Today's uh March nineteenth City Council public uh meeting will come to order.

We will start with the Pledge of Allegiance.

Under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice.

Is approval of our March fifth and February nineteenth closed session March fifth regular public meeting and February nineteenth closed session minutes.

I am in the Chair Prith.

Move by Councilmember Taylor, second by Councilmember Atkins.

All in favor.

Yes, absolutely.

So um I am a licensed uh broker in the state of Maryland, uh, Virginia and DC.

I have a bachelor's in political science from Towson University.

I've worked in the Maryland Senate under Robert Zirkin.

Um I have a master's degree as well from Taxton University in instructional technology.

And what do you do in your free time?

Just kidding.

Oh, I'm also a professor at Frederick Community College in real estate.

Oh, very good.

And what uh induced you to seek to be a member of the planning commission?

Yeah, um I have a vested interest.

I have my family.

Um raising here in the city that I love, but 15-month-old at home.

His name is Liam.

Um we love it here in Frederick City, so the vested interest in wanting to make sure the city blooms in the best possible way.

If I can be a part of that, it's uh fulfilling for me at the end of the day.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I've worked with a lot of different um groups when I was in the Maryland Senate, and we had a lot of uh group uh studies and legislative groups that we had from Maryland and other cities that would come in, and I worked with them.

And in my teaching as well, um I teach a lot about land use zoning and a lot of a lot of the data days that has to go with planning as well.

Great.

Uh just again, if there aren't any other uh what do you see as some of the key planning issues confronting the city of Frederick?

Yeah, so I think responsibly uh adhering to the comprehensive plan that was approved.

Um so looking to make sure that any potential developments that come to Frederick City um really align with the values of that concept comprehensive plan.

And that includes things like infrastructure, um making sure that we're not having uh overcrowded schools at an extremely rapid pace and utilities as well.

Um yeah, just really aligning with the comprehensive plan of Frederick.

That'd be one thing I would look at for the data points of development.

Great, thank you.

Uh that's it for me for now.

I don't have any are you and you asked all the questions I was going to, Councilmember Brown.

But um I'm really happy to hear you say um aligning with the comprehensive plan.

I think that's very important.

Um and thank you for your willingness to serve.

Thank you.

Any other member of questions?

J just one.

And and again, I have not studied the land management code, so that you if you said, oh Peter, tell me about chapter four, I couldn't.

But have you reviewed or read anything in the land management code?

Yes.

So I've gone through a lot of the comprehensive plan and I saw the different clusters and focuses that we have in our small area plans.

I saw the shift and emphasis on light industrial and just kind of looking through where we're going.

Um a beautiful example of a community dialogue is Warman's mill.

I think it's a very beautiful mixed-use community.

I like the uh the concept of livability and walkability.

Um yeah, it's just some things I was looking at.

Great.

And uh building on that, uh have you studied anything about the form-based code?

If no, that's perfectly okay as well.

I mean, the specific codes that I do have to like kind of dive into that to read more about that.

We all do, so off the top of my head.

Right.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, President.

Any other questions from council members?

No.

All right.

Thank you, sir.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

So looking for a motion for approving his appointment.

Motion to approve Mr.

Mogtez.

Second.

Okay.

Moved by Councilmember Bram and seconded by Council Vice President Nash.

All in favor?

I believe it.

7-0.

Thanks, sir.

And next we have three appointments to neighborhood advisory councils, reappointment of David Furman for a two-year term from March 20th, 2026 to March 19th, 2028.

Reappointment of Gail Peterson for a two-year term from March 20th, 2026 to March 19th, 2028.

And Denise Sparks for a two-year term for March 20th, 2026 to March 19th, 2028.

Looking for a motion.

Move for approval.

Second.

Move by Council Vice President Nash.

Second by Councilmember Ram.

All in favor.

7-0.

Reappointment of Stephen Collar for a three-year term from March 20th, 2026 to March 19th, 2029 to the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Move to approve.

Second.

Move by Councilmember Taylor, second by Councilvice President Nash.

All in favor.

And for the Ethics Commission, reappointment of Kevin Lawler for a three-year term for March 20th, 2026 to March 19th, 2029.

Council President, I have some questions on this.

Do you think the appropriate person would be Rachel or someone from the mayor's office here?

I don't see anybody from the mayor's office.

So it looks like great.

So it looks like Rachel uh studio attorney will be your your choice.

You ready?

Oh, we have an extra, so yeah.

So Rachel, can you tell me if this is Mr.

Lawler's first term on the Ethics Commission?

We don't have any background for his first term.

Okay.

So on the website, it shows that his term expired.

I don't know if it was out for probably.

Okay.

So on the ethics commission website, it says December 1st, 2028.

But in our backup, it says a different date.

Can you tell me why there's the discrepancy and what the actual date is going to be?

I can tell you that our code allows ethics commission members to hold over until um their successors are appointed in the case of an expiration of a term.

So the dates on the agenda.

So we should take the date that's in the backup, which is March 19th, 2029.

Because if we would vote tonight, it's a three-year term.

Correct.

Okay.

So I read that provision too that, and I'll just read it.

Each member shall be appointed for a term of three years.

In the case of the expiration of a term, a member may continue to serve until that member's successor is appointed.

Members may be appointed to successive terms.

So we can assume that since December 1st, Mr.

Lawler's been participating as a member because the code allows him to.

And he he probably knew that his term was expiring.

But my question to you is if members expire and there's no requirement for them to be reappointed, what then sort of gets to this?

Like why are we then now suddenly consenting his appointment?

So if he could just serve in perpetuity.

Like there but there must have been a reason why that clause exists.

So I'm trying to figure out why now.

I think that clause is pretty typical for for many boards and commissions, and even if there is no such clause, I think under the common law members of boards and commissions can typically hold over to avoid having vacancies if for whatever administrative reason it takes a little while to either find a qualified person or um just for whatever reason there's a you know a three-month blizzard and there's no meeting and you can't do the appointment.

So I think it's intended just as a short-term stop gap to allow for for um you know an appointment.

Okay.

So we I don't think I looked, I don't think we received any backup about Mr.

Lawler and who he is, but he's the director of the housing authority, right?

That's he's a pretty public figure.

And you were on email correspondence with me and him and Mrs.

Laward, who also works with the Housing Authority.

And in that correspondence, I was asking some questions about different things that were going on at the Housing Authority.

That's a fair summary, right?

Okay, and that that most recent email was November 25th.

So and ultimately we said, okay, the housing authority has sort of a unique governance structure, so we're gonna send a letter.

I was gonna send a letter to HUD, all good.

But in Mrs.

Lawler's email back to us, I'm I'm gonna quote it because it's public record.

She says because the incoming city council will soon assume responsibility for board ratifications and decisions affecting housing authority of City Frederick's affordable housing development pipeline.

It is essential that these deliberations are not influenced by unverified allegations or assumptions shared before all facts are known.

I respectfully request confirmation that future council deliberations involving the housing authority of the City of Frederick will proceed with neutrality and fact-based evaluation required for these matters.

So what pipeline is she referring to?

She's talking about a development pipeline.

Do we do you know what that's referring to?

No, I I don't.

Okay, because essentially they're the developer in these cases, right?

I'm not sure.

I would have to really review that correspondence and think about it.

All right.

So I just want to I want to be clear, because for obvious reasons I'm gonna have to abstain on this one.

But his reappointment to the ethics commission was posted last week to be considered tonight on March 20th.

The city's website as of Friday the 13th has his expiration expiring December 1st, 2025.

Quickly it was updated to now say December 1, 2028.

So for about 15 weeks he serves on an expired term, but that's allowed in our code.

And there was no vote to confirm him, but we're gonna say that the well, no, this is so we've gone that we said that website's wrong.

And of course this has to happen really quickly for some reason we don't know.

Okay.

Um reserve my comments for my for my uh for my comments during council member comments.

Thank you.

Any other questions from council members on this nomination?

I feel like after this discussion, um I feel a little uncertain uh uh about what's going on and um propose that maybe we table this until our next uh meeting.

Okay.

I you do you want to make a motion to table?

Okay.

I make a motion to table this appointment until our next meeting.

Second.

All right, so we have a motion by councilmember Hempolani to delay or to table uh this appointment until the next council hearing, and second by council member Taylor.

All in favor on this particular uh motion.

One, two, three, one, two, three, four, five.

Five uh four, one abstention and one against.

So that passes, so we will table this nomination until the next meeting.

I don't know what the date is, but the next meeting on two Thursdays.

Okay.

Next, appointment of council liaison to boards and commissions.

So this is us nominating ourselves to serve on boards and commissions.

So we'll do one vote.

I'll read them all out.

Councilmember Peter Brem to the Ferdinand Committee Action Board of Directors, Councilmember Sarah Hempelerani to the Public Arts Commission, Councilmember Joe Atkins to the Planning Commission.

Councilmember Derrick Chalkover to the Wanderer Board of Directors.

And Councilmember Sarah Hempel Rani to the containment laboratory community advisory committee.

A motion?

I make a motion.

Second.

Motion by Councilmember Bram, second by Councilmember Taylor.

All in favor?

One, three, four, five, six, seven.

That passes.

Next up is our first opportunity for Councilmembers to make any comments.

So we'll start with Councilmember Shackleford.

No comments, thank you.

No comments.

Vice President Nash?

Okay.

Sorry.

So I make sure all put together.

So my comments probably aren't going to be surprising.

Um, ethics commissions were created to protect the public's trust in government.

And I think that we can agree that commissions must be independent, transparent, and beyond the appearance of influence.

And our process is clearly neither of these things.

The sequence of events that have gotten us here today may have been unintentional, but every day that passes, I find that hard to believe.

Tonight we have a member of the ethics commission participating after his term is expired, which technically is allowed by our code, but he's doing that while an ethics complaint and resulting investigation against me was initiated.

This is by now public record.

Given the circumstances, wouldn't it have been wiser to hold off reappointing Mr.

Lawler and instead strengthen the impartiality of the ethics commission?

Because November 25th, as late as November 25th, emails are going back and forth where Mrs.

Lawler and Mr.

Lawler are on the email, attorney Gray is on the email, and I'm asking questions as a council member, trying to get a better handle on what's happening at Lucas Village, trying to get a better handle on some of the calls and emails that we had received.

Again, as my official role in the council uh council member role.

Of course, also after this is like the same time that's happening, there is a private attorney being hired by the mayor, and there's a letter that's now been made public dated December 3rd.

So the next week.

And I guess we have to ask ourselves what steps are being taken to ensure the Commission's work is free from perceived conflicts of interest?

What work is being done to mitigate obvious conflicts, even when we know this complaint's been filed?

This individual leads an agency where I am asking questions actively, budget allocations are being questioned, and everybody is on this on this correspondence.

And I didn't know this at the time, but a few days later, this is when the mayor would participate in that engagement letter.

And it was addressed to him, priv this is public record now.

The mayor and the city attorney knew that in November, November 25th, Mr.

Lawler is an ethics commissioner, and he would have known that this complaint was happening.

All the while I'm sending emails to Mr.

Lawler, Mrs.

Lawler, nobody thought to separate out this conflict.

But the conflict doesn't stop there.

The housing authority will be party to land use cases that are scheduled to come before us as the developer.

Judging from documents received from the PIA request, there doesn't appear to be any immediate recusal from Mr.

Lawler in December, no December or January.

Why continue the appointment of this commissioner when that conflict is documented?

Why rush to appoint this reappointment tonight?

What was so special about tonight that we had to get it done tonight?

But there's also a larger issue.

Appointments to the ethics commission originate in the mayor's office.

The mayor directly makes these appointments.

The mayor controls the entire process except for the vote of either consent or non-consent given by this council, Board of Appeals, the Planning Commission, the Historic Preservation Commission, the Ethics Commission are all quasi judicial commissions, maintaining the independence and proper functionality of these bodies, including the ethics commission is ultimately the responsibility of the administration that oversees the appointments.

So how do we mitigate the documented political rivalry?

The role of political allies in the system.

Like how do we talk about this?

We should all care.

And when the same commissioner continues to participate in a matter involving an elected official who has been asking questions of his agency and the mayor's administration, what is happening?

Since December, private and sensitive information has been discussed.

This member has an expired term, and how does the city ensure privacy and confidentiality?

So just to recap.

Questionable website updating, days and days of sort of missing timelines.

The timeline of a third party attorney being hired after my inquiries as a council member were made into Mr.

and Mrs.

Lawler's management of the Housing Authority.

The rush to appoint Mr.

Lawler today, Thursday before Tuesday's hearing, public comment in this boardroom about other ethics complaints that were filed against the administration, but yet yielded no transparent outcomes.

It's wild.

It's just wild.

But my role is to try to shed as much light, and I'm wrapping up, Council President, I apologize.

But my role is to shed as much light on this as I can.

And any of these documents I have in my possession are treated as public documents.

You can request them for me at any time.

It is my opinion that the public should be permitted to not only watch Tuesday's hearing but participate.

And trust me, none of this sparks joy.

This is all really gross to me too.

And it has been my life since a few days before Christmas.

I don't love taking up time here tonight to put this on record.

There is much more important work to do, and trust me, I would rather be doing it.

I'd rather talk about women's history.

But then again, Taylor sang about girl bossing too close to the sun, and this is my history.

But my history is also Asha, my history's Fallon, and my history is liberty, and I will protect the family.

So I'll just say death to the patriarchy, and I salute you if you're too much to handle.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Brown.

Nothing to say, thank you.

I also would like to recognize Women's History Month and really proud to serve up here with some incredible women.

And I I brought a bust of my grandmother to my office to remind me of the women who have gone before us and who have paved um the way.

So thank you.

Thank you.

I want to take a moment to recognize uh Captain Daniel Hayter from the uh a firefighter who was injured fighting a fire uh last week off Bogman's Lane in um in the city and in my district.

Um I've always admired firefighters, they run into burning buildings when everybody's running out.

He ran into that building and won't try to protect uh proper life and property uh sustain some serious injuries.

So I want to recognize him for his bravery and uh I want to ask everyone to uh keep them in their um keep him in their thoughts.

Now we move on to public comments.

Do we have uh sign in sheet?

If you did not sign um upon the sign in sheet after the last person, I'll tell you when that is, you can still come up, stand it um, just you know, formal on at the uh at the podium.

So public comments.

This is an opportunity for members of the public to address the council regarding items that may or may not appear on the agenda.

Please note speakers should first give their name and address.

You are reminded that these proceedings are broadcast on live TV, and you should speak clearly and directly into the microphone.

Directly means really, really close.

All comments are limited to a total of three minutes per individual.

If you wish to ask a question and want a response, that will become part of the three-minute limit.

First, Ian Thompson.

Well, I have it down for general comment and an item.

Do you want to speak now?

And no, just once.

No.

Okay.

Yeah.

Go for it.

Uh well, good evening to you all.

Uh, my name is Ian Thompson.

I'm a resident and homeowner uh here in Frederick City.

Uh I wanted to uh speak very briefly uh this evening about uh ordinance uh G 261 that I know is going to be introduced uh later.

Um, and really to thank um Council President Diaz for your work on this effort.

Um, particularly uh in the wake of the statewide uh uh uh legislation that was passed to prohibit uh local law enforcement agencies from cooperating with the uh federal governments, immigration enforcement.

I'm glad that you still uh took the step to see what more we could do here in Frederick City to protect uh our vulnerable communities, um, particularly given that um you know we're we're looking at um agencies at the federal level that are rogue, uh lawless, violent, and to quote uh the vice president um says that even those who murder American citizens are entitled to quote absolute immunity.

Um these are not agencies that in any way are at least to see themselves as subject to the rule of law or our Constitution, and I'm glad that Frederick is taking steps to protect um our community from these uh rogue and and violent um agencies.

There are uh two things that I wanted to note in particular that I'm very glad that the ordinance does.

Number one, um the requirement for judicial warrants, I think is so important.

We have seen the way that the administration has just completely abused administrative warrants as a little more than rubber stamps.

So the requirements throughout the ordinance for judicial warrants are particularly key.

I'm very happy to see that as it relates to um databases and city records.

Um one thing that I would uh note uh is that making this has been described in the press as related to Federal Immigration Enforcement Agency, I want to make clear that it should apply also with equal weight to U.S.

Customs and Border Protection, as we saw in Minneapolis, that agency, CBP is just as lawless and rogue and violent as ICE.

And so making sure that that applies with equal weight to both of them, very important.

I believe that most, if not all members of the Council have already indicated their support for the ordinance, which is very encouraging.

Um I'm glad that it's being introduced tonight.

Um I look forward to its uh passage, and um thank you all for your work on it, particularly uh Council President Diaz.

Next up, Tom Rotondo.

I apologize if I mispronounced your last name, sorry.

I'm Tom Ritonda.

I live at East 16th Street, 7 Eleven, and I need to address, I've done this before.

We've we've done this before.

Why they want to harass us and put these bicycle lanes on our street instead of putting them up shifter stat or putting them on the walking path from East Street by the pickleboard um pickleball court and up Dogwood and then down Talbot, and right there's the park.

They're turning East 16th Street is a dangerous street.

They're turning it into a hazardous.

They're making the lanes, the travel lanes ten foot.

And I've got a list of here, if you'd like to look at it, of the widths of the vehicles that use it.

And they use them a lot: the bus, school bus, trash trucks, delivery trucks, um, the yard workers, um, just all kinds of things.

And the parking space that they're giving us, there's vehicles that don't fit in it.

So what are they gonna do?

So, in other words, and I've got we've got two neighbors that have dually pickups.

They don't fit in the parking space they're allowing us.

So, what are they gonna do?

Walk three blocks because they can't park there or park in the grass in front of their house.

And then they also stay here.

They're gonna give a two-foot buffer.

They're gonna do the bicycle lanes eight foot, four foot for each way, and then they're gonna do a two-foot buffer lane because they don't want the bicyclist to get uh doored.

So the heck with the ones on the other side, they get doored by the cars.

And then another one, I've got a picture here of the storm drains.

Every single storm drain on the north side of 16th Street where they're gonna put these bicycle lanes has sunk.

What are they gonna do about it?

Put a bridge over them for the bicycles.

There's just no sense of it.

Um coming out of the driveways, I've got a picture here showing coming out of my driveway, and I'm at the edge of the parking space, and I can't see around the corner.

We're on curbs, we're not straight.

What they're turning 16th Street into is 2nd Street with opposing traffic.

It just it's not fair.

It's just not fair, and there's no reason for it.

Like I said, there is other avenues they can take.

I took last March and I on my ring camera, I went 30th of March to the 4th of November, and I counted nine bicycles, went down 16th Street, and none of them were children.

There's no bicycles that come from the high school.

Go up there and look and see how many bicycles are parked.

I don't think they even have a rack for bicycles.

I come up Schiffersteck all the time during school time, and I've only seen one or two bicycles.

They're walking in with their friends, and they go right across 16th Street up to the apartments.

So why are they doing this to us?

You want to see the pictures, you can have them.

If you'd like to present the pictures, you can give them to the to the clerk.

Thank you, sir.

Oh, really?

Ed Remus.

Good evening.

I'm Ed Remus.

I live at uh corner of 16th and Schiffer Stadt, 834 East 16th Street.

I'm also here to talk about the proposed traffic calming bike bike lanes on East 16th Street.

The way they have it planned now, they have the two bike lanes beside the curb and then a two-foot buffer, then parking, then another two-foot bar buffer, and then 10 feet of traffic.

Um it sounds like it's a done deal already, but uh just a couple options that they might want to think about because it's affecting 50 houses and more than 50 cars with 50 houses.

If if you have to have it, why don't you put the parking beside the curb and then the buffer, then the bikes, then the buffer, then the traffic.

It'll keep the cars parked next to the curb where they are now.

And then uh the other one would be making a shared bike path, like it is if you drive down Market Street past 7th between 7th and 9th, there's a uh a bike lane there, and parking is up against the curb on the right.

You could do the same thing on 16th Street with two lanes of traffic for bikes.

That's all my three minutes is I yield them to whoever wants them after that.

I've been watching a lot of the uh networks.

I yield my time to the next person.

Thank you, sir.

Uh Robert Sharp.

Robert Sharp, I think up there he is.

Good evening.

Good evening.

My name's Robert Sharp, and I live at 821 North Market Street.

I know about bicycle lanes.

I got one running down my street.

It isn't worth a damn, but it's still there.

It's been there for over a decade.

I know why it's there.

And it doesn't really function as good as what it was intended for.

Most of the bicycles, when they want them to turn on to make a left-hand turn on market or from market to 9th Street, they come down on the left side.

The bike lanes on the right side.

They don't even use it.

Now you get joggers using it running both ways.

I've seen bicycles go on both ways on the bike lane.

It's supposed to be one-way traffic there instead of one two-way traffic.

Uh I've seen some uh unauthorized vehicles like motorbikes without tags using it in the 10 years it's been there.

It shouldn't, it needs two lanes going down Market Street from 7th to 9th Street.

It had two lanes until it was changed to one until it gets down to the last little bit, so they have a lane for a left-turn lane.

Trouble is they did a way of the parking on the one side, and when they redid the street, I was watching when they came down.

If they had kept on going, if they hadn't moved the lane over, the lane going out would have been right in perfect alignment with the lane coming in.

So they had to make a curve it over so they could get the to the line going out North Market Street.

It's it's been a stupid blankety blank thing to be there the whole aggro on time.

And I know the green paint they put down, that cost $18,000, and there was no excuse for that.

When they were putting it down, I talked to the guy.

I said, How long is that going to hold up?

He says, It'll last as long as the black talk.

Well, guess what?

Some of the green paint's not there anymore.

It didn't penetrate far enough.

And it's not all the same shade of green.

I noticed that when they put it down.

So it's been there for a long while.

I don't it really should be turned back to two lanes from 7th Street down the Mark or down Market Street to 9th Street.

We also most of us, I can't park in front of my house and some other places can't park there in Upsfeller towards 7th Street.

People don't park there because let's see, from let's see, from about 811, North Market Street North.

On the left hand side, the west side.

A lot of people don't park there because in order to have the flu traffic to flow properly, they need that lane.

They use the park lane to drive on during the peak rush hours.

And the people know how much time it takes from when they come around 7th Street to get there.

And you could be doing, I've clocked it as high as 37 miles an hour before you just passed 8th Street, and you're accelerating, or somebody's right on your rear bumper.

That has not changed since day one when they put that in.

It needs to be put back because there's kids in the neighborhood, and kids don't always use their brains properly.

One of these times we've been lucky so far, nobody's run out in the street when the traffic's been ripping through there.

And uh outside from this, out of monopsy crossing.

We're uh Walmart is I hit my brakes to stop.

Almost had a person rear in me.

They got over lane to the right of me, went through, and they were doing a good fifty plus miles an hour through the intersection on a red light.

It's just too much red light running also all over the city.

I'm over time, so I gotta sit down.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That was the last person who signed up.

Uh anybody else wants to make comments um now.

Good.

Yes, thank you.

Um, Council President.

Um my name is Jim Smurse, I live in Frederick, and this should not be controversial.

I want to praise your staff.

The other day, I realized that the CIP is now on Spire's GIS, which I think is something they've been working on for a long time.

Um you can graphically see where the city dollars are going to be spent for roads and infrastructure.

Uh the CIP is primarily uh generated by the budgeting department, but it is a planning tool.

How the city spends his money is a way to implement its comprehensive plan.

So I do want to thank uh mostly Matt Bowman, but also Zach and Tracy, um, planning department, Gabriel and uh uh Brandon, and also uh Katie Barktal.

They did a great job in doing this.

It's something that um I've asked for for a long time, but it's now a mapped uh element um of the GIS.

And thank you very much for that.

Thank you.

Any other public comments?

All right, we will move on to the consent agenda.

I'm sorry?

I have another few minutes.

Uh you'll get another time at the end of the at the end of the meeting, there'll be another section of public comments.

You'll get another three minutes.

What was that?

Oh, consent agenda.

All items including under the consent agenda, which is only one, are considered to be routine by the council.

They will be approved by one motion without separate discussion of each item unless each person present, unless any person present requests an item or items to be removed from the consent agenda.

Any item removed from the consent agenda will be considered separately at the end of the consent agenda.

If you would like any items below, consider separately, please say so when the council president announces each category.

And uh one category today is the release of surety approval to release the guarantee company of North America bond, the amount of 48,127 and fifty cents posted by the World Rent Development Company to guarantee on-site for a station to Monocase Center offset for the first time.

This establishes immigration enforcement guidance for the city of Frederick supporting constituent safety and reflecting community values.

That will be voted on at a next meeting.

No, that's what I was talking about.

It's a different place.

We'll come back to the missing resolution after your presentation.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Shrada Praraj, and I'm a traffic engineer with uh in the engineering department, it's here Frederick, and I'm talking to you all about traffic coming, introduction as well as project updates.

Um either you were a kid or your kid uh got a new bike, they're learning how to bike, they have their pretty bike picked out, the color, the tassels, wind in the air, learning how to bike.

It's a very enjoyable feeling that I I believe almost every one of us have experienced.

When we grew a little older, we learned the law, and now we know that we must travel with the cars on the roadway to be able to follow the law and keep biking or continue biking.

While some of us uh opt out, many of us opt out, some of us still bike.

You can see this picture on 7th Street where a person was biking right next to the car.

On uh when it's a peak hour of traffic, as you can imagine, there are vehicles who are trying to cut you off, who are honking behind you, speeding around you, and occasionally throwing out cuss words if it's summer and their windows are down.

So knowing that, even if you're not bicycling in this kind of environment, you know that you have experienced some part of this as a pedestrian.

You're standing there on the side waiting for a car to just stop for you so that you could use the crosswalk, but the car is either not paying attention to you.

Well, what did I do?

Well, thank you.

I'll just go back.

So either the car was not paying attention to you, or the car chose not to stop for you, not to slow down for you, and you're just stuck there.

Now, this condition, this situation is easier, uh, a vehicle is easier to spot the pedestrian when they're driving slow.

When they're driving faster, they really just don't have enough time to even register you on the side of the road waiting.

To back some statistics up from Federal Highway Administration, when a car is driving at 23 miles an hour, and if a pedestrian gets stuck, a struck, about nine times out of ten, the pedestrian survives.

When you're at 42 miles an hour, the chance of surviving goes down to five out of ten.

And when you're at 58 miles an hour, one out of ten actually survives that crash.

So these speeds of 58 miles an hour are okay to be on freeways where you don't actually have pedestrians.

However, when we are on our city local streets where our pedestrian, bicyclist, transit user, and a vehicular interaction is heightened, we need to be very aware of how we are designing our roadways.

Strategic goals were published in December 2019, which looks at the future of community and how best to strategize efforts for community needs and wants.

Traffic coming is a part of the land management code, which talks about slowing uh street down streets down for local residential roadways.

Uh the city also has a complete streets policy that was adopted in 2016, which ensures that our streets are safe and accommodating to different types of road users, not just cars.

The Let's Move Frederick Plane, which is currently in its draft form, focuses on pedestrians and bicyclists, ensuring that there is greater connectivity in the city for those who choose to walk and bike as a viable mode, alternative mode of transportation to reach their destination.

In addition to this, we also have a few overarching goals.

Vision zero policy that was adopted in 2021, which is geared towards providing safe streets for everyone.

Sites that it is unethical to have a fatality on our roadways.

Comprehensive plan serves as a guiding document that assigns hierarchy to roadways and streets in our entire transportation network that is connected and serving most efficiently to all road users.

Now you may have heard the term traffic coming as a the as the uh as the whole presentation is about, but there's also been another term called safe streets that has been around for a little bit.

It has been used in the city here and there, so I wanted to put a little bit of light on what the difference is and what the similarities are.

Traffic coming was something that uh became very popular in the US in 1980s, which aimed at uh slowing down roadways for your local residential streets.

Safe streets became more popular in the US in 2010s.

It focuses on a very broad approach which wants safety for all road users.

Traffic coming only wants slow slow neighborhood streets, whereas safe streets want safe speeds on your roadways, safer roads in general, safer vehicles, safe road users, which includes pedestrians and bicyclists, as well as having timely post-crash care so that we don't have a fatality on our roadways.

Again, traffic calming has some small scale and spot improvements that are very typical, whereas Safe Streets talks about more comprehensive engineering solution that makes our system safer.

Traffic coming, again, because there are spot treatments, they're very limited to looking at one point at a time, just physical changes.

Safe streets includes safer uh includes in addition to physical changes, has design changes, policy changes, enforcement, as well as public engagement.

So it really uh traffic coming has evolved into safer streets and traffic coming, safe streets, and vision zero on in this day gets you uh get the terms are used interchangeably.

Um, a little bit going into what uh city engineering's typical process is for traffic comming or safe streets.

This really starts with either we receive a traffic complaint or safety concern on our roadway, or we recognize an opportunity or a problem in our city streets that we are able to start.

However, the how in whichever way the problem gets created, it goes through the first internal traffic division review, where we have uh data and various other factors that get reviewed.

We look at how we can come up with a few different solutions.

We take it up with all the different internal staff members, such as DPW, parks, uh, lights, uh, signal department, depending on relevance, and get the and get the plans uh an initial okay.

It then goes out to community for receiving public feedback through different channels.

Once we receive the feedback, we take that all in and we see how we can uh get all the feedback and accommodate everything that the community has mentioned while staying true to our goals and policies.

This is an iterative process depending on the project.

It sometimes has one iteration, sometimes has six.

Once uh the iterative process is exhausted, it then uh moves over for actual implementation.

Either it goes uh to our DPW crew for uh getting the implementation done internally, or it could also uh go out for an actual design if it needs an exhaustive design to go to design and eventual construction.

Now, I briefly touched on traffic uh division review process.

We look at many different data points when we are conducting our review.

It first includes the speed data, traffic uh volume data, crash data, uh, how much enforcement is done, and what type of roadway classification does our comprehensive plane tell us.

We look at what the routine operations and maintenance are on the roadway, how the stormwater gets impacted, and how emergency response gets impacted.

We also uh take into account school buses and transit access to make sure that we have uh accommodation made for them.

Uh during uh throughout the process, we make sure that we are keeping land use and connectivity for the entire system in our mind, as well as being cognizant of the city's goals and policies uh that are set in place.

With that, I will move on to a different section, which is different types of traffic coming or safe streets measures that we can use.

Uh we have it classified into four uh different categories: horizontal, vertical, street width reduction, and routing restriction, which I'll go in detail in a second.

Okay.

So uh horizontal deflection uh hinders the ability for a motorist to drive in a straight line.

So they're forced to turn around or they're forced to uh maneuver the roadway, which is uh ideally not straight, so that they maintain their speeds to be uh comfortably driving.

These uh examples include uh curb extensions, chickenes, uh intersection realignments.

Uh, these are some examples, not the center one, but the two on the sides are real examples from our city streets near uh Jefferson Street.

Um we then have vertical deflection, which essentially provides, as the name suggests, a vertical barrier on the roadway such that uh their vehicles are not able to comfortably travel in the speed that they want to.

They have to slow down to go through it.

Uh there are some examples in the city, we have it fair view, uh, have it at Fairview Avenue near North Frederick Elementary, as well as if you go through, I believe that's Market Street, um, where the shared use path crosses.

Next, we have a street width reduction that narrows uh the width of the travel lane or roadway so that the motorist likely needs to slow down to maintain safe speeds and not uh and not bump into anything else.

The also reduces the distance that is needed for a pedestrian to cross the roadway, because if you have lesser interact lesser face interaction with the vehicle, is a sense is essentially better for the pedestrian.

This includes uh curb extensions, pedestrian refuge island.

You might have seen uh some on Bauman's uh that's also Jefferson Street, but you have seen them around the we've uh installed them in a few different locations over the past few years.

And sorry.

And finally, we have routing restriction, which uh essentially restricts particular vehicular movements uh so that it eliminates uh various conflict points.

Some of the examples you can see is TJ Drive when you're coming close to the possum town pike intersection.

I think that's correct.

And uh you can also see that on uh Monoxy Boulevard uh near um rudders, the new gas station that was built a couple years ago.

So I did touch a little bit, I may not have mentioned it, but one of the horizontal uh measures was a roundabout that was somewhere in the center, there was a sketch.

Uh roundabout is not a very typical uh horizontal um traffic coming measure that was used when it started.

However, it has gained popularity in the past decade or two.

So I wanted to touch a little bit on why a roundabout is good.

And so roundabouts are designed in a way to have slower speeds.

You can't just go on a 40 mile, 40 miles per hour through a roundabout.

If you've gone, I've driven to um Dulles Airport a lot of times, and there is a roundabout there, and I'm forced to slow down from 60 all the way to 15.

They are also the way they are designed, you're not required to stop, but you are required to yield, so you're slowing down when you're entering the roundabout.

It also, if you compare it to a regular intersection, it has much fewer conflict points with other vehicles, thereby reducing uh the crash severity as well as the probability of a crash.

On the maintenance side, they do cost uh low as compared to a traffic signal because there is no electricity that needs to keep running.

Um there are low emissions for vehicles as well because you're not required to stop either at a traffic signal or at a stop sign.

And give uh because the intensity of crashes are reduced, the post crash care cost is also reduced.

Talked about fewer conflict points.

If you imagine you're traveling north in a regular intersection, you could be going either through left or right.

If a car is coming from the east side, again, they could be going through left or right, which essentially wherever it's crossing is where the conflict points get created.

When you're doing the same in a roundabout, if you see the way a vehicle moves through, the number of conflict points greatly reduces.

If we add up everything in a typical intersection, there are about 32 points where a vehicle could have a crash with another vehicle.

And 24 times where a pedestrian could be in conflict with a vehicle.

When you compare that to a roundabout, there are only eight points where vehicles are in conflict with another vehicle, and there are only eight pedestrian conflicts.

And these are reduced because of the way they are designed.

There are splitter islands that provide refuge, one direction to watch at each time.

Also, when where the vehicle and a pedestrian conflicts and where the vehicle and vehicle conflicts are also separated out because of the design.

So you're essentially first conflicting with the pedestrian, letting them go, and then you're conflicting with the car.

So they're separated out.

When you are at a roundabout, uh the predominant type of crashes are rare end collisions.

And if you have been in one, I have been in one actually.

Yes.

When we convert an always stop or a signalized intersection to a roundabout, all crashes, including property damage, fatal and injury, are reduced by 70 to 80%.

So if you used to have 100 crashes, you're now down to 30.

Mini roundabouts, which are a lot more common in traffic calming, also present uh safe uh safer features.

However, they're not as safe uh, however, the safety rating is a little lower than modern uh than regular roundabouts since regular roundabouts are a lot bigger.

If you convert an always stop or a two-way stop to a roundabout, you still have about 30 to 40 percent reduction in all types of crashes.

So no matter which type of roundabout you're picking, these are still safer options for our roadways.

With the entire roundabout completed, I will now like to go over uh quickly about the different types of projects that we have completed since we had the traffic calming CIP since 2022.

The most recent one that we have is Rosemont Avenue between Ferndale and Elm Street fronting Hood College.

This uh was installed in October to November last year.

If you see in the bottom, we are staying true to our policy goals, policy policies and strategic goals that we have of traffic combing, vision zero, and comprehensive plane.

On the top right, you can see that we used some of the traffic combing measures that we used were horizontal deflection and street width reduction.

The second that we have is Hayward Road between Thomas Johnson Drive to a possum town pike.

This was installed in 20 June 2023.

I think it's 2023, which essentially involved a road road diet project, which took out one lane and repurposed it to have a bike two-way protected bike lane on one side of the road.

It hits traffic coming, vision zero, complete streets, let's move Frederick, and comprehensive plan, all the city goals that we listed before.

Tuscany Drive, which had somewhat similar road repurposing as well, where we took out the parking lane to install a protected two-way cycle track.

Again, it hits all the city goals, uh city policies and strategic goals that were listed.

Walter Martz Road at Tuscarora Creek Boulevard.

This was a part of an ADA improvements project and uh because of the shared use path connections that are adjacent.

This serves well for pedestrians and bicyclists using shared use paths adjacent.

We also had some street uh from some pavement striping that was done as a part of this, and there is a mini roundabout that's coming up one intersection over near Yellow Springs Elementary School in the in this year, I think.

Um Jefferson Street was completed in early 2023.

It was a complaint-driven uh project, and we looked at all the different data data that we had, and we came up with a plan, worked with the community to uh come up with how to really uh slow down speeds on Jefferson Street.

It hits uh traffic combing, vision zero, as well as comprehensive plane goals.

Villa estates done in 2022, involved uh some restriping in the parallel street neighbor, uh parallel streets and villa estates.

It included demarcating the parking lanes uh separate from travel lanes and the travel uh the two vehicular travel lanes are essentially squeezed to the center.

And uh this also makes uh made the villa estates more walkable, uh more accessible by pedestrians, again, traffic combing, vision zero, and comprehensive plane uh policies were met.

And finally, we have Baum and Slane, which was an opportunity project where the developer was doing part of Baum and Slane as they were required as a part of the Bel Air Farms development to put up the bike lane.

We worked with our city DPW to ensure that the bike lane at least gets to the next uh signalized intersection.

It had parking modification, it has a lot of uh pedestrian refuge features, it has uh a bike lane.

We have heard that it is a bike lane to nowhere.

However, it takes time to build the whole system.

So it is a step in the direction.

It hits uh all the city policies and strategic goals that were mentioned before.

Some of the ongoing and future projects, modern 13th, which is a modified roundabout, modified mini roundabout that will be uh constructed.

It is currently in its design phase, which essentially will increase will improve pedestrian connectivity, will slow down motorists on Motor Avenue, uh would likely also reduce some of the truck turning traffic that we have heard complaints from from the adjacent numbered streets.

Willowdale Drive between 40 and Shookstown.

Uh it is a bike lane project where we take uh the two travel lanes, two outside travel lanes from Willowdale Drive and convert that into bike lanes.

The traffic volumes support this type of change and have inclusion of two mini roundabouts, one at Key Parkway and one at Schaeffer Drive, as well as enhancements to the park crossing that's on Willowdale Drive.

East 16th Street that you all heard from a few residents and uh during the public comment section.

What was essentially done was that the existing cross section that you can see on the top has two really wide travel lanes, which promotes speeding, and two parking lanes.

What we have done after working with the community extensively is to modify all of our lanes to accommodate parking on both sides, as well as uh accommodate uh bike lanes, uh two directional protected bike lanes within the right-of-way.

This again hits all of our strategic goals and city policies that were mentioned in the beginning of the presentation.

Have Heims Avenue, which is in its proposal format.

We are still working through this where we are doing something similar to what we have done for Villodale Drive, where the traffic volume suggests that we are able to take the two outside lanes and convert them into protected bicycle lanes.

Uh and then we have Hillcrist Drive, which we have heard a lot of complaints from.

We have worked with the community as well as with a consultant to make sure that we uh have uh repurpose the streets that uh repurpose Hillcrest Drive to include safer pedestrian crossings and um essentially make the entire uh entirety of Hillcrest Drive safe for pedestrians who are either walking or accessing any of the Vista shops.

And finally, I will end with the 7th Street uh preliminary concept exhibit.

I know we heard a little bit about uh 7th Street in the public comments, how we have some bike lanes there, but the bike lanes in today's standards are not considered uh safe and does not really promote bicycling in our community.

So providing for uh protected bike lanes promotes biking, so we might not have bicyclists before, but giving them a safe space on our roadway which adheres with our complete streets, vision zero, let's move Frederick, traffic calming, and comprehensive plan uh policies, uh we are really providing uh a safe space for everyone.

This is an available is at its 2% or 5% phase right now, and it will eventually work its way to 100% design.

With this, I want to conclude my presentation with a few things in mind.

To make our streets overall safer and more accessible for everyone and not just cars.

Context data and type of roadway are very essential for us to decide and engineer safer streets.

Our goals are with every project that we have is to improve our residents' quality of life, which includes having better connectivity and accessibility for all the different types of uh travel that they want to do.

With vision zero, our goal is to reduce fatal and serious injury crashes on our roadways so that we make our roadways much safer.

With that, I and several other city staff are in the room.

Welcome to any questions that we can answer.

Thank you.

Any questions from council members?

Yeah, Shrada, thank you for your presentation.

I know Chirin is here as well.

Um the process.

So you touched on it briefly.

So, for instance, complaints about speeding.

Someone said we're speaking about neighborhood.

Along with that data also could be uh law enforcement, police enforcement ticketing.

Go through the process in terms of or talk about a little bit about process.

Someone says, speeding about neighborhood and how many trips that may entail.

So, for instance, if someone says I have this one specific neighbor who just speeds down my street.

But go through the data in terms of how many trips and how many that entails encompasses for like those changes or something like how that how that's incorporated in terms in terms of implementation.

Um whenever we get uh so FPD does receive the complaints first, they triage it and they send it to us.

Typically, if it is just a speeding complaint that they look, someone has complained, this yes, at 11 a.m.

someone was speeding through my neighborhood, this happens all the time.

FPD works through their system, which includes putting out speed radars, which collects actual speed data to see there might be one speeder on the road or it might be an actual problem.

So they work through the data.

They used to have uh speed radar, uh speed cameras, which would only collect speed, it doesn't give tickets, but they would use it for two weeks to collect actual data.

Once they collect the data, they either conclude that speeding is not a concern, or they would send it to us.

If they suspect speeding may be a concern, or if there's if the complaint involves anything more than just speeding.

If they are like I can't I have a site distance issue, if there is uh people are speeding and not able to get out, something else of that nature.

We essentially take the complaint, we uh talk to the resident to make sure that we are understanding what the complaint actually is about, and it's not just their speed in my neighborhood.

So we look through that.

We typically have a lot of traffic count data that is collected just based on any different uh traffic study that is being done by a private developer.

If we have the data readily available, we are able to look at that to see if traffic volumes have changed.

We if there is a major development that's nearby, that's a very typical uh give that yes, there are people who are now cutting through, people who are now speeding in in this area, but we make sure that we are looking at any available volume data, speed data.

We work with police department to get crash data because we do get complaints about because of speeding, there are a lot of crashes.

So we look at all the data that we have.

In addition, the uh police department has recently acquired some real-time speed data, which is essentially processed and is available to us within a month, I think.

And this looks at trends of how people are uh traveling.

So it does have data for 15 months uh from whenever we got the contract, 13 months back that.

So we have a lot of data to look at what the speeds are, how the traffic volumes are moving, and based on that, we do a site visit to see where the actual problem is and what can be done to improve that.

Are there instances where if there isn't anything that can be done?

I'm thinking about military road by Fort Direct.

A lot of people comment on the speeding there, and that's not just one person, one comment.

I'm sure it's you know that's been complained about a lot, and I haven't seen changes on it.

So can you talk about that a little bit?

Sure.

Uh so there are two there are two different things.

One being there might not be an apparent speeding that happens all the time if there is a one-off, then those are the instances where with engineering we really can't do much, so it really gets transferred over to enforcement.

But there are other instances, military road, for example, where we look at what can we really do with what right of way we have.

And sometimes our quick answer is that we really can't do anything right now.

But that really does train it does get every complaint, does get recorded, and eventually it moves into a study on what can be done, and once we have a feasibility study on if we need to acquire right of way from someone, if we need to modify the roadway in any format, we will it'll essentially go into a CIP because that's not something that we can fix relatively quickly.

We if we want to touch military road, there might be a lot of storm drain stormwater impacts that might happen.

And there are uh limited right-of-way that we have over there.

So those where we are very constrained, the quick answer is we can't do anything.

But the long answer is it'll eventually make its way to a CIP to get uh funded for feasibility design and eventual construction.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Yep.

So you referenced vision zero in it was before I got here, there was a resolution you any reference the the resolution.

Um that resolution required an interdepartmental working group.

Um and this might not be a question, maybe it's for Zach, and it's okay if you want to phone a friend, but I don't think do we do we have updates or are there like meeting minutes or something that you can and not tonight, but at some point, and what I'm because what I'm interested in is is there a vision zero plan that okay?

And what I'm because what I'm interested in is is there a vision zero plan that okay?

I couldn't find it on the website.

I feel like I've heard it, but I I couldn't really figure it out.

It might be because the interchangeable words that are used in Safe Streets for All is the action plan grant that we have to do vision zero.

So uh in the Safe Streets for All website, there is a lot of vision zero information.

Yep.

Uh vision zero uh in 2021 that it was adopted.

There was a working group.

Maybe Zach can talk about it.

I was not completely involved in that.

And I I can kind of talk about why I'm asking if you would that would be helpful.

So I I I appreciate it.

What I found very helpful in your presentation.

One of the many things that I found really helpful was the the explanation of the horizontal vertical street width and routing restriction uh differences, because I don't that's the first time I've seen it um broken down that way.

Um and just and I was happy that you didn't talk about automated enforcement.

That's actually what I do for a living.

So I don't do it in the city of Frederick, don't do it in Frederick County.

But just if we were talking about that, that would be concerning, but I don't do that.

We don't we don't we didn't talk about that tonight.

But so I know a little bit about vision zero stuff, right?

Kind of work on it every day.

And what I'm looking for, I guess, is an explanation where it seems to me that we're we're going for like these big projects when we're not addressing like so Willowdale Drive is a perfect example, right?

I'm on the fence about this whole roundabout thing.

I appreciated the explanation and I'm I'm open.

But like my crosswalks are basically non existent, like you can't even see them.

So what I don't understand, what I'm trying to like wrap my head around is 2021, we have the resolution, we say it's unconscionable that we're gonna lose people to this.

We keep losing people, and it's like five years later that we still don't really have a plan.

But if we do, please send it to me.

We can and it's really not for you, it's more for the administration.

So you're just here giving the presentation.

So that's okay.

Yeah, so uh there is a safe Streets for all action plan that started in February or March last, sometime last year.

Um that essentially we have a consultant on board who is working on creating the action plan.

It is due in August this year, I believe.

So the plan will be in its draft form presented and closed out by August, September this year.

Um we're gonna do that instead of vision zero.

Is that what we're doing?

It's the same thing.

They are the same.

That is not the same.

Okay, all right.

Fair I'll stop, but it's really not the same thing.

Okay, so then then my only other question, and you can take this back and answer it.

You don't have to answer it tonight.

But we have we changed our design standards?

And so I hear us doing sort of this spot treatment, and I appreciate that.

I've been a huge advocate for that, and I feel like you know, we we've we've seen that.

But is the development community being held to the standard that we're trying to get to with this new evolved way of thinking?

Um I haven't seen that up here.

If you look at any of the communities that have been built, there's still traditional grid pattern and there's still like there's some gives, and you referenced that like some of the some of the pedestrian diet stuff that we sort of now hold standard, but I'm not seeing a big change in how we build in the city of Frederick given that we've we've essentially changed the direction of how we want to go.

So and again, you can you can wait and you can send an email, that's totally fine.

Not trying to put you on the spot.

Sure.

Um the I will just add that the Safe Streets for All action plane does have recommendations for design standard changes.

Any other questions.

First of all, thank you so much.

Uh I really enjoy that.

I love a good roundabout for so I'm I'm happy for uh to hear you sing their praises.

I live in Villa Estate and spend a lot of time on West 7th Street, and I bike on West 7th Street, and I I hear a lot from people, you know, there aren't enough cyclists.

Well, it's it's kind of this chicken in the circle that people don't bike because it's not safe.

And the the school that is nearest to us is North Frederick, and it's not very far away, but the kids can't walk there.

They can't bike there because it is currently not safe.

And I would love to see kids walking there, which leads me to my next question, which is right turn on red.

So I have a high schooler who is smart enough to cross a crosswalk.

Um, but often people turning right on red, she has the crosswalk signal, and people turning red on red um will nearly miss her.

And this this is a regular occasion on West 7th Street and on Rosemont Avenue.

And I don't I don't know if you want to address um right turns on red in the city when it comes to pedestrian safety.

Do you have any thoughts on it or is this something that that we can maybe address?

I don't know if someone else wants to address this.

You guys brought a lot of backup, I like it.

Sure, for the record here and even uh supervisor for traffic engineering as a great question.

Um I'm on the fence on no turn on red, but we've been very selectively using it where um we recognize certain conflicts like uh we had no turn on red um on market street, for example, where we do have higher pedestrian volume and want to make sure that the pedestrians are protected when they do have the um the walk signal.

Uh the same way we've used uh no turn on red on Bobman's lane at Key Parkway because we extended the bike lane and want to make sure they protect the bit the bicyclists as they make their way through the intersection.

So been very selective.

We haven't written off that it's a no, but certainly um where other jurisdictions have used it um locally, Montgomery County, DC, uh those are kind of good examples to uh look and learn.

Uh certainly one of things that we um I'm not sure it's part of the SS4 recommendation that we are asking the consultant to do, but certainly um number of pedestrians, the safety aspect, the sight lines are factors that we want to look into as we put not turn on red on an intersection.

We don't want it to um I would hold off on it in a particular policy without not having how we implement it, what is the logistics of implementing something?

Because I um there are occasions where um uh you've uh stopping a car for uh two minutes or whatever the time frame that is when there are no pedestrians, so we need to be very selective in uh how we apply it.

But it's an um we are using it uh very selectively.

Uh but if there is any particular intersection there again, if there is a significant issue, uh we always welcome comment from public so we can explore that opportunity to do that.

Thank you.

Uh I have a I have a bunch of questions, so don't go too far away.

One thing I noticed after the snowstorm, so I I live again in Villa Estates, and uh but the cars park in the street and the snow plow came around and we had these kind of icebergs in the street, and there was no speeding because we created sort of these temporary chicanes because of the snowstorm.

And I thought, well, we've solved the speeding in in Villa Estates.

And and I I love that you brought up that up, but I didn't see a lot of examples of that.

And is that a tool that we can use in a neighborhood like Villa Estates, which is a you know, there's a lot of people using it as a shortcut.

Yes, that's definitely something uh that can be looked into.

It's in our toolbox.

Uh one of the things that we are well well, the city residents there is a sensitivity towards parking.

So it does wherever implemented, it's just we make sure that we are carefully balancing between what we are putting out there and what can what's safely accommodating the residents as well.

That's true.

People are particular about parking here.

Uh where is my list here.

Um I w I I just want to make more clear a point that you made about people making transportation choices.

And we do live, you know, in a car-centric place.

And driving is limited to a certain segment of the population.

You know, people too young, they can't drive, they can ride their bikes, they can walk, they can take scooters.

Um, and and it's typical that people will stop driving at a certain age, and many people with disabilities don't drive.

And so I think it's really, really important that we remember all the other people in our community when when planning.

And so I really, really like that perspective of making sure that there's space for all kinds of transportation.

Again, on 7th Street, I often see people in motorized scooters, um, scooter wheelchairs, and uh it it doesn't feel safe to me where they're going.

And so I want to make sure that we're looking out for them too.

So I really really appreciate that.

Uh I also want to reiterate military road, which was left off of the study that we did with Villa Estates.

I'm sorry I keep coming back to Villa States, this is where I live.

Uh and and I'm wondering if, you know, you talked about these, these kind of quick builds that we don't necessarily have to redesign the whole street.

Can there be signs or you know markings on the road?

And there's no crosswalks in Military Road, which is a challenge, but I I don't know if we can think of those those quick builds as we move towards kind of a more major renovation so that the neighbors this is and I don't know about the rest of you, but during the campaign, this was the biggest issue that I heard was about traffic and about um speeding, especially.

So thank you so much for the work that you've been doing.

Any other thanks for the presentation.

Um it's not really for you, it's just a general statement.

Uh agreeing with Katie about the uh conditions of the roads.

And again, I will I am going to suggest that we sort of take a pause and focus on our core responsibilities as a city, and one of those are our road conditions.

I think all of us probably heard during campaigning that um either the roads are in bad shape, as Katie mentioned, crosswalks are non-existent anymore because of paint fade and that sort of thing.

Um so I am going to support um in Zach's and Tracy's budget uh to increase road maintenance.

Uh with that, also I will also propose that we start looking at solar-powered uh push-button crosswalk signals for all of our mid-block uh crosswalks.

I mean, you you can go down the list, there's tons of them around.

Um, you know, there's one up by the Coke plant, there's one by Shefferste Drive, the that um uh Bogman's Lane.

I mean, and what they do, they allow uh walkers, pedestrians, bikers to push a button, the lights flash, signals the cars that somebody's crossing, and then the lights go away, they're not on all the time.

So when they're the lights are on, people take notice if if they're on all the time, it just becomes background music and you really don't notice.

So with that, my questions.

Um with the bike box on 7th Street, or pardon me, Market Street at 9th Street.

I think what that is is there's not enough education about what a bike box is.

Uh I know my wife bikes constantly and she does not feel safe using the bike box.

Um on East 16th Street, um, I know that you did do the public outreach.

Um and I guess my question for you is with the road design.

Um is it better to have the bike lanes next to the curb or the parking next to the curb?

Uh because I've seen it both ways in the city of Frederick.

And you know, and I think one of the other challenges with East 16th Street is that it is a very residential street, and you do have a lot of uh driveways, unlike places like Bogman's Lane or even uh Market Street from 7th and 9th, there aren't as many um points of conflict, I guess, for lack of better words.

Um is there a preferred design for that?

Yeah, so during our uh community outreach, these were the questions that came out.

We had initially started off with a very different design.

And we really our typical design includes 10-foot bike lanes and uh flex posts as uh buffer area, uh flex posts in the buffer area to prevent uh uh to basically have a whole lane that's for bicyclists only.

They are pr sort of protected from the uh from the vehicles.

But the design that we ended up with ensures that the bicyclists are still protected by not just a two-foot buffer, but also by a whole parking lane.

The intention of them being by the curb is so that they are safe.

There is still parking, and parking essentially works as a buffer in the residential area uh residential portion where there is parking and driveways.

We worked with our DPW operations, we worked with transit to ensure that and county recycling to ensure that all the operations are still working with the way it's laid out currently.

Okay, and then I I know the answer to this, but I don't think you explained it maybe well enough.

So I'm I'm going back to the intersection of uh market and ninth.

Um on the opposite corner by the YMCA going north, I guess.

You have uh flex posts to bump out the corner of the uh the intersection.

Can you explain what that's for?

Um That was from the uh detour plane that happened on East Street where uh the waterline project was going on, and the flex posts were essentially placed and the stop bar was taken back so that the routing is still okay.

However, it seemed like the flex posts work fine.

So they're still there.

And so you push the uh the stop bar back going.

We're working on getting that phase.

Yeah, no, but that that was done for truck traffic, basically, right?

Is that my it was initially, yeah.

Yep, thank you.

Um and then uh getting back to one of the comments, and again getting back that I think we need to really look at our streets and the amount of funds that we do for our streets.

Um storm drains when they sink, that's a common problem.

And I know it might not be you, it might be chairing or Zach or Tracy.

But um the storm drains typically drop down.

I don't want to say typically.

They have they do drop down because of the construction method and that sort of thing.

Um does the city have a program that looks at storm drains and yeah, thank you, Tracy.

Um looks at storm drains.

Because I know on 7th Street that there was like seven of them that failed at one time and DPW came by and renovated them all.

Good evening.

Tracy Coleman, Director of Public Works.

Um the whilst there are there is some failure where the structure itself does draw up or lower.

The bigger problem is an old practice of pavement overlay.

Um so the storm drain box itself doesn't really drop that much unless there is you know some kind of a tremendous failure.

Um, and we will fix that failure.

Our storm drain department's really good about um preventative maintenance going around um checking um most of our facilities.

Um what we do need to get away from and what we have been for at least the last 10 years, if not more, is our practice of overlaying streets without removing existing pavement.

Um you're putting two to three inches of pavement on existing pavement, but not raising the storm drain.

And that creates the dip for the storm drain.

That's really what creates that.

So we do have a program task to answer that.

That's a great answer.

Thank you.

Um then the getting back to the 16th Street one, uh, Sharada.

Uh and I where are we on the plan?

Are we on design on that or I didn't see anything on the slide that said you know 30% design or anything like that?

The design is um again, the design has been fully complete.

Um so we uh completed that end of last year and finished the final design early this year.

But since this involves mostly um payment marking, we have to wait until the the temperatures are holding about 55 degrees.

So the plan is to, once uh spring rolls out, the temperature hits uh is stable to have that implemented.

And there is a city portion and there is a Canterbury Station portion of it.

The the backstory on this is because the Canterbury Station was originally supposed to install bike lanes as part of their approval, and that original design included uh bike lanes on both sides of the street, the five-foot bike lanes.

Um moving forward to the when we were looking at what is the better safe uh conveyance for all ages and abilities and what the my bikeway design must be.

We felt that the protected bike lanes offered the best solution for two um uh to cater to a larger public with uh depending on the uh you know the the spectrum of ages and abilities.

So that's really where we consolidated to a protected bike lane option.

As we kind of had it went through some diff design evolution, but I think we are in a position we can roll out that uh design once uh the weather hits the point.

Okay.

And then my last comment is not really a question, but you know, uh roundabouts are always looked as you know a change and people hate change, of course.

Um I know I do.

Uh there's gonna be one basically my front door.

Um and I'm kind of excited about it because um one, it there's a lot of traffic that just stops and there's a lot of accidents at that one.

Uh but with that roundabout, and this doesn't really affect me.

Uh did you look at North Frederick traffic?

Because when they have their pickup line, their pickup line comes all the way to my front door.

And I I don't care that it does, but if it does, then it affects the roundabout.

Have you had conversations with the school, I guess is what I'm asking.

Yeah, we have had conversations with the school regarding this.

We also routinely work with different schools to make sure that their circulation planes are good and it's not impacting the regular traffic.

So every few years we would go back and work with them to make sure that their traff the school car traffic is moving most efficiently that they can.

And my last statement is if if you really want to get used to roundabouts, uh Brunswick in the last probably five, seven years, they installed probably eight roundabouts, and I think they work fairly well, although they are on a major street and there's no real pedestrian crossings there, but they seem to work well.

Thank you.

Joe, I just wanted to add one thing you had mentioned about uh the beacons flashing beacons in the beginning of your statement.

Uh as a part of the Safe Streets for All action plan, the consultant is working on uh recommending a policy for that.

So that will come to you soon.

Uh I have a couple of questions.

Yeah, thank you.

Um a couple of things.

One point, um, a difference between say Villa States and uh District 2, uh which has the highest percentage of Alice households uh in real estates in other parts of the city, maybe the people who choose to drive are because they're too young or to uh or they're seniors, whereas in in um district two, a lot of people don't choose not to drive.

They just can't because they can't afford a car, they can't afford the gas.

So as we're looking at the driving options, we have to consider that.

That's not just younger people or seniors, but in some parts of our city that are generally not been uh given the attention or the consideration, people just don't have the choice because they just can't afford it.

So that's one thing.

Um back to some of the traffic studies.

So I live right off of Heims.

I'm like one townhouse row row from Himes.

Which to me, if you look at it, like if you look at the Google Maps satellite view, it like looks like a racetrack, right?

It's just this long round road.

Um but speaking to uh FPD officers during our like at NAC meetings, they say they they run radar there, they've had the speed box things, right?

And the amount of cars that are actually speeding is a lot lower than what the perception is, right?

Um I've seen people going down that road because it's a very it's curved but kind of straight.

Um it looks like they're going very fast when the police are telling me they're actually not.

So when we do those traffic studies and we determine that yes, there is a problem, right?

And we put some of these measures in, do we do a study after to see what the reduction is?

And if and if we have is that something that is available once once something is so then we know what works for the next time.

Yeah, typically with projects we wait for about a year to make sure that everyone is settling into the new traffic pattern that they have, and then we look at the next few years of data to see how that reduces uh or how that has changed uh driver behavior.

I had recently run Tuscany Drive.

I don't have the data for everything that I presented, but with Tuscany Drive, the project started because of speeding and number of crashes.

And overall crashes in after one and a half years, it has significantly reduced.

And that's great to hear.

And if I could just suggest that maybe we socialize or publicize some of that information, because people is like, well, why did you put those lines?

So my son lives off of Tuscany, so I saw the the changes.

But other than the fact that I drive on that road for somebody who doesn't live there pretty frequent, I don't know that it worked, right?

So if we are telling people this is going to work, and and it does, and that's awesome, right?

We have to let people know.

So just a suggestion, because as you will see, and I don't have to tell you all that, that there's a lot of strong feelings about what traffic calming means.

And if we are making streets safer, people don't notice that.

People notice when people are getting killed, they don't necessarily notice when they're not.

So just an idea because I do think a lot of these things that we either have tried or will try are going to work.

We just have to let people know that that uh that they have.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

You kind of asked it, but um I'm just gonna add a little bit to it about perception.

So um I've also looked, talked to the police about the data, and some of the data reflects slower speeds than what we perceive.

Or maybe there's only one person a day exceeding the speed limit.

But if you live in a place and you see it every day, you think, oh, there is a lot of speeding here.

And engineering can't necessarily tell people how to perceive the speed of cars.

But I do think that there are probably design elements we can do to to make sure that people feel safe because people aren't gonna let their kids bike to the park, even though they're like, well, the data says that everyone's going 25.

We're like, well, it doesn't feel safe.

And I'm not really sure how you address that or think about that as an engineer.

We'll keep thinking about that in all the projects that we do.

I know when the lanes are short the lanes are narrower, even though they are by uh some standards.

We have we can't just make a two-feet lane.

So when we are uh when we are making the lanes narrower, they are changing the perception.

So if you see a wide road, you might be going at 30, but you you might also be tempted to go at 60.

And a lane narrowing is one of one of the uh measures in the toolbox that essentially helps with the perception.

The other part that you can see in this picture here of the one bottom middle is Rosemont Avenue, where just having that median refuge there, even if it's just with flex posts, it does give a perception of a pedestrian not having to cross 40 feet of the entire roadway once at a time at a time.

So those are very little design changes that get uh implemented that does shift the perception that it goes the driver when they're driving, they're like, oh, even though the road lane is the same, I can't just go because there are these little posts that are in the middle of the road.

So I kinda kinda have to slow down and maneuver it.

So yeah, they yeah, there is little with all the engineering designs that we do, there is a uh perception that gets changed of how the road is being used.

There is a better expectation for the motorist that I'm gonna expect a pedestrian, I'm gonna expect a bicyclist because there is a bike lane next to it.

So yeah.

Yeah.

Um since the picture is up here, and uh and um I want to add uh the bottom right corner is the Maxwell alley.

Um when I started here ten years back, that was one of the biggest complaints at the first meeting.

I think everyone witnessed uh trace it in AC 11.

Uh really there was the concerns about the safety on Maxwell and really trying to figure out what's going on.

The data said that the speeds are 14 miles per hour, but still the lot of concerns with the safety from the residents living in AC 11.

But really digging back in what it and trying to understand exactly the problem was that um it was much more of a mixed alley street that people were using to back commute back or walk back and forth between downtown or Hood College or whatever in between.

So we came up with that idea of having a separate space for pedestrians and marked it as a so we really uh asked for an experimental basis, did the first two blocks of Maxwell Alley.

It was a resounding success.

People loved it.

The fact that there is a space set aside for them.

Um and quite I think that was we extended because of the popularity of it, we extended it to another two blocks.

And I think this last summer we extended up to fifth or sixth street.

So I mean you can see people use it if you aren't Maxville.

I mean everybody know where their area is.

Again, um it's recognizing the opportunity and I think putting a comfort zone for pedestrians to uh walk, which was really a big success.

So small things can make a big difference and really identifying what that are is sort of key of all the efforts that we do.

Any other questions?

Uh on a specific project, uh I believe it's the intersection of monocloncy and Hughes Ford Road.

Um it's going to be a stoplight because if I get this wrong, I apologize.

But the agreement we had with the developer didn't call for building a circle.

Uh although we asked for a circle, the developer said that's not a requirement, so all you're getting is a stoplight.

And if that's wrong, go ahead and tell me the truth.

But uh I'm wondering if is there a way that we could apply the value of that stoplight and then backfill with city dollars to get a circle there, if in fact the circle is the preferred mechanism for handling that intersection.

So no, we um it's good one.

Um the developer was only required to do a install a signal there, though we did work with them for a while to see the the opportunity for a two-lane roundabout there, and the the developer also committed to that committed to it.

But in any roundabout projects, any any whether it's a especially larger two-lane roundabouts is the the construction phasing is is the most trickiest part.

And and the cost involved with the the construction phasing, the detours, et cetera, eats into it, especially becomes the project's much more long or so at the end of the day, since it's a fully um developer-funded project, the cost was an issue for them to unless we've had we were to close monoclusy bulbs, which was not an option to close monocloncy with the amount of traffic that care it's the street carries.

So at the end of the day, since it's a fully um developer funded project, the cost was an issue for them to unless we've had we were to close monoclusy, which was not an option to close monocloncy with the amount of traffic that car it's the street carries.

So the developer went back to a signal design, and that's what uh will be installed.

So there's uh I is there a way that using city dollars we could make a circle happen.

I guess that's my uh probably it's too late at this point.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

And the other thing is, I think.

Again, the call cost of either closing the road or um constructing that in phases that the the amount of the cost to the developer was just prohibitive.

Even just uh the even the signal project is probably a 1.5 million dollar project.

Any other questions from council members?

No.

I want to thank the entire team.

Um DPW always comes uh extremely prepared, uh, with a lot of folks to answer questions, so uh for the council we really appreciate appreciate that.

I'm gonna open uh public comments just for everything um at the end, but I have to fix my own personal mistake because I skipped something.

Um so we had another item on the resolutions.

Uh we pulled some, left one behind.

Uh so it's approval of resolution 265 in support of a state task force to study municipal revenue sources.

Not sure if the mayor's office has anyone here to present.

No.

Okay.

So I will read their um executive summary.

The Railroad Municipal League is asking member municipalities to adopt a formal resolution supporting Maryland House Bill 1142, which would create a task force to modernize county and municipal revenue sources sources.

According to MML, this task force is urgently needed to on due to ongoing fiscal challenges facing local governments.

As MML explains, Maryland is one of only six states that fails to share tax revenue from the sale of goods or services with local governments or allow those governments to collect it themselves.

Establishing this task force is described as a necessary first step towards addressing this inequity and ensuring long-term fiscal stability for communities.

At MML's request, Mayor Michael O'Connor has asked Council Leadership to bring the solution forward for council consideration and to formally express the city's support for HB 1142.

Any debate or comments from council members?

No?

Just at the at the MML meeting that I went to last month, they they were bringing up the percentage of revenue that comes to cities, you know, talking amongst themselves.

And Frederick has a disproportionately high amount of tax revenue that's coming from personal property tax versus other sources.

So I think it would um perhaps ease the burden on the residents if we had other streams of revenue.

So it seems reasonable.

Again, this is just um a letter asking to support.

We're not taking the vote on um any new taxes or anything like that.

So any questions or other discussion?

I was just saying I supported too, but I'm interested in finding out the full complement of MML's support this and opposition, quite frankly, this session.

But we'll do that after everything clears.

Okay.

All right.

So looking for a motion to support the city's support for this uh bill.

I move to support the support.

Support the support.

To pass the resolution.

To pass the resolution to support uh the task force.

Uh second?

Second.

All right.

Um move by Councilmember Hempel Rani, second by Council Member Brandt.

All in favor.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

All right, so past 7-0.

Okay.

So fix that um mistake.

So uh now we open the floor up for any public comments uh in general or specifically about the traffic uh calming.

Come on up.

You get three minutes.

Three minutes.

I won't take three minutes.

I'm Ed Remus, I live in the corner of 16th in Schiver Stadt.

And I can't help but notice the middle picture on the bottom is a shared bike path on Rosemont.

I know Rosemont is wider than 16th Street.

They've made that narrower to make traffic calming on Rosemont.

Um I can't help but uh think that maybe because that's the Baker Park area and the affluence, they're not gonna take their parking like they are ours.

I guess we're not squeaky enough, we don't make the most noise.

Um so we're stuck with 50 or 60 50 or 60 houses, cars back out of driveways.

There are none there.

There's none on Tuscany, there's none on Hayward, and there's none on Bachman's Lane, but there's 50 or 60 on 16th Street.

It just doesn't seem right.

Thanks.

Hi, my name is uh Walter Ruby.

I live at 202 Dill, and I was coming, not knowing we're gonna be having this discussion today, but um it does um uh a little fr was for a little frustrating for me because I live at uh Dill and Bents and Bent Street, and I've said this to the mayor a number of times and others, uh well first I call the police a bunch of times.

Anyway, cars roar down that uh Benz at 2 o'clock in the morning, uh both speeding and make you know noise uh is crazy.

Um so and sometimes very dangerous kinds of speeding happen.

I've made when I moved to Frederick four or five years ago, I made many calls uh, you know, calling the police at uh two in the morning to complain, and they all said we you know we really can't do anything about it.

I've also heard um from various people.

Well, it's kind of an old Frederick tradition.

You have the loop, you know, they go down bends and then they come up roar up market and then they come back down bends again, and that's what you know, that's been going on for 50 years or whatever.

Um so I I just don't really get it why that sort of is okay.

I mean, first of all, besides my own concern uh for our street, and I think it is dangerous on our blocks uh of of uh North North Benz.

And I also just wonder, I mean, I I guess that having this opportunity to appeal to you all, you know, um, you know, on markets, the restaurants on Market Street.

You can't sit outside on a, you know, we're about to be coming the spring, and I'm sure we'll have the same thing again.

You know, you want to sit out at Up on Market or any of those lovely restaurants and you know.

Why is that okay?

I just I mean, why is I don't think that's good for Frederick.

I don't think that's good for Frederick Tourism.

And so I was happy to see all of this, but it's like um it doesn't seem to me like the real problem is or at least one the problem I'm raising is being dealt with at all.

So thank you for listening.

Anyone else?

Ms.

Peterson?

Hi, good evening.

Gail Peterson, uh Lee Place resident, Villa Estates.

Um couple of things.

Thank you all.

Thank you all.

I've um had the opportunity over the last um five years, almost six.

Um This is my passion project.

And Villa Estates, the striping.

Um I just, when I saw it up there, I said I had to say something tonight.

The stripes aren't making the difference.

Okay.

The win in Villa Estates, uh, in my opinion, are the dynamic crosswalks.

That's making the neighborhood safer.

If we had on in Villa Estates, every day parking, I'm I'm saying it to them too.

Every day parking um the streets filled, that would actually have done what the lines are supposed to do, which is to create uh uh a diet, right?

To make the lanes narrower, where people have to act like um a courtesy bridge.

But what happens, because there's cars are not there all the time, okay, like they are in other parts of our city.

You guys, cars go into those lanes and bob around them.

So five years ago there was no such thing as a roundabout or a rotary, as us from Massachusetts call them, and got our driver's license by using them.

There was no such thing, but there are now.

Good.

New thinking, new technology, new consciousness, new ways of doing things that actually work.

It's time for our city to think about implementing chicanes in certain parts of the city where they will actually work to do the things.

Traffic calming.

We've had these conversations.

Those grid streets were made to move um traffic fast.

But we have to be able to slow that down.

And the only way we can't retrofit those, but we can put chicanes, we can make it better.

Second most important thing to me is my understanding in government is that public safety is supposed to be like at the top of the pyramid as far as what how our government works.

On military, there are people that I've spoken to as a NAC coordinator as somebody that's been doing street safety gang talks for years now that have been trying to find solutions for 25 years.

It's a long time to be waiting for things to happen.

I'm gonna I'm gonna do it.

There's a resident that I have seen because I walk around that block that travels in a wheelchair going from north to south in the travel lane on military in a wheelchair.

The sidewalks on military are not handicapped accessible, and they're barely resident accessible.

Now I know that Bachman's Lane and Shookstown are getting sidewalks.

I understand priorities, but there needs to be there needs to be priorities for existing neighborhoods to be retrofitted so that they're safe.

Crosswalks are awesome, and I'm grateful to see that that's happening.

That's all I have to say.

Any other public comments?

Good evening.

Uh first of all, thank you all for your service to the city and the residents.

Uh my name is Robert Duggan.

I the nickname I go by is Robin, but you'll look me up in the voter rolls is Robert.

But my wife and I have lived here in Frederick since uh June of 89, having moved from Georgia.

And it's been it's a great place to live.

Learn how to eat a crab, uh learn to like oysters, uh been continually amazed at the art events.

Uh there was a antique fire truck pumping contest from Baker Park uh not too many years after we moved here.

Um just almost every weekend, you know, there are things going on.

Uh but just to click give you context, uh we live in the 600 block of military road, and speeding has been a constant concern that it's it, you know, let's face it, I mean uh police labor is stretched thin, but but just the same.

I mean, we're talking about lives that are at stake.

Not too many months ago we had some neighbors who had some kids staying, and you know, the ball goes out in the street and the kid goes after it, you know, in rush hour.

I mean, and they didn't know they weren't as familiar with the area as we are, but thank God nothing happened.

But there are so many times.

Uh I mean I've had people pass me as I'm getting ready to turn left across that lane into my driveway.

It's the cut those kinds of things just take your breath away.

But um we are especially dismayed and disappointed that military road has remained down the list or at the bottom of the pile or whatever you want to say uh for a long time.

We have I have emails that go back twenty some odd years that that affirm or confirm that yes, well, military road meets the criteria necessary for traffic calming.

Um we do understand that you know we gotta think about all the stakeholders involved.

We've got to think about emergency responders, and we all know that seconds are precious, and that can make the difference between a life or death.

But there are ways that I think with you know further research that really are very viable, not that costly, they would not take you know, re-engineering an intersection or what have you, and they could deliver a lot of bang for the buck.

And I mean compared to what they cost, they are very viable measures that uh I've seen in what other communities have used, things like you know, painting the speed limit on the pavement.

So when the driver turns onto that street, I mean it's right there in your face.

You can't miss it.

Uh I've seen signs, I saw a sign on the internet just the other day, it said uh something like slow up or pay up.

So in the spirit of some financial incentive to get people to slow down.

Um I was trying to think of a few more.

I've seen another one that said slow uh uh residents backing out of driveways or something to that effect.

I have it in my notes somewhere.

But my point is, well, and one more uh measure that I saw that I just thought was amazing, they're using it in Europe, they use around the world, is the paint at crosswalks or certain intersections is done in a way that looks for all the world like it's 3D.

And so understandably, you know, people who drive there all the time over time, they realize, oh, that's just uh optical illusion.

But if you saw some of these examples, uh they're really amazing.

And so someone not familiar with that road would come upon one of those things and say, oh, wait a minute, I better better slow up.

I don't want to damage my undercarriage or whatever.

So really my point is is that we've been military road has been way down the queue for a long, long time.

And that there are measures available that don't require vast sums of of money, you know, you know, design review and so on would be minimal by comparison.

And uh I think they're worth trying.

There's signs I've seen in other parts of the city.

I beg your pardon.

Yeah.

Other neighborhood signs could also work on military road, not pardon me for going over, but thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, there's a real simple solution for the speed it in Frederick.

You outlaw automobiles in the city limits.

There won't be any speeding.

That's the simple way.

But we can't live that way.

Everybody knows that.

Stuff putting in the road doesn't necessarily work out on Rosemont Avenue.

I mentioned that the last time I was down here.

Uh things are supposed to slow traffic down.

The traffic moves just as fast as it always did out there.

So that doesn't work.

Putting up those sticks, the crosswalks doesn't really slow traffic down.

I haven't seen anything that really slows traffic down.

When people want to drive 30, 40, 50 mile an hour inside the city limits, they're going to drive that fast unless there's somebody to give them a ticket.

That's the only way you're going to stop it.

That's just common sense.

We all know that.

And we can't afford that kind of a price.

To have a thousand officers write tickets all day long.

So we're going to have to make some other kind of adjustment, but these little speed things that aren't worth a darn out there because it doesn't work.

We're just wasting taxpayers' dollars.

We got to come up with another solution.

I'm willing to talk to you all any time you want, because I got some other solutions, but uh time's up and getting close to it.

So there is answers.

Good evening, William Mahom.

Uh 12 West Patrick Street here in Frederick, Maryland.

I think this is open.

I've enjoyed the discussions about the traffic.

And I really appreciate the comment uh by uh Mr.

Diaz in terms of not just looking at uh automobiles, but also people who walk and who walk because of economics.

I I had an opportunity to speak to the young lady who made the presentation privately and I asked her about uh considerations of uh multi passenger vehicles, buses and things of that sort.

And uh she indicated that that was something that's taken in consideration in the overall planning.

And I just reiterate that that we do have people in our community who not as fortunate in terms of being able to utilize cars primarily.

That's not what brought me here.

What brought me here was the uh what I had seen in the Frederick News Post concerning a piece of legislation that has been introduced by uh Chaperson Diaz regarding uh control or making some attempts to discourage or preempt ICE Department of Homeland Security guest Gestapo like actions in the City of Frederick.

Uh the NAACP applause that.

Uh well, at least the Frederick Chapter NAACP applause that.

We think that that's something that needs to be done, that should be done.

Uh Mr.

Diaz, and hopefully the remainder of the of the uh council uh ought to be commended for taking a proactive stance on the issue of uh uh uh of fundamental human and and legal rights.

Uh I'm more concerned about human rights as opposed to legal rights, but uh we will say that.

Uh uh and as opposed to simply silently going along with the status quo, uh worse yet, regression, moving ahead on this issue.

And since I brought up the issue of regress of regression, I'm compelled to uh bring up the rental matter, perennial matter of the NAACP is that uh the uh redistricting.

Now I've heard some representation from Mr.

Diaz as well as from Ms.

Nash uh that there are going to be some reconsideration of that issue.

Uh I would remind that when the uh consultant came in to look at that issue, they found racial race block voting.

That is something that we as a community to to take on head on.

What you all deciding here on these very important issues, uh issues that are domain to the entire community.

It is incumbent upon us to uh, particularly if we have an opportunity to do to expand your participation of different aspects of the community in the uh electoral process.

Uh for all intents and purpose what we did as a a community here when we opted to uh embrace the one uh majority minority district was voting suppression.

And I think we should white we should clear ourselves of that.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Christian Benford.

I live on Carroll Parkway.

I'm here to uh again to speak on uh the City Values Act.

Um I am glad to see some of the recommendations that the community made uh go into the updated legislation.

Um I know I mentioned a ton of times I am the son of immigrants, but that's not the entire reason I advocate for my neighbors.

I believe we all deserve to flourish and live in dignity with our rights respected.

I'm here again in support of the City Values Act.

I believe it is a crucial piece of legislation that is needed in these dire times.

It's why I'm also here to make recommendations that would strengthen it.

I really appreciate the addition recommend uh in Article 335, use of city property, Section C reporting, as well as Article 3311 that ensures directors compile reports and make them publicly available.

I would recommend uh that you advise a clear reporting guideline like the salute format, size of unit, activity, location, uniform, time, and equipment.

I find this method to make for a quick reporting guide that is succinct and provides detailed notes about enforcement activities.

It would also keep reports consistent across city agencies.

I would also recommend a clear method of report delivery from employees to directors, especially one that is quickly available.

One amendment or even practice I would establish would be to share these reports uh with the count and make sure they're read by the county as well as the immigrant affairs commission.

I think this legislation would be crucial to establish countywide, and any data collected from these public safety measures can help promote this to be a Frederick standard for community safety.

I want this legislation to pass quickly, but fortified down the line.

So after this legislation passes, please begin the work to ban surveillance equipment that uses proprietary data.

Companies are taking public data and providing it to authorities without permission or transparency.

Additionally, work with department directors and HR to develop clear guidelines around employees that violate this ordinance.

These internal actions for discipline should be made transparent.

I hope you understand my proposed changes are not to nitpick.

I want this legislation to be as good as it can be, so that when other cities and counties start thinking about how they want to look out for their residents, Frederick City is a model of good policy.

Thank you very much for introducing this President Diaz.

This is an important piece of legislation.

Please ensure it passes and is signed by the mayor.

Thank you.

Any other public comments?

Any comments from Council members will start on this end.

I just want to thank our traffic department for spending so much time being here late and for all of your engagement.

So thank you.

No comments.

Just very briefly, we got some very exciting news in our house tonight regarding our son's college search, and I just want to say to all of our call our college-bound or trade school bound folks, um, you have definitely earned it.

You've worked hard, and we're very proud of you.

Thank you.

No comments.

Yes, I do want to take the time to reach my brother who is special needs 61 years old today.

He was only supposed to live to the age of six.

So it's a miracle within itself.

No comments from me.

If there are no further comments, meetings adjourned.

Oh,