Good evening, Rockville.

Today is September 8th, 2025, and we're convening meeting 21-25.

Let's begin with the Pledge of Allegiance.

Please join as you are able to do that.

Welcome everyone.

We are officially back from recess.

I know it was a short recess.

Want to move over to our agenda review.

Miss Sarah Taylor Farrell, do we have any changes?

Madam Mayor and Council members, there are no changes for this evening's agenda.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

And we'll now move on to the city managers report.

Welcome, Jeff Mahalek.

Mayor Ashton, members of City Council, ladies and gentlemen.

Good evening.

I have four things tonight.

It's all really good news.

First of all, we learned this week that we received the Government Finance Officers Association Distinguished Budget Presentation Award.

I think for the 16th year in a row or 20th year in a row, something like that.

So it's really cool.

The people who did did the assessment of the award said that our budget process was excellent, that they were impressed that we included such a robust capital improvements plan.

And this is the part that should be really interesting to council that there's such a strong connection between strategic initiatives identified by City Council and the budget process.

So we're really excited about it.

I just want to say congrats to our budget and finance teams and city council for that distinguished honor.

Also, hopefully everybody noticed the brand new beautiful signage over the Route 55 pedestrian bridge that says Town Center with our brand new logo on what you guys think of it.

But during the day, it looks cool.

And at night it looks even better.

And again, that's just to create more and more um placemaking in and around the town center.

So we're excited about having that partnership with Walmata.

Also, hopefully people have noticed all the beautiful purple lights all over the city outside here at City Hall, even for the first time, some of our street lights.

That is our Rockville Goes Purple program.

It's part of National Recovery Month, and it's for people to understand and appreciate that recovery is a struggle and everybody needs help, and we should be thinking about it to support people going through that struggle.

And then I also want to note that we are keeping open the swim and fitness center, extending that for a couple weekends.

The outside elements of the swim and fitness center will be open through to till 6 p.m.

on Sunday, September 14th.

I think we're all excited about those new outdoor elements, and we might as well enjoy it for a couple more weekends.

That's all I have to report, Mayor.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for the excellent report.

I just want to say congratulations to the entire team and to this body.

I know that it takes a lot of work to make sure that we're on budget, and the award-winning work they're doing has kept us triple A bond reading, which is the highest level of bond rating for a municipal government.

I also just wanted to thank uh Wamada for the partnership.

Uh the Town Center branding is something that we all worked on, and uh it's designed to bring visibility, but it's done with care so that it's transparent and protects pedestrian safety.

And uh thank you for all the work in the swimming fitness center.

I just wanted to say on the uh international overdose day that the county help plan with uh some MCCPT members and Laura Met Laura Mitchell.

It was fantastic.

But I wanted to pause and say uh that we do have NARCAN at our uh Rockwell City Police Department.

Uh there is Narcan training that's coming up during Oktoberfest, and it can save lives.

We need to reduce the stigma.

We need to help people and just wanted to be on record.

I know we'll do some proclamations coming up, but just wanted to make sure I noted that.

Dr.

Miles.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Echo your thanks to the city management staff for all the great work.

And thanks again for the our participation in the opioid awareness day.

I was able to come to the beginning, but Daddy Duty took me away from the from the proclamation reading later that day.

But just thank everybody for coming out remembering those who we've lost, and to remember to redouble our efforts moving forward.

Uh the other piece is uh thanks to the police department for an awesome open house.

Um we had a great time.

I got my little kid energy out, though I did not get in the bounce house.

So don't arrest me.

But great times, thanks to the police department for that.

That's all.

There's always next year.

Councilman Grank.

Oh, uh, we're just gonna echo what Dr.

Miles said.

A congratulation to the police department.

An absolutely successful open house.

Um, hundreds of people came through, not only to enjoy um the fabulous events and food for kids, but tours of the entire police department and all aspect of it.

So huge congratulations to the police department.

Thank you.

And since we're talking about police, uh, the uh final positions, at least at the patrol and officer level, were filled.

Uh so we had a lot of interest and uh fantastic members of the team and increasing diversity of our police uh leaders.

Councilmember Larry.

Um I'll echo what everyone else said as well, but um I also wanted to recognize, even though I know that we have proclamations at another future meeting date that um this month is also uh suicide prevention awareness month.

Um, and one of the uh members of the community um in Twinbrook invited me to the celebration of life, remembrance of uh a young man who died by suicide, and it's always been um in the forefront of my mind, but I appreciate that we have a month that where we can think about those we have lost as well as those who continue to struggle.

Thank you.

Well, now it's time to hear from our community.

Uh, we'll move on to community form.

All persons shall address the mayor and council.

Please speak in a civil and courteous manner.

Members of the audience should also be respectful of others.

Each person will be allowed three minutes.

There is a time clock in front of you.

And please state your name and if you live in Rockville for the record.

I'm going to call up the first person, uh, Jamie N.

Welcome.

My name is Jamie and I live in Rockville.

Council members, the majority of you enjoyed a council trip to our sister city of Pinneburg, Germany last month.

While you were there, did the topic of rent caps come up?

Because our sister city has regulations that prevent a landlord from increasing rent by more than 20% over three years.

Why won't you let Rockville have something like that?

I understand that you don't want to talk about rent stabilization anymore, hence why you've banned further city council member initiatives about it for the next two years.

But not having rent caps in Rockville will hurt people every single day for the next two years, and I will not let you suppress this issue.

I understand the majority of you cite concerns that having any rent caps in Rockville will dissuade future real estate developers from building here.

A developer that specifically looks to build in areas without rent stabilization in order to maximize their profits is predatory.

Per Rockville's own definitions and research, the majority of renters here are cost burdened by their rent.

So instead of creating legislation that is a compromise, like Montgomery County's 6% cap plus inflation or Pinneburg's 20% cap over three years, you give us nothing, no protection, and make Rockville a target for predatory real estate capitalists.

You're inviting predatory businesses to Rockville for an all-you-can-eat buffet where the income of your constituents is the feast.

We're emaciated, we don't have any more to give.

You are permitting predatory leasing companies to make people choose between paying their rent or feeding themselves.

You cannot be surprised when those same hungry eyes turn and look at you with fear and resentment.

Your opportunity to receive pleasantries from your constituents has passed.

There are more pressing issues that need to be addressed.

Homelessness, poverty, and hunger are not naturally occurring in a well-functioning society.

They are policy failures, and the majority of you on this council are failing the people you are supposed to work for.

The progressive train towards a more equitable and humanity-focused future, not profit-focused, and is inevitable, and the majority of you are standing on the wrong side of the tracks.

In the words of activist Wael Gonem.

The power of the people.

The power of the people is stronger than the people in power.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Anika Halota.

Hi.

Hi.

Oh, this worked.

Hello?

Hey.

So I moved here last year, and the city of Rockville Gazette showed up and it said that we have leaf sweeping where you vacuum up the leaves.

And I was like, oh great, good service.

So I did that, took all my leaves from my backyard, out onto the curb.

And about two weeks later, I started reading about fireflies and realized I had messed up and I was supposed to leave the leaves on my property to support them.

And so in order to prevent anyone else from making that same mistake by accident, I would like to suggest that in the Rockville Gazette at any online publications, we just include a little blurb informing people that you might want to leave some.

So I've written one up.

I guess I can just read it.

Welcome to take it, verbatim.

So my suggested text is want to help fireflies thrive.

Consider leaving some leaf litter on your property instead of sending it to the curb.

Firefly larvae live and hunt in moist leaf layers through fall and winter, relying on that natural habitat to survive and emerge as glowing adults the following summer.

By keeping leaves in garden beds or under trees, you're creating a small but powerful sanctuary for these magical insects.

No extra work required.

With just one season of leafy shelter, you may start seeing more fireflies next summer and even more each year as their habitat improves.

Learn more about supporting fireflies at Cersei.org/slash fireflies.

That's all.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Welcome, Semia Merchant.

What's up, Council?

Hope you miss me.

Look at all these studies on why rent stabilization is so great.

As you can tell I'm being sarcastic.

And this is just a physics textbook, by the way.

Adam, I hope you're laughing.

That joke is for you.

As I've spoken to more of my community members and have gone to more community events, I've grown to love the Rockville community.

I've grown, truthfully, I come from a town that lacked diversity.

And in my early years, I lacked friendships because of it.

I got bullied because I didn't look like my classmates.

And I didn't speak like them.

In contrast to my hometown, I found everyone here so welcoming.

I'm not sure if you've gone to the salsa event at the town center, but that was a blast.

I had a lot of fun, even though I'm quite a bad dancer.

The diver the diversity will perish if rent stabilization is not passed.

Rent hikes will push out many different minority groups out of the county.

And truthfully, this is why I fight.

I don't want the city to be like the town I'm from.

Only white people being constantly shunned for being different.

I want to tell my kids who will probably go through the schools in Rockville that I prevented your childhood from being like mine.

I don't want him to go through him or her to go through the same thing of people looking at you differently or thinking that, oh, I'm annoying or get this.

I'm an Indian giver, right?

So I want to protect this community, and I truly don't expect any of you who voted against rent stabilization to do anything.

I mean, seriously, Adam is a corporate lawyer who probably a big single mothers are fun.

I mean, there has to be a lot of conflicts of interest right there.

But nevertheless, I'm calling for something even stronger than a rent stabilization in Montgomery County.

I'm calling for the rent freeze of any dwelling unit older than 23 years.

In addition, I want the Montgomery County Rent Stabilization Bill implemented in Rockville, but it applies for units older than 15 years.

Truthfully, this bill, the bill is really good.

It's it's don't get me wrong, and I'm not gonna hate on it, but I like to fight for a better tomorrow where it's in sure that there's truly no child who feels lowly in this county.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome, Milton Hallan.

Good evening, uh, Madam Mayor and Council.

Thank you for having us here.

Um I'm here tonight to speak about rank choice voting.

It's my understanding that you have a proposal coming forward.

Um, and I hope you're going to support it.

I also think it would be great if you can implement it for the 2027 election.

Um I've seen some talk that maybe it will be pushed back later, but I think the sooner the better.

Ranked choice voting is a great way to moderate our politics generally because it means that when you have a really bad candidate, everyone can kind of see that and and push them, push them out to that, push them last.

Um, and I think that that's a great thing if we don't have two sides of politics constantly fighting with each other, going at each other.

They have to work together because that's what the people want.

That's what the people have spoken for.

So I hope you can see yourself to passing this bill or legislation that you have before you.

And we can do it here and let it spread to other areas of the county.

I live in Frederick County myself.

I'm hoping to have, you know, do something good in one place, we can bring it to another.

So uh we don't have any pending legislation in Frederick County for rank choice voting, but I think if Rockville leads the way in Maryland or joins the other municipalities in Maryland that have it already, um, it can be something that can that can be an example for the rest of the state to go forward with.

So uh yeah, thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome, Tyler McClayton.

Hey everybody, uh I'm Tyler, uh live in Rockville, West End resident.

If you don't remember, uh vice president of my daughter's PTA over at Maryvale, active in the Friends of Rockville Civic Ballet, and I have a plot at the Wooton Mill Community Garden Park.

Uh and I just mentioned all that to signify that I love Rockville.

I also volunteer through the senior neighbor shoveling program that you all run.

Um and today I'm here to advocate for a government that is proactive rather than reactive, and one that earns decorum rather than demands it.

If Rockville's housing policies only react to capitalistic market forces, then we will always putting be putting band-aids on capitalistic induced exploitation.

This evening you're going to review community development block grants.

Your own reporting on those grants states that over 55% of Rockwell renters are either cost or severely cost burdened.

Among those renters, a disproportionate number are people of color.

And these challenges are only expected to grow through 2040.

Using these grants to maintain, beautify, or even purchase a small number of units does not change the fundamental market forces that exploit and harm your residents.

It's like if someone was getting whipped and you just kept giving them stitches instead of stopping the person who's actually doing the whipping by refusing to regulate the housing market and excuse me, and now even discuss it through policies like rent stabilization.

You are reacting to a market that was designed and will always cause harm, particularly to our most vulnerable residents.

You are choosing to let the whipping continue, and now not even talk about it.

This brings me to my second point.

And please bear with me for a bit.

For purposes of this format, this is a rhetorical question.

If you were getting whipped or beat up or drowned, would you continue to be calm?

Would you continue to have an orderly, respectful conversation with your abuser?

Speaking for myself, once the fighting begins, decorum has gone out the window, and now at a minimum, I can act in self-defense.

Decorum in America has always functioned as a tool of the oppressor.

Even in extremely recent history, like insurance companies denying justifiable medical claims, or the federal government kidnapping its own citizens off the streets.

Decorum in these situations only serves to embolden those in power to keep doing what they're doing and let the exploitation continue.

Please know that myself and a growing number of my friends are tired of being hurt and we're gonna start fighting back.

If this feels like some big shadowy force that some of you mentioned at the last meeting on the 21st, let me lift the veil for you with your own reporting.

Between 2020 and 2040, Rockville's population is expected to increase 37%.

Without regulating the housing market, more people are gonna be pushed into poverty, and we will have no choice but to make friends and build solidarity with those four folks.

So it's not a shadowy force.

It is the people that you are pushing into poverty that are gonna come to these hearings that are gonna run against you.

If you would like to keep the conversation going and maybe even become one of those friends and maybe earn decorum, I would love to find a time to meet with you and discuss designing government that is proactive rather than reactive.

A government that heals rather than harms.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Uh I apologize, I can't see the full name.

Norma.

Okay, Miss Norma, I believe P.

Welcome.

My name is Norma Brailsford.

And um I got scared coming here because the little light out there.

I pushed a button and the car almost hit me.

So I'm a nervous wreck.

But I'm here because I'm in my 80s.

I came from Montgomery County.

The county was a very active county.

I find that when this county does absolutely, there's no activity.

There's nothing to do here.

We're trying to get bocheball courts set up.

So if we can get that, perhaps that will help.

I know many people like to play that game.

So that's what I'm all about.

If I could see more, if we could see more activities, we have a lot of seniors in the area.

And at my age, I've learned that you don't put seniors in corners because they're going to end up dying.

We have to give them something to do.

And so my thing is we just need more activity.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome, Nancy Wallace.

And while she's coming up, just ask Mr.

Mahilek if someone can staff can get one of the books as well as the grant program.

Thank you.

I'd appreciate seeing my NARC hand that I carry in my purse.

Thank you.

My name is Nancy Wallace.

I live in North Bethesda, and I'm testifying tonight on behalf of the Montgomery County Green Party.

I'm also running for Congress, U.S.

House of Representatives CD8, just for the purposes of disclosure, not relevant to tonight.

I'm testifying on behalf of the 150 registered Green Party voters in Rockville, multiplied by the eight times by which we normally get our vote counts.

We have the actual absolute opposite of the two major parties.

We have far more people voting for our candidates than we do registered.

So that looks like a total of 1,100 voters for Rockville.

We request ranked choice voting for the 2027 election.

The consultant, we understand, says that you can't do this in 26 months.

Ranked Choice Voting Maryland, our state nonprofit expert group has provided significant resources to the consultant on how to implement RCV, which is not included in the report.

I don't know if the Democratic Party has contacted any of you or the consultant or the city staff, but uh this is doable.

This democratic leadership in Annapolis, you may know, has uh killed the bill five times in a row, including just the very small pilot from Montgomery County.

They do what they call put it in the drawer, where they don't even allow a subcommittee hearing.

It's very clear that the larger partisan forces here in Maryland right now don't quite get the message that ranked choice voting enhances voting for everybody, and in fact, would probably keep Democrats in office in the longer term because the um wider points of view are externalized.

You moved very quickly on COVID, and we're it's very clear for any government activity.

If there is a will, there's a way.

We do not think the consultant is presenting objective, fact-based information to you.

I do not want you to be portrayed as incapable of implementing a small change in the marking and calculation of ballots in more than two years.

We, the Green Party, offered to help you as stakeholders in the design process, testers, trainers, and advertisers for free to make democracy work as it was intended with true majority voting.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome, Ashley Hawton.

Followed by Michelle Whedecker.

Brilliant.

Michelle is unable to make it as she is in Greenbelt, um, but I also have her comments if that's helpful.

Hello, my name is Ashley Houghton.

I'm the chief program officer at Fair Vote, a national organization, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight.

I don't live in Rockville anymore, but I'm also a Rockville native.

I am so lucky and proud to have grown up in this community.

My first date was at the Regal Cinema, and I fully plan to call out teenagers after this meeting and the generational cycle would continue.

Fair Vote is a national nonpartisan organization that researches and advances voting reforms that make democracy more functional and representative for every American.

From this lens, I want to encourage you to bring ranked choice voting to Rockville voters by 2027, if at all possible.

And there's no better place for that than Rockville.

Despite a sizable Asian American community, Rockville has never managed to elect an Asian American candidate to City Council.

This is a capital-adjacent city that can model an effective democracy at a time where it needs our modeling.

Nationally, we're facing a representation crisis that needs the leadership of cities that understand what is at stake, and I want Rockville to lead the nation in improving our democracy for all voters.

And I'd like to ask the council to uh implement uh ranked choice voting without uh uh referendum through a resolution.

The diversity and this and the population of this extraordinary city is growing.

Delaying implementation is delaying fair representation for Rockville voters.

We are watching more people run for office than ever before, and we should be encouraged by that, not dismayed by it.

Thank you for your consideration.

And if you'd like to find me after this meeting, I will be asking teenagers by the Regal Theater if they are registered to vote.

Thank you.

Welcome, Adam Wise, followed by Kristen Kaye.

Adam Wise first.

Thank you.

Madam Mayor and members of the council, my name is Adam Weiss.

I am a resident of Rockville and a representative of the Maryland Ford Party.

We are concerned, we are concerned with repairing and improving the democratic process across the state.

Our current voting system awards the position to the candidate who gets the most votes.

While this may appear logical, in reality, the winner of any race with more than two potential candidates is often elected by a minority of voters.

Voters who might be happy with several potential candidates are forced to choose only one.

This disregard for the second and third choices means that it is possible for candidates to win with only 40, 30, or 20% support, not a majority.

Marilyn Ford identifies ranked choice voting, RCV, as our primary voting procedure reform, one of our best hopes for improving the democratic process.

Without naming names, there is strong evidence across multiple elections that some of the most problematic divisive politicians would never have won their elections if ranked choice voting were in place.

We understand that the powers that be at the Maryland level are going to take their cues from what happens at the city level on this issue.

And that in turn will influence the national debate.

So I would encourage the city to use ranked choice voting for our elections to give voters more power and more choice.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome, Kristen Kay, followed by Ellen Bach.

Do we have a Kristen Kay here?

Okay.

Alan B.

Welcome.

Hi, City Council and Mayor.

My name is Ellen.

I am a resident of Rockville, and I would like our city to join the number of cities using ranked choice voting to focus local elections on local issues.

I would like the citizens of Rockville to have the opportunity to have substantive policy debates and not just get turned off from voting in democracy by watching corporately funded attack ads based on national parties.

I loved seeing the actual policy debates that were going on in the cities that have introduced ranked choice voting that have new ideas and get people excited about the possibility of government.

So to echo everything that has been said before, anything you can do to get ranked choice voting to the citizens of Rockville as soon as possible would be wonderful.

Thanks.

Thank you very much.

Welcome, Aurora Bristor, followed by Drava, Diego Kumara.

Good evening.

I'm Aurora Brister.

I am a Rockville City resident, and it is, I agree, a completely wonderful city.

I am totally tickle pink and pleased every time I see that we get awards for being one of the most diverse places in the entire country.

And it's sort of painful to be when I go out and visit my sister-in-law in Montana, and it's not.

But I think that as somebody else said before, that diversity is really supported by something like ranked choice voting, where you get to reach in deep to the community and get their voice, get their opinions, rather than just choosing for the candidate that maybe seems like it's most likely to win against the person that you hate most, right?

With ranked choice voting, you actually get to display your full swath of opinion, and that gets to provide diversity, bring really good conversations to the table, and tamp downs on the divisionists.

I think a lot of what's going on right now nationally and even just uh the tension that that brings in our own homes, the amount of layoffs that we have in our local area, a lot of that is coming from the escalating one-upmanship in the divisions, right?

Um, I know that Congressman Raskin is supporting ranked choice voting at the national level.

He's supporting our local area.

I think that we can support it more specifically for our constituents by bringing it here.

And I absolutely think that we can make this change in 26 months.

We are a capable place, and you have a lot of support being offered to you.

So please bring it to us as soon as you can.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Driver Diego Kumar.

All right.

Hi, I'm not really um prepared for this.

It's very emotional for me.

I'm flustered.

I've been coming here to meet with all of you for many months.

You've been kind enough to meet me in person.

I appreciate it, but you haven't done anything for my problem.

I uh want to tell you I pledge allegiance to British America, not Latin America, not um black nationalist militant America.

I believe we have a lot of black nationalist militants, even some sitting over here.

These are real problems in the county and in the country.

I've become a Trumper, and I also plan on running for office.

I want to run for United States Congress.

Um we have a real hate group, white supremacist, religious, ethnic, and jealous hate, and that includes black nationalists, black militants.

You all feel you've built this country, you have not.

Not on your own.

We from India America have always been a part of the wealth, everything related to US, Europe, everything.

This is something we were not taught in my home country to talk about colonization, and we we don't.

Even all the many young ones that come here today in the software uh industry, they don't talk about colonization.

There is a culture here.

Everywhere I go, black people who have benefited from affirmative action are teaching their kids to discriminate against people like us.

I've grown up in a very good multicultural environment with a lot of good black culture, and you as a black woman, I want to emphasize this we've grown up with a lot of this.

I've grown lived in New York City, I've lived in uh Wheaton here in this county, and you all are not doing anything.

You're a part of it.

We had to my mom and I, whose uh in our uh early 80s, we had to leave our home during your recess.

I think you guys think it's funny.

I've even written to you about the three-year idea.

It was my idea that I came up with after I saw with these sat down with all these nice people here fighting for rent stabilization.

I told them at the end of the meeting, you're fighting for six percent annual.

You should also fight for a cap for three years.

I told you that.

And I met with you again a few weeks ago at County Jawondos, uh, Councilmember Jawando's um fundraising event.

You spoke to me, but you haven't replied to my email.

It's been over two weeks.

I think you're part of black militant nationalism along with people like David Miles.

And I hope you, Miss Ashton, uh Mayor Ashton, you seem to have a higher level of integrity that you don't participate in this.

I think you all need to sit down with me.

I have a list, a thousand things that I want to go over with you and talk to you about how to make our community better, how to make it safer.

And you have not doing it.

Even Mr.

Mahalich hasn't meeted you directed me to make thank you for your time.

I appreciate it.

I know that you have here comments.

We appreciate it.

I do want to make sure that we don't comment on the race of our colleagues in a derogatory fashion.

It's factual, not derogatory.

There is a black military.

Along with white white racism.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak?

Mr.

Russo, please join.

Good evening.

Welcome, welcome back, Mayor and Council.

My name is Vincent Russo.

I'm a resident of the city of Rockville.

And uh I want to comment tonight on the um the election report.

I I read the report and wanted to share some reflections and observations about it.

Um first, I thought it was uh wonderful that it acknowledged the many things that Rockville does right uh in terms of the city's processes and procedures that the city clerk and board of supervisors of elections follow.

And I think this is a reflection or reflects that uh in the previous election.

We successfully implemented um vote by mail, the first in the state.

And uh so I think it's good that the report acknowledges what's right.

The the report though is silent about how ranked choice voting would work in in the city.

Um I I do not understand quite well how it would work for a multi seat election, and uh like we have for our city council.

Perhaps there's some logic to applying it to the mayoral election, where it's a single seat, but applying it for the council just uh doesn't seem to make much sense to me, where we already uh the outcome already reflects the top six vote getters.

And I do not oppose ranked choice vote voting in principle, but just don't see how it would apply here.

The timeline and the in the uh next steps is very aggressive.

Uh and by you know, there's 26 months left, and and for all uh practical purposes, the election code and practices need to be settled on well over a year in advance.

So my uh urging is to for you to carefully consider what mandate and direction you give tonight, given that time frame, and to focus on the priorities that are known uh known deficiencies in in our current code, particularly around addressing enforcement and the complaint process and uh filing requirements and deadlines, the obligations of organizations that are outside of the city to report in the city.

And in terms of the process going forward, does the city attorney's office have the necessary expertise to write the uh write the election code?

Um the in the timeline that's presented here.

There is nothing about uh public input either.

So I would ask that you could consider what the role for public review and comment is in in this process.

So um just wanted to share those those thoughts.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak?

Welcome.

Hello, Mayor and Council.

Um sadly, last July I was sick and I was unable to attend the rent stabilization meeting that you guys had.

So can you just state your name?

I apologize.

Oh, sorry.

My name is Christopher Madden.

Um, I'm a Rockville resident.

I'm a member of uh Rockville Runders United and the president of the Huntington Tenant Association.

Watching from on the live stream, I was very upset by the hypocrisy that I saw.

The fact that I saw city council members call who say that they stand against ICE and want to fight for immigrant rights, calling out organizations like CASA who have been helping on the front lines every single day against ICE.

CASA is an amazing organization that does really good work for here, especially now, especially with the national divisiveness that we have and the threat that we are under.

People here in Rockwell are getting evicted.

We're in an affordability crisis, people cannot pay for their groceries, and we're spending taxpayer money going to Germany and other places that have our sister cities both have rent stabilization.

They both have security, but those tenants have security in those cities.

So I would like one of the other hypocrisies I was very upset about was civility.

One thing that does not have civility is an eviction.

Why I would recommend everybody on this council please go follow the sheriff and go watch an eviction process.

It is a brutal thing to watch.

Watching someone's belongings being taken out of their home, watching it being ripped apart from their home, and then watching all of their belongings being on a sidewalk and having strangers pick through them like they're garbage.

It's not civil.

It's not good.

Thank you.

Please don't interrupt another speaker.

Thank you, Theron Council.

Thank you very much for your time.

Mr.

Becker, welcome.

I'm here to talk about a number of uh topics tonight.

Um my name is John Becker.

I live at Americana Center, which is across the street from the Rockville Metro Station.

Um this past Tuesday, um the second, I believe, there was a swearing-in ceremony of for two officers, not knowing their titles, but I just wanted to say that was a very good event at that point at that uh ceremony.

The chief mentioned some change additions, some good work that's come in place for the police department and funding and staffing, I guess is what I should say.

And I'm looking forward to it.

I guess that's the beginning of the beginning, so hopefully the things will really change as far as my neighborhood uh by the end of the year.

Um I would also like to thank um the um I guess what I want to say is that the vision zero report tonight.

I read it, and there's I have to go back and read it again, it's quite lengthy.

And I just wanted to congratulate the staff and uh the department for the what the work they're doing.

My only concern I'm gonna mention again is the lack of response from our state DOT, which I will follow up with them on the letter they sent to me, which basically didn't say anything, and that was the one I received back in February.

And this is regarding the safety of the sidewalk and walking and speed limits in town center, and that's Rockville Pike, Lears Mill Road, and East Jefferson.

Um the BSC consultant report uh is going to be made tonight.

And I have nothing strong to add other than I was hoping that the consideration of setting up electric election districts be considered, but that's gonna come again when the next election comes up.

And I look forward to supporting that effort, especially for us in town center who are not really representative sometimes in city government.

Um the other thing as far as the report, a couple of things.

One, it's TikTok TikTok.

There's not much time left to do a lot of things.

Good luck.

And the other thing I want to add, and this is all not original thought for me, but as far as enforcement and protecting the Board of Supervisors of Elections, I'm going to be looking at that, and I'm quite sure there's a number of other citizens who will also make sure that the Board of Supervisors of Elections is an independent body per the city charter and any other kind of regulations that are out there.

Um, last I want to say that uh in case it has not been mentioned on um Thursday on the 11th is um 9-11 Memorial Day, and there'll be a ceremony that takes place in the park there across from the courthouse.

And I would like to urge anybody who can.

I know as time goes on, the attendance drops off because it's well 24 years ago, but I encourage anyone who can spend the time to attend the event and honor those who were killed at that event 24 years ago.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

That concludes the list of speakers.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak?

Okay.

Could you submit them?

Okay, perfect.

And I was in touch with her today as well.

Okay.

Thank you.

We'll now be moving on to the consent agenda.

We have Madam Mayor, we have one on virtual.

All right, let's go.

Um, Miss Sarah Telefrell, can you just share the name?

Madam Mayor, we have uh Chris Hughes on the line.

Okay, perfect.

Thank you.

Hi, can you hear me okay?

We can.

I uh sorry for my voice.

I'm getting over a cold, so I've been coughing a lot.

Um hope it's understandable.

Uh, my name is Chris Hughes, and I'm the senior director of policy at the Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center.

The ranked choice voting resource center is uh nonpartisan nonprofit where 501c3 that studies and advises on ranked choice voting elections across the country.

I know you've heard this spiel from me just a month ago, so uh this may sound familiar.

Um I wanted to come today, one just to follow up on some of the written testimony we submitted last week, uh touching on the implementation timeline for ranked choice voting that folks have spoken about about tonight.

I think it's important to keep in mind that in most jurisdictions that have implemented ranked choice voting in the last 10 or 15 years, they've done so within two years of the adoption.

Um, for example, Alaska adopted ranked choice voting in their November 2020 election, then implemented it for the first time in actually August of 2022.

It was a bit faster than expected due to a required special election.

The regular timeline would have had them implementing it in November of 2022.

Um we tend to see in places doing this is that two-year timeline means the energy stays up, means people stay more engaged with the implementation of range choice voting than if you have a longer implementation timeline.

The longer an implementation timeline is if you put it out four or six years.

It can be very challenging to maintain momentum for implementation and to keep community members engaged in the implementation process.

Make sure that voters participating in that ranked choice voting election feel empowered and understand the voting method.

So I just wanted to hop on quickly to say that we do recommend if and when you're implementing ranked choice voting to do to try and do so within two years because that keeps momentum up and makes it more feasible for community education to go smoothly and for community to feel bought in on that implementation.

I'll also note that we as an organization do provide implementation support to jurisdictions that are implementing range choice voting.

So we're happy to work with the council and with the board of elections on any implementation questions you all may have, what whether it's related to legal implementation language or like was mentioned in some earlier testimony, working with voting equipment, programming voting equipment, designing ballots, displaying results, any number of issues that may need to be resolved in the rain choice voting implementation process.

We're happy to advise on and support so that that two year timeline is also feasible because we know, especially smaller jurisdictions like Rockville might need a bit more support rather than a state like Alaska that may have more resources to draw upon.

So thank you again for your time and have a good night.

Thank you very much.

We'll now move on to consent agenda item number nine A ratify and approve the city manager's early execution of a Chesapeake Conservation and Climate Corps program host agreement, Chesapeake Bay Trust for the Environmental Management Division to host the conservation and climate corps member, and B authorize the city manager to execute amendment number one between the city of Rockville and the State of Maryland, Maryland Energy Administration to provide a no-cost extension contract 24 2024 16 520 S1 to September 30th, 2026.

Colleagues, do we have any questions or can we entertain a motion?

All right.

No questions.

Who would like to write?

All right, Councilman Van Grack.

Madam Mayor, I move to approve consent agenda items A and B.

Thank you.

Do we have a second?

Councilmember Jackson.

Seconds.

All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye.

Aye.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

So next, uh we're moving on to our public hearing on community needs, FY2027.

This is item number 10.

Uh development community development block grant funding.

This is a public hearing.

And uh Ms.

Sarah Taylor Farrell has this been properly noticed.

Madam Mayor and Councilmember, it was properly noticed in the Washington Post on August 28th and September 4th, and also on the city's website.

Thank you.

And now I'll turn it over to Sarah Mazel to uh introduce this item.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Um, Madam Mayor and Council members, I hope you're having a good evening.

Um, this program we uh receive from the county as a subgrantee.

Um, and it is uh purpose to help the lower to moderate income population within Rockville.

Um, and we split it into multifamily projects as well as single family, so nonprofits that are looking to provide um safe and environmentally sanitary renovations to providing housing and shelter services as well as single family projects, which are individuals who are doing the same for their own homes that they may not be able to afford otherwise.

And so we are doing it for FY27.

Um I think that's it.

Thank you.

Is there anyone who would like to speak?

I will open this public hearing.

Okay.

All right.

Uh Mr.

Mahalik, I did ask a brief question about um the C D B D grants and just making sure that I believe it was RHE had applied for ACs, AC support.

And I just the question for me is sometimes people apply for CDBG funding and we can't fund the whole thing.

Uh, but I just wanted to make sure that we're keeping in mind if there's going to be a public safety issue given climate change and high uh hot summers.

So that's just one of the things I wanted to make sure we're thinking through.

We are thinking through that, Mayor.

Thank you.

Okay.

And if we could get the response on those questions, that would be helpful.

Happy to.

Excellent.

Thank you.

All right.

Ms.

Ms.

Mazel, do we need to keep this public hearing open or can we close it?

Um we can keep it.

Um I'm sorry, we can close it.

Okay.

Thank you very much for your time.

Really appreciate it.

All right.

We'll now move on to agenda item 11A, except a consultant's final report on the election code update.

And I know Mr.

Mahalek is going to introduce this item, followed by Mr.

Jason Gantz.

Mayor and members of council, good evening.

Just wanted to kind of frame this topic where we're headed this evening, where we've been, and then what are the next steps?

Um, because it's it's been quite a process and it'll continue.

So as the mayor and council knows, we hired the the GANT group a number of months ago to develop a series of recommendations to us on how we might update our election process and more specifically our election code.

Mayor and Council had um two work sessions over the over the summer, and we actually had quite a bit of citizen engagement and events out in the community for people to provide their input on the grant.

So tonight you're gonna hear from Jason Gantt, owner of the Gantt group on his recommendations on the final report.

Let me stress to you that tonight we're asking you to simply um accept the report, and it doesn't mean adopt it.

And what it means by accepting the report is that Mr.

Gann is coming up with a number of different recommendations and different options.

You guys don't have to make those decisions this evening exactly what you want to do.

You're really accepting it.

You're thanking him for his work, and then we're moving on to the next step of the process, which is really turning it over to the city attorney's office to begin begin the drafting process to begin drafting the code itself.

Um, there may be some areas where we still still need a little bit more feedback from Mayor and Council.

So as we develop that code in-house and we have some, I guess, divergent points, we may develop a simple survey or some a questionnaire for each of you to fill out to make sure we're on the right path, and then we'll have a work session or two to make sure that we're on the right path as uh the city attorney's office prepares the code, and then we'll ask for that to be adopted in the near future.

I think everybody has stressed over the past couple months that we need to get moving on this.

I think we're making good progress, and it's time for us after this evening to start drafting the code to have additional public engagement so we can have a great election in the very near future.

So, with that, I'll turn over to Jason Gantt from the Gang Group, and he's gonna walk you through a very brief report and then I'll ask entertain any questions.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you very much.

Welcome, Mr.

Gantt.

Thank you.

It's great to be here again.

And um uh it's amazing how fast the past few months have gone with this process.

Um, but I believe that uh we've uh attacked almost every object and every uh idea that has uh come across.

Um some ideas have uh an in-depth review and in-depth analysis.

Um other areas are more uh top level um with just some ideas and some of the uh uh possibilities for what the future could hold.

So some of our background, we had the work sessions together, we had community engagements and then meeting with the BSE and other appointed officials numerous times in the report.

I give a number of recommendations to start.

We overviewed the election laws, which um it was very clear in the scope of work that you didn't want me to rewrite it, but you wanted me to provide some ideas and some areas that needed uh to be um analyzed and reviewed and determined whether or not they should be changed or whether they could uh continue as is.

And as you go through um the report, starting on page five there with election laws, um the city code, the charter.

Uh there's so many different sections to where this is um with all the ideas and changes that we need to implement.

You can see how that's going to be uh quite a challenge over the next few months to put together the new code uh for those areas.

Um election process and procedures, which begins on eight.

Um went through the standard operating procedures uh from the clerk's office, and wonderful start on what is there and how elections are to be administered.

Um very pleased with how all of that turned out.

Um obviously, when you have a third party taking a look at things, um, there's always gonna be a few little ideas here and there.

Um, and the and I put those uh recommendations within uh each of those various areas.

Um whether it's pre-election, election day, post-election.

Um, one of the things I wanted to point out in the post-election was uh considering of an audit.

So many times we have certain individuals who think that there's something wrong with the election process.

Well, by conducting an audit after all the official uh votes are counted and everything is certified to go through one more process of verifying that everything with the counting machines.

It just gives you one more opportunity to let the public know that we have done everything we believe is necessary to make sure that we run a fair and free election.

Campaign finance begins on page 16, and that's where we've definitely have a lot of new ideas, many, many recommendations on political committees, defining the various types of political committees, the different candidate committees, the slate committees, independent expenditure reporting.

That's definitely something that we want to clear up in the code in the future to make it rock solid on what is and is not allowed, and then have the enforcement uh portion with that as well.

Uh defining of what those campaign activities are, determining how enforcement is going to be processed in the future.

Uh the Board of Supervisors of Elections starting on page 21.

They definitely have a tremendous amount of responsibilities, uh, whether it's set out in the charter or in the code.

I think it's important to read through all of those to understand what you're asking of this board to do in preparation during and after each election every four years.

Going through all of their roles and responsibilities, their enforcement authority, um, and then getting to ballot majors from 2023, starting on page 24 with the voting age and term limits and representative districts.

Uh additional ideas, ranked choice voting uh was the top there, which we obviously heard a lot about over the last few meetings and tonight as well.

Um, so there's some options there.

Um public financing, democracy vouchers, plans for the future, a lot of different areas that uh uh took some general comments.

And then we get to page 29, which is the final recommendations, and those are with the election laws that we definitely need for your sake, for the BSE's sake, for staff's sake, for the public sake, clearing up the election code by having election administration as one area, campaign finance as another.

Um, campaign finance, there's just too much information that is compiled into that main election code that if you start separating that out, you're gonna make it much easier for everyone involved to understand what the rules are, what the expectations are, and uh how to enforce those regulations.

Um, the election process and procedures, um, like we had talked about at one of the meetings was creating the master handbook and sorting it into those pre-election, election day, and post-election activities.

Um there's a fantastic uh process in place uh that the clerk's office has put together.

Um so it's just kind of tidying that up and and uh implementing a few various uh changes there.

A campaign finance, like we talked about, creating that its own section would definitely make things easier for everyone.

Um, the BSE, they should consider continue with their current responsibilities, um, but they should probably have more authority, and that additional authority is clearer enforcement guidelines, um, putting together that within the code so that when complaints are received, no matter what type of complaint it is, that there's a clear set of rules that they need to follow.

So there isn't confusion from their stand from their standpoint or from the public standpoint.

And then lastly was the ballot majors from 2023.

Um, implementing the 16 and 17-year-olds, um, it was definitely agreed that uh from an administration standpoint that could be implemented.

Um that would be an easy thing to do with the state and the county, so there wouldn't be any type of issues with admin with creating that new process for younger voters to start the process.

Lastly, on page 30 were the next steps.

Um, I'm recommending creating a committee that would include at least the city clerk, a BSC member, and an election law attorney to start going through these recommendations as well as the BSC has submitted recommendations from back from the 2023 election.

I think there were also recommendations from 2019.

So you have a lot of recommendations there of concerns that have come up in the past.

You can use those in addition to my report and begin that process.

Start with that, bring it to the council, keep everyone apprised.

Obviously, these would be public meetings, so the public would have an opportunity to visit there, but it's starting that process and then not finalizing anything until the whole process has completed.

Because as you are starting with election administration, and then you get to some campaign finance issues, you may see some crossover back and forth.

So it wouldn't be advisable to approve an election administration section before you approve the campaign finance.

You need to do it all at once because there are things that go back and forth, and you want to, especially the definitions, you want to make sure that those are all clear, whether it's election administration talk or campaign finance.

It's definitely an aggressive timeline.

And you're going to want to be able to give city staff enough time to implement all of the changes.

But I definitely believe that you can do it, and uh it could get done by early next summer in preparation for the fall of 27.

So I want to thank you very much for the opportunity to put together this review.

Uh it's been fun getting to know the staff and the BSE and a number of members from the public at the different uh events that have took place.

I definitely have learned a lot more about rent stabilization than I ever thought I would.

But um, it's been great, and I appreciate the opportunity, and I would definitely uh entertain any questions or anything that you may have.

Thank you.

Uh I have uh just want to say thank you for this report.

Uh I wanted to note we are uh making a decision whether to accept the report or not, but we're not necessarily going fine-tooth comb because this is your report to us.

It doesn't mean that we are saying yes to everything in it.

So I just wanted to uh state that for the listening public.

Um also just want to uh thank you for being on this journey with us.

We're trying to do some ambitious things to make sure that we are updating our election code, looking at what could have happened better.

We have to get the fundamentals done while also looking at new initiatives to advance.

So I appreciate the uh all of our appointed, the city manager's office, city attorney's office, city clerk, as well as you for helping to guide us and the many residents who have testified and weighed in on a variety of topics all throughout.

Um, as we take questions on this, I wanted to ask one broader question.

We have had multiple sessions on uh our election code, and we've also uh you know done straw polling and weighed in on and looked at where we had majority.

Um, is there a list of the actions that we have already taken so that we don't feel like we have to repeat them here today?

So just want to confirm on whether the mayor council can receive that list.

Mayor, I have a very detailed list.

In fact, I'm looking at it in case you brought it up and I'm happy to share it with all of you.

Thank you.

If that could be email to us, and just in case we see anything that we want to clarify.

Excellent.

And then as the city attorney moves through looking at the high-level comments, wanting to dig in deep with us if there are questions that you all you have before writing code or during, we would welcome them as well.

All right.

I want to turn to my colleagues, Dr.

Miles.

Thank you, madam mayor.

So we're just listening, and even if we have points with which we don't necessarily agree, we would handle that at a subsequent meeting, or what do you what do you thought?

So I we are in this together.

Um, I will say that uh we don't have to repeat everything we've said previously because we've weighed in.

But if there's something that you wanted to put a final tooth comb on, or just wanted to make a comment about or ask a further question about the report, we we'd welcome that.

Okay, I mean I just have one quick comment, but I'm just not sure if this is appropriate forum or not.

If so, I can it's the comment that didn't even necessarily mean a need a reply, but I just wanted to put it out there.

The only uh and again, I echo the thanks, Madam Mayor, that you have to to you, sir, for for your help and in working with us.

This is a long time in making, as well as the public who's participated in this process.

The only point I'll make is um there was a recommendation.

I think it's on page 78 that the board supervisors of elections should be able to independently, I believe, issue penalties and hold hearings without either approval of the city clerk or city attorneys.

That's the only part I would uh want to think about some more before we move forward.

That's that's all I have to say.

Thank you very much, Dr.

Miles.

Welcome.

Uh Councilman Van Greck.

Um I guess this is a note to uh I guess staff, because I mean I appreciate um the election for putting this through.

I know there's some issues here that had some slight conflict with some of the things that we talked about.

I know just as the mayor said there was a number of straw polls, including rank truck vote voting that we talked about.

I wanna make sure, if possible, to have some type of guidance or list of what is anticipated to be put in the the draft code before we get too far along.

Cause what I'd not like to have happen is that we have a draft code that we have a month to approve without clarifying an insurance that the substance of that draft comports to what the mayor and council is desires, a majority of it to see is there some way in which we can understand what is the content to be put in there prior to actually having the drafting occur.

So what I'd recommend is I'll I'll work with um all three appointed uh appointed as we'll get together.

Um perhaps we'll develop an outline of what we think that call might look like, share that with the council, make sure we're on the right path before we have our first work session.

Cause you're right.

The last thing we want to do is to have city attorney's office spend all kinds of work on something you guys are not looking for, but we'll use the basis of the consultant's report, the summary that I just emailed to all of you, which is all of your comments, the straw polls, et cetera.

And then we'll come up with an outline and think where we're headed before we put pen to paper, we meaning city attorney's office to get a detailed report.

Hopefully that works for everybody.

And and just to clarify, that's not necessarily going directly to what's here, but also encompassing all of what we've been talking about during our multiple work sessions.

Correct.

We took detailed notes.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

Yep.

Thank you.

And I'll just continue adding on this theme.

Uh so I thank you for setting the summary.

We'll take a look at that and see if we have any questions.

I know we need time to review it.

Um, and you'll get the you know, an outline to the mayor and council of what the key components of the code are.

Um the the other piece I think is important is to map out a timeline because we do have to think about as you know, the public input process, a time for revisions, looking at mapping things out on our calendar so we can schedule those in before they get filled.

Um, I do take the point of we should have things developed and you know, approved way in advance of the actual election.

I understand that it's not just the code, but then the city clerk has to help work on the election guide and training materials, and anyone who's new to office deserves that information or even running again.

Um I just want to make sure that we're we're not changing things mid-course and everyone has a chance to learn about what our policies are and that residents have a chance to see how we're operating the election.

Uh so what when are you thinking about sending out?

I know you're gonna meet with your there.

A point is, but if you could just get back to us on a proposed timeline.

There is something in the report.

I know Mr.

Gantt said it's ambitious, uh but I don't so I don't I don't know if that's the approved timeline by you all or if you're gonna give us something different.

Yeah, give us 30 days.

We'll come up with um an overall timeline, including a community engagement plan.

I'm gonna make sure the city attorney's office, city clerk's office, my office, we're all on the same page on this, Mayor.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Councilman Shaw.

I just want to echo my colleagues and and share uh thanks and appreciation for the report.

I know uh we had a lot of um conversations and a lot of different thoughts, and so I appreciate uh you putting the report together as well as staff um compiling our um a summary of our remarks.

Um I I also just wanted to add um uh if it is possible to have Jedi staff also just review the summary, um, just to have a lens Jedi our our justice equity diversity and inclusion staff review um the direction we shared uh moving forward, it will just help to make our elections more equitable.

Yeah, we're happy to do that as part of the next steps.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilman Valeri.

I'll ditto everyone's uh kudos and thanks so that we can keep things moving, but everybody said pretty much what has been in my head.

Um I know how tough it is um to pull these kind of reports together, and especially when you are combining um seven elected officials ideas.

Uh it's it's never easy because we probably have seven different ideas.

Um I will say that I just skimmed through uh thank you, Mr.

City Manager, for uh what you emailed.

Um I I would probably expand a little bit on the summary um because it needs a little bit more granularity to it.

So even put like categorizing the longer list would be helpful instead of just summarizing.

Um so that we can basically so we can create a uh checklist of perhaps items that we do need to straw poll on to say, you know, the majority um feel this way on that, etc.

blah blah blah.

Um because I think that's where I was struggling.

I was reading the report, and I, you know, did not have the benefit of time to rewatch all of our election work sessions to see whether or not we had actually straw voted on it, straw poll uh voted on that or not.

Um I do want to highlight there are a lot of things um, of course, that I could say about um the draft report, but it actually dovetails a little bit with what um council member shot just said, and I noted um in a couple of sections that things like um accepting um electronic uh signatures for candidate petitions was not um was not found to be um uh should not be done.

There's no big benefit.

It there is a huge benefit when it comes to accessibility.

Um when it comes to people with low vision or mobility impairments or folks who um uh just need that that little bit of extra.

I felt personally um during the candidate petition process.

I was frankly really embarrassed to ask people um with vision impairments to sign a thing where the box was like this small.

Um and I think um looking through all of this through that lens of how can we make our election process the most accessible um and err on the side of going above and beyond rather than like the bare minimum, um I think I think would be great.

Um another one that I noted um and I think just across the board noting this issue, making things um making things like the candidate handbook, making it more easily read by screen readers.

There were a lot of things that were available online, but um really just need to have a pass through of uh overall digital accessibility I think would be would be really helpful.

But um I'll reserve the rest of mine, but I just really wanted to put a pin on those because I think it's something that is not really addressed.

Thank you.

Councilmember Jackson, uh thank you, Mayor.

Uh I won't repeat what everybody else has said.

Uh I agree with uh much of it.

Uh first, thank you for a very comprehensive uh report.

Um I think you given us a lot to think about.

Um you've done a good job uh looking at the issues, bringing them out, uh, both administrative and uh with the campaign uh finance reform, as well as uh what um what could add.

Um I think there's some work that we can do in the coming weeks uh to flesh this out a little bit.

And there's there's um some lack of clarity in the report, which is it's fun because it's a really uh detailed report and uh with many different components, and some of them don't necessarily um uh align.

Um there's uh one uh part where you said that the border should be advisors of elections uh should investigate.

And then another part you say where the uh uh clerk's office should investigate.

And so those those are the kind of things that I think we needed to flesh out more uh moving forward.

I did want to ask one question though, um uh just the specifics, but it's to illustrate a point.

You so you say 12 months, um we shouldn't um adopt anything new for the election.

What do you mean by that?

Twelve 12 months.

What when does the election start in your your view?

12 months would be 12 months, so it would be November of 26.

I think and I would say that it should start 12 months from uh when candidates uh are approved or announced.

Sure.

Yeah, you could say 18 months from election day as well.

Um the the biggest thing with that is the administrative side, because any time you would make a change to the code that or that close to an election, puts the onus then on the city clerk's office to try and update whatever that is.

Like if you said you were changing the number of signatures from 50 to 1,000 or something.

The city clerk is gonna need time to update all of the reports and up the So giving them thinking of the entire process, not just of wanting to change something.

There's so many ripples to attempt about.

No, and I think we're in agreement on that, but it is the specifics that I'm just concerned about because in unless we kind of nail it down, uh 12 months from the sub the or from the election can mean different things to uh different people.

And so uh I have other questions, but I'll save them uh for another time.

But thank you very much for your work.

I know it's a lot of work, and I know um it's difficult uh taking all these different um opinions uh into account, both residents and the BSE and uh uh staff and and the council.

So so thank you very much.

Just looking at my colleagues to see.

All right.

Um I have a couple quick things that I wanted to flag.

One is uh just looking briefly through the list of uh the discussion.

I think that it would be helpful to maybe add a little bit more detail.

There's some things in there that I don't think that the city attorney will look at and say, I know what to do with that.

Um so I just respectfully request, I don't know if that would be you, because I think the notes were yours, Mr.

Gant, um, or uh I believe so, or between it says scant at the top, but whoever does it, we need greater clarity because this is serious business, we'll make sure we get it right.

Um, and there are a couple of things that I looked at that is very it's kind of ambivalent, and you don't know the direction.

Um, you know, my colleague mentioned accessibility.

I noted before, and I looked at the previous election where the candidate book was not could not be read read by someone with low vision.

Um that should not exclude anyone from voting.

I mean, from from trying to be an elected official.

And we know that there have been mayors in Maryland who are legally blind.

So I just it doesn't say what ADA compliant means, and so I just want to make sure it's not just a ballot, but it's the entire process and and including candidates.

Um it also notes uh elections in presidential years.

I don't recall that was a straw poll.

Um, but I know that that's a that's a hotly debated topic, and I don't think this council weighed in to change that unless I didn't hear that.

Okay, so um, I just so I want to make sure that just because it's in there doesn't mean that was a direction.

So I I think that it needs to be greater clarity on a bullet item in there versus what was direction from the mayor and council.

Is that fair?

Understood.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

Um the last thing I'll I don't think we spent too much time talking about, but I just want to flag for our city attorney.

Um we have a detailed process for a vacancy for mayor, uh, but we don't necessarily have a detailed process for vacancy for a council member.

It has happened.

Um we had a council member run for office, um, and there is a a process by which that that position gets refilled, and it's you know it's very clear under the mayor, but not necessarily clear under the council.

So I just wanted to flag that as something that we should be prepared for, um, so that as the new council, there's a period by which there would be an election, but after the election, how does the mayor and council go about appointing?

Um the uh there's detail for the mayor, but not for the council.

So I just want to see if that could be added.

Mr.

I I think there's a section in the charter now that deals with with council members as well as the mayor, but I I will double check.

It does, but doesn't say how the council would fill the seat when the mayor actually goes to the highest vote getter, and there's all this detail for the mayor, not necessarily the same level of detail for the council.

Yeah, so all right.

Uh council member Valeri, just super quickly on this point.

Um, and council member Shire, I could probably follow up on this too.

Um, in the Charter Review Commission report is a section where we looked at resigned to run, um, which we never did get the um anything from the state's attorney office who was supposed to be giving us an opinion on that.

Um, so we kind of tabled it uh since we didn't have that clear direction, but um I think that that would be um also interesting to see if basically no jurisdiction has resigned to run.

And my understanding is that it is not a legal process.

So I know that um and council member Sha uh correct me if I'm wrong.

We did talk about just that and not any other options for similar situations.

I don't think that we did.

Okay.

Councilmember Shaw.

I'm like, I couldn't remember.

I remember we we briefly touched on that, but I think there were some legal barriers um with implementing that.

I think so.

But it was a few years ago, so much older to thank you.

Councilman Jackson was at a hand.

Oh no.

Okay.

All right.

Anyone else have other questions?

The staff have any questions or anything that you want to ask us.

We do not.

Okay.

All right.

So I think that there were a couple things that said, you know, what are the options?

I if there's any background on how to do this as we go through the process, I think that our team probably would appreciate it.

I was just looking at, for example, the complaints timeline.

Perhaps could be more fleshed out, but I I appreciate this so much to cover, and you could probably write a thousand pages on this topic alone.

With that said, uh, if my colleagues have no other comments, Councilman Shaw.

Um just to build on Councilmember Valerie's point.

Um I believe Gaithersburg has uh this year uh electronic petitions, and it would be interesting and informing if if we could uh explore that uh and look at the system, maybe look at the costs, um, because I I do think there are a lot of benefits to having that and making it more accessible.

Yeah, I agree, and uh that's something we talked about um during the uh last session, and it's on your list.

So I know that you'll be exploring that.

Uh so with that said, uh, we have a uh report to decide to accept or not.

Um thing I will add is if for the final report, if it gets posted, just noting that this is the consultant's report, it doesn't represent uh you know all items being approved or the views of the mayor and council.

Is that possible?

We can note that, yes.

Okay.

All right, colleagues.

Uh any comments?

Do you want to make a motion?

You could say I vote to accept that mayor and council accept.

I'm all right, Councilmember Shaw.

Make a motion to accept.

I move to accept the consultant's final report on city election code update.

Do we have a second?

Councilmember Van Grack second.

All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye.

Excellent.

Thank you, colleagues.

Thank you, Mr.

Gantt, and thank you to our appointments.

I know that this is the passing of the baton, and uh a lot of work lies ahead.

Thank you to all our residents who came out and spoke as well.

Okay.

We'll now move on to uh agenda item 12.

It's a work session.

Vision zero progress update.

Uh the city of Rockville.

I'm let's buy time for Mr.

Brian Barnett Woods to come online.

Is he uh gonna be he's coming in person?

All right, well, I'll give him some preamble.

Uh, this is one of our initiatives uh that we have a full plan on.

And uh Mr.

Brian Barnett Woods and Ahmad Al-Shafi will come and share information about how we're making progress on those areas.

It's not enough to have plans, but we must implement what we said we were going to do.

And so uh I appreciate the report that you have for us, and I also want to note while people are listening that we have uh a results Rockville uh online dashboard so you can actually see what we're doing, what we're still in progress on, and making sure that we're um being accountable for the work that we said we do.

All right, hi, good evening everyone.

Um I'm Brian Barnett Woods, uh principal transportation planner for the city in the public works department.

Um I'm joined by Amal Shafi, Chief of the Traffic and Transportation Division, uh and Craig Simeno, uh Director of Public Works.

Uh tonight we are going to discuss uh the Vision Zero Action Plan.

Uh thank you, Mayor Ashton for the introduction.

Um maybe we will.

Um so here's a quick agenda for the evening.

Uh we'll do a quick refresher on vision zero.

I know this group it's it's old ad for many people here.

Um, some of the activities and projects that we've been working on.

Um a quick update on the neighborhood access and equity project and some discussion of of the work that we do with the state and the county.

Um and then and then uh some some QA afterwards.

Um right, so what is Vision Zero?

Um Vision Zero is a roadway safety program.

Um its primary goal is to eliminate roadway crashes that result in fatalities or serious injuries.

Um it's a multimodal program, uh, and that means it is for people who drive, people who ride their bike, people who walk, people who take the bus, people use transit, people using scooters.

It's it's for everyone.

Additionally, it's multidisciplinary.

So we take a comprehensive approach, and we work with the Rockville City Police Department, the Recreation and Parks Department, Montgomery County DOT, the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration, our community or communication and community engagement office.

We work with everyone.

And we also kind of work under four broad categories engineering, enforcement, engagement, engagement, excuse me, and policy or education, not engagement.

Excuse me.

And so we try and cover all of our bases.

We try to make roads safer for everyone to travel.

The mayor and council adopted a resolution in 2018 supporting Vision Zero.

And the Vision Zero Action Plan was approved in 2020.

This action plan is kind of the guide for our work program.

So the first thing we'll look at is crash data.

This chart shows crashes that happened over the past decade, but only between January and June, because we want to compare it with this year.

So looking at the first half of each year on average, there were 7.2 fatal or serious injury crashes since 2015.

In 2025, there have been eight crashes during this time.

If we look at all of the crashes, so not this chart, but meaning crashes of all severities.

So slightly below average there.

If we look at only the you know killed and serious injury crashes for the whole year, it averages about 17 per year.

And so right now we're at eight.

This kind of highlights where serious injury and failed crashes are happening frequently.

During the last mayor and council meeting, we were requested to update the high injury network to use crash data that's more current.

And so this high injury network uses data from 2020 to 2024.

And a segment is added to the high injury network.

If over this five-year period there are four or more serious and or fatal crashes.

Looking at the crash data, the roads are listed here.

These segments were the same segments that were in the prior high injury network crash data.

One change, oh, oh, here's a great picture.

So you can see the green lines kind of represent those segments.

Are the serious injury and fatal crashes, respectively.

One change from the old high injury network to the current injury network is North Washington Street.

This was included as a high injury network segment in using the older data.

In 2023, we constructed a complete streets project.

Part of that was a lower speed limit, uh, new on-street parking, and new separated bike lanes that use the uh the concrete divider.

Um since its construction, there have been no serious uh injury or fatal crashes, um, only minor injury crashes or property damage crashes.

Um also we're seeing fewer crashes overall uh throughout the year.

Um, just to note that little chart um for 2025, it's only January to June crashes.

Um so I kind of put in a little dotted box to say, oh, you know, for the rest of the year.

But overall, we're seeing less fewer crashes on North Washington Street, which I think is great.

Um I also want to take a moment to discuss uh Veers Mill Road and Atlantic Avenue.

Uh, this is an intersection that unfortunately we have talked about before in the past.

There was a recent serious injury uh pedestrian crash.

Um Rockville City Police Department is handling the investigation, it's ongoing.

Um a lot has happened at this intersection.

Um, four years ago, working with uh Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration.

Uh, we requested them to make improvements and to look at how other things could make this safer for people who are walking or bicycling and and driving.

Um they increased the pedestrian crossing phase, so that's the amount of time it takes to cross cross Fears Mill in 2023.

They also installed a leading pedestrian interval, new signage, hardened center lines.

Uh that's the yellow thing in the picture that kind of extends from the median.

Uh flex post curb extensions, so that if you're in the right turn lane, you can't purposefully drive through the intersection.

Um, and then high vis crosswalks, and that's the uh the continental style.

They took these down when they resurfaced the road last year.

And after we requested it, they did uh reinstall them.

And that happened a couple months ago.

Um with these crashes, there still was a pedestrian crash, or with these improvements, excuse me, there still was a pedestrian crash.

Um last week we did meet with the Maryland Department of Transportation, State Highway Administration.

And in light of that crash, we requested uh Maryland Department State Highway Administration to see what else they could do and to evaluate this intersection for additional improvements.

Uh specifically, we asked them to look at how they could maybe restrict left left turns or prohibit U-turns or prohibit right turns on red during some times of the day, during all the day, and have them kind of look into this and see what else can be done to make improvements.

They agreed to conduct the evaluation, and then once they have their findings, they'll bring it back to us, and then we can share it with this group.

Um also uh by the end of the year, the county and the state are working on a bus rapid transit project along this roadway, um, and they'll start the utility relocation for the construction, and then they'll start kind of the proper construction next year.

And we anticipate with the new BRT or bus rapid transit, uh, a traffic calming effect on this road as well.

Um, all in all, we're we're hoping to see more improvements.

All right.

Um more work that we do is public engage.

Oh, oops.

All right, some more work that we do is public engagement.

Um, it's a big part of how we try and not only spread the word about what activities are happening, but also to help educate the public on ways to walk and bike and drive more safely.

Um it's also also really great being out in the community, and so uh it's a good opportunity for for staff and for residents, I hope.

Uh this past weekend we're at the Rockville City Police Department open house.

Um next weekend we'll be at the family biking festival, which is here in the Rockville Town Center.

So I hope to see some of you there.

Um, also kind of a quick plug.

Um, if any community group is interested in learning more about the Vision Zero program, they're able to just email us and say, hey, you know, we have this community organization, we'd love to learn more about Vision Zero, and then we'll do our best to kind of schedule time where we can attend one of their meetings, or maybe just give them more information that we have available, or if they're just curious about what it is that we do.

Additionally, um the public information or the communications and community engagement office uh post lots of really valuable Vision Zero information, and they do a great job of spreading the word and sharing not only safety tips, but but projects that we're working on and things that are happening.

Um the city's website has two Vision Zero pages.

There's a general page and a project page, and between the two of those, there's over 600 unique visits in the past six months.

Um, there are eight articles in Rockville reports and 59 posts on social media that were seen by 766 people.

Um, and lastly, as mentioned at the beginning, we are working uh with Dave Gossman and his team at the city manager's office to link these web pages also with the public dashboard that was mentioned earlier.

And so we'll have a preview for next time as well.

Um the Rockville City Police Department does a great job as well with community engagement.

Um I really want to give them a call out and a shout out of the excellent work that they're doing.

Um they hosted an on-bike education effort at Maryville Edu, Maryvale Elementary School.

Thank you.

Um, with the Rockville bike hub and with the school staff, and it was a seven-week program where kids were learning how to ride bikes and how to check to make sure that they're doing the quick check with their brakes and tires and helmets.

Um, they also had a tricothon uh for nursery school students, uh, and then they had safety demonstrations at the main street Rockville Apartment Safety Day event, um, as well as their open house, which just happened.

Um so lots of really great uh work being done by them.

Um of the engineering efforts that we're doing, um, there's a lot going on.

Uh this is a map of ongoing or recently completed projects.

Uh, we had a question about whether this considered all projects, but this is really just things that are happening uh presently.

Um it doesn't have all of the projects that we've done.

Um projects in Vision Zero follow crash data and identified safety issues of kind of where do we choose where projects go.

Um additionally, we have a sidewalk prioritization policy to help select sidewalk gaps to study and evaluate.

We also have the bikeway and pedestrian master plans to help identify projects, and then we also have additional complete street studies, um, which identify additional projects that are also recommended in these plans as well.

And so a lot of the products come from different sources of how can we objectively try to make safety uh better in the city, kind of citywide.

Here on this map, there's kind of a lot of points.

Blue lines are kind of like the sidewalk projects.

The green lines are complete streets projects, and complete streets are kind of multimodal projects.

So it could be pet facilities, bike facilities, traffic calming, generic safety improvements, transit enhancement.

The dotted lines are planning and design.

And then we also have the little green dots for the fix it racks, which we'll talk about in a little bit.

And then the dark blue dots are for the intersection audits, and this is a program that we're doing under the Safe Streets and Roads for All program, where we're looking at 30 intersections in the city, 20 of which are on a state roadway.

I do want to talk a little bit about crosswalks.

Over the kind of the construction season and spring and summer, we have been busy installing marked crosswalks.

We've been following the new marked crosswalk guidelines, which has resulted in more crosswalks when people request them than we were prior to the guidelines.

So I think they're really valuable for the city to have.

Crosswalks happen across the city, and we'll continue to respond to residents as well as look for other opportunities to add marked crosswalks through our kind of regular work program.

The three listed on the bottom of this slide here at First Street and Edmund and Wooton, excuse me, Wooton Parkway, those are pending and those are coming up soon.

All of the crosswalks on this list initiated as resident requests.

So just another plug if there's anyone watching and they're curious about crosswalks in their neighborhood.

Please reach out to us and we'd be happy to evaluate those locations.

Crosswalks can't always be placed everywhere, but we are always happy to look at and work with the community.

I also want to talk a little bit more about crosswalks and kind of our process when we're thinking about where we put them.

Another approach we use is to kind of look at the route more holistically.

So this map here is part of the Twin Brook neighborhood, and it's the section that's kind of in the north part between Versmill and Baltimore.

Just on the right corner of this page is Meadow Hall Elementary School.

So it's just off the screen.

But residents had raised some requests, and we started looking at adding crosswalks and how would we how would we create a route to help students go to and from school?

And so looking here, you can see the orange lines and the green lines are places where crosswalks are or there will be.

Kind of as a segue to curb ramps and accessibility.

The Department of Public Works has been very busy to improve sidewalk accessibility and to meet ProWAG standards.

Pro WAG is public right-of-way accessibility guidelines.

And this is fairly new.

These were recently adopted by the federal government, and they're to provide standards to help meet accessibility in the public right-of-way.

Before this, there was ADA, but though those were guidelines.

These are standards that we look to meet when we're building our streets.

And in response of this, the Department of Public Works developed a system to kind of make these Prog improvements throughout the city.

And so, especially looking at curb ramps and driveway aprons.

And so when roadways are resurfaced, we also check to make sure that the ramps and the driveway aprons are meeting accessibility standards with Pro WAC.

Up to date, I think since last fall, we have done 112 curb ramps and 303 driveway aprons.

So we're making really good progress, and we will continue to make these accessibility improvements moving forward.

We are making progress replacing the city maintained lights with LEDs, which use less energy and they increase visibility for people who are walking or driving or riding bikes.

So in addition, in addition to helping roadway safety, these lights are part of our climate action plan as well.

So it's a two for one, it's great.

We've completed our first phase, and we're just about two-thirds done with the second phase.

Let's see, we have another picture of kind of a before and after.

There it is.

We recognize that the color of the light is different, but people tend to get used to it after a little while.

It's important to note that these lights do meet via the clear sky standard.

And so we're continuing on this project.

I think from a pedestrian standpoint, these really do help visibility, not only for if I am a pedestrian and walking so I can see everything around me, but also motorists who are driving or people in bicycles, they can see me better as well.

All right.

It is lovely to see new concrete on the ground.

There was a question about this, so I do want to take a moment to kind of dig in a little bit.

So when we look at the missing sidewalk segments in the city, we have 50.17 miles of sidewalk gap in the city.

And sometimes that can be a street that has gaps on both sides, or it's a street that has a gap on one side.

And the gap is the place where there is no sidewalk.

Once the upcoming construction segments are completed, so that second group on this slide will be at 49.7 miles of sidewalk gap remaining.

This is composed of 448 different segments.

There's no good way to describe a segment.

They run the gamut in size.

So our smallest one is 19 feet, and the largest one is a little over a mile.

And also a street could have many segments on it, because it goes kind of from block to block to block.

But we are working forward to continue to evaluate and design and construct sidewalks.

And we're finally starting to see the sidewalks that we were looking at a couple years ago get to this point where they're being constructed now.

So, for instance, in this picture, Gale Avenue, this was a sidewalk feasibility study that was looked at a year prior to this.

Crawford Drive was uh done as part of the Twinbrook Transportation Alternatives program, and that feasibility study started in late 2023.

And so we're finally kind of getting momentum, and we're going to keep it up and keep building sidewalks.

So I'm happy to see that happen.

I have one more slide on sidewalks.

Um I wanted to talk a little bit about this one specifically.

This is Virginia Avenue.

And I'm calling it out because this sidewalk wasn't part of our initial using the prioritization and coming over there.

This is something that residents came to us and they said, hey, we really want a sidewalk on our neighborhood.

And they they did the the outreach and the petition process and really helped make us or allow us to build this at a much quicker rate when we had that public support.

So again, if there are residents out there who are looking outside and they want a sidewalk in front of their house, um, please feel free to reach out to us.

We'd be happy to work with you to learn about that partition process and how we can move sidewalk projects forward at a quicker rate.

Um traffic calming projects are roadway improvements that help motorists uh travel at the posted speed limit or below.

Um this results in a more comfortable crossing or walking or rolling for pedestrians, uh parallel travel for bicyclists more comfortable as well.

Uh we recently completed, and you can kind of see the picture here, the the evolution of the improvement, um, a raised crossing and new pedestrian median uh with pavement markings that block on street parking at the intersection at the Manicky and Smallwood Road intersection.

Uh this was the result of community engagement and a complete street study on Maniche Street.

Um the city's also installed as part of that uh complete street study, a pedestrian median at Henderson Circle and a raised crossing at Carr Avenue.

Um we have a similar pedestrian median project to be constructed soon on Twinburg Parkway at Meadowhall Lane, which was uh I think originally excuse me, initially uh proposed or suggested that we look at improving safety at that intersection from the Twinburg Community Association.

Um then we also installed a speed feedback sign on Rollins Avenue.

And this is just to point out that traffic calming projects look different than there's other ways to help reinforce the rules of the road.

Um you can actually see on the right side that image there, that is the new speed feedback sign that's on Rollins Avenue.

Um other traffic calming that's upcoming.

Um, on September 15th, we're carrying out a demonstration project on Redland Boulevard where we're going to repurpose the outside travel lane for 24-hour parking, um, which we expect will help calm traffic, um, help calm from the traffic speeds that happen on Redland.

Um we recently completed a study on Congressional Road, um, which is going to result in raised crossings uh near the daycare and the park entrance and separated bicycle lanes near the commercial areas and Rockville Pike.

Um and then lastly, for Rollins Avenue as well, we have an upcoming uh complete street study that will begin uh in earnest in fall in the fall.

We're also moving forward on bicycle facilities.

We have fix it racks coming, and a fix it rack is a rag that bicyclists can use.

They can put their bike on it, and if they need to, you know, quickly change a flat tire, or maybe they need to adjust their brake or their seat.

It kind of provides tools and a space to do that to make it easier to fix those.

And so we have four fix it racks that will be installed this year along sections near different trails in the city.

I mentioned earlier Congressional Lane during the traffic calming, but we'll be adding separated bike lanes on that section of Congressional Lane near the commercial uses, kind of east of East Jefferson Street, and then add shared roadway pavement markings on Congressional Lane on the section west of East Jefferson Street.

Next year, we're adding bicycle facilities to Martins Lane.

This was something that we looked at last year and came with that improvement.

But we want to make sure that we're doing this in sync with another ongoing public works project where I think we're fixing the water main underneath.

And so when that project is complete and we've resurfaced the road, the bicycle facilities will be added afterwards.

Also earlier today, I met with a teacher at Julius West Middle School about adding more bike parking at their school.

And I was with him, we looked at all the students, and their bike racks were completely full, which was great to see.

Let's see.

This is the Twin Brook Pedestrian and Bicycle Bridge Project.

Unfortunately, we did learn earlier this summer that the federal government chose to rescind funding for the second phase of this project.

And that phase included a preliminary design of a preferred bridge alternative.

However, phase one is still funded.

And this includes the feasibility study to look at the four different crossing locations and make sure that the bridge or the tunnel, you know, the footings will fit and the location, the location will work out, looking at a cost benefit analysis for each of those locations, and doing additional public outreach to make sure that we have community support in Bayern and on what a preferred alternative may be.

The deliverables of phase one are really important.

And no matter how this project is done, we would need to get that done.

And so when we have those deliverables and that outcome, we will move forward to advance this project based on kind of the findings of what that is.

Currently, we're working with the city's procurement office to prepare the requests for proposals so that we can identify and find a qualified consultant to work on us to work on this with us.

Lastly, I just want to discuss a little bit of our coordination efforts with the state and the county.

Um, to talk about ongoing projects that they have, whether it's in the city or near the city.

Um it's also an opportunity for us to ask them to look into additional projects or to see where things are opportunities for for us to collaborate on making improvements.

Um we're working with them with our safe streets and roads for all intersection audit project because we want to make sure that they're aware of what we're doing and how we're looking at the intersections, and that if we have recommended improvements, those can be either implemented by the state, or maybe we can work with them to find additional sources of funding for that.

Um we also asked them for you know just ongoing, hey, it'd be great if you were to fix this or reduce the speed here.

Um we've had pretty good success.

Uh, we also recently asked them to there's a sign that they need to take down that has the wrong speed limit on first and they were aware of it, and they've uh they said, okay, we'll get to it, so that's great.

Um the county, uh we don't have any county roads in the city, uh, so it's a little bit different, but we do work with them to make sure that we're aware of what's going on with their vision zero programs and their safe routes of street programs.

Uh, this picture here is with uh mostly uh Maryland or not see Montgomery County Department of Transportation, where we looked at the Carl Hen Millennium Trail, uh, but the section on East Goody that is on county-owned maintained right-of-way.

Um, there are a lot of issues that our bike communities brought to us, and that we use this opportunity to say, hey, look, here's some issues that City of Rockville, you know, bicycle advisory committee has said, how can we make this better and share that with them?

Um so kind of this partnership and collaboration is an ongoing effort, and I'm happy that we have them as partners on all levels.

Um with that, and on behalf of the department and the traffic and transportation division, uh, thank you for your time.

I was happy to happy to share what we've been doing and have you discuss any questions you may have.

I just want to say a huge thank you uh on behalf of all of us.

I know you'll hear from us you know individually as well, but um fantastic work to you and the department, uh, Mr.

Ahmad Al-Shafi, Mrs.

Simeneau, and Brian.

Um, also appreciate the work that you do with our community groups uh and our board.

You go across three of them, uh, which I think is maybe a record for some of our staff liaison, but I just want to say thank you because it's so important as we are developing policy, you're talking to the people who um have that expertise.

So I really appreciate it.

I have a couple quick things.

Um I was really happy to see that uh there have not been any more fatalities, and I'm gonna hope that that stays that way on North Washington.

Um, and I just wanted to make a statement on that.

I know that was something that was hard.

Uh, we got a lot of um commentary on do we need bike lanes in North Washington?

And I think it speaks to the fact that it's not just the bike lanes, it's the complete street aspect of it, and it's been helping the entire community.

We've been able to save lives on that road.

Uh, and I just you know, sometimes it looks like one thing, but it's actually many things we're trying to accomplish with these projects.

So I just wanted to thank you for that, and just to explain to the public why that's so important and why we moved it forward on it.

Um, in addition, on Maryland Avenue, when we did the bike lanes, again, not just the bike lanes, but which are important as well, right?

Because we have we need to have multimodal opportunities in the city, but it also created a buffer for um our walkers and pedestrians.

Uh we have a lot of children who go along these roads, and we had uh teenagers get hit by a car.

Uh so I just wanted to note that in that particular space, I think there was like a 70% reduction speed speeding tickets at one point.

So people are saving money, but we're also saving lives.

Um, and uh you know, these projects are more than meets the eye, and I hope we can do more of them.

I will also note that even if we do everything right, and I say this every time, uh, the the work that we really need to get done is on the state highways, which we do not have full control over.

Um, so I want to thank you for um updating the high injury network.

My question to you is um how are we sharing that updated list with the state?

Uh so we met with them last week, um, and I shared with them the same slides and data that I share with you.

So they're we let them know that we completed this new up this new network and that all of the roads that were in it were on state maintained highways and shared the the segments that um are in the report.

Okay, and we have any commitments yet?

If no, it's too soon.

But I last time when we shared that lesson, I think they were like the top 50 um serious crashes and fatalities.

We we kind of heat mapped them for them.

Um, and we were able to get some commitments to doing work on them.

So I'm hopeful that we'll have an update on that soon as well.

I know it takes time.

Um, I just also want to say thank you for the work on Manicky.

You've helped bootin' uh in our high school students um all across East Rockville.

I there were several new sidewalks that went there.

We talked about North Washington, um Redland and Rollins and Martins Lane, and even going to the Fscot Fish Draw, I've just seen many more things happening to improve safety.

And as a result, you see more people walking, you see children riding bikes, and it just also creates a sense of place in the community.

Um, I also want to acknowledge that uh it's an equity issue.

Uh we know that um we want to make sure that not everyone has a car and should be able to get to work in school wherever they're going safely.

Uh with that said, I'll make my other comment, which is that um, and I have personally walked some of these paths that we still have bus stops that are mid-block, and I have seen and tried to you know see what I have, what I would encounter as an everyday person on that street, and try to go to different people's streets, and I walk about four miles a day just to see what people in their own community experiencing.

It is it is a game of chicken and very, very unsafe.

And if someone is going to be late for work and we're putting that bus stop in the middle, again, I don't think we're fully practicing vision zero practices when we are just not anticipating what that person will have to do to get to work.

Um, so I know that we have um contracts with the you know, some of the bus stops, some of them managed by the county.

Just wanted to see what what is being done on that because I know that's we've tried to talk, and I just kind of want to get a sense are we making any progress on that particular front?

Because that is an equity issue as well.

Yeah.

Sure.

So as part of the initial uh crash analysis, um, we looked at uh serious serious injury and fatal crashes that happened within kind of a hundred feet of a bus stop.

Um, and then we identified there were uh turned out there were eight uh bus stops where this happened.

Uh six of them were on uh state maintained roadways, and uh two of them run uh city maintained roads.

Um one of them was on Halpine, uh, where we have an ongoing project looking at uh complete streets and doing separated bike lanes kind of near the shopping centers.

Uh we also reached out to the county uh who operates the ride on bus service about whether they can move some of the bus stops, um, and then whether the state would support that as well, uh, if it's on state rights of why.

Uh in some instances, they said, oh, we'll look into it.

Um in other instances they've said uh we can't move it because the distances between the bus stop and the intersection isn't uh supportive of having multiple buses queued up and things like that.

But we can continue to work on it.

Thank you.

Appreciate you keeping at it one day.

Um and I'll just end and say uh before I let my colleagues ask questions.

The Maryvale bike program education program is amazing, as well as the outreach you do with the schools uh for walk to school day and bike to school day.

Um I I know that the kids were able to map out safe routes to library and town center and places like that, and it really makes a difference.

I will say more schools are wanting.

And so Swinbrook has already said whenever that there's an opportunity we'd like to be included, and I'm sure there are others, but just wanted to commend you all on that great work.

Councilmember Fulton.

Thank you.

Yes, uh, the work is amazing.

Uh I I find that the vision zero work is the the quantity of the work getting done, the quality of the work getting done, the level of engagement, the reporting and the tracking, it it's all really stellar, and so thank you for that.

Um the mayor going first made a lot of the comments that I would have made, and probably some others, but a couple things that I I I want to double down on um the North Washington Street um connection and and maybe even be a little bit more explicit.

Um there were a lot of people that were really unhappy with that work at the time.

Um it's my neighborhood, I've talked to a lot of them, they were very unhappy.

Two years in, you almost hear no complaints anymore, and now you see the benefits of it.

Uh, like you've got data that shows, you know.

Yes, people might have to go slower, but it's actually preventing accidents.

So thank you for that.

It's worth it.

It's also creating parking, like benefits all around.

Um two clarifying questions.

Um on the sidewalks, you made uh, I can't remember where it was where you said the community was asking for it, so that made it a lot easier.

That is great.

Um, if someone wants a sidewalk in front of their house, that is great.

I think it's also important to remember that the sidewalks actually aren't for the person whose house the sidewalk is in front of.

So if there's if there's a family with a child down the street trying to get to school, who wants that sidewalk?

That's equally as important.

So I just wanted to make that point.

And then just a question for you.

There's been an awful lot in the news lately about Montgomery County's right on red uh going into effect uh and the signs going up and the reaction to that.

Um do we have a stance on that on whether making some similar restrictions uh in in key places might make a help us in any way?

Sure.

Yes, uh, thank you for your question.

Um I've been actually in contact with Montangomari County to talk about this.

Um they have uh about 20, two, I'm sorry, 200 locations in different downtown areas like Silver Spring, for example, or Wheaton.

Um that um, as you probably have heard, there is something called the Safe Street Act in 2023, and they were required uh as staff to implement those uh no right turn on red.

So um I've been told that they have till June 26 to to do this work.

However, the way they are doing it is that that they are trying to look at intersection to see if that will cause any problems or not.

There are some pros and cons for nor right turn on red.

It helps sometimes for one direction, but maybe it hurts the other direction.

Um but anyway, um, so they are looking at that, and at the same time they are going to remove the no right turn on red at location when they find out that there is an issue with that.

Uh coincidentally that two years ago we actually look at that in our um intersections.

Um I don't know if you can bring this slide.

So we we look at the town center.

Uh we already have like five main intersections that we considered like the heart of the town center, a couple on on 28 and then middle, uh North Washington, middle in Maryland.

Um, and um Washington uh Courthouse Square.

Uh as you see from this table, uh, we already have several no right turn on red on every intersection has no right turn on red, but not all directions.

Um we have also uh look at our intersection, and we found we added the the north uh the middle and um Maryland intersection, we add on the northbound and southbound.

So we are trying to balance a little bit between putting the nor ecturnal red, but at the same time, like if you think about if you have Norecton on red, the car going straight.

I mean, that helps the pedestrian crossing in front of this car because the car cannot move forward.

But it hurts the other pedestrian on the right side when finally this car can make a right turn, they're competing now with the pedestrian who has the chance to cross the street.

So we're trying to put it where we have the more pedestrian or where we we don't want to have this conflict.

But we keep looking at this, and if we want to add it, we add with it what we call the LPI, which is uh the leading pedestrian interval.

So we try to give the pedestrian a little bit uh ahead of time to start to cross before the the car gets the green light to turn.

So it's a balance between the two, but we are working with the county to try to see what that experience is, and we keep looking at our intersection to add no time or no right turn on red when we see it's needed or it's gonna be beneficial.

Thank you so much.

You have thought it through, and you answered my only ask was to like stay in touch with Montgomery County and see their experience, see if there's anything we can learn, and you're doing it.

So thank you so much.

You're welcome.

Thank you.

Dr.

Miles Thank you, thank you, Madam Mayor.

It's like a been a long time since I've seen you, Mr.

Burnett Woods.

You was here the Saturday at the police event.

And I appreciate you coming.

Um thanks for this report.

The only thing I'll raise is uh to thank you all for your continued efforts to work with the county, particularly with regard to the Millennium Trail Northside.

Similarly, with some of our border areas where there are streets that are out of our jurisdiction andor control.

I'm mindful of like Montrose, uh the bottom end.

Um people bike there, sometimes I bike there.

Uh, there are some kids who are walking uh school, some of our North Farm kids like go across the street and swim over at Old Farm.

Um I recognize that we don't have jurisdiction over uh that street.

It is a fast one.

I mean, it's it's posted at 40 miles per hour, people drive 50.

Um, but I I would hope that we can continue work with him to make it uh safer for those to connect two communities, recognize that one of them is not ours, but um anybody who um is involved in an um uh motor vehicle collision, be it pedestrian or otherwise, um those could be our neighbors too.

That's all.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Valeri, and then Councilman Jackson, then we'll go down the line.

Yes, thank you.

Um yes, I feel like I see Brian all the time.

Um, but it's because I get to be liaison to both the Transportation Mobility Commission and the Rackville Pedestrian Advocacy Committee.

So I'm always appreciative of the amount of work that he's doing and that the entire team is doing.

Um I had a couple of quick questions.

Um the no right on red um in Montgomery County.

Um do you know if they've identified any of the um county maintained roads within the city of Rockville or adjacent to I'm thinking specifically of Twinbrook Parkway, um, and whether or not they're looking at no right on red.

And you can come back to me on that one.

I'm just thinking, like, you know, um, we get it that it's a Montgomery County thing, and I really appreciate the analysis, but because I think that the data always has shown that um eliminating right turn on red uh does save lives.

So I think that's really important.

Um there's that.

Uh I had a question about the maintenance of crosswalks.

Um, and this might be maybe uh uh a fun uh can uh collaboration between uh Mr.

Al Shafi, Brian Barnett Woods, and Craig Semenau.

Um what is the maintenance of crosswalks?

Do we have uh a set schedule?

Because what I've noticed is some of the crosswalks that have been um community requested at a certain point.

I'm I'm thinking of one that's just down the black.

After the winter, all the um striping has come up and hasn't been fixed in about two years.

So I'm just wondering what the um what the maintenance schedule uh looks like on those, and I can pause there.

I have just one more question after this.

Sorry to put you on the spot, Mr.

Seminel.

Looking for a mic.

I'll I'll take that one.

We have developed within the last two or three years a level of service for exactly what you're talking about.

The average life of asphalt in the city streets is 12 years, give or take.

And we have to uh ascertain that we should be replacing the lines about six years halfway through the life.

So they're going to get replaced when we resurface the road because we're digging them up, but then about halfway through, we're going through and replacing those lines again.

Okay.

So we're thinking the lines are lasting six years and the roads lasting about 12 years.

Probably depends too on the amount of snow.

Yeah, well, how much blade and how much uh where it gets, etc.

Some locations a little more than others.

It doesn't mean we won't take one out of cycle if it's in a high uh visit, but we we think, especially like the long lines we call them, long lines of the big scrap.

We call a contractor into them, the crosswalks we do in-house now.

Okay, thank you.

That that's really helpful because I mean I know I've heard from some residents um that appreciated when a crosswalk was put in, and now it's looking a little um looking a little rough and can barely tell it's a crosswalk there.

So thank you.

That's really helpful.

Um my last questions point.

Um because I know that you have the quarterly meetings with the the state and the county and our wonderful team here in the city.

Um I really would like to see if there's a way that we could be um more coordinated uh in the terms of the length of crossing time.

I have heard from a multitude of of residents um, even before I got elected, but especially now, that there is not enough time, and this is on city roads specifically.

There is not enough time to cross.

And especially at Bears Mill and Atlantic, they gave us the benefit of I think eight more seconds, which really for people um of any age, but particularly with any sort of sort of uh mobility impairment, um, you feel that it's a race because most people don't understand kind of the the nuances of you can keep walking when it's blinking orange, people just see that and you have an internal panic and you can't get to the other side, and that's a uh essentially in many ways is a five-lane, six-lane highway.

Um I really would like to advocate for us lengthening the time, our crossing time across the board in the city.

Um but in addition to that, really working with the the county and the state on looking at the the crossing times um on those particular roads, because I know that we can't you know just go in there and change them ourselves, but it it makes a big difference, I think, in terms of safety, but also um the walkability factor, the to make crossing, you know, people have to feel safe and you don't want to make them feel like they're on beat the clock, and that's the way that people feel right now.

So um I just wanted to put a plug-in for that because that is probably up there with uh sidewalks is probably the number two uh thing that I hear from folks.

So thank you, and thank you as always for just phenomenal work.

You have a great team.

Thank you, Councilmember Jackson.

Thank you, Mayor.

I'll be uh rather brief, but uh first let me say great work.

And uh you know, this is an example of the departments actually working together and pursuing one goal, and I I think we're making tremendous, some tremendous progress.

Obviously, there's still a lot to do, but I think this presentation and the maps and everything you talked about says that we're going in the right direction.

And so I appreciate uh that.

Um as a bicyclist uh myself on the Millennium Trail, I really appreciate uh your continued um doggedness in trying to improve uh the stretch uh uh uh east of uh on goodie uh of 355.

Uh obviously that's a tough nut to crack, but uh you guys are keeping on top of it.

Um likewise uh Redland, the the demonstration project, that is something that we have talked about for years now, and I'm really excited that uh we're gonna get it started and see um you know how it works and whether it's uh feasible to um I keep it.

I think that getting uh the traffic slowed down uh along that uh road is gonna be uh fantastic for people who live uh in that.

Now the street lights, um I know that you said um that it takes a little bit of time to get used to them, and and and that's probably true.

Um, and I support um uh the LAD uh street lights.

My question is uh as somebody who actually lives in King Farm, and I know that they have private streets and public streets, private street lights and public street lights.

uh in in that now the street lights um i know that you said um that it takes a little bit of time to get used to them and and and that's probably true um and i support um uh the LAD uh street lights my question is uh as somebody who actually lives in King Farm and I know that they have private streets and public streets private street lights and public street lights so this picture that you showed um you can go basically one block over uh of a city street to a private I mean the uh yeah private street and see the difference in lights and it's not just uh in King Farm it's uh other HOAs and uh other uh civic associations uh across the city so my question really is you know in in places where you have different lights uh is there a program or is there outreach you know what are we trying to do to kind of coordinate and eventually I don't expect it to happen overnight but eventually uh we'll have the same um uh the same colour lights rather than people seeing the uh different lights and wondering you know what's going on uh good question I mean obviously you know we uh uh we we are just doing uh the LEDs on our uh uh public streets but we actually have worked specifically with King Farm and other uh neighborhoods on before we installed the lights because you know we we did not want to get like um sometimes like uh feedback that they don't like the lights so before we put the light in King Farm we worked with the King Farm uh Assembly and we actually changed the the style of the fixture the light fixtures uh in the way that they like it um so that's just the the amount of work the extent of work we did with uh with them to coordinate this kind of work um we also you probably heard some people that uh were complaining about it's too bright and we have actually dimmed some of those lights and we work with some of those residents to dim it a little bit and uh we did not hear complaints after that so hopefully it's good um just to add to that also um a lot of work has been done in Githersburg and Montgomery County with those LEDs and they get the same uh feedback that we are receiving now at the beginning they feel it's too bright then they get used to it or they can dim some of them uh but we can work with some like like for example like I said we work with King Farm we can talk to them about the possibility of uh them doing also uh LED lights there are some programs uh um that can help financially which we used obviously um and maybe we can guide them uh to to maybe apply for something similar so the financial burden will not be as as much as it can be no and I appreciate that and I also let me just say um you know I was involved in this conversation with the LD lights and people um brought the the their um complaints uh to me and I think that number one your staff uh responded really quickly and really thoroughly and with the right tone which was hey we will work with you if the adjustments that need to be made we will do it and that would have went a long way in um kind of mollifying uh those people who were complaining but also it brought off the the uh the word woodwork uh people that actually liked the the the lights they like um uh the the clarity and also they like the the fact that it's um uh saves money and no it's uh um uh it it it's really uh environmentally friendly yeah like environmentally friendly uh the the night sky it's really help helped by having uh L yeah uh yeah light blues and uh is it's really lessened uh by using the the LED uh lights so I really thank you uh for that um the only two other things and and one uh the city manager knows I'm gonna keep harping on on it and I'll say for last but um just the the ADA um and and uh town center uh you know we s continue to hear um complaints from people who are mobility challenged or um uh use uh other things to get around like walkers or wheelchairs uh with the cobblestones or the bricks uh in town center and I know we've talked about this before and I know there's a plan but you know whatever we can do to speed it up or uh get that moving because I know that you know people want to use town center and people uh that are mobility challenged or maybe uh aging um they are voted because it's really difficult for them to walk to get around on that uneven surface so just put in the plug for you know whatever we can do to accelerate uh that changeover and then finally and and uh the city manager's gonna laugh but um you know uh Dr.

And I would be remiss not to mention that you know we still um need to work on that millennium trail, the connection to Yale Place, because it's really uh the the grade is is really steep, and uh kids have a lot of trouble, even adults have trouble making that tour turn and going uh along that way, and it's a real uh impediment to uh being able to bike and walk uh from uh you know King Farm or other point uh down uh the millennium trail and then crossing over to the to the L Place.

And with that, I will turn it back over.

Thank you, Councilmember Shaw.

Um, I I do want to commend the staff and echo my colleagues.

Thank you.

It's an excellent presentation.

I just have two quick things, comments.

Um just building on my colleagues' comments around uh North Washington.

Um that's the area where I live, and so I greatly greatly appreciate the improvements.

Um we talked about um the benefit of parking, and I just wanted to build on that with that benefit of the businesses also appreciating the parking around there.

Um and I think we should broadly share uh the the data that we have, um, because I know there was a lot of mixed feedback originally, and I think it would be great to share some of that data.

Um and the other thing is um the LED savings.

Um I know initially uh there was a certain uh I can't remember the the number, but there was a projected number of uh money that we were going to save by having LED, and so with two-thirds of it being installed, I look forward to learning the actual savings.

Thank you, Councilmember Jackson, Councilmember Ben Greg, sorry.

It's okay, it's it's a compliment.

Um first, um uh like I said to my c like my colleagues have said, um, fantastic report, but I want to emphasize something even greater.

Um, Mr.

Barnett Woods, I have to tell you, I know you mentioned the public engagement that you've been to, but that was just a snapshot.

I don't think there's a single whether it's county or city event that I haven't seen you at the table engaging from start to finish of our events, and it's not just handing out the i bike Rockville uh uh magnets or other aspects.

For those who don't know or haven't been, he's got an enjo an entire chart of the city engaging with our residents, saying, where are the problem areas?

What can we do to help out?

And I've witnessed time and time again residents pinpointing areas that I know are part of this report.

So I know this report is not just um staff looking at areas, staff hearing from the mayor and council.

I know that you have been out there on a constant basis looking and getting the information.

So you and the entire team with regard to the engagement, it's exactly what the mayor and council has been looking for, the community engagement.

And I can't think of a person or a department that has done it better than you have.

So thank you so much for everything you're doing.

Thank you.

Um I also want I I also have a question.

I know I've asked it before, um, but I want to bring it up simply for the fact that it's probably the single most area, a single most commented area that I get.

In fact, I literally had two residents ask me just this weekend on the issue.

It's on the chart, and it's dealing with Scott Drive.

And I know that it's an area that we've been uh pinpointing for years, and I literally had two people quoting me, what's going on?

What's the status?

And I note that it's listed on the diagram, but it isn't on the ongoing, upcoming or design.

So uh to kind of at least help me uh uh in communicating with the residents and give an update.

Where are we on that?

Can we see it in the future?

And because I know some of my colleagues are talking about school kids, the frost school kids, the Wooten school kids, they're asking us as kind of where we are, because I know they view it as important.

Good question again.

Uh Scott Tavir's uh drive as a CIP, as you probably know.

Um we did a visibility study, so we have actually a good plan.

And then we are moving to the design phase, but we were lucky enough to get the grant for that, which slow us down a year at least at this point.

Uh as you know, when we get the grant, it's always uh somebody else give up giving us the money, and therefore they are involved in every step, all the agreements, and that's what's slowing us a little bit.

But uh, we are close to have an agreement sign and get the project starting through design.

So we have money for the design, and we we are gonna move forward with this very soon.

And again, uh I'm only saying this because I know that like that's been the response.

Do we believe that there's gonna be the design phase?

We think in the next year.

I mean, I I understand that there's a lot of complications here.

It's just something that I'm not joking when I say it's at least once every two weeks, I get a question just on this issue.

It's gonna happen.

We have the money.

So thank you.

Uh thank you for the segue, actually.

Um on this topic of sidewalks.

Um I've been trying, I just pulled up some 2024 data that we were at 51 miles in 2024.

Um, so you're about 50 miles now, and by the time you're done, which I hope that'll be, you know, in the next year, we'll be at 49.7.

So is it fair to say you're targeting a mile a year?

Yeah, we are trying to do that.

As you know, a mile is not the short distance.

It might have a very long distance, and it can be six, seven projects, each one of them has their challenges.

So like we are we're moving with that.

As you know, we we finished group one and we are working on group two, and we already have group three feasibility coming up.

Uh so we we are working uh as hard as we can on that.

Thank you.

And I know that um the money that we won back from tax duplication was a lot of it was from transportation and police.

Uh, and so I just know that we wanted to make sure that even though it goes into general fund, that we were accelerating some of our vision zero efforts, and so I appreciate you doing that uh and taking that very seriously.

Um I'll also just say thank you for the fix it bike racks.

I have seen and been one of those people who needed uh to fix a tire.

Um, and I've you know, you see a child trying to get through and they don't have their own kit.

It people just need it.

It's uh it's a part of life, and so I appreciate that you're starting with four uh and also the work that you're doing to help Julius West last was it a year or two ago.

We actually worked with Richard Montgomery to add uh bike racks there.

So um we had some in storage.

So I I think that's great if we can get more of our students biking safely and create the safe routes to do it.

I think it's a good thing.

My colleague mentioned some of the comments around um uh looking at schools in particular.

I know the in particular one neighborhood.

Um you are doing that broadly, right?

Just looking at the um safe routes to school and and seeing where we are and what we need to be doing more to help students get to school safely.

I believe there's a plan for that.

Okay, all right, good.

Um I have another audience that I wanted to mention, similar to our youth, and I talked about people who are getting to work.

This other population are our seniors, and um we have uh a variety of uh senior living communities around Rockville Town Center, but they're all across the city as well.

We have a lot of them.

Uh, but I specifically received some feedback about Rockville Town Center.

Uh, that um in some cases, I won't name the particular institution, um, but the as people were getting out the parking lots were kind of had holes in them and didn't have like a safe sidewalk to get from there.

We fixed a piece of it, but there's still more.

Um, so I just wanted to know thinking about residents on the lane and victory and Brightview and others, how do those seniors get to town center?

And we know that uh a senior falling could be catastrophic in terms of their health, but also quality of life.

If someone could really um you know be seriously hurt and life shortened years because of it.

So I just wanted to note that as we think about outreach, if we could pay a pay a little more uh review on how our seniors are accessing town center and and other major locations across the city where we have senior living facilities.

Um the other feedback that I got was um around town center.

I know to my colleague mentioned the point of um the time it takes to cross the street.

Uh I just heard at earfall in town center saying I it's I'm I'm don't feel safe crossing that street.

So I just know many of us can walk quickly, but not everyone can.

And whether you have little legs or you're um you know getting older, I just want to think about all those people who are just trying to get across the city.

Um I just also wanted to note um research boulevards is an important part of our network.

We're going to see mixed-use communities over there, and I think the project will also help us to create more housing there.

So I know that we're applying for a grant and fingers crossed on that, but I just think that we that one is an area where I know there's gonna be many more people and people already asking for that work.

And um uh Mayor Ashton?

Yeah, regarding the research boulevard grant.

So the uh committee at the Transportation Planning Board recogn uh recommended our project for approval, and so the transportation planning board uh will likely fingers crossed, approve this so that we will have been awarded the grant um hopefully by next month.

Fingers crossed.

Uh and I will just note um two other areas.

One is uh the North Farm community has had a long history of asking for additional support um on pedestrian safety.

They're not our roads nearby, they're county roads.

Um, but I just wanted to raise that because I haven't had as much success in getting some of the pedestrian improvements.

And uh Virus Modern Atlantic, I know you talked about that.

Thank you for acknowledging the loss of life that has been there previously and someone being seriously injured more recently.

In addition to the increasing pedestrian time, and I don't know if there's an inverse relationship here, but I have stayed there for an hour just to watch human activity and behavior.

And one thing I notice is that it takes a long time for the light to change to be able to walk.

So you could be waiting.

And this is I don't know if it's been adjusted since I was there, but it was like over two minutes.

And if you're trying to again catch that bus or get, you know, it's just that length of time may someone may just make the walk.

And it's a very dangerous intersection.

I know we don't control the times, but we do have influence.

And so I just wanted to continue to look at that and appreciate that.

And then the last last thing is our sidewalk petition.

Appreciate all the work you've done with our communities.

Um can we have that form in Spanish?

You don't have to answer now.

But I did check and it's still in English.

So I think that'll be an easy fix.

But as we think about parts of our community who may want a sidewalk, I'll make sure they have the access to understand how to do it.

Yeah, we can definitely do that.

All right, thank you so much.

All right.

Thank you very, very much.

Excellent, excellent work on Vision Zero.

This is a model for our initiatives, and uh just appreciate the deep thought, not only the human touch and experience, but also the data-driven and infrastructure part of it.

And I know it takes the you know, Rockfall City Police, you planning, our residents, um, you are really doing strong work and we appreciate it.

Thank you.

All right, now we're moving on to agenda item 13, which is our mock agenda.

Anyone have any comments on the mock agenda?

Okay.

We're now moving on to old new business.

We can also entertain a motion to adjourn.

Councilmember Valeri.

For the good of the order, I'd like to make a motion to adjourn.

All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye.

Hi.

All right, good night, everyone.

Thank you, Rockville, for joining us today.

Thank you to staff who prepared and all the residents who participated.