The Montgomery County Council convened on April 7, 2026, for a full-day session that included legislative actions, worksessions, briefings, and a public hearing on the FY27 Operating Budgets and FY27-32 Public Services Program. The meeting began at 9:03 a.m. with presentations and general business, followed by legislative session, worksessions, a budget briefing, consent calendar, and a lunch meeting with the Montgomery County Retired Employees’ Association. The Council recessed and reconvened at 1:03 p.m. for additional presentations and public hearings, culminating in an evening public hearing from 6:31 p.m. to 8:54 p.m. that featured extensive testimony from residents, advocates, and organizational representatives.
The evening public hearing (6:30 p.m. session) was dedicated to testimony on FY27 Operating Budgets and FY27-32 Public Services Program. Speakers addressed a wide range of issues:
Good afternoon. Bless you, beautiful people. It's been a long day, guys. I just finished the meeting. Welcome back to our evening meeting. On the council has resumed its meeting for a public hearing on FY27 operating budgets and FY27-32 Public Services Program and Fiscal Policy for Montgomery County Government, Montgomery College, Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission, WSSC, and Montgomery County Public Schools. Committee work sessions on the FY27 operating budgets and FY27-32 Public Services Program and Fiscal Policy from Montgomery County Government, Montgomery College, Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission and WSSC, Water and Montgomery Public Schools will be scheduled through the end of April. As a reminder of our public hearing testimony guidelines, your comments must be limited to issues relevant to the public hearing topic for which you are testifying in at appropriate for a public meeting. You will hear a tone when your time is up, and we appreciate everyone abiding by their loaded time, which is three minutes. I'm gonna say this once. Do not interrupt, to na boo, do not comment on anybody who's speaking here. Everybody deserves the same respect. With that, we're gonna start with Michael Ritchie. Go ahead, sir. Thank you, Madam President. Good evening. I'm happy to kick us off on behalf of the Recreation and Parks Advisory Board. I believe you heard from Jaslin, one of our great members earlier. You'll be hearing from Ryan a little later on. I want to tell you about a recent visit I had to the Long Branch Community Recreation Center. Uh thanks to the hospitality of uh Brian Mendoza Diaz, the coordinator there. Uh when you walk into the gym, I encourage you to go after school. It's split into two like this. Uh the after school program on one side, and then the high school students playing pickup games on the other. And this may look like uh an ordinary rotation of programming, but really it's a pipeline. Uh the way Brian described it. You know, kids come in at different stages of growing up. They uh they get to know the staff, they become regulars, ambassadors, uh, your future front desk workers, your future seasonal workers, your future lifeguards. Uh this facility stays open late on Friday nights. They bring in food just so these kids have a place to play basketball. You know, they're building community from the inside out. Now, as you know, Long Branch is more than a rec center. Outside is the pool, and upstairs is the senior center, which has a full calendar of programming. Yes, I have a picture of that too, because I was so impressed. A full day of programming, right from coffee and social table games down to uh Zumba here in the afternoon uh and lunch in the middle. But uh, of course there's great demand, and they have to turn some seniors away for a lack of resources. And as you know, this is not unique to Long Branch. Uh we rec is undersized for the population it serves. And we have wait lists for summer camps and senior programs, demand for more fitness classes, more instructors, more courts. Uh people vote with their feet, and REC is delivering what residents are looking for. Offerings that are affordable, accessible, uh genuinely local, no strings attached. Uh free passes are working exactly as we hoped they would. They've increased feet feet foot traffic by double digits, and we just want to make sure these facilities stay uh fit for purpose. So, what I would say to you is that we're on the verge of a great uh success story here for Rec. And people like Brian are the ones writing it. It's incredible the work they do. Rain, uh sleet, snow, or shine. Uh they obsess over the people they serve, keeping the calendars right, keeping the equipment uh running, and I just want to make sure that I'm able to tell them that you have their back, that you're looking out for them, and that you want to make sure they have what they need to keep doing, keep doing what they what they want to do and do what they love uh for uh the people of the county and all the good they can do if given the opportunity. So to that end, uh the board urges you to fully fund the Department of Recreation and to help us keep this great success story going. Thank you.