Meeting Transcript

Good afternoon and welcome to the special meeting of the City of Frederick Planning Commission. This meeting is to talk about one issue, and it is the CIP letter that goes annually from the Commission to the mayor. So this is it does not have a number actually, but it is for fiscal year 2025 to 2030. And at this point, we will swear in. Gabrielle, who is the staff that is going to be working with us on this issue. And anyone else who is out there and is going to testify on this, would you please rise and raise your right hand? Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the responses given and the statements made in this hearing before the planning commission will be the whole truth and nothing but the truth? If so, say I do. Thank you. All right. And the floor is yours, Gabrielle. Thank you very much. This is kind of a continuation of our discussion at last Monday's hearing where the planning commission did take a kind of a consensus vote on the items that we wanted to include in our recommendation letter to the mayor and board. We have drafted those into the draft you see online, listing those out as continued support for the conference center parking facility with the downtown hotel. That continued support and funding be provided for the CIP project for East Street improvements that include design elements that we see in the East Street Quarter Small Area Plan, including sidewalks, lighting, street furniture, and the like. That a new project be added to the CIP to construct improvements to East Street between working off my phone because my computer died. Between Knoxy and South Street to supplement the improvements that the brickworks would be constructing as part of that development project, that funding be provided for the completion of our rails with trails improvements. Then moving on to the second page, we have a recommended study which would lead to a CIP for how to implement smart traffic systems. Next the a similar type of recommendation that we move forward with our master or streets master plan, which is referenced in the comprehensive plan, and then start to develop either a CIP project or maybe it turns into multi-CIP projects to acquire land and construct roads and infrastructure that aren't associated with specific development applications, but that would be necessitated by that plan. Supporting the recommendations of BPAC, our bicycle pedestrian advisory committee as stated in their letter, and then lastly, continued funding and support for the multiple flood control projects that are in the CIP. But the as a group this was the consensus, so we just want to reflect that that all of these come from the commission as top top items. And with that, we just want you to vote on the letter, make sure everyone's comfortable with the language, and then we'll forward it to the board of aldermen. They did discuss the CIP last week as part of the budget proceedings. So I think that actually this this is a nice um they they've seen the projects, and so this is kind of a nice um second step to that. They've they've been familiar with um with the information in the CIP, and now this has some context. Okay. Um so I know that the commissioners have had a chance to uh review this in essence twice, once, as Gabrielle said, was at our hearing last Monday, and then we saw a draft, and each of us sent any um comments, revisions, edits that we saw that needed to be added. So with that, I'm gonna ask as a group um are there any further edits, questions, comments that anyone has. Okay, seeing none, and I believe uh Alderman McShane that you're abstaining because the Alderman, the board and Ottoman have their own process. All right, so with that, uh I will take a motion on this. I move that this letter be approved and forwarded to the mayor and board of aldermen. Second. Okay, that is a motion from Commissioner Strawson, second Commissioner Beattie. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. That is uh that is unanimous with um Alderman McShane abstaining. So with that, that concludes our special meeting, and the meeting is adjourned. Very much. Thank you.