Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome to the Thursday, January fifteenth, two thousand twenty-six open session of the Board of Carroll County Commissioners.

As we always do, we will begin with the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silent reflection.

I got several things.

So it went on a simple sell site visit last week.

So in progress way in Eldersburg.

And it is a re-commerce committee.

It's an incredible operation.

One of the reasons that we went is because um Kelly Schultz was there.

She's the CEO of the Maryland Tech Council and she's the former Secretary of Commerce for Governor Hogan.

And then we had some folks there from the Department of Labor at the state level and Carroll County Economic Development.

And we had Heather Powell there from Carroll County Workforce Development and Paige Sunderland.

And by the time I'm finished this you'll understand why they were they were all there because this is a a just a new and exciting new industry and they operate a logistics and repair center and it's big it's all warehouse space that was uh vacated by I think Dahl Tal or someone there and it's a very I forget the square foot I think it's 40,000 square feet.

And they are focused on providing affordable quality products and services with quick turnaround times for repairs.

In my day we call things recycling but it's called e re commerce.

So it's I guess recycling is re commerce.

They sell and distribute high quality cell phones, accessories online.

So you might buy something online it'll say simple cell you say hey that comes from Eldersburg and these the re the reas the the redone phones and tablets and um gaming devices and they they have thousands and thousands of them.

They sell variety of tested and inspected electronics including the laptops and a lot of these things come from overstocks and returns and also from things that have gone on the next the next um generation comes out and then they buy like thousands of a certain thing and they sell them and that's considered re commerce because they purchase overstock inventory and give these guys a second chance it reduces waste and helps protect the environment and they have good products find good homes instead of ending up in landfills.

All this is with the goal of providing savings to customers providing local jobs and reducing e-waste they have an online presence a big online presence and then you can go in the store and if you get your phone broken or have a problem you can go what right in the store and they can um take care of that for you.

But the purpose of our visit was to help them find good potential employees because you need these employees they're they're redoing these phones.

They're repurposing these tablets and they're working on it and they want to find ways to train these employees to work in the business because they're they're growing and there's the need but they have to have a qualified people.

So they recently received two new certifications one is the wireless industry service award which is a big deal.

It's called a the WISE award and they're also Apple certified R IRP focusing on quality refurbishment and repair and these certifications signify that the company and its technicians meet a set of industry wide standards and to show that they're a reputable electronics repair site.

They have 60 employees and growing and again they're trying to find people that they can train to to take in more business the two founders started in their basement in Mount Ary and now they've moved into this 4000 square foot space.

And Jason Evans who was one of the folks that took us around and one of the owners he is on the Mount Area Town Council so he is in the public service world is as well and they had a vision uh these two young owners had a vision to leave the corporate world and start a business in the growing mobile device world and they found their their little niche in their in their basement.

Their next vision is to become a statewide training center an advocate for device refurbishment and repair to be a recognized credential in the state of Maryland.

They're looking for interested individuals who are in interested in being trained in this new exploring exploding industry.

And if you saw you talk about environmentalists I mean these think about all the waste that's sitting in your cupboard your extra what do you do with your old phones and your old tablets while they redo them and send them out and if they can't something you've done with them they separate everything out and they send it out to be recycled.

So it was a a huge um a huge industry there and I'm glad I get to see it.

The one last thing I want to talk about yesterday we had a meeting myself with State Highway and thank you Commissioner Collar for coming with it is just um staff and them we're trying to focus on getting some improvements done to Route 26 that we've been prioritizing for the last 30 years and we're getting um we've had a lot of discussion with them we were like how do we get this done because we've learned that wishful thinking does not get it done and just putting it on a list doesn't get it done.

So we're all everybody on the same page and I think we're making some progress with communication getting some budget numbers of what we can do in Carroll County to move these projects forward in in the state queue so that we can get some of these uh these state dollars um coming into Carroll County.

So that was a very positive meeting and thank you Commissioner Collar for participating and we will be more hearing more about that.

All right thank you and and um and my thanks to Commissioner Krebs for her support of Solar Cell and that visit that occurred last week.

And my special thanks to she meant she mentioned Jason Evans.

He's the director of electronics and the chief procurement officer and yes he's actually a member of the Manor Town Council and he's a good friend of mine.

Um but he started working on this visit probably back in September or October trying to kind of get a schedule.

So uh my thanks to him and and what a what a terrific Carroll County uh company.

Uh my only comment uh was I wanted to thank the staff and the Carroll County Arts Center and the Chamber of County Carroll County Chamber of Commerce for hosting our state of the county on Tuesday morning in a uh refurbished and renewed stage and everything else that went along with that.

It just was a very oh okay, unexpected picture there.

And I'm and I'm smiling.

So that's uh that's unusual.

I'll get some text about that.

So uh but anyway, it was it was very nicely done, and we really appreciate you can see the the setup there.

Um, you know, it was interesting.

Uh and again, I I appreciate the fact that um the Carroll County Times now with uh local re uh local reporter, they had taken a renewed interest in a lot of these local issues and a lot of things that the Carroll County Board of uh Commissioners is doing, and of course they were there to covering it.

And it was interesting because they did a story, and I I think if I can quote the word, I think it said that the five of us uh hammered the state government on a lot of issues.

And uh you're darn right we did.

Um, you know, we're looking at uh enormous 1.5 billion dollar deficit again from the State of Maryland, and we know what that means for local jurisdictions and local counties.

And then right on queue, we find out a couple days ago that uh the State paid in excess of about $800 million in unemployment benefits to people around the State of Maryland, and they can only get about $750 million of it back.

So by my personal account, my personal tally of waste fraud and abrupt in the in the State of Maryland over the past about a year and a half, we're probably close to about two billion dollars.

And that's just that's just my math.

But when you look at all the different uh waste, fraud and abuse, the the the lack of auditing, the lack of accounting, when you add all that up, it's an enormous amount of money.

So yeah, I think it is fair to say that some of us, if not all of us, hammered the state government on a lot of the budget and fiscal issues that are occurring in the State, but is it it's well deserved.

Um yes, the the State of Maryland has to create a balanced budget, and the General Assembly did start uh this week, as Commissioner Krebs mentioned.

Uh but that's part of the Maryland Constitution.

How are they going to do it?

We'll wait and see.

You have two choices.

You can raise taxes or cut spending.