Government Operations Committee Meeting - May 15, 2025
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Government Operations Committee Meeting - May 15, 2025
The Government Operations Committee of the City of Frederick met on May 15, 2025, at 2:00 PM. The committee, chaired by Councilmember Kazamchak in place of Vice President Shackleford, covered two workshop items: Election Updates and a Post-General Assembly Update. No public comments were made. The meeting lasted approximately one hour.
Consent Calendar
- Approval of Minutes (May 1, 2025): Moved and seconded; passed unanimously (2-0).
Public Comments & Testimony
- Election Updates: No public comment.
- Post-General Assembly Update: No public comment.
Discussion Items
- Election Updates:
- Candidate Information: City Clerk Phyllis Hain presented an overview of the 2025 municipal election process. Key points included:
- Primary election: September 9, 2025 (early voting August 22-23); General election: November 4, 2025 (early voting October 24-25). All in-person voting at Trinity Recreation Center; mail-in ballots emphasized.
- Offices on ballot: Mayor (full-time, 2 consecutive 4-year terms) and City Council (part-time, 7 seats: 2 at-large, 5 district, up to 3 consecutive 4-year terms).
- Qualification requirements: at least 18 years old, city resident for at least one year prior to general election, registered voter. District candidates must live in the district at time of election and remain resident during term.
- Filing forms: Statement of Organization, Certificate of Candidacy, Financial Disclosure. Filing deadline July 1, 2025; candidate withdrawal deadline July 11.
- Campaign finance limits: Mayor $2,500 per contributor; Council $1,000 per contributor. Personal contributions not subject to limits.
- Councilmember Kazamchak raised concerns about a lack of clear removal procedure if a councilmember moves out of the district. Discussion of charter language allowing removal by unanimous vote of remaining members, but no ordinance currently addresses this.
- Questions also arose about whether a candidate can file for more than one office simultaneously; uncertainty noted, with a plan to research other municipalities for guidance.
- Voter Education Plan: Alan Etzler, Manager of Communications, presented outreach efforts including a dedicated website (vote Frederick 2025), voter registration drives (June 6 at Hill Street Park, August 5 at National Night Out), multilingual materials, and public service announcements. Councilmember Kazamchak requested that PSAs be produced in American Sign Language (ASL); Etzler agreed to do so ASAP.
- Candidate Information: City Clerk Phyllis Hain presented an overview of the 2025 municipal election process. Key points included:
- Post-General Assembly Update:
- Luke Pinton and Ben Smith from Funk & Bolton, the city's lobbying firm, presented a wrap-up of the 2025 Maryland General Assembly session.
- Key successes:
- US 15 Improvement Project: Fully funded via the Consolidated Transportation Program (CTP) with a $160 million plan extending to 2030. Required passage of a state revenue package, which occurred after advocacy by the mayor, council members, and Senator Karen Lewis Young.
- Downtown Frederick Hotel and Conference Center: Received two $7.5 million grants from the governor's capital budget. Governor Moore attended a groundbreaking in December 2024. The project is highlighted as an economic growth priority.
- Harry Grove Stadium Renovations: Through Maryland Stadium Authority, the city secured an additional $22 million on top of an initial $17 million, for a total of $39 million. Funk & Bolton helped identify unallocated funds and advocate for Frederick's share.
- Other State Budget Allocations: Over the past five fiscal years, the city obtained approximately $31 million for police headquarters, flood mitigation, soup kitchen renovations, traffic calming, West Side Health Center, and other LBIs.
- Policy Initiatives:
- Speed Monitoring Systems: Legislation passed allowing municipalities to use non-sworn officers to review camera citations, and enabling communities without police departments to run automated enforcement programs (priority of Maryland Municipal League).
- Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs): Legislation requires municipalities to pass local ordinances permitting ADUs by October 1, 2025, with standards on density, parking, etc., as part of addressing affordable housing.
- Expungement Reform Act of 2025: Passed; addresses automatic removal of certain cannabis charges from public records and fixes the Abishek decision regarding parole violations.
- Immigration Reform (SB 828): Passed; designates sensitive locations (hospitals, schools, etc.) where immigration enforcement requires a warrant, and requires AG guidance.
- Bond Rating: Moody's downgraded Maryland's triple-A bond rating, which may reduce future capital borrowing capacity.
- Public Engagement: A second annual policy priority survey received 481 responses in August; staff plans to repeat the survey and seek council input on questions.
- Councilmember questioned whether the continued pursuit of state funding for the hotel/conference center aligned with council priorities (some members opposed). City staff clarified that the original three-year request was council-supported, and the governor has since made it a priority. Overall, Funk & Bolton helped bring back $70 million in state funds over 3.5 years.
Key Outcomes
- Approval of Minutes: Unanimous.
- No formal votes or resolutions were taken on the workshop items.
- Directives: Staff to produce ASL versions of voter education PSAs; to research legal guidance on candidates running for multiple offices; to continue advocating for US 15 and other funded projects.
- Next Steps: Voter registration drives in June and August; survey for 2025 policy priorities.
Meeting Transcript
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the May 15th uh meeting of the government operations committee, and we will begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. You may notice that I'm not the normal chair of this committee. Uh Councilmember was gonna say Alderman, Councilmember Vice President Shackleford is otherwise occupied today. He asked me to chair this meeting in his stead, and so it will be Councilmember Kazamchak and I, and we will uh begin with approval of the minutes for May 1st uh committee meeting. Move for approval. I will second all those in favor. That is two zero. On today's workshop, we will be discussing, uh, we'll be hearing uh election updates. We have two presentations. The first one is candidate information and then voter education plan, and to welcome uh we'd like to welcome Phyllis Hain, our city clerk, and Alan Etler, our manager of communications. The show is yours. All right, thank you. Um for the record again, Phyllis Hain, City Clerk. I can lead off with um a little presentation of basically how to run for office in the city of Frederick. So first off, a shout out to our Board of Supervisors of Elections. Um, these are the people who oversee all election operations um in the city of Frederick. Our election dates are the primaries on September 9th, with early voting August 22nd and 23rd. General election November 4th, early voting October 24th and 25th. All in-person voting early and election day will take place at the Trinity Recreation Center at 6040 New Design Road. The reason we only have one in-person um voting center is that we are emphasizing again in this cycle, mail-in voting, a ballot will be mailed to every registered voter, of course, for the primaries as every registered Democrat or Republican. Um there will be drop at least one drop box per district will be available. And of course, also they you can mail them in. You don't have to put them in the drop box. So there are lots of options to get that back to us. So if you want to run for office, the first thing is decide what office you're running for. The office on the ballot uh are the mayor. The mayor is the chief executive of the city and is charged with administering city functions. Serving as mayor is considered a full-time job. The mayor may serve two consecutive four-year terms. To qualify the qualifications to be mayor, you have to be at least 18 years old. You have to have lived in the city for at least one year prior to the general election, and be a registered voter. The other options are the city council. City council is the legislative branch of the city government, responsible for passing ordinances and resolutions. It's considered a part-time job. It's theoretically, I it's a lot of time, but you can keep your day job and be on the city council. Um the council members attend meetings of the whole council and serve on one or more council committees, such as this one. And they may serve three consecutive four-year terms. Um for 2025, there will be seven council seats available. Two will be at large, and five, the other five each one will represent a specific district. The um map of the districts is available in the city, the election page of the city website, um, and also in the lobby. It is displayed in the lobby if anybody wants to stop by and see. Uh so the outlatch council seat uh represents all residents. It will appear on all ballots, and there are two of these seats on the ballot. You for this, you have to be at least 18 years old. You have to have lived in the city for at least one year prior to the general election, and be a registered voter. For the district council seats, um, they represent residents within one of the five districts. Uh they appear only on the ballots of residents in their district, and there is one member per district. Uh to qualify for this, you must be at least 18 years old, live in the city for at least one year. You have to live in the district for which you are running at the time of the election, and be a registered voter.
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