Good afternoon, and welcome to the June twenty second government operations meeting.

We'll begin with the Pledge of Allegiance.

Council members are foo it seems very loud today.

So I'm gonna space that out a little bit.

Okay.

We have a piece of legislation that on first draft I had drafted, and it was infinitely more complex than what is before us.

So I very much appreciate our legal team's simplification and improvement.

What you have before you is the discussion about the waiv of interest and the ability for staff to waive interest.

And so I will I'll kick it off.

Um obviously we have Director Barkdaw here.

Um excuse me.

CAO director.

No, that's not official until July.

Okay.

Director Barkdal is here and she can answer any specific questions about the implementation of this.

Um of course um be mindful that we may not, there's some things we may not know, and we're gonna be working through as a reminder.

This is sort of piece of legislation one on a sort of several pieces of legislation with the intent to reduce the burden or um hopefully, and this is my editorial, maybe reduce the practice of turning off water for lack of payment altogether, but that is a policy decision we haven't yet considered and made yet, but that is something we're at least working towards uh considering.

But before we get to that point, there are what we would sort of consider low-hanging fruit.

As a reminder, this is the work that um Director Barkdahl did um prior to had sort of taken a look at the what we do now and the practices that we have now and what could be amended uh and what we could sort of um sort of immediately do to reduce burdens.

So this is the removal or the reduction of interest.

Um and as you can see, the ordinance that has been drafted in front of us that's been if you looked at section F, it would give the chief administrative officer the ability to um essentially waive or reduce that interest.

And that's really the heart of what we are uh trying to do on residential bills only.

Um attorney Gray, I will I'm just horrible with names today.

Attorney Gray, if there's something that you'd like to add specifically about the edits that you did, but I think it's pretty straightforward.

Um I just want to make sure I gave the floor to you if there was anything you wanted to.

I think it's pretty very succinctly written, so appreciate that.

Thank you.

No, I think it is pretty straightforward.

The only thing you might want to flesh out a little bit is the part of the eligibility requirements that talks about participating in a formal financial assistance program.

Um hopefully that's relatively clear, but you might want to talk about what types of programs this would be.

I don't know that the ordinance language necessarily needs to change, but um just might be worthy of some discussion about what that means.

If you have any thoughts on what that would mean, or Katie might, or I could come up with some things.

Yeah, my apologies.

You're totally correct to draw that out.

We I think we had tangentially sort of discussed the participation in the existing programs that we have in the city, such as the OHAP program or the energy assistance program, or um additional like rent rent assistance and things like that.

But I think maybe creating a list before this goes to full council for a vote would be a healthy, a good action to take just so that everybody knows what we're talking about.

So good good catch there.

Um sorry, go ahead.

The ordinance also allows for administrative regulations, which could include some of those details as well.

Yes, thank you.

Good afternoon, Katie Barkdall.

Um Chief Financial Officer for the City of Frederick.

Just to give you um kind of an update on what we have and what other work we've been doing.

We have been working with the OHEB office to try to create a program that would be folded into what they already do.

They already provide um energy assistance, which is heat and gas, um, to certain qualified people, and that is you know, kind of a state program.

Um but we've we have an outline of how we can bring water assistance into that, kind of into that fold into their application process and all those things.

Um currently the legal department is looking into whether or not we need legislative authority to enact this program, or if we can just do it kind of an administrative staff level.

Um so that's where we are.

So we're close to being able to launch something.

We're um just kind of waiting to to see what our next steps are there.

Are there questions up here?

Yeah, good.

Uh two questions for you, Katie.

Um when we talk residential units, are we talking apartments as well?

We are not talking apartments as well.

Apartment um people that rent apartments generally are there's um one meter or several meters based on how many buildings there are, but they're not individually metered units.

So the water bill goes to the apartment building owner, not it to each individual tenant.

Sure.

And then what about rental units?

If I have a single family and I'm renting it out to you, how does that work?

So we've been debating that um quite a bit, and we want to fold in some sort of assistance for for renters.

Um what's difficult is that our kind of it's not a contract, but let's, you know, for lack of a better word, is with the property owner, not with the tenant.

Um we do provide assistance heating and um sorry, electricity and gas to renters.

So we do believe there's a kind of a path forward with um people that are renting a residential unit that's not a multifamily um for water assistance, but we're still trying to kind of work through those details if that makes sense.

But we would need like some sort of documentation, whether it's you know in the lease or whatever that kind of outlines who's responsible for the water charges um and things like that, so we can make sure the assistance is going to the right person.

And it doesn't happen often, but I'm not gonna say it never happens because it does that a tenant will pay the landlord for the water and then the landlord does not pay the water bill.

Um that is that certainly has happened.

It's not you know something that happens often thankfully, but it is you know, there are things that we deal with.

Yeah, that's the problem.

I mean, sometimes it's in the lease, and sometimes the the property owner deals with that.

And then on average, what what do we typically collect for interest on I mean it's not much, I can't imagine.

I mean it's it it it hovers right around 100,000 a year.

Okay.

Um for interest.

No, we wouldn't be waiving all of that.

I mean, they'd certainly need to, you know, qualify under you know our program or our regulations, but I would imagine that you know a good portion of that would be eligible to be waived.

Okay, thanks.

Am I correct that the city is getting a updated water billing software package?

We are hoping that yes, that we are going to fold that into the update to our financial systems.

So it'll be our financial software, payroll, and our utility billing.

All right, and do we know if that system uh uh a lot of systems I've worked with, not with water billing, but other worlds, will have a buy to ship to, and in the same manner, could we have a owner and consumer field that could indicate who actually was responsible for the water bill?

Yeah, that's where we haven't procured the system yet, but that's definitely a feature that we're looking for.

Um ideally that would be kind of a self-serve type arrangement.

So we're not fielding, you know, all the calls from landlords, but yes, and we currently do have the opportunity to send a bill to a landlord and a tenant with just kind of addressed to tenant.

Um we have done that.

Um, but we'd like it to be more robust and you know, user-friendly and really market it to to landlords that they can direct the invoice elsewhere, if not just to them.

Thank you.

Okay, that was my understanding too, and how we could assist renters is with the billing.

Um, how much does it cost to turn the water back on?

The the fee, I believe it's a hundred dollars.

And then it it escalates actually, so it's I I have the code here.

I apologize for not knowing that off the top of my head.

But I believe it's a hundred dollars the first time and then it might be two hundred and fifty the second.

Okay.

Are we looking at that at all?

That is also on the list of legislative um remedies that we would like to change.

Yes, the ability to waive that.

Okay, great.

But I may have told you the wrong amounts, but I will double check that and make sure that I have the right information to you.

Okay, thanks.

I'd like to recommend that this moves forward to full counsel for consideration if you all are comfortable with doing that.

Yes.

Okay.

Can I get a motion, please?

Motion to move this document forward to full council.

Second.

All in favor?

All right.

That's four-zero.

Thank you very much.

We'll prepare this for full council consideration.

And um Director Bruckdale spoke of the next piece of legislation that we'll work on, which will be that um waiving of those turn on turn turn-on turn-off fees.

And then she also had um I have codification of residential assistance program.

We haven't we haven't really defined that either.

So that's the work that staff is doing as well.

So just before I forget, we're we're pursuing a rental database for other reasons.

And if there was a way to tie these two together, then it's something to think about.

That's why.

I'll make that note.

And the notes that I'm taking today uh will be reflected in the committee notes for that we're doing now that report that we do now for the full council.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right, we're gonna switch up to charter now.

Okay, so Clara has grouped the sort of the initial listing.

Um as a reminder, council members, this is a living list, so just because we've we have a list today, um we're gonna keep on keeping on with the list.

So but we'll just she she did the work to sort of put them together so that when we have speakers are you know, we have discussions about these items, we can make sure that we're talking about all of the relevant ideas on the same day to the best that we can.

So the idea I think is we're gonna go over the groupings today.

Um we're gonna begin to talk about sort of the framework for moving forward.

Um Clara and I talked earlier today about kind of how we saw this moving forward, and we we kind of vetted this with the council president as well and with Rachel, because again, this is all going to eventually if these ideas become draft charter amendments, they'll require um legal drafting for a resolution.

So we wanted to kind of just make sure we were all on the same page.

So once we begin to have these discussions, we're gonna schedule the sort of discussion schedule the each charter amendment idea for discussion.

Um we will then want to if we decide as a committee that we want to move forward with with those charter amendments, we're gonna want to write up a justification for full council.

This committee will see that justification before it moves forward before we vote on it.

So what we'll do is we'll have a conversation, we'll say yes, this is something we want to move forward with.

Clara and I will then say, okay, this is the justification.

This is what was discussed in committee.

That'll come back and we'll take a vote and we'll move that on for full council.

That way that if you recall, if you were following the charter committee discussion, that's kind of kind of mimics the same.

They would talk about they were talking about the ideas and then they would sort of they were putting together the report, so there was sort of the rationale for why they wanted to move forward.

And then that vote report will that our vote report, our committee report will go to the full council so that they can then take action.

And then the action will be on the concept, it won't be on the resolution.

So then the concept will go to Rachel for drafting the resolution, and then it will come back again for voting.

So does that sort of make sense?

So we won't it the reason we're doing it that way is so that we avoid um since there's roughly I don't know how many I didn't count them, but so that we sort of all get sort of on the same page.

We we provide a lot of public discussion, a lot of public notice that we're doing we're having these discussions because they are charter amendments, and then they go to Rachel for drafting the resolution, and then we still have the required charter wait time anyway, so that that's a whole nother bite at the apple for the public to know that we're having these discussions.

So wanted to kind of go over that, make sure everybody was good with that sort of plan, but lots of lots of bites at the apple, but we want to start moving these forward.

We've been talking about them for a while.

So Miss Clara, do you want to go through your your grouping or do you want me to you have it here so I can easily do it, but it's your work, so I want to give you the opportunity.

Okay.

Okay.

So essentially what we what we'll have is we'll have elections and redistricting provisions.

So we have sort of grouped those ideas here.

I will tell you that I was at MML last week and I was having a conversation with another jurisdiction, and it was really eye-opening that we I'm a strong supporter of open primaries, I always have been, but I think we also need to have the discussion about becoming a nonpartisan city.

I think just it we just have to have that discussion as a perennial discussion.

So I'm gonna add that as one of my as one of my express positions.

Um I know it's a big conversation, but I I realized I was like, why do I really believe anyway?

So we'll have that conversation, but I'm gonna add that.

I wanted to say that out loud.

I didn't want to just add it and not mention it, but um I think it's worth having the conversation.

Just from education, what's a nonpartisan city?

So most other and and the elections uh commission referenced this when they were here.

Uh and I actually push back on them a little bit just for the sake of debate.

But other than us, it's only Annapolis and the city of Baltimore who are still partisan elections for municipal elections.

Yeah, we're definitely an anomaly.

So people just run, they don't run affiliated with the Democrat, Republican, Democratic Socialist or Right.

And so they avoid having a primary election.

And so all this time I've been thinking like, how do we get more and and I know that sounds silly, but it it took someone anyway.

So we'll we'll have the debate, we'll have the discussion.

But um I think if we're gonna discuss having open primaries, I think we should talk probably talk about just having nonpartisan elections too.

Council vice president.

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but just um just to throw it out there.

If you remember when the Charter Review Committee made its recommendations, I had formed at least a preliminary opinion that we could not require parties to open their primaries.

So I just wanted to remind you of that before that conversation gets too far along.

That would be something that we would have to look at really closely.

Well, how about we just bring back that original work that you did and we'll just bring back another reason to go?

Yeah, anyway.

We'll we won't have the debate now.

We'll so um so elections and redistricting will probably take up a lot of our time as as I imagine.

Uh that will probably be the sexiest discussion.

Um vacancy provisions.

City council operations, financial disclosures, public ways and sidewalks, public property, general administration.

And that is it.

The other thing that we sort of discussed today, if and if everyone's in agreement, we talked about sending them is as they as they came out of this committee sending them forward.

So we weren't sort of holding a bunch and then sending them in a group.

Um so if they're easy, it's sort of easy, but if there are less complex things that we can move forward, um and I know Rachel, you had some technical, you always refer to your technical clarifications, like if we can move those forward faster than not moving those forward faster.

So which ones right now look like Yeah.

Yeah.

Easier there, they're more ready to go.

Would that be public ways and sidewalks?

Well, and the only we it's funny, it's like having the only the only other challenge is is that the non-easy stuff, the elections and redistricting stuff has more of a time limit than the other items.

And I'll just I'm just as a devil's advocate, like so I don't want to I don't want to sort of put those on the back burner.

Um I'm I'm open really to how how you all would like to proceed and what order you'd like to proceed in uh as long as we move something forward, we start moving some of these forward.

So I'll I'll defer really quickly.

The feedback from district three is vacancy provisions is a must.

And I for your good point, I think the second is elections and redistricting, but the vacancy is the one I keep hearing about because of the party that Scott Lazier.

I I'm hearing the same thing, Councilmember Brem.

It's the big one, but needs to be done.

So Vice President Nash, so just recapping what I think you said.

So we're gonna discuss and we'll just pick one um you know, redistricting, yeah, whatever we come up with for, you know, we're gonna redistrict, you know, every two years and blah, blah, blah, blah.

We take that concept here, we take the concept and move it to the full council after and then after that legal makes it look nice, and then we bring it back here back to the full council.

Just back to full council.

Okay.

It won't come back here.

Really, the only purpose of us is to package it up in a way that um and and but I should have said, and I apologize, a report of things that we considered but did not take action on will also be included so that if members that are not on this committee want to take action, they can take action.

So if there's something that like doesn't make it through for some reason, they someone else can can do it.

It's just to try to basically do the work of the charter review committee, like put it together so that it can be moved forward.

So after we after we do the work to say, yes, this is a good idea.

Like for example, um there's a vacancy process.

What does that vacancy process look like?

What do we know?

It's not it sounds easy, but it actually is quite complex when we start to unwrap.

But but okay, we do the work and we talk about it, we figure out what we think would be a good idea.

Then we'll move that forward to full council.

We'll we'll debate again all over again because we have three other folks that are gonna, but that that's just that's what I got.

You know, no, no, I'm just making sure I can then we'll debate it again when it comes back in resolution form.

But um so we can I'm happy to prioritize the vacancy provision as first.

Uh that's fine with me.

Does are there opinions today?

I see one, two, three.

I see three of us.

Yeah.

I can use what's here and we can move forward with what's here, schedule it and have the discussion then if you're comfortable with that.

And are there um we haven't yet had we haven't invited anybody to talk to us about this, but we could just schedule the item and then make sure folks know about it.

And if they come in, they come in and if they don't, they don't kind of thing.

Um you mean the community stakeholders?

Yes.

We haven't had like a specific, you know, sort of similar to like the discussions about ranked choice voting, right?

We haven't had a presentation about it.

But um I'm wondering if there's other cities that do this.

That would be a good model or someone to talk to.

Would it be sufficient to gather that have to request that Cloud Claire gather that information?

Okay.

Yes, the starting point.

Claire, I'm not talking about you like you're not here, but you do a great job.

Okay.

But to your point, uh rather than inviting people specifically to come in, I think sharing it broadly is a good idea.

Just on the issues of parties, I can think of two other parties that would say, well, why wasn't I invited?

Maybe three.

Sure.

I'm happy to.

One of the things that I think worked somewhat well last I think a draft schedule is helpful.

Um if if and I I know things can change and when groups or you know, when we're planning and always best made plans, but it was helpful to for the public to know, okay, this was this is kind of the order that we're hoping to go in.

Do we feel like we would like to make an order, like try to like a draft schedule almost of what we're almost how we're prioritizing them, or do you want to take them as they go?

I think prioritizing them is is great.

I don't really know about if we could say timing-wise, but a ranking of priorities I think would be helpful for everyone.

Okay, so I'm gonna I'm gonna take notes if you all want to tell me what I I'm agnostic about.

So if you want to tell me what you'd like to do, I think sidewalks can be less because it'll be what uh Ms.

Claire, the end of July that we'll have the report from the city.

So that can be last okay.

I think either public property or the vacancies should be one or two, one and two.

And colleagues because again the election is coming up quickly.

Should we make elections and redistricting number three?

Yep, that sounds good.

I don't know if there's a point going past number three, because those three are gonna take gobs of time.

That's fine with me.

And I'll what I'll do is I'm going to put these in the committee re in the report that we're going to send a full council so that they have visible everybody has visibility of what we're what we're doing.

I'll add it.

So if you have an other edits, just let me know.

Um I thought we would be like talking about this for a while today, so I apologize that we're ending so early.