Council Agenda: Bus Rapid Transit Briefing, Campaign Policy Changes

(Updated 1:48 p.m.) Proposed revisions to the city’s campaign policy and a briefing from the county on a massive bus transit system are on  the Rockville City Council’s agenda for Monday. The Council meets at 7 p.m. at City Hall. The meeting will be broadcast live on Rockville 11.

Executive Session: Legal advice regarding Town Center Management

Mayor and Council are scheduled to meet in executive session at 6 p.m. to obtain legal advice regarding Town Center Management.

Briefing:  Montgomery County Planning Department on Bus Rapid Transit System

Larry Cole, a master planner for the Montgomery County Planning Department, is expected to brief the Council on the county’s bus rapid transit system, an 80-mile network intended to ease vehicle traffic pain throughout the county.

The county wants the city’s input because the massive transportation network would send three belts of transit through Rockville—on what the draft plan refers to as Rockville Pike North, Rockville Pike South and Veirs Mill Road.

The transit project would take several decades to implement, according to county and city records.

The Gazette has reported that bringing this specialized bus system could mean taking two traffic lanes from cars on some parts of Rockville Pike and adding two traffic lanes on other portions.

City planning commissioners were unconvinced this transit plan would improve traffic for city residents when county planners presented the draft to them at an April 10 meeting, according to The Gazette’s account.

“Do we need another form of transit for the benefit of moving people from the north of the city to the south of the city ... versus putting the resources into what Rockville residents need to get from home to shopping?” Commissioner Jack Leiderman asked.

The full story is posted at Gazette.net.

The feedback will help shape the county planning board’s recommendation to the Montgomery County Council. The County Planning Board is has scheduled a public hearing for the plan on May 16.

Links

• City Report: Countywide Transit Corridors Functional Master Plan
• Proposed Public Hearing Draft: Countywide Transit corridors Functional Master Plan

Recap and recommendation: Changing how police handles data from automated license plate readers

A recommendation to change how city police handles data from automated license plate readers will come before the Rockville City Council on Monday.

These plate readers capture the license plate for any vehicle that passes within its view—regardless of whether the vehicle has committed a violation—and stores the information.  A police car equipped with a scanner could capture hundreds or even thousands of license plates while stationed on a roadway.

At issue is how long the data collected by the city's scanners should be stored. Currently Rockville’s data dumps into the county’s system, where the policy is to store it forever.

City staff is proposing having police send the data directly to a state repository, where it would be kept for a year and automatically deleted.

Three city police cruisers are equipped with license plate scanners. There are 22 in Montgomery County.  

Links

• City Report:  License Plate Reader Program for the City of Rockville 
• Speak Out: License Plate Readers—Good Policing or Invasion of Privacy?
• Council Recap: Police License Plate Readers Spur Privacy Concerns

Resolution and adoption:  Revisions to the city’s campaign policy

The Council is expected to decide whether to adopt revisions to the city’s campaign policy.

According to a city report, the changes would prohibit candidates from using the city seal on campaign material, would clarify that the city’s social media channels could not be used to promote candidates and set more limits on how the city disseminates information on individual candidates.

City elections will be held Nov. 5. Upon resolution, the policy would be included in the candidate information packet for the upcoming election.

Links:

• City Report: Adoption of Resolution to revise and adopt the City of Rockville Campaign Policy
• Draft: City of Rockville Campaign Policy

---

Editor's Note: This story has been updated since it was originally published. A state repository would hold on to data collected by Rockville's automated licens plate readers for a year before the data would be automaticaly deleted.