Being raised in with a culture of women of hairdressers that I was that had that I looked up to growing up, I was heavily equipped.

I used to sit in hair salons and watch the ladies work and I really learned a lot about getting a hairstylist with my mentors in front of me.

I mean, I have clients like Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Kelly Rowland, Yarichi PD.

I like grammars here, I like confidence hair.

I like how this slept on and lived in and ruffled up.

I told myself that I could dream, and I told myself that I could in a situation where I was I wasn't supposed to.

And so me standing here today is a huge honor because when I started my journey, I had no idea that this could be.

But I kept going and I kept doing.

Here we are today.

I'm getting the keys of the city.

On behalf of the city of Annapolis, we present you with the keys to the city.

I honestly want to say thank you so much.

Listen, I be working really, really hard.

And I love what I do.

I love an atmosphere.

I want to be able to create space for younger individuals to be empowered to be uplifted to find mentorship and to really strategize ways to really uplift.

And so I'm gonna start a nonprofit here in the Netflix.

It means more to me than the accolade.

It's really about the order for me.

It's really I'm really honored and grateful.

And that's what it means to me.

It's really I have a lot of humanity for what my ancestors did for me.

The first time that I was aware of an election, my grandmother, Lena Holland, Foreman, she'd be out there every election on that corner, any kind of weather, passing out flyers, talking to people, because she believed in that, being able to catch a vote, to have your voice, that voice.

And when Eisnahoe ran, I went in there with my grandmother when she voted.

Because she couldn't read.

But I later on I didn't believe that I had to do that.

I said, little simple mad, a little reading thing, you know, question, uh uh question and answer page.

But I didn't have to do that here.

So when I came back home, I re-registered and we didn't have to do it.

And I've been voting since I was 18 years old.

I might have missed one year.

That's when I transitioned from Maryland to New York that one time.

And that was in Stanton Island, and I didn't know where to go.

Things weren't going so good over in our neighborhood, and I had been there for a few years in Eastport, and somebody was running for office, and we never saw him, and so I'm never met him or anything.

And he never came to Individual that I knew of.

Um meetings or anything.

Things weren't good for the working class, the children mainly.

There were a lot of things that needed to be done.

You know, the tracks and park thing had to be done and corrected.

It's uh there was no activities for the youth.

There weren't any black businesses.

Cab drivers, barbershops, beauty shops.

That was it.

And every time one of us came in, we had to go to hell to get a certificate or something.

Just talking to people in general, how hard it was to live in Anna Pass and being poor was very hard.

Yeah, all of this was going on.

They were losing their homes.

A lot of the people did not live up to uh or the children weren't able to purchase the property that their families had, they just died off.

And those who could, they they left town and never came back.

So a lot of the property they sold it for 20,000, 30,000, and it went up to 250,000 in cost.

Uh those kind of things.

Um I was concerned about.

And I messaged someone that said, Well, yeah, you can run as a write in.

I said, Well, they already had the election that was a primary.

I said, Well, the primary's over.

So you don't have to run right in as a primary, you can run it right in as a uh uh Negero.

And then I spoke to Carl.

He said, Well, you know, they never had a woman in there, you know, and and a black woman and blah blah blah blah blah.

Hey, look, I have nothing to lose.

$50 or whatever it was to put my paperwork in, that's what I did.

I said, Well, I'll give it a shot.

The way those booths were set up during that time, you had the little levers where you write in something, or you push the little keys down.

Well, if you were left, if you were right-handed, it was hard because of the way the booths were set up.

Yeah.

So we had to educate people how to write with your left hand in the left-hand corner if you were right-handed.

And then you had the little short people, couple little short ladies.

We had to make sure they had a little stool there so they could stand up and see what they were doing.

And it was interesting, it was a lot of education in three weeks.

We had to do it.

And sure enough, it happened.

I just kind of fell into it.

In my first six months sitting on that council, I didn't open my mouth.

I tried to learn, and nobody was to teach me.

They don't have any, and I I since then they are now, they have classes.

But to actually perform, and how do you serve?

How do you uh uh put in some legislation or amendment?

Moderate price dwelling units.

I've for years I worked to try to get that done.

That was one of the main things.

I still have the legislation that Barbara Samarazics did with the county, and the county, you know, knocked it down.

They didn't vote, wouldn't vote on it.

So with the word they said that leave the city alone, let's get it in the county, and that would encompass the whole city and all.

And they knocked it down, and still to the day.

The county council said, you know, the MPDU.

Okay, affordable housing.

Okay, I don't care how you name it.

Let's get it.

Do you see all these places growing up around here?

And it's pushing the working class out, not just blacks.

I mean, people who struggle.

You've got to get up and do something.

So we are going through life as a bud.

And we're bud in the mud.

And I would like for them to learn what politics is about.

It can be dirty like anything else.

But you that's why you need good clean minds with integrity, with respect to get in there to teach children and teach people.

See, you got to teach the parents so the parents can teach the children too.

The importance of this.

Stevie Wonder.

Jimmy Hendrix.

This was a place.

We're 70,000.

We come from New York, from the Carolinas to Annapolis.

You know, we talk about our history alone in Annapolis, but we only talk about one history.

And this amazing piece of history that happened for three decades is gonna be here for the next generation to learn about a we need to pay homage to our history and our ancestors.

You know, this is bringing home back to us.

You remember the carousel.

You remember the fan stand.

So this is bringing that dream to a reality.

And it's a beautiful thing that what you're seeing today, as I say, is a Michael Cosm.

What we said, Car Speech is a perfect example of that.

It's the state.

It's the citizens that all come together.

It's very much a team effort.

Tell them he belongs to me.

Still deep in love.

Tonight, tonight, tonight.

And that tonight goes on perpetually.

Keep celebrating tomorrow and the next day.

Keep encouraging one another.

Don't stop.

Just keep going.

And if you see my love, tell you that I'm sorry.

I will do anything to get him back into my eyes.

Hey, hey, hey, sal de ahí, salí de la basura.

Primero levantamos todo.

Luego lo atamos y lo colocamos dentro del contenedor de basura.

Lo tapamos.

Ya que estamos, aprovechamos andamos también el recyclado.

Esta bolsa no tiene que estar in a recyclado.

Así que vamos a pedir que vuelva nuestra monster de la basura.

Esto de metal acá abajo no se puede recyclar.

Hear them geese.

They're flying high through this crystal shimmer of that October sky.

Just like them, I'm flying away down the muddy waters of the Chesapeake Bay.

So come on, Captain, raise that mane.

Can't wait to get back again to Annapolis on the bay.

I can see the domes and spires of my little town rise from the horizon like the jewels on a crown.

So meet me at the city dock and give us a hug.

We will shuffle off to Middletons and have some fun.

I'll shuck the oysters if you make the stew.

So come on, Captain Dope maybe wait.

There's no ill wind that blows us away to Annapolis on the bay.

Hey, get out of here.

Looks like I have to do proper trash placement and training again.

If you put the trash down, please place it into a bag.

As a matter of fact, this recycle is done all wrong, also.

If you decide to place your recycling in a bag, please bring your bag to the reception school and take all items out of the bag and place them into the can.

And make sure the lid is closed, please.

Let's bring back in the trash monster so I can show you things that are not recyclable.

See, it's 40% non-recyclable right now.

This is non-recyclable.

This is not recyclable.

The metal utensils are not recyclable.

Please be mindful of your trash and recycled placement to avoid fines.

New system, sound system.

Getting used to this.

Anyway, it's five o'clock and I'll call our work session to order.

We have two presentations, and both are linked on the city's website.

If you'd like to follow along, if you go to Annapolis.gov and search for council agendas, you'll be able to get all the links to what we're going to see today.

Excuse me a second.

Okay.

So we're we are called to order.

Would everyone at this time willing and able to please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

Thank you.

Please present the first item on the agenda.

First item on the agenda is ID forty-eight twenty-six Cars Beach.

Thank you.

And we'll we will welcome our presenters.

Way to make an entrance.

And anyone else associated with the presentation, please come forward.

Whenever you're ready to begin, take your time getting started, but whenever you're ready, feel free to introduce yourself and the people you have with you.

And then uh get started.

Good afternoon, Mr.

Mayor, Council, and members.

Rosalind Johnson, Director of Recreation and Parks for the City of Annapolis for the record.

Thank you to Alderman Savage for making sure that we came and did this work session.

I have some amazing people next to me.

We are very happy.

This is not recreation and parks plan.

This is the community's plan.

Mitchell and Recarius will tell you the many people that they met with everywhere.

We met people where they were.

They could email in, they could put post-it notes, all sorts of things.

So this is a collaborative effort for I think a year now.

A year now that we've done.

Kudos to the Resilience Authority, Gabe and Matt Fleming, who we passed the funding to, who kind of supervised this whole process.

They are the experts when it comes to shoreline and coastal restoration.

So it's good to have experts around the table who know exactly what they're talking about.

We have some major community members behind me.

We have the oh good.

Okay.

We have the neighbors.

Could all the neighbors who helped with this project please stand up.

Awesome.

Thank you.

And they represent probably about maybe 125 more people who are not here.

We also have a major partner with Blacks of the Chesapeake who are here.

Great.

And I do want to pay homage to Vince Leggett, who was at the very first meeting.

Sylvania was kind enough to record his comments.

So we have them in perpetuity.

They were sent to Julian, who has them forever and ever, so it can kind of guide our work as well.

But to my right, we have Ricarius, who is with Scape, who is probably one of the foremost design companies as far as shoreline and coastal restoration is concerned.

He'll introduce himself.

We have the Mitchell Silver.

He always gets embarrassed when I introduce him this way.

This was his last project that he worked on.

Mitchell Silver is one of the top 100 urbanists in the world, not the country, the world.

He teaches at Harvard.

He don't like me to say that, but it just tells you the breadth of the person who we have here working on this project.

He's also now council member in Raleigh, so he's usually on your side of the table.

But he was also the superintendent, which is the equivalent of the parks director for New York City Parks, and has a whole legacy that he's left there.

So we were able to through the bid process, we did a competitive bid.

We were able to get the very best, I would say in the world.

Some people might argue, but definitely the best in the country.

So I will turn it over to Gabe, who will do some quick, I'll just give you a quick background, and then we'll go to Mitchell Silver and then we'll go to Ricarius.

So oh, there we go.

Good afternoon.

Thanks for having us.

Again, I'm Gabe Coey.

I am the director of programs for the Resilience Authority of Annapolis and Anarono County.

I think we're trying to come back for another work session to really get into what the Resilience Authority does for both the county and the city, but we're a quasi-governmental instrumentality that really focuses on climate resilience.

So looking at infrastructure that can protect communities from all kinds of climate hazards, uh, including, you know, flooding, uh sea level rise, storm surge, urban heat island, all kinds of things.

So, you know, that really brought us to work with Ros on this project because Cars Beach uh was experiencing some heavy erosion and is really susceptible to future inundation events through sea level rise, storm surge and those things.

And as you know, as we're working with uh Mitchell Silver and McAdams and thinking about this really robust park that's gonna really honor a lot of the legacy of Cars Beach and Octonia Beach and everything that happened there.

Um we really want to make sure that's protected for the long term.

So our oversight was really looking at the shoreline design, working with Recarius and Scape to make sure that we're looking at future projections, building this to be resilient towards future uh again, sea level rise inundation events, so that the park infrastructure and this really community resource is viable into the future.

So that's our role.

That's why we were here.

Um, and again, like Roz said, we helped with the procurement, we help with some of that bidding because we're able to bring that kind of resource to the to the city.

So, you know, I'm gonna turn it over to Ricarius and and um and Mitchell.

Yep, so that they can start really getting into the meat of the project.

And for ease of listening um and thinking, the part that Mitchell is going to share is the non-funded part.

So that's not funded yet.

Um when we get to Ricarius, she can clap and cheer because that part is funded, um, and we're going through the permit process.

So um, this will give you an idea of kind of where we are in the process and kind of what to start to think about.

Okay.

Well, first uh, good afternoon, uh, mayor and council, as was stated.

I'm now transitioning to sit on the other side of the table for this meeting.

I'll be sitting on this side of the table.

I first have to say what a pleasure it is to work on this project.

I retired from Mick Adams, uh, the firm I worked for in June, and I promised uh both Gabe and Roz that I will stay around to finish this project.

This has been one of the labor blovs of my entire career.

Uh, and so I'm gonna walk you through uh a very quick concept.

I know you all received a copy of the presentation.

I also want to thank the Resiliency Authority and the Parks Department for their leadership and support throughout this process.

You know, looking at our team, uh, we were a dedicated individuals, very committed of unpacking the history and engaging with the community to truly understand the stories about the site, and they were very deep and powerful.

I also want to thank Councilmember Savage, who I met at the first meeting and then at several other meetings.

Thank you so much for your dedication uh to this project and this area.

Uh I want to very quickly go through the agenda I'm going to cover.

I want to talk about the value of the concept plan, uh, the summary of tasks, uh, the engagement recap, the art and design principles that drove our design, and then the concept review.

Uh, after Ricarious presents, there is an animation video which will bring this all to life.

So that'll be our closing piece uh before we entertain your questions.

So, in terms of the value of the concept plan, uh, this is really elevating the history of what happened here.

I didn't know everything about Carson El Catonia Beach until we started doing our research.

Part of the green book, uh part important part of history, meaning Vince himself.

In fact, we were emailing literally a week before he passed away.

Uh, but this really realizes the vision of Vince Leggett and Blacks of the Chesapeake, the importance and the sacredness of this particular site.

It does address some of the past harm.

Uh, some of the property over time was 180 acres.

It was now down to between five and six.

It celebrates the history of this beach, garnered strong public support.

Uh, who could not fall in love with the stakeholders behind me?

They were there every step of the way, and they were not shy to share their input, but we listened.

And I was also touched uh by meeting the CARS family at the Juneteenth event, and they had tears in their eyes and said, Thank you for honoring the legacy of our ancestors.

Uh, and then it was really a creating an economic driver and unique destination for the city.

So we really see the importance of carrying this forward, uh, a very important part of history, and now I'll walk you through uh essentially the tasks.

Uh we had a very, very exciting public engagement.

We wanted to make it fun, interesting, uh powerful.

Uh, we had listening sessions, we had stakeholder workshop, uh, we had open houses.

We wanted to make sure we fully heard the stories and heard from the community about what their aspirations were for this particular site.

Uh, and then we had these focus groups around arts and culture.

Uh we did a park assessment, we walked the site, we listened to the waves of the water, we listened to Vince, uh, and then we start our public feedback, and now we're here for the city council session, work session, and hopefully adoption process uh to let us solidify the plan for this project.

In terms of our engagement rehab, uh, this was our first meeting.

There's Vince when he was speaking to all of us.

Uh it was very powerful uh to share.

We wanted to give him his moment to talk about the history of the site.

Uh it was not long after this meeting that he passed away, but we continued our dialogue, uh really getting to know this amazing individual and his commitment to this site.

Uh these were one of our listening sessions.

We had quite a few.

We were down here uh to have a variety of opportunities to listen to the public.

That is EFOMA, our arts and cultural expert who engaged the residents.

Uh, and then we had this interactive open house.

This is where people can look at the options, decide their preferences, so we can hear from the community.

We wanted to co-create a plan and not have a top-down plan that was forced on the community.

And then there's Ricarious, uh, engaging a lot of residents that had questions about the beach restoration itself.

And I do want to add it was a great partnership.

There were two firms on one site.

We got along from day one, no conflicts, no issues, and we're very pleased how the two plans came together.

And then this was a contribution from Blacks of the Chesapeake.

We had this big unveiling at Juneteenth, and so we want to recognize their contributions and input to this process as well.

And so the plan itself was really focused on seven art and design principles, uh, playful and multifunctional, sense of discovery, community-centered, accessibility and belonging, amplify cultural heritage, encourage an ethic of care and well-being, and then cultivate wealth.

Uh our designer used cartoons to kind of convey these messages, and you see them played out here.

Uh, you have the copy of the presentation, so you can see that we were trying to provide precedent images to give the community an idea of what we envision for this particular site, how to bring it back to life and tell those stories.

So now I'll share with you the concept itself.

Uh, they're essentially four different components.

I'll walk you through very quickly.

Uh, there's the front door, so to speak, the grove, the social gathering place, and then the beach.

I'll touch lightly on the beach and recarius.

We'll get into a lot more detail.

The first thing that you'll see is we wanted to make sure that there was an experience for the users.

There is one path that takes directly to the open lawn.

And then there is a more security path that has an art installation.

As you can see, there are five of them so people can walk through and experience it or just take the shortcut.

And we call it the Grow because we want it to be a very sacred space for people to enjoy the atmosphere of where they're walking through.

So let's first start with the entry.

Right now, when you drive past uh the entrance, you don't even know it's there.

It's just a wooded area with a road, and we wanted to make it more prominent and elevate it from the parking lot and make that entry very special.

Uh what we were envisioning uh I do a lot of traveling, went to Brisbane and loved this sign that showcased the city, but also want to make sure it was safe to cross.

And so one of the recommendations was for us to elevate the road itself, uh, have a beautiful entrance where you can see this beautiful marquee, and you'll see that in the animation.

And so that will be the entrance, a formal lobby to welcome you into the space.

The next session is the grove, and the grove has a series of art installations.

We wanted to make sure each one told a story and offered a specific experience.

We wanted to have a story wall where people can see and experience the history of what happened at Cars and El Catonia in the Black Chesapeake area.

Uh, there's also we wanted to have these other illuminated or at least balls that would share stories, and if they're gonna be illuminated, we're told it has to be very dim, so it does not create any light pollution, but another opportunity for people to experience the grove and read stories about Cars Beach.

Uh we were inspired by an artist called I Wei Wei.

Uh, he did this big giant, what do you call uh good fences make good neighbors?

Uh we looked at that and was inspired by the crabbing basket.

Crabbing was so important to the black of the Chesapeake.

So you'll see in our visualization there is this life-size crabbing basket that people can walk in as a place where they can reflect and relax and understand the history of Carr's Beach.

Uh, there are going to be some monuments dedicated specifically to the Cars family and all the other uh important happy atoms and others that play such an important part.

So we want to make sure there will be some literal uh statues on the site itself.

Uh and then we wanted to have to recognize all the artists that performed there.

This light well will carve every name of a person and performer that had a chance to perform on Cars Beach, and you can see it in the day, and then it casts a light and illuminates at night, as well as some other features onto the site.

Once you go through the grove, you now reach the social gathering place.

We still want this to be a place because it's nestled between uh neighbors.

We want to make sure it was not overwhelmed with noise.

So this is more of a relaxing space.

It can accommodate events several times a year.

It features an amphitheater.

You'll see there are some cottages alongside or some bungalows.

There is a visitor center, another vision of Vents Leggett, and so this is a place where people can go there to gather and enjoy the open space.

Uh, this open space also will have an area for children to play.

Uh, this nice open lawn.

It's not there for baseball or for soccer.

It's more to just enjoy the beach and bring people back into this amazing space.

So here are just some more images of what we envision for the social gathering place.

Uh, these are the cabanas that can be used.

They're alongside the amphitheater.

They can be concessions, they could be changing stations, they could be restrooms.

We wanted to make sure they're adaptable, but we took precedent from these cabanas that were changing rooms or dressing rooms in the past and make it a central feature of our design.

And then the visitor center.

This is where the stories will really be told.

There'll actually be a jukebox inside.

That's our recommendation that will play all the music that people heard uh during the heyday of the Cars Beach and all the different concerts.

Uh and then we wanted to make sure we brought back to life one of the water towers.

There used to be one there, and in fact, if you see the mural next to the Weston, it shows a nice uh water tower, and we would love it to have Cars Beach on it so when people are going through the bay, they can identify exactly where Cars Beach is.

But then the visitors center where we can really showcase uh the experience of what happened at Cars Beach, but it could also be an event space as well.

And then finally, it was very important that it's not the easiest place to get to by car, but you can also get there by water.

Uh fishing is an important experience in the Chesapeake, and we want to make sure we had uh ferry landing, a fishing pier, uh, the one right next door at the Baywood Baywoods of Annapolis is a heavily used pier.

We want to make sure that pier is restored and people have an opportunity to go out and take a look back at this amazing beautiful space.

So the dock itself is gonna also be a very key feature, and now I'm gonna transition to Ricarius to talk about the amazing transformation they're doing on the beach.

If I could pause in the presentation, just see if anyone has any questions.

Sure.

Okay.

I just have one brief one.

The uh water tower that looks like it's a um not a functional water tower, right?

Correct.

Okay.

It is not functional, it is purely public art.

Okay.

Uh Alderman Thurp.

Sorry I didn't get my hand up fast enough earlier.

On the ferry landing fishing dock.

Um has any thought been put into making that larger than it appears now so that people could tie up their boats and stay there, or is there is this just a philosophical drawing at this point?

It's a concept.

This is a concept drawing.

So the answer is permitting is involved typically.

Uh, but once you determine the width, so the answer is yes, depending on regulations and what is allowed, yes.

We can envision it as being larger.

But that right now is just a placeholder.

There was a pier there, it's dilapidated now, but to restore it that asset to be part of the cars beach concept.

Yeah, I would think something with some limited number of slips, eight or ten slips or something, not a marina.

But people could come spend the day at the beach.

Yes, it would not preclude that again, based on the permitting agencies and the regulatory agencies of what they would allow.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention um that blacks of the Chesapeake, if they could wave their magic wand, um, there is a ship that they want to bring back here from Africa to actually be at that dock.

So again, you know, everything you know is in concept phase right now, but since they're not at the microphone, um, they might kick me later if I didn't mention that.

They don't believe in violence.

And just so we're hearing that that would be like more of like a museum type ship, not where it goes out.

Correct, a museum type ship to be docked at that pier.

Thank you.

Okay.

Uh Alderman uh Smith Brown.

Sure, I do want to also emphasize thank you all so very much.

Um, and we appreciate all the work that you all are putting into this, uh, the history and the significance is just magnificent.

Um, I do want to emphasize though, if we do decide to have boats of any sort, uh, I think the questions of where the monies are gonna go, uh, who will be prioritized and boating, putting their boats there or docking their boats, um, and who will also um have first dibs of if you are a person of color, or if you have a background or relationship to those who laid the foundation for this to even become, you know, how would we go about that?

So I I think I I like the idea cool, I think it's fine.

Uh, but when we start opening up access to certain things, we know people like to take advantage.

And so I do not want it to get to a conversation of making this place that's supposed to be you know, honoring our our past and you know the significance of the future as well, um where people can just come and bring their boats and thinking that that's what that's for because a marina is nowhere close to what this should or needs to be.

To that end, we have had discussions with the electric ferry that's being planned for Annapolis.

I don't know where that stands, but having this be a stop on that to encourage kind of equitable access to the area that you know, if you can't take the road or you don't own your own boat, you could take the ferry there as well to access it from the water.

And one of the questions that we've been asked is about parking.

Um, and so again, parking will be trial and error.

Um, we're gonna try our best to come up with a plan and we'll see if it works.

Some parts of it may work, some parts may not, and we'll have to tweak it.

But we're what we're looking at right now is limiting the access to the beach um by traffic, um, because you know, Sandy Point, they're they're inundated with um visitors, and you know, we don't want to go to the reservation system.

Um, but what we are looking at is having parking attendance and you pay to park and it's five dollars or whatever it's gonna be for X amount of hours, whether it's three hours or four hours, your time is up, you need to leave to give someone else access.

If we still have um parking spots available, then you can buy another time slot to park your vehicle.

But if you bust in or catch an Uber in, then have at it and stay all day, is what we're looking at right now.

Um again, that might need to be tweaked, um, depending on how it goes, it might work perfectly.

Um, but we're open to exploring the best way possible to get as many people at the beach and access to the beach in the water um in a safe manner.

And I just want to emphasize that uh working with the the neighbors and surrounding community, this is not an event space that's gonna have concerts.

They recognize on Juneteenth that is one day that is now an annual event.

But in terms of the amphitheater, whether it could be the spoken word, it could be soft events, uh, it is now a place the neighbors could enjoy that will not be overwhelmed with sound, but as you can see from the grove, a place for respite and reflection, and then you have the open area where we go out there besides the deer, a lot of dog walkers and people just strolling enjoying the beach, but the beach restoration is such a critical part to bring that back, and I'll turn over to Ricarius to talk about the amazing restoration they're going to do to bring the beach back, because this was known as one of the major black beaches back in the day.

But the beach restoration is such a critical part to bring that back, and I'll turn over to Ricarius to talk about the amazing restoration they're going to do to bring the beach back because this was known as one of the major black beaches back in the day.

And I do want to give a shout out to the community.

Um, because oftentimes when you have a park in a community, people say, Oh, yes, it's just for our community.

Um, and then um sometimes are not my backyard or NIMBY people, but in this case, that is not the case.

The community said we want people to come, we want them to enjoy this park.

We understand the historical nature of the park, um, and we recognize it and we honor it.

And on top of that, we don't want a fence between our communities because it should be open.

Howdy, um, who is no longer with us, um, who's on the Baywoods um side, um, that was one of the things that he said, he does not want a fence.

So kudos to the community for saying that we want this open and and the the lift lipstick mafia and Tina um and yes, Tina and Marilyn as well.

Okay.

Let's um before we take any further questions.

I'd like you to continue with the next presentation.

Just want to do a time check.

We there's another um meeting in here at 7 p.m.

So to stay on schedule, really need to take about seven minutes off.

So you have about um 20 27 minutes left for this topic.

Okay, can you uh change the PDF?

Uh exit, exit.

Alder Woman, uh Alder Woman, do you mind if we let them finish the next phase of the presentation and hold more questions until that next topic?

Thank you.

Okay.

Good afternoon, or good evening, everyone, I guess.

Um I'm a little too tall for this.

Get closer.

All right, how's everyone doing?

Good.

So, as Mitchell and Ross just mentioned, um, this has been a pretty robust community engagement effort.

You know, it was really um rewarding to come down and connect with the community of Annapolis to understand, you know, what they really valued in terms of beach and what would encourage them and their family to use the site.

Um so we when we came down to the open house, we really wanted to understand with the community, you know, what would encourage them and their families to come to the beach.

And so we often use a lot of precedent imagery to help the community like tell us what would be appropriate for this site.

But not only that, we also wanted them to help us understand what the character and the vibe of the beach wanted to be as well.

And so we used some beach examples along the um the Severn and Chesapeake Bay to help them visualize or help them communicate to us what was appropriate.

And so some of the programs that you see on the screen, swimming, citizen science, and kayaking were what we heard from the most from the community.

And then as it relates to design of the beach, like did it want to be a big beach or did it want to look more naturalized, um, a lot of the community voted on Matta Peak, and when we asked why, they mentioned it was the biggest beach that you showed.

And so looking at the historic imagery at Car's Beach and the precedent, we want this to be as big of a beach as possible.

Um, and at that meeting, we also helped the community understand, like if nothing was done today, what the beach would look like in the future.

And that'll be the next slide that I get to.

So, what's at risk if we do nothing?

So, that top left corner, you see the historic image at Cars Beach where you know black families came together to celebrate to listen to music to teach their families or their children how to swim.

And so if you look at the image to the right, or the bigger image, you see the there's a much more narrowed beach.

And I I would estimate the beach and the historic image is about a hundred feet in depth versus maybe the 10 to 15 foot that you have today, and that's the consequence of uh sea level rise and erosion.

You can also see like that erosion is causing that sewer to be exposed, which we heard from the community that that would be a deterrent from in getting their children to the beach to swim.

And so looking at this is this this map here, you can see how the shoreline has changed over time.

The orange, I'm sorry, the yellow line represents where it was in 1994, and it has seen about 60 feet of erosion.

And so, with only two feet of sea level rise, the beach as you know it is underwater.

So that magenta line represents where the high tide water would be, and you could anticipate two feet of sea level rise as soon as 30 years, but it's not as likely.

However, it's more likely to see it in about 60 years.

So think 2028, I'm sorry.

Yeah, 2080, sorry, not 28, that's two years.

Um, and so this is using the uh a tidal gauge chart that was developed from the University of Maryland, I believe it was.

And so you can also see on this this this slide that the the marsh at the bottom of the screen uh with two feet of sea level rise, it becomes um like a standing body of water, which influences what some of the design decisions that we um took with the the concept that we presented to the community.

And so just you know, knowing the the reality of climate change and sea level rise, we wanted to create a series of design goals that would help us with be guiding principles for you know the design process, but to make sure that we're addressing the hazards, but to also make sure that we're addressing the desires and wants from the community itself.

Um Caras Beach is a special place.

This is an aside, but I have an uncle that's from Baltimore, and when I was telling him that I'm working on a beach, I was working on Car's Beach, I just saw the light in his eyes just like light up because he he said that when he was a kid, his parents used to take him and his siblings here to celebrate, and that was when I realized just how important how important this this beach is.

Um, and so he he constantly asks me about for updates on this beach.

See, is it built yet?

You know, and so um that that just means this it's a really special project.

Um, and so some other design goals that we incorporated were restoring the public beach and celebrating the site's cultural history, enhancing habitat resilience, connecting the people with Chesapeake Bay, and then creating a resilient beach and stabilize the shoreline for future generations.

And so this the map of the beach today.

So our design is looking to you know, widen the beach to support public use, uh, relocating, relocating the manhole, um, slowing and stopping erosion, and designing for two feet of sea level rise.

This plan or this plan enlargement here of the plan, I'm sorry, of the design.

I'll go into some of the design elements that we have here in the design.

So the first thing you may notice are those two structures that are sticking out into the Chesapeake Bay.

We refer to those as living headlands, and those are those are cobalt structures that are interplanted that will essentially help control the erosive forces that would normally erode the beach away.

Uh we call them living because they're interplanted with a lot of plants to also provide habitat and ecology to the beach itself.

Those are set at elevation for Navy 88, um, which is you know above the the threshold for sea level rise inundation on the site.

Um the next design does this have a pointer.

It does.

Is it I don't know if it's gonna cover oh maybe just point at the dunes for me.

Um, the next design object um feature are the dunes at the back side at the back side of the beach.

They essentially provide structure during the very rare storm.

So if there was a storm that were to come and over take, you know, overtake the beach and the the living headlands, we have those dunes in the back at plus seven NAB D 88, which are essentially there to replenish any beach sand that would be eroded.

Um next, we have the the kayak launch and the get down, which is essentially meant to be this opportunity to create access for the community, the youth of Annapolis to learn more about the site's ecology, but to also have an opportunity to connect with the Chesapeake Bay, whether it be via swimming or kayaking, that's a great opportunity.

But we also have these terrace seating um, which allows for like outdoor classrooms for student groups to come, learn about the ecology as well.

And the and the beach itself is set to um plus four and navy eighty-eight as well, which so all of that is being designed based off of the science of where sea level rise will be in 2050.

And just going back to that first slide when we were showing precedent images to the community, these are the six that got the most love.

You know, there were a lot of images, but these were the six that people really wanted to be able to do when they came to the site, swimming, kayaking, engaging in citizen science, so learning about the ecology, fishing, sunbathing, and being able to sit and just enjoy the beautiful Chesapeake Bay.

And so this is a view of Carus Beach today.

You've seen this image before.

And so the manhole is exposed.

The beach is very narrow.

It doesn't support the ability for families to come out here and celebrate.

And this is the beach that we would be creating with this design.

You know, those living hailland structures are doing a ton of work.

You know, they're allowing us to really maximize this beach and controlling those erosive forces.

And so with this, people are people can come sunbathe, people can come picnic, um, and people can really engage with the the Chesapeake Bay.

And then this next slide is just the big bird's eye of the site, looking at the beach, the park, and Bemba Beach Road today.

And in the future, our plan, our beach, the park, would really transform this site.

It really maximizes the beach.

So this view is demonstrating how exciting the feature is for Cars Beach.

Non-title wetland is eradicating invasive species on site and increasing habitat diversity.

Our get down at the intertitle co presents a great opportunity for the community to engage in ecology and increase outdoor learning for the youth.

Our living headlands allow for the design to maximize the beach to align with the historic use and size at Caras Beach.

The beach can support programming, the beach can support family gathering, and the beach can support Annapolis in reviving this amazing Chitland circuit history where African Americans reclaimed their space on the beach and created new areas for recreation and attraction for the community.

And that's where I'll and we'll end on the animation video, which brings this all together.

Right there.

Also, I hope I picked up time.

Okay.

I don't know if the sound is on, but the sound is not on.

That's okay.

So it'll go through all the series that I shared with you.

The first is that you're gonna go to now an entrance.

So there is now a welcoming space when you arrive.

As people are driving by, they now see the beautiful Cars Beach artistic sign.

Now this is a gathering place where people can meet or be dropped off.

This does not exist today.

Now you're going through one of the paths.

The first is you're approaching the story wall.

Uh this is one of those alcoves where people can just sit there and learn about the history.

There are benches where they can relax.

We want this to be in more of a tree grove setting versus a social gathering place.

And so this is an opportunity for an artist to curate exactly how they want to tell the story about Cars Beach.

These were the globes I was sharing with you.

Uh, another opportunity to share stories about the site itself.

And so this can illuminate at night, again, very low because we want to make sure to not disturb any of the neighbors.

And then soon you're gonna go very quickly uh by the very large crabbing basket.

And this is another space to uh respect what used to take place.

There's a lot life-size crabbing basket, and now you're walking toward the visitor center and the social gathering place.

That is the other element that'll feature all the artists that perform there.

There it will be ADA parking for the visitor center, and now you're beginning to have a bird's eye view of the social gathering place.

You see the pavilion, and you see the cabanas to the side.

You actually see the water tower itself, and now you're beginning to see the beach, and right behind the pavilion is open so people can actually enjoy the the get down.

There are seagulls would have been making noise right now.

We'll send you the video itself.

Uh, and then there's the beach itself.

You get to see the the get down that Ricky Rus talked about with the seating.

Uh the pavilion is open, so it could be uh used for education.

And now we're gonna start flying towards you see the water tower that will say cars beach, uh, and then there is the pier.

Uh that is the visitor center itself, which can also be uh an event space.

Uh but it gets to show you exactly how exciting this space all comes together.

Uh again, here hopefully can be widened.

And so that is now the bird's eye view, and that is a vision of the two firms coming together on the leadership of the Zinguthy Authority and the Parks Department, and that concludes our presentation.

Thank you very much.

Um, I think we all uh absolutely enjoyed it.

Yeah, let's give a round of applause.

Uh we'll take uh council questions in a second, but before we do that, can you give us an overview of funding and timing um so for funding right now?

Um the permits for the shoreline and coastal restoration um have already been filed, so we're working through that process.

We're hopeful that we'll get the permits back um and approved in July.

Um that will better inform um the budget.

Right now we have a in hand a little bit over four million, which um everyone is is very optimistic and thinks it's enough to do the shoreline and coastal restoration.

Again, I call it funny money until you get a contractor who says we can do it for this amount.

Um, and that's you know, barring any, you know, gases now, however expensive it is, it changes every day.

So we're very hopeful for that.

We do have um in this upcoming budget, we put a placeholder um to start the design for the park because you saw the concept.

We now have to go to design for the park.

Um, and then um based on the concept that um the team has pulled together, we're told it'll be about 11 million, 11 or 12 or 12 million.

11 to 12 million um for for the actual um design of the um the beach area and the whole entire park.

I'm sorry, the whole entire park.

I I I must have misheard something.

I thought you just said 11 to 12 million for the design of the park.

No, I'm sorry, for design construction, and build of the park.

Yes.

And of the four million that we have that you have for the shoreline restoration, uh, what is your source of funds for the four million?

So for the four million, we have um federal dollars, we have um, I don't believe we have any state dollars in there.

I think it's city and federal right now.

Um one of the benefits of transferring this project to the resilience um authority is because they have an opportunity to help us seek grants.

I know um Gabe can probably speak better to the grants that they currently have in that we have not heard back from.

Yes, we have a million dollars in through the Severn Hole watershed partnership uh for FY27, so that would be July 1 money.

All indications are that the state will approve that.

I mean, we've been going back and forth on on that funding list.

Um so that would free up, you know.

I think the four million dollars that Raz is largely pointed to is is City of Annapolis capital funding, but we are looking at a million dollars through the state, and then we have another million dollar request um in through NIFWIF that's also pending.

Um with the national park funding, we still have about a million dollars there that we can move forward as well.

So I think we're looking very, very positive and flush for the for the shoreline design piece, and then anything that the resilience authority can bring in to free up, you know, take that burden off the capital budget, can then be moved towards the larger park um design and and implementation.

So I think I think we're in a really positive spot for it.

Obviously, we don't have all the funding, but for the shoreline component to get that beach going, uh, with likely what Raja said as far as a July permit, we really hope to break ground in in the fall of 2026 to have that open for by like summer of 28 at the latest.

It won't take too long for the build, but we want to get it vegetated and really ready for the community.

So, yeah, plugging along.

Thank you.

So we have about 10 minutes of time for QA.

I do want to make sure we get a chance to thank uh you all for doing the presentation and uh blacks of the Chesapeake for being here, the neighbors from Baywoods for being here.

Appreciate all your participation uh leading up to this moment and in today's uh um work session.

Uh Alder Woman Alsip Johnson, you had a question uh from the previous segment.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I'm old school and I used to hang down at the cars beach, and uh change is always good, but some things you can't change.

I mean, I'm looking for when I come to the beach, I'm looking for um you know it's gonna be crowds, all types of crowds, and and you want to be comfortable with the crowds today with so much going on in the world.

Um, maybe you can um I know you're gonna widen some areas of the beach, right?

You mentioned that, right?

Wide some areas.

Um yes, but the presentation that um Ricarius just showed for the shoreline and coastal, it'll be um a hundred um yards long, which is essentially the size of a football field for the beachfront area that does not exist right now.

Okay, that's good.

And it'll be more lighting in.

Well, so that's something that we're looking at because right now the park is open from dawn to dusk.

Um we have promised the community that we would have that discussion.

Um the shoreline and coastal does not um take into consideration any lighting or electrical infrastructure, it's just the shoreline and coastal.

The lighting will come later with the park design.

Okay.

Also, um, will it be any type of vendors down there in case people don't bring any foods and they want to eat something?

I mean, are we able to be like a cookout picnic like area?

So we're not necessarily looking for that because when people have food and vendors, then you have trash and you have all those other sorts of things.

We will have lifeguards there.

Um we will have lifeguards.

Um, so that's something that we're looking at.

There may be a situation where we have food trucks come, but no um necessarily internal vendors.

And I do want to share from the educational standpoint that blacks of the Chesapeake is already working on the curriculum and the education piece, so that the the stud the hope is that all students in Anarondo County will come and visit this, and it's part of the curriculum.

And so they are already working on that piece and have done a phenomenal job with it.

Okay, so we're talking about the boats that you're gonna be able to park there.

Is that the same water that we can be swimming in?

Yes.

Oh, wow.

There's one bag be fishing on one side and you can swim on the other side.

Well, so the the ideally the fishing when you saw the pier, the fishing what happened to the left.

You have the what we call whale tails or crab claws that kind of hold that um the swimming space in.

You could go all the way out to the end of it, and you're really kind of uh an adult who's like five nine will be up kind of to their chest.

So we're not talking about deep waters, we're not talking about rough waters, but the fishing would happen on the other side.

All right, that'll hold me for a while.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Alderman Savage, then Alderman's McCrown.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

So this is phenomenal.

I want to just give huge kudos to all of you of your your passion, the time that you spent on this, uh, and for how much you've worked with the community.

Um you've had a number of meetings uh with them.

Truly truly appreciate that.

And I think that's absolutely has made the project even better.

And I do want to make sure we thank the community.

This wouldn't have gotten so far if it wasn't for um Bay Woods and the late carbon.

Chesapeake Harbor and Baywoods, and the late uh and great Admiral Schaeffer, who is uh a leading voice over there for a long time.

Uh and Blacks of Chesapeake.

Uh, and I will talk more about Blacks of Chesby in a minute.

Um, but I again it's phenomenal, and I think it's even really more than than I'd even hoped way back.

You know, I 20 years ago I saw the first development proposal and was hoping there was a way to protect the property.

Um, but this is again even more than I'd even hope.

This is so I think um it's gonna be such a huge asset, not just for the city, and that's you know, I think as we try to find funding, I think we should really emphasize this with the state, county, and the feds, right?

I mean, there's been talk about making the bay into national park.

This would be an incredible key part of that in my mind, um, to showcase that history.

And if we get the ferry to connect um Cars Beach in downtown, that's also we'll get people who are visiting the national park to come downtown.

Um, and that is another aspect I want to highlight is because I do think you know, we do have grant money for um the electric hybrid ferry.

And you know, that's something I learned when I went to an event recently at Chesapeake Harbor and was chatting with Blacks at Chesapeake.

And they have a really compelling um vision for how to tie it with City Dock, right?

Um there's been an idea of naming part of the city dock improvements after Vince Leggett, uh, and uh integrating that with uh Blacks the Chesapeake, right?

And I think actually having a way for people to get from City Doc to learn about the history and then go visit it firsthand at uh cars beach would be incredible.

Um and that also addresses some of the the traffic concerns that we've heard about, right?

It gives people another way to get down there.

And just so you're aware, um we did just have a conversation with um the director of transportation because we did have money in last year's budget to do a conceptual study for um uh determining if we can actually replicate uh the circulator, so have another transportation office for people to connect from downtown in Eastport towards seven, and we're seeing if that might be something where we go down Edgewood Road.

Um, but another part of that which I need to circle up with the mayor on, is um reaching out to the giant shopping center to see if we can make either purchase that corner vacant lot or repurpose part of their parking lot, put in stormwater management, but make that a transportation center, a little bit of a hub where people can park, get a bike share, ride down the bike lane, down Edgewood Road, right to the park, or perhaps hop on some kind of electric jitney to get down instead of having to um because they're parking is gonna be challenging down there.

Um so in any case, that's that's basically I didn't really have any questions out of that, just to say thank you very much for all that you're uh you're doing on this.

Um I did want to something that came to mind here, and then you know, my ancestors, all of that just that's what really resonates the most with me.

And when I see this, I don't necessarily feel that completely.

I definitely do see an up-to-date or a new um, you know, remodeled, renovated way of today's time of a beach.

I do see that.

I don't really feel um, you know, uh the the concert feel what those before me uh loved about this space or just the family feel.

But I did want to ask what would have been, or do we have an idea of what pushback we received, if at all, like from the beginning, did we always have support of the community?

That was the one question I had.

And then on top of that, um, alongside it, did we look into the property values of the home surrounding this beach and how much uh those properties will uh increase in value uh because you know, yes, uh when we when we look around, we often see that parks are usually built in these higher end home spaces.

Um, and this is I think an example of that where you do have expensive housing or you know, not affordable for the average person, and you're putting a beach which is valued at millions of dollars right in their backyard.

So I would like to also know um what the value of those properties would be if we do even have that.

We we did not look at the value of property, uh, but we did from the very first meeting.

We had a pre-meeting uh with some of the neighbors that are behind me before we even started.

That's the meeting where Vince was present uh to kind of share how the process was sort of unfold.

We also recognize that this was a five-acre site between places where people live.

And so we want to be very respectful about the type of activity that would go on there.

Uh as I stated, there used to be a lot of concerts, and so straight away we had to say that yes, the Juneteenth event would be there, which is supported by the community, but in terms of being an event space on a regular basis, uh, that would be problematic.

One because of parking, but two because of the noise uh and the amount of trash that would occur there.

So that was stated up front, and that was how we started the process.

How do you create a space, a sacred space that honors the memory and events that took place there, but also allow people to enjoy it for recreation such as swimming uh and other software events.

So that was from the beginning, uh, but we did not look at the property values itself.

We looked at the value of the history, the value of the place, the ecology, the beach, and all the memories that people talked about.

And so we we did separate that out, and again, we had to be very sensitive to people who lived on both sides, and they cooperated with us.

We tested ideas, they were not bashful or shy to tell us what they liked or did not like, and so uh that's the process that we undertook.

And our compromise, if you will, is the Juneteenth event.

Um, this summer will be our third um Juneteenth.

It's always on June 19th.

This uh that'll be a Friday, June 19th from three to seven.

That's a huge event.

We were somewhat skeptical the first time we had it, um, because we are in between two communities.

Um and the response we got back was turn the music up, we can't hear it from our balcony.

So um that was a very positive response, but it's also a labor-intensive um event for our staff because we are there from start to finish, and uh many of the neighbors were like, oh my gosh, it doesn't look like 1,500 people were just here because we made sure all the trash was put picked up and removed, so it is a huge undertaking.

All right, we have time for one more question, uh Alderman Thorpe, and then we need to wrap this up.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, I would like to add my compliments to the tremendous effort and the beautiful vision that you all have created.

Um tremendous.

I am concerned, and I really want to put a large exclamation point on parking.

What I hear is we're gonna do trial and error, we're gonna give it a try.

I think we should be doing a little more than that.

I think once we build this, once we look at what the Annapolis Maritime Museum has done across the street, once we build it, it's going to be really expensive and hard to dig into what we've already done.

So uh I applaud the effort to work with the community.

I think that's tremendous.

Um I would ask, have you reached out and met with the Annapolis Maritime Museum concerning parking?

Because they are an event uh facility, so they they have all the challenges that you're talking about not having.

Um have you are you reaching out to them?

And do you consider Annapolis Maritime Museum as an equal partner as you work together to make sure that both of these facilities are uh successful?

So I don't want you to think we haven't tried to address parking.

There was a property that came up that was for sale that we tried to purchase in order to address parking, but we weren't able to acquire that property.

Um we have um somewhat been working with the Maritime Museum, as you know, um, because I believe you're on the board, but uh, you used to be okay.

Um so they um have a new executive director, so we are not there yet.

We have not met with them yet.

Um once we our permits are approved for the Shoreline and Coastal is when we'll start to kind of de dig a little bit deeper into that.

Um and it's unfortunate that in Annapolis parking is usually always a challenge.

So it's a conundrum, and we'll try to um solve it as best we can.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I would just ask that we put some attention onto that as we go forward because it it is a big unknown.

Okay.

So I'll take that as a point for us to hear more about when you're ready to present more about parking.

Okay, thank you very much for your time.

Uh appreciate you.

We're gonna try to move right along to the next topic if we can uh bring up while I'm speaking, uh Director Simmons and your team, if you could make your way to the front.

Uh Ms.

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

The next excuse me.

The next item on the agenda is ID 4926, Office of Emergency Management Department After Action Report for Winterstorm Fern.

Okay, thank you.

And again, uh Director Simmons, if you didn't hear me earlier, there's a planning commission meeting at 7 p.m.

Julian's asked that we try to finish up.

He would like 15 minutes, so 6.45.

I'm willing to push it to 650.

Um, so be mindful to leave questions, leave time for questions from council.

Um we've all had your presentation, so um, you could assume that we've all read the presentation already.

And whenever you're ready, um, introduce yourselves, uh, you yourself and the people at the desk, please.

I'm Kevin Simmons.

I'm the emergency manager for the city of Annapolis.

And with me is Chief Police Chief Amy Migaz.

And Annapolis PIO, Public Information Officer Mitchell Stevenson.

Thank you.

Public Works Director Burr Vogel.

Thank you so much.

I'm feeling so warm and fuzzy from this car beach now.

I gotta talk about this uh dangerous and deadly storm.

As soon as I can get it up on the computer.

Caitlin.

We have it in front of a thank you.

Very good.

Thank you, Kevin.

So did I did I understand you correctly, Mayor, that you said that everybody had reviewed the PowerPoint.

Everyone's received it and had the chance to review it, so you can assume that we have.

Okay, great.

So I'll just go to the results of the after action.

Unless anybody has a question about the PowerPoint that you reviewed.

So we had an after-action process that was last week.

We sent out surveys to everybody to complete.

They got the surveys back into us.

We we we um put the data together, we had an after-action in the EOC, and this is what we came up with.

But just the after-action process was to provide an open and honest anonymous and forum to collect feedback.

We received comments from the leadership, from departments, and our partners that had a primary role in this event.

Uh we noted public comments that we heard from a lot from you from the uh council and reviewed corrective actions from last year's winter season.

So I'll just start with the category of snow operations, and as you have questions, you can just let me know, or we can have questions at the end, however, you prefer.

So the strength in snow operation, we included the Department of General Services, one of our big partners, in a pre-event coordination and planning.

We utilized hotels to ensure that emergency essential personnel were available.

We knew if we released them in these conditions, we would not get them back for the next shift.

So we did hotels for for a lot of folks.

Utilization of steel blades and other specialized equipment that we talked about in last year's after action, and in responsive to the change in needs of the incident.

We were able to shift gears quickly and transition whenever we needed to.

So they were our good points, and now we we also identified some areas that we needed to improve in.

For snow operations is improving on continuous hours of operation to support a variety of snow and ice removal tactics.

Making as expected.

Looked into additional locations for snow dis was so disposal sites for high accumulation events.

I just talked to Mitchell today.

She was showing me some pictures over at Truxton, and I don't think that snow would be gone until sometime late April.

Utilization of additional outside resources, such as contractors, state assistance, and emergency contracts, ongoing action items from last year's winter season, legislation pursuing posting current snow emergency plan online.

Last year we talked about uh upgrading the plan legislatively.

We didn't get around to it.

Trash collection, especially where residents use dumpsters, and then snow removal for non-city owned roadways within the city, include sidewalks in the snow plan.

So they these were areas that we looked, and folks that were were in the thick of it said, hey, look, we need to improve on all of these in the after action.

Sidewalks which takes a life of its own.

Our strength was we had better communication with residents to set expectations this year.

We ensured attention and considerations for the safe walk to school routes.

We learned from last year that that has to be a priority, and this year we made good on it.

Areas of improvement, we need to consider equipment specifically assigned for sidewalks and enforcement clarification for non-city owned sidewalks within the city.

Parking and towing.

We notified everybody.

We made arrangements at the parking garages.

That worked out great.

Snow garage announcements were made earlier to allow more residents to help clear the emergency routes.

No towing related to this winter storm.

Areas of improvement, the period of free garage use expired, but some residents had limited parking due to uh snow and ice at their residence.

This was an unusual storm and all, so it took uh a long time for us to get the city back to normal.

EO EOC operations.

Um our strengths were we were 24-7 over 11 operational periods that went about 12 hours each period.

Resource management when we we reached out, we got state resources and snow removal equipment, got the National Guard in to help, uh preparedness and response activities, we had a lot of coordination calls, we had a lot of EOC action plans, vulnerable populations.

About three three days before the storm hit, we concentrated on vulnerable populations, making sure that people who couldn't help themselves were taken care of before the snow hit.

So we we have a special census rot roster, which you all are familiar with, and the warming center was eight days continuous, 24-7.

And we had a senior policy group and EOC teams at the ready.

Areas of improvement, we need to increase our volunteer capability amongst residents.

That would be like snow cores that that uh Baltimore City started.

We need to look into something like that for us, and then we had a lack of call takers, which impacted uh EM staff ability for availability for operations, and that was in the call center.

Senior policy group, senior privacy group was the mayor of the city manager, um, public works director, police chief, the fire chief, myself, and the office of law.

Senior policy group representative was available for 24-7 coverage, collaboration and continuing continuous assessment as conditions involved with decisions supported by the best available information at the time.

We made decisions as we need to make decisions based on the best information that we had.

Areas of improvement.

One of the things that came out the after action was that when y'all started out, you know, you know, everybody was tight and everybody was coordinated, everybody was working together.

As we went further into the incident, as things started to get back to normal, the mayor started doing mayor things, the city manager started doing city manager things, and then we all were working the incident.

The luxury of having a state of emergency that the mayor declared was that you can appoint an incident commander.

That incident commander will be given the authority to actually see this through and see the city back to normal.

And they would also be held accountable.

So that's something we rarely use, but that's available to us.

And to provide senior leadership and elected officials training to support decision making for large and complex incidents.

Little training never hurt anyone.

Almost 800 calls taken by two to three staffers per shift and supported and trained by city staff that served as call takers.

We had a lot of call takers trained on the fly.

So we we had to give office of emergency management call takers a break.

So transportation was great.

They brought a bunch of folks up.

We trained them on the fly.

We had somebody from Office of Emergency Management with them.

They got just in time training, and they did fine, but that's really not the way to do it.

I want to be able to offer the training and get more city staff trained to be call takers.

Areas of improvement, the increased depth in call takers from the city departments to allow EM staff to perform emergency management operations.

We had a circle trap, and this was interesting because you had you have people calling in the call center, and once you call in the call center, we put you to through to the public works call center, and then they were getting calls from the mayor's office, constituent services, they would send us to the call center, or they would send it to the public works call center, and people would get trapped in that circle because we didn't give them enough information to actually deal with the customer, right?

So in the future, what we need to do is we need to set priorities early in the day before the beginning of an operational period, and then give a script to the call takers.

That way, when people call, they can give them some information instead of getting caught in this circle because everybody would call the different portals in the circle, and they wouldn't get anywhere.

The PIO actually was on call more than anybody should be on, especially with an incident like this, fast moving, fast-paced a lot.

So there was no one to relieve the PIO.

We need to fix that.

We have some actions that we're doing now to fix it, but it was it certainly showed itself during this uh during this um event.

And again, need depth and public information officer capability.

So from the action from the after action, this is what we came up with.

This these were our strengths, these were areas that we need to work on.

So open for questions.

Um thank you.

Uh very much, Kevin, and I know all four of you put time and effort into this.

Um we're gonna take questions a second.

What I want to ask is to take the areas of improvement, separate them out from the rest of this, list them all, prioritize, and help us understand what you have existing capacity for and just need to spend time and have the opportunity to do it, versus what you don't have the capacity for, and you need either legislation or money from the nine of us.

Um based on priority, and then you know, you've probably heard me talk about boxes of most important least, most money, least money, most money, least money, and uh that'll help us you know kind of um understand the priorities.

So that's my request to this group, and that's probably gonna consider it done.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Open to questions.

I think I saw uh Alder Woman O'Neill's hands first.

Thank you very much, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, thank you for the presentation and the after um write up.

It was really important to my residents for them to hear about today.

Um, we've they've been talking a lot about it and saying that they've you know had input that they wanted to give.

Um two questions.

Can you talk a little bit about um this is the second year in a row that we've had a storm of this kind of magnitude, um, very similar.

Um, I think that in preparedness, we probably should prepare for next year to have a similar storm, and if we don't, then we get lucky, right?

Um but in far in terms of budget, um, how much was budgeted, how much we went over budget, and can you talk a little bit about what in a next year's budget for a storm of this magnitude would look like going in?

So city city manager, would you have those numbers?

I'll just start with which how much is budgeted.

I I think we start the year with about $50,000 in the snow account.

So the the way that the budget gets approached for snow, there's a there's uh that amount that's set aside that's essentially dedicated for snow, it's not available for other kinds of contingencies, but there is also just general contingency that's set aside, and so when that snow budget uh if that snow budget is used, that's sort of the next that's the next pot.

But that that contingency, it's not it's not a large amount, but it's there that it's flexible.

So if if it's snow that's needed, it's there for snow.

If it's something else that comes up, it's available for that too.

Um so there's there's kind of multiple pots that get drawn on.

I think part of your question is um I think part of what I heard in your question was each of the last two years we've had um we've had storms.

Um and did we overspend that both years, and if we did in fact overspend that specific set aside both years, should we be budgeting a higher amount um to um directly in snow just to um to account for that?

And if we don't end up using it next year, maybe we don't do it the year after.

Did I hear that correctly in your question?

Yes.

Um I'm actually not sure if we overspent the budget last year.

Uh I would have to I would have to look at that.

Do we we did this year?

The the expenses from this storm, and remember this storm is a quite an extended period of time.

Last year was a big challenge because it was so cold.

This one, it was so cold and it was so long.

Uh and so I think this year um was was more of a challenge just because the length of time uh complicated uh complicated things.

Is that fair from your perspective?

Yeah, it was very unusual.

You know, we had a lot of we had a lot of snow, then we had the icy icy rain, and then we had the Arctic coal for a long time, and the snow was like stone.

It was like stone.

You just couldn't couldn't get through it.

And it paralyzed a lot of places in the city.

It did.

Right.

Thank you.

So definitely this year was a lot more overtime.

Um last year we used very minimal contractors, this year a lot of contractor support.

Because there was probably the the total amount of precipitation uh involved was probably double, if not triple.

You know, this was even though it accumulated only at the end of the event, uh eight inches, it could have easily been 15 or 20 inches uh based on the amount of liquid that fell from the sky.

It just fell in a pretty dense.

Right.

So we had to remove all of that.

All right.

My second question is in regard to the call center, and I think I had asked you when you put out the call for volunteers to the call center in this age of technology, it would be great if we had a the capability to forward calls like I would have gladly taken calls at my house through the storm, but I was suffering from a head cold and didn't want to affect infect everybody else by being in close proximity to a bunch of people that were trying to work a bunch of hours.

But could we look at that for future emergency operations all around, not just snowstorms, but is there a a possibility that we can bring in our IT to work on something like that?

Yeah, we didn't have the capability of doing that this time, but we are looking into it, and we we're gonna talk to Brian Packwin and see how we can how we can make that work.

Great.

Thank you.

I appreciate everything that everybody did.

I know that you guys were working round the clock no matter what time I called or texted, everybody was answering.

So that's super appreciated.

Um I heard from a lot of my residents who are appreciative of it.

Um that outweighed the people that were complaining that the roads weren't um cleared.

And nine times out of ten, the people who were complaining about the roads not being cleared was because there was cars in the way of the plows.

Um so we'll work on cars for next time.

Yeah, getting back to the call center, there was a lot of secret shopper calls, and the people that did the se secret shop recalls told me that that they were met with folks who were good and they they dealt with their issues and all they may not have the answer for them, but the customer service was excellent.

Great.

That's fantastic.

On the Director Buckland on the finance question, I wonder if we think of this as a um a four-year trend of what do we spend in it in four years or five years or whatever, and look to have sort of a an account for that because we don't get it every year.

So and similar to elections, frankly, is something else I've been meaning to mention of we don't have elections every year, but we know what we need every four years, so we might want to just build up to it, have sort of a bank account for that.

Um Alderman Savage, then Alderman um Smith Brown.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

And first of all, again, just thank all of you.

Um I know you put in an incredible amount of time and effort into the storm, and and really I feel like given how bad it was it was really comforting um that I felt like we could just kind of sit back because I knew staff was taking complete control and handling this event.

And considering the size, I really did not receive too many complaints, uh, especially compared to previous storms.

So I think that just shows that you did a lot of good work this year.

Um so, and I know I did submit some feedback to you, um, but just a few things to highlight here.

I entirely support the idea of the plow tracking software.

I think I may have mentioned this already to uh director Vogel, but um the county has excuse me, has software.

I don't know if you might be able to piggyback or share the tech that they have if you haven't reached out to them yet.

I would encourage you to do so.

Um then for sidewalks.

Um yeah, I I think so.

So for sidewalks, a couple things.

I think it would be helpful if we could get some kind of policy or plan, perhaps uh in writing that we can post on the website, make sure the public has access to, that'll really show you know how we're gonna handle snow removal as well as the enforcement on sidewalks.

For example, I know you've already thought about some of it as far as addressing the uh the safe routes to school first, right?

Um, but I think it'd be I think it'd be good to see that as far as when are we actually gonna step in to remove snow if some of these key pedestrian routes are not clear, right?

And and also as far as the enforcement, where are we gonna focus first?

Um you know, because I did receive complaints from some of the multifamily complexes because the property owners weren't clearing there, and you have people stuck in their buildings who can't get out.

Um that's not our fault, but that comes down to the enforcement side of it.

So you know, is that something you think you can work on at some point as far as the internal policy as far as how we're gonna handle those kind of issues?

We can certainly work with that with that policy.

We we're looking at upgrading the existing snow emergency plan anyway, so we can also incorporate that in as well.

Do you want to say so?

I mean, I I think there was there was a there was quite a bit there, so it's a little bit hard for me to keep up on specific requests and in the things that you said.

Um but but certainly when snow routes to school or um safe routes to school is produced right now, it's simply a work in progress.

It does it doesn't actually exist, it's just a term.

When that's out there, we can then publicize that to the community in advance of a snow event, saying these will be our priorities.

I think one of the biggest frustrations that I heard along that uh those lines was people didn't know that they were gonna get a warning and then followed by an actual uh fine.

And and so knowing that, and we're when we're clear about that in the we'll revise the legislation so the legislation itself is clear, and then of course our messaging will follow.

Then people will be a little bit less anxious from from that standpoint of being worried about being fined, because they'll at least have a day's uh at least a day's notice.

Um and then you know, some of the other things in terms of the actual steps, when would we move from uh simply uh a warning to a fine to then removal um you know that those things would follow.

Okay.

If if I could jump in there, I I think one of the things that we saw with this particular event, because of the long period of very cold weather afterward, um, we held off on doing enforcement for a fair while because we felt that there really was not a meaningful way for people to comply with the rules, because if you hadn't gotten out there by a certain time, it was extremely difficult to remove.

And so, you know, the goal of the goal of enforcement is to achieve compliance.

And if someone can't doesn't really have the ability to meaningfully comply, then what are we doing?

Um and so and from the policy part of your question, I think that I think that that we would need to be careful from the policy perspective to make sure that we give ourselves room to take those kind of factors into consideration and to not be too uh cut and dried about you know we're gonna start enforcement at this kind of time and and all that because every storm is a little bit different.

And um, and I I thought that it was a very helpful framing for the city and for the residents for us to be thinking about can you actually comply?

Like we shouldn't be out there just giving people violations if they can't actually do anything about it.

Um so I think I I take your point about having a policy, and I think that clarity helps.

I just would caution that we're gonna need to be careful about how we write it because every storm is a little bit different, and we want to give ourselves some nuance, some room for nuance.

Yeah, you know, I I see your point.

I'm my point is I guess we have that for roads already.

We know public works knows which streets they're gonna hit first, when they're gonna move to the side streets, et cetera, et cetera.

I think we need to be able to set those expectations of the public is here's what to expect for sidewalk clearing.

Well, we're gonna target safe route to school first.

Next is wherever, I don't know, sidewalks and other heavy pedestrian areas, downtown, whatever it is, right?

Because that's that's gonna help us to be able to because then we'll also be assured that oh city has a plan, here it is, you can go look at the general you know, outline.

Um I think that would help get ahead of some of the issues.

Um other suggestion is uh getting some kind of MOU with the county as far as who's responsible for again coming down to sidewalks, the enforcement as well as the removal, because there's still is even though both jurisdictions have passed law uh code, it's still a lot of confusion.

Um especially in the county, I hear.

And so um I think it may need some attention from office of law as far as figuring between two office of laws, figuring out who's gonna be responsible to do this on some of the roads like Forest Drive, you know, sidewalk infrastructures in the in the in the county right-of-way, but they're saying, Oh, well, the homes are in the city, so the city has to do enforcement on.

I know that's what I'm I'm shaking my head.

I you know I'm shaking my head, right?

No, no, they figured it out.

Oh, they they did.

It it took them a little while because they really hadn't necessarily digested the legislation, operationalized it, figured out the coordination between the two departments that were involved, their code enforcement and their you know, and public works.

Um it it took them a while to spin up.

Um, but I I definitely noticed towards the end of the event, it was getting warmer by that point in time.

But the county had had totally figured it out and and we're moving forward, and we we actually delineated you know these particular properties uh you know, where if it's a corner, let's say Tyler and Forest, uh the auto stream there, we had already cited them because they hadn't cleared the the sidewalks on on Tyler.

Um so we told the county no need to to enforce against that particular property.

And so we have a pretty clear delineation at this point in time.

It's just a matter, I think, of making sure the counties uh kind of stays on track, but but they definitely had worked out the kinks.

All right.

Well, we could chat offline about it because it the last correspondence I had with the county on this uh is I think constituent services, there was still conflicting information depending on which department you talk to.

Um and so um anyway, we chat more about that.

Uh, the other last thing is just private roads.

There were some concerns uh I understand we have no responsibility to clear them, but I did get a lot of inquiries because some of these private roads don't have a community association, uh, so the residents really were impacted as far as not being able to get in and out of their streets very easily or safely.

Uh I don't know if there'd be a time and a place where the city would would and should step in to do the clearing, uh, or if that's I don't know, just something to think about as we move forward.

Fair point.

I would I would just offer that the those private roads tend to be the kind of roads that are our most difficult, and we had the most challenge getting to the roads that clearly were ours, yet you know, I would say our service to those streets, to many of those streets was not where we would like to be.

Um, so it it we could add more roads that that would just you know kind of be one more um log on the pile of of people to say, hey, you're not doing a great job.

Okay.

I lost track.

Was it Alderman Smith Brown?

Yes, okay.

And then Frank.

Okay.

So again, thank you.

Um we've been thinking everything today, haven't we, just for life and uh doing the work for the people.

Um but I've really the experience of working with you all throughout this has just been you know just touch my heart for sure, I will say, um, just to be a part of this and helping my residents.

Um, there are a lot of questions I have, but I know we don't have too much time.

Um so maybe we'll do a follow-up or of some sorts.

Uh the one, and you already touched on this about the safe walk to school routes.

I think uh we talked about this a little bit because uh we were looking to enforce um the clearing of sidewalks for the safe walks to school, but we have no map to determine which routes are what routes.

And so that was the one thing for our my residents or just residents in general that they questioned, they were concerned, they you know brought this concern uh to me because they were you know thinking they were gonna get fined, but they said, well, I don't know if my uh street and uh I appreciate uh director uh Burr for uh Vogel for um sharing uh what we did have a conversation about uh and so they they didn't have to uh worry too much after that.

But I think we do want to move forward and pressing the county if we need to, the public schools.

I know they have their um their teams working on this, but if we're gonna make that a key for it, we should make sure we have the information.

Um and then uh just to give our residents an idea of this, the process, uh I think you just mentioned a piece of legislation that's that was put in into place.

Uh what exactly was is that?

Uh there was so we we've always had something in the code about snow clearing.

Uh last year we there was a major revision to the snow clearing legislation, and the primary purpose was to allow the city to um be reimbursed if we cleared sidewalks that residents didn't.

So we've you know if we issued them a fine, but we wanted to have the sidewalk cleared, city could either do that with our own people or um have contractors clear properties and then we would be reimbursed.

There that legislation, there was some just some problems in the in the drafting amendments and implementation uh to where we really couldn't take those steps.

And then the other thing um was just some lack of clarity about the uh about the way municipal infraction municipal infractions actually work.

We have to give a notice first.

We can't just say, okay, it's 11 o'clock the day after a s after a snow just ended, your sidewalk is not cleared, here's your hundred dollar fine.

It doesn't work that way.

Um but it reads it kind of reads that way.

Um and so we want to make sure that it is clear when when we revise it this year.

Okay, and I city attorney, I get it about right.

I'm very proud of you.

You did very well.

Thank you, ma'am.

Uh if I may, uh Mayor Littman um mention another all the person's name, um, if that's okay.

Um Alderman Savage and myself, I mean, he uh had this conversation with with me about Forest Drive, and I I've really appreciated him caring about War Three, you know, always love my War Three Um the City.

Uh and it was brought up that you know, how could we find our residents, but the county can go days without clearing uh a sidewalk that's supposed to be in on their property.

I mean, that's something that um if if there's clarity to that, um or if we I know you mentioned something about um you know a fine or something, but is that the case?

Do we if we clear those those ways, the sidewalks off Forest Drive, uh in my ward off of Chick-fil-A Road coming off Airst Allen Boulevard, um, do we get reimbursed for doing that?

Uh because the county took days before, and I have residents who are trying to get down Chick-upin to get into the community of Biwa down by water road, and they could not.

We're talking about children who are forced to walk to school even in these conditions, and they could not do that.

So how do what do we do?

County property?

Yeah, forest drive of chicken because forest areas.

But I think all of those adjacent properties are are private with the exception of the middle school.

Yeah, so what do we do?

I think we talked about forest drive being uh some parts of that being county property.

It's county's responsibility to to enforce.

Right.

Okay, so the county and do we know or have an idea of if the county enforced they did.

They they they finally did.

Yes.

Okay.

So they didn't.

It took but it took them a while.

It it took them a full week, maybe 10 days to really start working on on enforcement, I think, anywhere.

Okay.

And there's a process in place for the city to press them on that.

Yes.

Okay, and that's what you were kind of referring to earlier at all.

Yes.

Okay.

Um that's where it all comes together.

Well, I just uh want to make sure that we honor our residents who stepped up during this time.

I had so many, uh particularly in the parole area, like LD Powell and then you know the heritage community who use their own vehicles.

I mean, we have a lot of uh contractors in our city who live here, reside here.

Come on, we hear a lot of complaints about the parking in our neighborhoods, but they actually do a lot of great work, especially in times like this, uh where they stepped up.

So I'm not certain what we can do.

When we look at the contractors we choose, is it what's the process for that?

Well to be honest, over the last decade or two, we had really lost the ability to get support from contractors because uh between the larger government organizations, state and county, they'd kind of scooped everybody up.

Um and then you have the the private um property owners as well.

So the the people we had relied on were had become no longer available.

And uh so we're gonna kind of redouble our efforts this year to have some people who will do work for us, and and so we'll just kind of reach out to the extent we can uh and and get some more.

We we were able to reconnect with uh a contractor uh who was doing work for the state, and we think that they'll be available to us next year.

They ended up doing the bulk of the work for us.

So if there's a residence who's interested in being a part of uh we don't know what's to come, but if someone says, you know what, I'll support in this neighborhood.

I mean, they're using their own vehicles and gas and money and all that stuff.

So is there a process for them to become a contractor support during these times?

Absolutely.

Okay, I'll get that information to you.

Oh, awesome.

Okay.

Um and I think uh we were I from the conversation, we would have appreciated maybe um, if anything, because I mean appreciate so much, maybe like another maybe an additional call amongst us all or like another meeting uh throughout that week so that we could have been a little bit more abreast on where we were or the processes, I think that would have been nice.

I did enjoy the one that we did have.

I think that was helpful, but maybe if we have maybe another one or so, that would have been great.

Um now were automated calls or messages sent out to people uh in our community about how to go about you know reaching out or maybe putting in a ticket of some sort.

At the beginning of each storm, we sort of put together a communications plan.

What are the things that we're gonna need?

And at the top of that list is an is an all-call alert.

Um so at the beginning we did do an all call alert.

We did not do any others for the rest of the event, just because there was a lot of information we had to convey to people.

We were issuing a lot, we issued 10 press releases.

That's unprecedented for a storm like this.

We you know, we were trying to convey a lot of information because things were changing on the ground.

We you know, we had a sidewalk rule and we pushed that out the first few days, and then we weren't enforcing, so we had to return to that.

And those calls would have been very long, and maybe not really listened to once you get to critical mass.

There's kind of a sweet spot between giving people a heads up and then inundating them where they don't pay attention anymore.

So I think using the alert Annapolis system at the beginning is typically where we go.

I think we probably could have done a second one for a couple of those.

Um particularly the parking changes and the sidewalk changes.

Um we didn't.

It was a a long few days.

Now, Mitchell, come on, like you really held it down.

I ain't gonna lie, but we really appreciate all you did for at least for me and um my residents.

I'm almost done.

I know I'm almost there.

We got we got you out of it though.

Um and so uh the last part is uh maybe looking into I'm not certain if we we thought about this, but um a shame that is just so disrespectful to my residents in Annapolis Gardens and Admiral Oaks is that we have these complexes that just did not hire anyone to come out and clear uh these sidewalks in the streets.

And so what can we do?

I mean, we talk about fines.

Are they a part of the fine system?

Are they a part of the fining of they are correct?

I think for the larger, because I know it's like a higher amount for the larger strips.

Uh they're part of the So adjacent property owners are are required to clear sidewalks along the city's own sidewalks.

Internal is a different question.

There may it not actually be a requirement for them to clear anything internal to their own private property.

So I that's something I I really can't speak to.

If it is internal to private property and not along a city-owned street or sidewalk, um, then it would be a planning and zoning enforcement function.

Right.

And that's what I think we need to.

That's the last point I was gonna make, is we really need to look into, especially as it was brought up with private property.

Um, how do we hold them accountable?

Because those are residents, you know, and and I have a lot of elderly population in those communities, and um I just didn't like hearing that hey, I can't get out, or hey, you know, can you help me?

And I'm out here shoveling, there's a lot.

I mean, we do it because we we should and we must, but um, that's all I say.

Thank you all so very much.

Look forward to continuing the conversation.

Thank you, Alderman.

Um, before we go to Alderman Thorpe, a couple, just I'm gonna tag on a couple comments first.

Again, thank you.

All um, about to call your Alder Woman.

Um, Mitchell, Ms.

PIO Stevenson.

For I we all got lots of uh kudos for the amount of communication from the city.

And so we know we all know and appreciate that it's coming from you, even though we hear it, so thank you to you.

Um the point of the private uh properties, just want to let you know I asked Carrie and she confirmed.

Um I just I just looked up the code section really quick and I I was wrong, I apologize.

Um, it just says pro property owners are occupants with the sidewalk adjacent to their property must remove any snow.

So there isn't any specificity as it relates to if it's like a butting a city street or it's just generalized if you have whoever the property owner is, they are responsible for their sidewalks.

There's no interior or exterior designation or anything like that.

Okay.

And on the point about having trouble getting contractors, I heard what you said about redoubling efforts, but I know you already did.

And so to the extent that well must might just be dry.

Um, just want to ask you to give thought to what our counterparts in New York were able to do is somehow if there was a system to play matchmaker of those who were willing to be paid to shovel and those who are willing to pay to shovel, if we could have uh some sort of, you know, anyway, play a little matchmaker or maybe work help help help with that piece of it, because you know what you were saying from the contractors.

I I don't expect redoubling efforts to necessarily produce a different result.

And so just ask for your consideration of how we can engage the individual private sector for that.

Alderman Thorpe.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um, I'd like to pile on on what a great job uh you all did.

Um snowstorms by definition are disruptive.

So for any of us to think that life was gonna go on, um, I thought just from a new guy perspective, um, I will go and say on the record, nobody told me that within several weeks of getting sworn in, we would get that snowstorm.

And uh, and I think it should be recognized we had a new mayor.

Uh, and the communications that went were tremendous.

Um thing I heard said a lot was this is this was a unique snowstorm.

I have come to the conclusion that in Annapolis, Maryland, every snowstorm is unique.

Um, and so I bring that up because best in class organizations do what you all did today.

You you clearly thought through this of what went right, what went wrong, willing to correct it and all that.

One thing I would like to add philosophically to it is authorities.

There's so much that's not predictable.

Um, we learned about enforcement on sidewalks this time, it'll be something different next time.

So, what I would encourage the leadership team to do is to take a look at the authorities and be able to, you know, this was don't let a crisis go to waste.

This was a good opportunity to take a look at our authorities.

And you know, uh just as an example, and I don't want to get in the weeds here, but does our director of public works have the authorities to hire additional trucks?

You know, how many trucks, you know, whatever that he can hire on his own and accepting a little bit more risk in order to get better execution, because uh as you said, everybody has 17 million things to do.

And so one of the things I've learned through life is is we one of the things if we learn about authorities and and making sure that the next unique snowstorm, the authorities are in the right place so that people can act based on their expertise.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, a couple of comments I want to make, and then I'll go to all the woman Smith Brown.

Um, just as Mitchell was pulling in long days, I know uh Director Vogel that you worked two, three weeks or so without a day off.

And so, a thank you, and B just give thought to how we can how that could have been done differently so that it wasn't three weeks without a day off working crazy long hours.

So I don't know if it's possible, but just asking thought, and then um Kevin, uh Director Simmons, just want to A call out the tremendous job you did in preparation, communication, coordinating all the departments.

But I also want to call out, which is a little unusual, just for today's presentation, the fact that you're able to give us a presentation in advance so that we could have a pre-read and get have a lot more time for this engagement.

This allowed us to have a lot more time for questions, which I think this body appreciates.

So I just want to that's the standard I'm trying to get to in all presentations, and so appreciate Director Buckland.

You're hearing me on that, and Director Simmons, you're helping us uh get to that point.

And council members, you know, again, I'm trying to get to assuming that everyone's done the preread, so we can get to questions as quickly as possible.

Um, Alder Woman.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I just want to say kudos to the team.

Y'all did great for me.

Y'all calm me down, so it helped me to calm down my constituents.

And I really appreciate that.

Also, I like when you all helped me to get that disabled lady out where she can get to the doctors.

And also thanks for going down to the million dollar home and help this guy get to work because he was an emergency.

So I really appreciate y'all came through for me and every time I called.

And I knew I was a pain, but I'm sorry, but hey, this is my first time, and I was excited and I was like, You were excited.

You were excited.

And I appreciate y'all.

So thank you all very much.

Because I know y'all had long hours, y'all ain't no sleep and everything.

And I wanted to bring you something.

I couldn't get out myself.

So hello.

Next time I'm gonna try to get out to come and see you guys and help with the phone systems.

Thank you.

But but there's a lot of stories like what the order woman is saying that nobody knows about.

It's people that had uh to get to the hospital for medical procedure and they just couldn't get out.

Public worth was stopped.

We we get in in the EOC, we talk about the situation, they would stop what they were doing, they would dig that person out and make sure that person could get to the hospital.

We have a bunch of stories like that and all, and people really don't see that.

So I'm very, very proud of the staff because the staff went above and beyond in this very, very unusual, unusual store.

Um Alderman Smith Brown, were you trying to get my piece here?

Um well, two things.

The one is there were also lots of youth.

I don't know if you all saw this, but I had youth coming through the neighborhoods with their um their carts and their tools and asking, hey, can I shovel the snow and my and I'm I out of just I want to keep them safe and all I did support them was a couple does because you know they're asking, so I did make sure, yeah, you need to make sure you do that part hard.

I had done most of it, but I I stopped so that we can support our youth.

And um, so when we talk about contractors, of course, we're not gonna, I'm not certain how we would go about getting youth to do that, but if they're I think just uh showing that you it was of all ages who were willing to step up and be a part of this.

Um and the piece I was gonna say is do we have an idea of how many uh fines we did collect or how much money we did uh receive from any of these fines?

And if we did find uh the uh apartment complexes that I did mention, like Admiral Oaks or Annapolis Gardens, do we have that information at all?

I I could look it up, but I don't want to hold everybody up here.

I the last time I glanced at the list, there was about a hundred and fifty um maybe close to two hundred warnings given, and about half of those folks, maybe a little bit more, uh 60% or so were corrected by the time we went back out.

And so I think at the end of the day, we issued less than 100 actual fines.

Thank you.

No other questions.

Um, Julian will be thrilled with us for getting uh this wrapped up a few minutes early, giving some transition time between meetings.

Uh thank you all again for the presentation today and the work behind it that led up to today as well.

Thank you, council members.

Um, I just got to do some close out um words.

Uh City Attorney Burger, what's the next item on the agenda?

Oh, the agenda is completed.

Thank you.

Is there anything else for the good of the order?

Seeing none.

Um do I need a motion to close?

Nope.

All right, we're adjourned.

Thank you.

Thank you.