EASTON, MARYLAND — Unincorporated Talbot County still has no new short-term rental ordinance.

On Dec. 9, 2025, Council members Pete Lesher and Lynn Mielke withdrew sponsorship of Bill 1622. No vote was taken. Under the County Charter, a bill without a sponsor dies. Lesher and Mielke first brought a restrictive short-term rental package in May 2025; the Planning Commission sent it back substantially loosened. The numbered Bill 1622 was introduced Oct. 28, 2025, with a Nov. 25 public hearing. Sponsors said the draft still missed the Town Residential and Town Conservation zoning districts, where many of the bill’s own supporters live.

A separate §190-63 licensing text amendment — not Bill 1622 — failed 2-2 on Aug. 11, 2026, on referral to the Planning Commission, with President Chuck Callahan absent. Lesher and Mielke voted yes; Dave Stepp and Keasha Haythe voted no. That tally was not a vote on adopting an ordinance and was not a second death of Bill 1622.

What neither action settled is the municipal split. St. Michaels and Oxford set their own licensing inside town limits. A house on Talbot Street in St. Michaels does not live under the county’s Chapter 63.1 the way a house on Tilghman or in unincorporated Easton does. A next county bill cannot recycle Bill 1622: the last draft missed TR and TC, and it never reconciled town rules with county rules. Notification — 1,000 feet versus the nearest fifty properties — is a separate live question. The Short Term Rental Review Board is still licensing under the old code.