One nation under God.

Indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Great, thank you.

And uh we're we're going to switch uh switch presentations.

One and two remain as advertised.

We're going to put the moderately priced dwelling unit ordinance discussion start uh as number three and then finish up with the noise ordinance.

So uh if uh if our power placement person could come up.

There we go.

Thank you.

Yes, please, I'm sorry.

And uh the microphone, you have to hit the button, the red light goes on.

Well, actually, you're your number two.

Okay.

Yep, sorry.

I'm sorry, we don't have a crazy.

And if you could introduce yourself and your company, and uh you because of the way the world works, we have to talk uncomfortably close to the microphone to make it.

Okay.

There we go.

My name is Dave Klein uh with Potomac Edison.

We're up at 421 East Patrick Street, and I manage external affairs for Potomac Edison in Maryland.

And uh I got the question to come and talk about burying power lines in the city.

And actually, I think we discussed that on the streets about six months ago.

And uh so I don't have a formal presentation with pictures and so forth, but I did come to answer questions and and tell you how the process works.

Um a little bit of history uh back in the 80s when I started at Potomac Edison, we were fully regulated from distribution, transmission, uh generation, power plants, it was all Potomac Edison.

And the way we worked, if a project whatever came up and there was something we needed to do to improve uh service, then we would do it, and every year we would go in for a road case to ask for a rate, you know, rate increase or whatever to cover whatever we did.

The world changed in the late 90s with deregulation.

Uh we divested uh the power plant division is a separate company, transmission became a separate company.

Actually, um, as point of fact, in 1994, we had asked, we had done a rate case for a rate increase, and we did not have another one, another rate increase at request until 2018.

So we went 24 years on the same race.

So we're pretty frugal.

We have a pretty good history of being frugal.

Um we deregulated in the late 90s, another thing happened before we were completely regulated in what we you know could or could not do, we did get permission then from the Service Commission from the Public Service Commission that we could do what we call premium service or customer requested work.

And the rules of generally of our tariff and of our world changed in that the philosophy was that uh uh a grandmother someplace sitting on a fixed income should not see her rate increase because of industrial growth or any kind of residential growth someplace else.

So the tariff was designed that for uh commercial industrial growth and development so forth, those customers paid basically to get the service and then they were on their rate.

Um so it's kind of pay as you go.

And that's the th uh the philosophy behind the uh premium service, the customer requested work.

We can do pretty much whatever you ask as long as it's not uh illegal or unsafe.

Um there are things that we can do, things that we will do, things that we cannot do, and things that we won't do.

I'll give you an example.

If you look down uh Patrick Street and Frederick, you know, you don't see any transformers, you don't see anything.

That was done many years ago, and we would never do that again.

Um the there are deep vaults there, transformers are buried in the deep vaults, everything is underground, and we have had some serious problems over the years because of that.

We won't do it again.

As an example, um I think it was 2002 when a hurricane came through, a lot of rain and flooding and so forth.

Well, those vaults fill with water.

And when the restaurants and people downtown are out of power, they want it back because it's their life.

You know, I am the first person that hears about that.

Um the issue we ran into there is when the when a vault fills with water and we have to pump it out, you can't pump it out into the street, it's got to be collected, hauled off, and and tested.

Well, the only company that could do that was out in Cumberland.

So we had to call and wait for a truck in the midst of all these storms, a special a specialized company to come to pump out the underground vaults just so we could get in to work on them.

Um and that happens actually all the time.

We discovered uh in without too many details, we discovered during one of the episodes that a vault was I don't want to say it was filled with grease, but the transformer was swimming in cooking grease.

Um one of the restaurants right up the street had been dumping its um deep fryer oil and so forth out in the street to let it run down into the grates and so forth, which actually ran into our uh transformer vault.

We charged them to have that removed, but it was, you know, you can't work on it.

You can't go down into a vault and work in a situation like that.

And then tragically, it was 2000 um I should remember, it was around 2012.

It was either that hurricane or the Dray Show, but we we had a lot of outages, and we had to bring crews in, and we had crews in from New Jersey, and uh it still chokes me up to talk about it.

But a young uh apprentice lineman was down in the heat of the summer working in the vault vault, and it's very hot.

And lines were grounded dead and grounded, supposedly, and he took his gloves off and touched you know, a connection and it killed him.

Um it was an uh uh an eye opener for the entire company because miles away the line that we had dead and grounded traversed near a high voltage transmission line and through induction it it had an induced current in it, and it was enough to kill the guy.

And uh, you know, we've taken other pr safety precautions since then.

But point is that we can put lines underground, usually, maybe, but we won't do it the way it's downtown Frederick.

That's a one-off.

Um you can actually and and we have done it, there are places where we have pad mounted transformers sitting, and they can be a pain.

Um down near the one parking garage.

We looked for quite some time.

Where can we put a transformer?

If you talked with Zach in your own staff, I know there are transformers sitting in the sidewalk that people have complained about, but if you want underground, that's kind of what goes with it.

You have to have a place to put the equipment.

And that's part of the problem is you're a you're a more matured city.

You have a lot in the ground already.

And for us to go at just walking here and looking overhead, just looking at you know what to put underground, where are you gonna put it?

And it's not just us.

If we take out the poles, now your communication lines, your your your cable and uh phone lines, all of that has to go underground as well, and there has to be a place to put it.

And we have to have our own right-of-way.

We'd have to have a right of way.

So there are places I'm sure where it could be done.

And there I'm sure there are places where it can't be done.

The other problem is, and and and I've done this actually with I've gone through this with several municipalities.

The buildings, if you have overhead lines now, the buildings there are served overhead, and there's a mast head up there, and the line comes in, it comes down and goes down.

Okay, so if we change and we're coming to be served underground, the customer service entrance usually has to be changed.

And in some cases, for example, um, you have a lot of backyard services in Frederick where the the power line goes through the backyards where there's trees and things like that, and they're served from behind.

We would not put an underground line back in people's yards.

It would have to be out on that's the rule.

It has to be out like on the main street.

So now that customer has to spend probably $15,000 or more each to change their service entrance to, you know, it has to be done by a licensed electrician.

It's not something we can do.

So there are a lot of other costs involved.

Just our cost, uh rough estimate I got for us for our part of the work, figure a half a million dollars per block.

And on top of that, you have to do the trenching and conduit and the construction work, the make ready work.

I don't know if that doubles it if you would use your own crews or not or whatever, but the complication is um it's expensive.

We can't do it for everybody.

Um I would offer actually back in the fall, and I would offer again.

I mean, if you want to walk city streets and look and and and discuss it, happy to do that.

But it would add up to a lot of money.

And the question always comes up then with municipalities is if we're going to spend taxpayer money to do this and it doesn't benefit everybody, should we really do it?

And the second thing is if we're going to spend fifty, sixty, seventy million dollars on this, what else could we spend that money on that would benefit people?

Yeah, you you you have 50, 60, 70 million dollars.

The mere fact that you're saying that, it better they better move us into like 2099.

In terms of in terms of doing this.

I'm I'm I'm agreeing with you in terms of what you're saying when you start talking about that amount of money.

You're talking about a lot of money.

Yeah, when you start mentioning that kind of fifty million dollars, that's right.

Yeah, I think it's a good idea.

I mean, if there even if there was a grant.

But go ahead.

So even if there was a grant available and somebody if somebody just handed you $50 million and said, here, you know, do with it what you want, would you would you bury lines underground or would you, you know, build a big swimming pool, skate park, something rec, you know, something else, what?

Uh I d I don't know.

I'm just the that's the kind of the realities of the situation.

Uh we're happy to to work with you any way you can, but but keep in mind that you have to you pay full cost, you know, including the engineering.

So I mean I can look I can walk with you and look at something and explain what's what, but to actually um to we would probably actually hire contracting engineers to do it because our folks are pretty darn busy right now, but it's it's it's an added expense and you would have to pay for all of it, that's the rule.

So you know, I'm happy to pursue, not pursue, and and by the way, while I'm here, I am your contact for anything, Potomac Edison.

So if you have other issues at any time, you know, feel free to ask.

Um happy to help.

Does it make does it make sense to bury the wires if uh CIP project already exists and involves digging up the street?

Does it make sense to to do that?

Yes, if you've got a project already working in the street and you're rebuilding your street or whatever, yeah, you should ask about that.

It may be feasible, may not, but you've already got it dug up.

And you know, we you you would be putting in the conduits anyway.

We did, I mean, I if you go back 30-ish years, we had a lot of problems in downtown Frederick.

There were a lot of sporadic outages and so forth.

The other problem is that underground lines will burn up.

You know, they have an age and they were getting old.

And uh we had to do actually a whole program to replace the existing wires in uh underground in Frederick that are already there, and we really haven't had problems since then.

But it was a nightmare to do.

Nobody wanted uh an outage to replace a wire.

Uh you know, no obviously in your business area and so forth, people don't, you know, we ended up having to work, I think it was like Sunday nights from maybe midnight till 6 a.m.

or something, because people serving breakfast didn't want to be out of powers.

People, you know, with bars open didn't want to be out in the evenings.

It was it was quite quite a task to to get it done, but we did, and it's been much more reliable since then.

And that's the the other problem, you know, part of that problem with underground lines is if a if a tree falls on a line overhead, you see that it's broken there, and you can call me and say, hey, it's bad here this time.

If it's bad underground, everybody goes out, and we don't know where it is, and we have to test and search for the break or the the fault, whatever it is, and it takes longer, and then you can't just splice it.

If you want to splice it, you have to dig it up, so we gotta get a backhoe in to dig it up to fix it, or we take everybody on that circuit out, and that's a nightmare, and then we pull the whole wire out and run the whole wire again, and that doesn't happen in the middle of a storm.

That will happen, you know, a day, a couple days later, and in the meantime those people were out.

So it's not it's not the panacea that it that it can be made out to be.

Um and I understand that it looks better.

You know, I get that.

You know, and I'll give you an example, the the town of Middletown, we talked about this.

And if you go to Middletown up on the hill and you're looking out towards South Mountain, the battle of South Mountain and all like that, and that you're in town and it's you know, beautiful town and all that, and and what do you see?

You see poles there with wires on.

That's that's your view.

And but to get rid of it, it's uh it's the same same problem, same situation.

And the other thing I notice is that on a number of our poles just here around City Hall and in the area, we have uh Cobrahead high Cobrahead street lights.

So if you take those out, now you're gonna have to replace those probably with something.

I'm sure they're there for a reason.

So then you would have to plant a pole anyway with another light on, and there would have to be a service to that and a separate meter, and it's not simple.

Some things are doable, but it's it's not can you do it?

Yeah, we can, but should you do it?

That's up to you.

Great.

Council members, any questions?

So uh uh I'm glad that uh Director Coleman is here.

Is is our standard right now for new uh site plans to have the lines buried?

Like at Kellerton or it should be for new residential subdivisions.

Hi, Tracy Coleman, Director of Public Works.

I've never met in person.

Get your emails all the time.

Yes, it is a requirement for all um non-city utilities to be buried.

Um most all city utilities are buried as well in new residential subdivisions.

Yeah.

So and how do we address the the power line goes bump and stops working and what do we have to dig up the street or everybody goes dark for three days while it gets replaced?

Um we don't address it.

Um we refer to Potomac Edison and they go through the process of um if it's an emergency, um, then we issue an emergency dry utility permit, perhaps a traffic um lane closure permit, temporary traffic lane closure permit.

Um it depends on the urgency of the situation.

Um sometimes they it takes a little bit, thank you, to go zero.

Might as well to go through the review process.

Um we um when we get plans for a I would say a non-emergency or a planned um update to a utility or to an electric line, um we ensure that the work proposed um is not gonna have any negative impact to city utilities, water and sewer most specifically some storm drain.

Um we also want to make sure that the easements are all in line with where they're supposed to be so that um we can help assist residents when they say, hey, someone's digging up, you know, across my street or along the front of my lawn.

Yep.

We get our own right of way.

That's that's uh a pretty firm rule with us.

And the reason is maybe not so as important in a city as out in a county, but uh, if you see a line running down a county road, there's typically a public utilities right of way that everybody can be in.

We may coincidentally be in it, but we get our own right of way, so that if the government, the county, or whoever decides they want to widen that road, and they say we're riding widening our road, you need to move your line.

Then we can say, okay, we will, but it we have a right of way, so you have to pay to have the line moved, not the ratepayers.

And and correct, we uh in in a residential subdivision, the rule has been for some time.

The uh the builder or the developer puts in the trenching, a conduit, the the transformer pads, all that, and we come in and provide the service.

And so uh again, the ratepayer is not paying for all of that work.

The you know the developer is.

Uh and here's an unfair question, but uh I know that I don't know anything.

I my understanding is that when we repave roads, sometimes we do a a deep rebuild, and sometimes it's just surface paving.

There's a better term for the deep rebuild.

It's uh full depth reconstruction.

Full depth.

But pretty close.

And in in your estimation, what percent when we have a a road redo, what percent are full depth reconstructions?

10 percent, 50 percent?

I do, and yeah, I understand.

Um we have done um I I don't know percentage-wise, but we have um tried to present one to two every five-year cycle.

Um we are getting ready to present um our five-year plan.

We will be presenting some full depth reconstruction projects that um we will be asking to either transfer money that you've already budgeted towards the resurfacing CIP to a specific full depth reconstruction project.

Um basically, like I said, you know, it's one or two every five years is what we have been um doing, we probably will step that up with uh with the funding that's been provided by this council.

Baseline, Tracy, what's the last one that's been done?

I'm sorry?

Baseline.

What's the last one that's been done?

The last um full depth reconstruction.

It could have been um Grove Boulevard.

Uh I can look it up for you.

Um there's a couple um pretty much in district three, because it's our oldest roads.

Yeah.

Right.

No, I was just saying, based on how to give idea in terms of what it would afford.

Oh, cost depth.

No, well that's the second question.

That would give an idea in terms of what that looked like, what that full depth reconstruction looks like.

What a full depth reconstruction is a lot of things.

No, no, what I'm saying is the last one.

Well, I was asking a question.

The last one would give idea about what that looks what that looks like because you can see what how it was done.

What was done.

That's why I saw asked the question.

Oh, okay.

And the cost of that was uh I'd have to look that up.

I want to say it's a million to a million and a half, but it uh it all depends on the length of the roadway, if it's a local street, a collector.

Um that we will be presenting to this committee in August, hopefully by the end of our own.

So you try to get this through.

It's the third time you said that.

I know.

No, I was just saying from the baseline, I would guess idea in terms of the last one that was done in terms of a visual of what that what that looked like.

Actually, you know what?

Um now that you say that, uh we I think probably had a conversation about the second street.

Okay.

Um between um Bents and uh I always get these mixed up college parkway.

We did it was fairly close to a full depth reconstruction for the majority of that roadway.

It started out, we were going to resurface some of it, realize that the um the paving section was severely lacking, um, ended up removing the two to three inches of asphalt that were actually there, and put in a good base and then put asphalt on top of it.

I remember that, thank you.

Yeah.

And is a full depth reconstruction project the type that would lend itself to burying the power lines?

Not really.

Okay.

Yeah, I I I thought maybe that was where you were headed.

Um full depth reconstruction, it basically just imagine the surface of the roadway.

Um I can picture it in my head.

I you can't.

Um let's we should have anywhere from five inches of asphalt, and and I'm trying to remember what our paving section is, and then a good layer of a stone base beneath it.

That's it's anywhere from ten inches or so of depth to some of our uh you know, collector roads and arterial roads are much thicker sections, but it wouldn't necessarily lend itself to burying overhead lines.

Um we redid all of or added significant amount of um roadway for Monoxie Boulevard.

We did not bury the lines there.

We relocated um several lines as Dave mentioned.

Um we uh Potomac Edison had an easement um and it ran along what was the old windy gas house pike, um the the utility lines did.

Um we relocated those power poles in partnership with um Potomac Edison in order to change that roadway from a windy two-lane farm road to the four-lane divided roadway that it is now.

And what what about in at minimum with again a full depth reconstruction putting in conduit in anticipation of some future burying?

Does that does that make sense?

It definitely could.

Um one of the things that we have to look at when we consider even a resurfacing of roadway.

We have to ensure that our sidewalks are um if they're not um ADA compliant, we have to ensure that they are.

So in some cases, we will have to um um replace a significant amount of sidewalk.

In that case, um we could work with Potomac Edison to ensure that perhaps we could put some conduit beneath sidewalks.

We we when we do a full depth reconstruction, we don't go out of the right-of-way.

So sometimes we are limited by that.

Um we're looking at Patrick Street from Bent's, not looking at, we're trying to finalize the design for the reconstruction of Patrick Street from Bent Street to Jefferson Street.

Um we are not planning on um requesting burial of of power lines um along that roadway.

Okay, too expensive.

You wouldn't want to bury lines or put conduits under the sidewalk anyway.

It would have to be out from the sidewalk.

You don't want your sidewalk dug up in the middle of a storm with a great big backhoe because we're looking for where the lines broke.

So you want it out in the dirt.

And we have, you know, we have standards for that sort of thing, the depth and so on.

So out of curiosity to your other point, Mr.

Klein, about the cost of actually connecting my house to the underground uh utilities.

Back when Patrick and Market were done.

Uh do we does anybody have any historic knowledge about who paid for those reconnections?

Did the owners of those buildings?

I didn't hear that.

I believe so I I believe it was a city funded project when the lines were buried on Patrick and Market.

Who paid for the cost to connect um individual property owner services to those lines?

It probably was part of the project.

I was part of the project.

Yeah.

All right.

So the city So the city, right?

Correct.

It was it was part of the overall project.

And that would vary house by house depending on that individual house's service entrance.

It could be hard.

Another unfair question, and feel free to say I don't know, but does does DPW have an opinion about the value from a resiliency from a tree canopy from any other reason the the value of bearing lines?

Again, uh I understand money is everything, but just from a philosophical standpoint.

So there I I I mean I honestly it could I I want to I'm kind of neutral about it, frankly.

And um I mentioned Patrick Street and the work we're doing on that design.

Didn't even think about the need to keep the electrical service or electrical mainline outside of the sidewalk makes absolute sense.

Um there are benefits to it because of resiliency, but there are also challenges to it.

And you know, Mr.

Klein has mentioned a lot of those challenges.

Typically easier along a road, country road, you know, artery, whatever, because there's room there.

Inside the city, there's not a lot of room between sidewalks and whatever is already underground and drainage lines and things like that.

My experience where we've we've re put down at the one parking garage and so forth, you really have to hunt to find a place they set a transformer that it's out of the way, and it's it's not easy.

Sure.

Well, and again, presuming we had sixty million dollars, uh what what process would we use to begin the process?

Would Tracy or somebody on her team would call you and then we would with your engineering team walk those blocks?

Yeah.

Sure.

Okay.

And the question is, do you I mean, do you want to look at everything overall, or is there a specific section that you are interested in now?

Um but yeah, contact me and we'll walk down that path.

Okay, great.

Any any closing questions?

All right, is there any public comment?

Great.

Well, Mr.

Klein, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us.

Thank you, Tracy, for your help.

Our next item is uh to discuss enhancing wireless and digital connectivity.

And you got to pull that microphone pretty quickly.

Okay, great.

I have a loud voice, I can speak over it too.

So uh my name is Len Forkas.

I'm the founder and president of Milestone uh towers.

Uh we're uh a company based in Reston, Virginia.

I started the company 25 years ago uh with the notion of partnering with municipalities, schools, utility companies to build wireless infrastructure in places where uh it's the hardest to build, where uh customers uh don't have a lot of choices.

Most of the time wireless carriers want to install on rooftops or on existing structures.

So my goal was to build a company that could utilize the resources of municipalities and schools to solve very challenging and difficult problems for our customers.

So I'd like to just walk you through through uh a slide deck that shows a little bit about my experiences over the 25 years and building infrastructure and uh and talk a little bit about um how it might apply to improving service in the city.

Um I don't know if this is working or not.

I guess it would be helpful if I turn it on.

Or I can just wave and you can advance it for them if you want to.

So there's always a technology.

While we're working on the technical piece.

Um we uh wireless is a I guess exactly right.

Isn't that perfect?

Yeah.

Again, if you if you want to just hit the hit the button to the right, I'd be happy to do it that way.

Yeah, I see.

I'll just I'll just if you want, I'll just wave and you can just advance the slide if you'd like to.

So in a nutshell, um uh when I for when I first started my business, one of my first customers was uh Frederick County School, I guess Frederick County Schools.

Uh and we've partnered to build uh a number of schools and also with Frederick County government.

Um you just want to if you just want to hit hit go, we can there we go, perfect.

Yeah.

Okay, yeah, no worries.

Yeah, I'll just wave and sounds good.

We'll get it we get the hand signals going.

So this means steel, this means they can slide.

So okay.

So uh so yeah, so uh obviously wireless, we all rely on it, right?

I mean, public safety, 90% of the 9-1 calls are going through wireless phones.

Um in fact, uh for families that uh attend children's that attend Title I schools, uh 70% of those kids are getting the internet on their phone.

They can't, those families can't afford uh broadband at home.

And so it's it's a huge, huge way for people to be able to connect to the world uh through their phone because it's affordability.

And then also uh for so many people that work from home uh having reliable phones phone service means they can work from home, they can work remotely uh with or without a broadband connection.

So we all we all know why it's important.

Um we've been in business for over 25 years.

Um we've built hundreds of sites.

We also manage hundreds of sites as well.

We manage existing water tanks, uh towers for public safety, rooftops, and so forth for municipalities, utility companies, uh schools, and so forth.

Uh but we've been uh very fortunate to be based here with half of our businesses in in Reston, Virginia.

Um we also uh build all over the East Coast, so effectively from Delaware to Florida is our our main market.

Our biggest concentration obviously is in Maryland and Virginia, uh, but growing in in the state of Florida and and uh in the southern states as well, where the population density is growing.

Um so our are the three customers we spend the most time with uh are obviously the the easy candidates, uh Verizon T Mobile and ATT.

Um just to give you a little bit of color uh and and uh we talked a little bit uh Mr.

Bream beforehand.

Um so in 2020, our customers uh started the investment in 5G and uh and that effectively you know quintupled the speed of uh of connectivity.

Uh each company spent over 30, 40 billion dollars in purchasing spectrum equipment and uh and the resources uh to be able to deploy that, intensifying the network.

And uh and the biggest conundrum that our c our customers have is that the the price we pay for our phones is really not changed that much, which means that the value proposition for 5G really hasn't emerged, other than maybe we can watch the World Cup, you know, in 4K, you know, from this room.

But for the most part, that's been the biggest challenge for our customers is that the capital investment they've made, it's a build-it will come model, and they all had to invest equally, so one wouldn't have a competitive advantage over the other.

But that is the biggest challenge.

And uh, but uh all things digital flow through the wireless networks, and we're one of the four stools.

So imagine the digital infrastructure world is fiber.

It's uh where data is is housed, it's the networks, these companies, and it's a cell towers.

Those are the four stool four legs of the stool that really prop up the flow of data.

And uh and the one thing that we do know is every morning we wake up, more data flows through the network, and especially with the technology growth we're seeing right now with the compute, it's continuing to grow and it's all flowing through our devices.

Um and so again, we're very proud to have a very strong footprint in Frederick.

We built you know 10 sites in Frederick.

Our most recent site was working with your team uh in uh building a new tower on the butterfly lane location where before you were located on the original water tank.

Uh and so the the team here asked us to look at it, and we were able to successfully develop a site across the street.

Uh and we uh we have uh two carriers, ATT and uh T Mobile, and Verizon has just expressed an interest in joining.

So we so be a fully loaded, fully loaded tower.

Uh but our other Maryland municipalities, we've been we've built, we have partnerships in uh Washington County, uh we've built in Ann Rundle, uh Prince George's uh and many other locations.

Um so this is the tower we built for you uh which uh generates right now 30,000 a year in in gross in net revenue to the city will grow to 43,000.

Over 100,000 has been generated since we built it.

And uh and and it's been a what we believe it's been one of the more successful projects we've had.

And in this instance, the new tower uh was not designed for co-location capability, uh, and so therefore we we we we effectively created the capacity for that.

Um there's really there's really three ways our customers can keep to keep up with demand on the network.

They can purchase and deploy spectrum, which is auctioned off by the FCC, or is owned by other companies, like for example Dish Networks, uh just recently sold most of their spectrum to ATT and to uh Starlink.

And so uh that's so imagine you know spectrum is like a pipe, water pipe.

It's the four-inch pipe has through much flow, 10-inch pipe has a lot more flow.

The bands are different based on uh the density.

So that's the first thing our customers can do is buy more spectrum that gives them more capacity, more throughput and gives them more coverage.

The second is to put the most the most recent equipment uh and that's the 5G the infrastructure.

So effectively have the smartest, most intelligent radios, the smartest, most intelligent uh antennas, uh, and fiber to the tower.

So that's the second way they can increase coverage capacity and throughput to our customers.

But the third one is really the one that I'm focused mostly on is really densification.

And that is when you've got three cells towers that are located within two miles of each other, and as as the community uses more and more data, the the spot in the center of those three that triangle tends to erode.

Their coverage tends to erode.

And when that happens, densification means they install a new facility in in that location.

And so uh so our customers are constantly monitoring the flow of data and and looking at ways that they can keep up, uh, not just with today's demand, but the projected demand in the future.

And so, and that dense densification can occur on a on a new structure, on an existing structure.

It can also occur on other forms of uh uses uh like uh these are examples, right?

So that's the one on the left, that's a macro tower, we build that, that's our bread and butter.

The second tower is we call it mid-cell, and that's attaching to an existing structure like a athletic light, like a light pole, where you only need three or four antennas or five antennas instead of nine or twelve.

Um small cells, which you've seen, which is uh the they don't they don't cover a lot of geography, but it can send a very dense signal in this in downtown areas or in very high traffic areas.

Uh and then of course, you know, water tanks, depending upon you know the the utilization or the capacity, they're useful.

The problem with the water tanks is our customers aren't really crazy about them because every ten years you have to paint them.

When you have to paint them, all the equipment has to be stripped off, put on a temporary pole until you're done painting, and then relocated.

So they're very expensive to maintain for our customers.

They they'll they'll locate in a water tank if it's the only solution.

And a tower solution is not viable, but it's not their first priority.

It's actually the the other preference, uh, I know the gentleman from PEPCO is here, but you know, they go on power lines too, but in the summertime they can't work on them because of the flow and the demand, and they have it's very expensive to hire technicians to work in the power lines as well.

But they can, and sometimes again, that's the only choice.

And then, of course, on rooftops, you know, where you they put sleds or mount the antennas on the parapets.

But those are effectively the five ways in which they can, you know, develop and enhance uh the networks.

Um this is a slide of the type of solutions that we've provided.

Uh that's Frederick High School right there, uh, and that's T-Mobile located there.

We we love the light pole towers at the athletic fields because there's already an existing structure.

Uh we tend to get uh a little bit less visual impact on those type of structures.

Um every once in a while, uh if there's if it's if it's viable and we're near other trees, we can make it look like a tree a lot of times.

It's really hard to do that because they're 125 feet or 150 feet.

But in certain contexts, we've accepted we've executed on tree poles and they tend to not be as noticeable.

But they're they're much more expensive than uh a normal tower.

Um flush mount, which is cluster mount where the antennas are located much closer to the skin of the tower, that tends to have a smaller crown and a less visual impact.

And on that particular tower we built in along Interstate 95, we coded it with uh a special uh material that blends in.

It's like a mirror and it blends in with the color of the sky.

So if the sky is gray or blue, they tend to be less visible.

Uh and then the last one is a marquee tower, which we built at uh North Hakerstown High School, uh where the school really wanted to have an uh an amenity and an element in the landscape.

It was very expensive, but we knew it was a high demand, and all of our customers are behind those panels.

And so they have one of the best coverages there because it's a it's a high spot, but uh we were able to put the name of the school on the panels.

Again, it's a very expensive solution, but in certain instances.

Um in a nutshell, uh I think that the the the key, the key element is to be open for business.

So if the city really really wants to put their best foot forward in the wireless community uh and encourage investment and capital inf investment uh for infrastructure and better coverage, the first thing that the city can do is to be amenable to it.

Uh and of course, what that means is that uh I'll give you a great example.

Uh after we built the butterfly lane site, uh we asked your staff it would be possible for us to you know share some of the location, some of the locations.

And so one of them was clear story park, purple coverage area.

Uh we work with the staff.

It ended up, it was not a site that the staff could support for whatever reason.

It might have been a deed restriction or whatever.

But the tower is not being built on a private site uh a quarter mile north, which is an industrial site, just to the north.

So that was a lost opportunity for the city to get the revenue.

Uh if we could have you know found found a been available to a creative solution, we could have used that site, and that would have been a uh a positive for the city.

But that's where the open for business indifferent makes a difference.

Because then we cuss because our customers are gonna are gonna migrate to the private site first versus the public site, unless you've got a a guide or a Sherpa that will kind of bring them.

And so that's our model is to is to by having an agreement in place with we have 60 agreements in place with municipalities and schools.

So the idea is that we've already pre-vetted all the contractual elements associated with that.

There's not a sales pitch.

I'm just saying is that this is one of the frictionless concepts is that when you're open for business and you bring in a professional company to proactively manage your market your sites in the right location that won't interfere with the use, then that's a that's a net positive.

And then they're more where they're more attracted to those sites because they take less time.

And then, of course, uh permitting buy right buy right sites or allowing for uh existing vertical structures to be co-located upon seamlessly.

That's very important, and and policies can be uh you know focused on that.

Uh and then I think really to me, it's really just about transparency and making sure that the community is aware of what's being what's being proposed.

And that's our that's one of the things we really strongly believe in is whenever we propose a uh a location, whether it's uh on a water tank or a rooftop or a municipal site, we always make sure that we show a visual impact analysis, uh put it on the website, communicate with the neighbors, sending out cards and letters, making sure everybody can see what we're proposing well in advance so they can have input and we can listen.

And so the idea is that if we're if we're the ones that are being proactive in engaging the community, we tend to have a lot less friction with the community because we look we're listening.

Sometimes we have to move this location, sometimes we have to make it look differently.

But the idea is that if you really take a proactive approach to engage the community, then you tend to find people in the community that really are suffering from bad coverage and they become activists for you.

Uh you still have to mitigate the visual impact.

You still have to communicate the the health risk risks, people have health issues, concerns about them.

We document them, we st we s we study the output, we make sure we comply with whatever standards are here today or in the future to make sure that we're well within compliance.

But I think the idea is that you take it head on, you focus on uh being very professional and very objective, listen, make sure we pick good locations.

But I think those are some of the fundamentals associated with just building an overall approach to encouraging the investment, because that's really what it takes in the end, is our customers need to invest and their capital, they have to get a return on their investment for their capital.

I think that's kind of the key drivers in how they decide things.

So I've done all the talking, so I'll stop talking and answer your questions.

But thank you very much for the opportunity to share my thoughts and my experience with you.

Yes, well, thank you very much.

Uh council members, any questions?

I have a question that may or may not work with this, but we had um spoken with a different committee about providing wireless service outdoors.

Would we need a tower like this to provide that kind of service?

Or is that is this a completely different topic?

For which type of service?

I'm sorry, I didn't know.

So if we were to prov provide outdoor Wi-Fi, for example.

Yeah.

Um, I mean, that's that's kind of what our our customers provide.

But for like a private Wi-Fi network in terms of uh third like a wireless uh service provider that would provide connectivity to homes.

No, to for outdoor use for for being in the park or city parks.

So we have a lot of amenities in the city parks.

We have a lot of men city parks, of course, are highly populated areas.

Yeah.

So what one of the things that we do is in all of our structures, we design capacity for the municipality to use it to use one spot on the tower for public safety or public communication and so forth.

So that's another benefit is uh if you wanted to put Wi-Fi repeaters on the tower connected to a switch on fiber that you control, that's uh that's something that we would encourage because we think that's a net positive.

Another question for Director Coleman, thank you for being here today.

Uh uh, if if we move forward with a discussion, uh does the city need to have three bids?

I I just don't want to make sure we step in anything.

Um that is uh something that we would have to look at.

I'm not really sure.

Um I think we have sent out um requests for proposals or requests for qualifications of various types of professional services or um honestly it's something that we would have to talk with our purchasing and procurement departments about, just to ensure that we're doing it the right way.

Um technology may be a little bit different.

Um that tends to be internal technology um than external technology, but um my impulse, which is uh dangerous, is is to say, well, yes, let's put together a plan for additional sites in the City of Frederick that you anticipate based upon your technology we need, uh, and then sit down with our internal experts and figure out do those sites make sense and what what the cost-benefit relationship would be.

But I don't want to spend the vendors' time and money if that's a dead end.

I that's why I'm asking.

Right.

So um when um Len and I and Mark had talked um in pre preparation for this meeting, um that was something I think that you shared that you have either been a part of um where municipalities put out some kind of request for proposals or request for qualifications and various um you and competitors of yours bid on things, but also that there are sometimes um maybe contracts that that exist that we could um uh the cooperative contracts that we could you know join um that already exist and we don't have to go through that bidding process.

But I I don't want to get too far down that road and say something that I shouldn't say.

Um but it I think honestly I mean it's a possibility to go a bunch of different directions with it.

All right.

I uh of these three actions, I'm I'm not thrilled by buy right co-location, but I certainly am interested in knowing what sites might exist, and then to your good point, having a transparent public discussion about whether those sites would work for the the broader population.

Well what what would the action be?

To to ask for exactly that through your department or through purchasing or um I think it continued conversation with my department um with Len, um, and then we can in parallel just chat with the purchasing department to determine what the appropriate route is to go if we wanted to you know find particular sites and um see if there is anyone who wants to build a tower there, if it's the right place, um or if there is already something in existence how we could improve what is there.

Okay, because I I as as we talked, our neighbors at Warman's Mill are really interested in in getting better coverage.

And I'm sure there are other parts of the city where they're wishing the bars were a little bit higher.

So I I I'd like to get moving on this.

If council members you you're okay with that.

Moving forward with a further discussion.

Yeah, yes, that's correct.

Well, one thing that I think is is relevant is that uh we already have a contracting vehicle because we built the butterfly lane site.

Right.

And it matches the same economics in in all the jurisdictions in Washington County, Frederick County, Prince George's County, Android County, Frederick Fairfax, Loudon, City of Manassas, Prince William Stafford, fuck here.

Those are all the jurisdictions we we we dominate in this area because we're right here.

Right.

And they're and they all have the same criteria.

They're all the same deals.

Well what should we do?

Yeah, I think two to three months we can take a look at our existing agreement.

Um actually I just pulled it up.

It was and we approved it in 2021 for the butterfly lane site.

Um take a look at that and see if and how that could be expanded if that's the the way that we want to go.

Yeah, and and then at that point when we talk about the sites, it will be at a public hearing and residents can come and we'll talk about those sites.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Great.

All right, any closing questions?

All right, well, thank you very much.

Thank you, Director Coleman.

All right, our next presentation will be from Jody Astoich from Health and Human Services.

Okay, good afternoon, Jody Ostech, City uh housing policy advisor for the City of Frederick.

Thank you for the opportunity to come back and talk once more about uh the moderately priced dwelling unit policy, and I know that we're looking at a lot of revisions to the ordinance and this is really gonna be like a level set overview of some of things and some preliminary recommendations that we are gonna go through.

Am I clicking or are you?

Yeah, I announced it at the start that we were flipping items three and four.

Battery looks good.

I don't know why it.

Thank you, Stephanie.

We're making you work hard tonight.

So as you all know, um, that's not the first slide.

Pardon me.

Thank you, ma'am.

I'm sorry.

That's my thought.

Okay.

Um you can stay where you are for right now, ma'am.

Thank you so much.

So talking about the city housing fund here, and we know that the city housing fund is currently the money from the payment in lieu for the moderately priced dwelling units to developers, that money goes into there.

Currently, the ordinance calls for any developer doing 25 or more units to do 12 and a half percent of those units that are moderately priced, which should reach the 70 to 90% AMI customer.

Okay.

Um and right now we have a payout option that the developer may go ahead and pay out of that requirement.

And um in 2023, that ordinance was updated to $2 per square foot, and there's a calculation for how they figure all that out.

Um with what we currently have in the pipeline, we really only have two projects right now that are on deck for the $2 per square foot, and it's gonna be some time before we see how that will actually play out for us.

Um then, of course, that money that is paid for that goes into the city housing fund.

Um right now we have about 4.5 million in the city housing fund.

Again, current ordinance, um, offsetting the cost of operating the program, purchase or reseller rent and PDUs, these are all in the ordinance, addressing the affordable housing needs of lower income people, um, special populations, doing home buyer education, grants for accessibility and modification, energy, um, emergency loans for mortgage defaults for um lower income households, health and safety, and one of the most popular ways we have obviously used this fund is to help to finance some of the low house low income housing tax credit projects.

So um I think this was a request a couple years ago to look at which ones we should actually keep.

And I'm gonna make a little bit of a different recommendation you'll see later, but like this is a way to sort of streamline and these are for sure items we think uh in the black that should remain.

Please advance.

Okay.

Some of that previous slide, please, Stephanie.

Because some of those in a red were duplicate efforts.

Some of those were duplicate efforts.

Some of those are duplicative efforts, yes.

And um, we had a meeting yesterday where I believe Director Campbell expressed that this was some of the stuff he presented to council last year, not long after he started, and he's since had a little bit more time to think about and evaluate where we are with this and what we might recommend going forward.

Yes, because it was very encompassing under when we started having a conversation.

So thank you.

So since 2017, um, here's an example of awarded projects, and I want to give this a little bit of legs here for you so you have uh an understanding.

So five um these were all projects that were recipients of funds from the city housing fund.

So we have 528 North Market Apartments, those were 59 units.

Um South Street Center was 96, the junction was 179 units, Mattisona North Market is 60 units, the habitat project is 12, the redevelopment of Lucas Village 22.

Um, and all together, and this is actually not an exhaustive list, these are just the examples, but those examples alone contributed 628 new units to the city, affordable units.

And I think this is really important to understand because we are often asked, should we have make developers pay, or should we make sure money goes into the city housing fund?

Well, here are 628 units that exist because of the city housing fund.

So these are some of our high-level recommendations right for now.

Um a lot of the items on the list that, like I said, there were 10, these can be streamlined to be more concise in what they could actually cover.

And I provide a couple of examples for you.

So right now they can be grants or loans for health and safety, accessibility and energy needs.

Those represent three different bullets on the list, right?

So it can kind of be brought to a concise place.

Currently they exist separately on the list, and they both address homeownership issues, okay.

So there are some ways that those could be consolidated and streamlined, and that probably would be easier for tracking progress as we go forward.

So for example, number one, if there was a what are we talking about energy needs?

That that means a lot.

Yeah.

Energy uh electric bill, what are we talking about in terms of that?

Thank you for asking.

Um, this is a gap.

So there are a couple of city existing programs that use these funds currently.

Weatherization would be one of them.

But weatherization does not um cover things.

I think an example um director Stewart gave yesterday was that hey, weatherization might cover the HVAC, but as part of doing that assessment on that home, the roof needs a repair.

And so if we don't go ahead and repair the roof, what's the point of replacing the HVAC?

Okay, so um, or it doesn't solve all the issues of replacing the HVAC, I guess I should say.

So it's a gap filler for weatherization, that would be an example.

Not utility bills.

No, no, I'll just be clear.

Um previously in the previous slide, the reason why it's the previous slide, because some of this um finance is is in regards to what it could be used for.

Yes.

And of course, you listed the units as well that were the actual units that were actually built or we contributed to.

I guess my question is how much of that funding has been used towards those other means.

I don't have a number in front of me at the moment, but I could get that for you.

Yes.

That would be something I could do an analysis on and bring that back.

Um the reason why I say that because it is it and I'm not saying it's not worth it, but in terms of maximizing or how it's used.

Mm-hmm.

Part of that's of course is the great need, what's the greatest need, but also in terms of prioritizing what that is, and that's why I asked in those various um areas.

Um, what was the what was the money that was used for or how was it allocated?

Yeah, I can get that for you.

Yes.

Yep, and um so weatherization, I know it helps do supportive services for permanent supportive housing and things like that.

But yes, I can bring that back to you.

And you'll see when we get to the next slide.

I'm not quite ready to go there, but when you see me get to the next slide, I'll make a recommendation about that too.

Okay.

I'm sorry, back one more time.

Um thank you.

Um, so another recommendation would be um allowing for catch-all or flexible language within the ordinance.

This is not about power, this is about responsiveness.

Okay.

This is about our department serves our most vulnerable residents, right?

So we want to be able to have the ability to be able to say we think a change need is needed and have that flexibility to bring that forward.

Um, another recommendation that we have is setting AMI restrictions on how the money can be used.

So an example would be something very broad, like, hey, this fund is used to support residents living between 30 and 80 percent or zero and eighty percent, or like whatever that would be to just like clearly define what the fund is for.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

So we do recommend the creation of a separate ordinance that would pull um city housing funds sort of out of the current MPDU ordinance.

There are two reasons mostly for this recommendation.

And one is for really clarity of language and helping people understand that the ordinance is about the moderately priced dwelling units and how they're paid.

The city housing fund is actually how we make MPDUs.

So they're two very distinct activities, I guess is what we're trying to say.

And being able to have people uh right now, MPDU is used interchangeably, right?

And I think when we go forward and tomorrow we know there's the press conference on the housing task force recommendations, but when we start to look to diversify the funds that are put into the city housing fund, it's a good place to begin to make a distinction between those items.

So if that were to happen, this is where you see my next recommendation is to take out the MPDU phrasing in the eligible activities, if that makes sense.

Yeah.

So to your point about knowing where the money is going and what other activities it's going to, this again is still on City Housing Fund.

Um one of the things that we recommend is that we set priorities that align with two different things.

Uh one would be for programs.

So city programs, nonprofit programming, those folks that are out there fill in the gap the services we don't provide.

And the second would be for those affordable developers that come to us and need that gap financing.

So that's a recommendation on the table.

And obviously aligning with the affordable housing task force recommendations that we'll learn more about.

And I know that we'll be in much deeper conversation.

Um we'll be back in front of you to talk about some of those things as well.

Great.

Thank you.

Yep.

Council members, any questions for Jody?

Stephanie, can you go up to the last slide, please?

So I guess in terms of this, um Jody, one of the questions I would be asking is particularly for the grant process or even gap financing.

And I believe, of course, department having leadership having flexibility at the same time.

Are we talking about percentages?

Are we just talking about open?

Like, say, for instance, for gap financing, we'll say 80 percent of the city housing fund to be used for gap financing, 20 percent be used for grants, or is it just I'm asking because I think the whole intent is we want we want units to be built.

And we and of course we want people to stay in our homes.

I mean, so it's uh Right, right.

There's a units built people to stay in their homes.

We want we want both of those.

At the same time, we use why I asked about the the financing of it, the amount was what are the what's being used?

Because that that can help dictate in terms of how we now prioritize what what the priorities are.

I think we'll have to come back and do some analysis for you because there was a while that we didn't give out very big numbers, right, from the city housing fund.

And in 2024, we gave out like 4.2 million.

And some of that was but two projects.

That's what I'm saying.

And that's what I'm saying.

And of course, that that is given us about 250, I heard 1790, close to 300 units here.

Uh let's see, that would have been 230 units.

So two projects.

179 is 179 and the other one is 60 units.

Oh, 60, yeah.

I'm not I'm not good at money.

Um so there's 230.

So 4 million dollars, 230.

And I guess the other part is in that we can see that we're and we also know those duplicate efforts as well when we've seen this previously, this previous slide.

Yeah.

So some of that may not be clear in terms of what's been allocated from this fund as opposed to the other the other fund is that's available as well.

And I'm not sure, uh, councilman, if you're familiar with we were asked for another request that's a much deeper dive on this.

I'm not sure that analysis was in there, but I will take that into consideration what you're saying that when we come back with those deeper um recommendations.

And I guess it's for the record.

Uh I've been a big strong advocate for the city housing fund, as you well know.

So um that's that's something I'm in favor of.

And then of course, with the others, and I'd be curious to hear how the I'm pretending like I don't know what the recommendations are for tomorrow.

And I mean, I guess I don't want to get off anyone a cliff notes on one to come.

Any other questions?

So j just quickly do we have any projects in the pipeline now where somebody is requesting uh gap financing or gap support?

Um we do have a project in the pipeline.

That project is the um Himes Avenue project with the county land that's in city limits.

Okay.

So that's the one that's currently in the pipeline.

I believe it's over 100 units, like 125 units or something like that.

Um, but they're not yet at the place where they're making their submissions and things like that.

But we've already had a conversation about it, and I've already used my tool to run a calculation to see how we might the city might contribute to that project.

Right.

So we're prepared to spend some of our four and a half million dollars to help support that.

Good.

Okay.

Um I I really appreciate your taking the time to share these initial sets of recommendations and then coming back with the additional work that you said you can do.

Any other closing questions?

Thank you very much.

All right.

Our final uh presentation uh will be on the uh noise ordinance proposal.

Uh good evening, sir.

Uh again, my name is Mike Fry.

I am with the uh City Attorney's Office.

Tonight I feel like uh one leg of a of a tripod, because my other two legs aren't here.

Uh Lieutenant Corbett and uh the City Attorney and uh they each have very important uh um uh comments about this ordinance.

Uh I know this has been an issue that's been around for quite a while, and I know that the you three council members and and the council in general know the the the uh issue of excessive noise and the effect it has on the quality of life uh for for city residents, not only as far as uh their their well-being is their ability to sleep sometimes.

Uh we started in earnest only about two or three weeks ago to to put this in the on on paper, and I think you have a copy of uh uh a version that uh uh Ms.

Nesson or Ms.

Gray does read.

Uh we started off without really a lot of direction.

We we I took a lot of input from the from law enforcement because I think law enforcement is the first line there.

They're the ones that are going to be getting the calls first.

So uh I work very closely with Lieutenant Corbett to identify uh the major issues.

And from law enforcement perspective, it's it's the downtown uh the bars eating uh restaurants establishments, the noise that that comes from them and and the complaints that their officers received.

The other one that uh needs should have been addressed, and and we haven't really addressed it in the ordinance, the old ordinance, is uh the outdoor activities, outdoor events, such as the things that happened in Carroll Creek Park, uh, some of the parades that some of the downtown events were uh amplified sound is uh a concern.

And the issue from a law enforcement perspective is that our officers, you know, uh will go to a uh a restaurant or a bar and perhaps issue a citation for uh exceeding the noise limits.

And that person rightfully says, well, you know, what about the noise from the the the uh the pride parade or uh or the whatever parade it was, you know, that you can hear a mile away, and nothing happens to those people because we haven't really regulated or even addressed those special outdoor kind of events.

We had there's exceptions, of course, for the uh uh the the fair uh sporting events, things like that.

But that's by statute.

And one of the issues that come up when we were thinking about this is how could we allow certain outdoor events to exceed the state uh minimums or maximum their maximum noise limits.

Uh and we can't do that without uh the General Assembly uh agreeing to it.

They would have to uh amend the the law.

Uh for example, Howard County uh had the uh the state law amended for I think it's Meriwether Post for noise that's uh above and beyond what the maximum levels are.

And uh we would have to go if we were going to allow you know a temporary outdoor event to exceed uh the state maximum uh uh levels.

So that's what that is one issue that we we may want to address, I don't know, through the Council, through the deli, you know, our delegate, I don't know.

Uh but that that's a problem that that we were trying to address.

When I wrote this, I wrote it from a the perspective of uh trying to look forward and not have to come back in a year or two to to amend things.

So my my version was quite a bit more uh comprehensive than Ms.

Gray's.

Ms.

Gray is an excellent editor.

She she paroded down uh quite a bit.

Uh but some of the uh, like I say, some of the things that we want to address were and we want to maintain a vibrant downtown nightlife with bars and restaurants, but there has to be a uh uh a fair balance between the people who live there and their quality of life and and uh the the uh the noise that comes from from those establishments.

So we are trying to address that, and uh we also want to make sure that we we cover the First Amendment events because we are getting a lot more of those too.

So um I if you have any specific questions, I'll be happy to answer them.

I'd say without Lieutenant Corbett and Ms.

Gray here to to be the subject matter experts uh for some of the policy uh uh positions behind it.

I am kind of at a loss.

I I I'll give it a try from based from my discussions, but uh I don't know I'll be terribly helpful.

Council members, any questions or comments at this time?

I know this is the first this is the first time we we've taken a stab at, and without a lot of input from the council and from your committee, uh, you know, in which direction that perhaps we should go that we haven't gone or that we have gone that we need to draw back on, things like that.

I just have a question for for clarity, and forgive me if I have read this incorrectly, but it sounds like that during the daytime we can make a lot of noise.

Is that not at that point?

There's still there's still maximum levels for for daytime.

Uh and it was uh I think they're in the chart on page uh five five.

Uh there's still maximum uh noise levels uh for like and and there's in industrial, commercial, and residential.

There are still maximum limits for those during the day.

And and like say the problem that I was facing was those outdoor events that happened during the day.

They're going to exceed those those minimum uh those maximum uh decibels.

And by law, we should be enforcing that.

We should be enforcing that at the point of uh sound.

We should have someone there monitoring the sound so it doesn't go over uh 62 decibels uh during the daytime or over 52 decibels at nighttime.

Uh so and we haven't been doing that.

And that's where we we try to address it, and uh I I think it I think it's still in uh uh Do you have a reference point for like what is 62 decibels sound like?

Like can you compare it to a lawnmower or is there or do you have a chart?

Thank you, Mr.

Google.

I thank you.

I I don't have a point of reference for you.

I'm sorry, I don't know.

Okay, according to this chart, moderate sound, normal conversation in dishwashers, certainly not mine, I have a very quiet one, is at 60 decibels, and we're saying that at 62, so people can't mow their lawns.

I mean leaf blowers.

Again, we we haven't set these.

These are set by state law, and we cannot we can make it stricter.

We just can't make it uh less strict.

We can't make it more lenient unless we go to the General Assembly and ask them, uh like Howard County did for Merriweather.

But that's the only exception, I think that uh that's in there.

And we have uh well, and I'm sorry, we do have the exception for the the city, the fair, the county fair.

That that is one exception where the General Assembly is allowed uh made that a specific exemption.

Just out of curiosity, I had a request from a resident uh about whether he could see a red line version of this.

Is this a brand new document because the prior documents are all being repealed, or is there a red line version of this that we could make public?

Yeah, uh I'm not sure how Ms.

Ms.

uh Gray set this up, honestly.

Uh sorry.

Could could you find that out for me?

There's not a redline version available right now.

There's not a red line version available.

There should be.

There might be.

Uh I don't have it.

Yeah.

No one said we don't have it.

Right.

We don't.

We don't have it.

That's what I'm saying.

You know, and uh, and I don't have it.

No, that's what I'm saying.

Rachel may have it.

Well I'm saying we don't have it.

That's the same thing.

Oh okay.

Yeah.

Uh the second, just in in broad terms, uh understanding that the State table is the one that we are using as the reference.

When there are other references to decibels, what where did we what resource did we rely upon to identify those numbers?

Well, we have to rely on the state law, and that's that's in that chart there.

I'm sorry if I misunderstood the question.

I guess I'm sorry.

Uh uh a better question would be at one point there is a reference in here to uh it is on page eight, plainly audible standard.

Yes.

And it refers to the officers' ordinary auditory senses.

And again, I had feedback from residents asking if we couldn't put a specific DBA on that, which I thought made sense.

Yeah.

My recommendation would be 40.

But I think that that was more directed at those downtown business uh, you know, the the eating and drinking establishments.

And the officers aren't gonna when they show up, they're not gonna have a sound meter on them.

So they have got to uh use some judgment, you know, a hundred feet from the uh the source, you know, if they can hear it plainly that that might be a violation, and or at least they could go and talk to the sponsor and uh ask them to to turn it down.

Because I think at that point they're the officers responding to a citizen complaint about noise.

Sure.

And they and they are trying to do something.

So but plainly audible is in in state law.

It is a it's a recognized uh means for measuring uh or at least evaluating noise and then uh yeah.

Good to know, thank you.

Ms.

Marquis.

So we have had a lot of downtown complaints uh and in my own neighborhood about of these motorcycles or the engines, but the you know um but there doesn't seem any action taken, and I know that's really difficult to enforce because you again with the sound meters and so uh is that enforced, and if so, how, and if not, how can it be, or how is it in other jurisdictions, if you know.

I don't know.

But uh again, I I would think that an officer called to for a complaint for a loud uh motorcycle or something like that, uh, could use his his senses, his auto plainly audible senses and and make a determination whether uh that sound is is probably exceeds the the maximum.

It's a gray area, honestly.

Uh and I and I don't know how the officers are expected to do this, but again, it's a tool that they have that we're trying to give them to to deal with those complaints.

And it may not be something where it's there's a citation issue, but it might be I'm gonna go to the source of that sound and ask them to turn it down.

So any other questions?

I will thank you.

Uh stand by because we're going to ask for public testimony or to public comment.

So I I I would hope to come back once once we get some some feedback from from this committee and uh and uh have a chance again to twig some things uh and uh give you a little bit better idea of where this should be.

Okay.

Great, thank you.

All right.

Uh if there is public comment, uh go ahead and uh stand at the back or come on up first come, first serve.

Step out of the way.

And when you do comment, please introduce yourself by your name and your general area of residence, and you can go ahead and sit down, make sure that the uh red light is on and lean close to the microphone because the sound system requires that.

Thank you.

My name is Francis Grobashewski.

I live on uh the corner of Third and North Market.

I own the up on market restaurant.

Uh we've been here about uh 13 years.

When we first came, I was out on the street across the corner, coming across the street, and there was a car pulled up at the stoplight, and a police lady there, I think her name was Carrera or something like that.

I understood her husband had been on the force as well.

And she said, hold on.

She said uh you have to turn your radio down.

They're blast, they were the radio was blasting, you could hear it outside of the car.

And uh she said we have a noise ordnance, and then she corrected them, they rolled up the window and went on.

So I talked to her, and she said that that like radios and things like that, you you're not supposed to be able to hear them outside of your vehicle.

And I said, Well, this is great, because I've lived in places where they had rooftop bars and things like that, and it would go through a whole block of buildings, the noise.

And so anyway, when we finished our building, six-year renovation, the 1770 building, and we opened, and then um uh then uh COVID hit, and uh then this we opened in the winter, so we didn't have any outdoor seating.

And a few months later we had permission.

Well, we had a permit, but we also had permission for the governor to set up, so we did.

And um the noise in the spring was deafening.

Deafening.

Motorcycles.

We had we have a beautiful uh we have hedges out in front that we used as part of our permit, and that's what we still do.

And uh we'd have people from around the country stopping in.

They said, This is a beautiful town.

You have beautiful buildings.

This is a beautiful building, but it lacks ambiance.

I had a number of people say that, and that was because of the motorcycles and the hot cars, and uh just the inconsiderate drivers.

And the motorcycles with radios blasting, you could hear them two blocks, three blocks coming up from South Market, and you could hear them two or three blocks beyond.

Now after the COVID, we didn't have as many people, many people sitting outside and as before, so it's a little bit different.

But it hasn't ceased.

And on the side streets, it's even worse because my neighbors up and down 3rd Street, North, I mean west and east tell me that it reverberates.

There are noises that I don't hear from where I am that they hear because it goes right between the buildings.

Now I if I'm out outside, I can hear those those those they're modified, modified vehicles for a lot.

And a lot of people do it, they modify it themselves.

They go.

So I I talked to police.

The police said go ahead and finish up, please.

Okay.

Police said we can't we there is a noise ordinance, but we don't have devices to measure.

That's what they told me before.

They also said that the state police have the devices to ticket those are illegal.

A lot of those people are illegal.

They have the devices to the state police, but they said we don't, so we can't ticket them for that.

So the biggest problem when I saw this ordinance or uh took a look at it, I said this is I don't sense a problem other than these cars and things of that sort.

Great.

Thank you.

And that's what needs to be addressed.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

And there are technologies that can do that today.

We have all kinds of technologies.

Great.

All right.

Is there any other public comment?

Again, uh identify your name, general address, and per our last discussion, please keep your remarks to three minutes.

I'm Kate Green I'm Kate Greenwood and I live at 116 East Church Street.

Um I just wanted to make a comment regarding something that you said, sir, about um the difference between holding an establishment to a noise uh mandate versus um an activity like a pride event or like live at five, just being a couple examples.

Um I think that as a resident downtown um and my neighbors agree that, or I can't speak for my neighbors, but the general consensus is that live at five is um a community event that happens once a week within a certain number of hours, and it happens after the work day.

Um sometimes start their music or um entertainment as early as eleven in the morning, and then it continues all day, and that's seven days a week.

So there's a huge thing to remember when you're thinking about the difference between um what's allowable for a one-time event that may be getting a permit for their one um instance versus an establishment that plans on having a calendar events that's every day all day long.

Thank you.

Great, thank you.

Is there any other public comment?

Council members, thanks.

My name is uh Greg Brown.

I own uh Brewers Alley in Bennstown, um downtown Frederick.

Spend a lot of time down here.

First off, I think it's sad that we have to have conversations and potential ordinances like this, because I think first and foremost, um always want to do right by the community.

So I mean, my team is well aware that if there is ever an issue with a neighbor, those are the type of things that get to me relatively quickly, and I do my best to address them in person and more specifically that there's something that we can control over that's reasonable.

We we definitely try to work as best we can.

In my time in Frederick, I really I've maybe had one situation that we were able to work out, so I'm not I'm kind of confused on where this where the priority of this topic is as of today.

Um I think I requested it'd be nice to have a red line version just to compare what we're changing.

Um I also think obviously I I work in hospitality.

Um I think that some of this language seems to specifically target hospitality.

I mean, I probably spend 80 to 100 hours a week in downtown Frederick and on a daily basis.

I observe littering, trash, public urination, unruly and illegal illegal activities and other noise that downtown that is totally unrelated to hospitality.

So I think it's a little presumptive to with the comments that are currently in this version.

I would also add that I think some of the language seems subjective.

For example, we note audible.

So I think that's important to take into account.

I realize this focuses on amplification and noise, but the document also focuses on mental health.

So we have a situation that occurs in front of one in front of Brewer's Alley frequently in which there's panhandling and music going on.

We've called the cops many times and requested he move.

We've directly spoken with him politely and asked him to move.

He refuses to.

Are there other comments?

Good, good, good.

You think didn't want to yell in your ears.

Also just want to add that the way it's written now in this proposed um verbiage is it says 100 feet or less.

That means if you stand next to my door when we have very soft music playing, and you could hear it with the door open, then we could be cited.

Um also want to look at the the financial impact of this.

It puts all of the burden on the business owner to prove their innocence by uh decibel monitoring, sound studies.

We've uh we're developing another project downtown um at 46 South Market Street, and we paid for a sound acoustical study because we were going to do a restaurant downstairs and a business office upstairs.

Um I think it was at least 12 to 15,000.

We got a quote to do an acoustical study.

You ask any business owner downtown if y'all have an extra $15,000 in their pocket because somebody called in a complaint.

You're gonna have a lot of businesses closing.

Really, it with no measurable decibel level at a certain distance, it you can't enforce this.

Like you can try, but you're gonna just put everybody out of out of um business.

Uh also just want to comment like the opening intro to these documents is a very accusatory uh towards lawful business owners who've gone through I I can't I have a whole trophy room of permits from the federal, state, FDA, TTB.

Uh there's an entire trophy room of permits that I've I've won and paid for uh from every level of all the way down to my sewer water.

I have that permit on my wall as well.

Um I do everything by the book, legal.

I'm open.

I've waived my right to search and seizure from both the federal and state level because I manufacture alcohol.

And now someone can call in a complaint because they opened my door and heard.

To me, this is just unreasonable at this point.

I totally support reasonable measures that we can measure, give the police the tools to do their job.

Um, but if I wheel out my forklift and unfortunately drop a bourbon barrel or rum barrel on the street and it goes.

And it's over the decibel limit, I can get a call.

Because it anyone can hear it and call in an issue and cite me for a thousand dollars, uh two thousand dollars and a five thousand dollars.

If you look in the code, there's almost nothing else that garnishes a five thousand dollar penalty in thirty days in jail um for making a noise downtown.

It just seems um pretty excessive.

So I think that's all I have to say.

Great, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Are there any other public comments?

Good afternoon.

My name is Eric Schultz.

I own Jojo's restaurant on Tap House on East Patrick Street.

Um sort of alarmed by this as well.

We've had entertainment for 14 years.

I've managed it and run it for the past four years.

Um we have a professional sound system.

We've done everything we could do to be the best at what we are with that.

We do own a decibel meter, we do check the room.

Um I think some of the numbers here are kind of unrealistic.

Merry Weather Post Pavilion was mentioned, their decibel outside is typically between 100 and 110 decibels.

In our restaurant where we have the stage, we look to shoot for 90 to 92 decibels.

We have two doors for a sound deadening as well.

If both doors are open at the same time and you're on the street, you're going to hear music.

The door closes, it goes away.

It seems as if we're guilty before we've even been charged with if someone shows up, it's a discretionary call by a police officer if it's too loud or not.

I get it if we're if we're through the roof and over the top, but if somebody calls and complains, we're getting a fine.

It's as simple as that.

And if we get three, it's five thousand dollars.

What happens after a fourth?

I mean, everybody here I think would be willing to do everything they could do to make the community happy, but I feel like a lot of us are kind of being punished for doing it right.

And by some of these rules and the way they're written, can put businesses out of business.

Another thing, I've owned a construction company for 20 years that primarily works with Marriott.

I've done testing with them on decibels and how it goes between rooms and things like that.

That costs money.

It costs a lot of money.

I mean, as Alan uh Brian said, to have any company come in, you're gonna spend 10 to 15,000 just to be told how to fix it.

No one downtown can afford that kind of money.

And then the the repairs could be 100 to 150,000 on top of that.

And most of our buildings are 150 years old.

So I don't see how punishing us before we've done it wrong is gonna help anything as far as getting people coming downtown and what all these businesses do to promote Frederick and the downtown lifestyle and everything that goes on with that.

So that's all I really have for it.

Great, thank you.

And I will say a decibel meter is about 40 bucks.

40 bucks.

Great, thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Kara Norman with Downtown Frederick Partnership.

Um clearly this policy is really important to both residents and businesses in our downtown community.

Both are critical to our success.

I appreciate that this is a first straw, and I think that there needs to be a lot more input, both from the community, city staff.

Um, all of that needs to be a part of the conversation.

Um I want to emphasize how important entertainment is to downtown Frederick.

You've heard from some of our business owners.

It is a key part of the success of the fiscal health of our businesses.

And while we have restauranteers here tonight, and they're the primary folks who are you who are having re entertainment within their building, our retailers benefit from that as well.

So while we may think of this as a restaurant-only conversation, retailers benefit from the traffic that's brought to downtown by our restaurant community.

Um we've also made a commitment.

The partnership and the Frederick Arts Council jointly manage the downtown Frederick Arts and Entertainment District.

That's a state designation that the city supported.

That was our way of saying that entertainment is really important to our community and to the health of our downtown.

And most recently, we've worked on Carroll Creek Park and the conversation around that.

And at the end of that, as a policy statement, we said that it's a primary purpose is to offer a gathering space for community gatherings and events.

So we've talked about this being a place where we've identified as a community that we want to prep we want to do things.

Some of the other folks commented on that background section.

I agree that the comments that it seems overly negative towards the restaurant community and implying that they're their presence leads to crime and criminal stings.

And I don't think that that's an appropriate I know that's not an appropriate thing.

I also would like to see that balance.

Both residents and businesses are important to downtown success, and that language should reflect that balancing of both of them.

Folks have already talked about plainly audible and concerns about that.

I will just say that in my tenure in downtown Frederick, when rules aren't terribly clear, we have lots of opinions on how what they mean and what they don't mean.

And when I read this ordinance, I'm often in a position where restaurants come to me or businesses come to me and say, what does this mean?

And I fully realize they can go to the city, but they often come to us.

I would have a very difficult time telling a business what this means and doesn't mean for them.

Like Brian, I read it to mean that you're going to register the noise between zero to a hundred and feet, which doesn't make sense to me if that I didn't understand that part of it.

But again, maybe I'm not reading it correctly.

I'm not entirely sure.

I mean, we're talking that the loudest is a dishwasher, um, which seems very hard to achieve.

And specifically related to special events.

Obviously, we use the amphitheater a lot as our entity.

No?

Okay.

Well, I'll just say that it's directly adjacent to residential 70 DBA as a dishwasher.

You have an exemption for city sponsored events, but what happened?

We don't want to have events in the amphitheater any longer.

Is that the goal that we're trying to achieve?

Great.

Thank you.

Are there any other public comments?

All right.

Are there any closing comments from the council?

Since I mean, I this I know this is the first glance at this and this ordinance.

I I remember last time we had submissions around Carroll Creek in regards to the meeting in regards to who could who could use the Carroll Creek Park.

And that was we came to some kind of conclusion because it encompassed all the stakeholders.

I would advise us in this case to bring all the stakeholders together, business owners, residents, all the entities to have because I think this can be worked out.

Great.

Thank you.

Councilmember Hempel already?

Yeah, I took a few notes while all of you were sharing, and thank you for coming out today.

I think it's really important to hear from people for whom these things matter.

Uh a just a couple of observations.

Um I think we all want to be good neighbors, and that's really what this is about is about setting the kinds of guidelines that we all agree on that we're gonna live together.

And um I also want to put out the idea of dose and frequency, which my nutritionist is used, but it's like if your dog goes out and barks, it's different than if the dog is barking for five hours straight, right?

And I think when we have a live at five, for example, you know, there's the the dose and frequency is small and it's joyful.

Uh also when I was doing my homework, um, I was reading about some other places that have most places will have an or noise ordinance.

And I love that in Spain, many cities have what they call a fiesta clause because people this idea of this joy and and this like community gathering space is really really important for a lot of these communities, which I think that it is really important for us to make sure that we um can gather and and be joyful.

And I do uh especially want to give uh Jojo's a shout out, because I have never heard your music outside of the building, and you do a really good job with that.

Uh I also would like to echo um Councilmember Shacklford's uh thoughts of of bringing people together, because I think we do want to preserve what's really special and fun and joyful about what happens downtown while being good neighbors and um trying to limit the annoying sounds of the rumbling cars or the um the sort of inconsiderate noise that's very different in my opinion than live music.

So that's what I have to say.

I would echo Councilmember Hempel Rani's comment and thank you all for coming out and sharing your perspectives.

Uh as we move forward, if you do have comments about the draft ordinance, which I invite, we invite, I would just urge you to make your feedback specific.

And because the more specific it is, the easier it is for us to figure out ah, that's exactly what that person is thinking about and and your recommendation.

So thank you again for coming out.

We're adjourned.