Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
On September 29, 2026, the Montgomery County Council held a Youth Town Hall hybrid meeting at the Council Office Building in Rockville and via Zoom. Council President Natalie Fanny Gonzalez led opening remarks, emphasizing that youth represent 22% of the county's population and that the goal was to uplift student voices. Council members and Board of Education members introduced themselves. Students asked questions on topics including affordability, community involvement, school safety, AI job displacement, immigrant protections, recreation spaces, and pedestrian safety. Council members responded with information on existing programs and future plans.
Five, four, three, two, one. Let me get a round of applause from the audience. Good evening, everyone, and thank you so much for joining the County Council's Youth Town Hall Hybrid Meeting. We are so grateful for your participation and look forward to hearing your questions. Now we'll be taking pre-submitted questions from some students in our audience tonight here at the Council Office Building in Rockville, as well as questions sent through the QA function online via Zoom. If you have questions online, please send it to the chat and we will do our best to get you an answer. If we don't get to your question, we will be reaching out individually with answers at a later date. For students who are participating tonight, you will have the opportunity to earn SSL hours for your time at the end of the event. Are y'all ready for your SSL hours? Let me get a round of applause. I know that's right. Okay. So please stay on the Zoom until the end of the meeting, and we will put up a side with the instructions on how to get that credit for tonight. Students in the audience will receive forms from MCPS to earn their hours. My colleagues, Marshai Salou and Marcella Rodriguez Villagran, will be moderating the Zoom tonight, and now I will toss it to them to explain how to participate virtually and how to access captioning in Spanish. First, Mershai, to you. Thanks, Jordan. Good evening, everyone, and welcome. I'll be moderating questions for our students that are attending virtually this evening. Please indicate all your questions in the QA feature, and I will call on your name. When you write your questions, please also indicate whether or not you would like to ask your question live. Otherwise, I'll just read it out. And um, when I call on your name, the host will send you a request to unmute your microphone, and you may proceed to ask your question. For those calling in, use your phone's dial pad to press star six to mute and unmute your microphone. And we will try to get to through as many virtual questions as possible this evening. I'm now going to toss it over to my colleague Marcelo Rodriguez for Spanish Translation. Thank you, Mershai. Good evening, everyone. Buenas noches at all. Este programma se está traduciendo a la Spaniel para los participantes in la plataforma de Zoom. Los que deseen acceder este recurso, lo pueden hacer seleccionando el button con las letras C C el cual lo encontraran in la parte inferior de sus pantallas. Muchas gracias. Thank you. Jordan, back to you. Thank you so much, Marcella and Marchai. So are y'all ready to start this youth town hall? Let me get some energy in here. Yes. Okay. I'm gonna go ahead and turn it off to Council President Natalie Fanning Gonzalez for some opening remarks, followed by introductions from council members and our board of education members. After that, we'll move on to questions from students. Council President Sandy Gonzalez to you. Thank you so much, Jordan, and to the entire team from the communications department for making this event happening. Good evening, everyone. My name is Natalie Fanny Gonzalez.