Carroll County Board of Commissioners Open Session - January 22, 2026
Carroll County Board of Commissioners Open Session - January 22, 2026
The Carroll County Board of Commissioners held its open session on Thursday, January 22, 2026, at the Carroll County Office Building, Room 311. The board recognized a retiring employee, received a legislative update, approved numerous contracts and property transactions, and directed staff to draft a forest conservation mitigation fee-in-lieu structure. Action items were approved by voice vote with no recorded opposition.
Priority Carroll / Opening Remarks
- Commissioner Kiler discussed recent state news about the Shamrock Farms property, emphasized the need for local input in state decisions, and reported on MACo activities and community events.
- Commissioner Gordon reported that Carroll County's unemployment rate was 3.5 percent, the lowest in Maryland; Queen Anne's County was next lowest at 3.7 percent. He also thanked first responders and road crews for the upcoming weather and offered condolences for Patricia Robertson Miller.
- The board presented a proclamation honoring Kathy Dietrich's 42 years of county service, including work in Public Works, Fleet Management, Management and Budget, the Commissioner's Office, and Citizen Services. County Administrator Roberta Windham and other staff praised her professionalism; Dietrich said she planned to spend retirement with family, travel, history projects, and a grandchild expected in summer.
Legislative Update
- Legislative Liaison Pam Meister said the General Assembly session was busy and the governor's FY27 budget, introduced the previous day, would be difficult. She introduced a new legislative tracking tool, noted four MACo priority initiatives - highway user revenues, housing tools, school construction, and budget - and said MACo positions may not always match Carroll County positions.
- Commissioner Kiler asked staff to share HB0272 (on-farm food services) and HB0347/SB0090 (workers' compensation/hypertension) with all commissioners for tracking. Meister said she would send a written report and provide a deeper bill-by-bill briefing the following week.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Karen Donaldson, describing herself as a taxpayer and 37-year real estate agent, criticized the county's process for selling the Raywell Avenue and Chapel Road properties, saying delayed decisions, no-inspection terms, and a listing error that remained for 22 days may have cost taxpayer money. Staff acknowledged the process could be refined.
- Catherine Adelaide, a member of the Carroll County Republican Central Committee, thanked county employees, promoted local Republican and Right-to-Life events, and spoke in support of the national March for Life, saying a 10-week 3D sonogram showed a beating heart.
- Andrew Manning used public comment to challenge the board's public-comment guidelines. After repeated warnings, the board suspended his comments. Following his departure, commissioners defended the guidelines as among the most lenient in Maryland and thanked the Carroll County Sheriff's Office deputy for assistance.
Discussion Items and Approvals
- Health and welfare consulting services: The board renewed the contract with Bolton in the amount of $135,000, the third year of a five-year competitively bid agreement. The fee is capped annually, guaranteed through 2028, and offset by Medicare Advantage commissions.
- Former New Windsor Middle School: Staff provided a briefing only. Springdale Preparatory School through New Windsor Holding LLC exercised an option to purchase the former school for $4,250,000 (per the county briefing paper), with settlement expected within 60 days. The property had been leased since 2018; the option was exercised December 30, 2025. Staff noted Springdale has about 200 students, about 100 local students, more than 60 employees, and expansion plans.
- FY27 Annual Transportation Plan: The board directed staff to advertise the option to request a public hearing using the preliminary funding requests. Carroll Transit System provided more than 105,000 passenger trips in FY25 and more than 56,000 trips to date in FY26 with a 37-vehicle fleet. The preliminary FY27 operating budget is $3,484,310 and the capital request is $682,270, including four replacement vehicles. Because CARES funding expires June 30, 2026, the county contribution is projected at nearly $1.9 million, including roughly $108,000 in required match and $1.1 million in overmatch. A final budget will return in March.
- Sale of two county-owned properties: The board approved the sale of 640 Raywell Avenue, Union Bridge, for $276,500 and 1011 Chapel Road, New Windsor, for $300,000. Both properties were determined to be no longer needed for county projects.
- Janitorial services: The board awarded a contract to Community Bridge, Inc. of Washington, D.C., for $242,817.58 annually to clean 11 county-owned buildings. Twelve bids were received; the contract is one year with four one-year renewal options and requires employee background checks.
- Chevrolet Tahoe purchase: The board approved the purchase of one 2026 Chevrolet Tahoe 4x4 PPV from Criswell Fleet Sales for $61,138 using a Baltimore County contract. It will replace a Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services unit.
- State's Attorney's Office commissioning: The board awarded KCI Technologies $54,600 for commissioning services for the new State's Attorney's Office building, a roughly 41,500-square-foot building under construction in Westminster.
- Carroll Community College turf field and lighting: The board awarded Tarkett Sports/Field Turf $4,354,854 for construction of a synthetic turf field with an NCAA-level track and field complex, and awarded Musco Sports Lighting, LLC $519,000 for field lighting, including four 80-foot poles with 32 LED luminaires. Staff discussed stormwater management and noted a 10 percent construction contingency.
- Freedom District wells: The board awarded CDM Smith $99,500 for engineering services to evaluate water appropriations and consolidate three groundwater withdrawal allocations for nine Freedom District wells, which could provide a secondary supply to the Freedom District Water Treatment Plant.
Forest Conservation Mitigation
- Department of Planning and Land Management staff briefed the board on the depletion of private forest bank credits, which have supplied about 20 acres of mitigation per year. Only about 10 acres remain in the county-owned forest bank, and private bank rates are around $18,000 per acre. Staff presented a proposed fee-in-lieu rate structure based on Howard County rates: $27,225 per acre for a single-family building permit inside the Priority Funding Area (PFA) and $32,670 per acre outside; commercial/subdivision rates of $54,450 per acre inside the PFA and $65,340 per acre outside.
- Commissioners raised concerns that Carroll County's five-year maintenance requirement may be stricter than other counties and increase costs, asked about allowing existing forest at a 2.5-to-1 ratio as Frederick County does, and questioned the higher commercial rate. Staff said rates are adjustable, the goal is not to compete with private banks, and forest conservation code amendments are due by July 1, 2026.
- The board directed staff to draft a resolution establishing a fee-in-lieu payment structure for forest conservation mitigation.
Rural Legacy Program
- The board approved submission of the FY27 Rural Legacy Program grant application and acceptance of an award. Carroll County has received more than $23 million from the program since 2000, preserving more than 5,400 acres across the Upper Patapsco and Little Pipe Creek Rural Legacy Areas, which cover nearly 100,000 acres. This year's application includes 14 potential properties.
- The board exercised the option to purchase a conservation easement on the Stewart Wisner Jr. and Helen Wisner property, a 23.136-acre farm on Wesley Road in Finksburg, for $144,699.45, using 100 percent state Rural Legacy grant funds. That equals about $6,254.30 per acre, or approximately 70 percent of the appraised land value. Commissioners also asked staff to follow up with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources on whether some rural legacy easements restrict utility transmission lines.
Key Outcomes
- Renewed Bolton health and welfare consulting contract at $135,000.
- Directed staff to advertise the FY27 Annual Transportation Plan public-hearing option.
- Approved sale of two county-owned properties and all listed contract awards.
- Directed staff to draft a forest conservation mitigation fee-in-lieu resolution.
- Approved the FY27 Rural Legacy application and the Wisner conservation easement purchase.
- Received the New Windsor Middle School sale briefing with no action required.
Meeting Transcript
All right, good morning, Carroll County. It's January twenty second. Uh welcome to the Board of County Commissioners open session, and as always, we will start with the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of prayer. To the Republic for which it stands. All right. Well, we've got a little bit of an abbreviated priority curl this morning, so I'm just gonna keep it simple. I'll start with Commissioner Kyler. Would you Okay? Um and and maybe some others do. I want to mention briefly Shamrock Farms. It's been in the news and the the state's not pursuing it as the training center anymore. Um by dumb luck, I was in Annapolis yesterday because of Mako, and uh I always text back and forth with uh our delegation and uh more people when I'm in in there, so I told them about it as as uh coincidence um delegate Stonko's committee was getting a briefing on it. So he got he got information. Um my opinion as happens with the state, um there's we've we've heard from the governor's staff, we heard from our delegation, we've seen articles in the paper, and there's some inconsistencies with what they're doing, even how many acres they own. But um uh it's interesting. The banner did an article this morning that I haven't read. Um and uh it's uh it's it's a shame. And uh I testified before the uh uh public works um in posit in favor of Shamrock getting bought and uh our commissioners voted five oh a few times to uh push for it. Now there was more environmental stuff maybe and and some things came up. My worry now is um we've been promised by a couple of different people that there will be local involvement in the work board that decides what they're gonna do with the property. Um and I grew up with horses. One of the things was they were gonna make it uh uh farm for rescue horses. Um that would take about twenty acres. So uh uh that that ain't what they're doing in full. I just hope we we get local control and we get involvement in what will happen with the property, be it the environmental things, the neighbors, the traffic. Um it's it's uh the state could do a lot w worse things than a horse training facility. And we need to s we need to control that. Um again, I was in Annapolis yesterday for Mako. Um we uh on Monday nights we do a rural uh committee um analyzation of the bills in Annapolis. And then on Wednesday there's subcommittees that meet and then an hour later, the legislative committee meets which I'm blessed to be on, and uh Commissioner Gordon's an alternate. Um and we go through the bills uh in great detail. Um we will have a legislative update that's on the agenda today. And uh and Pam will update everybody on on that as much as she can. Um I do uh email the agendas for all the meetings when they come. Um sometimes they come a half hour before the meeting, but um I do I do try to email those and uh there's uh some misunderstanding sometimes on how Mako works. Number one, the how we vote and what happens in the legislative meeting is confidential. Um the results aren't, but but during the meeting it is, and uh um it's not a public meeting. Uh and uh um I just want everybody to understand when when Pam goes through that, there's certain things she can say, certain things she can't. She she uh participates in all those meetings, um, and and hears what they say. Um but but it it's interesting, and one of the giant things about Mako is each county gets a vote. So uh Baltimore City, PG County, whatever, they have the exact same say as Carroll County does, and and I think that benefits us, the small counties and make oh fights for local control and uh cost dollars. Um I want to mention that uh Steve Wance at Carroll Community College, retired last week. Uh we uh changed our schedule that day at the last minute, and so I was not able to go by and congratulate him, but um so I'm doing it now. We had our commissioners reception, um, a great evening. A, I want to thank, and I haven't done that in an email, and I should have the staff that put it together and uh everybody that worked, worked for it. It's a great evening, and uh um economic development introduced me to some people that I didn't know before the meeting, and there were there was a a good diverse crowd there, and uh this hurts, but I need to thank Commissioner Rosteen for setting it all up that we do have beer and wine there. Um I went to the young farmers bull and oyster roast at the Ag Center, and it was uh it was more than them, I forget which groups uh worked on it, but it's great food, great oysters, great beer, um, and a great crowd, as as always out there, our farm community, um, such great people. I mentioned the Royal Counties um and with Mako, we do we do roll small counties separately from the large on some meetings, and then the Wednesday meetings is everybody together. Went to Veterans Advisory, and that was a good meeting as always, and then this Friday is point in time count for uh homeless in Carroll County, and I'm gonna participate in that. And that's enough.
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