I was probably keeping my eye on it.

This is one of the things that we'll do.

Oh, yes.

Good morning, everyone.

Good morning.

Seeing all three commissioners present, I will call to order the November thirteenth, twenty twenty-five meeting of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners.

I will ask Nellie Jimenez to lead us in Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you.

Oh yeah.

One nation under this whole okay, so we've got a long meeting.

Sorry, I stunned you.

Um got a long meeting today.

Uh try to get through it as quickly as we can, uh, but a lot of important topics to cover.

Uh I'll just start by saying uh I wanted to recap last week's municipal election.

Uh we had an extraordinary turnout uh for an odd year, perhaps the highest uh on record as far as we can go back, which is that fifty percent registered voters in Montgomery County cast a ballot.

Uh that is the loop is out for the voters in Montgomery County, uh, and also uh of course our voter services staff who have made it uh easier than ever to access the ballot, whether you voting by mail, uh in person at one of our sites or at the polls.

And uh we already got a glimpse that this was gonna be a high turnout election.

When we saw the mail in numbers coming in, so more than 90,000 people voted by mail, that was another record total uh for uh an odd-year election.

I can put that in perspective.

There was eighty-five thousand applications for mailing ballots, which we get a portion of those, I think eighty percent back usually.

And so we've far exceeded all of our records.

I think four years ago there was about two hundred twenty-five thousand voters this year is uh about three hundred and ten thousand voters.

So uh big jump in turnout, which really shows that uh people appreciate that local power matters, whether they're voting for school board or townships, or any attention to the judicial races in the commonwealth and the state supreme court, uh, especially at the time where we are experiencing at during the election, the federal government shutdown and the state uh governmental budget, I'll talk about it in a second.

Uh it showed that voters appreciate their vote at the local level on what it means in so thanks again to the voter services team, our four hundred and twenty-eight judges of elections, two thousand four hundred and twelve poll workers, two hundred and twenty-six student poll workers, uh, and of course, Frank Dean for leading the operation.

Uh so another topic, uh small business Saturday.

Uh speaking of thinking local, uh you're probably all thinking about your holiday gift giving starting now.

It's almost Thanksgiving.

And it seems like the Black Friday sale start earlier than earlier.

You're getting all the emails already.

Uh I just want to encourage folks to think about uh Small Business Saturday, November 30th, and uh local businesses here in Montgomery County.

We'll share this through our comms team and give you some ideas on our socials, but uh it's always great to get a gift locally to support our local economy and small businesses.

So uh on the state budget, you know, we'll have more comments on this, but you know, I'll just say uh it's good to know that uh we can continue to serve our uh communities uh in the way we have been, and I'm very thankful that our team has been able to run the county's finances in such a way that our services were not impacted in Montgomery County, and that's something we can be proud of.

Uh unfortunately more counties when they had to keep services.

Uh and thankfully the state budget, you know, has been passed.

It's you know, not a dramatic change from from last year.

Uh there is uh earned income tax credit, which will be uh a great help to about a billion families across the commonwealth, uh, but we still got to fight for funding mass transit at CEPA and also addressing housing affordability, the whole home repairs bill which was a hundred years ago in a bipartisan fashion was not included in this bill, and that's something that uh I hope to advocate for for next year uh as well as uh public transit funding.

Uh and uh finally, for my comments you know, this is our last meeting before Thanksgiving.

So we wish everyone happy Thanksgiving.

There's much to be thankful for in Montgomery County, and we have a lot of residents who are doing incredible work to support uh uh others throughout the county in need.

I've you know, last Thanksgiving I was at Upper Marion Community Cupboard.

They give out thousands of turkeys.

Uh we of course uh as a county invested over half a million dollars directly in food for our food pantries.

There's about 70 pantries across the county at a time when staff benefits have been in question and long term, you know, through adjustments and they'll be cut, but uh you know, we'll have to you know we'll have to do everything we can locally at a time when uh it's unclear the level of support we're getting the veterans.

So I'm thankful for all of our partners with the Monco Anti-Hunger Network, uh community covered, and many other food pantries that are supporting families, especially during Thanksgiving.

So with that, I'll turn over uh comments to Commissioner Wendy.

Uh great thanks, Commissioner Makesha.

How's everyone doing this morning?

Mr.

Morgan, did I see you at the American Delivery last week?

I did.

I saw you in the crowd.

So thank you for for being there.

Last week I had the honor of welcoming Pennsylvania's first lady Lori Shapiro to Montgomery County Community College for a special evening, uh, screening a documentary that's close to my heart.

American delivery, it's about the experience of women and health care workers around the world and here in the United States.

I was grateful to share the movie with a packed audience.

I think we had over 300 people there, including Mr.

Morgan, so thank you.

And to host an inspiring panel discussion with experts and advocates, including the filmmakers, Carolyn Jones, and Lisa Frank, State Representative Morgan C Fist and representatives from the Maternity Care Coalition, Penn Medicine, Life Cycle Wellness and Birth Centers, and Cherry Gregg from WHYY.

American women of color still experience high rates of maternal mortality, and so that's why events like this are so important so we can address why this happens and explore how to improve outcomes for moms and babies.

Uh, this evening of storytelling and discussion brought home the realities of our strained health care system and offered uh powerful inspiration on the possibilities of how we build uh networks and communities uh for new parents who are bringing beautiful babies into the world.