Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the State Legislation topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Lobbyist: State budget includes $750,000 for Colmar Manor town hall; session yielded mixed wins for municipalities
Summary
At its June 2 meeting, Colmar Manor’s lobbyist Jonathan Carpenter told the council the General Assembly passed about 900 bills, narrowed a projected state shortfall, and secured $750,000 in the state budget for the town hall; he urged continued local advocacy.
Jonathan Carpenter, a lobbyist with GreenWheel Consulting Group, told the Colmar Manor Town Council on June 2 that the recent legislative session produced significant movement on issues that affect the town, including a state budget commitment for the town hall.
Carpenter said roughly 3,000 bills were introduced this session and about 900 passed. He described a still-significant structural budget gap at the state level and said the General Assembly reduced a projected shortfall this year from about $3 billion to roughly $1 billion; Carpenter warned the state could still face a multibillion-dollar structural deficit later in the decade, increasing competition for local funding.
Carpenter credited local advocacy for securing a $750,000 commitment in the state budget for Colmar Manor’s town hall improvements. He said delegation members visited local facilities and “walked the facility,” which he said helped secure the funding.
He reviewed a range of enacted and failed measures of local interest: Senate Bill 1 (a prohibition on face coverings for law enforcement) passed; a beverage-container recycling/refund bill did not pass; HB 1178, a municipal annexation bill, was modified from a permission-based process to a notification requirement after municipal pushback; and municipal election reporting requirements (SB 848) passed and will require new notifications about candidate eligibility and reporting to the Board of Education. Carpenter also said a governor-backed housing/zoning package (Senate Bill 36 and HB 239) failed in its initial form after many amendments and local concerns about loss of zoning authority. A bill to let municipalities install speed-monitoring cameras on 35-mph-or-below corridors without state permission did not pass this year but is likely to return.
Carpenter closed by urging residents and council members to follow the lobbyists’ bill tracker and to contact either him or his colleague Leslie Felice with questions. Council members thanked him and his firm for their advocacy.
What happens next: Council members and staff said they will monitor implementation of the enacted bills and the town will coordinate with delegation members on tracking the $750,000 appropriation and any next steps for design or disbursement.
