The Government Operations Committee met on March 6, 2025, at 3:30 PM. The meeting was interrupted by a fire alarm and later reconvened. The primary discussion focused on the role of Neighborhood Advisory Councils (NACs) in the planning process, as well as public comments on related topics. No formal votes were taken.
Meeting continuation of public comment, please. To continue, City of Frederick planning presentations should return to take place at NAC meetings versus requiring that coordinators to attend centralized planning department presentations in their community outreach meetings. On this, developers should be required to present plans to next before they present to the City of Frederick Planning Commission so that the planning commission can consider NAC feedback with great weight. On several occasions, I've heard people say this adds a layer. Thank you. Is there any other public comments? Oh, the public comment. So these items were merely for discussion today. I know we have several um several questions that were raised, and we will be sure to get that to staffed next time that this will come forward. We have a substantive discussion in regards to hopefully move some items forward to a public hearing. Um and um any other comments regarding this item from uh yes, sure. So again, regarding this item, um public comment that I heard was um, so I brought myself some notes out here. Um we got some like general knack public comment that I wasn't expecting today because the questions that I have in my backup didn't cover those particular things. So I'm sorry, I'm gonna lose it completely. Um we didn't discuss the NACs in general, or how they're now moving forward. I would expect that that is gonna continue to move forward with um leadership of the city council now, but I want to ensure that that's happening. Um I've never heard of NACs being recast as a nonprofit entity. I completely agree that that should not happen. Um there were some statements about um, you know, I I I felt pretty strongly about not moving um either police or planning uh groups, whatever you call them right now, um, to concur with NACs. Maybe we move the NACs to concur with them, but I do kind of get some connection with them now from you know from public comment that I didn't beforehand. So um my feelings on those are not as set in stone as they were in the past. Just so we're sort of clear about that. Thank you. Thank you. Councilman Russell. Any closing comments today? Councilman Russell. Councilmember Kazumchak. Yeah, my um our thank yous, thank you, Council. Council member Russell for this. Thank you, Kevin Salner, for your coat. Thank you, Peter Brem for taking me to ERUCC. Um in all of my time here at City Hall. This is the first actual fire drill that we've had to have the fire trucks here. And no, that's not true. There was a second one during a planning meeting. But um to have it happen on the day that I'm actually here with pneumonia is pretty wild. It's pretty wild. So thank you to everybody who helped take care of me during that. Sure. Just want to say thank you to our fire and rescue services for their prompt response to the uh alarm that we had that broke up this meeting in the first place. Thank you, thank you. It takes it takes a village. We thank everyone for their helping support and for their assistance. The government operates committee meet committee stands in adjournment until two weeks from now or said call meeting. Thank you.