The Frederick City Council held a public meeting on December 5, 2024, at 7:00 PM in City Hall. The meeting included public comments, a consent agenda item, a resolution to adopt updated city council rules of procedure, and two quasi-judicial public hearings for rezoning properties. Key decisions included the approval of an electricity supply agreement, adoption of revised council rules, and rezoning for both a county government complex and a future county library.
We'll begin this evening with Council Member. Okay. Councilmember comments. Yesterday we started down here. Vice President, just a little bit of a good question. No comments. Okay. I'll uh I'll just briefly say that this season, I always risk this because I have a member of my faith to the right who knows a lot more about this than me, but this season is a time of preparation for many of us. And uh I think sometimes it feels like that's all we're doing is preparing. Um, but it's always a good reminder as we're progressing through the season that we are preparing for something, at least in our faith tradition, something better. It's always about something better. So I'm excited about what is coming and always believe that our best days are ahead. Um, as a reminder, our public comment period when it opens up. Um, that's the public's opportunity to talk to us, so it's not a time for us to answer questions. Um so if you ask us questions, we'll listen politely and we will write them down, but we will not be able to answer your questions. So just wanted to remind as we move through this new process that that is our process that we've always had, and that's the process that we're going to continue. But certainly if you want to wait around after the meeting, many of us sort of hang out and are available after the meeting for to answer your questions. Councilmember Russell. Well, it's a new day. You may have uh observe some changes up here for the first time in the city's history. We are now in an independent city council. I just want to congratulate uh Katie uh Nash as uh being elected our president of the council and Alderman. Councilmember Shackelford, I'm sorry. It's gonna take a long time, folks. As our uh vice president, we're making a little bit of history here, and I just want to make sure that people are aware things are changing, and we have new leadership uh in our legislative branch. I'm eager to work uh in harmony and as a team to move uh good things forward for the city of Frederick. Thank you while I said, and I almost said all the owner, but I um well said. Um, I'd like to note that MDCC broke ground on Tuesday for the for the only deaf community center in Maryland or any of our surrounding states. I'm very proud of the deaf community for how they've pushed this forward. I'm proud to be part of this project. Um at 720 North East Street. The community center is not just meant for the deaf community, but also for those hearing people who are interested in being involved with the deaf community. Um we can all make this community a much better place. So thank you to MDCC for all the hard work that they've put into this. Thank you, Councilmember McSheen. Uh, we will now progress to our public comment period. This is the opportunity for the public. Do we have um as a reminder? We have a sign-up sheet that just sort of moves you first in line, but we do open it up to folks who haven't signed up in advance. Thank you, my dear. We have three three minutes, yeah. You're right. Okay, our first speaker this evening is Tom Newmark. Is it five minutes tonight? It's three minutes, sorry. Three minutes tonight. All right, great. At the uh November 21st press conference, Mayor O'Connor pledged to use the power of his office to support policy 443, which allows boys to play on girls' sports teams, which harms girls' fairness and safety, and lets boys enter girls' locker rooms, which harms girls' privacy. It allows school staff to conduct secret gender transitions for which they are not trained or licensed, which drives a wedge between families and their schools. Voters were right to elect new board members who question these policies.