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.
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.