Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
The Board of Carroll County Commissioners met in open session on Thursday, October 15, 2026, beginning at 9:00 a.m. in Room 311 of the Carroll County Office Building in Westminster, Maryland. The board received opening reports and a proclamation, considered planning and floodplain matters, and approved financial, grant, property, and public works actions. No consent calendar was used; each item was considered individually. All votes were unanimous except the sports complex contract award, which passed 4-1.
Welcome to the Thursday, October 15th, 2026 open session for the Board of Carroll County Commissioners as we always do. We'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance and a Moment of Silent Reflection. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. One nation on God and justice for all. I think I am. Happy Columbus Day to everyone. And I do want to thank our facilities guys. Yes. Yes, it was planned. It was been planned for like six months. There was a lot of coordination. Yes, but but it didn't go quite as planned. And they were here till one or two o'clock instead of mid-morning. But uh BGE and uh and our facilities people worked hard to maintain electric to the building on Columbia's Day on Columbus Day, so good for them. Um last uh last Thursday after our meeting, I went to the Greater Baltimore Committee meeting at annual meeting at Merriweather uh pavilion, and uh it was uh very interesting, a lot of great people there. It's it's so uh it's interesting how many people you see at different events. You see some of the same people in of course Baltimore City, uh the central Maryland counties were represented, and Queen Anne's has just joined that group. And uh a great evening at Merryweather. There's so much construction uh parking wasn't fun, but we made it. Um Friday I did go to Arlington Cemetery for the Wellesley Memorial Service, and uh oh my gosh, those guys uh um once you show your ID a couple times and you're in, they just have everything set up like clockwork. There were probably four going on at the same time. They had electronic signs on where to park, and we actually got to drive right to the grave site, which I didn't think I didn't think they'd let us. So it's just that place is so awesome. And there were so many people visiting and uh a lot of people walking around. Um and uh um I know a local person that has a son there, and they go down almost twice a month, but yeah, it's it's it's uh it's a great place to go. Um Rhonda did her yard sale at the church, and that Saturday was pretty and fun. Um blueprint on and I mentioned to the other commissioners we did uh an eight-person committee meet with uh the people valuating blueprint for AIB, and it's interesting to hear the other counties. Uh um everybody but Kent has declining enrollment, which is devastating to the uh school systems. Um we are lucky a couple of the counties have poor communication with their schools. We are lucky, I think that we have pretty good communication. Some of them don't see the school's budget, which I don't understand. If you gotta approve it, you you just need to say show it. Um the school system sends us the superintendent's budget, probably three or four inches thick. I always tell them uh they they uh they try to bluff us because they know we we're not interested in reading four inches thick budget, financial information, but but they do give it to us. Um farm museum dinner meeting um happened this week, and uh a great group. Um I should uh flipped some pictures, but it didn't. Um the FFA was there from most of the county schools, a big group of them, and uh um did a lot of photo photos after the meeting and uh and it was great. We we learned about owls and uh some other things with the farms Kestrels. Kestrels. Yeah, yes, yes, yes. And uh yeah, it was great. Um I've gotten a lot of questions about Pantherplex. Um they had their auction.