The Maryland General Assembly is Now in Session - 2024

Find out What Local Laws our State Legislators have Introduced.

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Tamara Davis Brown 0:05

Hey, welcome back to another edition of All Politics is Local with me, your host, Tamara Davis Brown. This is the Maryland edition, and this is our second episode of 2024 regarding upcoming legislation in the Maryland General Assembly that of the bills that primarily affect Prince George's County residents. So, as many of you know, if you're following me on my email chain, I always do a synopsis of the local bills that have been filed prior to our public hearing that the Prince George's County delegation has, usually at Prince George's County Community College. And uh the public hearing was in December of last year on a few bills. And I'm just gonna go over those for those who are listening in and don't receive my email. However, I wanted to let you know that you can find all of the local bills for Prince George's County at Prince George's house delegation.com. Again, that's Prince George's House Delegation, all spelled out all together.com. And you can go to the legislation tab and click on 2024 to find out the legislation that your local state delegates as well as state senators are sponsoring for this year. The legislation legislative session has started. They're a couple of days in now. Um session began on Wednesday, January 10th, 2024, and it's going to be full steam ahead. For those of you who don't know, the legislative session is only 90 days. So a lot of bills are introduced, hearings are held, it's a full sprint for 90 days to try to get as much legislation passed. So the first bill that I'm going to talk about is a bill that I've already talked about on this podcast because it has been introduced at least two other legislative sessions the last two years, but ultimately did not get passed. It was not finalized and voted on by the full General Assembly, so it didn't make it to the governor's desk. And that bill is the Prince George's County Speed Monitoring System on Maryland 210. It's a bill sponsored by my delegate, delegate Chris Valderama in the 26th legislative district. And so this is the bill that would increase the fines for persons who are driving recklessly, meaning they're driving not only over the speed limit, but excessively over the speed limit. Currently, the fine uh for driving over the speed limit, and if you're caught by the speed cameras, the fines actually start after 11 miles per hour over the 55 mile per hour speed limit. So you're already getting a grace of basically 66, 67 miles per hour. So if you're driving 67 miles per hour, you won't get a ticket. But after that, you start to get a ticket, and the fine is only $40. And so there are persons in the community, and I'm included in that when I say persons that are members of what's called the Maryland 210 Traffic Safety Committee. And our whole goal is to try to eliminate crashes and fatalities on Maryland 210 so that it is a safer road to travel. If you've traveled on that road, you know it's very congested. A lot of people travel to and from DC to uh southern parts of Maryland to get to work or to wherever their destination is beyond Prince George's County. They could be going to Virginia, they could be going to DC and what have you. But any event, the legislation that's been introduced once again, I don't think that there's been any additional changes or amendment. It remains the same. And that is if you drive 12 to 21 miles per hour over the speed limit, your fine is still $40. So that really hasn't changed. It's still a nominal fee. However, if you drive 22 to 31 miles per hour over the 55 speed limit, then your fine would jump to $90. If you're caught speeding by the speed cameras of going 32 to 41 miles per hour over the speed limit, the fine increases to $160. If you're driving 42 to 51 miles per hour over the speed limit, meaning you're now in excess of 100 miles per hour, basically, your fine increases to $290. And finally, if you're caught driving $22 miles per hour over the speed limit, and I believe in 2023, we did have someone that was clocked at about 170 miles per hour. I don't know what kind of car they were driving, but they they were clocked going in excess of 160, 170 miles per hour. The fine would be $530. So that's the same from last year's proposed bill, and that has not changed. Second, the other penalty goes to repeat offenders. So, you know, the $40 is not so much that not only people don't, it's not hitting them hard enough in their pocketbook to slow down with the $40 fine, but we have people that consistently are being clocked on the speed cameras for fines. Um, I mean for speeding, and doesn't seem to deter them that they get two, three, four tickets that are all forty dollars. So within a two-year period, if you are caught speeding a second violation within the a two-year period, in addition to the whatever fine that they're gonna charge you, whether it's in excess of 52 miles per hour at 530, they'll tack on an additional $50 for that second violation. If there's a third violation within the two-year period, that's an additional $150 fine. Or violation within the two-year period, a $250 fine. Fifth violation goes up to an additional $330 fine, and then the sixth or subsequent violation within a two-year period, you would get an additional $350 fine. So again, the goal is to save lives, to deter people, to slow down, to incentivize them financially, hit them in the pocketbook to change their uh behavior in driving down Maryland 210. As I said, I'm part of the Maryland 210 Traffic Safety Committee, so I wholeheartedly support this bill and encourage you to write your state delegates to support the bill as well, especially if you live in Prince George's County. But also, especially if you live in Charles County. And I understand that there are some Charles County residents that are starting to gear up to support this bill as well. Unfortunately, last session it was the Charles County delegation that basically put a stop to this bill by literally getting up and walking out of the Maryland House floor when the vote when the bill was brought up for a vote. And unfortunately, our Speaker of the House, Speaker Adrian Jones, did not bring the bill up because of their walkout protests. They seem to think it's some type of tax on their residents, not realizing that speeding affects everyone. Certainly, persons who are getting the most tickets right now for speeding are Prince Georgians, but everyone's affected. In 2023, we only had two fatalities. Unfortunately, neither of the persons were Prince George's County residents. One was a Charles County resident living in Wardolf, who was actually a pedestrian trying to cross 210 and got hit by a vehicle and unfortunately lost his life. And I believe the second person was from Chesapeake, Maryland in Calvert County. So as you can see, there are persons who travel this road that aren't necessarily Prince George's County residents, but they are certainly affected by the speeding that occurs on that road. And so we are hopeful this year in 2024 that the Prince, excuse me, the Charles County delegation and and those south would see the benefit, the safety, life safety benefit of this bill, and it will get passed. So again, I encourage you to support the bill. The bill number uh this year is uh Prince George's 306-24. So PG 306-24 is the bill number this year. Next, we're gonna move to some zoning matters, fairness and zoning and land use. There are two bills, Prince George's slash MC, because zoning is done by Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission, and it's a bi-county commission, meaning that the commission exists for both Prince George's County as well as Montgomery County. So the first bill is 106.24, and the second one is 115.24. They're both being introduced by delegate Tiffany Alston, and they have to do with, well, actually, I'm going to do three bills of hers. They have to deal with, they deal with fairness and zoning. The first two that I just mentioned, 106 and 115, actually deal with particular zoning at airports. And the reason that that's important for many of us, like my community of Winnebrook, where we live, right down the street from our former airport, Hyde Field, there are only two airports, I guess. Well, none are really operational, but uh with the except I take that back, Fort Washington. There's an airport in Fort Washington that still exists and it's operational, but there are at least three others that are are dormant. And two are slated for development. Um, one is in Bowie, which is called Freeway Airport. Um, got that name just because you can drive down the freeway and you can actually see the airport right there on the right if you're going towards Annapolis. And the other one is in the heart of Clinton, right across from Miller's Farm. It's used to be the former Hyde Field. It was operational until 9-11 occurred, and the flight patterns and restrictions that were placed around the nation's capital basically put it into flight operations at Hydefield. So the bill um, the bill actually helps to the first one, 10624, helps citizens to regain their right to appeal zoning decisions, which was taken away, I believe that was in 2018. Um we no longer had the right um as a citizen's right to have an agreement. You actually now have to be either an abutting property owner or within one square mile or something to that effect to actually appeal zoning decisions. So the bill now um uh 106 would allow us to regain the right to have um an agreement um as an ordinary citizen and and not necessarily have to live and be an abutting property owner. So we support that bill. She also threw in there, and that's why I mentioned Hyde Field, she threw in another provision um talking about not being able to um build on former airports. And I think she, even though Hyde Field is not in her district, uh and I also believe that uh Freeway Airport is also not in her district, but I think she's heard the cry of a lot of residents, both in the southern and northern parts of the county, um, about the proposed development that's going on in um Clinton and Bowie. So the second bill, 115, specifically deals um with the the airport, and basically again, it just it's it simply says it's it's a prohibition that would prevent the district council, which is the Prince George's County Council sitting on as um on zoning matters from amending the zoning to allow um uh single family attached townhouses, or in the case of um Hyde Field, they're also proposing to build apartments there, multifamily houses on the property that's previously that is or previously was used as an airport or located in an area zone residential agricultural. So this would apply directly to us. Um we're obviously supporting the bill because um it's really been uh you know, people have come to me and asked about what's going on at High Field, and when I tell them what's being proposed, I have not gotten one single person that has not only not there's a flat out objection to to apartments, period. Multifamilies, just like that's just totally out of the question. But I also haven't gotten support even for the townhouses, and the primary reason is is because of the congestion on the two-lane road. As you know, um Hyde Field, the airport is located on Piscataway Road, which is a state road, Maryland 223, and it's one lane going and one lane coming. And even though the developer is planning to do some road improvements there, the fact that they're gonna build over 1,200 units, and if you just even if you just have one car per per household, that's 1,200 more cars out on um Maryland 223 Piscataway Road and Steed Road. So any event, um, many of the residents are supporting that. We in December um several persons um asked me to on behalf of what we call the Greater Piscataway Alliance to testify in support of those bills, and that's exactly what I did. So moving right along, delegate Austin also Austin also introduced PGMC 10724, which is a bill that would allow um community benefits agreements and give it's called the Community Empowerment Act. And basically what it would do is require the developer to provide concessions and enter enter into a community benefits agreement with the community that's within two mile, a two-mile radius of the proposed development, and that's if 25% of the surrounding community opposes the development. And so it also um would make the community benefits agreement become a condition of pro of approval and is enforceable. I um once again supported this bill, but also asked the delegate to potentially add an amendment to that the developer should actually place a bond for these um benefits that are agreed to. And the reason is is that once they build everything out and if there's something that was supposed to have been done that wasn't done, if the bond is posted, at least the community could go to the county to say, hey, um, this bond was posted, they were supposed to build a community center, they were supposed to do, you know, build a park, they were supposed to do XYZ. Um, and so we could ask the county to have county agencies to take on whatever it was that was promised, because generally, like I said, once the development is built and they turn the community over to the HOA, you can rarely find them. They create these LLCs, and the LLCs exist just for that development, and then they usually just go away. So you never know who who is actually, you know, behind uh creating it, the development. So again, I support PGMC 10724. Again, it's called the Community Benefits Agreement, the Community Empowerment Act. So the first three are the second, third, and fourth bills that I'm mentioning are all um authored by delegate uh Tiffany Alston, A-L-S-T-O-N. Then the next bill that I'm going to discuss has to do with um retail service station dealers and fuel service. And then I'm gonna turn to some late file bills. Late vial bills mean they were filed after the public hearing in December. You most of them were filed either on January 3rd or later, right after the um New Year's holiday. But um Prince George's County 410-24 is a bill that was introduced by Senator Ron Watson, and I didn't pay much attention to that bill until I went to the hearing, and I thought it was um worth supporting and mentioning. So it has to do with retail service station dealers and fuel service, and basically it is to provide fuel service, meaning someone comes and pumps your gas in your car like we used to do in the old days. There was no self-service at request from 6 a.m. to midnight. And the senator mentioned that his primary goal uh was to help, particularly seniors who are feeling threatened. You know, there's so much carjacking going on, there's so much to car theft and theft of items out of cars when people exit their vehicles, walk around to the pump to pump their gas, and then try to get back into the build, get back into their vehicles. Um, so this bill was introduced, um, and they used Pennsylvania as a model because I believe Pennsylvania still requires, um, it does not allow car owners to pump their gas. Um, the last time I drove through um Pennsylvania on my way to New York, I believe I needed to stop for gas and I got out to pump and totally forgot one, what state I was in, but two, that they that this was their state law. And so, you know, he talked about that and said that, you know, it would also promote jobs. It could be a minimum wage job, but you know, at least it it'll promote jobs, but more importantly, keep particularly our seniors or any, you know, young woman who it may be late, you know, 11 o'clock at night. Um, she doesn't want to uh, you know, for fear and safety, wants to stay in our car, but she needs gas to get to our next destination. So um I I did like the the idea behind this. Um not sure what the retail service stations are gonna say. Surely they're gonna, you know, it adds to their bottom line, but hopefully um something can be done. Um and this would be a good measure uh to prevent some of the carjackings and the car um theft from autos that occur at our service stations in Prince George's County. So kudos to Senator Juan Watson for introducing that bill. Um my email that I sent out on this way back on December 11th talked about some other bills of interest. I'm just gonna mention them because I don't want to spend um a lot of time discussing the bills. I gave you the website and I'll repeat that once again if you just go to um all one word, Prince George's house delegation.com, and then you click on legislation, and then you can go to the 2024 uh tab and you'll see all of the bills that have been introduced. Because I do want to spend some time on some of these late bow bills that have been filed because they have piqued my interest. Um, but some of the other bills that were timely filed, and we had the public hearing at Prince George's Community College last month included another traffic control device monitoring system, um, a little bit similar to uh delegate Baldorama's, but doesn't go into the fines. But um it's also a traffic control device bill that I think is worth supporting, and that's PG 301-24, and that was introduced by Delegate Healy on the business side um for the sale of commercial property. Um Senator Nick uh Charles, our newest senator from Prince George's County, he took uh former Senator Melanie Griffiths uh place when she left to take a job with the Maryland Hospital Association. And so he introduced a bill, Prince George's PG 403-24 that deals with the business improvement district. And basically that bill gives the right of a business improvement district to purchase, have a right of first refusal, if you will, to purchase the sale of property within that um within that business improvement district. And I thought that was a uh a good bill to to sponsor. Um Senator Alonzo Washington also introduced a bill, and that is an education bill. There's a couple education bills that I'm gonna mention. Um, the first one is Senator Washington's bill, which is PG 503-24, and it would give um public school employees a property tax credit. Again, this is trying to incentivize more persons who work in our public school system to also live in the county, and because of that, they can get a um PGCPS employee tax credit. So not just our teachers, but other um administrators as well. So the the goal is to encourage um our employees for the school system to live in the county and to get a property tax credit if they do so. Um, Senator Watson also introduced a bill, another bill that's um Prince George's um in particular uh it's PG 302-24. It's the metal detector bill. So he wants to have uh all of the high schools to have metal detectors and have a program for that. So you can find that bill on the delegation's website. The next education bill is another one also from Senator Alonzo Washington, and it has to do with the feasibility study of relocating the PGCPS headquarters, which is now in what we call the SASER building, which is a um a former school building um in the town of Upper Marlboro, and have that um the headquarters relocated. And so he wants to have a study done on that, and that's uh the name the number of that bill is PG 501-24. Um, as many of you may know, a lot of uh Prince George's County government is now located in Largo, Maryland. And the primary purpose, and I've heard at least one resident always complain about how difficult it was to get to Upper Marlboro because there was no public transportation and especially for public hearings in the evening, because the bus, which is our county bus system, did not run late in the evening. So the Largo Metro is within walking distance of our county administration building, and now Maryland National Capital Park and Planning has also moved to Largo. And so um I'm assuming that the headquarters for Prince George's County school system may also want to move as well. Um, but again, this bill is just to establish a feasibility study of what you know what the financial numbers would look like for taxpayers to have that headquarters moved. So um that concludes the education portion. The other two bills that I mentioned in my December 11th uh email were deal with liquor licenses. And these two bills are both sponsored by, once again, Senator Ron Watson. One deals with um creating a cigar lounge, liquor license. There um are quite a few cigar lounges in that are popping up in in Prince George's County. They're becoming you know quite popular. Um none of them that I am aware of have any liquor sales associated with it. I think the only the closest place is actually in Charles County, um, the tender box is um a cigar lounge and they do sell liquor. So I think um Senator Ron Watson, um, and he actually said this during the hearing that he knows of some proprietors of existing cigar lounges that that want to add this component as a you know for for cocktails and what have you. And so um he's introduced this legislation to create a special liquor license for cigar lounges. And then his last um liquor license bill has to do with um providing nonprofit organizations with a license, a liquor license as well. And that's primarily um the fraternal and um so fraternities and sororities. Many of the um fraternities and sororities can't uh in and of themselves do anything that's associated with alcohol, alcoholic beverages, because a lot of them, as you know, start as um for undergraduates, uh many of whom are not 21 and not not uh legally able to drink. But um many of the graduate chapters, uh particularly those in Prince George's County, do have their own nonprofit foundations. And the foundations usually are the what we call our fundraising arm to do some of the community service work that we do in the community. And so he introduced a bill to permit um fraternities and sororities or or if you will, the foundations of fraternities and sororities to also have a liquor license. That bill is PG 304-24. So you can take a look at those. So just as a quick synopsis, um delegate Baldorama's um speed monitoring bill is now, it used to be, but it's corrected on the website. It's Prince George's County 306-24. The other bill that deals with speed monitoring is Delegate Healy's bill, Prince George's County 301-24 as well. And then the three companion bills that deal with zoning, um, particularly fairness, the fairness and zoning bill, um, the zoning prohibition bill, and the community um empowerment act bill, all by delegate Tiffany Austin, are bills 106, 107, and 115. And again, you can go to the website, Prince George's House Delegation.com, to see all of those. Now, um, since the new year and after the hearing, there were some late bow bills that I wanted to bring to your attention. Um, some I support, some I have a few questions about. Unfortunately, a few of them don't have the actual text to the bills, so there's no hyperlink to actually see the text. So I don't know if I can opine without without being disadvantaged of not seeing the actual language. Um, but the first one that I want to mention, which I think is very helpful, is uh PGMC 101-24. Um, and actually, and I apologize, this bill was not a lay file bill. It was filed timely back on November 20th, but I somehow um didn't focus on this one, but I like the bill because it's a WSSC bill that deals with the connection pipe emergency replacement loan program. And if you are a homeowner in Prince George's County, you are getting, and I think we just got one in the mail recently, you're getting offers to have some type of insurance that uh protects if you have a pipe to burst near your house, um, that's closer to the house than where the front foot benefit is of this the water and sewer facilities, because if it breaks be um breaks closer to the house and in your yard, you're actually as a homeowner, you're actually responsible for covering that. So, but WSSC actually has a loan program um to cover uh pipe emergency replacement. The pipe originally the loan program only covered water, but now it also covers sewer. So the connection pipe emergency replacement loan program under this bill would cover both water and sewer. And it allows not only for the finance of the replacement of the malfunctioning pipe, it allows for a loan to do the diagnostic work. So if you suspect that there's a leak and you get this ridiculously high water bill and you know, everything in your house is is fine, but the leak may be underground somewhere. So to do the diagnosis is also very expensive. So you can get a low-interest WSSC loan to help do the diagnosis as well as finance the replacement of any malfunctioning pipes, and that is if you didn't get this insurance that's being offered. I think one is associated with WSSC, and I've maybe we've gotten two other offers recently, and they're just independent um type insurance company. Um the loan um is currently it's only for $5,000, but now um the new bill would allow it to not exceed a $10,000 loan. Um, because my understanding is um those pipe replacements, you know, in your yard can be quite expensive. And with everything going up, tax and and cost is you know, everything is much more expensive. So they've doubled the loan amount that can be uh provided by this um pipe emergency replacement loan program. So I think I support that bill. I like that. The next two bills that I'm gonna mention are lay file bills that come from the county executive, Angela also Brooks' office. Unfortunately, these two bills did not have text to them, so I couldn't really see, but I think I understand why they were introduced and what they are getting to. I could be totally wrong and missed the mark on this, but they are sequential PG 406 and PG 407-24. The first one deals with the Prince George's County telecommunications tax, and the second one deals with the Prince George's County County Energy Sales Tax. So when you get your phone bill or your PEPCO bill or SMECO, whatever service you have, bill, you notice that there's always a local tax. One is usually universal service, and that is the what we pay to help low-income people to um get some subsidy to be able to have a phone service and to have energy utilities, right? Um, but the second is also usually a local tax that um the county um taxes on. And usually on the telecommunications side, again, those funds can be used in relation to telecommunications type um uh funding, whether it's towards universal service or something else. On the energy side, um, there's usually a program, a local program as well to help with um, you know, energy bills for for persons who not only just low income, but you know, may have run into hard times for some reason. So you usually have those uh funds. Um but because we couldn't see the full text of it, what we could see in the brief synopsis on the delegation's website is that each of uh the bill, the purpose of the bill is to have the funds used for education funding, um, for um for uh secondary um education, elementary and secondary education. And what I suspect that the county executive is doing is instead of using those funds towards telecommunications or energy to divert them to to use maybe not all of them, but maybe a portion of the funding to use it towards education. Because what has happened, and a lot of people don't realize this, is that all the counties in the state of Maryland now have a education mandate that's called the Blue Plant for Education. And it's to help get us to a better level in public education in terms of funding disparities in education. And part of the money comes from the state, but a big chunk of it actually has to come from the county. And what I suspect is is because we're out of this slush fund money, we no longer have the um um the funding for um COVID from the federal government, the county executive is saying, where can I divert some funds, some taxes and and and what have you that could be used for education so that I can meet this mandate under the uh blueprint for education. And she's picked a telecommunications tax and the energy tax to do so. Now, what I don't know is if she's trying to raise those taxes, which means our cell phone and home phone and PEPCO and other bill, utility bills, may increase adult because I can't see the tax. I I'm I'm hoping that she's not trying to increase the tax, but merely trying to divert not all of the funding, but maybe some of the funding to go towards education to help fund this mandate from the blueprint for Maryland education. Because if you're paying any attention to what's going on in Maryland and Maryland politics, is that we no longer have a surplus in our budgets, both at the county level as well as the state. And that's because we have a new governor. He came in with a lot of great ideas, but those great ideas have to be funded somehow. And because we've uh used up a lot of that um CARES Act money that came from COVID to help fund some of those programs, that was just year one. These programs have to be sustainable financially. So um I this is what I suspect is, but again, I could be totally wrong, but because we can't see the text and it was late filed, um we don't know uh what the actual text is and what's being introduced, but that's just my speculation. I'm probably about, I feel like I'm about 80% right on that. Um, but basically using the funds to help fund Blueprint for Education. Again, what I don't know is if she wants to raise those taxes, which means we would have higher cell phone and other bills as a result. But I'm gonna move from that and go to PG 411-24. This is a bill introduced by Delegate Long, who represents um a small portion of southern Prince George's County and Charles County. He is introduced a bill called Income Tax Credit for Parents and Guardian Volunteers in elementary and secondary schools. Now, I kind of laugh at this, but it's actually pretty sad that the only incentive to get parents more involved and volunteer in their children's schools is to give them a tax credit. Um, but this is what he's proposing uh to have the comptroller to work with um the public school system to see if there's any incentive to uh give parents tax parents and guardians who volunteer at the elementary and secondary schools to give them a tax credit for um for volunteering. Um again, it's it's it's funny and sad at the same time uh because parents, if you have children in schools, you really should be involved in and volunteer at your children's school without any without any incentives because you you care about your children's education and you want the best for your students and you want the best for your child. And so you're gonna volunteer to make sure that that happens. But I digress. But um again the the bill seems to um allow the controller's office and school system to kind of work out all the the details. That's gonna be um a real push to kind of verify and all that other stuff to see, you know, you know, how many hours and results and what percentage of a tax credit and all of that. Um details that have to be worked out in that, but uh I I applaud the effort and just um kind of shaking my head that we've come to this in order to have parents and guardians to actually volunteer in their children's school. Um the next bill. I understand the bill. I don't know if I actually agree with it or support it. It's from delegate um Lehman. It's also a late vowed bill, PG 30724. It's one of these liquor license bills. It's like every year we have four or five bills dealing with liquor license. But this one is um for Prince George's County alcoholic beverage issuance of liquor licenses near places of worship or a school. So you may or may not know that um there are some parameters of where um liquor stores can be um be located in Prince George's County and they're not supposed to be within 500 feet of a place of worship and not supposed to be within a thousand feet of a school. Um Delegate Lehman wants to put an exception on that, um, basically saying if the license of the same class had been issued and was in effect before the church or the school was built, then they should be exempted from be exempt, excuse me, from um this bar on where licenses can be held. Um and so I under I understand what she's saying. It's like, okay, we were already here, and now you built built a church or you built a school, and now we um no longer meet the 500 or 1,000 feet requirement. And so you're telling me I've got to close my place of business because of that. And I kind of understand it. Um, but because we just have so many liquor stores in Prince George's County, I wouldn't mind seeing a few of them close. So I don't particularly support this bill. Um, I understand what delegate Lehman's trying to do here, but um, you know, I think we need less liquor licenses than more. So um if you want to write your state senator and state delegate um about PG 307-24, I encourage you to do so. And then the last bill that I'm gonna mention is LateVout bill that I actually like and support. And I thought we had some of these already in Prince George's County, at least at Friendly High School. Um, this is introduced by Delegate Taveras. It's PG 504-24. It deals with early childhood education programs and having child care centers in at least two high schools. And basically, um it would be like a specialty program that trains high school students in um early childhood development and childhood education. Obviously, I guess the goal would be to get more people not only into um having and owning daycare centers, but also getting into the the teaching profession. And so um, but it would um have child care centers at the local high schools. And I can recall at one point, and you can actually still see at Friendly High School in Fort Washington off Valentine Road, you could actually still see a little small tot lot right on off the road. Uh um there used to be a child care center associated with the school, and I don't think it was just for the use of um allowing faculty um and staff to have their children there, but I thought it also was a training ground for high school students who wanted to be in early childhood development, had you know, open up a daycare, go into early um early elementary education. So um I know that at some point along the way I stopped seeing children playing at that on those little playgrounds during the day, probably decades ago now. And so maybe this is to to bring that program back. So that's gonna end the um episode for today. I know I spoke at length. There is a lot here to unpackage. I encourage you once again to go to Prince George's County House Delegation.com to look on the look at the bills, click click on the blue hyperlinks, you can actually see the full language, but more importantly, to call, to write, to email, and even to show up in Annapolis for the hearings on these various bills. Um, I will try to do that um at least particularly by email. I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to do it by podcast because sometimes um we don't know the exact dates of when the bills are gonna be heard. But what I will say in Prince George's County, because all of these are local Prince George's County bills, the delegation meets every Friday at 9 a.m. in Annapolis. And so I encourage you to go to the Prince George's County delegation room in Annapolis to hear these bills being vetted out of the delegation first, and then they go to their respective committees before going to the floor of the House and the Senate. So I definitely encourage you to try to get to Annapolis, especially if you, you know, work from home and you have Fridays off, or Friday is a lighter day. Try to make it up to Annapolis to uh to hear these bills. But at a minimum, if you can't make it to Annapolis, please, please, please let your voices be known by calling, by writing, by emailing your state senators and your state delegates about your support or lack thereof for any of the bills that I've mentioned and any of the bills that I have not mentioned. Um the thing is, is um I just mentioned um Prince George's County um bills that affect us locally. Um, but all the bills that'll be introduced that are have nationwide impact, like the ones that I mentioned in my last uh episode on the 2024 bills that took effect January 1st, those affect all Marylanders. So I encourage you to take a look and follow it, what's going on. Um, Maryland Public Television airs what's called State Circle. Um, and I forget what nights, but um usually after the regular programming, they'll re-air like uh what's going on on the Senate floor and the house floor. But more importantly, there they also have YouTube sites for both the House and the Senate, and you can see what's going on not only on the floor, but um in some of the committee hearings. So that's gonna do it for now. I know I've talked a lot and it was a lot to take in. Um, but please go to Prince George's County House Delegation.com to take a look at all of these bills and make your voice be heard. Thank you for listening. Please do like, subscribe, and share this podcast with your neighbors and those who are interested in what's going on at the local level as well as the state level. I'm Tamara Davis Brown, your host for All Politics is local. Um hope that you will continue to check back with us from time to time as new episodes are going to be uploaded shortly. Have a great day. Thank you. Thanks for joining me today on this episode of All Politics is Local, the Maryland edition, where we hope to inspire and activate a new generation of informed voters to move beyond the ballot box and take action. Remember, all politics is local.