Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
The Charles County Board of Commissioners held a public hearing on September 15, 2026, to receive public input on proposed state legislative items for the 2027 Maryland General Assembly session. Acting Deputy County Administrator Daniel Mitchell reported that 51 proposals were received, comprising 30 unique submissions. The hearing was presided over by Commissioner Collins, with Commissioners Bowling, Coates, Stewart, Patterson, and Collins present. State Delegates Deborah Davis (chair of the Charles County delegation), Patterson, Odom, and Wilson also attended. No final decisions were made; the Board will determine which proposals to include in the county's legislative package at a work session scheduled for September 29, 2026.
Charles County Government presents the Board of Commissioners meeting. Good evening, everyone. Commissioners, we're going to begin this evening's session with a roll call. Commissioner Bowling. Present. Commissioner Coates. Commissioner Stewart. Commissioner Patterson. Present. And Commissioner Collins. Here. Thank you. Commissioners, we're going to go ahead and begin with your item this evening, which is to hear the state preliminary 2027 legislative proposals. Commissioner Collins. Good evening. The purpose of this evening's session is to hold a public hearing on the 2027 preliminary state legislative proposals. If it pleases the commissioners, I will dispense with the reading of the public notice. For the public, when it's your turn to speak, please state your name, address, clearly, and for the record. Statement should relate to the subject matter of this identified hearing. Presenters of each proposal should provide statements that are brief to the point and limited to five minutes or less. Speakers who submitted more than one proposal are limited to three minutes or less per proposal. Proper language is required at all times. Additionally, please understand that this is a public hearing, which means that this is the commissioner's opportunity to hear directly from the public. This is the public's opportunity to speak. The commissioners do, however, reserve the right to extend the time frame or to continue the hearing until another date. With that stated, we will now begin the public hearing, but we'll begin with brief comments coming from Ms. Mitchell, and then I wanted to go around the room to have everyone introduce themselves. Okay, good evening, Commissioners Daniel Mitchell, Acting Deputy County Administrator. Thank you for joining us this evening for this public hearing. This is to consider legislative proposals for the 2027 Maryland General Assembly legislative session that have been submitted by members of the public. These are for consideration of changes to the Maryland state law. As in prior years, the Board of Commissioners has provided an opportunity to anyone in the public who wishes to participate in this process by submitting a legislative proposal. We have received 51 legislative proposals. That does include some duplicates. And so there are 30 unique proposals this evening. So as such, and the format you've really gone over already, uh, Commissioner President, but we will ask for anyone that submitted one proposal to uh limit their comments to five minutes. Anyone who submitted more than one to limit their comments to three minutes. And then out of consideration for those that did take the time to submit proposals, we will get through all of the proposals first. So you can hear from those authors and they can provide their recitation of what they're seeking, and then we will go through anyone who submitted um their name to speak on behalf of any proposal. In other words, proposals that they didn't submit, but they'd like to provide comment on. We'll do that after we go through all of the proposals. So again, commissioners and delegation, the the intention is really to provide a process for the commissioners and the delegation to have a forum to hear directly from the public about state legislative changes they would like to seek. Tonight is not the time that the commissioners will actually decide which proposals they will include in their final legislative proposal package. You'll make that decision at a subsequent work session that I believe is scheduled for September 29th. Uh Mr. Soto can correct me if I'm wrong. So at that time we'll be looking for a consensus or a vote of the board to decide what to include in your final legislative package.