With regard to the Covid pandemic, information is changing rapidly. The Frederick Health Hospital has been meeting regularly with the Board of Health which is currently comprised of the Health Director, the County Executive, and the County Council. The Board of Health passed regulations requiring that citizens wear face coverings inside public buildings. This passed by a vote of 5-3 with Council member Blue, McKay, and myself against. I voted against this mandate for several reasons. First, I believe that two years into the pandemic, people know enough about the risks of the virus to make their own choices about how to mitigate their own health risks. We have many tools to combat this virus including vaccines and therapeutics that we did not have earlier in the pandemic. Additionally, the ordinance we passed does not have any enforcement mechanism. There is no penalty for not wearing a mask; my fear is that it will put businesses in a bad position by requiring them to have people masked, but leaving it up to the business to enforce.

In a related discussion, the Council began debate on reconstituting the makeup of the Board of Health. Some of my colleagues believe that the Board should be made up of un-elected members appointed by the County Executive. I firmly believe that the Board of Health should remain made up of elected officials. We should be accountable to the voters for decisions that are made that we have seen can severely affect the way business is conducted and the way people live their lives. This bill has not yet been voted on, but I would encourage you to follow this issue and contact the council to let them know that voters should have input into these important decisions.

Next, the County Council created two new Departments. I opposed the creation of the Office of Sustainability and Environmental Resources and the Office of Stormwater Management. Creation of these new Departments had a multiple million dollar price tag paid for by Frederick County Taxpayers. I believe that these functions should have been addressed through the current county workforce and not be utilized to continue the unmitigated growth of county government.

The Council began discussion on establishing a Police Accountability Board in Frederick County. Creation of this Board is required by state law; every county must have a disciplinary board for police misconduct. It will be very important who gets appointed to this Board and the process that they go through for complaints. This will apply to all law enforcement within Frederick County, and the vote on the makeup of this Board is still several months away.

Finally, the Council began taking testimony on the long debated downtown Frederick Hotel and Conference Center. Frederick city has requested over $2.5 million from the county to purchase the land for the Conference Center. I have long supported this project. However, I cannot support using millions of taxpayer dollars to directly subsidize a private hotel. This is the same exact pool of funds that is used to pay teachers, police, firefighters, and librarians. There are other ways of financing this hotel that would not require taxpayers subsidizing a private business. We must be better stewards of taxpayer funds and not pick winners or losers by subsidizing certain businesses.