Well,

good afternoon, and then welcome to everyone to the joint work session of the Health and Human Services and Public Safety Committees of Thursday, October 29th, 2026.

Today we have one topic on the agenda, Bill 3426, health and sanitation, body work establishments, and amendments.

As we begin, I'd like to thank Mr.

Gorzalak for preparing the staff report for the topic today.

And for once again and always assembling most informative packets for us.

I'm going to ask this is how this is going to flow here today.

I'm going to ask the co-chair of today's joint committee, Councilmember Sales, if she has any opening comments.

Then I'm going to ask the lead sponsor of the legislation, Councilmember Luke, if she has any opening comments.

And then I'm going to ask if any of the other joint committee members if they have any opening comments.

And then anyone who's here, Ms.

Feinstein, whoever who would like to be, or is going to be on this panel, please come down and everyone else who's going to be on this panel.

And then I'm going to ask the panel to identify themselves and ask if they have any opening comments.

Then we're going to ask Mr.

Gore Ogorzilak to please walk us through the discussion.

So with that, Councilmember Sales.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

And thank you to everyone for joining us.

Thank you to my committee member, Councilmember Ludke for sponsoring this legislation.

It's important.

That's why I too co-sponsored the bill and look forward to a productive discussion and a successful committee recommendation.

Thank you.

Councilmember Luke.

Thank you, co-chairs, uh, CATS and sales.

Um this bill is a bill that I had worked on in conjunction with our Human Trafficking Prevention Committee, which I serve as vice chair of, and our chair of the committee is here with us today, Debbie Feinsteve from the state's attorney's office.

Um and also with uh officers in our vice unit.

Um there are some loopholes in the effectiveness of our current uh licensing scheme.

And so there have been ongoing challenges where individuals who uh have had issues and citations and criminal charges brought at one location in Montgomery County or in another county end up popping up and opening another shop elsewhere where they are engaging in the same unlawful conduct.

And so um we worked with Department of Health and Human Services on this as well to try and close that loophole.

And also want to flag that our Department of Permitting Services has also reached out and separately, and this will be something for next term, but um related to use and occupancy and whether uh and how that works and a loophole on their their end with respect to this issue.

Um so we do have folks here today who can provide additional legal background on the why of this bill, but we are trying to curb uh this particular behavior, which is exploitative and dangerous and harmful to our community and to those who are being victimized by human trafficking.

Um with that, I will turn it back to our chairs.

Thank you very much.

Any other committee members have any opening?

No.

Um, if the panel could please introduce themselves.

And if you have any opening comments too, please

uh

good afternoon.

My name is Kenny Welch.

I'm the senior administrator with licensure and regulatory HHS.

Good afternoon.

My name is Debbie Feinstein.

I'm chief of the Special Victims Division for the Montgomery County State's Attorney's Office.

I'm also the current chair of the Human Trafficking Prevention Committee for this uh the county, and I stand ready to answer any questions that y'all have.

Very good.

Well, with that, Mr.

Ogorzilak.

All right.

I will uh briefly run through the packet for the benefit of the joint committee.

Um Bill 3426 uh seeks to prevent individuals who were affiliated in certain ways with a body work establishment that was the target of enforcement efforts under existing county law from opening and operating a different body work establishment elsewhere in the county.

Uh separately, the uh the bill does this by defining corporate officer, business manager, certain terms of how individuals might be involved in the sort of the higher level operations of a body work establishment, and then also sets forth the uh necessary uh requirements, uh reporting requirements that would trigger the law so that when folks are applying for a license within the county, uh the county is able to gather that information and uh can cross check whether they're sort of the issues that this bill is seeking to uh reach.

The bill also prohibits the issuance of a license uh to an establishment where a corporate officer or business manager, again, is defined under the bill, is currently pending adjudication or has been found to have violated certain state laws, or where the corporate officer or business manager was a corporate officer or business manager that had its license revoked previously in a different um uh different location or a different uh business entity.

Uh no climate impacts, uh no fiscal impact, uh positive uh racial equity and social justice impact, uh, indeterminate economic impact.

It's pretty complicated how this would play out.

Uh testimony received was largely in support of the bill.

Some folks were seeking some strong some efforts to make it even a little bit more robust and stronger.

Some folks did testify that they wanted to remove prostitution related offenses as well.

Um with that, I think that if the chair's okay, we can go to the amendments.