Not just in the moments of celebration, but in the daily work of serving our community with honesty, compassion, and purpose.

And now the special meeting of the Annapolis City Council on Monday, February 23rd, 2026 will be called to order at 7 p.m.

At this time, we'll have a moment of silence to prepare ourselves to the business ahead.

At this time, would everyone willing and able please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States and to the republic.

One nation underground.

Thank you.

Madam City Clerk, will you please call the role?

Yes.

Yes, sir.

Mayor Lincoln.

Present.

Alderman Huntley.

Here.

Alderwoman O'Neill.

President.

Alderman Smith Brown.

Alderwoman Alphabet Johnson.

Present.

Alderman Channel Meyer.

President.

Alwyn Conte.

Present.

Alderman Savage.

President.

Alderman Thor.

Present.

Ms.

City Attorney, will you please present the next item on the agenda?

Next item on the agenda is approval of the agenda.

At this time, I'd entertain a motion to approve the agenda.

Thank you, Alderman Chandemeyer.

Is there a second?

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any nays.

The motion carries.

Ms.

City Attorney, will you please present the next item on the agenda?

Next item on the agenda is petitions, reports, and communications, beginning with the update from the mayor.

Thank you.

It's another bit of a long one.

Good evening.

It's the final week of Black History Month when we take time to honor, recognize, and celebrate African American history and the contributions of Black Annapolitans, not only to the fabric of our city, but to Maryland and our nation.

Celebrating our diversity is something I intend to do not just in February, but throughout our throughout the year.

In preparation of the 250th anniversary of the United States, we have presented, along with the Anna Ronald County Public Library, a month-long history and culture series rooted in revolution.

250 years of black history in Annapolis.

The fourth and final session will be held tomorrow, February 23rd at 5:30 p.m.

at the Michael Bush Library on West Street.

The theme will be Living Legacy, Black Annapolis today and tomorrow, highlighting contemporary Black leadership, arts and culture, youth voices, and future vision.

This series is free and open to the public.

Doors open at 5 p.m.

with food and refreshments and time to mingle.

And the program starts at 5 30 p.m., which will be streamed live on the city's Facebook page.

We hope to see you there.

As mayor, I believe it's important to support and uplift city staff.

And I'd like to highlight two city staffers whose recent accomplishments demonstrate outstanding service.

The first is the planning department's creation of a real-time system for managing and tracking permit applications.

The mastermind of this system is Stephanie Connor, an analyst in the city's IT department.

Stephanie joined city government in 2007 and was quickly promoted to IT analyst after only two years.

She took on a new challenge in 2021 when the city began implementing a new permitting and licensing system.

Stephanie took the lead on the project, oversaw implementation, and has continued to diligently develop the system ever since.

Throughout numerous code and fee changes, she has masterfully adapted the system, consistently assisting both staff and the public with issues that arise, often working long hours to do so.

I want to commend Stephanie Connor for her hard work and dedication.

Over the past few months, the permitting process has seen progress in faster turnarounds and ease of understanding, and the important work of public Stephanie's public servants like Stephanie is a major reason for those improvements.

I also want to commend the human resources and finance departments for their efficiency in creating a new job posting for the city.

Chris Jacobia, Director of the Department of Planning and Zoning, had requested the creation of a new position to improve and enforce the city zoning code.

After the mayor and city council approved this position, HR and Finance worked quickly to authorize recruitment.

Director Jacobia has voiced his appreciation for how quickly he has been able to fill this important position, and I want to echo that appreciation.

As a small business owner, I know that employees make the business.

Our city government is incredibly lucky to have so many dedicated and passionate servants, public servants.

City employees work hard every day to deliver tangible results for Annapolis residents, and I want to commend and appreciate them when I can.

Speaking of filling city positions, I'd like to recognize the new deputy director of the finance department, Karen Ajayi.

Director, Deputy Director Ajay brings decades of experience as a certified public accountant and tax specialist, including public sector experience with Anna Rundle County.

She holds a master's from Old Dominion University and a BA in accounting from Clark Atlanta University.

Welcome, Deputy Director Ajaye.

Thank you to everyone who attended our town hall in Ward 8 last Thursday.

Alderman Thorpe and I were incredibly grateful to have more than 100 residents join us at the Eastport Fire Station.

Attendees were able to meet city directors and chiefs and learn how the city government works for them.

To any residents, Ward 8 or otherwise, who weren't able to join us last Thursday, you can watch the recording of the town hall by visiting the city's YouTube site.

Search for search by using the keyword Mayor Town Hall Ward 8.

Next up, we'll be visiting Ward 5 at 6.30 p.m.

on Tuesday, March 3rd.

You can join Alderman Chandelmeyer and I at the Pitt Moyer Rec Center.

A week later, Alderman Smith Brown and I will be at Mount Olive Community Center, also starting at 6:30 p.m.

on Tuesday, March 10th, where you can meet with and ask questions of me, Alderman Shandemeyer, Alderman Smith Brown, and the directors in chiefs.

We'll be holding two town halls in each ward over the year.

That's 16 total, which means there'll be plenty of opportunities to participate.

If you want to know when we'll be in your ward, head to Annapolis.gov, search engagement opportunities.

That'll take you to page with all the currently scheduled town halls.

Construction work on the city, Annapolis City Dock Resilience Project is officially underway with heavy equipment making its way into and out of the job site on Dock Street between 7 a.m.

and 4 p.m.

each work weekday.

As with any construction project, the work, while temporary in nature, can be messy and disruptive.

The project is progressing in order to advance flood mitigation efforts that will protect our historic downtown in the long term.

Throughout the project lifespan, which was initiated in 2019, the city has worked on both short and long-term solutions to downtown flooding from sunny day, storm-related, and stormwater events.

Also in 2019, the city installed backflow preventers and temporary pumps in the storm drains on Dock Street, which have significantly reduced nuisance flooding for several years.

These systems were designed as an as interim measures, and further expanding them would not provide a dependable long-term solution.

For that reason, the city is focused on delivering the permanent flood protection infrastructure now under construction through the City Dock Resiliency Project.

Downtown Annapolis is the economic and historic heart of our city.

Protecting the businesses, residents, and public spaces from increasingly frequent and severe tidal flooding has been and continues to be the reason for this infrastructure project, one of the largest such investments in the city's history.

As anyone who has endured a kitchen renovation knows, construction projects can be trying, and this massive project is no exception.

We thank the public for their patience as we execute on the flood protection that has downtown waterfront area has long deserved.

We ask residents and visitors to continue patronizing businesses on Dock Street during construction.

They're open and ready to serve you.

Eliza May has left an indelible mark on the Annapolis community by blending activism with art.

A fearless leader and mentor, she organized the longest rent strike in Ana Rundle County history.

She also uplifts her community through creativity, capturing the past and present with her powerful poetry.

In recognition of her decades of important work, Eliza May has received numerous honors.

The community center at Woolborn Estates in Ward 4 is named after her.

She sorry, she's been honored numerous times by the city.

The most recent being her work to support the Pering J.

Mitchell Memorial.

Despite the praise and accolades, Eliza May remains humble and gracious.

When I interviewed her last year for Knaptown Scoop, she said she was just thankful for having been blessed with a long life and the ability to help people.

Today we recognize both her long life and the many ways she's helped Annapolis over her 95 years.

I hope you'll all join me in wishing Eliza Mae Robinson a very happy 95th birthday.

Restaurant Week has begun in Annapolis.

If you are looking for an opportunity to check out the many great restaurants that Annapolis has to offer, now's your chance.

Scores of participating restaurants will be offering price-fixed menus for lunch and dinner until March 1st.

This is a great opportunity to explore new restaurants and support local businesses who always struggle during the colder months.

All the information you need can be found at Annapolis Restaurant Week.com.

Happy dining.

This annual event seeks to beautify our city by planting and maintaining flower and vegetable gardens in public spaces throughout the city.

If you want to help plan the 34th annual greenscape, come to our organizational meeting this Wednesday, March 4th.

Next Wednesday.

If you plan on attending Greenscape on April 25th, make sure you fill out the order form for plant materials and submit it by March 4th.

You can find all the information you need by on Annapolis.gov.

Search for Greenscape.

Speaking of annual events that involve the color green, St.

Patrick's Day Parade is coming up on September, sorry, March 8th, Sunday at 1 p.m.

Proceeds benefit local charities, including Warrior Events.

The parade will have a new route this year, starting on West Street on Amos Garrett Boulevard.

From there, the parade will make its way down West Street, traveling around church circle before continuing down Northwest Street to Calvert to St.

John Street.

Residents should expect rolling road closures and parking restrictions along the parade route from approximately 1 to 3 p.m.

Please follow police direction and posted no parking signage.

We hope you'll all enjoy the 14th annual St.

Patrick's Day Parade.

And of course, if you're celebrating with alcohol, please drink responsibly and utilize designated drivers, taxis, or ride share.

I'd like to give a shout out to Knapptown Events for producing the parade and sponsoring the Huli at the Naval Academy Alumni Center on March 7th.

For more information on the parade in Hooli, visit WW St.

Patrick's Weekend.com.

Lastly, just a reminder that the city is accepting applications for the positions of city manager, city attorney, and finance director.

If you are or know an experienced public sector leader who wants to get involved in local government, check out the applications by going to the city managers page on Annapolis.gov or go to Annapolis.gov and search for jobs with the city for the other two positions.

And now let's get on with the meeting.

Next item on the agenda is the reports by committees.

Okay.

Are there any council members who would like to present?

Janice was at the Alderman Savage and then Alderman Schandemeyer.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Just a few things I wanted to go over from the last environmental matters committee meeting.

We did recommend favorably R 336, which is water service agreement with North Point property LC, that's right outside my ward uh in the county.

It's just a single uh building that's gonna be it's an old residential house that's gonna be used uh by the um Chesapeake Harbor.

Uh and then we postponed action on R 126, which is the annual statement performance standards.

And that's because we received a request two reasons.

We received a request from the city manager's office um because I believe some of the departments were adjusting some of the performance standards, but also the committee wanted to um had a dialogue with um the deputy city manager for resilience sustainability as far as updating some of the environmental standards.

Um that will be on our next agenda.

And we also received two great reports that encourage anybody who has an interest to watch them.

First one was from Planet Zoning from uh Mr.

Brian Adams, the city's arborist, urban forester.

And um I will send out some information because he put together a slide dealing with some of the ecosystem.

Oh, there it is.

Perfect.

Thank you to the studio.

Just some of the ecosystem benefits to Annapolis from our urban tree canopy.

And a couple just two interesting highlights I wanted to just mention for today.

One was only seven percent of our tree canopy covers impervious surfaces.

And so think about what that means.

That means so our parking lots, think about the big grocery stores, apartment complexes.

Only seven percent of the have uh coverage, canopy coverage.

So again, just keep that in mind as far as as we look to some of us hopefully tweak and relax our parking requirements so that we can start to remove parking spaces to put in tree wells or or uh and or some stormwater management.

So there's a lot of um benefits that we can get as far as cooling the urban area by installing some trees.

Uh the last thing on that was um okay.

We also talked with staff about getting some of the full program costs incorporated into the watershed restoration fund to cover the uh tree canopy goal.

That is that was the intention of an amendment we had, I think last year, the year before, which I think it was two years ago.

Um, but I just want to make sure that's continues forward uh in this year's budget.

We also received a very detailed uh another excellent report from public works on the um the uh on the city's MS4 program, the stormwater program, and um just two things to highlight there would be we went over the non-resident, so the watershed restoration fund, the stormwater fee, there's a residential fee, and then there's a non-residential.

We went over in detail the non-residential fee structure because currently it's tiered, and so there are a lot of gaps between the tier uh as far as square footage.

And so what we're looking to do is move towards a model that's based similar to what they have in the county as far as based on your actual impervious uh square footage of impervious surface on the properties.

And so that makes for much more equitable um assessment of the stormwater fee, and that ties in really tightly with the other thing that the um public works is working on, which is enhancing the incentive program.

And so these non-residential properties and soon residential will be able to get um it'll be a clearly spelled out incentive program, and um I think we're gonna get more details on that at our next meeting, and also go into some more details about the residential fee structure at the next meeting.

And this is kind of in again in anticipation and preparation for the budget.

Um, so that's all I have.

I don't have handy the next the date of the next meeting, but um I think I'll report on that in the next meeting.

Would you like to mention the save our trees event tomorrow?

Or if you don't have the details, I can do it.

Oh, please do.

Uh tomorrow is uh Save Our Trees is holding their fourth annual community forum.

It's also at the Michael Bush Library beginning at 5:30 and continuing to 7 30, I believe.

I think it's a two-hour event.

Uh thank you, Alderman Savage, for the report.

Alderman Chandemeyer.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh, economic matters is going to be meeting on Wednesday, March 18th.

Uh, but I want to put this on people's calendar because we are having one of our newest maritime businesses joining to present their uh new company and how a lot of the incentives that we've been putting forward to attract the maritime industry here to Annapolis have been helping, some things we could potentially improve and just general the status of the industry.

I'm very excited to hear from them.

Great, thank you, Alderman Schondermeyer.

Anyone else?

Uh Alderman Smith Brown and Oldman Huntley.

Uh thank you.

Uh so our rules and city government committee meeting will be on March the 5th at 6:30 p.m.

Uh at this meeting.

We have welcomed the Anona County Board of Elections as well as the Maryland State Board of Elections to speak on uh some very important matters and reforming our election system in Annapolis uh at this meeting uh virtually will be our Anorona County Board president or chair uh of the elections, but uh we will have a representative of the David Jarris will be joining us, and this is the coordinator of the elections, and he's going to speak specifically about rank choice voting, uh ballots being sent automatically to people's homes, uh, nonpartisan voting, uh, non-citizen voting, uh lowering the voter age as well as operational issues uh with our partnership uh with the county uh slash state.

We will have the chair uh join us afterwards at our April meeting.

Uh she will specifically talk about our MOU and partnership uh with uh the county elections board.

Uh she's also gonna have a deep discussion on some transitionary items uh from what has been uh the partnership, what is currently the partnership, and what should be or will be uh the partnership.

Uh so if anyone has any questions, please feel free to provide those to us so that we can present them.

Uh we will also have um uh a plan to invite a ranked choice voting representative, which I did when I was the chair of the board of supervisors of elections, and we want to bring them on a fourth to to provide us some more information on if we do decide to transition there.

Um and Trudy, by the way, is the the chair's name of the Android County Board of Elections.

Uh we will also have a state representative uh where we can ask those questions as well.

Um that is again March 5th at 6 30 p.m.

If you have questions, please provide them to us so that we can uh present them.

Thank you, Alderman Smith Brown, Alderman Huntley.

Thank you.

I was actually not at our last finance committee hearing, so maybe I should ask all the Roman O'Neill to present on it.

But I did have two things I wanted to make the public aware of for our finance committee meetings that we're now having regular updates from our public works director, both on the status of capital projects, which we did at our second to last meeting and heard about anyone sitting off track to make sure we're staying on top of those.

And then also, thanks to Alderman Thorpe's great idea.

We're gonna soon have regular updates on the status of sidewalk improvements specifically.

So I'm very excited to be getting those regular updates at our um finance committee meetings.

Thank you.

Okay, anyone else?

Okay.

Uh Ms.

City Attorney, would you please call the next item on the agenda?

Next item on the agenda is comments by the general public.

I will be inviting speakers uh listed on the sign-up sheets, come forward and I'll ask you to start with your name and address for the record, starting with Mr.

Brock, followed by Ms.

Packler, then Mr.

Storm.

Uh Mr.

Hit the button, I don't think they should be bright green.

No, I know I'm usually way louder than that.

There we go.

Thank you.

FA Brock, 1306 President Street, Annapolis, Maryland, Eastport.

Um mayor and new members of the council.

The weather has taken a turn for the cold again.

Uh and though it has done that, and the sidewalks are in a much better condition than they were the last three weeks.

I kind of miss the ice that had thawed over Spa Creek and all of the bay.

It was quite a miracle not seen for the last dozen years or so.

I had a chance to go ice sailing uh on the eastern shore, which started small and got bigger day after day after day, and it was an incredible experience.

Uh and some people in town also got to enjoy uh accessing the water and the ice.

Uh I'm sure many of you saw very cool videos of people playing at the tip of Spa Creek, uh venturing out carefully but excitingly onto the ice.

And I was thinking of something about how easy it is to do that in some parts of town, but not in other parts of town.

And if you live on one side of Spa Creek, west of the bridge, there are twelve public parks from which you can access Spa Creek.

If you live on the south side of Spa Creek, west of the bridge, there is one, maybe generously one and a half if you're willing to fight for it again.

Points of public water access to Spa Creek.

So you couldn't, if you were a kid wanting to go shoot a hockey puck around, something that you may never get a chance to do again.

Do that from our side of the creek.

Twelve versus one.

The other half is Wells Cove.

Uh I would love for this council and this new city leadership to revisit the awfully written uh request for a deed of land, uh deed of easement.

My apologies under the former city attorney, uh, so that we can actually access the water there too.

It took coming here with rotten pieces of wood and rusty nails from Burnside Park to convince uh that to be added to the city's waterway improvement fund project.

Um and I encourage the older people from Wardate and and my older person to support that and encourage that along uh so that thousands of residents that you guys represent uh can do just as they did on the north side of Spa Creek.

With these comments, because I may not get to be here on Monday nights as often as I like.

I would like to express support quickly for 0326, adjusting the harbor lines for Hawkins Cove, which will be introduced this evening.

Just wrap it up, Ms.

Brock.

Yes.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Ms.

Beckler and then Mr.

Storm and Mr.

Tomasini.

My name is Jess Packler, and I am a resident of 506 President Street.

And I would like to wholeheartedly endorse everything that Mr.

Brock said, particularly about Wells Cove.

And I think you can actually just ignore the deed of easement as it was called, as there was already an easement that was legally in place, uh signed by the city and legally enacted in 1992 that should stand because it was never uh taken away.

But that is not why I'm here tonight.

But thank you for supporting Wells Cove because we do need public water access, and which is why I'm here to offer support for 0326 Annapolis Harbor Lines at Hawkins Cove.

My child was one of those children on our side of Eastport that was trying to get out on the water, could not get out on the water because there is no public access on our side of Eastport.

And he did want to take um advantage of they did, my children wanted to take advantage of the ice.

But just in general, all of our children and all of our residents on the president's side of Eastport should have access to the water.

Maybe we can't get 12, but we should at least, I don't know, three or four um accesses.

And part of that for Hawkins Cove is going to rely on uh approving the harbor line change so that the entire project at Harvest Co.

at Hawkins Cove can go forward, uh, including the natural shoreline and the building of the pier.

I know there is some concern among the neighbors that the pier is long, and I understand that when you've had a very protected cove for a very long time, you might be afraid of other people using your cove.

However, it is a public cove, it is public water, and the public should have access to that water.

And there are plenty of places all over Anerondo County that if you want to live on the water in a place where no one else can access your piece of water, you can move to.

But in the city of Annapolis, in an urban, small urban environment like ours, public water access should be more important than anything else.

So please approve and move forward with 0326, Annapolis Harbor Lines and Hawkins Cove.

Give Hawkins Cove what has been put forth now is a great plan that does not offer a ton of parking.

It really does make a public access for the neighborhood, and it really creates what all in the neighborhood have been asking for a long time to have.

So please uh move forward with uh Annapolis Harbor Lines at Hawkins Cove, support that, and give all of us in our side of Eastport a little bit more public water access.

Thank you, Mr.

Storm and then Mr.

Thomasini.

So for the conversation about our care and concern over the flooding on the city dock, why is it necessary to continue it?

Last Friday, you did it again.

I'm sorry, but it's difficult to comprehend the lack of empathy the city government has for the city dock businesses.

In 2018, the parking area at the city dock had to be barricaded 70 times, and as you said, truthfully in 2019, a flood remediation pump system that had been promised for over a decade, was finally installed.

And for the next three years, that system worked perfectly, resulting in only one instance of the city dock having to be barricaded.

Then all of a sudden, despite our many pleas before this same body, and for those of you who have been here for a while, you've heard me talk about this.

The pumps were shut off and they were kept off, resulting in 120 instances of street flooding over the next three years.

Was it intentional?

Don't doubt for one minute that it wasn't.

Once I was caught and confronted by a city official for turning the breaker back on, my reply was, How did you know it was off?

Each time the unnecessary flooding occurred, I wanted to direct a fire hose at the front door of Buckley's restaurant, tsunami, so he could experience what we were going through because I had shown him and taken him down there as I took Harry down there as well.

Now we're being flooded from the city's contractor putting sediment control liners in the storm drains, and I believe Harry, you'll recommend you'll remember when I showed you those and how quickly they plug up.

Both Whiting Turner and the city are aware that these liners plug up quickly and need to be attended to frequently.

In actuality, there's no reason for these off-site measures as the contractors responsible for implementing proper sediment control on site.

The city promised us we would no longer have to worry about being flooded once this work started.

This is just another of the many promises made to Dock Street merchants that have been broken.

Annapolitans deserve answers that we've been promised, not canned, carefully prepared, circle the wagons answers from politicians, but open, honest, straightforward answers.

We were told we wouldn't have to file MPI requests, and we were promised the things that we've asked for, but I guess that's not true either.

So please back up your answers with a copy of the city's contract with Whiting Turner, as well as accurate and detailed information on the sources of the funding for this project.

The state's broke.

So citizens don't believe they can come up with their financial commitment.

And we certainly have no reason to believe we will receive the FEMA money as it's been shut off to Maryland.

FEMA canceled one billion dollars for flood prevention projects in Chesapeake Bay Ridge and Region.

On April 4th, 2025, FEMA announced it was pulling the plug on the disaster preparedness funding called BRIC, the Building Resistance Infrastructure and Communities Program to help communities to invest in massive projects to fight disaster threats such as flooding.

This is where the city told us that the FEMA money was coming from.

Well, now all of the other Maryland communities in line to receive these funds have acknowledged it won't happen except one city.

That's ours.

One last comment.

Our repeated quest to former Governor Gavin Buckley and current mayor Jared Littman have yielded the same denial that the FEMA funding is gone.

Prove us wrong.

By the way, if you doubt what I was saying about the flooding, feel free to visit my Storm Brothers Facebook page.

It's had over 200 shares in the time that this has happened.

So please take a look at the photos.

Thank you for your comments, Mr.

Storm.

Mr.

Thomasine.

Good evening, all my name is Mike Tomasini.

I'm a resident of Esport 212 Eastern Avenue, a small business owner also on Third Street, uh 311 3rd Street here on Spa Creek.

Um tough act to follow, Mr.

Storm.

Uh I'll keep it brief.

I'm here in support of 0326, which is a harbor line adjustment for the Hawkins Cove project.

Um when I first had this legislation come across my email, I was like, hmm, pretty innocuous.

Who's not gonna vote for a harbor line change for a municipal project that's going to expand water access to people that don't really get a lot of it?

And then I thought, hmm, in this town, maybe uh a couple of committee meetings, a couple of loud neighbors, and this goes away and it doesn't happen.

So I'm gonna uh plead with you all.

Um I believe that this legislation is about possibilities.

It's not about what is going to happen in Hawkins Cove.

It's about what can happen or what might happen, or what will happen if plenty of people support it.

But if we don't pass this one, we never get to those possibilities.

This is about opening a door of potentially developing a really impactful project.

And I've said this before in these types of meetings.

My line of work, I get to introduce a lot of people to the water for the very first time.

A lot of ospreys diving from high heights to catch fish, a lot of stingrays gliding along the tops of the water, a lot of horseshoe crabs, and kids who see that for the very first time are engaged in their environment.

And there's a whole group of kids in this city who don't get it.

Kids who come to my business from Montgomery County and Vienna and wherever else, they don't get it where they live either.

They just don't live close to it.

So these kids, these neighbors should have an opportunity to experience that first hand.

And Hawkins Cove is a great first place to do it.

So please support this.

I'm expecting all nine votes.

And thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Thomasine.

If there's anyone else present who would like to come forward and speak, please do so.

And if there's anyone else after this speaker, feel free to line up against the wall so we could call you next.

Hi, everybody.

I'm Chris Arich.

I am the uh commissioner for Art and Public Places for Ward 5.

And I'm here, obviously, because we are on the docket today, and I'm very concerned about that.

I have a lot of thoughts, and I feel that we haven't had you start with your name, but can you add your address, please?

Christina Rich, 1237 Youngst Farm Road, Annapolis.

And I'm here tonight because I care so much.

And I wasn't gonna speak tonight, but I'm inspired by all of you who are here about Hawkins Cove.

And it made me realize as Ward Commissioner that there are probably a lot of artists that would like to have more access to the water as well.

So today, excuse me, I have a bit of a cold, but today I wanted to stand up for them as well because I think this is really important.

And I am anxious to hear what you all are going to have to say tonight with regards to art in public places.

And again, I didn't plan to speak tonight, but I do feel that some of the decisions or the reasoning for legislation tonight.

We didn't know anything about it.

The rest of the commissioners, we lost our chair.

We didn't hear anything about it.

So to me, and um I might ask the new mayor if we could have more communication with the city moving forward.

And I do hope that there is a real positive outcome tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And is there anyone else that would like to speak tonight during the general comment period?

Okay.

Seeing no one uh coming forward, no motion.

I declare comments by the public by the general public closed.

Miss City Attorney, please call the next item on the agenda.

Next item on the agenda is public hearings beginning with 0226 mooring requirements in city waters.

Thank you.

So for those individuals, I will call you up in a second that you wish to uh speak.

Please provide your name and address for the record.

We'll start with Janet Neves, followed by Miss Packler, followed by Miss Pat Node.

Good evening, um, mayor and members of the council.

My name's Janet Neves.

I live at 105 Eastern Avenue Annapolis.

Um I wanted to come here tonight to say that first off, I do support safe and well managed waterways as a boater and sailor myself, and um I do live on my boat on a power boat.

Um that is not my concern about this.

My concern is the wording.

Um, if this ordinance defines all moorings in the city as city moorings, there are um that goes far beyond clarifying just the spacing and stuff for um the moorings that were put in in Spa Creek and Bat Creek.

Um words in these codes matter, they define ownership and responsibility and long-term policy.

Um there is a significant significant difference between saying transient moorings are city owned and redefining all moorings and city waters and city moorings.

So I have a lot of friends that will come up from all over the country or come down, like let's say they're in Maine and they come to see um the Annapolis boat show.

Um there's no space for them to go and anchorages.

So they will go into Weems Creek and go into um the anchor spots there to be to have a safe protected area, and will can borrow or rent other um people's private moorings.

So my concern is that getting off topic, my concern is that if you define all of the the moorings, private moorings as city moorings, then those folks that have private moorings already and are in um they are not in violation of any code.

Are you then taking away all of these private moorings in which they've paid for, they've done everything responsibly.

Um, are you then taking all of these away just by the wording in this code?

So I do urge you to um kind of just maybe look over all of it, um, look over the wording, make sure that we use the correct language so that we're not taking away people's private moorings.

Um thank you.

Thank you.

Ms.

Ms.

Nevis, and for other speakers on this topic, once we're done with the public hearing, I'm going to be inviting Ms.

Gill to speak to the table to speak to the council about this legislation to um to address some of the concerns that have been raised.

So you might want to stick around if you were about to head out.

Thank you.

My name is Jess Packler and I'm 506 President Street Annapolis, Maryland.

I'm here to testify about the mooring requirements in city waters.

Um by all means clarifying that the moorings um not be installed within 75 feet of another mooring rather than the way it's currently written makes sense.

And fixing that wording um makes sense, and I I'm in support of that particular thing.

I think that the rest of this uh bill ordinance needs to be pulled.

There are a lot of pieces of this ordinance that are in direct conflict with other parts of city code, including the piece about private moorings.

There's a whole section of city code that addresses private moorings.

There are private moorings in the city of Annapolis, even though the Harbormaster has said repeatedly through email that there are not.

Um, but that's addressed in city code, and this code does not address that addressing in city code.

There are other things about moorings, about the definition of moorings that are addressed in city code and other places that are not addressed by this ordinance, and so there's gonna create a conflict of there.

There is also an issue with the fact that this ordinance puts all of the control over moorings in the harbor master's lap as opposed to the way it is in city code right now, where it's through Port Wardens, again in a different part of City Code.

That is another conflict in this ordinance that needs to be taken care of.

It is not a well-written ordinance by all means, make it so that the moorings are supposed to be 75 feet from another mooring as opposed to boat from boat.

I understand that that makes sense, but the rest of the ordinance really does need to be taken down and revisited and figured out what's going on, especially considering the numerous public statements that our current harbormaster has made in multiple public meetings about how she needs to get better control of the moorings in the mooring fields so that she can minimize or eliminate the number of anchorages that we have in our city and the access to for transient boaters to our city waters.

That is a major concern.

It's a concern that I've had since I watched her in the maritime advisory board meeting in January of 2025.

She has made that comment repeatedly, and what I would really hate to see is something that is supposedly innocuous, we're just gonna fix some warding, turn into we've now completely changed the entire way that we access boats and that we allow boats to access Annapolis, whether it's a transient coming from Maine or Europe or anywhere else.

We are the sailing and boating capital.

That's what we call ourselves.

And yet we have a harbormaster who has repeatedly stated that she would like to reduce the number of transient boaters that can come in.

She wants to get rid of anchorages in the winter, she wants to get rid of minimize the number of anchorages in general.

And that doesn't fit.

We need to have a larger conversation as a city, if that's the case as to what we want to be as a maritime city, what we want to support as a maritime city, how that will affect both our maritime and our tourist businesses, and how that affects all of us and our public access to water because public access to water isn't just being able to walk off the land, it's being able to be on the water.

So please revisit this entire ordinance and reconsider perhaps starting all over again.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Peckler.

Good evening.

My name is Carrie Crumba Patnod.

Um I live at 350 Crownsville, Maryland.

Um my sailboat is a resident of Weems Creek.

I am one of those elusive private mooring owners.

My husband and I bought our first sailboat back in 2018, right after my mom suddenly died.

And we bought this old 1966 hinterholder shark.

And when we bought it, we weren't actually gonna be able to purchase it because we had no place to put it.

But the previous owner sold the mooring that came with the boat when he bought it from the prior owner to us.

So from my understanding, talking to the owner, that mooring has been in Weems Creek for years and probably decades.

So we got a hold of the Harbor Master, she told us we needed to inspect and maintain it, which we have, and then we upgraded to a 1980 hunter.

So when we followed the rules of the Harbor Master, and we actually got a license marine contractor who upgraded the moorings so it's safe and stays put where it is and where it's supposed to be.

And I'm a lawyer and I practice law under a different last name.

And I read this legislation, and as far as I can tell, by the plain meaning of the words in this proposed ordinance, my private mooring would be obsolete.

It would be prohibited.

So all of a sudden, I bought this mooring with my husband, who would love to be here today, but he's with our little kids, and we put significant money into maintaining and upgrading this, which frankly, if I knew that this would ever happen, we never would have done anything to beef up the mooring.

We would have figured something else out.

So I would ask that for the rest of us, like because I know I'm not the only person in Williams Creek, there are multiple private moorings.

I don't know who they are particularly.

We know a couple of them, but I mean, I can only imagine that you have city residents, not just boat residents, that this is gonna affect.

And I feel like the legislation hasn't fully been thought through because when we're talking about pub private moorings and the harbor master's offices saying they don't exist.

Well, here I am.

So I would ask that you take more time to review the ordinance and figure out how we want to define.

I say we, I used to be a resident, um, how we would want to define all of these terms because if my mooring goes away, then honestly, we're not gonna be able to keep our boat.

I understand there's a four to five year or maybe longer waiting list, and I think it's like 2,000, $3,000.

So my first boat that was, you know, five dimes put together with with a mooring that came with all of a sudden I'm gonna be well, if I can even get one, which I won't, I we're not gonna be able to have a boat anymore.

And so I would ask for people that are in a similar position that you look at this and do not adopt this legislation.

Thank you.

Okay.

Is there anyone else present who would like to speak to this legislation?

Seeing no motion in chambers, I declare the public hearing on 02 26, sorry, 0 to 26 closed before we move on to the next item on the agenda.

Invite Ms.

Gould Gild to address this legislation, perhaps answer some questions from council.

Good evening, Council, Mr.

Mayor, Jackie Gyle, Deputy City Manager for reservoirs.

Sorry, mispronouncing your name.

Sorry, mispronounced your name.

I'm sorry, what I'm sorry I mispronounced your name when I called you out.

Oh, that's that's fine.

Um I would like to address some of the concerns voiced here, but um initially I just like to say so.

This legislation, the mooring requirements legislation, was um brought to the attention of council um initially and sponsored by council because our code was incorrect.

It was measuring the distance, the 75-foot distance for a safe mooring between the vessel and the shoreline or structure or a pier instead of from mooring ball to mooring ball, which was what was intended.

If we went by that the way that the code is written now, about half of our moorings would be out of compliance with code, and we would have to remove them and thus return about 250,000 back to the Department of Natural Resources since they are grant funded.

So we're just this is a technical correction so that the intent of the legislation is reflected in the code the way it should be.

Now, with regard to um anchoring and the city and the Harbor Master's views on anchoring and transient boaters, I have to correct that um viewpoint.

Our Harbor Master team is very, very supportive of all boating of maritime industry in general, of all boaters, whether they are transient, whether they are on mooring balls or at some at your home pier or if they are live aboards.

And they very much go out of their way every day to solve issues and new challenges.

And I've been very impressed with their entirely professional demeanor at all times.

I don't know what um Miss Backler was referring to earlier with regard to the Harbor Master saying she did not want transient voters and was trying to reduce anchorages.

I think that they have been misinterpreted and misheard when in fact we are doing everything possible to encourage and find new places for more mooring balls wherever we can.

And the legis um the recommendation by the Harbor Master recently, which is not in legislation at this point about anchored boats during the winter was um brought about by a public health and safety concern, which I'll get to later.

But in fact, we have at this time 76 um transient mooring balls in the city and about 70 annual mooring balls.

Now we are right, this Harbor Master right now is reconfiguring the mooring field in front of St.

Mary's school.

That is because those mooring balls, that field is not utilized 100% all the time because it only can accommodate 35-foot boats when the industry is moving to larger and larger boats.

So that mooring field is being reconfigured so that those transient moorings can accommodate 55-foot boats.

So that field will go from 20 transient moorings to about eight or nine, and then we're not losing any of those moorings.

We're moving them up Spa Creek, and one of those moorings that will be moved of the 10 or 11 will be main transient, and the others will be turned into annual mooring balls.

And that is because we have a very long list of residents waiting for mooring balls.

On Back Creek, the list is about 49 residents waiting for mooring balls on spot creek, it's about half that number.

So we're taking care of um moving some of those more those transient mooring balls that we have to move to reconfigure that field into annuals to alleviate some of that waiting list we have on Spa Creek already.

And it was very purposefully uh made into annuals because we're moving them up Spa Creek where residents obviously live, because the more the annual mooring balls see less activity than a transient would.

You have people just coming out to do maintenance on their boat or taking it off the mooring ball for a sale, so it's less activity than it would be if it was a transient mooring ball.

So with regard to anchoring the recommendation made by the Harbor Master recently to limit anchoring to good sailing weather and not in the deep part of winter, they're recommending between January 1st and March 15th, we do not allow anchoring in city waters.

That is because when the waters get cold and we get freezes, that some people end up stranded.

And a lot of times these are people who are living on their boats in the winter because they're of limited means.

Harbormaster deals with such situations about eight to ten times a year.

This year we brought two people in to Ego Alley because it was unsafe.

They had no running water, they had no heat, they had no way of getting off their boat to get provisions.

So the Harbor Master does as much as they can to help people if they'll accept their services, but it would be safe, and these boats often are left for periods of time when people go on shore when they can get to shore and they drag anchor.

So it's just to address the public health and safety aspect for a very limited time during the winter.

Um but again, there's no legislation on this yet.

This was just a recommendation recently made by the Harbor Master's office.

And the Harbor Master actually, in that recommendation, said if it would make sense and be in the public interest to allow anchorage during that period of time, they could make exceptions.

There are several other approvals that are needed.

For example, for the St.

Mary's um mooring field reconfiguration.

Maryland Department of the Environment and the Army Corps of Engineers approvals are needed, as well as the port wardens.

So that mooring field, for example, is going through review right now by MDE and by the Army Corps.

They both sent out a joint notice for public comment.

The mooring field reconfiguration was published in the Maryland Register.

It was open for public comment.

I know that some of our residents did submit comments, and it's being considered at this time.

Alliment Thorpe.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um and thank you, Deputy City Manager, for that presentation.

I appreciate this.

This is a complicated topic, and I appreciate your uh all the time and the work you put into it.

Um I think there's there's one set of issues that are not up for legislation today that you're working as you mentioned, um, and then there's this legislation that we're talking about.

I'd like to first just clarify a couple things just so we could put them on the table.

Uh concerning legislation is coming to the future.

Can you repeat or clarify for me exactly the process or the approval authority in the city for moving mooring balls?

As if I could repeat what I think you said, uh again in the city, realizing the Corps of Engineers and MDE has a role.

Um, but the Harbormaster makes a recommendation and the port wardens approve.

Is that how it works?

Yes.

So the Harbor Master will make a recommendation in the case of St.

Mary's, they hired a consultant to redesign that mooring field.

They take that plan to the port wardens for approval and then move on to the um review and permitting process.

I'm sorry, it goes on to the what?

They go on to the review and permitting process by MDE and Army Corps of Engineers.

And the public has the port wardens is when the public has the opportunity to testify whether they like the uh the movement or not.

Yes, they the public may testify before port wardens, as well as the port the Maryland Department of the Environment and the Army Corps of Engineers publish the concept plan, the proposed plan in the Maryland Register and open that up for public comment for 30 days.

Okay.

But that's again that's state and national, just from a local standpoint.

Our residents have the opportunity to voice a concern about changing and uh movement of mooring balls at the port wardens.

Yes.

You can make an argument a little harder at MDE or or Corps of Engineers.

That I don't want to go there, but but from a local representation from our representation, it's the port wardens.

Yes.

Okay.

Um the second thing that, again, not on the table today, but um, but we're bringing it to the table is this idea of winter anchorages, which as you pointed out, and I just want to repeat and and get your confirmation.

This is a complicated issue as to how we move forward, wanting to be supportive as possible with maritime in the maritime area, as well as making sure that our staff is working within the bounds of their capacity and capability, specifically about social services that we're oftentimes providing.

So I do look forward to that discussion.

And I want to make sure that everybody's aware that's not what's up, what's being talked about today.

And there's one other point to that.

Anchoring is allowed in Upper Spa Creek.

It's allowed off of the tip of East Point, um Eastport, and then off of uh Horn Point a little further outwards deep enough for Anchorage.

Um there's no prohibition on anchoring except for one piece that's um right in front of um City Dock and extends a little bit up Spa Creek, and um because it's a very high traffic area, and there's a lot of mooring balls around there as well.

But it's not there's no recommendation to prohibit anchoring anywhere else.

Okay, and I I want to applaud the amount of work you're putting into that and the harbor masters putting into that about the winter anchorages, and I look forward to that to continuing that discussion and quite frankly possibly sponsoring legislation that deals with that.

Okay.

So for tonight, um the current legislation, the last line of the legislation says private moorings are not permitted in city waters.

I'm on of was of the understanding, well, it doesn't matter what I was thinking.

Can you address that and and the the earlier discussion that people actually have purchased private moorings?

Because I do think that's a point of clarification that if we are if this legislation is in fact taking away something that people currently have, we should focus on that.

If it's not, that's a different focus.

Could you clarify that for us?

So there, according to the Harbor Master, there are no private moorings in city waters.

They are public moorings.

The um and this legislation before us, the mooring requirements legislation is intent is to correct that because it refers to public moorings.

That's when they're referring to annual moorings.

So the transient moorings obviously are owned by the city.

I think if the confusion is over the annual moorings, those are also owned by the city.

Um if someone wants to put in a if there's a GIS point for a mooring ball, we could find a place to put a new mooring ball, um, the person applying for that mooring ball does purchase a mooring ball, they then lease it from the city.

So there's an annual fee of twelve hundred dollars for residents and two thousand dollars for non-residents to lease a mooring ball every year.

Some people think that because they purchased that mooring ball, that it is their private mooring ball.

That is not true.

It remains a public mooring ball.

So people who sell their homes sometimes think because that mooring ball has been there, it was there when they moved in, that they can pass that mooring ball on.

That again is not true.

Whether those mooring balls have escaped the um purview of the Harbormaster, may be the case.

Now we do have some issues in Wheams Creek, because part of Weams Creek is in the county.

Um so where the mooring ball is in Williams Creek is an issue, and this has been an issue for the Harbor Master before.

So that is something they may or may not have adequately addressed.

I will look into that with the Harbor Master.

Um I specifically when we started talking about this legislation, asked the Harbor Master, are there any private mooring balls?

Could there be a mooring ball that someone put in without the Harbor Master's knowledge that was close enough to shore, and they said it would not meet the requirement of being 75 feet from their pier or their shoreline or their dock or another structure.

There would be no physical way someone could have a private mooring ball.

Now, maybe there's some part of a creek somewhere due to the the shoreline where that is not true, and it has you know escaped under the Harbor Master's radar, so I can double check with them, you know, to see if there's anything that truly is a private mooring ball.

That would be few and far between.

If there is a legitimate private mooring ball that is not city installed, it's not leased from the city, and still meets the city's requirement of 75 feet away from a structure pier or another vessel or another mooring ball, then we have no intention of taking away that right.

So I will double check with the um Harbor Master, they may have to survey the whole shoreline to see if there's any exceptions to that, but that would be very few and far between, be very rare.

Thank you.

And Mr.

Mayor, I think we want to clarify that for the council.

I mean, we ought to go literally mooring ball by mooring ball, because if I do think if there is a situation where somebody has not been paying the $2,000 a year, and they have assumed that they have purchased a private mooring ball, that's probably something we want to make sure we address as a city.

Um and then also to your all the to your other point about if the mooring ball is in the county and clarifying all that.

So I do think we've heard from the residents that we need some more clarification of this, and I I would agree with that.

Um I also would tell you why philosophically agree if we can get there to have a more controlled uh situation where the mooring balls are in fact managed in the same consistent way across the city.

Thank you.

Thank you for the recommendation, and I'll pass it on to uh Miss Giles to uh oversee to respond to uh Alderman Savage and then Alderman Shenlmeyer.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um yeah, I was gonna ask about the for some clarification on the private mooring balls too, since we did get testimony on that.

If we get that clarified, but I guess my main question is gonna be for the mayor.

My main question is gonna be for the mayor, uh, because I think since we do seem to have some outstanding questions, I I don't believe we referred this to a committee.

It is going to the port wardens, but I think it might be wise to have it go to one of our committees after we get the port wardens recommendations so we can make sure it addresses and get follow-up information from uh the deputy city manager.

Um I mean, uh I don't know which we could probably do environmental matters or housing.

Uh let me ask the city attorney.

Perhaps rules, yeah.

Sorry, I was just looking at assuming it's actually going before the port wardens, it might be on the agenda for them tomorrow.

Um you're asking which committee would be better.

Probably environmental matters, if I had to guess.

I don't think there's any one committee that it would fall under.

I think, but environmental matters would be weird too.

So um see that.

Is it accurate that's not currently assigned to one of the committees?

I don't think it is.

I think it is just going to the port wardens.

Okay.

Alderman Savage, are you asking for it?

Is it going to it's referred to the environmental matters?

Oh, it is on there.

Yeah.

I apologize.

Last I thought last time I checked, it wasn't on there.

My bad.

Okay.

Was there anything else?

Uh no, that's the thank you.

Okay.

Alder Woman O'Neill.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Mayor.

I have two questions.

Um, one in looking at the legislation.

Um there is a section, the 15.10.110 that's crossed out that talks about private moorings.

So I am concerned about the fact that it we had private moorings, shall only be utilized by vessels for which valid private mooring permits have been obtained by private as provided by the city code.

So that part is just crossed out, and when we talk about not having any private moorings, so I do think that we could do as Alderman Thorpe suggested, uh, mooring ball by mooring ball.

Um, I also want to go back to the authority, and you talked about the port wardens um in the two write-ups, um, both in A and B on the second page of the legislation.

Number four states the harbor master shall adopt rules and regulations to govern and control the use and storage of all vessels on annual moorings within the city.

Nowhere in here does it talk about port wardens, and I encourage us that I think that that needs to be included as one of our um testimonies said um you know the wording seems to not necessarily address all of the issues.

Um I do think it's important to keep that level of public participation going to the port wardens requesting of the port moorens, um, their ability, and I think that it could probably be written in elasticity attorney if um that is an appropriate place to put that authority.

Um, but I think that that would go a long way in having the public better understand where they need to go to ask questions and petition for mooring ball or private.

Does that make sense?

Not really, but we can talk offline what you're specifically looking for.

Okay.

I believe that the um mooring balls are included in the duties of review by the port wardens as our harbor lines.

Okay, but this basically strongly gives authority to the harbor master.

And control.

Rules, regulations, and control the use and storage of all vessels.

That just gives me pause, especially after listening to public testimony.

Ms.

Kyle, do you know how long it would take to do the assessment of the mooring balls and if you can't answer right now, that's fine, but I just want to make sure that we don't get back to it doesn't go back to us on second reader until we have an answer.

So first we start with Leams Creek because I think we've got a good we we have a good idea of where the mooring balls are in Back Creek Spa Creek, College Creek.

But Williams Creek has always been a little problematic.

So we would take a look at Williams Creek and see if we can match that up to our leases, our mooring ball leases and our our designated mooring ball on the city on the Harbor Masters website on the city website.

Um there are pictures of where our mooring our annual mooring balls are, and then they show the fields.

I mean, they show that where the transients are by color, and then there's separate um maps for where the mooring balls by number are.

They're very clearly marked.

Um I believe there's one for Weims Creek as well.

I think they're we don't we don't need to go into all those details now.

I'm just asking that you uh be in touch with Alderman Savage so that we can get those answers before the committee review of it, and then therefore before the the council takes back up.

Okay.

Well, for your to your um, so we will look at Wheams Creek first.

I don't think we'd have to look at any other creeks.

They could probably do it within um it's only two, it's only Monday.

They probably do it this week.

Okay, very good.

And the people who spoke during um public testimony are here.

If you would like to reach out to them to uh address the concerns.

Were there other questions, Council members?

Um you just address one more question.

We heard during public uh testimony about decisions being made by the Harbor Master versus the Port Wardens and Alder Woman O'Neill was I think touching on that as well.

Can you help me understand if any if the this legislation is introducing any power change or decision making change?

No, and it's you know it's the harbor masters practice because this is what they are they've always followed.

This practice of any kind of change to mooring fields, harbor lines, of course, um vessel requirements, location, piers, docks, etc.

Go before Port Wardens.

That's it, that is their practice.

So no, this is not envisioning any sort or intended to have any sort of power change.

Okay.

Alderman Thorpe.

I just want to put an exclamation point on the importance of the authority of moving mooring balls, because it's more than a logistics move.

The difference between putting bigger boats, for instance, in the mooring field right inside the Spock Creek Bridge and smaller boats, that's also a navigable area for for boats waiting for the bridge to go up, for instance.

So I do think we need to make sure that it has public discourse and is treated with the importance, as uh old woman O'Neill said that people have the opportunity to opine on the navigation safety of the movements.

Thank you.

I think we're concluded.

Thank you for uh staying late.

You're welcome.

Okay.

Okay.

Ready?

Yeah, I'm sorry.

Ms.

City Attorney, please present the next item on the agenda.

Next item on the agenda is ID 4226, the city council discussion on public parking.

Thank you.

Uh would transportation director Moore please come to the front table.

Yeah, good evening, uh Mayor Littman and members of the Annapolis uh City Council.

For the record, I'm Marcus Moore, Director of Transportation and Parking.

And I'd like to present to you tonight is just a briefing on parking in Annapolis.

A parking system for historic city.

So I'd like to talk about as we go through some of the challenges that we face, what we manage, which is the inventory, how the parking system is structured, some of the data that I was able to obtain from our two parking contractors, and parking programs for residents, visitors, and employees of the local um businesses.

So the core challenges that we see here parking in Napolis is managing limited space in a highly demand historic city.

So balancing those various groups, which include residents, employees of downtown businesses, customers of local businesses, visitors to the city, and as we've been talking about a little bit today, you know, we're noted as the capital sailing capital, not of just the United States, probably of the world, and a lot of our other special events that come to our city.

So what we're managing is a limited space.

So total garage space, uh, the four garages that we have is about 2500 spaces.

We're looking at Hillman Garage with about five uh 588 spaces, um, Gotch Court Garage with about 540 spaces, the night and garage with about 278 spaces, and park place, um, 1,140 spaces.

So we're also looking at the street space there, which is uh metered spaces.

And in there, I talk about commercial spaces, but it's also look what well, first defining what a commercial area is, obviously non-residential, but it could be some hybrid areas as well.

So commercial areas would be Main Street, Inter West Street, um, Calvert Street, and the like.

So you hear a little bit about the uh residential parking program and what's meant by a hybrid metered parking and residential areas.

It's a combination of both that you'll find on College Avenue, um, Prince George Street, and and the like throughout the city.

So trying to manage these resources of a small town that now has probably households with two or three or more vehicles.

How the parking system is actually structured with the city here.

We have two parking contractors, premium parking, which handles the uh concession area, we'll talk about SP is the division of metropolis, they handle the rest of the city.

And as they mentioned, uh, downtown areas, which is considered the concession area, is basically almost all of ward one, which is districts one and two.

SP metropolis is responsible for the rest of the uh city, which includes wards two through eight, which is districts three, four, and five.

This kind of shows the um concession area of downtown.

Um, of course, it doesn't go out to the water, or at GIS, uh ITS tried to make the map there for us, and I can give you some of the outlying streets over at you know, Wagner near College Avenue, all the way to Spa Creek, uh of compromise, um, all the way down to Acton Cove and the areas there.

But that we actually have a map that'll detail all the actual streets in this uh compressed area.

Almost all of it is either metered, hybrid, the garage.

There's not many uh parking assets that are free.

Here's what the data shows for the Mills Hillman for calendar year 2025.

Um you get some spikes like when we had uh December with midnight madness and other events coming into the city.

But you can kind of see what spikes up towards the end of the week with the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and with the total inventory looks like this can be deeper explained.

You know, at the end, I'll you know entertain questions.

I was able to obtain this data from our parking contractors.

Um this one particularly is from premium parking.

And you can see the uh time frames there from 12 a.m.

all the way to 1159 in uh in a day.

What the data shows with park place garage, you can see the assets are 100 1,140 spaces, and how many subscriptions, uh, monthly subscriptions we have.

All of our garages have subscriptions that are uh broken down to what's known as restricted, uh which is Monday through Friday from 7 a.m.

to 7 p.m.

unrestricted is any time.

The night in garage, smaller garage, 278 spaces, uh basically the same thing you can see where the peaks are throughout, calendar year 2025, and how many monthly subscriptions we have there.

The Gotscourt Garage is pretty close in size to that of Hillman and also proximity.

Um you can see the numbers there, and of course, our spike would definitely be during uh general session.

Parking programs for the garages.

So we have free parking on Sundays, and I say in after enter after 6 a.m.

and exit before two.

That's just the kind of the safety net.

It is six to two, but somebody coming at 558.

I was only two minutes off.

It's it's not a part of that time, or ticking over just a minute or two past two, past 2 p.m.

It is not for any group of persons, saying that's the Sunday, uh, the church crowd, it could be the brunch crowd, the dog walking crowd, and as we reimagined City Dock, those just want to watch the boats come in and out or enjoy the new Susan Campbell Park.

But this is all four of our assets, the garages between six and two.

So employees of local businesses, these business owners or managers can request uh parking discounts directly from our parking um contractors, which is SP or Metropolis.

So the Hillman Garage has a monthly um employee parking for from Monday through Thursday.

It's about a hundred it's not about it is a hundred and ten dollars uh per month.

Um if they use it every single day, four days a week, it comes out to about a little less than seven dollars, I believe, if I did my math correctly of the cost.

And I truly understand some people say, well, this is for a wait staff, a barkeep or whatever, they don't work four days in a row.

Um, but that's the uh offer that we have right now as we work through our concession agreement for other opportunities for businesses uh downtown.

The Godscourt garage is five dollars per day.

You enter between 12 and 6.

Let's just use today, they'll have to be out by 6 a.m.

the following day, and that is for that uh group that may be working um in restaurants, bar hot um uh H and the like.

As you get further away from downtown, you'll notice that night and garage, three dollars a day, the same enter between 12 and 6, out by 6 a.m.

the following day.

But park place has no restrictions.

Three dollars a day for the calendar day, and you know these garages are all serviced by the free magenta shuttle.

The free magenta shuttle starts at park place and it goes down West Street to Church Circle around Church Circle down to uh down Duke of Gloucester, making a left on um St.

Mary Street, making another left on Compromise and back up Main, but we'll be making some changes to this route come Tuesday to look at the businesses to service the businesses at City Dock.

Um starting Tuesday, the second of March, uh we'll start going down uh City Dock, make a left on Craig, make a left on Prince George.

There'll be a stop at Craig at Dock.

Uh they'll be able to see what uh businesses there um like Storm Brothers, like Latitude 38, like Bitney and Bows.

Um this is a free shuttle and it's connecting the garages.

And the the free shuttle operates Monday through Thursday from six o'clock in the morning until 11 p.m.

On Fridays, six o'clock in the morning until midnight, Saturdays, eight o'clock in the morning until midnight, and Sundays eight until eight.

And we still do offer two shuttle buses during peak time Monday through Friday from 6 30 to 10.30 in the morning, and then 3 to 6.30.

Um, we have two shuttles, so the turn time um with one, it's about 20 minutes.

With two, you just cut that in half.

If you're catching all the lights and all, it could be even quicker than that.

And we're not rushing through it, but we have uh stops along the way where um there um there's an app also you can follow of where the bus is, but there are actual bus stops for the magenta shuttle to um connect these garages.

This slide here just shows the holiday parking center program that was um let's just use well it's for last year.

These are actual statistics uh that our PIL was able to obtain from um park mobile.

So this went from Thanksgiving Day until New Year's Day.

You can see just over 29,000 people uh utilize the parking um app or the parking program that we've done over the last few years.

And yes, we've noticed that there were a few people that had some issues with it, but when you look at that number of 29,000, you know, the numbers that we had that had an issue that said I didn't know I had to interact for the free um parking.

Um it's something we want to make better this year.

Whatever we found that there was an issue that we could um actually correct, we definitely want to do that.

But the average user was about an hour and 45 hour and 44 minutes per session over the six-week period.

And there were half the users were uh brand new, so coming to the city.

So we try to do as all all that we can to um you know bring in folks, just like we've done with the midnight madness on the first three Thursdays in December to help out our businesses.

That's what I have, and I'm happy to entertain some questions.

There may be some deeper dives in some of the data that I uh shared, and be more than happy to come back with our parking contracts at contractors that uh during a work section in case you want to peel back um that those that data.

So this is just kind of um an overview to give you a sample of what it is, and we also um our team has a meeting every every two weeks on Wednesday at one o'clock.

It's a parking contractor's meeting, and we're really talking about issues that are coming up, things that may be happening as far as parades or special events, but there we also talk about things that we need to do or that we can do uh better.

So this is definitely not a one and done, and I um look to you for help on making it better um along the way.

So thank you for the time.

But if you have any questions, I'll try my best to answer them.

Alderwoman O'Neill and then Alderman Shannemeyer.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Mayor.

I have a couple of questions for you and a cool one.

The answers aren't coming tonight.

Um, I just want to make sure that they're out there.

Um so no rush if you don't have them.

Um in the past two weeks, I've had two major questions.

One of them was from a person who um paid for 24 hours in the Hillman Garage and wanted to know if that meant that they could come and go during that 24 hours, and if that's possible.

Um somebody who works for is working for the legislative session where comes, parks, leaves for a meeting, wants to come back, park.

Is that acceptable?

Is that something that's easily done?

I don't believe you can, but let me check to you know, make sure and I can't.

Actually, I do know the answer to that because I've actually done it.

Um the answer to that is yes, you can come and go.

You're for that whole 24 hour period.

So if they come, they park, they leave and come back.

So I've I've had to do that.

Um would they face any restrictions if for some reason the parking garage had a sign outside that said full monthly parkers only?

Because you can identify yourself before you.

Oh, I'm sorry, Victoria Buckland uh uh acting city manager.

Um I don't know the answer to that.

Um would need to get an answer, but um for personal reasons.

Um I choose to not have parking rights at Hillman, so if I park there, I I pay just like a normal resident does because otherwise I wouldn't get exercise that forces me to park elsewhere.

Not that everyone needs to know that.

However, it does mean I have had to do that to leave and come back.

So I do know that's a thing because I've personally done that.

But we would have to check about the if there's a sign out for yeah, that's a good question because the answer would be if it was gated, you'd have your pass to get you in as a monthly.

Because it's gateless, um, it'll be one of those behavioral things that someone would have to be there to prohibit, or you're going around a sign, but we can definitely do a deeper dive and check into that.

Okay, thank you.

My second question um relates to uh winter relief that um there are seven area churches that do.

Um first Presbyterian is I think on duty this week, and volunteers stay overnight, um, and they were worried about parking in Hillman Garage because I don't think that's one that you can stay longer than when you say winter relief, but someone that's paying, they're gonna pay when they act um the volunteers, the volunteers for the church's winter relief, so a public entity coming in and worrying about staying like if yeah, that that'll have to check.

That was not um aware of because I think we've had some conversation about um the Presbyterian church helping volunteering for some other programs and wondering what they can do to park here because they're volunteering their time.

Could they go into that program?

I just want to make sure I understand what the question is because the question I thought I heard you ask in some sense was whether that 24-hour period sunsets at midnight, and so if they pay to park, let's say they come in and they park at like nine or ten o'clock at night and they pay for for four hours.

Does that mean it's okay for them to leave at two, or does somehow that reset at midnight?

Was that what you were asking?

I believe and we should verify that, but I believe that's a rolling period.

So, like if I pay for if I come here in the morning and I pay for parking for a 24-hour period, that 24-hour period rolls over through midnight.

So I don't get the notice that it expires until the same time that I parked the previous day.

Okay.

Thank you.

Those are two questions.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Alderman Shenemeyer.

Thanks, Mayor.

Dr.

Moore, thank you so much for that wonderful presentation.

One of them is regarding the status of the elevator repair in Gott's garage.

That has been out for I think we'd all agree on unacceptably long time.

No, very good question, Arleman Shandelmeyer.

There's two banks of elevators.

The bank of elevators that are speak up closer to your microphone.

Okay.

There's uh two banks of elevators at Gots uh court.

The ones closest to Calvert Street.

That um is a big deal, um, meaning it's a whole design and rebuild, and it's been grouped together with uh Knighton, uh that Gots Court and the new 25 Shaw Street.

So through our procurement officer, we've already gone through phase one and we've um selected a design company um firm that will have plans.

I would think 90 days or so to present and create an RFP for the build.

Um so with our central services and public works, that's in the works, and that has been a while.

You're absolutely right to have that fixed.

But it we see the light at the end of the end of the tunnel as it's in the works to be um redone.

It's it's it's pretty old.

In the northeast corner of Gottscourt Garage, uh, if you go out the back way, you're near that ellipse parking lot behind the visitor's center.

That one um should be back up uh relatively soon.

Um it's got a code that we've already made calls last week to have it repaired with the help of our um central services and um our civil engineer and all.

But there's two different sets.

The one in the back uh can be replaced a lot sooner than the one up front that's a whole design and rebuild.

So one other thing to note um there's 540 spaces in this garage.

The law requires us to have I think 10 handicapped spaces for that size of a garage.

Out of that 10, at least two need to be van accessible.

We have 11 spaces and two are van, I mean nine of the eleven are van accessible that are all on the first floor.

Questions will still come up.

It's like, well, I'm not, you know, um have mobility challenge challenges, but I may have a stroller.

So we've had you know outside conversations with some of you.

What can we do about this?

Um, like a mall, what do you say, um, or shopping center reserved for parents?

I wouldn't say women, but parents, men or you know, with their kids for them with little children.

That you can't enforce it won't almost like the honor system, but we can look at doing something like that along the way.

So that's the the band-aid solution, meaning that there's no handicapped spots on upper floors, the 11 downstairs um that will take you right out the back or the front.

Um but that's that's not acceptable, but we've met the requirement.

The accessibility would be have an elevator that works um all around.

Hope that answers.

I am glad to hear that about the uh attempts to find some solutions for folks with strollers.

I've heard a lot of uh complaints from parents with young children.

Um are you comfortable with giving a more defined version of soon on that one uh replacement?

Or is soon uh we don't know yet, but it's coming.

That's a good one because it it who knows if it could be fixed in one or two days.

Okay.

Um I don't think it's the parts we've made numerous calls and waiting for that call back from tech market.

Um this is going back every bit of seven or eight days, so calling every single day.

Umce we get them and get on a schedule.

Let's just say we got lucky tomorrow, got a schedule they're coming on Wednesday, and they say, oh, you know, we'll just need to order this part, it could be back in service next week.

So that is really getting them to return our call.

Um that one is not a real heavy lift.

I don't think it's gonna be a supply chain um demand or a causation to have it take a lot longer than the other.

And I appreciate you filling me in about the status of the other other other elevator.

Uh I didn't know that that was such a massive project.

I've been under the impression it was just get the right part that put it in or turn the right wrench in the right direction.

But uh no, this is a massive renovation.

Fortunately for us, the same thing at um Knighton, it's got to do the same.

It's still working.

So those those two are being done together, and then we acquired the 25 Shaw Street, which I believe you know works, but it just needs a complete overhaul.

Some of the parts just aren't there anymore, the circuit boards and all, so it's just a whole complete um design and rebuild.

But I'll be more than happy to give um updates um through our transitation committee and our meetings with um our um uh parking contractors meetings.

But I would like to know monthly where we are, how it stands, and I could be more than happy to provide those updates to you.

Thank you.

Uh and uh one more, I apologize, Mr.

Mayor being long-winded.

That's um my other question is in regards to driving in, driving out at Mills Hillman.

Um I think this has been an incredible source of frustration for at least the returning members of the council for a while.

Uh a lot of us feel taken advantage of by the contractor classifying overstaying as uh uh a parking ticket violation similar to a street space.

Do we have an update on that?

I know we're slowly working our way towards it, but do we have an end date?

We don't have an end date.

We are working our way slowly towards that.

Our last meeting with the um you know, the concession, the manager of premium parking, um, and our leadership here with the city uh was early this month.

It it's it's getting there.

We want a um a post um paid system as you find in the metropolis system and the other three garages.

Um, you know, to set that up.

They're not it was a it wasn't a part of their business model at the very beginning when this started, but we wanted them to change.

Um I really think it'll it's it won't be as long as it has been.

I can't say it'll be in a month, but hopefully before the end of this fiscal year, but it is in the works, maybe uh, you know, a couple months down the road.

But we've working pretty closely with Medco and Boyd Waterson, who both manage premium parking.

And um, they're agreeable to it.

It's just you know, it's a change in the technology.

That's what we want, and that's what we deserve.

Well, if there's anything that we can do to accelerate or pressure on that process, because I've been saying for a while, if we can't get that within a year or two, I'm willing to draw up the divorce papers at this point.

I'm still very mad about how they've taken advantage of us.

Under understood.

Point taken.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Alderman Huntley.

Thanks so much, Director Moore.

Appreciate you being here to talk with us about this.

Uh as you can imagine, it's uh hot topic in Ward One.

Although I will say, uh I I gotta disagree with you a little bit.

We've got a lot more of Ford One than just residential parking districts one and two.

They're they're they're less than half, believe it or not, of Ford One.

Um as much as I love the good folks over there.

Um so a couple little questions for you.

One, uh you talked you had a slide about the park place garage.

And uh would you mind going back to that?

So okay, yeah, I'm just I'm surprised that that huge garage gets to 80% capacity.

What leads to this weirdly high number on Tuesday, do you think?

That's a good question.

Um that's uh one of those that I can take it back and get the uh information from um Metropolis and find out why that particular time um you know between six and twelve.

All the Roman O'Neill is suggesting to me that it may be uh people parking there for the circuit court, which would make a lot of sense.

You know what that is a biggie.

The circuit, yeah, that is a biggie.

Um that magenta shuttle is pretty full between eight and nine o'clock going in, standing room only, uh back and forth, but that could be it.

Yeah.

Alternate Huntley, anything else?

Yeah, that makes total sense.

I'm sorry.

Was there anything else?

I oh yeah, I have a couple other questions.

Um stop tell me if I missed this.

But uh, did you talk about park shop and dine in here at all?

Oh, you know, I might I didn't, I didn't.

Um let's see.

Drop off.

I didn't, but I had it on there.

So I can tell you about that.

Uh park shop and dine um is a program that um all four garages are both parking contractors partake in.

Um the business owners or managers can purchase these for their um customers, and they cost 55 cents per hour for someone to use them, and you can stack up to four, meaning four hours.

So if even if I just went to the CVS, then I wanted to go to another restaurant for lunch and then still walk around.

Um they that can happen.

You would get these discounts directly from the parking contractor, and I think they bill them or they they would bill them after they were used, but I think they're building them and then they'll they'll have them first.

They'll have them in their um arsenal for their customers.

The way it worked before um Gateless, it was a chaser ticket.

So they would actually buy these tickets, they will give them to their customers, and when they put their um ticket in, they would put up to the four to get their four hours or one or two hours.

The restaurants were getting a little more because of restaurant time for lunch, dinner, or what have you, versus um a store, you know, a walking in, a souvenir store and all.

But park shop and dime, uh park shop and dine does still exist.

Great, thank you.

Um yeah, I just I wanted to make sure that was something as we're doing a briefing that everybody got to hear about.

Uh on this side, you were talking about the monthly parking at Hillman.

I heard from somebody a while ago, and I want to validate this with you that there aren't any more monthly spots available that it's full and and there's a wait list.

What's the stats?

There is a wait list, and that's something else you can find out how many are on the wait list.

And I wished I had that data um on our Hillman garage of what um how many uh um restricted and unrestricted or total number of parking um monthly parkers we have and how many we still have on a wait list.

It's dramatically gone down over the last couple years, but there's still on there, I think a double digit number.

I'm almost sure that.

But that's something I can um get the information um for you all as well.

Thanks.

Yeah, if you don't mind.

And then just one last question for you.

Um I've gotten a couple of very unhappy messages about folks who are parking.

This is only a metropolis garages during the snow and getting charged for it.

What the heck happened with that?

And uh, how did we not solve it between snow one and snow two?

Because I had at least one person who still got charged past weekend.

I I don't know.

And I we that was a question our PIO actually asked on the call this morning when we were setting it up.

Did we fix it from you know the other storm that we just came out of?

And I was told yes.

Um, I like you said, I've heard about two people that it happened to in the Gots Court garage.

Um but we're trying to peel back the onion and find out either the email address or the um license plate, what it probably was or is someone already has a subscription and somehow it got caught in the net.

But let me try to find out a little more why that happened, because it did, as you said, Alderman Huntley before, and we you know, something which shouldn't happen again for sure.

Yeah, it seems like we just turn off the cameras, right?

If we're opening the gates metaphorically, we could do it literally.

Yeah.

Uh okay.

Well, uh look forward to getting an answer on that because that I definitely have a bunch of people who have asked me and I have told I will follow up on.

Thank you.

Yep.

Okay, I have a few questions.

Um you mentioned the elevators at the Gots Garage because I think the council will find it interesting.

Can you give a ballpark expense of what the cost of replacement?

Yeah.

Um to design and build in the CIP budget, the capital is about $890,000 just for that one bank of elevators up front the design and build.

The same cost for night.

So you're looking at like 1.7 million for those two garages, that one bank of elevators.

I don't have a total for um Shaw Street, but it's gonna be pretty much the same because you're paying at a design company to redesign the whole thing.

You would think it'll be a lot easier, a lot cheaper, but it is um very very expensive.

Um we can get you the CIP numbers, you can kind of look at um it and how the breakdown um is put together.

But 891,000 or so for GOTS and very close to the same for night.

Thank you.

Um for Gots, you mentioned if I heard the numbers right, of the 11 handicapped accessible spots, nine are van accessible.

Yes.

If they're not being used, that strikes me as potentially uh restriping the lines and you could fit another couple parking spots in there.

Is that something you'd consider?

Didn't consider, but that's something we can definitely look at um because they're almost always full at least 90% of the time.

Okay.

But let's look at that and see what the you know, because the law only requires that two of them be van accessible, which you're right, it takes up another 50% of a space.

So you multiply that out for the 11, how many more you can actually get?

Uh very good point that we can um take a look at that and see if we can you know repurpose three more.

Right.

So I would ask that you do that, please.

And um you mentioned a program uh for the strollers, cars of strollers, and we all understand it would be um on the honor system, but I think we'd like to hear more about that.

Yeah, we can definitely do some kind of a pilot and uh put it, you know, some nice um language that our city attorney will say this it works without being too demanding, but you know, kind of like it's an honor system, please re reserve four.

Because what happens of you know, if somebody wants to kind of self-check, like we go out and drop somebody off with a stroller, we come back skipping along or on our blades, it's like what are you doing?

But they don't know the leaving and coming back kind of thing.

So just we can still try it.

Um, but hopefully, folks don't try to self, you know, uh police something like that.

You know, they didn't see the hidden uh disability sometimes you have with the handicapped spaces.

You don't look like you're handicapped.

Why are you taking up the space?

So something with um the stroller or the parent, I can see that happening, you know, as as much, but we can't not try it because of that.

And then uh my third question, I just I'm breaking my rule of not asking a question, I don't know the answer to, because I don't know the answer to this.

Do you have any goals that you would like to share with us?

Uh we want to improve parking.

What does that look like to you?

Um basically what I think I've been hearing throughout from um all the older persons, the new ones as well of a postpaid system.

We're a municipality, we're not trying to maximize price profits, we're really trying to make it easy for visitors, guests, residents, and all.

So I really believe that the ease of being able to park uh come and go um will make um the whole your lives and my life a lot easier.

So what does that look like?

You know, that's a system, even if I don't want to interact and have a subscription, but it's still a post paid.

Um, you know, that that was a really big goal because um even though my title says director of transportation and parking is director of parking and sometimes transportation.

So a lot of my day, you know, 85 to 90 percent is it's not thank you, it's thank list that we're just trying to solve the problems like Alderman Huntley.

Why is this still happening again?

You know, we went through this already.

It that's what we're my notes here to try to figure out why.

So that's um a big number one, and I think it's the number one of you guys as well.

It's only one garage out of the four, you know, so 25%, but that's a big one that's used a lot downtown, the second largest, 588 spaces.

Okay, very good.

Altimate Savage, and then Alder Woman, Alsiff Johnson.

Well, thank you, Mr.

Mayor, and then Frank.

And that answer sounds like customer service, customer service, right?

Sounds good to me.

And so just a few points.

This slide, since you have it up, um I think I've mentioned this to some of you before, but we've seen this chart for the past maybe, I think since going back to uh June, maybe May.

And so just again, I think I mentioned this before, but to reiterate the only period we saw 100% usage was I think it was August.

One time slot, one day in August, or maybe it was July, it's one of those months.

Uh so it's very it's it's it's not typical for this garage to be at 100% usage uh or capacity.

And I say that it just for one reason, um, well, for many reasons, but in this case point this out because we do have I know understandably a lot of businesses that are concerned uh down on city dock.

We do have quite a bit of capacity here in the garage, and it's only 800 feet.

We're about I think that works out to be about an eighth of a mile from the garage.

It's very walkable distance.

Um, and so it feeds into my other point as far as messaging, marketing, because the slide actually I hadn't picked up on, but our Alderman Huntley did the uh park place garage.

I don't know if those numbers were from last week, but I was wondering why is Tuesday so high?

I was called out for jury duty, and because of Monday was the holiday, I was turned out on Tuesday with all the jurors, a lot of jurors, and um that could be one reason if that showed last week why there were so many because the courthouse the court does provide incentive program, tells people if you need to park, park the park place, take the free circulator downtown.

Uh and so I think the other important point of that is it shows the importance of messaging, marketing.

That is a marketing incentive program that is used by the court and it clearly works.

Um I think keep that in mind as I think the department's looking to get funded a uh marketing position, dedicated marketing position.

That is really important for driving behavior.

It I think this shows it clearly works, and that feeds into so many of our other initiatives.

So thank you for the presentation.

Thank you, Aldman.

Thank you, Aldman.

Alder Woman, also Johnson.

Thank you.

Um Mark, thank you for your report.

Sure, you're welcome.

Um Sunday's not approached by a church amount in the area of what to ask if there are any time.

This hand well parking tag two o'clock.

They allow them to walk fast to when they had large events holding it the church.

At present there is not.

As I may mention, there's not anything for any group of people, is for the whole betterment of all.

But nothing past the two o'clock on any of our garages.

One of the things I didn't put in the slides here is enforcement times.

The um metered spaces Monday through Thursday are 10 o'clock to 8:30 at night.

Sundays is 12 noon to 7:30 at night.

You wouldn't will be enforced as far as expired meter.

There's no expiration time for behavioral things of blocking a um fire hydrant crosswalk, red curb, or anything like that.

Um, but there's nothing that we have currently for any group of people for anything extending past the two.

You as legislators could, that's not me.

You as legislators could discuss that more.

Perhaps before we get to budget season, you can give us an estimate if we extended the Sunday hours to three o'clock, what that cost would be to the city.

Would that with three o'clock address your concern?

Thank you, Mayor.

That'd be fine.

That'd be yeah, they are love any any free anything.

Thank you.

And then I think Alderman Thorpe was next.

Thank you for your presentation, Director Moore.

I I have three items.

The first two, I'm not sure whether they're questions or statements.

Um the first one goes to what Mayor Littman and Alderman Savage were talking about, which is the data.

Um I I parking is so important to the residents, and your responsibilities are so important.

I think it would behoove us to have better data or more uh defining data about what happens in parking.

And I think this goes to the mayor's question about what your measure of effectiveness is.

And I think why this is maybe a statement rather than a question is as we get to budget season.

I think it's really important that you have metrics in this so that we can look in the residents and say, yes, parking is improving.

Um I think you've got some of it in this brief, but I think it's really important to set goals, um, whether it's new users or uh, or number of of people using residents using the the parking lot over to you for your expertise.

But but I really do think this is an area where when it comes time to budget process, we're gonna ask some hard questions, and this is kind of maybe this is why it's a statement.

This is a heads up for when we when we look at this revenue and any expenses you have, we need real metrics, measures of effectiveness as to how we're improving this.

It goes to marketing, it goes to uh performance, etc.

That's number one.

Number two, the mayor caught my attention at 891,000.

Um I'm sorry, I thought I would.

Yeah, time times two.

You said it in the times three.

Um so again, a statement, not a question uh as it's almost uh nine o'clock.

How and again, statement.

I please don't feel the need to address this, but how much money how much of that has been budgeted?

I presume I know that answer.

Um what is the requirement to do it on by the law?

What is the right thing to do?

Um that is a huge bill that if the Annapolis Capitol were here, which I think they are, that's the front page of the paper.

Um and so um, so that's huge.

Um and then the third item, which is small is could I ask you to forward this brief to email it to the city council, please?

I will, and I'm you know, I apologize.

I had one for each of you, too.

I will still email it and give you the hard copy.

Cynthia, would you please?

Director More and and Ms.

Buckland are um as a policy.

I would put try to avoid the paper distribution and avoid and share uh presentations ahead of time, at least three days in advance, so we can get it uh added um to the agenda so that all of our residents and constituents can see it publicly.

I'm not trying to chastise you, I just want to develop the habit that we're adding presentations for everyone to see electronically.

Sure.

Thank you.

Okay.

Uh yeah.

Before I go back to you, uh Alderman Stuff, just want to make sure anyone else is you already had a couple turns.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I just listened to Alderman Thor, maybe realize I forgot to mention something.

Uh so for the two-hour free parking program for residents.

Um trying to remember if you you mentioned this, the update on that.

So uh all the garages except for Hillman, residents can now pull in and out and get the free get the two hours free without having to enter in any kind of code, right?

But Hillman, that is not yet the case, they're working on it.

Was that accurate?

Right.

Yeah, I think the presentation that Mr.

Um Kemp John Kemp from Metropolis just presented to us um maybe in January.

Um that they just got over the the hump with that.

So I would expect that Metropolis would want to mean excuse me, premium parking would want to do the same.

So that's something brand new that just rolled out in January.

You're absolutely right for the residents.

So it's good from a customer service perspective as far as not having to require the codes anymore.

But I do want to bring up, we did ask from the transportation committee to get that the data as far as what is the cost of that.

Because there is that's essentially a subsidy in the budget.

We are subsidizing car transportation by giving incentivizing people to drive to the parking garages, drive downtown instead of taking our other transportation.

So to again to put a finer point on it, we're giving residents who have a car, they can park downtown for free, but if they have to rely on our bus system, they have to pay.

If they don't have a car, they have to pay to come downtown.

And so I think it's a bit of an equity issue.

We need to think a bit more about as we enter into the budget.

Um again, I think because how much we charge does influence how much people use the services.

Again, just like when the circuit court gives an incentive for people to park at park place, it works.

And so I think as we move towards trying to get make our roads safer, get less cars on the road.

We need to be more mindful about how we can play around with these prices to uh get to the goal we want to get to.

Thank you.

Um before I went to Alderman Savage, I should have given you a chance to answer Alderman Thorpe's last question about the three elevators.

Um, and just to clarify, two of them are parking related.

So there was Gots Knight and the third one Shaw, which is not parking related, but it's a third elevator.

But he asked whether those were already in the capital budget and the source of funds.

I don't I didn't give you a chance to answer apologies.

Absolutely, these are Kyrios.

Um the CIP probably goes back to FY24 Alderman Huntley, would you know or C Manager?

It um FY24.

Um spelled out for the the parts of the process for design and build, so we can actually direct you to that CIP number 730 something, whatever the last stage it is.

But yeah, it wasn't it goes back a couple fiscal years.

It's been uh yep.

Okay.

Um before I go back to you, Alderman Thorpe.

I haven't gotten to Alderman Huntley on this yet.

Yeah, I was just gonna answer your question, which is to say broadly, the Gots one has been fully funded.

The Knighton one is about halfway funded with the other 400,000 expected in FY207.

Okay, Alder Woman O'Neill and then Alderman Thorpe.

I have one question um that came in from one of my constituents, and there seems to be a huge uptick, and we've talked about this in parking enforcement in residential neighborhoods, um, in particular in Admiral Heights and German town homewood.

Um, I'm getting calls and emails every day, and um this particular resident suggests that maybe it's because um the percentage of usage of the garages you're looking at um, you know, 18%, 23%.

Can you talk to the huge increase in neighborhood enforcement and what is going on with that?

Well, the enforcement is is not they'll move around like a public safety police officer.

They're gonna respond to a call, but they're not gonna have tunnel vision or blinders on, so I'm just looking for that blocked uh fire hydrant.

They're gonna address other things that they see along the way.

But they're not sitting there waiting for a call, they do have to move around, and we can actually ask both parking contractors how the work is assigned.

So you want to make sure you're covering certain areas, and of course, where there's um metered spaces, residential parking districts, they're gonna get watched a little bit more than where some of the outliers that it's not a parking uh RPP or um metered areas or a hybrid of that.

But I wouldn't know how they assign their work.

I know some folks even think that they're on um, you know, right, a certain amount of tickets.

You know, that that's not they're not the performance based by the number of citations written.

That's all city money.

Um they're really just trying to make you know think sure things are are safe.

Um sometimes wonder like why did they come here in the first place?

We would want them coming around, but that's um the answer I get.

It's like we don't know where they're gonna be as well as a police officer, unless there's something going on, and you know, it becomes a hot spot of parking on Marguerite Avenue off of Chick-upen, people just leaving their vehicles, work vehicles or other vehicles outside of the area.

Yeah.

Um is it possible for us to get um a copy of a call log so that when I my residents are complaining that they're being targeted.

Um I actually have the basis behind it saying no, a neighbor called.

I don't need to know who called, but I'd love to see it, the data on the number of calls because it is a huge uptick.

Um and I can't imagine in January and February, I've got a lot of neighborhood neighbors calling to complain about people when I would expect that during game days.

Um I could see that as a huge uptick on game days, but in January and February, I can't understand that.

Yeah, sometimes it's not a call, but it's through iWorks.

And you'll get a um, and I'm not sure who it all goes to, but it'll if it has to do with parking or buses, of course, it's coming to me and maybe public safety.

Uh one, well, two that I got today, one actually says there's been a bandit vehicle sitting on cinder blocks in this, you know, um parking area, but it's private property.

Or you'll you'll get those, but if they're gonna go down that area to take a look at it, well, first off, if they know it's private property, they'll just explain that.

But if you're going to look and say, well, officer will be dispatched and we'll give you the disposition on what was found.

I think some of you might get copied in on some of those um emails that are called.

Let me take a look with our ITS and see who gets them because through iWorks, depending on what it is, if it's dealing with uh um a curb cut, a broken sidewalk, or you know, as far as uh a parking, it does come to me.

But it might it would probably used to go to the the chair of the public safety.

Um but let me see where they're going.

But anyone else that would like to get them, I'm sure that's not they're not coming to the chair of public safety.

Yeah, you used to go to Ronda a Ronda or Alderman Pendel Charles, so it needs to be updated if you're that person or anyone that wants it, I'm sure we could actually with ITS have that happen.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

Uh Director Moore, on that point, I'm not positive.

I don't know what your data capabilities are, but if rather than just one total, it might be helpful if you're able to break it down by region, whether that's ward or area.

My recollection is seeing a list from last July through uh January that was pretty consistent each month.

But maybe if we broke it down by region, you might see a bubble in war two, for instance.

Sure.

Um we can easily look at where they were going to find out which ward.

So looking at, you know, obviously premium parking is just gonna be ward one districts one and two, and the rest of the city would be uh metropolis.

So we can look at what the call came in or where they actually went because the tick when whenever a PO is gonna do a citation on the street, they're taking pictures because you you can only imagine how many people say or how many times we've heard um my tire was just barely into the red curb, and sometimes the whole car is in it.

We just don't see it because it was night, or was it was faded.

You know, we'll look at those.

So we'll be able to look at um, you know, maybe go back a couple months or whatever, you know.

We can, you know, bigger sample set, we can kind of look at what the graph will show us, the data will show us, but we can definitely do that.

Thank you.

Alderman Smith Brown.

Hey, thank you.

Um so I actually, in light of this, uh spoke with two of the workers.

Um I went out there while I was outside actually pulling up and I saw uh that they were about to take it a few of my neighbors, and so I did let the neighbors know that they were parked incorrectly or um against the quote unquote lawslash code, and they did uh save hundreds of dollars uh for that.

And this is an issue.

Um, I never will support people being taken advantage of.

And it seems like that these would I'm not gonna blame them for anything without them having the opportunity, which I do emphasize you bringing them forth, uh us bringing them forth for a work session to talk about other profits um and their intention as well.

Um because we may believe uh that it's for uh the protection of vehicles of uh residents and you know our visitors or what have you, but that's not what businesses always uh have in mind.

Um and so uh just to get back to the main point.

Um there is an issue with them ticketing or giving whatever site to uh uh residents, particularly after 10 o'clock PM.

Um now you have people that are visiting family members, uh, there are emergencies that may be taking place, uh, and there's no warning in in place, and I think that um that should be brought back.

I spoke with those two workers uh and they mentioned to me that there was a warning system at first.

Um and then I spoke with one of the representatives, and I know um Alderman Thorpe, uh mayor, if I can address uh Alderman Thorpe uh and myself have been talking uh about this, and we're gonna move forward on some action uh to help our residents.

Uh but in uh light of that, uh they mentioned that it was a bias when people were giving warnings uh because some people would get a the ticket, and then the person who's ticketing would say, Well, I know that person, or or you know, hey, that's my friend, or what have you, so I'm not gonna ticket them today.

Well, there needs to be a system of tracking.

Uh and so whether that's license plate tracking or whatever that may be, uh, we should be protecting our residents at all costs and saving them uh money at all costs, especially with all that we're dealing with now in today's um economy.

So uh the to the main point, please, if you can uh speak with them, welcome them if we can, mayor, to a meeting uh to discuss this further.

Uh but no, I I think that is it is about uh seeing where the money is, how much money have they made since they've taken away the warning system um and what can we do to bring something like that back?

But yeah, I just want to make sure it's clear it's not their money, it's the city's money.

Still, I think that I but their purpose is still to manage the money coming in.

And so if you have, let's say, a partner and they're bringing in hundreds of dollars for you, I think you're more interested in keeping that partner.

And so we have to make sure uh that we're not taking advantage.

This company would have you that we're trusting to do this job, is not taking advantage of our residents.

Period.

I'm Alderman Thorpe and Alderman Huntley, and I just want to be mindful we're we're about an hour into this topic, so I'd like to just two final questions, please.

Uh so I want to talk about what Alderman Smith Brown's talking about about enforcement.

I I we have talked about obtaining the list of what you use to enforce parking.

And I'm looking forward to receiving that list from you because I think we have a responsibility as city council members.

I know I personally will drive that hard to say if you park this much over a red line, you are going to get a ticket.

Um I I haven't done that um since I've been sworn in.

I and so and I I don't I think there's the reason we have enforcement is to prevent bad behavior, not to generate revenue or whatever.

Right.

So whether it's marketing, um, whether it's information, um I think we have a responsibility.

So I look forward to getting that document from you and and treating our residents like adults and saying this is what you're gonna get ticketed for.

Um but then the second thing is I want to go back to uh the metrics and what Alderman Savage brought up, I think is a perfect example where we need data because he brought up something where data can change our behavior.

And and I'm gonna use this as an example, and I'm doing it now in February because come budget time.

I don't want to like you know stump people with this question, but when it comes to two-hour free parking for residents, we should have that data, and we should have a goal as to how many we are trying to uh obtain, what percentage, whatever it is, you're the expert.

We want the staff leadership to create those data topics, but but it would be great to for you to be able to, just as an example, as Alderman Savage talked about, it'd be great for you to be able to present this many residents got free parking, this many residents paid for, or this many people paid for the bus.

And this is the goals we're looking to get, so that we have less emotional conversations and more data-driven conversations, because we all love Apple Pie, but not everything is Apple Pie.

I'm not sure if that metaphor worked, but but if you that this is a perfect example where we want to drive to data and goals.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Alderman Huntley.

Very briefly, I just want to say that while I get some of the same angry messages on the road and O'Neal, I appreciate the more uniform enforcement.

Um I think the many people who follow the rules are never going to be as loud as the few who get tickets for not following the rules, but it's important to speak up for those people.

So thank you.

Okay.

Alderman, um, sorry, Director Moore.

I just want to thank you for coming here tonight.

I think you do an outstanding job representing the department.

You've got a tough job.

You take a lot of slings because people aren't happy.

Um, but I think you do a fantastic job, and I appreciate your work in coming here tonight and appreciate your presentation.

Thank you, Council.

Thank you.

Okay.

Uh Ms.

City Attorney, please present the next item on the agenda.

The next item on the agenda is the approval of the consent calendar.

The items on the consent calendar include supplemental appropriations under $50,000.

That's SA 1526, a grant and Rundle County standard Senator Amos grant for the fire department.

Um the next item is appointments AP 1226, the appointment of Ross Arnett to the Financial Advisory Commission.

Surprised he's not here.

Uh and that is the end of the consent calendar.

Any objections to the consent calendar?

Okay.

Seeing none, I'd entertain a motion to approve the consent calendar.

So move.

Thank you, Alderman Thorpe.

Is there a second?

Second.

All those in favor, aye.

Aye.

Any A's?

Well.

Okay.

Um Alderman Smith Brown, you had a question?

Well, when the motion is second, I was actually gonna ask a question.

I'm sorry, speak up, please.

It was a motion and a second.

I was actually gonna ask a question since the motion is second before we move to a final vote, which we did the eyes.

I was gonna ask a question about this.

Yeah, my question was is if you can just give a little bit of background overview.

Can you speak into your microphone, please?

Oh, yes, so if you can give a little bit of yeah, do a little background or overview of what this Senator M.

Amos grant is or does, uh, just for those who may not be familiar with it.

Sure.

I'll start asked uh our city manager to address that, please.

Well, it's point of order, Mr.

Mayor.

I I'm not entirely sure we could do that on consent calendar without pointing it out.

Right.

And it's and it's been the consent calendar's already been passed, been approved.

Um I'm entertaining the question.

Okay, yes.

So we passed the consent calendar, but the alderman had a question and and like the city manager to address it, please.

I actually um I'm actually not entirely sure what all is covered under that grant off the top of my head.

Yes, I'm sorry, Alderwoman O'Neill.

Um, when we had them before the finance committee, it is um a county grant that's been received several times.

This was an additional portion of that grant.

They ended up getting more in the grant than originally posted in the budget.

Um, so it is just an additional grant.

We did not get a lot of background because it was 754 dollars that was being added um to their 95,000 dollar grant.

It was just a calculation of the grantee adding the additional 734 dollars to the initial grant.

So, but I will I will get an answer for you and let you know.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, madam city clerk.

Um sorry, Madam City Clerk, yes, please call the role.

Yes, sir, Mayor Littman.

Aye, Alderman also Johnson.

Aye, Alderman Sandelmeyer, aye, Alderman McConty, aye, Alvin Savage.

Aye, Alderman Thorpe.

Aye, Alderman Huntley, Alderman O'Neill.

Aye, Alderman Stadmeyer.

Aye.

Thank you.

Okay, Madam Allen for Miss City Attorney, please present the next item on the agenda.

Next item on the agenda is legislative action on first readers beginning with ordinance 426, the temporary dissolution and restructuring of the city of Annapolis Art and Public Places Commission.

Is there a motion to adopt 0426 on first reader?

So moved.

Thank you, Alderwoman O'Neill.

Is there a second?

All those uh in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, say no.

Okay.

The that motion passes.

Excuse me.

Is that where I do that now?

Yeah, you want to go for it and this can say.

Okay.

Um, I'd interrupt I was gonna entertain a motion on this ordinance before we move on before we assign it to rules.

Okay.

Yes.

I'd entertain a motion on this matter.

So I'd like to make a motion to suspend the rules on this matter.

Okay.

We're going to uh just for clarity, because this we don't do this very often.

I'm gonna take the motion, ask for a second, and then we'll have discussion.

Is there a second for the motion?

Sorry.

Thank you.

Uh Alderman, any discussion?

Yes, please.

Let me start with Alderwoman O'Neill and then thank you.

If I just have a moment, um I would like to talk a little bit about the purpose of this.

Um this commission, Art and Public Places was originally formed in 2010.

Um, at that time it was structured so that the council um funded it with funding each year, no set funding, um, and it typically was somewhere between 15 and 40,000.

In 2021, um through uh state mandates, um, this commission is was now slated to be funded through a percentage of the hotel tax.

Um that moved the annual funding to somewhere in the range of 140,000 to I believe the most they've had since 2021 was a 180,000 dollars per year.

Um at that time, we never changed, the council never changed anything other than the allocated funding that was now coming in.

I truly believe that at that time the council should have taken a look at this commission and restructured um making sure that there was both a strategic plan for the commission as well as uh very transparent and open structure of how applications were received, um, how they were debated and discussed, and how it was determined funding for that.

Um that never took place through no fault of anyone, it probably should have over the course of the last two to three years.

Um the council has been continually had reach out from public with objections to either the non-transparency or how it was operating or any number of things.

And um in 2025, the council voted and passed legislation that moved this commission from under the auspices of Parks Rex and Park to planning and zoning and gave planning and zoning director authority over final um decisions over making recommendations about what should be funded and the levels it should be funded.

All of those things came into place, but nothing has truly been set in stone.

And after receiving numerous dozens of complaints from both residents who were you know interested in what was going on, interested in possibly getting funding from the commission and people that were getting funding from the commission about um confusion and um lack of transparency in how funds were given out.

Um I talked with both the director of planning and zoning, um, our constituent services personnel who at the time was overseeing all the boards and commissions, and just said, I think that this needs a reset.

Um it's it needs a reset so that we are being as efficient as possible, but also being as transparent as possible.

And really the only way to do that would be to talk about this dissolving temporarily so that the director can put in place with the help of other arts organizations in the area consultation, put into place something that is very very transparent.

And I had an artist call me over the weekend that said she wanted to apply for a grant, and there was no place on the website that she could find the application or how to apply or whatnot.

And I'm like, okay, well, that's one more thing, one more thing we need to work on.

Um, so I'm asking my um fellow council members to look at this process, understand that it's in the sense of efficiency.

It's important that we temporarily suspend you know this commission, rework it, and in doing so by suspending the rules this evening, it allows us to get work on it right away so that we list lose as little of possible ground in granting arts organizations grants for this year.

Um they have three grant funding cycles March, July, and November.

Um the director of planning and zoning has assured me that the March funding cycle is open and available, and he will have his staff manage that funding cycle.

Um we've given the um planning and zoning six months with a 90-day report on how far there are.

So the hope is that they don't take all six months that they can get it working, that they can have it back up and ready so that that July funding cycle has a brand new commission, all set in place, everything is online.

People know exactly how to apply for a grant, what types of grants are eligible for granting, and we can move on.

And I think that that's in the best interest of all of our city.

Um I love artists.

Very good.

Um Alderman Savage, before we started the motion, you had your hand raised.

Did you want to were you trying to make um add to the discussion on this point?

Oh, we okay.

Um Alderman Smith Rowney, you were next.

Sure.

Uh so uh we've uh had a conversation and based off of uh the importance of getting this done as soon as possible prior to any future decisions being made from the uh commission.

Uh this seems to be the best um action to take, though uh before uh moving and confirming that over these next six months, uh, we're gonna have to take it a little step further.

And in speaking with Alder Woman um Carmel O'Neill, uh we did agree that the arts voices are extremely valuable, and we do not want the arts community to feel that they're left out of this process.

And so uh beyond just uh this taking place, we're looking in uh to having a task force formed.

And I think that that uh will continue to allow for the arts voices to be a part of the outcome or the resolution of getting this commission into a more productive place.

Um and so we're gonna ask the office of law if possible, a mayor, if we can ask the office of law as well as our legislative draft to thank you so much always, Cynthia, uh, for that uh to begin looking into uh the matter of a task force so that um our community members and our leaders in the arts community uh can be a part every step of the way.

Thank you.

Uh Alderman Chandelmeyer.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

So unpopular opinion here.

I think we can make reforms without doing a large step like that, which agree to disagree, that's fair enough.

But to get to the point of rule suspension, I think to do a blitz play on a rule suspension of that, it feels closer.

I'm having a hard time hearing to do a rules suspension.

I think that feels sneaky and wrong to me to do this.

Um I'm willing to have the debate further, but to suspend the rules and do the split's play, it doesn't sit right to me.

Can I sure alder woman O'Neill?

Thank you.

Um two quick points.

We were trying really hard to get this on the last meeting um agenda, and it was just taking longer to get all of the reports and everything else in place and the final edits of it.

Um so that didn't happen.

Um furthermore, there is a scheduled uh commission meeting coming up this week, and I would hate to for any of the commission members to feel that their time is wasted if we've got this in the works.

Um that will eventually so that if they're having a meeting, I I just would hate to waste their time.

And I think that by suspending the rules and getting this working, the director of planning and zoning is ready to start working on this as soon as it's passed by us, which is why I was asking for the courtesy of our council to consider suspending the rules.

We've alderman Huntley.

Yeah, I'm gonna say very similar to what Ottawa and O'Neill said, just uh a little more blunt.

There is a clear deadline on when this needs to get done.

She made a good faith effort to introduce it at a meeting that would allow us to meet that deadline, and through no fault of the the author, that wasn't able to happen.

I think sometimes it makes sense to wait six months to pass legislation.

Other times we just plain don't need to.

So uh I'm very much for this motion.

Alderman Thorpe.

Um so I would like to applaud uh Alder Woman O'Neill for all the amount of work she's you've put into the she's put into this.

Um and I appreciate the discussion.

Uh as you know, I am not a supporter of suspending the rules.

And I think as Alderman Chandelmeyer is alluding to, we should only do that in times when uh we feel it is appropriate and in the public's best interest, that's good government government.

Um Alderman O'Neill, I think has done tremendous uh due diligence on this.

Um the time we would uh save and the the respect we would show to our residents, I think makes it worthy.

I will also tell you I sent in my uh uh constituent email, my resident email.

Uh I described this uh that was going forward, and I put in it that this is going to be handled with a sense of urgency.

And if you have an issue with it, please let me know or come tonight to testify.

And I receive zero input.

So I would in this rare case uh support suspending the rules.

Okay.

Alderman Savage.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Uh yeah, I do uh thank you, Alderman O'Neill.

This has been uh long time coming.

Uh we dealt with year over year of um a lot of issues popping up with this board.

This has been um needed, and so I do entirely support it.

I also will support suspending the rules.

Um I thought you made the point well.

I'll just add that I think I know the the commission also does a quite a bit of summer activities down at City Doc, and so faster we get this ironed out, the better off we'll be.

All that said, I do want to ask um if this doesn't pass tonight on second reader, can staff still at least develop the plan that will be implemented when and if this does pass.

I think if it didn't pass tonight, uh then it just goes through the normal course um to dissolve, but nothing that wouldn't stop staff from starting to work on creating uh legislation to create a task force, as Alderman Smith Brown alluded to, or the director uh making recommendations for improvement.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Um I'll just share my thoughts.

Um generally, certainly like most of you or all of you, I would prefer not to suspend rules and have public hearing and committee review.

We're not starting from scratch though.

If this was a proposal just to uh create something new that didn't exist, I think we would all say let's just take the time that we have uh in normal course.

But in this instance, we have two situations.

One, we have a large amount of money that I think we have a general consensus of that the city hasn't put appropriate oversight over, and so rather than because we have this pool of money, the longer we um don't have oversight of it, um controls over it, I think we're at risk of poor uh neglecting our duties of oversight.

And so I think the quicker we get to that point, the better.

Um, we also have a an organization that is not functioning like a regular organization because they don't have people in these various roles.

And so to the Alder Woman's point about having asking people to attend a meeting this week to volunteer for something that we're in the process of disbanding, um, strikes me as a natural um acceptable time to let's just take action.

Um, but I'm much more concerned about we need when we have large amount of money that we're responsible for providing oversight for and we don't feel comfortable that we have those controls in place.

That's that's uh a time to act quickly.

So I'm supporting suspending the rules.

Any other oh I'm sorry, Smith Alderman Smith Rowling.

Yes, um, so yeah, we concur.

I would say most of us with the suspending of the rules and uh making sure that the voice of the arts community is a part of this, and so I just call it a question if we can.

Okay, just want to make sure there's no other discussion.

Um all those in and let me just be clear because this is again not something comes up.

I'm gonna ask all those in favor of suspending uh supporting the motion, which is a motion to suspend the rules.

If it does not pass unanimously, then it fails.

So I just want to be clear.

Um it needs a nine nine zero vote to proceed.

Um Alderman's uh Alderman uh Shendelmeyer, would you like to add to the discussion first?

I'm clearly in the minority.

I hate being that guy and blowing things up and suspension it's interesting that committees didn't get a rule suspension, bud.

But okay.

Anyway, but I do think that this is incredibly sneaky.

This does not sit right with me.

I'm gonna be voting against this as a whole because of that.

And um this is really I think disappointing.

We had a member come in saying that we did not go forward and talk to the commission that this was coming.

We could have done a lot better reaching out to them, and this feels like we're doing a last-minute midnight blitz.

Okay.

Okay.

Alderman Huntley.

If we're still doing debate, I'd just point out that another member of the commission had enough to notice to send in a letter of support today saying how much he supported it and how necessary it is that we do this and that we suspend the rules for it.

Okay.

I think we're at the point to um uh vote on the matter.

All those in favor of the motion to suspend the rules say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed say nay.

Okay.

Hearing no objections, the motion passes.

Entertain a motion to help me with the wording.

Um second reader.

I'm sorry.

To adopt on second reader.

Motion to I'll uh look for a motion to adopt on second reader.

So moved.

Uh thank you, all Alderwoman O'Neil.

Uh is there a second?

Okay, thank you.

All those in favor of the motion.

Okay.

Um Madam City Clerk, will you take the roll?

Yes, sir.

Mayor Littman.

Aye.

Alderman also Johnson.

Aye.

Alderman Shandelmeyer.

Aye.

Alderwoman Collie.

Aye.

Alderman Savage.

Aye.

Alderman Thorpe.

Aye.

Alderman Huntley.

Aye.

Alderwoman O'Neill.

Aye.

Alder Alderman Smith.

Aye.

Okay.

The motion passes.

Do we need a third reader?

Yes, sir.

What's that?

Yes.

Okay.

Entertain a motion to adopt on third reader.

So maybe thank you, Alderwoman O'Neill.

Is there a second?

Second.

Okay.

All those in favor of the motion to adopt on third reader.

Um sorry, roll call, I'm sure.

Yes.

Mayor.

Aye.

Alderwoman also Johnson.

Aye.

Alderman Shannemeyer.

Alderman McConnte.

Aye.

Alderman Savage.

Aye.

Alderman Thorpe.

Aye.

Alderman Huntley.

Aye.

Alderwoman O'Neill.

Aye.

Alderman Smith Brown.

Aye.

Okay.

The motion passes.

Miss City Attorney, please present the next item on the agenda.

Next item on the agenda is ordinance 326, Annapolis Harbor Lines at Hawkins Cove.

Okay.

Is there a motion to adopt 0326 on first reader?

Salute.

Yeah.

Thank you, Alderman Shannemeyer.

Heard you first.

Maybe it's loudest, somewhat short.

Is there a second?

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you.

Uh all those in favor saying.

Aye.

Aye.

Sorry.

I was gonna just ask to be added as co-sponsor.

Okay.

Thank you.

All those opposed?

Okay.

Uh motion passes.

Uh and um please add Alderman Savage as a co-sponsor.

I refer O3.

Sorry.

Yeah, 0326 to the board uh board of court wardens.

Ms.

City Attorney, please present the next item on the agenda.

Um I believe Alderwoman Conti may want to say something.

I apologize.

Almost just kind of first.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yes, I want to go small.

Thank you.

Certainly can do that.

I apologize.

I missed you the first time around.

I too will do that, Mayor.

Okay.

Alderman Smith Brown also added.

Okay.

Make sure I didn't miss anyone else.

Now we're up to Ms.

City Attorney, please present the next item on the agenda.

The agenda is completed.

Is there anything else for the good of the order?

Wow.

All right.

Guess we're tired.

Uh there being no other uh items on the agenda and entertain a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passes.

Meetings adjourned.