This session of the Baltimore County Council featured numerous legislative items, including bills for final reading, fiscal matters, zoning changes, and public hearings on contracts for waste disposal, police equipment, and transit-oriented development. The council heard extensive public testimony on several controversial items, including the Wheelabrator waste disposal contract, data center moratorium extension, and tenant eviction procedures. Multiple bills were introduced and discussed, with many expected to come up for final votes at a later meeting.
Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Baltimore County Council legislation legislative day number seventeen. We have a jam packed agenda today. So we will try to get through it as quick as we can. We're gonna start with a um bills for final reading and vote. Um Mr. Secretary, did you need to call one and two or did well the uh those those two um seventy six, I'm sorry, seventy-two twenty-six and seventy-three twenty-six, Mr. Chair. Uh the one is the waterway improvement supplemental appropriation uh that the that Major Weidick from the police department presented at the last meeting, and seventy-three is the fire prevention code, just the update uh every three or four years that Chief Dixon presented at the last meeting. Right. Um there were no questions from the at the time, so that they were excused from today's okay. I I just didn't know if we needed to read them into the record or we could just move on to our first real one. Yes, the first reading. Right. So we'll we'll go to Bill eighty six twenty-six. Uh this is from the police department, and I think uh Colonel Matthew Gorman is with us today. Colonel Gorman, how are you, sir? Good. Um I know you're gonna present to us about some police body armor. Come on on up. Thank you, sir. Mr. Chairman, members of the council. Thank you for having us today. The uh the Baltimore County Police Department is requesting that the Baltimore County Council approve and accept and appropriate uh two thousand three hundred and eighty-six dollars for FY27 body armor for local and law enforcement grant award from the governor's office of crime prevention and policy. Along with the two thousand three hundred and eighty-six dollars the county uh granted to the county. Um the county would have to supply matching funds for a total of four thousand seven hundred and seventy-two dollars that will be used uh to purchase body armor for for officers. It was a small grant. Um the budget office found this opportunity after the FY27 budget had been approved, and so we have applied for and been uh preliminary accepted to take in the two thousand three hundred and eighty-six and just need the county's matching funds for doing so. Okay. Well, thank you, sir. Any questions for Colonel Gorman? Thank you, sir. We appreciate you being here. Okay. Uh next up we have um Bill 752. Uh, this is on rental housing licenses. And I think Mr. Gutwalt um from PAI is gonna we didn't you didn't testify on this last work session, right? Or is you did well, come on up anyway, because we got you have two. Um Mr. Gutwell, could you could you briefly cover seventy-five twenty-five again? Or twenty seventy-five twenty-six, I'm sorry. Just then we'll go and then we'll go to uh we'll go to the next. You you have we'll go to seventy-six twenty-six as well. Okay. Uh 7526 is the rental housing licenses, and what this is doing is essentially um requiring people to provide a license if they are advertising. It's also requiring them to put a to uh apply for a license and have a license if they're going to advertise to rent uh a unit in the county. That's the basics of what this does. Okay.