Town of Cheverly
Meeting Minutes
April 12, 2018
Call to Order
Meeting called to order at 8:00 pm in the Cheverly Community Center.
In attendance: CMs, Riazi, Ivey, Eldridge, Stewart, Garcia and MacKenzie
Pledge of Allegiance
Agenda/Approval/Changes
Minutes – Town Meeting 3/8/18
Approved
Minutes – Worksession 3/22/18
Approved
Chief’s Report
Chief Robshaw I am very excited about team Cheverly. I thank people for signing up. Our crime rate is a little lower than last year. I have had 5 or 6 requests for home security services. We are looking into home video equipment and a cooperative effort to use this as a crime deterrent. Street Meets will start up again in May. We also have a ride along program, so we can show you what we do and you can get to know us.
CM Stewart I did a ride along last year and I would encourage you to do it because it gives you a whole new perspective on how things are done.
Mayor I want to thank you for the Chief’s Advisory Board that we have been encouraging you to set-up. I am very pleased with the progress you have made. Second, what does the Town do regarding 21st Century Policing?
Chief Robshaw it is the topic for training nowadays. We have had implicit bias training and we have had de-escalation training as well. We had the Training Academy come in for 2 days to recreate scenarios with actual staged situations. Explaining things and backing up by our Police Officers allows us to put us in a position to back off a situation. We have put the bias training into our General Order Manual. The 21st Century Police training is some of the things that we in Cheverly have been doing for years and it almost seems that they have modeled it after Cheverly.
Mayor I would ask that you keep communicating that kind of training in the Newsletter so our citizens are aware of all that we are doing.
Town Administrator’s Report
Mr. Warrington I am going to do an ad for the Chief in that the Police are looking for a records clerk and it is posted on our website. Code Enforcement will be focusing on grass and peeling paint issues. The Code Enforcement has cited the owner of the property on Landover Road for the graffiti and for the removal, replacement or repair of the structure.
Recognition of American Legion Auxiliary Essay Contest
Ms. Kim Vitalli all of the awardees could not attend tonight, but we do have one student that we would like to recognize. I want to thank the judges for the contest. I want to honor Ms. Nadia Simms who won second place for the 2018 Essay Contest. We are presenting her with a certificate and a cash prize. Our first place winner was Teddy LeGloehec.
Recreation Council
CM MacKenzie we had a great Easter Egg Hunt and the Flea Market was sold out and successful.
Green Infrastructure Committee
Ms. Sheila Salo the Green Infrastructure is offering nature outings for youth and you can join us on Sunday at 2pm in the conference center. Now for the older folks, I want to explain how you can get your property Bay Wise certified. Go to www.greencheverly.org to get information you need to participate. We will also have a table at the Cheverly market. Be wise and be Bay Wise.
Cheverly Day Committee
Mayor we will be starting with more publicity. We have a great music line-up. We have food, ice cream and D’Ranch wants to be involved. We will have a midway. We are looking for help to do repairs on the mini-golf course. We will have cornhole, bubble soccer and lazer tag. We are still looking for volunteers. We will have fireworks.
Planning Board Report
CM Eldridge we had the developer from Cheverly West, which is not in the Town. He is looking to build 12 townhouses. It is close to the Metro Station and I personally do support more density near Metro Stations. It is not however our decision. The County received thousands of comments on the Code update. Lastly, one of our Planning Board members is moving to Wisconsin, so if you are interested in joining the Planning Board, please send them my way. We now have 5 active members.
Citizen Input
None
Introduction O-3-18 Ethics Section Amendment
Mr. Warrington the Maryland General Assembly places certain requirements on elected officials throughout the State. When they make changes during the legislature, we must incorporate those changes into our local laws. The Ordinance being introduced tonight does that in order to bring us into compliance. A lot of it does not really apply to the Town of Cheverly, since it deals with lobbyist and more General Assembly activities, but we need to place these items into our Code.
Introduction FY19 Operating Budget and C.I.P.
Mr. Warrington the Mayor and Council are being provided with a first draft of the FY19 Operating Budget and Capital Improvement Program. Please send me corrections or point out any imperfections, so we can address them. We will be discussing the Budget until its passage on June 14th and we will be introducing the non-codified adoption Ordinance at the May meeting since you should not introduce and pass an Ordinance at the same meeting unless deemed an emergency. Details provided regarding the savings over the past year with the bulk of it coming from vacancies in positions. We also saw a reduction in our Workers Compensation costs due to a reduction in on job injuries. The net result was a $115,000 drawdown from the fund balance which is a difference of $590,000 less which
we anticipated as a drawdown. We are estimating a $1,059,897 from anticipated revenues in FY19 and this is based on the current tax rate of .54 cents. If we reduce the tax rate, this will have an increasing impact on the drawdown.
CM Eldridge so can we do gutter work without doing the sidewalk? Related to that do we have a process for the installation of sidewalks where there are none?
Mr. Warrington yes and if you or any of the Council have a location where there is curb work that needs to be addressed, please let us know. We may not often see these areas because of parked cars, so we welcome your assistance in identifying these areas. The provision for establishing sidewalks is on our Charter and I will email that cite to you tomorrow.
Mayor you know I can talk about the budget forever, but I won’t. I am going to ask everyone who catches this to note that now is the time to talk to your Councilperson about your tax rate, services and where we can improve. You can’t ask that your taxes be reduced and your services increased. This is a balancing act the Council has to address. Now is the time. If you come to us in June with issues in the Budget, then you will be too late. Please talk to us in April and May. There is also a proposal that has been submitted, which comes from the Town Clerk, regarding retirement for non-law enforcement employees, since we enhanced the police retirement last year, that would improve the other employees’ retirement that will have some budget implications and we need
to address.
Mayor and Council Announcements
CM Stewart the Ward 4 Civic Association Meeting will be next Monday at 7pm. I will be back to this meeting since my work schedule will now allow me to do so.
CM MacKenzie the CPRC coffee on Sunday at 10 am is here in the Community Center. June 2nd is the first farmer’s market from 8 to noon.
CM Riazi Cheverly Village will be celebrating their second year of operation and their annual meeting will be this Sunday from 1-3 at the Community Center. Also, a call out that we are speeding and passing each other and we need to be aware of this and slow down especially now that it is warmer and people are out and about.
Mayor the concrete batching plant for Bladensburg hearing will be held on April 16th at the County Administration Building. I have spoken to the Pastor of the All Saints Church on Medical Terrace and they are getting ready to move in and we hope to have them at a future Council meeting. The Worksession will begin early at 6:30 pm in order to have a presentation by the University of Maryland Geological Department on the Cheverly booms. We will be thanking the University of Maryland students and will be giving the reward check as we offered a reward to pinpoint the source about 10 years ago. We have the following items: Bamboo, Community Center Use, FY19 Budget and CIP, the Boyd Park Stormwater Grant and Surplus Property sale proposal. The Chief has been working with Ring and
if he has a proposal then I would want to discuss that during the Worksession, but this may be too quick. We can have a brief discussion of the Chief’s Advisory Board. We also will have the Election Supervisors so we can talk about recommendations regarding our elections.
CM Riazi what about the status of the Corvias project?
Mayor that project is dead and it will no longer hold-up the Woodworth Park project.
Town of Cheverly
Summary of Action
April 12, 2018
No actions taken
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