Howard County Council passes nonprofit grant guardrails, rejects inspector general records bill

ELLICOTT CITY, Md. — The Howard County Council met for one last vote Friday morning, with council members making their final impressions from the dais on a slate of bills before the body turns over after Election Day.

District 4's Deb Jung saw her bill to establish more guardrails for nonprofit grants pass 3 to 2, with amendments, because of concerns from area nonprofits.

The bill was inspired by the public flak over a $25 million grant given to Columbia Community Concepts to build a community center. The version that passed applies to construction, remodeling, renovations and property purchases.

"Those particular types of grants in the past really lacked any guardrails," Jung explained.

But her bill to update the confidentiality of public ethics law was tabled, and Council Bill 69, which would have established the inspector general as a custodian of records, failed.

"I am extremely disappointed. We now have an entire Inspector General's office that does not have access to 50 categories of documents," Jung said. "It doesn't make sense to me."

District 5's David Yungmann was the deciding vote. He says he made his decision based on the Office of Law's guidance.

"It's murky," he said. "Where it gets even more problematic is the murkiness could have a pretty serious impact on employees."

District 3's Christiana Rigby sided with District 2's Opel Jones in voting against it.

"The issue is so much more complicated and nuanced than just slapping a custodian label on something," Rigby said. "It's frustrating when we're only given three weeks to really discuss really important procedural challenges."

They say the issue is best left to the state to hash out.

Yungmann's solar panel bill to address confusion created by new state laws did pass, but it too was a watered-down version, one that does not put a pause on current solar projects in the county.

"The state legislature again has preempted a lot of our control and that moratorium was— I was advised that that would be unenforceable, so we scrapped it," Yungmann said.

After Election Day, council will be entirely new except for one member; Rigby is running unopposed for her seat again and only one race is contested.

The county is also on track for its first-ever minority-majority county council.

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