I'm I'll call the roll.

Altuman Thorpe present.

Otter Woman O'Neal not joining us today.

Otterman Huntley present.

Is there a motion to approve the agenda?

So moved.

I'll second that.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

At this time, is there a motion for approval of the minutes, either as written or possibly amended?

I read them.

So moved.

Okay.

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All right.

Our first order of business is legislation.

Uh 0126 property tax credit.

Channelmeyer is not here yet.

So we're gonna take a moment on that and jump ahead to the CIP project update.

Director Vogel, you mind joining us sooner rather than expected?

Sooner than expected.

You want the laptop hooked up?

I have a laptop.

Sure.

But the HDMI.

Yeah.

Yeah, it made sense.

We should have had Bird go first anyway, so I hate making the directors sit around.

Yeah.

Do you want to really if you guys feel comfortable starting now or if you want to wait for the display, that's fine with me too.

Either way works.

Oh, good idea.

Yes.

Why don't we jump to finance update while we're waiting for this?

Brilliant.

Thank you.

Uh that's why they pay you the big bucks, acting city manager.

All right.

Uh yeah.

Uh Acting Director Trudeau.

How are you doing?

I'm good.

How are you?

Good.

Thank you, sir.

Uh, for the record and for the last time, acting finance director Jake Trudeau.

Um, Mr.

Chair, may I say a few words before I provide an update?

Go ahead, please.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

So I'd like to thank the prior and present hardworking staff uh of the city for their partnership over the years.

I'd also like to thank uh my mentors, former city manager Teresa Sutherland and former finance director Jody Dickinson for taking a chance on me many years ago.

And I want everyone to know that I have the utmost respect and appreciation for this administration and council, and I am confident they will do great things for the city.

I love this city and is at and has been an absolute honor to serve.

So thank you all very much.

It's been our honor to have you.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Um I'll give you a quick audit update.

So we are in the final stages of the audit.

Uh we are hoping that that the ACFA will be finalized and released um mid-month this month.

So right now it is in QA quality assurance, so that's the final one of the final stages for of that process.

Um we are continuing our hiring process.

We're hoping to have a deputy director here soon.

Um, and then we also have a cashier position open and a um office administrator position open as well that we are actively trying to fill.

Um as you all know, we are the finance department in the city is consulting with Harbor View Consultants.

So without further ado, I'd like to introduce um Joel Palical and Sean Doyle, who will be acting finance director, and uh Sean will be assisting with leadership duties.

Thank you both very much, and that concludes my update.

Thank you.

Can I ask uh first of all, congratulations and and thank you for your service?

Uh to these fellows, who's gonna be point on budget?

Who's gonna be essentially budget manager?

And would you mind introducing yourself?

I know we just introduced you.

Great.

Good morning, uh finance committee members, and thank you for having me this morning.

My name's Joel Palacal.

I work with Harbor View Consulting.

I'm a partner there.

Uh I will be serving as the acting finance director, and so therefore to bring to the point uh of contact question.

I think things we can be able to funnel towards me.

Uh Sean will be supporting me in just day-to-day management as well as SOP development and other types of leadership activities to support the organization as we move forward, as we have a current you know, gap in leadership right now.

Uh, you know, we will continue on with the budget process.

We are highly focused on that, and we will have an opportunity to also continue to leverage um Jake for some additional questions in that time frame as well.

So we continue to hope that there will be no lapse in uh ability to execute.

And so we will maintain high levels of communication around that.

Uh any additional questions, or would you like more about my background?

Okay.

Sorry.

Yeah, I mean, I think fundamentally my question is when we're developing the budget.

Uh I'm talking to Jake every day.

Uh and so who specifically is is that person that when we're working on a budget, and we've got, you know, Frank and I come up with some idea, Otterman Thorpe and I come up with some idea and we want to work through that amendment, or we have a question that needs to be answered.

Who do we call?

That's my question.

So I I'll I'll take a stab at that.

I think it depends a little bit on the timing and what the question is.

Um, so obviously both of these gentlemen are still getting up to speed on things.

So my personal preference for the moment is that you actually include both of us.

Um will obviously be bringing in the you guys are familiar with the wider budget team.

Um so bringing them into that um as they get their feet under them and and get more comfortable, then we may drink to that more, but um obviously we're actively now you know hiring the the permanent finance director.

So um I think having um having sort of a wider base of people involved in that will help with the knowledge transfer when that permanent finance director comes on board.

So I I will ask for that just to help with that long term uh that longer term view.

Um I know my time at this point is is often um sketchy, but um that's something something for us to work through and and so but I think for the moment my preference is you you include us both.

Got it.

Okay.

We can do that.

Uh I think that answered my question.

Yeah, anything else you want to share with us.

Um no, happy to be here, excited to support the city of Annapolis, and you know, hopefully you just keep working towards a great outcome.

Jake's been a fan just to echo his sentiments and his congratulations.

He's been a wonderful uh resource this week in supporting us and giving us information.

So just wanted to you know acknowledge that and and his commitment to the city and uh continue to look forward to working with Vicky and the rest of the team.

So thank you all for having us and um please, yeah, don't hesitate to reach out.

I'm happy to support in all capacities.

So thank you.

Thanks.

Anything else in the way of finance update before we jump over to CIP.

No, sir.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Director Voga, you're still standing.

I'm waiting for you to fall asleep as sitting at the table.

And I know you've been putting in some long hours and your whole team has.

So thank you for all the work you've done.

Thank you for being here today.

Catherine's wonderful.

Uh introductions, Burr Vogel, public works director.

Metsy McCann, Bureau Chief of Engineering and Construction.

Uh so when I was with you last, I think two weeks ago, uh, you asked that we come back and talk about capital projects that are not on track.

Um, so we'll we'll start there and then uh with an introduction of of methodology here.

So uh there's a performance metric um in our measurements of performance.

Um, and it is did we meet our target?

It's simply that.

And so projects may have various targets.

They may say start construction, they may say complete design, they may say finish construction.

So here's an example.

If you look in in your budget books for um the Bay Ridge Avenue Sidewalk Project, uh 4004, that will be on um in the PDF 25.

If it's paper numbers, 20.

Highlighted down there, you'll either see this typically uh we we would want to see this objective in the timing, but sometimes uh it might be in the status.

This is the first year that this uh performance measure has has been official.

So for this one, uh it says complete the sidewalk in 2026.

So now we're gonna jump over to our actual how we how we are tracking ourselves.

And we have um an overall uh project list of all of our capital projects with what you would see as typical uh design and construction milestones.

When did you start design?

Um if that you know is planned for the future, you would see a target here.

But we've actually started the design on this project, so there is no target design, we have an actual design.

You kind of see this.

You have you start design, you finish design, you start construction, you finish construction.

That's the basic sequence of uh most capital projects.

So for this one, the FY26 milestone that we just showed you there is uh complete construction.

And we are grading ourselves here as will not meet.

Um and the reason for this one is there's probably two of them.

Got a little uh late uh jump start on design.

Um but most importantly, when we started the design, the first step in the design on a project like this.

Um, if it's not all on city land or you're not sure where the city boundaries are, you do a survey.

Find out where the city right away begins and ends, uh, where private property begins and ends.

In this instance, uh uh along Bay Ridge Avenue, we don't even own all of the streets, uh, much less the sidewalk right away.

We would need to do this project.

So our next step is to, and this will be a common theme across many of the projects you see that are uh kind of sidewalks or paths or things of that nature, is uh uh is obtaining property rights.

And uh so in this case, I we think it's gonna be relatively simple uh and and maybe only a one or two year delay, but some projects get delayed five years, maybe ten years as you go through these negotiations or other legal procedures to get the right to build what we want to build.

I'll stop for questions.

This is a relatively simple one, but uh you may have questions.

Can you tell us where on Bay Ridge Avenue this project is?

Sure.

This is uh in words from the shell station to Mount Mariah on what I believe it would be the east side of the road.

Um let me switch over to maps.

It's installation new sidewalk, Bay Ridge Avenue between Forest Hills and Forest Drive.

Got it.

Everybody knows where that is.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Good.

Moving on to the next one.

This is another um not so great new news story.

Back when we uh the project was budgeted and we started to put an effort into this, we we had a significant shortfall in staff and staffing uh as well as sort of bottlenecks just in the the throughput of things we can get through uh procurement.

So everything from an engineering side from a procurement side, we thought, ah, this is a great opportunity to work with one of our community partners there, the Annapolis Maritime Museum.

Uh and and they could uh in in conjunction with making some parking lot improvements, design and permit this path, and all we'll do is reimburse them for the costs using the using this capital project.

That went a little sideways.

Uh the Maritime Museum uh threw in some additional work.

They lost their capital projects manager, their director left, and and this thing didn't go very well.

And so that's why it's uh gonna take longer than it was supposed to.

Our next step here is to kind of there's a design already out there, there's a permit already out there, but we're gonna extract that.

This is our plan is to extract the work we want done from from their work, which may not happen for two or three, four years uh as they work through some of the challenges related to wetlands and and all of the normal things when you're when you're near one of our waterways.

Does that ties into uh Cars Beach, right?

A little bit.

The the parking aspect um if there's expanded parking there, that would also benefit the the Cars Beach project for sure.

This project in in and of itself is is actually kind of quite simple.

We're we're essentially trying to pave what is an existing shell path and make it ADA compliant.

That's you know, the the ADA compliance is part of the the appropriated project description.

Got it.

I guess my point is is the delay almost works to your benefit as you look at the whole project that's out there.

No.

I'd I'd love to have it done already.

Okay, right.

If we if we just simply because there's there's already a path there.

It's just not something you can necessarily roll um a skinny-tired bicycle, a wheelchair, some uh a scooter, whatever sort of alternative mobility we're talking about.

Uh it's not there.

But but there's already a path.

It's just not not the path we would like to have.

Waterworks building and parking improvements is another one uh that that's kind of a funny story here.

This is the idea is to renovate our um abandoned water plant structure from uh I think it was in use until about 1930 when we built the uh one at the top of the hill there.

And this was, you know, it's not a city, it's not a building that has a city function.

This project is really something that just would enhance the the idea being to enhance the the park there, the dam, get some attention, get some activation.

Um, but it'll be an expensive project.

It's uh it's a historic building that's not in very good condition.

It it has been abandoned for close to a hundred years now.

And uh so the the idea there was to do um some sort of uh uh partnership with a developer, and there's uh you know, just kind of a business deal, and that business deal is is sort of hung up.

And uh central services now kind of running that project.

Uh I think Otaman Channelmeyer actually had a question on this one.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um on the Waterworks Park building.

Uh I got to actually take a look at the outside of it.

It's a fantastic structure.

Uh so I'm really excited when we finally fix it up.

Do we have any general sense of where we want to go after it's finally fixed up with that private partner partners, private P3?

Uh, or is that still just so far in the future that fix it first and worry about what we're doing later?

They would because it's private, right?

It's got the things go hand in hand.

Okay.

What it would be and how it would generate revenue and how what you do to the building are kind of one and the same.

So the P3 would be an essential part of the repair.

We're not going to be doing the repair until we actually get the P3, like the developer would do it all.

Essentially, what is being uh discussed right now is to either sell the property or lease the property with the developer.

And the next step is a pre-development agreement to kind of outline the framework of the initial phases.

Because the developer has to spend two or three hundred dollars, two or three hundred thousand dollars uh between their own time and consultants that they need to hire to give something that council could kind of get their arms around before we would move into that next phase of whatever real estate instrument we would use to then allow them to construct it.

And so that first step is what what are we comfortable with as the city and what is the developer willing to do?

And that negotiation has has kind of been going on for six or seven months.

Okay, thank you.

And oh, perfect timing.

The uh city manager just walked back in.

Um so last time we were talking about this was maybe two meetings ago because we were pulling some money out of that project.

And at the time I remember hearing oh, we're about to have a meeting with some potential partners for this.

Uh is there any update you can share?

This I'm talking about waterworks.

Yeah, yeah.

Is there any update you can share about how that went and is there any city?

Can I I'd like to jump in before the city manager goes.

Sure, if I would mean the we did issue an RFP about two years ago.

Uh for the record, the our council in the back says the resilience authority issued.

That's right.

Um the city and the resilience authority partnered to develop an RFP.

The resilience authority issued an RFP.

Uh two firms uh proposed and one was selected.

So we have selected a partner.

Got it.

Uh to work with, and now it's just a matter of going into that first legal agreement with that partner.

Yeah, I think that um obviously just given the timing of that.

Um in the interim, we've had an administration change.

And so I think that um part of what's on on the table, certainly as far as as this is concerned, is just uh making sure that everyone is still moving in the same direction, that uh a reconfirmation of what is the vision uh and what are we all going towards?

So I I think there's um this particular project gets gets really affected by those changes that have happened in the intervening time.

Makes sense.

Any other questions on this project?

Okay, if you don't mind keeping moving.

Keep going.

Uh green roof repairs.

We have a couple of green roofs out on the city.

And uh this said we were supposed to begin construction.

I I think this just got off to a little bit of a late start.

Uh Pitmoir being one of the most notable that's just wasn't maintained in the 10 or 15 years since it was built.

And and when you don't maintain a green roof, it A doesn't do what it's supposed to do from a stormwater uh standpoint, uh, and and B even you know more catastrophically can can cause some damage to the underlying roof.

Is this the kind of project that we might ultimately I'm looking at the city manager here, have be managed by facilities management by a department of central services.

Yeah, there's a partnership that happens between the two.

Obviously, Central Services doesn't handle the stormwater aspects of that, so there's a partnership between Central Services and DPW on kind of the total package of the roof, but there are parts of that package that reside in central services.

Fair?

Right.

And correct.

If you'll if you'll go back in time 12 months ago, all engineers worked in public works, and in terms of uh allocating workload, who's got time to work on things, who's got expertise in a certain area.

This started as a project under one of the project managers who is still in public works.

Um and and now it's sort of now it's become this partnership because it really is a central services function.

West East Express is the next one.

Uh the goal here was to begin construction this fiscal year.

Does not look like that will happen.

A couple of of causes there, federal reviews because there's a lot of federal grants involved, um, or it or at least MDOT, I think, uh has that role delegated from the federal government and uh and then some property rights.

On this one, I know uh I think at one point one of the uh questions was about trying to get easements from the county, I think, to be able to go right next to the parking garage.

Is that correct?

You're exceeding my level of understanding.

Well, okay.

That's all right.

If um if that's not if we can't answer that.

I just kind of I have a general sense of where it goes.

It's you know, the popular trail and extending it all the way out towards I think Gibraltar is where maybe it ends.

Yeah.

I think the what I'm remembering is that there was a struggle at the not the Gibraltar and the other end, this I would consider it the starting end, but that's because I live near there.

Um, which is going next to the garage that is next to People's Park.

That what do we call that garage?

The the county garage.

Um and we were trying to get an easement with the county, but okay.

If we don't have any information on a try, we can keep moving.

Thank you.

And really, for details on the West East Express, uh, Eric Lashinski is really the person.

There is a a draft agreement, but it's not finalized yet.

Okay.

Yeah, that's what I was trying to understand if that was continuing to be one of the holdups.

Okay.

Thanks.

Traffic Sylvan Rehab.

Uh this says construction for Bay Ridge and Tyler Avenue.

Um I think this was probably something we way too ambitious.

I I really don't think that was an appropriate milestone.

I'm sorry, can you say that again?

So there was uh I'd have to flip over to the budget book, and I don't want to waste everybody's time, but um this has never really been a top priority.

And so this may not be a milestone that really should have gone in the budget book.

It's something we we want to tackle, but um with everything else that's going on in that corridor, the um from Bay Ridge, Tyler Avenue, Hilltop, there's uh traffic safety improvements we're trying to do there.

There's a hiker biker that's gonna go into that corridor.

And um this this traffic signal, which certainly could use, you know, to become from a dumb signal to a smart signal or at least a medium smart signal.

Um that's just not something that's like right at the top uh of our priority list right now.

I would I would tell you as the alderman for that area, I agree.

And and that is my commute, it's it's a little frustrating, but we can live with it.

Taylor Avenue traffic improvements.

This is um where the um new hotel is next across the street from the police station, um something in.

Um I think everybody knows what what I'm talking about.

And so there right now is it there's an island and it's it's not necessarily an ideal intersection right there if you're if you're leaving the hotel or coming out of the graduate hotel's parking lot or garage.

Um so the the idea here was to analyze a uh traffic circle um or or a signal or leave it the way it is.

In the in the budget book, it's funded only for design.

There is there are not construction funds because we really don't know ultimately what our what our objective is or how high of a priority that would that would be for council.

Um so it's got a kind of a long history of of why it's been difficult to get a proposal underway for that design effort, uh, just related to kind of how things are in the private market right now.

But we we saw proposals from one firm, um, a local firm that's been a long-standing relationship.

They got bought by by a national company and they you know became a little less responsive and a little more expensive.

We we finally decided to move away from them uh and get get a different proposal, go a different direction.

So that's that project.

Still still moving.

Uh it's definitely got some traction now, finally, after languishing for a few years.

And this isn't really a question about the status, but remind me the goal there is to put it in a traffic circle.

Traffic circle would be ideal.

Um, but there's some things that you have to have related to geometry and topography to make a traffic circle work.

If you're if you're dealing with a crown situation, a traffic circle is not safe because you're blind.

You can't be coming up and over a rise.

So there's there's some things that just need to be analyzed from an engineering standpoint uh to see if it meets what would be uh a safe traffic circle.

That would be the ideal.

Um if it's not doable, then the options are traffic signal or just leave it the way it is, because it it kind of works.

Yeah, I think I think it there's there's definitely problems with leaving it the way it is, but I hear what you're saying about why a traffic circle might not work.

I think, and now I'm getting off of the status, which I know is really what we're supposed to talk about here, but um I'll just say like one of the complaints that I hear about that area is just that there's so many signs up, it's almost too confusing at this point.

So I would say if we get to a point where a traffic circle is not viable, um trying to figure out something other than let's leave it exactly the way it is.

Awesome.

Yeah, that this that design effort would would give us that as well.

Thank you.

Trucks and road parking improvements.

Um this is something that is going to delay because we're gonna do uh trucks and park master plan.

And the idea here would be to create additional parking along Trucksman Park Road, perhaps making primrose um and trucks and park road connect and and making a loop there, which would allow for some on street parking.

But this won't happen for a while, if ever.

So that that's also probably good.

I think there's there's two times that the word master plan is being used with Trucks and Park.

I think there's a Rex and Park master plan discussion, and now there's also an Eric Leshinski focused master plan, which I think they tie together, but uh he and I are talking about uh funding in 27.

There actually may be funding identify that we have to identify that we would have to add to the budget, but to do a master plan for what is the future entire future of Truxton Park.

Um I think that's right.

So this is something we're just gonna put on the back burner, wait for the outcomes of some master planning efforts, which is the right you know, way to do things.

Great.

Barbud Lane.

Uh this is this a sidewalk project only, or is it a little bit of other modifications to the street, maybe stormwater?

Stormwater drainage as well.

Right.

So property rights here, I I think the project maybe has a 15 or a 20-year history, and and that's you know, kind of that community engagement, who who's for the project, who's against it, but we've finally gotten through all of those hurdles, ready to start construction.

Um, and we we should be able to start as soon as the weather's good, but maybe maybe don't finish by July.

So this is actually kind of a great new story.

Any comments there?

That's no great.

Uh I can't tell you a whole lot about the solar park uh pollinator garden, but it was supposed to begin construction this year.

Looks like that maybe is gonna happen uh more towards the fall or next year.

Uh acting city manager Buckland, do I know um Deputy City Manager Guild has been super involved in this?

Do you know if she's around, she could come enter what how that's going.

I can add that we are waiting for confirmation from MDE on the landfill project.

Oh, right.

Yes.

Okay.

Thanks for that reminder.

This is a great opportunity to talk about uh if how are we on time?

I I can talk about this for two or three minutes, or I can talk about it for two.

Well, you tell me how far through this list are we?

We're pr we're doing pretty good.

Okay, I would say let's maybe about six from the bottom.

Let's try and wrap this up by 1120, 1125.

I don't think we'll need more than 20 minutes to talk about our last item.

Can do.

We have we have a landfill closed in 1993, right before um a federal regulation went into effect that said uh you'll be responsible for cleanup if you're still open after this date.

We beat the date by two months.

Uh subsequent to that, we entered into in the early 2000s, we entered into consent agreement with MDE to continue to just voluntarily monitor, uh, make sure that there's no environmental hazards, uh contamination leaving the city's property or you know, somehow endangering human health or the environment.

And uh as part of that, we we initiated the landfill gas program because we did see as the gas build up, it creates pressure on the liquid underneath uh and so water was moving, contaminated water uh was moving in places we didn't want it to in around 2015.

We did uh what was called a risk assessment with kind of the intent of wrapping up this monitoring because this monitoring is expensive uh and you don't want it to go on indefinitely if it's got no real benefit.

Uh MDE asked us to to kind of redo some of the uh take a couple more years, redo the risk assessment.

That was completed, and in the summer of 2025, I sent a letter to MDE saying uh we consider ourselves having met the conditions of the consent agreement.

We are now in intending to stop monitoring.

We would like to wrap that up with MDE.

Um we asked them for like a maybe a 60-day response.

They still have not responded, although I we have had some uh meetings with them and their their leadership and their staff, and then some follow-on phone calls uh just just between me and their and their director about kind of where where we're going with this.

So their their staff would kind of like to see indefinite monitoring.

Uh their their uh their director is is been very reasonable in saying that it's we're not gonna do that unless they can prove to me that there's some benefit.

Um so this is where we are.

Um and hopefully this does not go down the path of litigation, but this, you know, kind of internally within the city, we we said we'd be willing to stand firm at this point and and make them take us to court um because we really think we're on solid ground here.

So we don't want to mess with the landfill while we're having all of these very serious and and financially uh consequential discussions with a regulator.

Fair?

Makes sense.

Cool.

Uh this would be for a paddle board and kayak launch at the end of Pompouse Road.

Not sure this is a great idea, so uh on the shelf.

You probably don't care about okay, go ahead.

Are you leaving the pump house?

I'm I'm about to leave Pump House.

Um how do we how do we get that to a decision?

Um I I understand there's two sides of that equation, and uh probably we ought to work to either take that off the plate or put it on the plate.

Could couldn't agree more.

Complicate it.

And and probably a longer story than than in the 10 minutes or six that we have left.

Yeah.

That we want to get into, but it really relates to the amount of boat trailer parking that we committed to when the boat ramp was built and grants were provided, and what sort of restrictions are there?

We we believe there are unreasonable restrictions or expectations on the part of the grantor uh who is DNR.

And if we were able to lift those restrictions, we could allow the goal here was to allow a um paddle board or kayak vendor to who does camps and you know rents things and it's a great public amenity um to operate somewhere on on Spock Creek.

And uh the ideal location really is the boat ramp.

Um but there's just everything just kind of gets uh clogged up because of the parking restriction there.

And so what?

The park, this parking restriction where DNR says we will you would be in violation of the terms of your grant agreement, and therefore we're we're prohibiting you from from taking this action that just is common sense.

Uh in the meantime, this this alternate location, which is substandard for a number of reasons, was was thrown out there, put into the budget, and and we started moving down that path, but just for a lot of reasons.

It you know, community uh interest on the other side in Truxton Heights.

Um again, it's really not a great spot.

There's not great parking there.

Um the waterway is not super attractive, it's a little shallow and a little stagnant.

So you know it it's just there's there are a few amusing pieces to getting to a decision.

Nobody would love that more than us to.

Who who has the lead for the city in getting to that answer?

I I don't believe anybody does.

Is that that means the city manager has the lead?

No, I don't I don't think there is a city lead.

Um our you know fantastic partner, Matt Fleming, who came from DNR, has been just making outreaches and trying to trying to get to a decision maker uh on the DNR side.

And um he he's he's still working on that.

Okay.

Does that track uh with your understanding, Ms.

Buckland?

Yeah, I mean there have been a number of people involved uh in terms of persistence.

Um Matt being the persistent voice um on our behalf and given their role, I think makes some sense that it's not just it's not just us.

But your question is like who's who's really in charge that it it is sort of running back by community, you know.

Yeah, so I guess city manager, what I this I think affects budget, workload, and also the residents who are interested in pursuing this.

So I guess I would ask this seems to be one of those hard ones that we by solving it would make life better for a lot of people.

So I would ask to put that as a priority to work through what the right solution is.

I think I'm looking at the city manager for that.

Okay.

Thank you.

Uh Alter McCandelmeyer had a question, and then let's try and go quickly on the remaining few.

Uh the director answered the question that I had.

Ideal.

All right.

Next up.

Standard inspection details.

This is internal to public works.

This makes our lives better.

Uh like makes the lives of developers better in terms of understanding what our expectations are for the things that they construct that they would ultimately convey to us.

Um, and so it's um taken a while that the consultant we had did not necessarily deliver to our expectations, and we've we're shifting strategies there.

Very much inside baseball.

I think you can skip right over the next one.

Yeah, we can skip that one, and I think we'll wrap up with Cars Beach.

This one has a chance, I think, of starting construction, um, but we are running out of time in in this fiscal year.

There are some design decisions related to wetlands and permitting and mitigation there that um the design team, the resilience authority, wreck and parks are working through.

Um, but we you know, we we would hope to see this happen maybe in the fall or certainly the spring of next year.

Same same question.

Who for the city has the lead to get Cars Beach open up on the city side?

Yeah.

The primary lead is um wreck and parks.

So um Rosalind Johnson is the is the one who sort of is the keeper of that vision and and charged with moving it forward.

There's obviously a strong partnership with the resilience authority for some parts of that um and resilience authority is taking a direct hand for especially these early parts around the the shoreline and and stuff like that.

Um but but yeah, uh Reckon Parks is the primary keeper on the city side.

Okay, I think going forward that's gonna be really important that we make sure that everybody understands that Rose is pinned right on the project.

Right.

And if you haven't received her briefing from Director Johnson, um she she does come to council periodically and update what the you know the status of the project is as well as the vision for what it ultimately will be.

Yeah, and I I think my concern is is I've I've gotten the brief, and it it is truly a a collaboration with a lot of work by public works as well as others and resilience authority, and we just need to make sure in in the parlance of supported commander and supporting commander that she's got the support.

Um last thing I want to hear from her while we're waiting for public works or something like that.

So she's got if she's got the lead, she's got the lead.

Got it.

I think that's a great line of inquiry to have on these.

All right.

We're three minutes, three minutes early.

Yeah, that's great.

Thank you, guys.

This is I know it's probably not fun to show up and only talk about the things that are off track when look out of that 105.

We talked about what 12.

So we're we're we were mostly on track.

Um, but yeah, I appreciate you giving that update to us.

That's what I think we wanted to hear.

Uh I did have one question from Otter Woman O'Neil, which I think is it's a pretty big question, but maybe we could just spend our remaining three minutes talking about this.

When so we all know there are there are projects that uh can't get done for a variety of reasons, as we just heard.

I think one of the more common ones that we hear is just lack of capacity, right?

Um sometimes they're very project-specific ones.

They're can't get an easement, gotta have community input, whatever.

But to the extent that it is we have more work than we have people to do it.

How do we determine which ones move forward and which ones stalled?

And which is again like a super broad question, but to narrow it maybe a little bit.

How do we determine whether we want to move forward one big project or four smaller projects?

Uh and I'm looking mostly at Ms.

Buckland, but whoever wants to jump in.

Can I can I take a crack at this?

Yep, and then I'll jump in after.

Okay.

In an ideal world, I'll use you know, my military background, you own everything, so it's just simply you decide what you want, you write some sort of um procurement document, a scope of work for a designer.

You then uh get enter into a contract with a designer, designer goes through their steps to design something, and then you bid it out for construction.

So upfront time, you might be looking at six months to decide what you want a designer to look deliver for you.

Um, say another three months to uh put an RFP out, get proposals, negotiate, end up to start that design effort, and then the design effort uh 12 to 18 months, let's say.

So up front, from the time that something would be appropriated in the budget, if you started on day one, you would have a design complete, let's say two years later.

Then uh another procurement uh step, let's call that step six months.

So now we're at 30.

Um and so maybe 30 months would be in an ideal world if you had no community engagement uh or very limited or streamlined community engagement, and you had no uh property acquisition rights to deal with, you might be starting construction about 30 months after somebody if you had no staffing capacity issues.

Um then, you know, they could a construction project, maybe a relatively simpler one, let's say it's just sidewalks, that could be done in six months.

If it's something more complicated, construction can take two, maybe three years.

So nuts, five years, let's say.

Now, getting back to the kind of the specific matter at hand, how do you prioritize?

Ultimately, I I mean it's a it is there's no one short answer to that question.

It would be certainly the mayor is the exec, you know, the mayor's a boss.

And so if the mayor has uh says this is more important than that, then we uh as you know, the people who work for him or her, uh do that.

But everybody's taking feedback from the public, from council, from the city manager, everything kind of goes into that and and we and we prioritize.

Uh and I just I'll go back and I'll thank council.

When we've asked for resources, we've gotten them.

And and so it took a little bit of time.

Uh we have one, we've added a lot of capacity, and we have one more position to fill, which we're very close to uh putting that position on the street.

So m my part of that answer is that um, you know, as we've got a couple of situations in front of us that we're really very actively trying to address in this coming CIP.

And the coming CIP should look a little bit different for you guys.

Um we've obviously heard a lot of frustration about this very point of we were expecting something to move and it didn't, and why didn't it?

Some of that is related to delays that Burr has alluded to.

Either just here's the nature of the beast in terms of what a timeline really looks like, or we had trouble getting easements or other issues that came up that delayed the project.

Either way, the place that we end up has been a mismatch between when money was appropriated and when the actual work was scheduled to happen.

And so there's a set of expectations that have been set that were not necessarily accurate.

And because we haven't historically been clean about aligning the funding with the implementation timeline, those delays don't show up and become visible to council in the course of your own review of the CIP.

And so part of what the effort has been, and I I give a lot of credit to to staff in DPW and and across the city who have been engaging in in kind of this cleaning effort, has been to let's let's come to the table and let's start with a truer vision of what the implementation timeline actually looks like.

And let's try to align our planned, our budget to that expected timeline.

Because as things happen and something gets delayed, that should show up as part of what you guys see in the CIP.

And so and that opportunity for conversation and input on, okay, now I've got a project that got delayed that impinged upon what I thought we were going to be doing in this year.

Let's have a conversation about where our priorities are.

It opens up some opportunities for dialogue just by having a truer picture of what am I looking at.

So that's a that's a longer answer on on my part.

Burr, would you uh would you uh correct any of that?

No, all that sounds great, and we could actually bring this all the way back to the very tactical.

I think I understand the the point of Alder Woman's O'Neill's question or or what the uh origin of that question is it kind of relates to what the city manager just said.

Let's go back to like in the weeds.

Uh Cedar Park sidewalk phase two.

How'd you know that was?

Well, because Alder Woman O'Neill sends us emails and she lets us know when she's unhappy.

And that's and that and it's fantastic.

It it got put into the budget.

If going off of memory here, we said we think we'll we'll be able to build that in 2028.

She says, why 2028?

Um and and the answer was really all of the things I started with.

Is that when I built that budget sheet, or perhaps the project manager built that budget sheet?

We just looked at those timelines and said, it's gonna take us six months from now before we get a designer.

It's gonna take a designer 12 months.

It's gonna, you know, all of these things.

2028 is the right year to budget the construction.

So that's where we actually did it right.

We put the construction money where it's supposed to be.

Um, but she was concerned, what why so late?

Is it did I just get deprioritized because of some other project?

The answer is absolutely not.

That was a just a realistic, that's when we think it will, that's how much time we think it will take us to build this project.

Thank you.

Uh Otterman Chandelmeyer has a question.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

So I apologize if this isn't the right venue to bring up this question.

But have we ever considered doing listing out what are hurdles, both at the at the local level, like city government-wise, uh, state government-wise and federal government-wise?

What are the processes that slow down every one of our public infrastructure projects?

Whether it's we have to do this type of outreach, we have to do this type of study and go over it, and then we as a council can at least debate what we can streamline at the city level, what we can ask the state to streamline at the state level, and what we can throw into the wind for the feds to do and we'll likely get ignored.

Have we ever done that at you guys' level?

Not not formally.

Short answer, not formally.

I can give you a little bit of an explanation.

Um when it comes to federal grants, you're you're howling at the wind.

No, no, no, howling at the moon.

There's another expression.

That was a mixed metaphor.

You know, you know what I'm saying.

Um, so uh no point in trying to reform the federal government to make grant administration and and their uh you know, mess of regulations and laws that people have to comply with and how good or not good they are at uh asking us to jump through those hoops.

Forget about that.

I'm gonna take a little bit of umbrage with you saying there's no point considering my day job is uh doing that, but take it.

Yeah.

Um and so at the local level, um, with the exception of let's say city doc, uh there's I don't feel our laws and regulations really are huge impediments to us moving things forward.

When it comes to the things that we can control, um it is definitely staffing.

Um it is definitely funding, right?

But I think we're making really good progress, and and we've just self-assessed, and we said the one capability that really hurts us right now is the ability to gain uh that legal right to build something on somebody else's property.

Uh we've taken some steps uh to try to bring in some external help there.

It's been maybe helpful, but not what we would ultimately like it to be.

So that is the last remaining, I would say, enabler or capability we got we have is right-of-way acquisition.

This is something that larger municipalities have a whole department of people doing.

Maybe it's only three or four in the county, but we we we really have like 0.2 people doing this, and it's it's something that is very much a strategic priority of Betsy and I.

Cool.

Thank you.

Um Thorpe, did you have another question?

I want to make sure I have enough time for our last item.

Yeah, I I applaud this update.

So uh thank you.

It it seems to me this conversation about status of of projects from an oversight, a city council board perspective is there's two types.

There's one that you're held up because of uh private property or some effort that's gonna delay a project, and there's others that are a capacity priority.

Um and so maybe this is a new guy syndrome, but from that perspective, breaking those two separately in your briefs is been very helpful to me as you go forward.

Um on that note, how often do you give this brief to the finance committee?

Never.

Yeah, but I think that's a good thing.

This is the first time.

Okay.

So I I would ask we start to do this on a fairly routine episode, you know, periodic.

I don't know if it's quarterly or bi-monthly status, so that I think visibility and transparency is a big part of this to let people know that oh, yeah, we've been briefing this for the last six months that that it's a priority issue.

And you know, to your point, the mayor has said we're gonna put that on a back burner.

It is what it is.

Right.

So I appreciate that update.

The other thing I would add to uh add asked to add is I think the outline of hey, these are the ones that have an issue with them.

Um mainly because of the interest level of the residents.

I would ask you in the future brief to add the status of sidewalks um of where you are through the year on executing the sidewalk plan.

Great.

Um that would be very helpful.

Yeah, okay.

Um just let us know when you come a month or two.

We can come back and just do a sidewalk brief.

It's going well, it's not going well.

We'll do the whole, we'll do the whole thing.

Okay.

Uh yeah.

Let's let me say could the city manager and director probably works talk about it, come up with what is a appropriate schedule for a regular but not so regular that it is owners on you all brief, and then talk to Ms.

Jackson and we'll just put that as well.

Quarterly or I'll just tell you right now, quarterly or semi-annual, it's watching paint dry, right?

These things move slowly, that the picture won't change a lot.

So quarterly would be good.

Quarterly makes sense to me is if that makes sense to you all.

So we'll just make sure we uh Ms.

Jackson will put start putting it on our agenda.

Beautiful.

All right.

I think we're good with this.

Again, thank you guys for being here.

Thanks for the great progress on on the ones that are off track, but especially for the ones that are on track that we didn't even hear about today.

And uh really appreciate you taking the time to give this brief to us.

Thanks.

Thanks for having us.

All right.

We got a child tax credit bill to talk about.

Um, or a child care tax credit, I should say.

Child tax credit is just uh money for babies.

Um twenty-six is next up on the agenda.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh so 0126 is taking advantage of some enabling state legislation that was passed last year, uh, championed by Delegate Dana Jones, delegate Dylan Bieler, and uh our neighboring delegate Heather Bagnell.

It allows Anne Rundle County and Annapolis to provide a ten thousand dollar real property tax credit to child care facilities uh or up to ten thousand dollars.

It can also be less if what they are writing off is less than ten thousand dollars.

The goal of this legislation is to either try and encourage more child care facilities to open uh or to help other child care facilities hire more staff, or maybe this is the difference between a facility choosing to close its doors or stay open.

Uh the goal is to just get more of these facilities open that can bring down costs, bring down wait times, and help reduce the burden that we have on child care.

Sounds great.

Um I had a couple questions about the fiscal impact note.

Yes, sir.

Uh so the main one, it's really two questions.

This says potential annual decrease in city revenue of up to 850,000.

That sounds like a big scary number, but I want to dig into both the 85 and the ten thousand dollar per property.

Uh first question is how did we come up with that 85 number?

I guess that's to you, Mr.

Trudeau.

So during the or not during the um two child care bills that we had passed last year, I think this was pulled from the expanding daycare act.

Uh planning and zoning had researched how many child care facilities that we had in the city of Annapolis itself, and 85 was the number of licensed child care facilities.

Uh so during the research phase, uh that was the number that we used as the basis.

Gotcha.

But presumably not all of them own the property that they operate on, right?

And thus correctly eligible.

And also even the ones that do, not all of them could potentially get that full $10,000.

That was going to be my next question.

Yeah.

For this $10,000 figure, what do we think would be the actual average?

Is there any way to estimate that?

That is a I cannot even attempt to speculate.

It would just be me coming up with an entirely hypothetical number.

I really don't know.

But we have the detail.

Yeah, we and I mean that would take a fair bit of analysis because we don't have we don't just have the underlying data laying around.

Right.

So what what we presented here was it would be no more than this.

Right.

Potentially, you know, potentially and likely less.

How much less?

Not sure.

Won't probably very unlikely to be more.

Yeah.

I think that's a good idea.

I think that our finance team is being conservative with their estimate on this.

Like totally.

You don't want them to get reckless on this front, but I do think that this is a higher end estimate that they've come up with.

Absolutely.

And that's what I want to get on the record that this is the true fiscal impact of this is not the expected number for it is not $850,000.

That is the maximum number.

Correct.

We agree with uh Alderman Channemeyer.

Um say they are willing to help us.

Do you think it would be straightforward for the comptroller's office to provide that data to help us understand what the actual number in terms of somewhere between $1 and $10,000 would be we could try partnering with them.

Um that's why I said assuming they are willing.

Is it something that you based on your understanding of the kind of data that they have, would they be able to answer that question, you think?

And if the answer is I don't know, that's fine too.

Honestly, I don't I don't know.

Um I would hope that they would, but I I don't know for sure.

Got it.

Uh okay, those were my two big questions, and and I talked to Aldo Roman O'Neill before this.

I think that was one of her questions as well.

Um Alderman Thorpe, you got any questions?

I I do.

Um first of all, I'd like to applaud Alderman Shandemeyer for bringing this forward.

Um child care clearly is an issue uh across the city, and and arguably maybe for the more silent residents who don't have an opportunity to come to our meetings and and brief.

Busy taking care of their kids.

Exactly.

So I guess my first question is for the city manager.

Um there's several programs that the city has right now uh in support of child care, and there's more common.

Who on the city staff is responsible for recommending to the city council the best way to spend resources on child care?

Is there anybody that has that task?

Um so the city's involvement with child care um is perhaps a little bit thinner than you think it is.

So the child and family success grants don't go to individual families, they go to um they are grants more to providers and community groups.

Um the the primary involvement uh and the sort of the biggest pot of money that's out there is actually um through the Maryland Department of Education through the child care um uh I'm blanking on the program name.

But it is children and family success grant.

Is that what you're thinking of?

That's ours, but at the state level, it's it's a uh child care subsidy program.

It's got an actual name that I'm blanking on at the moment.

Um that the state number number of years ago now did a pretty serious revamp of and um increased both the limits, the income limits for and the subsidy amount for.

Um not everyone always knows that it's there.

Not all providers accept it either.

Um but one of the tasks on our side is like making sure people are aware and helping connect them to available programs.

Um there's been a uh several different pieces of legislation that council has passed to enable the provider community to um to be more robust and to sort of maximize their capacity.

So for example, last year Alderman Chandelmeyer had had introduced some legislation where the city code sort of hadn't caught up with changes at the state level.

So it caught the city up and expanded providers' ability to make maximal use of the space that they have.

But that's not something that city staff have to follow on a day in and day out basis, right?

That was that was a clearing of the DEX of the underlying rules.

So the child and family success grants that we do have and the connecting people to existing programs both reside within the Office of Community Services.

So if there's sort of anyone who's closest to that issue on a day in and day out basis in the city, it's that group.

Okay.

So I guess my question then would be this is a great program.

Um we're voting uh recommended today, and this legislation doesn't have any money behind it.

It creates the program and the the funding would be in the FY27 budget.

Um I guess the first question there's there's not an appropriation needed for this, it's a recognition that the city will forego revenue correct.

But but if the city council votes for this in this process, does the I my understanding is the the program doesn't start immediately.

It would become we would decide to do it in FY27.

Because that's a pretty big issue because if we approve it as it is now at $10,000, we are at risk for an $850,000 lack loss of revenue, which opens up the discussion for the city council based on you know how do we get better data?

We could approve a program at $3,000 tax credit or $2,000 or $5,000, which would minimize the financial risk we have.

Um I think I think we need to determine that.

I want to distinguish between two things here that you just said.

One is does this start in FY27?

And I think the answer to that is definitely yes.

Even if we passed this bill tomorrow, no one's FY26 tax bill would be lowered.

Uh so that I think that was like part of the question you were asking, and I think you knew the answer to that.

Yeah.

The the other part as I'm understanding what you're asking is is this mandatory 10,000?

Or up uh understanding that's a maximum, right?

Some people, even if we say 10,000 is allowed, will ask for less.

Yeah.

Is this mandatory 10,000, or could we later, as part of the budget for FY27, have it be some lower number?

Is that the question you're asking?

Yeah, to clarify the way the legislation is written, it is up to 10,000.

So my understanding of the legislation is the city council could vote to up to 5,000 um tax credit.

We don't have to go to the full 10.

Um as a program.

I mean, yeah, the the dollar value is contained, you know, the maximum dollar value is contained in here, and obviously that's that's a discussion for council and a decision for council.

In terms of the adoption, the language that's currently in here is that the tax credit shall apply to the next full taxable year after the date of adoption.

So that's not so that's not a this this tax year problem.

It's a next tax.

So that would be calendar year 27.

That's the tax year.

Right, but that's also the fiscal year, right?

Because that money comes into us for the FY27 budget.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I do appreciate wanting to be cautious and coming in and trying to do like a pilot and testing out these tax credits, maybe at a lower amount.

Uh something to flag as a potential consequence of that.

The enabling legislation that was passed at the end of Rundle, that was uh uh the enabling legislation that the state passed for Anne Rundle County was based on enabling legislation that was passed at Montgomery County, which was also up to $10,000.

Uh Montgomery County's original amount was $3,000.

And the same year that Anna Rundle passed its, Montgomery County upped its to 10,000 because the $3,000 amount was uh wildly insufficient.

And not worth it to apply.

Yeah, it was just I wouldn't even say it wasn't worth it to apply, it was just insufficient.

I don't like to be the guy that says little helping hands aren't worth it, but it just wasn't enough based on the scale of the lack of child care providers that are present.

Um I normally appreciate and understand wanting to try little bets, but I think this is the case where we have to try and put some weight behind it if we want to see success in this program.

Yeah, I guess I guess my my challenge with it is twofold.

One is from a budget director's standpoint, I think we've got to give him a target for what he should expect to lose in revenue.

Um whether that and no matter how how you figure out how to do that, the first number of applicants get it up till X number of dollars gets it, or cap the number lower than 10.

I guess I'm just not comfortable with uh putting together a program that could cost the city eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars in revenue, even if it was seven hundred thousand dollars in revenue.

Um they've got a plan for that.

And so and that my challenge is compounded by right now we don't have everybody in the city saying, hey, I do child care for the city, and there's a better way to spend that $700,000, and this is where it is.

Um and then that's all compounded by the fact of we need to figure out how we measure success of this program.

And that's that's one of the things that I think we need to spend some time camping out on is the measure of success that we spent six hundred thousand dollars, or that we we gave up six hundred thousand dollars in revenue.

Um, and how do we measure how do we know that that did improve the amount of child care provided to our young parents?

So it's a three-fold problem, but it starts at the beginning.

Well I think this is such a complex problem that I frankly don't have a lot of good answers on how can you measure each exact thing in a tangible number.

How can we measure which child care facility was thinking about closing, but ten thousand dollars is the difference between keeping their doors open and walking away.

How can we measure which child care facility is now able to hire a new staff member and therefore able to take on new children?

We can theoretically measure new weight uh decrease in wait times overall, but again that's potentially going to be seen in a longer term basis.

I'm not expecting to see 20 percent drops in wait times overnight.

We're kind of trying to lay the bait out to have more facilities come in in the future.

But this is still worth trying.

We know this is a crisis now.

We have heard from the state that this is something that they are putting in for our jurisdiction, that they have some belief and basis behind thinking that this will work.

I'm going to take their expertise and work behind it that this is a thing worth trying out.

Yeah, I'm not disagreeing with anything you just said.

I just I just think that you know, back to problem number one.

We don't have anybody in the city that's managing this program, managing child care as a program.

And so if we're gonna invest almost a million dollars, including other programs, should we have somebody in community services who's tasked with measuring the product of this plan?

And maybe that's a question for the city manager.

I didn't mean I didn't mean to be um I'm sorry.

My my hesitation is uh just there are potentially a number of reasons why council might have an interest in child care, what you measure obviously ends up being a reflection of what behavior you were looking to incentivize.

Um so um you know that that can range from uh incentivizing um investment in child care centers themselves.

So um, you know, what what has happened in some sense to the to the property tax bill, all things being equal, right?

That should be a reflection of the of the delta of of investment in in the property itself, wait times, um businesses.

There's probably any number of ways that that can be looked at.

Um the cost benefit analysis of that is again.

I mean, that's that's something that we can help to measure, but that's a place where we're gonna follow the music that's written by the council.

That's not where we're writing the music.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, Mr.

Chairman.

I guess I guess where I am on this is I would I would uh recommend we move forward with this um legislation with the caveat that we are able to adjust the amount of the tax credit before it goes into effect.

Okay, I think um I think that's a question.

That is a question that we can answer in a factual way.

Like we can look and see is that currently the case under the legislation as it's written.

And if it is not the case, then you could offer an amendment on it.

Yeah.

So okay.

Uh that sounds like a motion for favorable recommendation to me.

Does that make sense to you, Alderman Chandelmeyer?

It yeah, I mean, it seems like you like the idea, but you don't like the number.

No, I'm just worried.

Uh it's not that I don't like the number.

It's I don't like the the two parts that I talked about.

Is this the best place to spend the money and the uncertainty of the number?

So I'd I'd rather have a a certainty that you know.

You want to get that fiscal note range above other things.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that that would be something I'd like to see as well.

Try to get a better handle, and maybe we can work with the finance department on updating that to right now.

It's somewhere between zero dollars and eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and we'd like to see a smaller range on that.

All right.

With that, uh is there a motion for a favorable recommendation?

So moved.

Second, all those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Um all those opposed, no, nobody's here.

Motion carries.

Is there a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

Second, all those in favor, please say aye.

Aye, aye.

Meeting adjourned 1151 a.m.