The Montgomery County Council convened on Tuesday, July 14, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. in the Council Hearing Room, Rockville, Maryland. The session included proclamations, interviews for a Planning Board vacancy, a consent calendar, and afternoon public hearings. The Council recessed at 11:46 a.m., reconvened at 1:06 p.m., and adjourned at 2:34 p.m.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Montgomery County Council session. Today is July 14th, and we have two exciting proclamations. One is proclamation recognizing parks and recreation month by the County Council's Planning Housing and Parks Committee. If you are here for that proclamation, please come forward. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'll tell you all about it. I'd like to meet you with you to introduce us. Good morning. We are excited to be here for a celebration of Park and Recreation Month with just a few of our closest friends here. And our closest friend Reptile here repping. I'll just say I was thinking back to my time in Montgomery Parks and Recreation as a young person who benefited from so many of the programs and so many of the activities and feel so fortunate thinking back to some of my coaches. And I was sent a very interesting picture this morning. And it was a plaque that was located and identified in the Obama Presidential Library for Coach Obama from Montgomery Recreation for his work coaching uh his daughter's teams through Montgomery Recreation. And it shows the amount of volunteerism that takes place, not just the hardworking staff that we have in our parks department and our recreation departments, uh, but also all the community members, the the parents, the uh the mentors, the the folks uh like for me, Larry Klopeck at the community center, who coached my teams uh growing up and who was a big part of my childhood uh as well. So uh it's uh an amazing legacy that our parks and recreation department does. It's such an important part of our quality of life. Uh, we're so lucky to have uh such an amazing team here of uh a combination of volunteers and of staff members uh as well. Uh we have a lot of folks here, including uh Mitty Figueredo from the Department of Uh of Parks. Uh we have Katie Richter uh from Montgomery Parks uh Foundation, and we have a lot of representatives from Montgomery uh Parks uh Foundation uh as well. Um and uh we have uh uh Maryland Off-Road or Mid Atlantic, excuse me, off-road enthusiasts uh uh with Casey Anderson uh and and several others and uh it's just an honor to be chair of this committee, planning housing and parks, and to be here with the council president uh as well as our committee uh colleagues uh as well. So let me uh let me uh acknowledge our former uh council member who is I can't see oh I was gonna say you're directly behind me. Okay. I was like, okay. Uh who is wearing multiple hats here, including one hat that he's worn twice uh as the uh chair of the uh recreation department and uh council member Albernaz director Albernaz uh used to join me in uh presenting this uh and recognizing this uh important event, and so really uh honored to have him here uh with us uh today. Uh so let me uh turn it over to uh the council president to share a few words, then we can turn it over to uh our guests and then read the proclamation. Very quickly. Um good morning, everyone. I this is one of the most exciting proclamations that we have in in this county council, just because I love parking planning so much alongside the rec department. The only thing that I want to share is just a highlight that I was I was talking to Selena on my way here, and I was telling her about my daughter who has this passion about flag football, and she has her per first uh outside the county uh competition this weekend. Um, and it this passion came thanks to the partnership of the rec department with NCPS and parks. She started working in the flag football league that the Rec Parmi put together like three years ago. She she was the first class. And it was because of them that she loved the passion of this that she, you know, discovered this passion for the game. Um and now we have a trouble team in Montgomery County taking kids, especially girls outside the county to compete. And that is remarkable. Uh, I think we're one of the first counties in the nation that is taking lead on flag football for girls, and that it speaks about your uh how and your vision um for sports and the love that you have for the county, and how important it is the connection between the rec department, parks, and MCPS, we had to say it. Um, with that is it's a great honor. I see my colleague Will Jawondo who's here, the other member of the um PHP committee. So I'm gonna turn it to him before we continue. Okay, yeah. He'll raise good morning, everybody. Happy Parks and Rec month. Um it's it's very apropos. I was coming from dropping kids off at camp summer programs. So uh it's uh thank you for everything that you all are doing with seniors, young people across the county uh every day. I often say this, I like to remind people. Number two thing, top two things people love about Montgomery County in surveys are schools and parks. Um, and even past that, a lot of times the only way people will interact with county government sometimes is through our parks and recreation. Uh they're signing up for a class, dealing helping seniors with isolation, our young people uh at after school programs are on the weekends.