Speaker numbers apply only to this recording. Names come from transcript evidence. “Possibly” marks uncertain attribution.
The Rockville Mayor and Council convened on Monday, October 12, 2026, at 6:30 PM for Meeting No. 24-26. The agenda included a City Manager's report, presentations on the Financial Advisory Board and the Rockville Homeownership Assistance Program (RHAP), a public hearing and action on the Sheraton Hotel conversion, and a worksession on Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) and small-scale development. The meeting adjourned around 10:00 PM.
Good evening, Rockville. Today is October 12th, 2026, and we're convening meeting number 24-26. Please join me as you're able in the Pledge of Allegiance. We'll first begin with agenda review, Sarah Taylor Pharrell. Madam Mayor and Council members, there are no changes to the agenda for this evening. Thank you. City managers report, Mr. Mahalick. Mayor Ashton, members of City Council, ladies and gentlemen, good evening. I remember when I first started with the city a little over two years ago, there was a fair amount of discussions about non-native invasive species in the city. It's been a lot all over. We've been doing the best we can to identify ways to um clean those areas up. We have been doing that. And one really good example is what the treatment we just did at Maryville Park. And there's a couple of really good photos out there. We went out and did a lot of clean off of the invasive species in that area, trimmed it down, mulched over the top. We think we did a pretty good job there. But if you're wondering what it looks like the before and the after, I would encourage you to go out there and take a look. Because we're gonna be doing that though for a number of years in the city. We have a lot of invasive species, but we're gonna do it as we can. So we appreciate the encouragement from the body on that. We also continue to try to do additional unique engagement processes throughout the city. One we just did, uh I wanna share with you. We went out to the Maryville elementary school to get some feedback from the elementary students on the David School Park sculpture that we're planning on doing. That's gonna be, we think an iconic piece of sculpture. Council saw that concept, if you will, a number of weeks ago. Now we're going into the more deep engagement. So the um art team went out and met with the elementary school students, and to be really hands-on, the students were asked to look at the the concept and then use some basically cardboard and things of that nature to mimic what it looks like to build the sculpture, but more importantly, without telling them we were doing it, we're really curious to see what colors they want to do on that piece of sculpture. So it's gonna help inform us because that's one of the things we brought to you. Nobody's really sure whether it will be the best color palette out there. It'll be really interesting to see what the elementary school comes out with. So it's a really good way to engage. And as I've shared with you before, if you engage the kids, the parents get involved too. Then, lastly, another project we're really excited about. Uh, what we used to call at risk youth, we're now calling our youth well-being initiative. That was something that um mayor and council brought forward to us during the end of the budget season. We are still, we are now getting into the deep engagement today. Um, today we met with over 50 members of the community to discuss that initiative, and all we simply asked members of the community were simply this um what is the um well-being of our youth in the city? What are we doing to help uh youth in our city, and most importantly, what are the gaps? And we had members there from gosh, the county from the school district from um RHE from a number of different nonprofits. We had DIP deep rich engagement, and it's very enthusiastic approach to this. So as soon as we have some ideas put together, we'll schedule work session with council. We're just really excited about the turnout. That's all I have, Mayor. Thank you. Thank you very much.