Dear Frederick County Council Members,
As an electric vehicle driver, I wish to oppose the Electric Vehicles bill no. 21-09.
This legislation, while well-meaning, will likely harm more than it will help.
The preamble of 21-09 states that it would “prohibit parking of a vehicle that is not a plug-in vehicle in a public parking space reserved for plug-in vehicles.” This would be similar to the ordinances in Montgomery, Howard, and Baltimore Counties to prohibit only gasoline vehicles from EV charging spaces.
But the actual language in the Frederick County bill says plug-in vehicle drivers would also be in violation “if the vehicle is not connected to the charging equipment.”
This is a reasonable idea in theory. But how do you know for certain the original intention of the EV driver?
I have had someone unplug my car without permission on multiple occasions. Sometimes another EV driver will park next to me and take the charging connector from my car and plug it into their car. One time, the car’s dashcam recorded someone who, for no apparent reason, walked up to the car, unplugged it and put the connector back in the charging station. Both of these scenarios would leave EV drivers vulnerable to a violation through no fault of their own if you adopt this bill.
See the attached photo taken at the EV charging station at Winchester Hall for the County’s fleet vehicle. There are notices on the charging equipment to warn people, “You are on camera. This area is under surveillance.” Apparently, there are already concerns about people tampering with EV charging on County property.
EV drivers simply cannot rely on the good behavior of every person who passes by our vehicle while it is unattended in order to avoid a ticket.
This ordinance will discourage people from using public charging if it goes into effect. Montgomery, Howard and Baltimore County Councils decided to focus only on prohibiting gas cars as a first step while reserving their option to amend the ordinance if complaints arise about EV drivers abusing the charging spaces.
The Council should ask if existing parking ordinances such as § 1-15-20 can be employed to enforce parking rules on County property rather than creating a new section of Code for an evolving technology like electric vehicle charging.
Should the Frederick County Council add § 1-15-31 to the Frederick County Code regarding Electric Vehicles? The answer quite simply is, no.
There are more effective ways to support EV adoption than this difficult to enforce bill. I’d be happy to work with you on solutions for those bigger issues.
I respectfully ask the council to vote against adoption of bill 21-09.
Sincerely,
Lanny Hartmann
UPDATE:
At the public hearing that was held on Oct. 12, 2021, the sponsor of this bill said he understood the concerns about the “must be connected” language and that he plans to make adjustments to the bill in response. However, the bill remains unnecessary because existing parking laws can be applied to protect EV charging stations on public property and private property managers can apply existing trespass-to laws.
