The Frederick City Council met on May 1, 2025, at 6:00 PM. The meeting included approval of prior meeting minutes, council member announcements, two rounds of public comment, and action on four public hearing items including a budget amendment, two professional services contracts, a resolution on tax-exempt municipal bonds, and a second reading of an ordinance amending the residential rental licensing program. All votes were 4-0 except the ordinance, which passed 3-1.
The Council adjourned in memory of Alan Merchant, former alderman and assistant to Mayor Ron Young.
City Council regular public meeting. We will begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. We have approval of minutes from the April 3rd regular public meeting. So moved. Second. We have a first and second. All in favor? It's 4 0. Thank you very much. March 27th special uh closed session. So moved. Second. All in favor? It's 4 0. Thank you very much. Uh we'll begin up here with council business comments. Uh Councilvice President, do you have anything to see? No comments, thank you. Councilmember Kazamczyk. No, thank you. Councilmember Russell. Of course, I'd like to remind everybody that May 15th is Bike to Work Day. You can register at Bike2Work, MetroDC.org. You get a free t-shirt. And if you want to join us for a ceremonial ride, we'll leave Hood College about 6 a.m. and end at the transit center where there'll be goodies and food, coffee, donuts, all that good stuff. So it's an opportunity to try something different. Um you don't actually have to bike to work, you can just, you know, bike a little bit or sign up. Metro Bike to Work, Metro DC.org. Hope to see you there. Thank you, Councilmember. I just wanted to raise awareness real quick about um discussions around the FCC Childcare Center. Uh, we've been partnering with the county. The county had an in-depth conversation, an inquiry with President Cheek uh last week during their budget session. I just wanted to point everyone in that direction. I was present for the meeting with the county, excuse me, the county budget meeting on Tuesday. I offered just some general comments about the importance of child care, especially for working parents. Um just wanted to direct everybody to that attend to uh to watch that meeting and to be aware of those conversations as they move forward. Um, just a couple of things as we get started. If you'd like to offer public comment, please be aware of the following guidelines. Each speaker will be allotted three minutes to share your comments when it's your turn to speak. Please begin by stating your name and if applicable, your general address to ensure you have an uninterrupted opportunity to speak. This will be your time, so that means that members of council will not be engaging in questions back and forth or back and forth discussion. Um however, we do encourage you to email all of us at citycouncil at city of FrederickMD.gov, city council at cityoffrederickmd.gov, especially if you are offering written or if you have written materials to accompany your remarks. Thank you, my dear. Thank you. Those who have signed up to speak will speak first. Um the city council uses rules of procedure, which were most recently passed by resolution 24-27, and we have also posted our code of civility in this boardroom. Please take note of your the exits for your safety and silence all electronic devices. And we will begin this evening with Eric Musa, and from there we'll go to Tina Meadows Arier, Grady Ariar Tess, then Zacharia, then Yusuf.