Happy Valentines Day! We started off our meeting today with the Invocation and Pledge followed by the approval of the Consent Agenda. The Consent Agenda included one appointment to the Sheriff’s Office Retirement Plan Board. We then presented a Proclamation for National Engineers Week.
Our one main agenda item was a State of the College presentation from Dr. Tuajuanda Jordan, the president of St. Mary’s College. We had a great discussion about the college and some of the great things happening there—if you haven’t seen the new boardwalk being built, take a drive through St. Mary’s City and check it out!
Moving into County Administrator time, our first item of business was review of upcoming meeting agendas—we will not meet next week. Second we approved the FY2023 Police Accountability, Community and Transparency Grant Award for $170,796 for the Sheriff’s Office—no county match required. These funds go to a Virtual Reality Simulator and PERF ICAT Training. Third we approved a budget amendment to increase Grant and County funding (from within the Sheriff’s current budget) for the Cooperative Reimbursement Agreement for the Child Support Unit—grant funding is $522,259 and county funding is $317,087. Fourth we approved a letter to the State of Maryland in support of the Town of Leonardtown’s redesignation of their Arts and Entertainment District. Fifth we approved updated changes to our American Rescue Plan funds—we allocated $250,000 to the failing Breton Bay pond dam, $185,000 for PPE and $30,000 for a relocatable trailer for the Department of Emergency Services, and $45,000 to the Health Department for a replacement vehicle. Our final item of County Administrator business was approval of the employment contract for David Weiskopf as our County Administrator—thank you for choosing to work for our county!
We then entered into our County Attorney’s Legislative Update time. We heard about numerous bills going through Annapolis and had some spirited discussion around them. We voted to send letters of support for these bills:
- HB 592/SB 418 – Property Tax – Agricultural Land and Improvements – Assessment
- HB 552 – Economic Development – Build Our Future Grant Pilot Program and Fund
- HB 622 – Economic Development – Industry 4.0 Technology Grant Program
We voted to send letters of opposition to SB 539 – Economic Development – Tri-County Council for Southern Maryland – Membership. This bill would change the number of representatives on the Tri-County Council based on population, giving an increased representation to Charles County.
During Commissioner Time I spoke about the spaghetti dinner at the Lexington Park Volunteer Rescue Squad, dessert auctions, Shrove Tuesday Pancake Super at Second District (Valley Lee) Fire Department and Rescue Squad next Tuesday, UFOs and Chinese Balloons and legislation going through Annapolis.
Tune in this afternoon at 1:30 for our next Budget Work Session. We’ll be discussing CIP projects.
