Dear Friends,
Chaos and confusion have been near constants since Trump came back to the White House, so I thought I’d begin with some of the lighter moments of my week. On Wednesday, I was presented with and proudly wore a sash.
The occasion was International Women’s Day, and we were celebrating the 106th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote. I was there with many groups, including Montgomery County NOW, the Montgomery County Women’s Bar Association of Maryland, Montgomery County Business and Professional Women, Maryland Women’s History Initiative, and the County’s own Commission for Women.
I want to thank everyone for a wonderful night celebrating accomplishments and discussing the launch of the Women’s Professional Baseball League this summer, which features a player from Montgomery County. Have you seen those fastballs?
The summer is fading away quickly, and we’ll soon be back to our same old routines. Until then, enjoy the last bit of summer.
The 2026-2027 School Year Begins
This week, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) opened three brand new school buildings — JoAnn Leleck Elementary School at Broad Acres, Burtonsville Elementary School, and Poolesville High School. We held ribbon-cuttings for all three on Friday, Aug. 21. These are modern, safe, innovative learning environments and they represent exactly the kind of investment we should be making in our kids and our community.
I was pleased to join Councilmember Kristin Mink and MCPS Superintendent Dr. Thomas Taylor at Burtonsville Elementary School for the ceremony. This project was originally planned as a renovation of the former Burtonsville Elementary. However, the cost of the renovation would be very high and disruptive.
Coincidentally, as the school popped up in a budget discussion, I had a meeting with the District’s State legislative delegation. As we walked around, someone asked if the County hadn’t received a school site as part of the big redevelopment plan. When I followed up, I learned we had a brand-new school site that could replace the old school, in a location where many students could walk to school.
So, I contacted MCPS and helped them identify a new site near new homes. The new Burtonsville Elementary reduces the burden on our school buses and eliminates the need for a holding school. The former school (on Old Columbia Pike) can be renovated and serve dual purposes as a pre-K facility and community center. It also remains an option for extra athletic fields and community uses. This whole thing is a bigger win than just getting the new school.
The 2026-2027 MCPS school year began Tuesday with new rules for cell phones — conveniently called No Cell, Bell to Bell. This is a long-overdue change, and it absolutely improves the learning environment and allows our kids to focus more on their schoolwork.
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But a bigger story is that MCPS recently reported its enormous maintenance backlog. I’ve been stopped by many people who want to talk about how our school system could end up with a $3 billion backlog of costly maintenance for aging buildings. The answer is simple yet hard to hear.
For years, prior MCPS leaders didn’t ask for all the money they needed because they thought that level of funding wouldn’t be approved. Year after year, multiple councils clung to an unwillingness to raise the bond capacity, not even enough to cover inflation, let alone growing maintenance needs. Schools didn’t ask because they were caught between capacity needs for a growing population and the maintenance backlog. Expansion won, maintenance lost, and the needs piled up. The Councils were unwilling to raise the revenue needed to address it and weren’t receiving frequent updates on the problem’s growing magnitude. The same thing happened this past February with the current County Council. To be honest, short of killing other projects in the capital needs which would create a different set of problems, the only alternative was, and remains, to raise additional revenues. To increase bonding requires increasing the revenue stream to pay for the bonds, but over 20 years.
It was expanding capacity and building more schools to meet the growing student population that past Councils and the school district kept prioritizing. Now the maintenance backlog is enormous, again having grown to an estimated $3 billion in building renovations and upkeep. Today, MCPS faces declining enrollment, but the infrastructure needs remain, as they do for school districts across the State.
Maryland’s Interagency Commission on School Construction (IAC) aims for all schools in Maryland to score at least “satisfactory.” The chart above comes from that commission and shows 1,090 school facilities in yellow or red, meaning they require repair, renovation, or replacement. The IAC has a project underway to estimate the cost of completing that goal and bringing schools up to condition levels that support educational sufficiency and fiscal sustainability. The commission will study the lack of facilities such as science labs and pre-K classrooms, improve facility conditions, and enhance schools’ energy performance. A similar study conducted 20 years ago determined $4 billion in work was needed. That would represent $12 billion in today’s economy.
I will continue to push for new funding methods, as I have for the last several years. It is more important than ever for Montgomery County to have greater autonomy over how we generate revenue so that we do not put all of this on the backs of homeowners through increased property taxes.
We need the County Council to ask Maryland legislators to allow for differential taxation, an authority our municipalities already have. Our current tax structure means that we have the lowest commercial tax rates in the region without any benefit. As you can see in the chart below, we won the race to the bottom. We can boast the lowest commercial property taxes (except for DC), but it has done nothing to help us compete with jurisdictions that raise more in commercial taxes and build the infrastructure they need to attract growth. That’s something we can’t do within the current tax structure and won’t be able to change without help from state lawmakers.
Letter of Disapproval Regarding Planning Board Appointment
Earlier this summer, the County Council reappointed Dr. James Hedrick to the Planning Board. I was disappointed with this decision because, while serving the community through Planning, he had shown a disregard for serious policy and legal issues raised by residents. That’s why I sent a letter to the Council disapproving of his reappointment.
The Planning Board is part of a separate State agency, the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC). Although it is not part of the Montgomery County Government, the County Council oversees the Planning Board and appoints its members.
When all Planning Board members were replaced in 2022, which I thought was unjustified, there was an opportunity to appoint Board members who honored the community planning process. That has not happened. Instead of providing a framework committed to sound land-use and planning principles, the current Board has opted for a process that fails to strike a respectful balance between residents’ concerns and developers’ wish lists.
Dr. Hedrick was first appointed in 2023 over my objections. During his tenure, residents affected by sector plans and major land-use proposals have repeatedly raised serious concerns about development intensity, infrastructure capacity, school enrollment, transportation, environmental impacts, neighborhood compatibility, and the honorability of commitments made during the planning process. We need Planning Board members who help build a County that works for everyone, not just land-use lawyers and developers. The Planning Board’s decisions touch every resident’s life — master plans, zoning, subdivision approvals, park policies, and capital facilities. These are the decisions that shape what our neighborhoods look like and who can afford to live in them.
Since his appointment to the Board in 2023, Dr. Hedrick has reviewed and approved numerous plans and projects without demonstrating a willingness to engage constructively with residents or to address underlying concerns. I’ll cite just a few examples:
- During the Takoma Park Minor Master Plan Amendment process, residents raised concerns about upzoning multifamily properties that house long-term tenants. They pointed out that surveys indicating the tenants’ support for improving the properties were misleading. The people who knocked on tenants’ doors asked them what they liked about their community and what improvements they wanted to see. They were never asked if they supported upzoning that would incentivize property owners to tear down and rebuild, potentially displacing them. Dr. Hedrick and other members of the Planning Board relied on the survey results that were unrelated to the planning decisions without further engaging those tenants, would not consider a racial equity analysis (neither would the City Council nor County Council), that said there would be serious displacement of low-income people of color.
- In the University Boulevard Corridor Plan, he was uninterested in the comments from thousands of residents who pointed out problems with a “corridor” plan that ignored adjacent communities and disregarded the realities on the ground. Substantial critiques and comments from residents were never addressed, beginning with the questionable, incoherent boundary lines of the plan that bisected multiple communities and were based on a Bus Rapid Transit line that doesn’t exist and is not even in the planning stage. In addition to being in direct conflict with the just-enacted ZTA 25-02 Workforce Housing – Development Standards, the plan-wide rezoning reduced tree coverage and increased imperviousness, contrary to climate change goals. Perhaps worst of all, the plan incentivized the replacement of naturally occurring affordable housing and the displacement of existing residents from their homes. Dr. Hedrick’s lack of discussion and response to these concerns showed a complete misunderstanding of how to address the issue he claims to champion: housing affordability. He did not question a plan based on the faulty assumption that upzoning solves the housing affordability problem, nor did he acknowledge the reality that although the County has created zoning capacity for current and future housing needs, we haven’t managed to make it affordable.
- In the Planning Board’s July review of a proposed development, called Friendship Commons, local community representatives and hundreds of residents wrote, and many testified, to object to the virtual clear-cutting of mature specimen trees on the former Geico tract. Many others, including the Village of Friendship Heights with over 5,000 residents, and the Brookdale Civic Association, raised serious legal questions about the legality of certain Planning Staff recommendations. Dr. Hedrick did not respond to any of the public’s concerns or follow up with staff to understand and address the issues.
Residents do not expect the Planning Board to adopt every position they advance. However, they do expect to be treated with respect and to have their concerns meaningfully considered, fairly evaluated, discussed, and reflected in the Board’s deliberations.
In his first term, Dr. Hedrick has failed to understand the importance of acknowledging and addressing residents’ legitimate concerns about the consequences of the Board’s decisions. On the contrary, he has been dismissive of their concerns. His record reflects an approach that too readily prioritizes his own zealous support of increased development capacity everywhere and housing production without thoughtful consideration of other equally important statutory and policy goals, including public infrastructure, services, environmental protections, racial equity impacts, and community safeguards needed to support that growth.
Sadly, this is true for the Planning Board in general. While Dr. Hedrick has not addressed residential concerns, the majority of the Planning Board has also chosen to disregard them. This continues a pattern of actions that move away from community-based planning, where residents were encouraged to actively engage in changing their communities.
I urge the County Council to reconsider this appointment and select someone who will pursue balanced, sustainable, and responsive housing and growth policies for the entire County. The residents deserve to be a part of planning for the future of their communities.
Student Vaccinations Continue
Vaccinations are as essential a school supply as pencils and paper. Without vaccines for things like the flu or measles, public schools would not be able to take your children the entire school year. That’s one reason the County continues to offer free vaccination clinics for students through Friday, Sept. 25.
Staying current on immunizations protects individual students, helps prevent the spread of disease in our schools, and strengthens the health of our entire community. I encourage parents and guardians to review their children’s immunization records from the school and make an appointment soon if any vaccines are needed.
I also want families to know that earlier this year, federal health leaders changed the childhood vaccine schedule outside the usual scientific review process, and major groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics are sticking with the original recommendations instead. My advice is to follow your pediatrician’s guidance and Maryland’s school requirements, which haven’t changed.
On my media briefing this week, I welcomed Beka Urgessa, a senior administrator for school health in our Department of Health and Human Services. So far this year, we’re seeing fewer children needing vaccinations to meet school requirements, but that count won’t be official until next month.
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The 2026 Back-to-School Immunization Clinics schedule is available on the DHHS Vaccines for Children webpage. To schedule an appointment or confirm clinic hours, call one of the following Montgomery County immunization clinics:
- Dennis Avenue Health Center: 240-777-1050
- Germantown Health Center: 240-777-3380
- Silver Spring Health Center: 240-777-3160
- School Health Services Immunization Center: 240-740-4430
And speaking of vaccines, you can schedule a flu shot now for kids and adults. Ask your local pharmacy or primary care provider for more information. Flu shot appointments will soon be available through the County’s Department of Health and Human Services. Call the Dennis Avenue Health Center for more information.
Overdose Awareness Day and Memorial this Weekend
This weekend, the spotlight will be on the lives we have lost to overdose deaths in Montgomery County. International Overdose Awareness Day is an opportunity for our community to come together to honor those lost but also appreciate the work done every day to help our residents stay clean and sober.
On Saturday, Aug. 29, at Memorial Plaza in Rockville, Montgomery Goes Purple will host a short memorial service at 9 a.m., then the first color run, walk, or roll at 9:30 a.m. This event is meant for everyone in our community to show support for those working to demonstrate that prevention and recovery are for everyone. A resource fair connecting attendees with educators and community resources will be open from 9 to 11 a.m.
In Montgomery County, we have had the foresight to go after certain drugmakers for their role in marketing opioids to the public and medical providers. The money we have been awarded in court is helping to pay for treatments that would otherwise fall on taxpayers. It is sick to think that the drugmakers who made ungodly amounts of money on death and destruction are only forced to pay fines for what they’ve done, but that’s the world we live in.
Drugmakers and distributors involved in opioid lawsuits are expected to bring Montgomery County approximately $34 million over the next 18 years. The same suits are expected to net the State approximately $400 million over the same period. These are crucially needed funds to help our community recover and heal from the deadly impacts of drugs like opioids.
We have seen fewer overdoses since 2024, but our work is not complete. Every life lost is one too many. Those deaths tear apart families and change lives for generations. I encourage everyone to support overdose awareness efforts and help prevent more tragedies in Montgomery County. Learn more about this Saturday’s event by visiting montgomerygoespurple.org.
September is African Heritage Month
Every September, we recognize African Heritage Month. This year, the annual celebration will be held at the Leggett Executive Office Building in Rockville from 6 to 9 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 10.
Ahead of that, the Ethiopian community will gather in Silver Spring on Sunday, Sept. 6, for a daylong festival celebrating Ethiopia’s vibrant culture and rich traditions. Ethiopian Day 2026 continues a tradition that’s been part of downtown Silver Spring since 2014. I hope you can take part in the fun, food, and music.
We remain committed to honoring and uplifting our African community, and we will never stop showing our appreciation for the many contributions you bring to our shared home. Roughly 63,000 residents of Montgomery County were born in Africa, representing about 13.8% of our county’s foreign-born population. Africans and their children are heavily represented in STEM fields. Their talent and excellence give us confidence in the continuing growth of both our national and local economy.
As County Executive, one of my goals is to make decisions that allow all residents to thrive and feel safe here in Montgomery County. Unfortunately, we cannot count on the same from the leadership in Washington. It’s why we will continue to use the words diversity, equity, and inclusion. More importantly, we consider every decision in the county through a racial equity and social justice lens, from the projects we invest in to the programs we create.
Too often, our nation’s story is told primarily from a European perspective, leaving out or minimizing the significant African contributions. But I can tell you with certainty—Africans have made this country livable, prosperous, and better for all of us.
Earlier this year, I was invited to take part in the Lincoln Park Historical Foundation & Annual Gospel Train Ride to Freedom. This was a powerful event that helped honor some of the brave people in Lincoln Park who helped fight for racial justice at another time in history when the federal government worked to exclude people. Our Black communities insisted that this Country tell the truth about itself. And because families, churches, and neighborhoods preserved those memories even when institutions would not, we can celebrate the heroic work on behalf of freedom. I’m proud that here in Montgomery County, the truth is everywhere. Thank you to everyone who keeps telling those stories every day.
The current administration’s attachment to racism and exclusion will not influence us. They want to revert to a time of discrimination and Jim Crow. They don’t want people to know the truth about American History because it is hard for ignorant people to make the right decisions. The immigration policies in place since Trump took office again are disgusting and un-American. Here in our County, we stand for fairness, dignity, and opportunity. African residents are part of our community, making a difference every day in science and technology, law, education, healthcare, business and entrepreneurship, government, the arts, and frontline services. They help Montgomery County grow, innovate, and thrive.
And I want to encourage everyone to consider joining the African Affairs Advisory Group through our Office of Community Partnerships. Your voice matters, and together, we can do even more to advance the needs of our African communities.
As always, my appreciation for all of you,
Marc Elrich
County Executive
Read the original article at mcgov
