Latest news with #MichaelOConnor
BBC News
19-06-2025
- BBC News
Londonderry: Three men and six teenagers in court over disorder
Three men and six teenagers have appeared in court on charges connected to rioting in Ramsey, 30, of Rathlin Drive in Derry, is accused of riotous behaviour in Nailors Row on McDonald, 29, from Cromore Gardens in the city, is also charged with riotous behaviour on the Lecky Road on Wednesday while Michael O'Connor, 47, of Glenfada Park, is accused of inciting and encouraging a riot on the same teenagers - one aged 14, three aged 15, and two aged 16, who cannot be named because of their ages - are all charged with riotous behaviour on Tuesday and Wednesday. One of the 15-year-olds also faces a charge of having a petrol Magistrates' Court was told on Thursday that violence erupted at about 19:30 BST on Tuesday, when youths moved towards a known interface area in the city. Police intervened and trouble erupted which resulted in them being attacked with petrol bombs, masonry and stones. A police officer told the court that Mr Ramsey was among a group of three unmasked men who joined masked rioters in attacking police. He was alleged to have encouraged others to participate in the his solicitor said the prosecution had not alleged that Mr Ramsey had thrown any acknowledged Mr Ramsey's presence at the scene, but said that his client denied involvement in any claims were made regarding Mr McDonald, who was seen in the vicinity of the Lecky Road disturbances. He also denies the Mr O'Connor's case, a police officer said he was observed speaking to a group of masked youths shortly before they began rioting. It was further alleged he filmed the ensuing violence. Drone footage analysis Deputy District Judge Chris Holmes told the hearing there was "extensive drone footage" of the three men were granted bail with conditions, including a curfew, restrictions on entering specific parts of the city and an exclusion zone around any police Holmes said he would not treat the youths differently from the adults, although he acknowledged the statutory presumption of bail for minors. All six were granted bail with curfew conditions and are scheduled to appear in court again in judge directed the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) to prioritise analysis of the drone footage to determine whether further charges should be brought.
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
First Republican challenger for Frederick mayor has filed
The first Republican has entered the race for Frederick mayor. Tom Trott co-founded mortgage company Victory Mortgage Solutions and is running on being business friendly. 'I'm going to emphasize trying to get more businesses all over Frederick,' Trott said in an interview on Tuesday. Two-term Mayor Michael O'Connor, a Democrat, is seeking a third term. Another Democrat, former city planning commissioner Ron Beattie, is challenging O'Connor in the Democratic primary. The filing deadline for candidates is July 1. 'I've been a lifelong Republican, but I've never really voted along party lines,' Trott said. 'I enjoyed the days when the Byrons were my congresspeople,' referring to Goodloe Byron, who held the U.S. 6th District seat in the 1970s, then Beverly Byron, his wife, who followed him in the office after he died. Both were Democrats. Trott, 60, has lived in Frederick since high school. He graduated from Governor Thomas Johnson High School. He said he wanted to use his experience in business and finance to help the city. 'I think having a business person back in the mayoral office will benefit the city tremendously,' he said. Trott said there has been an issue with vacant buildings in the downtown area, and he wants to look at bringing businesses in to fill them. 'I don't think we're going in a great direction,' Trott said. 'We have a vibrant city with a lot of people traveling to it on weekends, but when you look at particularly the downtown area, we have a lot of places that have closed down.' O'Connor in an interview on Tuesday challenged the notion that there are many vacant businesses downtown. 'I would disagree,' he said. The most notable exception is a 'notorious landlord' the city has taken to court, O'Connor said. The city is attempting to use an ordinance regulating abandoned or blighted properties to turn the former site of the Asiana restaurant at 123-125 N. Market St. over to a developer to be renovated and sold. The restaurant closed in 2001, but the building's owners are appealing a District Court decision in 2024 allowing the building to be put into a receivership agreement. The long-vacant Carmack Jay's grocery store building in downtown was also recently sold, though plans for its development have not been made public. Being business friendly can also help with affordable housing, Trott said. 'I think what it's going to come down to is getting people together, getting them more involved and just making Frederick city more business friendly and I think that'll bring in more dollars' for new housing projects, he said. Trott said he was not an opponent of a measure the then-Board of Aldermen passed in 2024 allowing all residents of the city to vote regardless of their citizenship status. The measure does not exclude undocumented immigrants from voting. 'The more the merrier,' Trott said. He believes the measure will not significantly increase turnout, however. 'If they wanted to get more people that are noncitizens voting, they should have done day-of-voting registration, which has been done in other jurisdictions, where somebody can come up with their utility bill and driver's license, and it shows they are a resident and vote,' Trott said. Trott said he won't be available to talk more in-depth about his positions until early July. The City Council is also set to increase from five members to seven after elections in November. Following the charter changes from September of 2024, the next elected council will have five members representing five districts. Two will remain at-large representatives of the city. All are currently at-large representatives. In District 1, which encompasses an area in the west part of the city north of the Golden Mile area, only current City Council President Katie Nash, a Democrat, has filed to run. District 2 is the area around the Golden Mile in the southwest portion of the city. Only immigrant advocate César Díaz, a Democrat, has filed to run in the district. District 3 is made up mostly of the downtown area. In the district, Peter Brehm, treasurer for The Frederick Center, which serves the LGBTQ+ communities, and Wag's Restaurant co-owner Dave Schmidt — both Democrats — have filed to run. District 4 contains the northern part of downtown and the northeastern portion of the city. Joe Adkins, a Republican and former deputy director of the Frederick Planning Department, and Democrat S. Scott Lasher have filed for the district. District 5 includes the northwestern part of the city. Sculptor Sarah Hempel Irani, a Democrat, is the lone candidate who has filed for the district. Incumbents Derek Shackelford and Kelly Russell, as well as Medicaid policy analyst Libby Taylor, have filed to run for the council's two at-large seats. All three are Democrats. Though Council Member Donna Kuzemchak has said previously repeatedly that she is not intending to run for another term, on Tuesday, she said the Fiscal Year 2026 budget process and other things have made her consider possibly pursuing another term. Council Member Ben MacShane has also said he is not running again. The primary election is scheduled for Sept. 9 and the general election is scheduled for Nov. 4. Staff writer Ryan Marshall contributed to this story.
Yahoo
07-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
City Council passes $235M budget, cuts new positions and tenure-based pay increase; mayor ponders veto
Frederick's City Council on Thursday passed a Fiscal Year 2026 budget after two months of budget meetings, cutting just over $3 million from the mayor's $238 million budget proposal. The council removed several new positions totaling around $900,000; $700,000 for a tenure-based pay increase for 269 city employees; $700,000 for a nonprofit emergency fund and more from the budget, totaling around $3.2 million. The council made the modifications to the amended budget Mayor Michael O'Connor put forward on May 14. The approvecd budget includes transferring more city funds to the city's Department of Housing and Human Services to account for projected losses in federal grants, more funds for new city equipment and vehicles, and a $20,000 immigrant legal fund for grants for local nonprofits serving the immigrant community. It also includes another $2.5 million for a West Side Regional Park community center. O'Connor objected to the council's cuts and said he would decide by early next week if he would veto the budget. He has two weeks to do so. The council approved the budget with the cuts 3-2. Council Members Donna Kuzemchak, Ben MacShane and Katie Nash were in favor. Council Members Kelly Russell and Derek Shackelford voted against the budget plan with cuts. Kuzemchak cited the tax-rate cut the council passed May 15 as the main reason for cutting items from the budget. The cut reduced the city's property tax rate by about 2.5 cents, from 73.05 cents to 70.55 cents per $100 of assessed property value — about a 3% decrease. MacShane previously proposed a larger cut of 5 cents per $100 of assessed property value, but Kuzemchak proposed splitting the difference, which she said was a compromise to the mayor. Kuzemchak said the city has left millions of dollars unspent at the end of each fiscal year, despite budgeting to spend most of it. Unused funds Unused funds the city of Frederick has had left over at the end of every fiscal year between fiscal year 2016 and 2024. The calculation to find this number was taken from subtracting the rainy day fund allocation for each year from the unassigned figure for that year in the city's annual comprehensive financial report. Council Member Donna Kuzemchak explained how to calculate these figures and has described these funds as unused. She said this money should be given back to taxpayers. 'There's literally a 20- to 30-some-million-dollar ending balance at the end of the year,' she said. 'When I see money that's not being spent, in my mind, that money needs to go back to the people who are paying it.' Director of Budget and Administration Katie Barkdoll said the ending balance at the end of every year was accumulated 'since the beginning of time' and often accrued because of things like unfilled positions accounted for in the budget. Russell has previously said she supported the mayor's budget. Shackelford encouraged his fellow council members to take the mayor's offer to meet with them to talk about the budget. O'Connor argued there was no need to cut items from the budget, as his budget proposal — even with a tax-rate cut — would still be balanced by revising their estimates for revenue. Kuzemchak sent The Frederick News-Post a list of the cuts. They included: * A $700,000 nonprofit emergency fund meant to help nonprofits in the event they lose federal grant funding * Around $700,000 for the tenure-based pay increase for 269 city employees from the general fund * Around $240,000 from the city's water and sewer fund, golf course fund, airport fund, parking fund, storm water fund, and rental operations fund that would also have gone to the tenure-based pay increase * A new superintendent of facilities maintenance position at around $175,000 and the new vehicle for the position at almost $90,000 * A new community and urban design planner position in the Planning Department at around $130,000 * A new deputy chief of staff position in the mayor's office at around $175,000 * A new economic development specialist position at around $120,000 * The current vacant senior assistant director position in the Department of Housing and Human Services at just over $175,000 * $225,000 from the police department's expenditures * Almost $50,000 from removing City Council staff positions and upgrading the current legislative assistant to legislative manager * Reducing a Rainy Day Fund requirement by $380,685 * $249,561 for an increased use of fund balance to offset property tax reduction Nash said it's time to pause all new hires, with the federal government cutting back on grants. O'Connor argued that he proposed adding fewer positions than in previous years. The city has gone from 683 full-time equivalent positions in the Fiscal Year 2022 budget — a metric that includes full-time positions and part-time positions that add up to full-time positions — to having 768 in the Fiscal Year 2025 budget. O'Connor's most recent amended budget proposal would have called for the addition of six positions, two of which were meant to assist the City Council. All of those were cut from the budget. He said the council has asked for ways to improve the speed of the Planning Department, and adding a new position is a way to help things move forward. The new superintendent of facilities management position was necessary, O'Connor said, especially as the city plans shortly to start using its new 60,000-square-foot police headquarters. The economic development position would help support small and emerging businesses, he said. In an interview on Friday, O'Connor said that not moving forward with the tenure-based pay proposal could get the city sued. The proposal was aimed at giving pay increases to longer-tenured employees in the city, as currently many are paid at similar or lower rates to those in the same position with less tenure, O'Connor has said. 'I do feel strongly that addressing a payroll system that could result in the city being sued is something that I'm going to take seriously,' he said. ... 'It is within the realm of possibility that an employee who doesn't see the city addressing that with the tools that we have available could seek a judicial remedy, most likely through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.' The commission is a federal agency aimed at making sure employees are not discriminated against based on race, color, religion, sex, transgender status, national origin, age, disability, genetic information or other factors, according to its website. Kuzemchak, MacShane and Nash have repeatedly voiced their opposition to the compensation measure. Kuzemchak has said that city employees already get merit and inflation-based yearly pay increases. O'Connor said he was most surprised by the cuts from the police department budget. Kuzemchak previously said the police department could not explain the need for the entirety of the budget in O'Connor's proposal at $50.8 million. If O'Connor did veto the budget, the council could overturn his veto. However, as the charter is written, it would require all five council members to vote to overturn the veto. Nash said the requirement was a 'mistake' the council made when changing the city charter in September 2024. The council intended to have the five-member overturn requirement for when it grows to seven members after elections in November, but not before then. In the same council meeting on Thursday, the council unanimously voted to change the requirement to overturn a veto to two-thirds of the council — which would be four out of five in the current council and five out of seven in the next council. However, state statute dictates that this change cannot take effect until 50 days after the council passes it. If O'Connor did veto the council-amended budget and the council failed to overturn his veto, his most recently amended budget, at $238 million, would become the city's budget. 'I appreciate that, for the most part, as a body — as a city — there's so much that we agree on,' Nash said during the meeting. 'Sometimes, that does get lost in the process when we're going back and forth.'
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
MacShane decides against another term on Frederick City Council
Frederick City Council Member Ben MacShane said he is not running for reelection this year, but is not ruling out running for a third term on the council or another public office in the future. MacShane said he wants the council to have fresh perspectives. Nine people are currently running for seven City Council positions and two are running for mayor. The filing deadline for candidates for mayor and City Council is July 1. Council Member Donna Kuzemchak has also said she is not running. The council is set to expand this year to seven members from its current five. Candidates The candidates for Frederick City Council, with links to their profiles. This means the council would have at least four new members following the general election in November. Currently, all five members of the City Council represent the city at large. However, after elections there will be seven council members. Five will represent districts and two will be at large representatives. This is due to the then-Board of Aldermen approving a new charter in September 2024. Mayor Michael O'Connor has filed to run for a third term. He is challenged by fellow Democrat Ron Beattie, a former city planning commissioner. District 1 encompasses an area in the west part of the city, north of the Golden Mile area. Only current City Council President Katie Nash, a Democrat, has filed to run in District 1. District 2 is the area around the Golden Mile in the southwest portion of the city. Only immigrant advocate César Díaz, a Democrat, has filed to run in the district. District 3 is made up mostly of the downtown area. Peter Brehm, the treasurer for The Frederick Center, which serves the LGBTQ+ communities, and Wag's Restaurant co-owner Dave Schmidt — both Democrats — have both filed to run in the district. District 4 contains the northern part of downtown and the northeastern portion of the city. Only Joe Adkins, a former deputy director of the Frederick Planning Department, has filed for the district. Adkins is currently the only Republican to have filed. District 5 includes the northwestern part of the city. Sculptor Sarah Hempel Irani, a Democrat, is the lone candidate who has filed for the district. Incumbents Derek Shackelford and Kelly Russell and Medicaid policy analyst Libby Taylor — all Democrats — have all filed to run for the council's two at-large seats. The primary election is scheduled for Sept. 9 and the general election is scheduled for Nov. 4.
Yahoo
31-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Mayoral challenger says city needs to plan, not react
For Ron Beattie, running for Frederick mayor is about planning ahead, especially during what he described as a current 'inflection point' in the city's history. Beattie is running as a Democrat, challenging incumbent Democratic Mayor Michael O'Connor, who is seeking a third four-year term. Beattie is a consultant on alternative energy. 'I don't think we've been planning. We react,' said Beattie, a former planning commissioner of five years, who resigned before his term ended in July to run for mayor. Whether its large projects like the West Side Regional Park or city fees designed to fund affordable housing projects, Beattie said the city needs to get ahead of major developments. 'The best example of that, I think, would be Brickworks,' he said. The 64-acre property was vacant for over a decade, but in recent years, plans to develop it with housing and commercial businesses have been submitted. Although the property received approval for a master plan of development in 2023, the project is still being reviewed by the Frederick Planning Commission. 'We should have had a plan for Brickworks 10 years before somebody actually came in with a proposal for it,' he said. 'We should have been seeking those people out.' Similarly, Beattie said, the city should have proactively worked to find a space for a West Side community center. The city is set to hire someone to start the design phase of the community center this year, though the then-Board of Aldermen originally put funds toward it in 2023. Beattie said the city could have explored using the old Frederick Towne Mall on West Patrick Street as a city building to house the community center, saving on construction costs. Beattie said he wants to streamline the planning process, especially for developers constructing affordable housing, or as he described it, 'attainable' housing. He wants to develop a prioritization system, which he said could cut years off the planning process for affordable housing. 'If a developer comes and says, 'I want to put a 100% affordable housing project in Frederick,' they go to the front of the line,' Beattie said. 'You cut two to three years out of their development process, and then it cuts their cost so that they can build something that's affordable.' He said the city's planning department should report directly to the mayor, rather than the current system, in which the deputy director of planning is under the director of public works. 'Do we think so little of planning that we're going to bury it in some bureaucracy?' he asked. Currently, the city requires that all new housing developments include a certain percentage of affordable housing. However, developers may pay a fee in lieu of following through with this requirement. 'In terms of affordability and attainable housing, we have to stop de-incentivizing things,' Beattie said of the option for developers to pay the fee. City code mandates the money raised by the fund be put toward an affordable housing fund. However, the council did not have an immediate plan of what to do with the funds raised by the fee, Beattie said. 'That's government malpractice 101,' he said. Similarly, the city collects a fee to issue rental licenses for landlords. None of that money had yet been spent as of early May, city spokesperson Allen Etzler said. The ordinance also mandates that city code officials inspect rental housing units according to the city's health and safety standards. The council passed the ordinance requiring the license fee in 2022. Of 802 initial random inspections the city conducted in 2024, around 280, or 35%, resulted in a violation, according to a report provided to a City Council committee in February. Just two violations were found that resulted in tenants being forced to temporarily relocate, and both instances were caused by the tenant, Code Enforcement Manager Brittany Parks said in February. 'So why did we take all this money out of the economy to fix a problem that doesn't exist?' Beattie asked. Beattie also raised issues with the city's Department of Housing and Human Services. 'HHS is a great example of what we don't know about, what's going on in city government,' he said. 'It's opaque.' He described the director position in the department as a 'revolving door.' The city recently hired former state of Maryland official Stuart Campbell to take over the role, which was held by Ramenta Cottrell from 2020 to 2024. He said the department must work on more permanent solutions to aid those who living paycheck-to-paycheck. 'We feed people and we give people an occasional bed, but what are the programs of bringing people out of the situation that they're in and becoming more productive members of society?' he asked. 'I don't see us doing that.' He described the impending effects of federal funding cuts under the administration of President Donald Trump as 'dark clouds.' He said the city should look to partner more closely with the state to help work through the effects of federal funding cuts. 'Fortunately, we have a very good governor, who, I think, has been doing an outstanding job dealing with the cuts that have already been made,' Beattie said. 'And I think partnering with the state, especially a state that has a strong governor, is going to help us.' The city's primary election is set for Sept. 9. The general election is set for Nov. 4. No other candidates had filed to run for mayor as of Thursday. The filing deadline is July 1.
