Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
On October 30, 2026, the Howard County Council held a hybrid special meeting to consider whether to exercise the one-year renewal option in the Zoning Counsel contract with Nathaniel Foreman of O'Malley, Miles, Nylon, and Gilmore. The contract was set to expire on December 31, 2026. After discussion, the Council voted 3 to 2 to extend the contract through December 31, 2027.
And summarized. Good morning, everyone. This is the council special meeting to discuss the zoning council contract. The proceeding this morning is a hybrid meeting, which is available in person and virtual via WebEx. It is also available to the public through live stream on the Howard County Council website. This time I'm going to do a roll call of the council members. Ms. Rigby. Here. Ms. Young. Here. Ms. Walsh. Here. Mr. Youngman. Here. And I am Opal Jones. We will now proceed with our agenda. The Zoning Council contract expires at the end of the year, December 31st, 2026. The original contract allowed for a one-year renewal option. We are meeting today to discuss whether or not to extend the current contract with Nathaniel Foreman from O'Malley, Miles, Nylon, and Gilmore for one year. Any discussion? Yes. While I support continuing the contract, I think that we should ask the zoning council attorney to resign his position as I believe it's treasurer of the Maryland Building Builders Industry Association as it can appear as a potential conflict of interest. Okay. Any other discussion? Go ahead. I realize that you know we're doing this because of a term limit in the original contract, but it's not uh as though the incoming council slash zoning board will be hearing cases, you know, it in the what is that phase? Is it because he's appearing before the hearing examiner too? What's the time sensitivity here? Why wouldn't we leave this to the next council? I guess is the broader question. I believe, well, I won't get into the philosophy behind it, but they would have to, so at their installment, the only thing they're going to vote on, as I remember, is leadership and uh they wouldn't be voting in an actual legislative session like this, like this, until January after the expiration of the contract. The contract doesn't have any kind of carryover term. Um my understanding is not it would expire December 31st, 2026, and unless extended. Okay. Yeah, I feel like this is uh something that if we do extend it, it should be for a much shorter period than a year. I mean, again, I think this is something that we're doing now that carries over into a group of successors that we have no involvement with other than one-fifth of