where we are.

Um over there, Southwood, etc.

Um, they're dealing with a lot of issues just as much as we are off of by water.

Uh, when it rains, it floods, uh, and we need to clean out those storm drains.

Um, there's so much more, but I can I could stop there.

Great.

Um, I do have one that hasn't been brought up yet, so I'll go last.

Unless Otta Roman O'Neill, did you have someone else?

But I thought I thought yours have been covered.

Okay.

Um, so I'll go last.

My final priority was customer service, and this is intentionally a very broad umbrella, but um it can span a couple different things in my mind.

One is I'm looking right at you, Mr.

Pacquin, a couple different IT projects that I think some may or may not take funding.

Um, some of these we may be able to do for pretty darn cheap, but I think we want to make sure that we have the funds available.

Off the top of my head, those three are improving the uh user design for our iWork system.

This is the submit a problem service.

So easy as we can make that for residents.

I think that's really a clear example of customer service.

Another is creating a customer relationship management software so that any time somebody interacts with the city, we know okay, this person has emailed us before.

We are able to know what neighborhood they're in, what their concerns might be.

That'll help us make sure that every interaction somebody has with a city employee is personalized.

In addition, it can make sure that when we know there's gonna be an impact on our residents, we can reach out to them personally.

If uh Prince George Street is losing water because of a water main break, we know who lives on Prince George Street, we know their phone number, we can send them a text and let them know ASAP.

Uh the third thing on that IT side was um actually it's not important, but the other part of it is I think any uh opportunities to streamline permitting.

We hear this from planning and zoning repeatedly.

So whatever they need to accomplish that.

And um one example is we did a lot of digitization of records last year.

So broad umbrella, but uh I think there's a lot of things you can fall under that to make sure we meet what the mayor has brought up.

So at this time we're just about smackdown halfway through the meeting, which is what I wanted us to do.

So I'd open the floor to discussion.

I've got a couple questions that I want us to dig into based on what you all said, but I'm happy to leave it pretty open, and if we stall out, I'll bring one of those up.

So um I saw Alderman Savage first, then Alderman Smith Brown, and then Alderman Thorpe.

And can we drop the timer for the discussion?

Oh, yeah, no, no, time.

We're done with that.

Sorry.

You know how the public feels now.

Um so yeah, a number of uh comments uh and thoughts on some of it, a lot of great ideas.

Um but I think the one which is kind of overarching, which I do want to again, I don't want to I don't want to get into a big debate, but I'm trying to offer a bit of a counterpoint to help for consideration as far as uh how to think about this.

And I do it is it does have to do with taxes, and I agree entirely with with uh Alderman Smith Smith Brown.

Um I do think frame as cuts is not helpful healthy way to to frame things.

Um I just just so again, just a few things on that would be um you know our wards are different.

Um I can count on half of one hand probably how many requests I've received to cut taxes, reduce taxes.

Vast majority, 99% of the requests I get are more services.

They want street lights, they want sidewalks, they want safety improvements, they want more police officers, they want uh, you know, they want to make maintain fire services, all these things.

So I think just to keep that in perspective, the difference in the wars, but also um fact that they don't have the requests we get.

The other thing to throw out there would be um, you know, we very rarely raise taxes as a community.

We've done it in eight years I've been on the council once.

Um I think so just to keep in mind that inflation affects the city just as much as it does the residents.

So we end up paying more for less.

And granted, property tax value, property values do go up, but that isn't necessarily correlated with inflation.

And so I think it is healthy for a city to again want to maintain a level of services we have to be able to factor and analyze to keep that same level of service.

Do we need to make sure we are keeping pace with inflation to bring in enough revenue?

Uh, if we do responsibly, we can do it in a way that's not gonna impact residents.

But uh just offering that as a bit of a um counterpoint.

I appreciate that.

Um you want to answer talk on the same topic, right?

Yeah, can I respond to that?

Well, if you don't mind, I'll go first to that, and then you go.

Um, and I I know Alderman Smith Brown, you are up next.

Or did I did I see you raise your hand or no?

So I wasn't raising my hands.

Um I think though it'd be great to uh clarify what this session is gonna be if it's just is it open to case it is the open conversation, just what we care.

Okay.

Um so uh I take a lot of what you said and hear you that words can be different and some people can want more services.

Uh the distinction that I want to be really clear on what I'm calling for is a tax rate cut, which would not necessarily entail, and we could figure out exactly how it works out, but would not inherently have to entail a budget cut in that because our we know since next this is going to be the third year, the assessment cycle, we know that the base is going to increase, then we could lower the rate and still have more overall revenue than we did in FY26.

Now, take your point about inflation, that in fact it actually affects the citizen the city more than it affects the citizens because the city's spending is much more heavily on services, which always inflate at a rate higher than goods.

So I take that point as well.

But I just want to be really clear.

What I'm suggesting is we can cut the tax rate in a way that the overall property tax revenue would still increase, but it not as fast as it did between FY25 and FY26.

Alderman Thorpe.

Um thank you.

And and I and I totally appreciate and respect uh what you're saying.

And um the wards being different, uh, I do hear a lot um that taxes are uh excessive.

Um whether we use the word cut or not spend the those are semantics that that, and I apologize if going down the cut, it in to me there continues to be a very strong conversation in the city of Annapolis, citywide, that it's too expensive to live in Annapolis, and that people are moving out of Annapolis because it's so expensive.

And you know that I've I've had a lot of discussions with people saying it's not a bad thing that the value of your home is going up because they get upset that they're the uh that that when it when their their value does go up because they know that the taxes are going up equivalently, and the perception for some uh that I hear from is that the city continues to use the additional revenue um that they're getting and they don't see a change in services.

So I think part of that is our responsibility to your point to make sure that we provide the services, but I also do believe that we should have a culture of comp of competing when we decide to spend something, and that one of the alternatives always is to not do it, because not doing it if it again if it's 40,000 is a dollar for everybody.

So, you know, now we want our departments to have the tools they need to do their jobs, and that's our responsibility to make sure that they have the tools, but also it's our responsibility to ensure that every dollar is spent wisely or not spent a lot.

And it and the last thing I would add to that, and it's perhaps a different.

Well, I'll hold it.

It's the input-output discussion.

Oh, yeah.

I'll hold that separately that I would like to bring that up.

But I just think we need to instill a discipline that we're spending the citizens' money, and they I'm hearing a lot that we want taxes to be lower.

That the total tax bill to be lower.

So, yeah, Alderman Thorpe, I'm gonna say let's put a pin in input output part, and then I have three sort of prompt questions for us to talk about on process side of things related to grants, related to inputs, outputs, and then related to tracking afterwards.

So let's maybe just do those three things not at the same time, but one after the other.

Auto Roman O'Neill, I see your hand up.

Thank you.

To add to that discussion, I think that the biggest thing that residents want is to be able to see the value, the value of their dollars spent, and we can spend you know all the money and fill up the budget with all of these great projects.

But if the residents aren't seeing the value of those projects and of the dollars being spent, that's where we're falling down.

You know, in my award, I always say that mine's probably the most economically diverse ward because you've got the 12 million dollar wardouse, and then you've got you know public housing and everything in between.

And overwhelmingly, people say we want to see the value, we want the projects, we want the sidewalks, we want the police and fire department to be fully funded and operating as efficiently as possible.

And that's what we need to work on is that communication piece, that customer service piece that shows them that yes, what we're doing is adding value, not just adding dollars to a budget that's going up.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you very much.

If I may, um exactly.

We're talking about the basic necessities of life.

That's what people want to see reflected in our budget.

Um, so sidewalks, that's a basic walkability issue.

Um, we're talking about lighting, that's a basic safety issue.

And so um I highly encourage uh that we prioritize in our budget communities that have been far too long left out.

Um, and as we talk about the procedures um as well as the tracking, uh, that is where I think it'd be more transparent uh to show to our residents as well as to us to see where we need to put that money that our residents have been uh taxed.

Yep.

Um okay, so I had a question that came up uh as we were talking.

I heard a couple folks talk about smart traffic lights.

I was wondering if maybe Director Vogo could come and just tell us a little bit more about what smart traffic lights entail, and if that is something that people are talking about, how might we be able to translate that into something in the budget?

Hi everyone, I'm Burr Vogel, director of public works.

Um, I honestly don't know a lot about these smart traffic signals.

I do know that we got a $600,000 Safe Streets for All grant last year.

Um there's a product out there called Maya Vision, it uses cameras and AI to detect everything that's going on in that particular intersection.

I think it's got you know pedestrians and turning movements and all of these things.

Um, and so we have a project to design it, and uh Jeff Wentz uh knows a lot, you know, he's forgotten more about this stuff than I'll ever know.

So that's all I can offer.

Okay, no, that's helpful.

And and is that within a particular CIP?

Do you know?

It is, it's within the uh the traffic signal rehab CIP.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

Alterman Savage, you had something.

Yeah, sorry.

Just I don't exactly know what the smart signals are, but I'm I'm assuming that they might have to do with like detecting vehicles and pedestrians, but related to that, I I there are so what I would probably emphasize is that I think one of the large points of consensus agreement, I think are along pedestrian improvements.

Yeah, I think related to that are our safety for the roadways.

But I do want to emphasize that especially in the United States, the traditional traffic signal, they are very auto-oriented.

Um we had some of our delegation trips to Europe, we saw examples where they do have a lot more smart signals as far as uh they include the detection of pedestrians of cyclists, so the signals automatically change and they prioritize uh pedestrians and cyclists, especially along well, most routes except for the major roads.

Um we don't tend to have that in jurisdictions here.

I know in the in the county for the county they don't, they're starting to try to incorporate some of that.

But the other point as far as you know, one of the things I've been pushing for previous budgets is to get us to think more about traffic circles.

I was waiting for you to say it.

I knew that's where we were going.

So the reasons are one, they're significantly significantly safer for everybody, pedestrians, uh drivers.

Uh two is climate.

You actually can reduce emissions significantly by installing traffic signal.

I mean by installing traffic circles.

Uh one of them obviously uh is the cost and the energy required for traffic signals a lot higher than circles.

Um but the vehicles, you don't have idling vehicles as often for the traffic uh circles.

Um so I I just you know I've been trying to encourage in the I think public works has been starting, they've been hiring people who are familiar with those concepts and starting to factor those in.

But it doesn't make sense for all intersections, but I think just to keep in mind um that option.

Yeah, and and and uh nothing against traffic circles.

I just I use the word smart traffic light, so I'll I'll kind of maybe you can explain.

I'm not a traffic light guy, but but just to give you an example, when you cross Spock Creek Bridge and you get to the intersection of 6th Street and Severn Avenue, it's what I would call a not so smart traffic light.

In other words, it turns red on a circle cycle of time and it turns green on a cycle of time, and there's a sign that says cross when it's green.

And uh it's a danger zone.

And so there's as I understand it, I'm probably starting to exceed um my expertise on this, but there's there's various levels of smartness in a traffic light.

Um one of them just from the very start is push a button, and when you want to walk, and the light is appropriate such that you're crossing.

And so the person's not turning left into it because he's got a no left turn uh signal all the way uh to what Alderman Savage talked about, where you can sense pedestrians or sense bicycles.

So there's different levels of that, and and I would leave that to public works and planning and zoning to to uh because you could get really expensive too, and it's a cost-benefit analysis.

Um but there are several traffic lights in Eastport specifically that we would very much benefit um from using some level of of technology from from a little smarter than we are now to very smart um in order to be safer, uh first and foremost, safer, second of all to move traffic uh through to Alderman Savage Point, not sitting there waiting for no reason, not stopping for no reason, etc.

Well, Alderman Smith Brown, did you have something to say on smart traffic lights?

Absolutely.

Um that goes hand in hand with what I've seen in Prince George's County, uh, similar to what you talked about, um, Alder Woman, um also Johnson spoke on, which was the solar panel or solar lighting.

I I've seen stop lights, uh stop signs that have lights surrounding them that it's powered by solar.

I think at nighttime, if you talk about lighting a community, not saying that's gonna light a whole strip of a street, but I think uh that at least brings a little bit more um direction for people alongside what you um excuse me, missed uh alderman, uh savage, and we've got to be uh Robert's rules and things, you gotta make sure we do it the right way.

Um when we talk about uh those traffic circles, Chick-pin Round Road.

I mean, my road that needs to be uh looked at very uh so much so in depth, as well as West Street.

Um but for my students who or children uh in the ward who are going to Walter S Mills, one of the um concerns of the parents is they can't walk to school.

Uh, how do we expect for them to walk to school when there's no uh true crosswalk in that area um or even pedestrian lighting uh coming off of uh Fairfax onto Chick-upin Round Road?

You can barely see there's bushes if they cut down some things and things, but you can barely see.

Um, and so I think a traffic circle as we talked about would be very important if not any other mechanism how to slow down traffic or just direct it in the uh safest way, um, especially for our walkers.

How do we expect people to go to businesses if it's not even walkable for them to go there?

Um, and so uh I say we we gotta do better um and really support our our residents here in Annapolis and and what they're asking us to prioritize.

Ms.

Cowd, could I ask you to talk with us a little bit more about if we want to and feel free to tell me if you're not the right person on this, but if what we're hearing is we want more lighting, and at the same time we're talking about how the city might be able to manage the lighting ourselves.

What could this look like in the budget to fulfill that goal?

I I think the cost to add a new light fixture is somewhere in the neighborhood of two thousand.

Let's just say two thousand dollars.

So that's you know, just call up BGE, say we want to add light, and we do this from time to time at at resident or uh council members' request, and we'll and we'll throw in some new street lights uh here and there.

So that's kind of our current you know status quo how we do things.

And what is that come out of if we do that?

What is it out of a particular CIP?

I think we've either used the um the streets operational budget if we have money there, um, you know, right on anything under $50,000, we can use the operational budget or traffic safety improvements.

Got it.

And then Jackie and I have been working on this effort, or at least an assessment of uh potential savings if we were to buy all of our lights and maintain them uh ourselves.

Yes, exactly.

So we we were funded $10,000 in last year's budget to do an assessment of a study to see if what it would cost and what we would save as a city if the city were to own all its street lights.

Because right because right now the city owns some of the street lights, some of them are owned by BGE, and some are operated by BGE but owned by the city, and most of them are owned by BGE.

Um so we we did that study.

Um the next step would be to do a more detailed analysis off of it to really get down on which ones we want to buy and in what order.

So um I don't recall the the next step exactly how much it was.

It was you know something in the range of a hundred thousand dollars, something like that.

Um, and then it would be a process of um negotiating with BGE on the acquisition and then you know, operating them ourselves.

We have a third, do we have a third party right now um doing the maintenance on them?

BGE maintains them.

BGE maintains them, that's your answer.

And um it if we wanted to switch some of more of them to LED, which we're in the process of doing, you know, those are expensive, but they pay off in the end because they last so much longer.

Some of our lights, and Burr referred to the replacement cost.

Some of our lights are more expensive to replace and others in the historic district, especially because we have um acorns or tobacco leaf design, which we have to maintain that.

And but we've looked into that and found some vendors that might do it for a little bit less money than we thought initially.

But the Cobra lights, the ones that are kind of arch over you see most everywhere else, are a lot cheaper to replace.

But I can you know provide you with more information on the costs of that, just didn't bring it with me today.

No, that's fine.

I didn't know we were gonna ask you about it.

Right, exactly.

Um did was your question for Ms.

Kyle?

Okay, go ahead.

So you just related to that.

Um I mean, so yeah, some jurisdictions have also looked at technology to be able to reduce to dim lights, yeah, including in some neighborhoods if there are light pollution issues, uh, and that can lead to significant cost savings as well.

I think it's Pittsburgh who did that on the entire city.

But it makes me think of another point, which is um uh climate emissions.

Uh and you know, we've we've made various commitments to reduce our climate emissions.

Um, and I want to just point out, because I was thinking about that as far as the electric impact, and and something uh deputy city manager Gald's working on is uh converting them to LED if we can get ownership over them from BGE.

And I think traditionally, I'm guessing traditionally they've been owned by BGE because they used to be actual gas lights and owned by BG way back, but we never quite transitioned to us owning them.

But as far as climate emissions, I just want to point a little bit of a tangent, but bear with me.

Um we have to up the uh so 20 years ago uh when I when I last did the climate footprint for the city, uh the transportation sector, um, which includes all the lights and not the street lights but the traffic lights used to be about 30 percent of our emissions for the city government.

Um now this is still draft, but it's roughly 50 percent.

The transportation sector is gone from 30 percent to 50 percent.

Uh we did see a reduction in the built environment.

Uh and I'm saying that because we've done we've focused a lot on the built environment as far as energy efficiency, but the transportation sector, and that includes all these things we've mentioned, traffic circles, signals, um buses and things like that, those we haven't focused on that as a city.

Um, and so you know, again, something just to keep in mind as we talk about where we want to redirect revenue or not.

Um it's about it's past time 20 years.

I think we need to really focus on the transportation sector a little bit the next next term.

Love it.

Let's get the we done.

And probably about five or six years ago, BG ⁇ E met with the city several times with the Department of Public Works and the then Office of Environmental Policy about that was a capability that they did have.

So that's available through BGE.

It's pretty commonplace now in cities that they can read, you can dim the lights, you can raise the lights, you can change the color, you can change the direction of if someone on Maryland Avenue says, Oh, they're coming right through my window, we can adjust that.

You can light up the whole city in the case of an emergency and turn the whole thing off if you want to.

So, you know, that technology is there, and it's pretty commonplace.

Um, you mentioned something else.

So the transportation sector, part of the reason transportation sector is as high as it is as far as emissions still is that we've added to the fleet.

You know, although we've added electric buses, which are some of the really big emitters, we um have also added vehicles to the fleet, and we have not transitioned to EVs as um quickly as we had hoped.

That takes money in the budget to do for central services.

Thank you.

I forgot to meant to include that in my list.

Electric transition.

Got it.

Um I want to go back briefly to one of my priorities that I ran a little bit out of time on, which was the customer service one.

And just to say that I think also that may include the need for additional staff in places, uh, whether that is staff, whether that is to support councilmen because aldermen, because we get emails, oftentimes we're the sort of first line of interaction with the city, and so having somebody who can support us to get that response really fast, that could be beneficial in terms of customer service.

It could be in the mayor's office.

Um I'm not totally sure what we need yet, but I think some of that is it could be certainly in planning and zoning also.

So somewhere um I just want to make clear that that customer service aspect may also include staff.

I get one other question for staff, and then I think let's move on to some of these process things that I was mentioning earlier.

I think the best person to answer this is our acting city manager, uh, but anybody can jump in.

We heard a couple times about homelessness, and I know that that's really managed by the county.

The county does pretty much all our homeless services.

If the city wanted to take a bigger role in that, if we wanted to say, I'm just gonna make something up, provide a hundred thousand dollars for re-homing people and you know, working with people who are intense out by lighthouse lickers.

Um what would that process even look like for us to almost give money to the county?

Will we renegotiate our differential with them?

How could we possibly touch on homelessness when it's something that the county really runs?

Uh so I think there are a couple of different answers to that.

Um the first is that I think it's important in the homelessness world to understand that um when you're looking at homelessness, it's really the whole, it's the whole process, right?

And we tend to, particularly those of us that are that are sort of more lay interested parties, is we tend to think of shelter as the the thing that we're reaching for.

Um, but people are still technically homeless in shelter, right?

When they do the annual point in time count, anybody who's in shelter counts as homeless.

Um, and you know, if you think of it as you know, you've got an inflow of people into homelessness, there's an outflow of people into housing, and that is the piece that really gets people out of the homelessness system is that they are housed.

So when we talk about the involvement of the city, I think first of all, you are correct that the organization of homelessness as a as a continuum is held at the county level.

That's a reflection of how HUD funds homelessness.

They are required, all jurisdictions are required to have a continuum of care.

It's not in Maryland that's organized at the county level.

That's not how it is everywhere across the country, but in Maryland it is.

Um homelessness providers are required to work together.

The continuum is required to submit a joint application to HUD that covers all providers and what they're interested in.

There are a bunch of requirements in there about prioritizing and and stuff like that.

Um that's also where um coordinated entry is held.

They help coordinate that everybody has the same intake forms and all that kind of stuff, assessment tools.

So if the city really wanted to get involved, you are correct that there's no replacing the county in that structure.

You have to be part of it because that's how the core funding in the homelessness world works.

That said, money is not the only way for the city to be supportive.

There are a number of ways in which there are barriers to housing for people who are in the homelessness world.

The primary one of which are rules around when you can refuse housing to people, right?

So one of the biggest barriers to housing for a number of people is that they've got a criminal record of some kind.

And it doesn't have to be major stuff, right?

But but there are a whole host of reasons why people are allowed to deny housing for for various things.

And you know, I'm not suggesting that the city somehow massively change its housing, but there's an advocacy role for the city and a supportive role for the city in making it easier for people to access housing.

Um because until that happens, they're still homeless, right?

Um I think that um getting really good at helping people connect with services, as you said, um, and a couple of different alder people mentioned it.

Wraparound services is helpful.

Um, you know, in helping people work through their issues and um uh stay stay housed and and be successful when when that stuff happens.

So I think you know, we do we are engaged as a city with the continuum.

There are a number of people who attend those quarterly meetings.

Um, but I think also the city can can lean into that a little bit.

And I know we have nonprofits who are interested in providing deeper services.

Um I think some so you know, if the city really wanted to prioritize that, I think there's some opportunities for the for the city to lean into that.

But you are correct, the city cannot replace the county in that.

That is not how that system works.

I greatly greatly appreciate what you just said.

I think that's really insightful.

Um if Alderman Channelmeyer would hear were here, he would say biggest thing we can do on homelessness is build more homes.

Uh so I'll step in on that and and say, you know, maybe part of our homelessness solution is to support our uh permanent and planning and toning, decrease the cost on that.

Um you're not you're not wrong about that.

Yeah, right.

Like that it is one of the things.

Well, Brooks, Brooks is not wrong on that.

Yeah, no, no, no, but I mean it is one of the biggest challenges, right?

If if you think about that as inflow and versus outflow, supporting outflow is a big part of getting that continuum to really work well.

Um but mechanically, if the county were doing something on homelessness, supporting the city that we wanted to support.

Would we be able to put in the budget a hundred thousand dollars for this county-run program in the same way that sometimes the county gives the city money?

Would we go and renegotiate our differential mechanically?

How might we be able to do that?

Probably any of those, I probably would not recommend uh trying to renegotiate the differential.

Um, it's probably not that much that that would make sense.

Yeah, it's it's not that much, and in this particular case, you would want to support something pretty specific.

Yeah, and and renegotiating the differential hits a wide variety of topics.

So I probably wouldn't do that.

Gotcha.

So yeah, but we could almost have it be like when the county gives us money.

Alderman Smith, or yeah, Alderman Smith brown and Alder 100.

Thank you for that.

So while on one hand, I yes, we can say build more housing, etc.

But I think we need to talk a little bit more about the environment in a moment because we haven't talked enough about that.

Um, that's where we live.

That's what we breathe.

Uh, but in regards to housing, um, it's also just the at least in the war, my war, board three, um, addictive services, addiction services.

I mean, you're talking about the mental capacity of many of these people, they've refused support and help.

So we're gonna put our homeowners and our tenants um at risk or even in a situation where they have to see in the wooded areas them doing um sedatious acts and things of that nature in our safely parking lot.

Um, I remember very vividly uh one person clearly on something, uh making these loud noises and banging these things.

I mean, we've got to take seriously um the respect of our communities and the integrity of our neighborhoods.

Um, and so yes, we should look deeper uh into not just building more, uh, but maybe building more confidence and self-love uh and things of that nature.

Um and so I'll stop there for the moment because I know Alder Woman.

If I could actually break and I'm I'm so sorry to be vocal about this, but I spent 12 years within health and human services, so I I have a certain amount of heart baked into this topic.

Um so the philosophy of housing first, which the current administration is walking away from a little bit, but has been the federal administration.

Yes, federal.

Um I just want to clarify we're not talking about the county.

You're correct.

Um but the general philosophy of housing first it is really taking Maslow's hierarchy seriously, and that's why that wraparound services is really important is trying to get people in a place where their basic needs are, you know, don't make housing conditioned on I've already solved my second tier issues before I'm willing to help you with your first tier issues.

Um but that's it the implications of that philosophy are sometimes hard for people to really swallow.

But the whole idea is then make it more likely that people actually engage with and are successful at dealing with the particular issues that might exist within their lives.

And um and and I think the question of thoughtfulness about that is a really important one.

Thank you.

Alder Roman O'Neill.

Thank you.

I was just going to add that it's not that the city doesn't do anything for homelessness, because we do have the warming center when it gets cold or when it's too hot, and the city funds that um and the Food Friday programs people from being homeless in many, many cases.

Um we've just added a person to our list who recently lost their job and can't pay their rent.

So we are providing food along with our community services department who is helping bridge that gap in there.

So we are working and we're doing some of those wraparound services to prevent the homelessness.

So we can't say that we don't do anything that it's all county, that it because the big part of it is the city.

And our past abundsman was actually out on several times um when I first came into office with police with an Annapolis police department, checking up on people that had been reported as perhaps needing some place to go or needing some additional help.

So we do often interact and intervene, and so it is part of our city budget.

Yeah, just throwing money at it, police.

Um, savage, I see you got someone else.

I think yeah, I I'm I'm glad this conversation makes me happy.

I'm glad that we're having this dialogue because um uh, you know, I I think for in my mind, this is really public safety issue, right?

And we're gonna be getting a lot of different requests from a lot of different departments and individuals and entities asking for funding.

And um, I think we need to keep this in mind.

Our our social services, our office of community services is now what two people three?

How many we have a manager and then one or two social workers?

We have um uh manager, two social workers, um, a community services coordinator, and two part-time um people who connect people with services, so rental assistance in particular, and then like connecting with health benefits and um and other kinds of outreach.

And just you know, I'm speaking as somebody whose wife is a social worker.

I know how overworked they are, and what it comes down to in my mind is like yes, housing and and food is very important, but I think staffing is often short shorted.

That's it, it just it seems like that's often where we don't have enough.

And so I think one thing I would like that I think would be helpful during the budget is is for us to get an understanding of um yeah, the level of service in that department, the office of community services, and what to see because when I'm hearing Alder Woman Conte's comments about homelessness, but also assistance for you know some of the hack a housing rental issues.

What I was thinking is well, wow, maybe we just need to add somebody in the office of community services that not necessarily limited to HACA, but that is gonna have the greatest need, but could work for those who need it throughout the city to help them address to address the rent issues and uh finding housing, those kind of things.

But I think that's just a conversation.

So my point is for the city managers that I think it's important to have that information as we have the dialogue is this budget to compare with the other.

And and I'm gonna since I'm on the topic, I do want to channel Alderwoman Finlayson a bit here.

She would always say, and when we're talking about reducing or cutting money, we're you know, that means cutting staff.

Um I've certainly eight years of been on the council and dug deep in the departments fire as well, because I think fires you know, and police both some of the largest budgets, but there is not much to cut.

We don't have much fat to cut.

People think we do in the public, I always think we do, but we don't.

What it comes down to, you're gonna have to look at staff.

And I don't think that's something I just think we need to be realistic.

Uh that's why we always talk about trying to reduce it, but in the end, there's not much to cut, uh, especially as we're talking about all these different services, because I do think we need to take a strong look at the again off screening services that and treat it as a public safety imperative.

Um okay, I want to make sure we have time to talk about these process things.

There are three questions that I actually four questions that I wrote down here.

Um we'll start with the first one and I'll and I'll um probably just pop corner straight to Alderman Thorpe because he talks about this so eloquently.

But the four questions I wrote down in terms of process are how can we better tie inputs to outputs?

Meaning, how do we make sure that we're measuring?

Well, I'll let you tell it.

But uh, how do we make sure that we're measuring uh what people really care about and making sure that the money gets tied to that?

Uh second thing was Alder Roman O'Neill talked about the need to reform our community grants process.

What would a better grants process look like?

And then to Alderman Savage's point, I I heard your frustration with the lack of tracking of implementation.

Um again, sort of the same question.

What would a better process for that look like?

And then the last one, which honestly I'd be all right if we don't get to this one, is uh would anything that we heard today be better accomplished by a community association or by another level of government?

Meaning we heard a bunch of things and we kind of touched on this with homelessness, but are there things that hey, maybe we would like them to be done in the city, but actually it could be done better by someone in the city who is not the city.

So those are my four four questions.

Let's start with how can we tie inputs to outputs?

Alderman Thorpe, why don't you start with that?

Um thank you.

Uh so I the audit committee, this is really an audit committee uh tactical discussion and philosophical discussion.

Um if you look at the budget as the plan, um, and if you look at the the recent effort over the last couple years um to create performance metrics uh by department, um it we we really need to as a group determine from the directors and the city manager what are the major performance metrics for which you are trying to achieve.

And and we would like I would like to move and I I don't want to speak for the mayor, but um but we'd like to move to a situation where there's real data behind the budget.

Um we have the director of recs and parks here.

So when she says she wants more money for a wrecks and parks program, it will increase the participation from 4,500 to 5,200.

And we have a goal and we can measure that.

Um, and it's not easy, and especially when you bring up the outcome uh word inputs are the money and the staff time that goes into something, outputs are the direct result of that input, and then outcomes is is the really uh I I would quote the mayor, Annapolis works.

How does that support Annapolis works?

And so, you know, in the planning and zoning world, how long does it take for a permit uh to be responded to, whether approved or disapproved?

And then so when the director comes forward with an effort to reduce that time, and he's he's got uh an amount of money or staff that goes behind it, we can support that.

And then where the audit committee is going, when the audit committee or legislation was passed some years ago, uh the two main goals of an audit committee are to do all the financial checks that a traditional audit does, to also look at the risk that the city's taking and is that acceptable risk uh so that the the city council can get that that word where where the the mayor uh and I want to go and and and the audit committee wants to go is measuring the performance of uh the product of the plan.

And so if you look at a at a circle, the finance committee leads the the development of the budget, the staff produces a draft budget, the budget is the plan.

And so going forward, if you look at a circle, the audit committee reviews the product of the plan.

So for sidewalks, if we budget 600,000 or a million dollars for X number of square feet of sidewalk, the audit committee will and if the director of public works and the city manager is identified that as a major metric, and that's key.

The staff identifies that, not the city council.

Um that how did we do?

We executed to 92 percent.

Okay, good.

We executed to 63 percent.

Why?

Because we don't have the capacity to do it.

We executed 110%.

Why?

Because I, the director of public works found efficiencies in order to do that.

So that way, when we when there's the analysis of the product of the plan, we go into the next budget year and we we go back to the public works director and say, so we were able to execute at 92% of this.

What should we expect for your proposal this year?

Obviously, the goals 100.

That's not a that's not a grading mechanism, it's a budgeting mechanism.

And so uh we're gonna have a a very active audit committee effort to look at the product of the plan.

And it goes, I think to what you're saying, Alderman Savage, is when there's things that are passed here at the city council, are they completed?

And that's part of the reporting process from the city staff to the audit committee through the city manager, that these things were were uh were approved by the city council, signed in in assigned as approved.

Here's where we are in getting them done.

And again, I want to drive home.

This is not a grading exercise.

This is a reporting.

This is a board of directors look at are we doing what the plan says, and if not, how do we get there?

Um so I would be very open to a conversation uh to that.

It's gonna be really important that we put a lot of trust into the staff.

This is not telling the staff how to do their job, it is not evaluating their performance.

That's the city manager and uh city manager's job.

Um, it's really making sure that we're just looking at the product of the plan as defined by the city staff, and over the years, the dialogue then becomes how to evolve the plan into a better plan.

So I'm very interested in thoughts and and participation there uh in the city council.

Two things I'll just add.

Uh first of all, support everything you just said.

Two things I'd add to it.

One is uh you said something along the lines of this is not telling city staff how to do their job.

I think that's so important.

What the promise of what we're talking about here is we can be more hands-off with how city staff do their job.

The promise ideally is if we have clear outcomes, then we can much more straightforwardly say, however, you mean it, we're happy with it.

If you're if you're meaning 100%, you don't have to come back and walk us through every step.

I care about did you get the result.

Um, and then the other thing that I just want to emphasize out of this is to all the lovely department directors I'm staring at, uh, is when you guys come in and talk to the finance committee, we really want to hear how the funds that you are describing getting are tied to the performance metrics that you have.

And we all up here, I think are aware that our performance metrics have opportunities for improvement.

Um, and that's true with some departments more so than others.

But being able to say, uh, I'll pick on public works.

I know one of the public works goals is the square feet of sidewalk replaced.

And so being able to come in and say, We're we asked for this much money for sidewalk repair because that our contract is for this many dollars, and that will let us get this many square feet.

That's that's the kind of numbers that we're looking for.

And and again, we recognize some of the metrics can be better, some of the metrics, even if the metric itself is perfect, it's just harder to tie that to outputs and outcomes.

But that's what we're hoping to hear from all of you.

Yeah, Alderman Savage.

Uh yeah, I um so uh I agree with a lot of this as well.

Um so just a few things.

Um so I do think that once we one of my goals I've mentioned before, uh my hopes is that once we pass something, we can have assurances that there's a process in place in the system.

We don't jump it straight ahead to uh one of our other questions.

Yeah, we don't have to keep bugging staff um to get that done.

And I think I certainly don't blame the directors for not watching all of our meetings and knowing what passes.

I think it's just a process thing.

We've never had a process in the city that really gets that sorted out, or a staff person, as well.

We did fund it's kind of ironic.

We funded a staff person to work on implementation process, and the process has not gotten that staff person filled.

It's now been seven months, I think, since it passed last year's budget, and it's still not advertised.

So there are and it happened last budget too.

So we've gone through a couple cycles with the same issue.

I would love to try to get that addressed, and and um maybe that's something audit committee can have a role in.

Um because I do love the direction you're going.

Um, and I do think the other committees may have a role.

That's one thing that we could have another conversation about sometimes how the other committees can help because what we did in environmental matters, I alluded to at our last meeting was we we did work with staff to refine the performance measurements, and so we did that in the committee.

We came up with new performance measures and got that included in a previous iteration of the performance standards as an amendment.

Um we just focused again purely on environmental.

Um, but um you know, I I wouldn't want to conf conflict with what the audit committee is doing, so but I don't think they would.

I think there'd be some partnership and collaboration there.

Yeah, and I fully support that, right?

So I I had the opportunity to sit in on the public safety meeting yesterday, uh public safety committee meeting where the fire department, the police department, um, and OEM briefed uh what what their plan is, and that's where those performance metrics really get talked about at that level going forward, response times and things like that.

So absolutely um and and I think what this process will do will continue year after year after year to to uh improve the the plan, and when there's a feedback cycle, that that feedback cycle about the public safety uh metrics should be should happen at the public safety committee meeting.

Um, and the audit committee is just making sure that the process is in place so that you in fact uh do have the opportunity in the areas that you're responsible for in your committee uh to actually have the talk about it.

Um again, I I want to drive home that I'm not advocating for committees to change the metrics.

That's the city manager's job.

And that over the discourse, though, I think the metrics start to align because we actually have a plan, and it's always better to uh adjust the plan than create goals, you know how many people are gonna go to Pitmoir next year.

Well, we have a plan, and so how do we adjust that plan?

And that's a discourse.

So yeah, absolutely.

I think this does actually enhance the city council committee's role in what they are responsible for doing.

So I think we actually covered two of my three questions that I had, or two of the three main ones.

Uh the one we haven't talked about much more is what the better grants process could look like.

So I know we tried to make the community grants process a little more streamlined last year.

I think it was a little bit better than how it was before, but auto Roman O'Neill, I'm looking at you.

Do you have any thoughts on what a better process could look like recognizing it definitely has been flawed in the past?

I have a lot of thoughts.

Do you want to share them now, or you want to talk about it another time?

No, no.

Um I I think that it it needs to take a serious look.

We have community organizations that I'm not going to dispute that they're doing good in the community, but they're getting funding from three different sources from the city.

Um, we don't have a good grasp on all of that.

We don't have a detailed sheet that says ABC community association gets 150,000 from the city because 50,000 is coming from here and 50,000 coming from here, and oh, by the way, they're paying five dollars a month in rent um for a city space.

Um we don't have that consolidated, and we've never used that to really like bear down and see what things are what's going out, what's being brought in, all of the performance measures.

Um we had a long discussion about the way it's written, um, and it says that they shall um provide quarterly reports.

Um in the last four years, I cannot tell you that in every year we've received four quarterly reports from every single person.

Maybe one, maybe two, not all, you know.

I'm not blaming anybody on that, I'm blaming our system.

Um I think that if you are a community organization that's going for a grant um in any other place for the city, the details and the reports detail that are required of you are far greater than what we are doing.

And the analysis of okay, we've been giving this particular organization X number of dollars for over the X number of years, and did we do it so that they could be a startup, and now that it's been 20 years, they should be feet on the ground, ready to move, so that maybe there's another organization that could use that.

Um I've seen models where you've taken the pot of money and instead of dividing it up by 50 people, you know, 50 organizations, you lower it to 15, and then those 15 are not allowed to get funding the next year.

Um I just I think that we need to really take a good hard look at it and make sure that we are showing value to the funding that we're giving to those organizations.

Um there are organizations that could you you know come in and ask us for 25,000 and we give them 2,000 because they're new, or because that's what's left over in the pot, and they can't really do what they're trying to do, and they can't prove that they're able to do it if we can't fully fund them.

Um a good example was uh an organization that had come through as a community grant last year, and um saw the benefit in it.

I talked with the director of planning and zoning, we saw the economic benefit of it.

We moved it into that, and we were able to fund it fully, and I think it was pretty productive.

Um, the hero program, Chris, um, and it's a program that we're discussing taking to a larger group of people in the city as opposed to we ran the pilot on Clay Street.

Um but that program would not have happened with $2,000.

It wouldn't have it wouldn't have gotten off the ground.

They didn't have that was enough, not even enough money to buy the software to run the program.

There's other projects that are out there, and they're just grasping for that, you know, a couple thousand dollars each year and hoping that maybe they'll get enough to stay another year to hopefully get another funding source.

And not that the city always has to be the only funding source, but I think that we really need to just take a look at what we're doing, what our goals are, and how those community organizations are supporting the city.

And I think they can do it in different ways.

Um we've heard tonight, like we need wraparound services, we need recreation departments that are open later, and can we work with community partners to work on some of that so that it takes some of the burden off of our staff?

Um, I think we just need to look outside the box.

Yeah, I'll alter and switch out the cross.

Thank you.

Um has it ever been you said it's never been done that we've gotten a report such as this.

Um one that's a lab is really detailed.

Um not every quarter.

Okay, so is there a forum where we can bring them together and we have these conversations with them and what what can we do collectively and even individually if need be?

Um, not to put work on our mayor, but if that's something that he would want to take on as well.

But uh, what can we do then uh to make that process clearer and to not put this micromanage feel on these organizations who are fresh and would like some support and guidance from our city?

Um in 2024, we passed a resolution to create a task force to study using outside people because of some staffing changes and other things going on, it did never happen.

It did never happen.

Yep.

So I think that probably bringing back that resolution and revitalizing it would be a great step because that would be a reporting organization.

That was the plug right there.

Yeah.

I think was places that are getting a community grant, but then may also be getting funds in other parts of the budget.

So a question for Mr.

Trudeau is there a way within our financial systems that we can look and see total outflows to a particular pay organization.

Yes, yeah, yes.

Okay, so that would be something that we have systems already that we can get that information.

Yeah, yeah.

Yes.

The the only caveat to that being forms of support that don't have a dollar sign attached to them on the outgoing side.

Alder Roman O'Neill had mentioned, for example, places that um have space um in city facilities.

That's a different question.

Yeah, heard understand.

All right.

Well, we are at 653.

That means we got seven minutes left.

So I did have that one other question, but I'll shelve it.

Um, I just want to make sure that if there's anything else for the good of the order, anything anybody has not said that they want to say, any questions, anybody wants to get out now.

Yeah, Auto Roman O'Neill.

I see your hand and then Alderman Smith.

Thank you.

Just really quickly, I want to say thank you to uh directors that came out tonight.

I know that you're sitting there just listening.

Um, I hope it was beneficial to listen to some of the banter, but I do appreciate the fact that it's 10 minutes of seven, and you've probably been here since early this morning.

So and you're most of you are probably planning on working all weekend.

So thank you.

Yes, indeed.

Thank you.

Um also uh in light of we didn't really touch much on that environment piece, but in light of the belated birthday of our aldermen, I think one of the um environmentalists of this world, uh, I think we should definitely look heavily into something like in my ward spa creek.

That's the only water access we have in the heritage community, um, South Cherry Grove.

And so uh maybe dredging that up a little bit and um doing some cleanup in that area.

Um, that's what I wanted to throw out the review.

Whatever we need to do uh to to help that water to flow a little bit better uh and to clean it up a little bit.

Um, but that's just a priority I wanted to mention, as well as my parole elders, um, who I'm just so honored to serve.

I want to support them a little bit more.

Um our elder population really needs our support.

Thank you.

Alderman Thorpe.

I'd like to echo um what Alder Woman O'Neill said about thanking the directors that are here.

And I think I'm gonna I'm a broken record here when I say this, but I've said it a couple times and I would say it again.

I plead with you as you come forward in your budget requests.

I think that the the council has received a good orientation as to what you do, and I would ask uh that we really focus as you bring your your budget presentations forward that they be focused on to use sidewalks.

In 2024, we spent this much money to do this many sidewalks.

In 2025, we did this.

This is what we're scheduled.

We anticipate being being finished, and in 2020, I'm getting my years mixed up, I guess, because we're in 26 now, but but you get my point.

In 25, we did this, and 26 we anticipate doing this.

We asked for this in 27.

Um, and that it it we continue to refine those performance metrics so that the council has an opportunity to do what we've talked about tonight um in making sure that we're we're focused on giving you the tools you need to do your job based on what you think is important.

So thank you.

Alderman Savage.

Quick question for you, Mr.

Chair, or um uh Mr.

Trudeau would be what is the next step for us to be aware of for us, the next date related to the budget.

I think the main one will be that when the mayor uh announces his budget, but am I missing anything else?

Nope.

March uh April, the the second, I always get this backwards.

Say again.

I thought it'd be scrolled scrawled on your mirror at home.

I'm exhausted, sorry.

It's the sorry, the first council meeting in April, which is the second Monday, correct?

April 13th.

April 13th.

Thank you.

April 13th.

Thank you.

Well, my last thing was going to be to thank our budget manager uh who's wearing two hats right now.

And so it's always tough to be the budget manager.

In addition to thanking all of our directors, it's only tough to be the budget manager.

Tougher still when you're doing that and another job.

So uh really appreciate all your hard work now, and you know I'm gonna be saying that three months from now.

And then the very last thing I'll say is uh Autor Woman Finlayson and Autor Woman O'Neal uh made sure last year during our budget discussions to have snacks for us.

And so I brought in a big old thing if MMs.

So if anybody starts feeling their bread blood sugar get low when we have these long budget discussions, come on over to my desk.

Carmen has better snacks.

They do say word one on them though, so Alderman Thorpe has already informed me he doesn't want them.

Uh uh all right, with that.

Uh I will ask the acting city uh attorney to present the next item on the agenda.

The agenda is completed.

All right.

I was there's not anything else for the good of the order.

I think we just did that.

Then uh hearing nothing, sessions adjourn.

Thank you all.