The May 14th meeting for environmental matters.

And uh for the let's see, so for the record we have Alder Woman Conte.

Yeah.

And uh myself, that's it for now.

So, first item up, approval of the agenda.

I am going to so if I could get a motion to approve the agenda as amended to move um, Mr.

Adams, so ID 115-26 to the beginning, which would be first up in the general discussion.

So move.

I'll second that.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Motion carries, thank you.

And then approval of the minute drive and approval of the minutes from March 12th.

I'll second that.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Motion carries general discussion.

So we'll Mr.

Adams.

If you could join us up front for ID 11526.

Microphones.

Yeah, you don't have to push a button.

Oh, I don't.

Okay.

You can just make it a light up.

Yep.

Okay.

Uh thank you for joining us.

Um I had um I wanted to ask to for you to join us because I did want to dig into some of the forest, the urban can tree canopy urban forest program with the city and how it's associated with the watershed restoration fund.

Um, and um, yeah, just to get an assessment from you as far as where we are with that fund covering your costs.

Um I guess that's the the first question unless you have oh, if you please introduce yourself and you're welcome to give any remarks.

Sure, yeah.

I'm Brian Adams, Urban Forester in Planning and Zoning.

Did you have anything you wanted to say before we start?

Not really.

I mean, I I I just have you know high-level numbers over the last couple years.

I didn't put together a presentation or anything, but I thought you wanted to primarily talk about this upcoming fiscal year, which I'm certainly prepared to do.

Yeah, can you give us a rundown?

Yeah, so last year we requested five hundred and fifteen thousand.

Um we received for 35.

Uh so I don't know where that how that decision was made, but that ended up being what was what was given to us for our budget.

That worked out okay to cover costs because last year we did not hire, which there was some money set as you know, allotted to hiring someone.

From what I understand, we had put it in the budget last year, but it did not make its way to HR to the next steps.

So it was not ready to go, essentially.

That's what I was told.

Um so while we had some funding delegated to it, we didn't spend it.

So this year we've requested 515 again.

Um, and I have a hundred and twenty K designated for the new position.

And and just for background for people, again, we did roll in the entire urban forestry program into the watershed restoration fund.

So that fund covers all of the program and staffing costs, and the way we structured it was to um have the anticipated costs associated with meeting our tree candidate goal factored into that fund and fee as we move forward.

Um, and I know this was I think last term uh last year, you did provide a breakdown of how much you were that according to your judgment we would have to spend to meet the the 50% by 2050 tree canopy goal, right?

Um and so that's what you're saying this year you requested 515 out of the watershed fund.

Do you know how much was granted?

I don't know all that off the top of my head for this coming for this upcoming fiscal.

Right.

That's that's the number that I've seen that was in the Stantec report.

So as far as I know, that is what you know what's what's intended to be our budget out of the watershed restoration fund, okay.

And that you said includes staff person, which you you did highlight last year, but you're saying that wasn't included, okay.

Right.

So, so yeah, that that staff person is not included in the director of planning and zoning his budget, so I guess we need an amendment or whatever to get that position started again.

So the yeah, because we don't have all we have is your what's your position title.

Urban forester, urban forester.

There's no one, two, or three, it's just urban forester.

Okay.

So there's no associated position in the class via sorry, the um, yeah, the classification list, right?

Okay, so we would need to.

And I think I heard you before mention what maybe last year about the idea of because I think your intention was to have this be a kind of lower level position that you could supervise.

Um, yeah, right.

After speaking with the director, he agreed that you know this person should report directly to me.

So what that job title ends up being, I don't know.

I've I've written up a description that I believe is would meet you know what we what we need right now.

Um, but as far as how that's done through HR, I'm not I'm not clear.

So for years, Brian has been told.

Jackie Giled uh acting city manager.

Um so for years, Brian's been told that he cannot go up grade because he's not supervising employees, which I don't think is true for every grade, you know, that's even above his.

Some people aren't supervising others, but that shouldn't, in my opinion, that should not be the criteria either.

You know, we should do this on experience and qualifications.

Um, so he's never been eligible for a grade change, even though we provided plenty of information over the years about similar positions in even smaller jurisdictions for the urban forester because of their experiences getting paid more.

Finally, Brian would be supervising someone, but we also have different people in HR.

So they may look at things differently, but he wouldn't this would require grade change as well for Brian because he would now be supervising.

And there's and also it brings home the point um of why we need those career ladders as well.

He's been at the same grade for eight years or so.

Well, there was a grade increase with the class and comp study.

Right.

It wasn't what the director requested because the supervision wasn't there, but it was one grade.

Again, it goes back to the supervision, which is not, I don't think it should be a sticky point.

Okay.

And again, backing up further, um, we you know, we've had since I've been on the council, the and when some other folks in the audience were on the council, we had uh for years um the forest program was always one of the top things first things that were cut, the tree maintenance budget.

And so that was the intention of having a dedicated fund, the watershed fund provide that secure funding.

And we reached a point, what was it two years ago?

We realized, well, we can't make our 2035 tree 36.

2036 tree canopy target, because even if we planted all the trees tomorrow, this was last year or two years ago, um, we just the trees aren't gonna grow fast enough to actually meet the goal, and so the idea was if we agree to push back that goal, which we did the last council to 2050, we only agreed to do that if we provided for this dedicated funding stream to actually pay to meet that pushback goal.

Um, and so that includes staffing up to make sure you have support, and you would be looking for this support position to help with um tree planting identifying locations, that kind of thing, easements maybe.

I that would be their primary primary responsibility would be to identify, you know, do the outreach, um, sourcing all of that for tree planting projects because that is really it's a it takes a lot of time, it's time-intensive activity, and um, you know, I could a a person could work on that year round, really.

And there's other things that I would have them do as well related to my position, you know, bond inspection, just things in the field, construction site inspections, that sort of thing for tree protection.

Okay.

So for the committee's sake, it sounds like this position is already included in the in the requested amount in the watershed restoration fund for this fiscal year, but we don't have the structure yet set up for these different positions.

Um that is one of the amendments I put in one of my budget requests is to create that ladder structure.

Um, and I just wanted to bring it up here to get the confirmation from the department and just to see if the committee had any thoughts on that.

I just want to make sure that you I want to make sure I'm clear.

You're talking about the career ladder for the urban forester or for the person supporting the urban forestry.

Got it.

Thank you.

Unless I'm advised otherwise by the department, but this has been a again a long time request of theirs that we weren't able to do with the big class of comp study last year.

I can't remember why, but for somebody else.

Um other questions from the committee or guests.

All right.

So this will, again, this is going to be a budget request.

It's cost neutral.

So hopefully the committee will support that.

Council at hole.

Anything else you want to add for getting on the program?

No, that's it.

That's that's really it.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, thank you for taking the time.

Yeah, I appreciate it.

Thank you.

All right.

Um, next up on the agenda is Jackie?

Yes.

Did you want to go now?

Um we could let Mr.

Meekins go.

Thank you, could we?

If we'll use privilege of the chair, if unless there's no objection to move.

Um looking up the ID number.

Mr.

Meekins, if you could come on up.

Oh, it's ID 5-26.

Greetings.

Uh Mike Meekins, senior planner and current planning.

Thank you for joining us.

Greetings to you too.

Thanks for having me.

Uh I trust that uh so this is an update, uh periodic update.

I think we've talked about doing this quarterly for major uh current projects that are uh in the pipeline and or being constructed within the city.

Um I trust that you have the updated uh menu that I provided.

Uh it's dated uh May 12th of this year.

Yes.

Okay.

So just a quick recap of the uh color coding.

Um everything highlighted in blue.

Uh is there's basically no change from the last update that I gave.

Um, and everything uh not highlighted or white uh with the red font is um basically the update for several of these projects.

So I'll go through um the updates and feel free to stop me, pause me, and I will answer any questions as best I can.

Uh so the first one on sheet one uh is Grissom Square.

It's a 12-unit uh residential family uh plan development.

Uh it's been in the pipeline since like 2014.

I think the subdivision was created, and they have finally uh they finally pulled all their permits and broken ground, and the first step in that uh in that uh development is uh utility connections.

So they are actually actively working on uh putting in place the storm drain improvements, and that right now is within Tyler Avenue at the end or excuse me, uh yeah, Tyler Avenue at the intersection of uh Bay Ridge.

So if you've driven by there, you've I'm sure you've noticed the activity.

So uh surprisingly I don't have any questions about that.

I'm surprised too.

I can come up with some problems.

Yeah, I bet you could.

So anyway um that's pretty much the update for Griskam Square.

Um moving down still on the first page at the bottom is uh Parole Place.

Mr.

Meek is just uh just interrupt on uh before parole place the Parks I preserve um just to bring to your attention for future considerations during review uh we've received a significant uh and I'm not exaggerating number of complaints from residents out there about parking issues yeah um in particular I think for a number of reasons one uh and I'm hearing mixed reports I don't know which is true but I'm hearing reports that fire marshal may have ordered them to put up their signs but they're still private streets uh and so they're and our parking enforcement was ticketing on a private street which they're not supposed to so we had to refund a bunch of the fines um so what I'm bringing up I guess is the timing as far as sign placement I guess might not be your call um from planning zoning but the other issue would be um just designing in sufficient guest parking or connectivity to you know transportation alternatives right um and uh and also considering just making more roads run one way I'm still digging into seeing if this was a fire department kind of uh barrier um but there's a two-way street no on street parking they have no room for guests um on that street so we're looking at trying to make it one way but we can't do that until it's actually turned over to the city unless we can convince the developer to do it very complicated but I guess my point is um you know factored in that guest parking during the design um yeah I I understand I understand that and look like I said I'm familiar with some of those so some of those issues that have been raised um frankly they some of them the uh complaints I'll say or comments have come to uh come across our office um and I I did the deep dive I looked at the road section with and uh read through the plan development approvals just trying to understand what happened way back but um yeah to your point hopefully there's a solution because uh you know those homeowners have guests that come in and maybe future developments if the road section was not widened of future development could have uh a lot for those guests yeah yeah and that that was one request made to us is there are some undeveloped lots there are still single family homes.

There was a request for us to I guess see if we could put pressure on the developer to dedicate one of those lots to a guest parking lot instead of a house although I personally think the better solution would be just to make the road one way with one way with one side one side parallel parking on one side yeah all right that I just wanted to opinion on that.

It's on the radar so thank you for bringing that up though.

Definitely with the Alderman Savage it would be a shame well we have such a housing shortage to build a parking lot instead of a house.

Yeah and I'm sure the developer would push back on that as well.

Yeah.

It's a parole place.

Yeah so on to parole place um that is a uh special mixed-use plan development uh that it includes uh townhouses and a centralized multi story building with retail on the bottom and more or less workforce housing apartments on top um the applicant came in uh for a minor modification, which the director approved.

And that modern minor modification uh added a additional floor to the um large central building and an additional uh floor to the structured parking deck uh so that was advertised.

The concept or the architecturals that we received, that additional floor to the uh multi-use building, the additional floor was actually pushed back from the facade of the approved building.

So it was no closer to the uh property lines, and that was uh that was approved, like I said, by the uh by the director.

Um we have yet to see uh grading or building permits come in on that, but uh it's my understanding that the that project from the applicant side is still moving forward.

Great news on the ability to add that many units.

Um that's I mean, without increasing the horizontal footprint, yeah, the the bulk of the structure.

Yeah, yeah.

I do bike past this intersection whenever I do bike to work.

Um are there associated pedestrian and cycling improvements?

So with the original application there are um and uh actually with this uh minor modification, uh the applicant did their due diligence in re-engaging the traffic uh the traffic group that did the study and there was relatively no uh impact or there was a slight impact, but nothing uh to the point where they would have to redo the entire traffic study and then uh address whatever needs that the uh traffic study uh uncovered.

I'm not I mean I'm not too concerned about traffic, it's more just the sidewalks are very narrow.

There are a couple sidewalk gaps that when you're biking, it makes it really difficult.

So uh so around uh on this corner, the building uh the proposed buildings are set back, so you have wide sidewalks.

Um as you come down forest drive from I'll say uh uh old Solomon's Island Road, uh there is a you're you're coming downhill, and there is a uh streetscape that incorporates steps, uh seating areas, landscape uh that's terraced, but uh again, sidewalks are wider than the standard uh and the buildings push back.

Uh the concept within the structured parking garage includes uh bike lockers, bike racks for um those uh individuals that are living in the apartments uh conceivably to bike within the city or across the uh across the county line into uh the town center.

Excellent, thank you.

Yeah, any other questions about this one?

I just have a clarifying thank you.

I just have a clarifying question.

Uh when it says in one part there are 90 residential of retail units, and then it says in the next, adding an additional 40.

So now we're at 130, or we were previously at 50 and now we're at 90.

It's uh so you're adding an additional 40, so 130.

Awesome.

Love it.

Thank you.

Okay, so uh moving on to the second and last page at the top, Rocky Gorge, Athens.

Uh that is a plan development that's as you come into the city off Aristotle and Boulevard on the right hand side right before you reach Chickapin.

Uh that there's a lot, there's a lot of history, I'll say, uh, with that project.

Um, quite frankly, um I think we all know that eventually it will be developed, but at this stage uh the due to a variety of reasons with the owner and different lawsuits that are going on, that plan development has been abandoned, mainly because they have not picked up any permits for construction to keep the project quote unquote alive.

So again, the subdivision's been appro uh recorded.

There are fee simple lots with tax IDs.

But in order for that project to move forward, the whoever the applicant or developer that comes in will have to go through the process once again.

I'm glad I'm actually glad to hear that it's been abandoned because that I think somewhat of a fresh start might benefit this particular property.

But I do have concerns about the original the sorry the approved record plat.

I don't know how much that really jives with our vision in the comp plan at this point.

So I think actually I can't remember the makeup.

If you do recall the makeup as far as townhomes, uh so 31 townhomes, 17 single family uh with six MPDUs, so total of 48 units.

So do we have any ability to revisit the record plat if we wanted to adjust the unit location or density?

Yeah, so that's a tricky uh so the short answer to your question is yes.

I mean, the record plat can be revisited, reconfigured, uh, and that very well could take place given the fact that um SHA is historically denied an access point off of um Airst.

Allen, and Y'all Road was the primary access, and obviously that's a dead end street at this point.

There are again parking issues within that neighborhood and that neighborhood uh was also concerned about the uh the increase in traffic getting into this new I'll call it Rocky Gorge, whatever it becomes.

Um a new developer, a new applicant could certainly reconfigure uh the subdivision.

The one thing that um could be could prevent them from doing that is there are some dry utilities already in place.

The site has been rough graded uh and graded in such a way not completely finished, but in such a way that mirrors what the original application and what the original design was going to be.

So, you know, there's there's a considerable amount of thought and work that would need to go into a redesign, but at this point, it's going to have to go through the process.

So it it really depends on whether or not that developer that applicant wants to go through that legwork or just pick up where uh things were left off again.

They have to go through the approval process, uh, and that involves supplying uh, you know, uh elevations and renderings of what the structures are gonna look like.

Questions on this one?

All right.

Okay.

Uh moving on to next to the last item, 15 Ridgely Avenue.

That is a proposed three-story commercial office building.

Um that sits in a vacant.

Well, it's on a parking lot behind the grouse, couple couple doors down from Grouse.

Um, and the update is the uh site development plan was approved by the planning commission in March uh on March 12th of this year.

Um we are awaiting uh submission of building and grading permits on that one.

Okay, and lastly, I have actually an update on this one just uh from yesterday.

This is the uh Thomas Somerville property, uh Somerville um plumbing.

I'll call it plumbing supply, uh, that is uh out on Solomon's Island Road.

It's actually the property's actually bisected by the city county line.

Right.

I remember you telling us about this.

Okay.

So it's a large green warehouse looking building.

Um they're moving their retail and warehouse to the uh city of Annapolis portion of the property.

Um and they uh so the update that I have on this sheet is actually what I what I've delivered to you is we're awaiting their minor subdivision uh second submission.

Uh I'm sorry, minor site design review second submission.

We now have that um of the I'll say nine uh reviewers that it was originally submitted to, they're now it's now paired down to about five reviewers.

So they are very close to I'll say an approval for that.

Um within probably the next week or two, they'll be posting the property.

Uh I always like to uh get the large issues, if any, out of the way in a first review and sometimes second review before posting the property.

So the idea is that the concept that uh when it's advertised uh citizens can look at a concept plan that is basically more or less not going to change, and I think we're at that point now.

I haven't gone through uh and looked at the plans specifically that just came in, but I've looked at the comment letter, and it seems like everything is is moving along.

Uh so again, that's probably gonna be posted in the next couple weeks, 15-day posting period, and uh we're gonna try to wrap up that review uh and move those folks along so that they can uh start with the grading and building permit uh submission process.

Any questions from the committee?

So those are my updates.

That's all I have uh at this point.

When you add projects to this list, are these after they've actually submitted a an application as opposed to going to the planning commission for work session?

Correct.

It's easier to keep track of.

Um, and there's I'll say less hearsay involved.

It's more official documented.

I can you know I can answer questions regarding comments or reviews and so on and so forth.

Yeah, but there are there are a couple more in the pipeline, so I'm sure you're aware of that.

Yeah, Napolis Seafood and the one in my ward, the uh old CNC liquor.

If we get that next, gas station on West Street.

That's the one I'm looking at.

Correct.

Those some of those have uh planning or uh work sessions that are either have taken place or are about to take place.

Personally, I would see some value if even if it's just that per section of just things that have work sessions coming up if we wanted to pay attention to planning commissioners.

Oh, on the radar sections, yeah.

But that's I can I can certainly do that to the extent of explaining to you exactly what is being proposed is is kind of difficult without tangible plans.

Yeah, I mean, I think maybe you could even just do project name address and type, and even if we didn't have the description status or any of the other columns, like that would be helpful.

That works, I can do that.

Just work session date or something like that.

Sure, sure.

Alright, well, thank you.

All right, thank you.

Have a good rest of your day.

Okay, all right.

Um, I think okay.

So I'm gonna end up pushing Ms.

Gal back if you're okay.

Because I'd like to do the uh ferry discussion first.

Me too.

So sorry, that's me too.

I did you too.

Anyway, since we do have some folks from the public and um also somebody virtually, the director from Record Parks is joining virtually.

You want me to do the presentation first?

Yes, you might as well do your presentation first, and then we'll go to Director Johnson and as well as uh member from uh Miss uh D from Box of Chesapeake.

This is going to be a presentation dealing with the proposed electric hybrid electric diesel hybrid ferry that was started under the previous administration.

I believe it's grouped in with our electric uh mobility CIP project.

Just trying to figure out status and uh supporting information.

I'm gonna try and figure out where my water cup is.

Oh I can get it.

Thank you.

Okay, so this was the Annapolis electric ferry, but as you can see here, the title's been changed, the Annapolis diesel hybrid passenger ferry pilot program.

So it's diesel hybrid now because the Trump administration when they put a pause on many grants and reconsidered whether they would make the grants available, um, can open this one back up if it was brought in line with Trump administration priorities.

So that translated to it can't be all electric, it has to be something all electric.

So we agreed, yes, you went.

Is this brief available online?

No, I emailed it to this committee, but it's not um, I'll send it to uh Miss Jackson to get posted right now.

All for it to you all and through.

Thank you.

This is based off a presentation I made to another group, and then I just threw in some extra slides this afternoon.

Um so anyway, um, and changed some things around.

So what we found out is if we changed over to diesel or diesel electric, then we perhaps could have our fund dollars released again, and they were approved.

The county, as you may know, also is working on a ferry saying they did the same grant we had, all electric, and they also changed to hybrid diesel electric.

So that's why the name has changed.

Okay, um, so this was a picture of a type of uh ferry, it's an electric boat that was at the boat show one year.

This is something that the mayor buckley was very interested in, and then with the uh grant opportunity came up from the federal Transit Administration, the city applied, and we secured over three million dollars for this grant program to build two vessels, design build, and make dock improvements and have charging infrastructure.

We no longer need charging infrastructure because it will be a hybrid.

Okay.

Okay, so just can I ask you a clarifying question?

So when you say hybrid, you mean not plug in hybrid?

It's it's hybrid like a previous.

Great.

So um, as I said, this is FTA.

The grant awards being 2024.

We've had some ups and downs with this being paused, etc., redrafting the RFP, and the grant expiration will be October 12th of 2027.

So we have about a little less than a year and a half to get all our funds encumbered for this program.

Um, that would be the design build.

We that would be an encumbrance in any dock improvements we would need to make.

As I said, I'll see this later in the numbers.

We no longer need charging of a structure on the docks.

So that money was moved into the um dock improvement part of this grant.

So the main purpose, but from the federal government was to it was to improve and expand ferry service in the US and provide new jobs and opportunities and new technology.

So this is the revised budget.

For the two vessels, up to two, 1.8 million dollars is allocated.

Then for the design, 300 of the dock improvements, it's 300,000, and then the renovation work 1.4 million dollars.

So some of that charging money, about 200,000 was devoted to charging infrastructure, got moved into the engineering design and renovation of the ferry terminals.

So the total grant is 2.975 with the local match, which is done in staff time, it's 3.5 million dollars.

Yeah, uh, would you prefer we wait on questions to the end?

Prefer to wait on what?

Questions.

Yeah, that we can get through this pretty fast.

Okay, let me move some of this through this.

This was part of when we initially went for this grant, it was under the Annapolis goes electric, our transit options.

So that was the gem cars, and um, you can even see an electric trolley here, um, which we're now discussing.

Um, so the basic pieces of the ferry was it was going to be passengers and bicycles, no cars, obviously, about 35 to 40 feet to serve that purpose and to get into the docking areas around the city.

Um, front loading and made it a little easier.

You didn't have pull-up dock side, and then we thought about a pilot run between Eastport and City Dock.

Um, other routes are also considered, and you'll see these later in the presentation.

And this was going to be fare supported, but maybe some free ride tokens to low-income residents.

Okay, and this is just some docking possibilities that the Harbor Master has pointed out at City Dock.

Come on.

Oh.

This map is showing our one of our transit plans, the the bus routes that serve the area in Eastport and head into a downtown Annapolis.

That was part of what we had to supply.

Was that there's some bus routes that could get you to where you want to go, so you didn't have to take a car to get there.

Let me see if I give this back.

Okay, so these were the some of the considerations we put into the grant.

Was this supposed to be about connectivity and um reducing parking, and about where the landing sites were going to go, some of the we had to look at navigation, maneuvering in and out of our Brazil built-out harbor, as well as the um depths of the water depths at potential landing sites and the draw of the vessel, where we would store and maintain an electric vessel, and um impacts on our commercial water taxi service, if any, and then resident and business input, maritime advisory board and Port Ward's input, and we also have to have the ferry built in the US, and 75% of that business has to be U.S.

owned under the Jones Act, which we're subject to for this.

So we couldn't do some of these Swedish boats that Mary Buckley was considering.

Okay, so here's some of the proposed docks, I mean um routes that were proposed.

Of course, there was a cross from C dock to Eastport and back, and then as Hawkins Cove becomes redeveloped for that park program there.

We go down Spa Creek to Hawkins Cove, and then Alctonia Cars Beach as it gets developed, they're building the pier out there, just for the purpose of the ferry being able to land there, but other boats could land there as well.

But that's one of the reasons they're putting the pier at Cars Beach.

And then, as you can see, we could have a route over to the David Taylor Center to Greenberry Point, maybe all the way up to Whitehall Plantation and Holly Beach Farm.

So those are potential, these are not being considered as stops for the county ferry.

The only stop in the county ferry would be Annapolis itself, downtown City Dock.

So this would be all within the city, and then the county would go other destinations such as up to Baltimore, across to the Bay to Matapeak, and maybe some southern um destinations as well.

Okay.

So this is Hawkins Code.

You guys are familiar with Hawkins Cove.

Maybe Daisha's not as um familiar with that project, but we're taking that neglected overgrown area and putting a living shoreline there, improving the dock, um, putting a kayak launch and um removing all the invasives there, and also this would create a community park and a gathering space for an underutilized um area of the city.

Um, and then we are tying as we improve the trails on the Hawkins Cove side, we would be tying into the trails at Truxton Park as well.

There used to be a bridge over there for a footbridge, but somebody actually stole it.

It's really heavy.

Really?

Yeah.

I was talking to someone, so what happened to the bridge?

They said, well, because public works put it in.

Someone must have been several people picked it up and took it.

So it just is just an old photo of um Octonia Cars Beach and the history there as being a lively place for people to gather.

That's the same property, Cars Beach, and that's the end.

All right, and um, I think I'm gonna attempt to have our other presenters we could have that way the questions can be spread.

We have Roz on, she was going to join us.

So then I can we could have um representative from Blacks to Chesapeake and then the committee good with that, hear from everybody, then we can go up, however, you want to do it.

All right.

Um Ms.

Jackson is director Johnson ready to join us.

Yes, I'm here.

Oh, excellent.

Thank you for taking the time to join us.

Oh no, absolutely.

Thank you for having me.

Did you want me to go ahead and get started?

Yeah, so what we're gonna do is just hear I think presentations from everybody and then open up the floor for questions.

Yeah, you can get started with your remarks.

Okay, thank you.

Chair, members of the environmental matters committee.

Um, thank you for allowing me to speak today in support of uh diesel/slash electric ferry for the city of Annapolis and the Greater Chesapeake Bay region.

Um, this investment represents much more than transportation, it's an opportunity to yet again remove barriers to access, protect our environment, and prepare our community for the future.

As the Department of Recreation and Parks continues the restoration and activation of Cars Beach, along with our partners at the Resilience Authority, as well as Blacks of the Chesapeake.

We know transportation and parking will be one of our greatest challenges.

We explored the purchase of a nearby property in an effort to help alleviate anticipated parking issues, but unfortunately, we were not successful in acquiring the site.

Because of that, we must think creatively and proactively about how people will access this historic and culturally significant destination.

An electric ferry or diesel electric ferry will provide an innovative and sustainable solution for our only public beach within the city.

It would allow residents and visitors greater access to the cars beach without placing additional strain on surrounding neighborhoods and infrastructure.

It would also improve accessibility for individuals who may not have reliable transportation or who simply want a more convenient way to experience the waterfront.

Cars Beach also sits directly next to Baywoods, a senior living community whose residents deeply value their connection to Annapolis and the Chesapeake Bay.

Uh-oh, sorry, hold on one second.

Um an electric ferry would help keep many of those residents connected to the community they have and that they love by providing safe and convenient access to downtown Annapolis without the burden of them having to drive, park, or navigate increasing traffic congestion.

This is not simply about tourism, it's about mobility, independence, and quality of life for all of the area's residents.

Beyond Cars Beach, this project positions our region to be forward thinking as conversations continue around the future of the Chesapeake Bay National Park.

A ferry system would help connect residents and visitors to multiple destinations and access points throughout the park experience while reducing traffic congestion and supporting environmental stewardship.

We know that we have some parking challenges in the city, and this would help get rid of one of the major parking, one of the major major challenges of using Cars Beach, and that's parking.

So choosing diesel electric diesel hybrid electric transportation also demonstrates our commitment to protecting the Chesapeake Bay and reducing emissions.

It reflects the type of leadership communities must embrace if we are serious about sustainability and resilience.

This is an investment in access, history, tourism, environmental responsibility, and the future of our waterfront communities.

I respectfully urge you to support this effective use of taxpayers' dollars.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you for taking the time to join us, Director, and on your um while you're away.

So I'd like to invite um representative from Blocks of the Chesapeake to join us.

Thank you.

You just introduce yourself and certainly I'm Didi Strum.

I currently am the CEO and president of Blacks of the Chesapeake Foundation.

I thank you, Mr.

Chairman and Council members for the opportunity to share both my prepared comments as well as some contemporaneous thoughts that I have following two really good presentations today.

I'm glad that I had the opportunity to see the presentation just now and to get more context.

I come before you with support to establish a hybrid ferry service at Vending at the City, excuse me, Annapolis City Dock to better connect residents and visitors to our neighborhoods, businesses, waterfront destinations, and the new Cars Eltonia Beach City Park.

This project really is more than transportation.

It's an investment in mobility, environmental stewardship, economic development, and equitable access to our waterfront.

A hybrid ferry would provide clean, quiet, and modern alternative to increased vehicle traffic in our already congested downtown corridors.

By reducing automobile dependence, the ferry can help decrease emissions, improve air quality, and support Annapolis's climate and resiliency goals while protecting the health of the Chesapeake Bay.

The ferry would also strengthen our local economy.

Easier access between city dock commercial districts, neighborhoods, and waterfront attractions means more foot traffic for small businesses, restaurants, cultural institutions, and tourism-related enterprises.

Visitors are more likely to explore and stay longer when transportation is convenient, attractive, and connected to the waterfront experience that makes Annapolis quite unique.

Equally important, this service can improve access for residents, including senior citizens, youth, workers, and families who may not have easy transportation options or who face parking and traffic barriers downtown.

A ferry system creates opportunities for safer, more accessible movement across the city while reconnecting communities to the water waterways.

The ferry connection to the new CARS Eltonia City Beach Park carries special significance to blacks of the Chesapeake Foundation and area residents.

That park represents not only recreation and environmental restoration, but also the preservation and recognition of African American history and community heritage in Annapolis.

A ferry connection will help ensure that residents and visitors alike can easily experience and appreciate this important cultural and historical destination.

A collateral opportunity for the ferry connection is bringing visitors from the city dock and the Vincent G, excuse me, the Vincent O'Legan Memorial Park to the new Eltonia Cars Beach in 2028 after visiting the traditional West African pirogue boat built and gifted to Vince Legate the year before his death.

This boat, which is expected to leave Senegal in December of 2027, will traverse the route that the transatlantic slave trade took from Senegal to Brazil and then up through Jamaica and up to Virginia and then into the Annapolis City dock.

Once here, we see this as a place for storytelling and interpretation, much in the history and tradition of the Blacks of Chesapeake Foundation, where we can share the story beginning with at the top of the city dock.

You have the statute of Haley of Alex Haley reading to the children, and the pro rogue boat would be down at the foot where the Vincent O Laget Memorial Park is.

We see that as the opportunity again to make Annapolis a place to come to.

I fashion when I do my presentations, I share with particularly Maryland audiences that the Baltimore Harbor is known for the pirate ship and sharing the story of the buccaneers that roamed, I guess, the Chesapeake Bay waters, Annapolis can have its story, its place in storytelling interpretation with the pirogue boat and the history and the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade and the descendants of the enslaved Africans who were brought here to help establish the maritime trades and seafood industries.

And now, because of Vince's efforts, with 42 years invested with BOCF, the legendary descendants, the black watermen of the Chesapeake Bay.

Cities across this country are embracing clean water transit as part of a resilient, people-centered waterfront redevelopment effort.

Annapolis has the opportunity to lead with innovation while honoring its time, its storied history with maritime identity and black heritage.

I do encourage the city to continue advancing this initiative through strong community engagement, environmental planning, and partnership that maximizes public benefit.

I do thank you today for your consideration and your continued commitment to a more connected, sustainable and inclusive Annapolis.

In closing, I want to share something, and this is a personal note.

Because I think we have a beautiful waterfront area.

The U.S.

Naval Academy is, I mean, just a jewel, a gem in our local landscape.

And so again, I think that even as residents beyond just tourists, residents would, I think, find greater opportunity to come there knowing that there's some way of getting around.

And we certainly, for the effort and the investment we see going into the redevelopment of the new CARS Eltonia Beach uh community, the educational strategy that BOCF has helped lead over the last year and a half uh with nonprofit partners in the maritime heritage and the environmental lanes.

We want to see it used um because we can have, I think, great content that the partners are offering for that particular platform.

I want to share something that just came today and I hope Rosalind still I don't know if she's still on the line or not miss Johnson is still good.

This is so interesting and I I am a firm believer as she knows that everything is by God's hand and God's plan.

Today this morning at 1018 a m I received an email from Mrs.

CJ Lucas who lives in Washington DC says good morning Miss Drum I hope this email finds you well I'm thrilled to follow up and see if you have any more details about the upcoming Juneteenth celebration and the exciting activities planned at the legendary Cars Elctonia Beach Park as I mentioned in my last email my six senior citizen sisters and I cannot wait for this epic event we're buzzing with anticipation.

Some of us have mobility challenges so we want to ask whether there will be plenty of accessible parking we're also eager to know if there will be any exhibits on display we'd love to experience the beach's rich history up close and personal I also want to thank Mr Gualtney with Blacks of the Chesapeake for his referral to the Seafarer Yacht Club they have been helpful.

My family and I are absolutely looking forward to making unforgettable memories in Annapolis over this Juneteenth weekend.

I do hope to hear from you soon best regards Mrs.

CJ Lucas I have absolutely no idea what to tell her about accessible parking any kind of parking um as it relates I know that uh Ms Johnson and the city staff are working on uh some routing maybe some trolleys or something but again you know to have I could not believe that email this morning and I'm thinking wow wow that ferry so I just wanted to enter that for the record as well that there and we get inquiries like this frequently throughout the year she made reference to Mr Gualtney who's with Blacks at Chesapeake you know leading her to a source but people are in contact with us all the time who want to come back and reconnect with the heritage of this area.

So in closing I do have two asked one just real quickly uh the reference that was made earlier to a community and business survey um that will be forthcoming right that right under development but forthcoming and just an ask that we be kept in mind and that hopefully we can help participate in soliciting uh feedback that I know is very important to any planning effort and the second one being can the presentation be shared with community groups like ours or excerpts from it uh at the time that we start trying to get more input um for your planning purposes so that's it for my presentation again I thank you for allowing me the opportunity to come and to share these comments for the record and particularly Mrs.

Lucas's um inquiry today for she and her six senior citizen uh sisters and we will we will think it through we will try to figure out something and I'll be circling back to Ms.

Johnson and her staff to say what can I tell someone like this who wants to spend the whole weekend um and they have previously asked about bed and breakfast restaurant uh hotels and things like that so we've been trying to give them information but this whole parking and mobility accessibility thing it is a concern.

Well thank you that really puts a fine point on um your remarks so very glad you shared that and um and to close out the public testimony we have another um guest to but we have two more okay we'll have two more the former mayor buckley you want to come and give some okay come on up former Alderman Ross Arnett is it on it is all right so um Ross Arnette 5296th Street Maritime Republic of Esport um you've had three excellent presentations and some uh sort of spontaneous email that I think make a very strong case for this uh so I'll just highlight a couple of things I wanted to say.

I think I wish we could pull back up uh deputy city manager guiles' uh slide that shows the uh the green slide with all the modes of transportation.

This isn't about bicycles or ferries or trolleys or EVs, it's about all of it, and it's about mobility.

And and I can't think of anything that could really combine more modes of mobility than going to structured parking in Esport right next to the Fifth Street, getting your bicycle out, walking it onto the ferry, bicycling around Annapolis, getting off your bike, walking into shops and things like that, and then hopefully one day taking an exciting ride on the Annapolis trolley to go to other parts of the city.

Uh I think that's a grand vision.

I also think that there's um some nostalgia here in many of these things.

Uh a hundred years ago, ferries were the way that you got to places.

You went to Tolchester Beach, you went to Baltimore, uh, and you went to all the other points that uh are around the area and wonderful points to visit.

And if you combine that with the notion of trolleys where you um can be going down Forest Drive or uh Maryland Avenue to get to shops instead of driving and parking and polluting and so forth.

And and I do hope we get back to e-ferries rather than hybrid ferries.

So it's easy on the surface to be smirched a beta test that goes from Fifth Street and Eastport around to City Dock, and certainly a longer trip than if you just rode your bicycle down Compromise Street and into downtown.

But it is a beta test, it's a pilot, and it's something that won a big grant.

And it seems to me that it's would be a shame to uh turn back three million dollars um because we don't think going from Fifth Street to City Dock is uh a good thing to do.

It is a good thing to do, and it's a beginning, and this is also the city and the county are becoming part of another beginning, which is the uh um planning and the um parks commission.

I can't think of Wendy O'Sullivan's uh uh National Park Service, which will be using Annapolis again as its beta test to take tra to take ferries all over the bay.

And just think about having friends or family come and visit and the wonderful times you can have hopping on a ferry, going to places, taking your bicycle with you, maybe taking your bicycle to Smith Island and then bicycling around the island.

So this is just the very beginning, the nugget, the beta tests to something that is a much grander plan.

It is fully incorporated in our comprehensive plan, and I think it would be a shame to lose this opportunity.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for taking the time.

We have former mayor Kevin Buckley.

Uh Gavin Buckley, Stewart Avenue.

Uh, first of all, thank you for all the hard work you guys uh are doing.

Uh you know, what's great about this city is that we innovate, right?

Uh and what's old uh is now new again.

Uh there used to be two trains that came to the city of Annapolis.

There used to be a ferry system that moved us around the Chesapeake Bay, and then we built a bridge and we forgot about everything else, and we just focused on cars.

So, what's so exceptional about this plan is that um not a lot of people are as lucky as some of us that have an auntie or an uncle uh or a mom or a dad with a boat.

Um if we can actually really make this happen between uh City Dock uh and Fifth Street.

We could just make that one section just free for locals, just to test and prove the concept, right?

Uh, but we could be operated by a third party.

I mean, the city probably doesn't have the capacity to run a ferry system.

We're aware of the city's budget, but this could be a third party operator.

Of course, Watermark Cruises is a perfect fit.

Watermark is, but there's also the Seamanship Academy, that's another option for us.

They've expressed a lot of interest in trying to train people, uh, how to be pilots, how to be captains of boats.

It could be a system where we bring kids up to learn that skill.

Um, and and I think we shouldn't uh discount the fact that this three million dollars came with nearly a half a million dollars uh for street end improvements, landing improvements.

Um please come with me any time you want to the end of Fifth Street and look at the condition of that street end and imagine uh when it's raised and it's a little pocket park with a floating dock uh and a place where a 32-foot boat could just turn around and go in and out, and people could come to that amazing shopping precinct of 4th Street.

Uh the two best things you can do in the city, I think are go to Eastport and go to the shopping area there, of course, come to City Dock, uh, but walk across and then maybe walk back across the Esport Bridge if you've come across uh on a ferry.

So uh I know the county's not gonna run from their grant.

Uh the county's gonna take full advantage of that six million dollars.

We're a creative team here.

We we have smart, smart people working in the city of Annapolis.

And and I I beg you uh not to give up on it because um a lot of people are gonna be envious of us having uh a facility like that.

And the idea of getting Americans back uh to using public transport uh is to make it experiential.

So maybe if you used a public transport option of a ferry, then you might consider using a tram.

Then you might consider using a bus.

You might consider um using uh uh a train.

Uh you know, when I'm in the county working for the city, um I'm gonna make sure that we're gonna be bringing some bus trams and different initiatives like that into the city, and we can all connect it and we can all electrify it.

Uh we're gonna do a good thing for our kids.

So thanks for the hard work.

Thanks for letting me testify and keep up the good fight.

Thank you.

Cheers.

Thank you.

Thanks to all of you.

And now I want to open it up to the committee for any kind of questions for any of the presenters.

All went out of my head with that uh that great testimony there.

Um I wanna just dig in.

So I I basically where I'm at on this, and this can color my questions, is no doubt this has huge benefits for us.

I just want to get a better accounting of the costs.

And um, so could you talk some more about where we are in developing what the city's costs would be for this at a super broad level, and in particular this idea that a couple of you have mentioned about it would be likely run by a private operator.

How do we do we know that that is viable?

I put it back up again.

But you might pull your mic over.

I put this the slide back up with the total cost.

So our total grant was 2.975.

There's a local match, of course, for a total of 3.5 for this whole grant.

The local match is given in staff time, so it's no money up front from the city at all.

So to actually design and build the ferries up to two, and then to make the dock improvements.

There's no money out from the city to do these.

So we even got some more money put back into the dock improvement pile when we got rid of the all-electric.

We no longer have to have charging infrastructure on the dock, so there's more money for the um improvements.

Um not all of that was going to be taken up by Fifth Street.

We thought that some of that could go towards Cars Beach dock, um, and any other places we might consider.

But um, depending on how many destinations we um decide to bring the ferry, we might need more money for landing.

However, we already have the Hawkins Cove landing covered by the Hawkins Cove grant budget and any other funds we raise for Cars Beach could be covered in there, could come out of this one as well.

We did put Hawkins Cove and Cars Beach in our grant application as potential routes.

We are not wed to any particular route or landing.

We just had to put some ideas into the grid application.

So that's what we, you know.

We put those three, um, Fifth Street, Hockett's Cove, and Cars Beach, and with then some potential others that are mentioned on that slide where I show potential routes.

Um, operating, there was no operating cost associated with this grants, so that would be on the city, unless we have a third-party operator, which that is what's the plan from the beginning, and we don't have maintenance.

Some of these vessels that we explored when we had our first RFP out, um had some maintenance plans, and of course they all have warranties on parts.

Um so we would need to get the actual maintenance costs when we do it this time again, because it'll be different when it now that it's diesel electric.

Um probably higher, right?

Like a diesel engine probably has higher maintenance costs than an electric one.

Um probably.

So we is this, but the electric we probably will operate mostly on electric when you would think about where you're going to be operating in the city.

Your range is probably you know, most of the time.

So then you would go over to a diesel when you needed to.

It what it does also is it gives us a little bit more um power and design flexibility so that we could take the ferry out in a bit rougher waters and also across to like Holly Beach Farm, that area in Whitehall.

So to answer all your questions.

Not exactly.

What I'm trying to get at is I mean, you help me understand sort of the capital cost of it.

But what I'm really trying to get at is what is the if we if we go ahead with this, which again, like I see huge benefit to doing five years from now, what is the line item in the city's operating budget that we're gonna be saying this is related to the ferry?

And I understand you probably can't have a perfect point estimate, but like what is the range that we're concerned?

I would say, well, I don't have the number on the maintenance.

So the maintenance will be that's something we have to gather from this next RFP.

Um maintenance would be a line item, unless the operator assume that I don't think they're going to, but we are we would be handing them the vessel to operate.

So that might be something we build in there that they have the main maintenance on it, and then the operate, we wouldn't be to depends on how we do it with the operator, whether we pay them, we don't pay them, or they have to come up with a business plan that makes them enough money that it makes sense to them.

So um we don't plan to have any operating costs and maintenance might be taken on by the operator, but I would think the one we could think of would be operating costs.

Got it.

Yeah, and and again, like I can't emphasize enough.

I'm excited for this, but I want to know what we're committing to.

So how do we know that we wouldn't have operating costs?

I mean, presumably you're looking into like what potential operators what they do in other cities, or like how do you know that we could say we're not gonna have operating costs for this?

I didn't, I say I qualified that as a you might have operating costs, it just depends on the arrangement that we make with the operator, whether they take that on or not, whether that makes financial sense to them.

Um so we are looking at what other cities are doing.

I'm having the harbor master do that.

And when we do the um request um RFI for that for the operator, we will also be asking them, you know, what kind of business plan do you have for this?

So there will be suggestions about who's taking care of the costs of operation and the maintenance, etc.

So we have to develop that operating um RFI.

Got it.

So okay, so it's a little bit looking at other places, but mainly it's we're gonna say to people, come come to us uh in an RFI and they'll tell us whether it's a hundred thousand dollar cost to the city or a fifty thousand dollar benefit or whatever.

Because if we don't have enough information to do an RFP, we can always put out an RFI request for information so that we can build our RFP in a better way.

That sounds great.

And what how does the timing of doing an RFI, but let's assume we're not doing an RFP, an RFI uh interact with the timing that we need for this grant.

So we only have until October 27th to have these funds encumbered.

Um we would need to get going on this right away as we have we have an RFP that we revise to put out for the design build of this new propulsion system, and that's ready to go as soon as the mayor says I can let it go.

Um, I would say we should do the RFI about the same time.

It's a little complicated because some of the operator might want to know exactly what kind of boat it is, but we could tell them based on all the information we gathered during the last RFI process, we get have a good idea of what we can tell them it will be.

Got it.

Okay.

That that I think answers my question.

This I should know the answer to this, but if we put out the RFP and then the RFI comes back as oh my god, everybody's going to it's gonna cost us a million dollars each uh per year.

Everybody says it's gonna be some crazy number.

Are we committed to go through with that RFP, or we could say based on the results of the RFI, the operating costs be too high, so we don't want to award the RFP.

We're not we're not required to go through with RFP.

We could just say we didn't find anybody that could do this, you know, we didn't like any of it.

There's no requirement to finish it.

Uh it sounds like we ought to do those two things then, or we revise it.

Yeah, revise RF.

I think that's all my questions.

I think what there's a great line of questioning.

I so going off of that, first of all, I just want to philosophically point out that public transportation often does not pay for itself directly, right, through fares.

I think it does pay for itself through often the the economic associated economic uh and just social cultural activities.

Uh I think um Miss Um Odom is it?

Strum, I'm sorry.

Miss Strum from Black Chesapeake, I think really touched on that quite a bit as far as um getting people around the city connecting, especially the African American community with their history, um, and there clearly is is quite a bit of interest to do that locally, and if we can help, I think this is just one tool we have to help address the accessibility um puzzle that we have.

And so as far as timing, I'm wondering um I think the the the RFI is a great idea.

Um, and I I also would like to get some more details on some of the operation options for stops.

Um I'm wondering if we can either use some of that leftover grant money to pay for any of that.

You said that there was some of them we're not using all the grant money necessarily, at least not for the charging infrastructure.

So we could redirect that in.

You can't use that for any of those.

You can't right that we we can use we can redirect it to something that's already funded, such as the landing improvements, and that's where we redirected it.

So we um we could either do a better landing at 5th street, or we could add some of that money to Cars Beach, or um, we don't really need it for Hawkins Cove.

Okay, and so just so you know, the county is doing that feasibility study associated with their grant for a hybrid electric ferry, but they are funding it independently because their grant did not provide funds for a study.

Well, I'm wondering if we need to track down some funds for that.

I mean, we have a couple options.

I know I already reached out to the transportation director because they do have a contractor kind of its own call that they use.

I don't know if they would have any expertise in ferries, but it's it's not all that different from buses in the sense of figuring out routes and stops and timing.

But in any case, that would be one potential way to do it quickly if we could find the funding, and we might be able to reach out to local foundations to help with that.

Another option would be the resilience authority, like we have.

Um we may be able to save some money by using the same consultant that the county is using because they studied Annapolis as part of their plan.

Have they completed their no?

It's going to be completed in November.

They're doing a comprehensive plan from everything, what type of vessel, what it should be made out of, how fast it should go, routes.

They're doing operation and maintenance.

Um so it's they've been doing this since the oh, it started at last year.

They won't have it ready till November.

Yeah, that's a good idea too.

We could always just give them some additional money to expand their efforts.

All right.

Um, but going back to the landing question is the terminal.

So when you say that that's is that Fifth street that you're referring to?

Or is right now, um, that was what we had initially saw as the the landing on the fit on the eastport side, so we have money for that.

Um, but as I said, there may be some extra money we could use over at Cars Beach.

So is that because we're not gonna need to make too many improvements on City Doc?

We what we won't need to make any improvements.

I mean, there'll be ne a need for a gangway, an ADAS accessible gangway.

And we don't need to do anything with charging infrastructure now.

And I'm just thinking trying to think this through.

So we're it sounds like we're kind of are we kind of locked in to the fifth street?

No.

No, okay.

No.

But that that is the it looked like as you look at different spots on Spa Creek, some are just not accessible.

They're too high, you know, the the range between the water and the on the deck is too high.

There's areas that are too small, um, other areas you know impeded by private uh marinas.

So that was the logical place to put it.

It also is a failing bulkhead, it's right in rough shape, it floods all the time, so we would be addressing that issue as well.

Um the idea, you know, the only protest I've heard from Eastport is that parking.

You just hear parking all the time, and I've tried to emphasize over and over that this is not about bringing parking to them.

Because every time I go down in that two fifth street, there's plenty of parking for a few cars.

Like if you did come by car, because there's mostly condos and apartments around.

They're in businesses, they have their own parking.

They're not parking on the street, and there's no houses on the street to park in front of on that on that part of 5th street at least.

So I don't see what the big worry is there, and I don't um and I see a lot of eastport residents using the ferry to come over to City Dock rather than having to go all the way around and down again to get to City Dock.

I've been at City Dock where someone said they were over at a restaurant in Eastport, and I was like, oh, you know, I'm either gonna have to walk and take half an hour to get there or go back and get my car out of the parking garage.

And uh so I see the it's a real benefit for Eastport residents to use this.

Um and then the people who do want to go over there, they could take a they could take it from City Dock.

They're not driving there, they're taking it from City Dock and going over there.

Another aspect of the grant application, we had to provide information about transit that could get you to the ferry landing or near enough to walk.

And that was included had that one slide where I showed you where the bus lines were going.

Um, and you know, there we determined it was less than a five-minute walk where the buses were going.

Um we also could add a gem that would take you directly to the dock.

Um, so we really worked around not adding parking because FTA doesn't like to hear that.

They want to know how how your existing transit system is going to help you connect with this transit system.

But we don't like to hear parking either.

You just turned it in the last presentation.

So I want to try to see if there's room for.

Um here, but some concerns about from Eastport, but let me throw out a potential scenario to see if this would be doable.

Uh, for example, if we did use the grant money as planned to improve into Fifth Street, could we as a part of our pilot, again, assuming a lot, but it's part of the pilot just run the ferry between say Cars Beach, City Dock, Hawkins Cove, to kind of show hey, this is this is doable, uh, to study some of the parking impacts elsewhere before it's actually activated, uh, in Eastport, before and if it's activated.

Because if Eastport decides they don't want it, well, maybe that's fine.

They'd still have an improved street end, right?

So is it No, and I've discussed this with Director Vogel that we can make those improvements that are needed, and even if we're not running it to Eastport yet, sentiments can change later as you said, um, and we could be running it to Eastport um later.

Meanwhile, we would have the improvements done for the dock.

There's nothing preventing us from doing this.

As I said, we were never locked into routes or landing sites by this grant.

We just had to provide examples of that we had thought it out.

We weren're just, oh let's just do this.

Let's just get these ferries.

Yeah, that well, that's a key, I think, piece of information because that would I think that would make it easier to go to the community to say, look, we it gives us some of us, I think a lot more time to talk with the community to see if this is something that they would support what they might need.

It's not locked in, but again, in the end they would get an improved street end that currently is flooding and in awful shape.

Um, but I guess that would ultimately be the council's decision as far as what routes to authorize or not.

Because I think the my sense is there's still more dialogue to have on that particular issue.

But again I don't want to have that hold up the entire can caboodle you know and uh you know not throw the baby out the baffler so to speak right we can then get these greater improvements done and kind of deal with that.

Part of the point of doing the the survey that mayor wants me to do is um to get more input from just not just the residents but also from the businesses and the other stakeholders that it's not all about esport either it's other people live in other parts of the city that might may use the ferry and also visitors.

The visitor center is 100% convinced this should be done.

They're very enthusiastic about it.

Their goal is to expand the current one night in Annapolis to eventually one week and they see this as something this and the street car as real draws for tourism.

Yeah yeah these systems and we we certainly saw that abroad and we've seen that in the other jurisdictions that have uh street cars that we've been to the people do seem excited by having alternatives to um cars and the parking woes and um so thank you um and so as far as the survey is there a way we could roll that in with a consultant who may end up supplementing with an RFI or some other additional study.

Yes.

I mean they they would be better equipped than staff to do it most likely and uh the maritime advisory board has um there's I can't remember his name one gentleman who volunteered to um help us with that is a lot of knowledge um about ferries and ferry systems and Beth Bellis agreed that he would be very helpful to us and Fort Warren's has some expertise as well so we could we could tap into that.

Because my my concern with I always have a concern with kind of community surveys in the sense that you know the surveys are done before we before people even know really how to conceptualize their options because again typical Americans don't think about anything besides cars uh they don't think about taking their bike it's it's just they've grown so accustomed to they don't think about taking the water taxi or the ferry and so you know Annapolis I think is a little different because we are more of a water based town but we also still have a lot of those handicaps and that's why I think with successful transportation transit you see they all need marketing outreach efforts to get that behavior change right and so I'm just wondering what kind of value a surveys really going to provide if people don't really know how to conceptualize it.

Right well and we might not get you know that many responses to it either or a diverse responses.

We might just get residents out of Esport responding because they're so worried about it.

That's the part that concerns me it may not be a very balanced view of what Annapolis really wants.

Yeah also you don't innovate by consensus right no that's a phrase uh I could have stolen from uh former mayor buckley back there.

Yeah and I know I think we all try to do our best to respond to constituent concerns and I think we're doing this genuinely because we think it will solve seniors who have difficulty driving downtown this would give them an option people without cars too that live in the city children without driver's license absolutely we have a lot of people who don't have cars in the city uh including the youth my son has to bike all over and this would be another option for him.

Probably a safer option absolutely well I think Miss Strum had some comments she wanted to add.

Thank you if I could yeah uh to two thoughts are just in both being just reflections um the intersection between my my history and Vince's history and how he came to me um before we passed, and I was just supposed to be a grant writer uh eventually assumed his position, is that my background is um in uh housing and redevelopment, and I've done uh projects all over the country.

I really appreciate the comment or the the questioning and concern about future costs, which often aren't what are right before us now and people don't consider that.

So I think that there's great value in the councilman who asked about the operating costs and the out years.

Uh something I wanted to share is that came to my mind for some reason when we were talking about I think it's your plan for RFP that might allow for the private operator cost is that I was in Indiana.

Um I was a guarantoly appointee then, and back years ago, we were the leader in privatizing toll roads, um, and it was the I 9094 stretch that came across from Chicago.

Well, what across the state anyway, and there was and the um there was a private operator that took over the toll road, and they had to, as I recall, they had to assume the opera the maintenance costs as part of it.

So I just wanted to say that when that came up, I would say that may be something to look at as the models because I know other states have since done it, privatizing toll roads and sections.

I don't know if that's true in Maryland.

Um, but that was a thought that came to mind.

The other one that I thought about was the um the acquisition itself for the cars, Eltonia, um, parlantmore uh piece of the property, the 0.65 acres, was a public-private partnership, and in some of these areas, and it's something you said, sir.

I forget the first part of it, what you said was reaching out to local foundations.

And just to say that again, one of the way of closing some of the gap on some of costs of areas that may be of both concern as well as interest in advancing this is to lean into a nonprofit like Blacks the Chesapeake Foundation or others who can who can get grant money that maybe is not otherwise available to the city.

So those were just two thoughts that came to mind.

Thank you.

And and I I apologize for the delay to Alderman Thorpe uh getting to you.

Uh did you have anything you wanted to ask or?

Sure.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Just a couple questions, and and I I like everybody else applaud the idea of more people on the water.

So whatever we can do to get more people on the water, great.

Um, I'd like to kind of follow up on some of the questions here to put a fine point on this.

Is there a requirement for this grant to use if we use the grant to fix up the bulkhead on Fifth Street?

Is there a requirement to operate the hybrid ferry from Fifth Street?

So we wouldn't want to be disingenuous in the use of this grant that we're gonna fix up Fifth Street and then not use it.

I would say we we don't have to use it immediately as long as we're using it for other places.

Um, but I think if you want to get be taken seriously by the federal government for future grants, the FTA, you need to use what you've used, you need to use it for the purpose the money was given to in the first place.

So I would say we we don't have to do it right away.

Um we could look at other places still on on Spa Creek, but I I think we did that pretty exhaustively already.

Um still don't understand completely why there's such an objection to Fifth Street.

I think it's one of the better places to put it in Eastport.

Okay, so just and everybody's clear.

The answer is if we do the ferry, the hybrid ferry, there would be a total expectation that it would operate on Fifth Street.

From the federal government, yes.

Okay.

The second question is there a requirement.

But let me just qualify that, Frank, real quick.

Um, but if we didn't do it on fifth, if we did not make the improvements on Fifth Street, we're not wed to that.

We don't have to do that.

We don't have to make the improvements off 5th street, we could do it somewhere else.

That was just an example we put it in the grant.

But if we did use the funds to make the improvements to 5th street, the expectation would be we would use it as a ferry landing.

Okay, so we could we could accept the grant, accept the the hybrid ferry, not use grant money for Fifth street and operate the hybrid ferry to Cars Beach, City Dock, and other locations to be determined, not Fifth Street.

That's a possibility.

Yes.

And when I discussed this with Director Vogel, he said he would just have to add funds in the CIP, perhaps for the um for on Fifth Street for the improvements we need to correct the flooding and the bulkhead there.

And when I asked him, well, how hard would it be to add on so that in the future it could be um fairly accessible?

He said, not it's nothing much at all.

Because really, again, it's really about a ramp, adding the ADA accessible um sides to it and then the ramp.

Yeah, but but just to be clear about the issue here, if we if we use the grant money for fifth street repairs, we need to operate the water the hybrid ferry from Fifth Street.

If we don't use the grant money to fix up Fifth Street, we could still accept the grant, still accept the hybrid ferry, but the city would have to take on any repairs to Fist Street Water End.

Yes, that's correct.

Okay.

Um separate subject.

Is there any requirement in the grant to provide uh uh transportation on the hybrid ferry for free?

Or or is there an expectation or yeah, that's the question.

Is there any requirement for the hybrid ferry to provide transportation for free?

There's no requirement for that.

We could charge a fare, we can make it free, we can make it, we could charge a fare and offer low-income residents a token to make it free for them.

Um we can do any sorts of combinations.

Okay, thank you.

So then I think my last question is: so the business plan that is associated with information that'll be gleaned from the RFI will come forward with proposed dollar amounts that how much it would cost to operate the hybrid ferry, how much a company is willing to invest in it, and what the expectation is for any city money to support the success of it.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

Okay, thank you.

That's all in questions.

Thank you, Alderman.

Um so I think we could wrap this up, and I'll just say um, I think as far as the ferry dock improvements, it would is it right that it would cost us.

So if we don't do the improvements to fair to Fifth Street with the grant money for the landing, we would have to invest the half a million dollars to do the improvements ourselves.

Yes, I don't know the ex that exact number anymore.

You know, those numbers keep going up with materials, so we have to ask Director Vogel exactly how much it will cost.

But perhaps again, we could use this if we get this other interim study to take a closer look at some of those estimated impacts, parking impacts.

Okay, it sounds like we have a a path forward here.

Um, let's just keep us posted on if we need to do anything to offer support on getting this additional study done.

Um do you see that as a parallel effort to the RFP?

Carol Alfford.

Um I would do the RFI like it as quickly as I could, and then we would get the RFP out, and this study since we but RFI is kind of like that.

Yeah, I mean it's uh originally you should have done the study first, you know, like like the county's doing it, you they're getting all their information up front.

But we have a we have a you know, we have the the time is clicking on this grant, so we need to move forward.

So let me think about that a little bit, like what order I would do it in.

We'll keep supposed to and if there's anything we can do to help.

I do have a placeholder, I think, in the budget for an amendment if we need to adjust anything on the CIP.

Um I was kind of waiting until we got some more information.

If I guess if you could, I can check in with directory, plenty to do, but if we could figure out with you and Director Vogel if we need to adjust the CIP at all to allow for perhaps to use that to fund the interim, the RFI, um I know some money was removed from that, but I'm not sure if it was removed related to the ferry or something else from the CIP.

Director Bogle might have more info.

Um, but but I'll just end to say, you know, we've we've heard um a lot about how this connects the um African American community locally, but I do want to emphasize since we are on environmental matters the connection between I've wanted for you know at this point over a decade to protect cars, Octonia Beach, and I started off from an environmental perspective, and that is a huge environmental asset to have our first public beach access uh to the Chesapeake Bay and the shoreline improvements that we're making there, connecting that to City Dock and the environmental resilience work that we're doing down there, and then with the Hawkins Cove, which uh obviously has environmental component there for the restoration.

That I think really ties together some key projects for us, and I think provides a really compelling narrative environmentally as well that I'd like to work into some of the interpretive information that we have uh downtown.

And I know that's also very strong focus of the blocks of Chesapeake.

So I want to thank you particularly for your involvement, but also uh director um Johnson for taking time to join us uh and to everybody provide.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

I believe next up we have it's from Deputy City Manager Kyle.

Oh, yeah.

Sorry, I did ask um I just asked the studio to put up these pictures.

It's pictured the ferry at the Naval Academy.

You can see it on the left.

Oh, yes, yeah, yeah.

We'll have to add that to my slide deck.

Another picture they may bring up next is uh pictured down at the Naval Academy as well, getting on from the train to a bus to a ferry.

Oh, yeah, I mean, the the midship and the midshipman used to come in as I'm well I don't know.

Orman Thorpe, I'm sure is well aware, but come to the Naval Academy via train, and um, yeah.

I love seeing that, which we can't replicate today, unfortunately.

One day, all right.

So I think it's just frustrating that I can't get to Baltimore by trade.

Or day three for that matter.

Thank you to the studio.

You can take that down now.

Okay, all right.

Some highlights.

All right, so uh I just gave you guys a paper version of this.

Well, I did email it to you.

Um, but you'll see that we are pretty focused on energy efficiency and LED retrofits and going for all kinds of funding for solar, rooftop solar and every other kind of solar on our city facilities.

Um, the newest one uh is uh resilience is still sustainability staff is working with central services on some financing options to install solar panels so we can meet our solar generation goals and uh looking into those organizations and other funding resources that can provide installations at no cost, um, with some revenue incentives to the city.

So we're more on that later, but we're trying to find everywhere possible we can finance this through partnerships, and there's some collaborations with BGE.

Um, one that we are doing right now is with the fleet.

We're doing a detailed fleet in inventory, uh BGE as a contractor, that it's free technical assistance to the city.

We've only had to pay $2,500 up front.

This is probably $30,000 worth of fleet analysis, which will show fuel savings, carbon savings, um, maintenance savings, and which vehicles you should be purchasing in which year to meet your goals of you know, zero emissions from your fleet.

So it'll it will be a real tool to central services every year with the budget, and it will be show exactly what how many dollars we have to spend to get to zero emissions in our fleet.

So and that's a we spend 2500 for that.

But as soon as we buy an EV within a year of that study being done, we get the 2500 back.

So we've been looking at a lot of those kinds of relationships.

I could point out real quick.

I we don't have any electric vehicles funded in the FY27 budget currently.

Right.

I found out, still trying to figure out why, but Department of Central Services requested, I think some of the older vehicles get replaced, but for some reason, finance department chose just to replace police vehicles.

So that's all that's getting replaced next year.

So we're gonna we may lose some of that money if we don't.

Yeah, we need we need to be able to purchase at least one in order to get the $2500 back.

I know it's not a lot of money, but you would think we could purchase one EV in a year.

Okay, so I'm moving on to I'm trying to do like hit the new things in here, which are they're um indicated in red, it'll say new or it'll say update, um, where things have changed significantly.

Um, so this is another one where empower Maryland um is working with central services, BGE um has that empower program that encourages energy efficiency in homes and in other ways.

But this is a program for no cost LED lighting retrofits and upgrades for municipal buildings.

One of the ones is municipal buildings.

Um they've they're working with a contractor called Matrix Solutions, and they will upgrade interior and exterior lighting.

And the first project that we're looking at doing with this partnership is lighting the um firehouse on Forest Drive.

And if this works out and there's more funding, we can move on to other city buildings for free LED lighting.

Um moving on to page three, where I have near the bottom of the greenhouse gas emissions inventory and the climate action plan.

Um, our consultant, Caramita, provided the draft plan in April.

It's online, and anyone can drop in comments or questions online in the portal, or they can contact Dylan.

Um we had our CareMeta consultant come to Annapolis last week and give a presentation at town hall, and then um there will be a webinar that Dylan will run on May 26th, and then all public comments must be in by the end of May.

Um, a work session will be had with council on June 18th.

We'll have our consultants by screen virtually, and after that, if there's any comments from council, we want to wrap this up by the end of June and get a final plan, climate action plan done by July.

Can I ask if if we want to give input mode, be the best way?

I'm not I well, you did say online, but I'm wondering.

I was hoping to get a presentation to the committee, but it doesn't sound like that's gonna work with the timeline necessarily.

I mean, we could do it early June, but I don't know if that's gonna give you enough time to make changes.

So if that's the case, perhaps uh some of us could meet with you individually or Dylan to go in to dig into this.

Yes, um, so as the comments are coming in, and the reason they want the cutoff to be the end of May is they're going to do care media that is, is going to do another draft to to get ready for the June 18th work session with council.

So it'll be a little bit cleaner by the time we have that work session, but it's not going to be done yet because we're gonna I wait for the council, you know.

Hopefully, it won't tear into it like they did the comprehensive plan, but to do a redo, but um, I wanted that opportunity before I finished it.

Yeah, you know, Ross really tore into that comp plan.

Okay, he's not paying attention.

Um, so yeah, we might be able to do that.

Um, when's the next meeting?

Oh, not till June.

We're already in May.

We can talk offline about it.

I'll go up with um and then on page four, I have an update on the electric streetcar, trolley.

Um, Rob and I and um Patrick Denker from the Danker Foundation made a trip out to Kansas City to um, Shinsky.

Oh, an Eric Leshinski.

Very good.

Yes, thank you.

As much needed for that too.

Um, so they this um was the summit.

We learned a lot.

We took a tour of the operations center and the the trolley line, they have a really nice operation center.

Um, it is a tour, it's on a lot of tours, like especially for children for schools, and they did it very nicely, so it is available for and very accessible in that way, um, which is a good thing to do because then you do have it as an educational um center as well.

But we learned so much more about how important this is a tool this is for um economic development and housing development, and it can be really drive um business to certain areas, and we also learned about ways you can help alleviate the pinch on businesses, and we could be applying some of these tools at City Doc with some grants to businesses, paying a portion of their rent during the time of construction, um, lots of media about driving um media campaigns about driving business to um businesses that are impacted by construction and the way that they communicate that they're open for business, you know, go to this area, support them.

Your next cup of coffee should be at this coffee shop, and it happens to be where the construction is.

So, um, some really good tools we took away from that.

And uh we have an RFP that will be revised by the Resilience Authority, and an extension of two weeks that is going to be added so early June for RFPs for the RFP for feedback and those who want to apply to do the feasibility study.

Um and the reason we delayed it in our revising it is because it was shared with the Maryland Transit administration and they had some comments that we thought should be included.

Anything you want to add to that, Rob?

Just that um, you know, I'm still kind of contemplating how to best get some of this information to the council.

Um, certainly talk offline about if council might be interested in presentation from those of us who attended as far as what we learned and perhaps the status of the RFP.

Okay, we'll have to think about that some more.

So we haven't we're not intentionally leaving people out of the loop.

We're just trying to get all the information first before we um give that update.

And then on page five, um, but we already did the city ferry pilot project, so skip that.

Um let's see.

Hawkins Cove update on page six.

Um, the applications to MDE and the Army Corps have been submitted.

Um they were submitted in May, and they're based on 90% design plans.

So we're pretty much done with the design.

Um, MDE has to do a review and approve, but that was paused because we have we had that legislation introduced about the harbor lines um adjustments, which was passed in mid-April by council.

So now we can go back to getting the approvals from MDE, and that project can keep moving.

It's been taking a very long time.

But it's been enhanced several times, more money was obtained.

So we we had the opportunity to blow up that project a little bit.

Um I hear I'm on page seven with electric leaf blower enforcement.

I get we still are receiving many many calls and emails and enforcement staff, um, code enforcement staff in Planning and Zony are receiving complaints.

They are doing, they've issued um 18 citations, 18 or 19 citations.

Um they but if they get someone complaining, of course, a citation isn't issued automatically, a warning goes out first, and then when they actually see one in someone in the act of using a gas powered leaf lowers when the citations occur.

So sometimes they've been able to give out two at a time because there are multiple leaf blowers in action.

Um, so we do have overtime available to our inspection staff to do um leaflower enforcement.

They were doing some of that in the fall, but no one's taking Chris up on it recently.

Uh, see, we have the program, of course, Harry's favorite program for the electric leaf rebates.

And uh so far.

Our last report was we've spent 36,000, a little over 36,000 on rebates.

Um, they've pro the Chesapeake Bay Trust has processed 170 rebates, and so more outreach will be going on this spring that these are available.

Most of the rebates have gone to in the past to residents, just individual homeowners.

It's starting to pick up now with some of the landscaping businesses.

Um, so before it was mostly just individuals.

The rebates, the rebates up again.

Yeah, it was very low number for the um landscaping businesses, and either that tells me two things.

It's either they don't really are they're not really feeling that much pain or they're just ignoring it and taking the fines.

How much money's left?

Uh there's about 40,000 left.

I mean, personally, I'd be open to moving that to some other effort if we need to, just um, I feel like we've given people a pretty good opportunity to.

A big push um this month, and because we're running out of time because it was on this.

Well, we have a contract through I think August or October, I should go back and look with the trust to do this.

So we might have to, they already had all the money's already been allocated to the trust.

So we won't have that opportunity to move the money unless we get to the end of our contract with them and there's money left over.

And so I just want to make sure I'm clear.

So we had this whole debate for the FY26 budget about whether the FY25 funds were gonna roll over.

Did it end up being that the FY25 funds did not roll over?

So we have a 105,000 dollar total, not a 210,000 dollar total.

We had 105,000 to work with it from the beginning.

Right, right.

But uh the there was at one point a thought that the FY25 fund had been encumbered, and so then we were appropriating new money in FY26 for this.

But if you're telling me that's not the case, that's fine by me.

No, I think there was FY 25 money.

There was.

I think we just had to re- we had to ask for it again, the 105,000.

So it's not 210.

Yeah, we only ever had 105.

That was legal.

Yep.

Well, my goal.

That was one other big update.

Our climate change litigation that where we the city had joined Annerville County and Baltimore and lawsuits to um bring a case against the fossil fuel companies and their trade association, the American Petroleum Institute.

We were seeking damages, and other relief based on the company's concealment of information, deceptive marking practices that then delayed jurisdictions' response to climate change.

Um, and we incurred many costs, and we will continue to incur costs um to address climate change impacts.

Um the court, the appeals court decided against this, us, the plaintiffs, and the so the cases now closed our lawyer lawyers share deadling after doing an analysis of various cases around the country.

They just thought we have pretty much exhausted everything we could have done, and so we're the case is closed.

We're not doing any further appeals.

Now, about half the cases in the US have found the other direction.

They have found that the cases are valid, that state law, which is much better, applies, not federal law, which was found in our case.

It went back and forth.

First, it was yes, state law applies, and then it was no federal law applies, and then it was um that was upheld.

So things could change in the future because there's also a um case from Boulder, Colorado that's before the Supreme Court of the United States right now.

Um, probably won't get a ruling out of that until 2027.

So we'll we will see what happens with that.

But for uh for now, that case is closed for us and around and Arundel County and the city of Baltimore.

Okay, um, and then I just wanted to note that um since Ashley Diaz joined our staff as an environmental program manager.

We've really been focusing on in education and getting people educated about what they can do for the environment and for resilience building and you know, other and resources available to them.

And Ashley's really stepped up with the social media.

She created the newsletter that goes out every other month.

She's been doing more events with the interns we have.

And so she estimated that we are reaching right now about 1,500 community members.

And we want to we want to increase that.

We want to double that.

By doing more education and putting out tips and doing more events.

Um I'm encouraging her to do a lot of that around energy efficiency.

Um she worked on that where when she was in Bowie, and we learned from other counties that they do a lot of giveaways, like LED giveaways.

They do bar crawls where you go to each bar and you get like a thermostat for your refrigerator, or you get LED lights and things like that.

That's a popular way to do it.

And other places where you can drop off your old lights at the library, and in exchange you get some LED lights.

So hopefully, we can before that.

We asked for a little bit of a bump in the budget for funds to do that kind of thing.

Um, because the biggest complaint we're hearing now on the environment is the cost of gas, the cost of groceries, and the cost of heating and cooling, energy use.

And a lot of that's not within the city's control, but we can start exploring ways that we could partner or you know, do some of these giveaways in education.

I don't know.

Have you considered reopening the Strait of Hormos?

Have you even tried?

Have you even tried reopening the Strait of Hormos?

Yeah, just woke up this morning and I got right on it.

That's what the new fairy is for.

Or putting a gunboat on it.

An applicable.

All right.

Anything else?

Anything else for the go to the order?

Other for me.

Alright, is there a motion to adjourn?

Yeah, so moved.

Or I'll count the other one as a second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Meetings adjourned.

Thank you all.

Thanks.

Okay.