Montgomery County Planning Board and Planning Department announce June 2021 online events

The Montgomery County Planning Board and the Montgomery County Planning Department have announced their June 2021 calendar of online meetings. For more details, review the list of events below and visit www.montgomeryplanning.org.

During this time of social distancing in response to the COVID-19 crisis, the Planning Board will continue to hold public meetings online while Montgomery Planning’s new headquarters (2425 Reedie Drive, Wheaton, MD) is closed to the public. Community members may sign up to testify and provide comments to the Board, during the meeting, on specific agenda items through Microsoft Teams or phone. Written testimony may be submitted in advance of the meeting. The April schedule of events is subject to change based on the ongoing response to the COVID-19 virus.

There are many ways to participate in Planning Board meetings:

• Watch the Planning Board meeting live online and on demand.
• Listen live over the phone to the Planning Board meeting by calling: 866-774-0898 Password: 24252020
• Sign up to testify via phone during the Planning Board meeting. To testify, fill out the Sign Up to Testify form by 12 noon on the day before the Planning Board meeting. On the afternoon before the meeting, you will receive an email with a phone number to call during a designated time to provide your testimony for a specific agenda item. Submitting this form online by the deadline is the only way to testify on meeting items.
• Email your written testimony with comments on specific Planning Board agenda items to mcp-chair@mncppc-mc.org by 12 noon on the day before the Planning Board meeting.
• If you have questions, send an email to mcp-chair@mncppc-mc.org or leave a message at 301-495-4605 and a staff member in the Planning Board Chair’s office will contact you.

June 10 – The Planning Board will hold its meeting online. Consult the Planning Board’s agenda, posted 10 days before the meeting for more information. Watch the meetings online via live stream or review previous meetings on demand.

June 14 – Montgomery Planning will host a “Housing Day” on social media in honor of National Homeownership Month 2021. As part of this day, Housing Policy Coordinator Lisa Govoni will host a live Twitter chat between noon and 1 p.m. to answer the community’s housing questions and ask a few of her own. Topics will focus on housing recommendations in Thrive Montgomery 2050 and a discussion of the preliminary recommendations in the Attainable Housing Strategies initiative. To participate, make sure to follow Montgomery Planning on Twitter (@montgomeryplans) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/montgomeryplanning).

June 17 – The Planning Board will hold its meeting online. Consult the Planning Board’s agenda, posted 10 days before the meeting for more information. Watch the meetings online via live stream or review previous meetings on demand.

The Montgomery County Council will hold the first of two virtual public hearings at 7 p.m. for the Planning Board Draft of the update to the General Plan, Thrive Montgomery 2050. Visit the County Council website to learn how to submit testimony and to watch the public hearing live.

June 23 – The Historic Preservation Commission will hold its meeting online. Consult the HPC meeting webpage for agenda information. Watch the meetings online via live stream or review previous meetings on demand.

June 24 – The Planning Board will hold its meeting online. During this meeting, the Board will receive public comments and hold a virtual work session on the Attainable Housing Strategies initiative. Consult the Planning Board’s agenda, posted 10 days before the meeting for more information. Watch the meetings online via live stream or review previous meetings on demand.

June 29 – The Montgomery County Council will hold the second of two virtual public hearings at 7 p.m. for the update to the General Plan, Thrive Montgomery 2050. Visit the County Council website to learn how to submit testimony and to watch the public hearing live.

Montgomery Parks, part of The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission is seeking public input on its Capital Improvement Program (CIP)(opens in a new tab) for fiscal years 2023 – 2028. The CIP is a six-year funding plan for capital projects, which is approved every two years by the Montgomery Planning Board and the Montgomery County Council.

Comments and questions may be submitted online, by email or U.S. mail or virtually at the online public forum. The public forum takes place online on Thursday, June 10, 2021 at 6 p.m.

To share your ideas:

• Online comments may be submitted through June 17 via Montgomery Parks Open Town Hall which is accessible at www.MontgomeryParks.org (click on the Open Town Hall link under the Quick Links menu on the lower right side of the homepage).

The CIP for Montgomery Parks includes projects for parkland acquisitions, renovation of park facilities, and new development within parks.  The Recreation Department’s CIP includes projects for new community/recreation centers and aquatic facilities, and for renovations to existing facilities.

Upcoming projects in the Capital Improvement Program for Fiscal Years 2023 – 2028
Park projects moving forward in the FY23-28 CIP include renovations/enhancements to existing parks including Brookside Gardens, Hillandale Local Park, Josiah Henson Museum and Park, Little Bennett Regional Park, Ovid Hazen Wells Recreational Park, Woodside Urban Park, Caroline Freeland Urban Park, Long Branch-Wayne Local Park and Carroll Knolls Urban Park; hard surface trail segments along North Branch; and expanding the natural surface trails network.  Ongoing infrastructure maintenance includes ADA-related improvements, energy conservation measures, playground and tennis court renovations, and environmental and cultural resource conservation programs.  Additional information about Parks’ CIP projects is available at www.montgomeryparks.org, click on the Park Projects link under the “Quick Links” menu on the right-hand side of the page.

“Bringing Women Back to Work” will be the theme from noon-1 p.m. on Friday, June 11, when Montgomery County’s COVID-19 Economic Revitalization and Recovery program continues its series of virtual town hall meetings to keep businesses informed on strategies for doing business as we turn the corner toward recovery.

County Executive Marc Elrich initiated the series of town halls held every other Friday to share timely updates on COVID-19 topics of interest to the business community.

The town halls give businesses an opportunity to hear directly from County leaders. Judy Stephenson, the County’s small business navigator, will host the June 11 session. There will be updates on business grant programs and Travis Gayles, the County health officer, and Earl Stoddard, the County’s director of Emergency Management, will update attendees on the status of reopening and the vaccine rollout.

Nationwide, there were 1.9 million fewer women in the workforce in the first quarter of 2021 than in the first quarter of 2020. The U.S. female labor force participation has hit a 30-year low.  

During the June 11 town hall, Ms. Stephenson will host a panel of experts addressing the impact of the pandemic on women in the workforce and strategies that businesses and workers can pursue to bring women back to work. She will be joined by Lynne Stein Benzion of the Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation, Jennifer Arnaiz of the Montgomery County Childcare Resource and Referral Center, Morgan Wortham of the Maryland Women's Business Center and Tazeen Ahmad of the Montgomery County Commission for Women. 

If business owners, employees or residents have questions they would like to see addressed at the June 11 town hall, they can be submitted by Wednesday, June 9, to BizPortal@MontgomeryCountyMD.gov.

To join the broadcast, go to https://zoom.us/j/98584224354?pwd=ekdBd05kT08zRmxCekQzajkwdW9LZz09

The webinar ID is 985 8422 4354. The passcode is 057204. Spanish interpretation is now available.

The town hall will be broadcast on County Cable Montgomery (cable station CCM), which is available on Comcast and RCN (channels 6 and HD996) and Verizon (channel 30). The town hall can be viewed live via County social media at https://www.facebook.com/montgomerycountyinfo.

Town halls are recorded and available through the Montgomery County Business Portal at https://montgomerycountymd.gov/Biz-Resources/covid19/4BizNews.html

The Policing Advisory Commission (PAC) will hold a virtual public hearing on June 14, 2021 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. to hear from the community regarding their thoughts and experiences on the issue of drug enforcement in the County. This includes drug possession arrests and interactions that resulted in stop and frisk or search for drugs in which no drugs were found, and the issuance of civil citations for possession of less than 10 grams of marijuana.

Community members are invited to register to provide live testimony during the public hearing or to submit written, audio, or video testimony. Community members are asked to limit their live testimony to no more than three minutes and to one speaker per organization (if applicable). Written, audio, and visual testimony submitted prior to the public hearing may be longer, if needed. The deadline to register to speak at the public hearing is 11:59 p.m. on June 13, 2021.

The following are examples of questions for members of the public to reflect on and address via their testimony:

• Were you stopped and searched by the police? What happened? How did you feel?

• After the police stopped you, what officially happened? Were you taken into custody? Were you let go? Were you given a citation? How was the encounter ultimately resolved?

• If arrested, have you attempted to have the arrest or conviction expunged? If so, how would you describe that experience?

• Have you experienced long-term consequences – such as suspension from school, loss of employment, loss of housing, family breakup, imprisonment?

• Looking back on this encounter, what was the effect of this encounter on your relationship to the police or with other government agencies?

• Would your experience in this encounter affect your willingness to go to the police if you were a crime victim or witnessed a crime?

• If you needed treatment for a substance use disorder, did your experience with the Montgomery County Police Department (MCPD) expedite, delay, or otherwise affect your ability to get appropriate treatment?

• Do you or your organization have a view on the public safety, public health, economic, social or other value of MCPD drug arrests—both for marijuana and for other drugs?

To learn more about the Policing Advisory Commission, please go here.

For more information on the public hearing please contact:

• Carlos Camacho at carlos.camacho@montgomerycountymd.gov

• Susan Farag at susan.farag@montgomerycountymd.gov.

• English
• Spanish
• Amharic