Dear Neighbors:
Due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, the City Council meeting on Wednesday, July 1 will be held remotely. The public may view the meeting on City TV (RCN -- 13, HD 1060; Comcast/xfinity -- 13, HD 997; Verizon Fios -- 28), on the City Council Video Page of the City website; on YouTube, or on Facebook. Sign-up for public comments will be open until 5:00 PM on Wednesday: Sign-up for Live Public Comments.
Here’s a link to the meeting agenda: https://takomaparkmd.gov/meeting_agendas/city-council-meeting-agenda-wednesday-july-1-2020/. The key items are discussions on Tree Ordinance amendments and a resolution on overall urban forest policies, plus a vote to continue the suspension of the City sign posting law (meaning the sign law would continue to not be in effect if the Council vote is positive). There will also be a vote on Community Quality of Life grants, as well as a continuation of our discussion on planning for this fall’s local Takoma Park elections. See below for more details on all of these agenda items.
ANNOUNCEMENTS/UPDATES
Youth Council Applications -- Deadline June 30. Information here: https://takomaparkmd.gov/government/boards-commissions-and-committees/takoma-park-youth-council/
Ward One Community Discussion -- Tuesday, July 7 at 7:00 PM: I’ll be hosting a virtual meeting for residents of Ward One. Discussions on topics such as police reform, tree policies or any others welcome. I’ll be sending out the details on how to participate in a separate email.
Last Week’s COVID-19 Testing at the New Hampshire Avenue Recreation Center: Per City staff, the County's first community pop-up testing event at the Rec. Center on Thursday tested 431 people in 4 hours. The County has promised to share more detailed data on the profiles of people tested. City staff will be debriefing with the County this week and will discuss the possibility of future testing events.
Takoma Park's updated COVID-19 infection rate is 2.4% as of 6/26, while the County's infection rate is 1.4%. The updated count of confirmed Takoma Park positive cases since the start of the pandemic -- 429 -- is posted on our COVID-19 Resource Page.
City Manager Comments: You can read Ms. Ludlow’s official comments from the July 24 here: https://documents.takomaparkmd.gov/government/city-manager/city-manager-comments/2020/City%20Manager%20Comments%20_%2006.24.2020.pdf.
THIS WEEK’S VOTING SESSION
Community Grants: Last week the Grants Review Committee recommended ten organizations to receive the next round of Community Quality of Life grants. This week we’ll be voting on those recommendations. The grants are for initiatives that bring programming in the arts and humanities or STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) to residents of the Takoma Park area. A majority of participants are required to be from low and moderate income families, and 75 percent residents of the City. The following links from last week’s Council meeting provide background on the grant program and the recommended recipients:
Grants Review Committee Report and Recommendations for FY21 Grants
· FY21 Community Grants Allocation Summary
· Community Grants Program Guidelines
· FY21 Community Quality of Life Grants Program Overview
Beyond the general program guidelines, the Grants Committee, taking into account the City’s racial equity policy, required a significant emphasis on racial equity in the programs to be delivered by grantees. In addition, because this year’s grant details were set in motion before the extent of the COVID-19 pandemic was clear, the Grants Committee asked potential recipients to demonstrate how they would address the health crisis, to show they are well-positioned to be successful in a virtual environment, and to explain how they can be responsive to the technology barriers and needs of the populations they will be serving, including specifically low and moderate income people of color. I’ll be voting in favor of the grant recommendations.
Sign Posting Ordinance: https://documents.takomaparkmd.gov/government/city-council/agendas/2020/council-20200701-2.pdf. Following the removal of some signs relating to the Black Lives Matter movement by a member of the Takoma Park Police Department shortly after the killing of George Floyd, City Manager Suzanne Ludlow -- using the emergency authority granted to her by the City Council in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic -- took action to suspend the City ordinance banning the posting of many categories of signs in public areas. She stated that she took this action in recognition “that the ability of residents to gather is limited by pandemic related restrictions” and “to allow expression in response to recent events which occurred nationally and locally.”
With Montgomery County now partially re-opening and beginning to allow larger gatherings, the City Manager has announced her intention to rescind the suspension. As a result, the Council will be voting this week on a measure to keep the suspension of the sign ordinance in effect for up to another year. I’ll be voting yes. My preference would be for the Council to develop a carefully drafted sign law that would preserve residents’ Constitutional rights to free expression while giving us some ability to prevent blight cause by excessive sign posting. We were working on that, with a goal of having a new law in place before the fall elections. However, those efforts were held up because of the coronavirus.
Now, with the need to plan for the elections, continue working on our response to Covid-19 and address other priorities, it’s doubtful we’d be able to resolve the Constitutional and other issues prior to the election. So, I support the idea of keeping the suspension of the sign posting law in effect for up to a year, with the hope and expectation that we’ll complete action on a re-write of the law at some point in the next 12 months.
THIS WEEK’S WORK SESSION
Election Update: As noted last week, with plans underway now for Takoma Park’s November election, we’ll likely have election related discussions or votes on most of our Council agendas for the foreseeable future. This week, we’ll be reviewing a proposed contract for a firm to handle the mailing of the ballots. The background information on this agenda item was not yet available at the time I prepared this blog.
Tree Ordinance Amendments and Tree Canopy Goals & Urban Forest Policy Resolution: https://documents.takomaparkmd.gov/government/city-council/agendas/2020/council-20200701-5.pdf
https://documents.takomaparkmd.gov/government/city-council/agendas/2020/council-20200701-3.pdf
The Council has had a lengthy series of discussions on changes to the Tree Ordinance and to our tree policies since late 2018, along with public forums, a resident survey and numerous other smaller meetings and exchanges. We’re now approaching the point when we’ll be ready to finalize a comprehensive re-write of the ordinance and also to approve a resolution to establish goals for the tree canopy and declare our overall urban forest policies. With Councilmembers Dyballa and Kostiuk, I’ve been part of a Council working group which has focused on moving toward a final version of both documents, on which votes are planned for later this month.
Based in large part on earlier Council discussions, my two colleagues and I agreed on a number of changes to both help make the ordinance easier for residents to understand and to function better, and to also establish key goals in the resolution. Now the rest of our colleagues on the Council as well as residents will be able to offer their own views on the drafts we’ve developed. There are also some important issues -- outlined in the background material on the ordinance -- on which I’m especially looking forward to input from residents and serious Council discussion.
A central area for further discussion relates to the working group’s proposals to reduce replanting requirements in the ordinance for lower rated trees (ratings that are based on the health of the trees). The draft generally exempts from replanting requirements not only hazardous trees, but those that are dying, in imminent decline, or that are damaging physical structures like houses or buildings. That of course would mean a reduction in the amount of replanted/replacement trees. Of course in many cases residents choose to make contributions into the City’s tree fund rather than replanting on their property, so this could mean fewer dollars in the tree fund.
Options for addressing this point include incentivizing planting on private property in the City, increasing the money going into the tree fund, and tightening up the exemptions from the replacement requirements. The full Council will have to determine whether these and other ideas are appropriate. Beyond that, there’s a significant racial equity factor, because the two Wards in the City with the lowest tree canopy coverage (Wards 4 and 6) are also sections of the City with populations that are more likely to be lower income, renters, and people of color. So seeking to address these inequities in tree canopy coverage, based on focused outreach to and engagement with residents from those parts of the City, will be fundamental not only to promoting fair tree canopy distribution in general, but also as a means of helping to achieve the proposed canopy target in the resolution: no net loss and to the extent feasible increasing tree canopy coverage. Figuring out how best to address these complex, inter-connected issues is a challenge that will require intensive discussion.
One issue that emerged relatively late in the working group’s process -- and therefore isn’t touched upon in the current draft ordinance -- relates to situations in which large numbers of trees are proposed to be removed as part of a single project. This doesn’t happen often, but there’s a current case involving the new Math-Science Building that’s going to be constructed on the Montgomery College campus in North Takoma. The College is proposing to remove dozens of trees as part of that project. While a number of the proposed removals may be appropriate, it became clear to me that following the standard process of a brief public posting on the planned removals with the possibility of an appeal to the Tree Commission is less meaningful in a major tree removal proposal like this one.
Because of COVID-19, the review process for this project -- including the multiple appeals to the Tree Commission filed by North Takoma residents -- has been slowed down, meaning that there is more time to review the proposal. But for any future such situations, I’d like to see a requirement for a public meeting as well as a longer time frame for review and potential appeal. So I’ll be offering an amendment along those lines when we get to our voting session on the tree ordinance and resolution later this month.
Recognizing that the ordinance in particular is dense and not that easy to parse through, I do hope residents will take some time to review both documents and pass along any reactions or ideas to me. And as always please feel free to contact me with questions or comments about any of the other issues covered in this blog.
Peter Kovar, Takoma Park City Council, Ward One
240-319-6281; www.councilmemberkovar.com
(He, Him, His)
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