On whose acts of service continue to inspire us to this day.

My mother and Martin McKing share the same birthday.

And so when I think about Dr.

King's legacy, I think about my mother's legacy.

I want us to remember his legacy and his work and all that he fought for so that people might like me might be able to sit before you today.

Across the county, there are many events and opportunities to participate in Penn L Day's service to give back to your communities that are happening throughout the weekend and that Monday.

I hope everyone takes a moment to stop and reflect on the meaning of MLK's life and legacy and use the day off if you have one to find ways to strengthen your own ties to your communities and neighborhoods in the sphere of MK.

Next up, we'll be tuning the annual Montgomery County appointment time count on January 22nd.

This is an essential effort to understand homelessness in our community.

I participated last year with Rita and my husband.

We will participate again this year.

This year, our continuum of care partner, your way home is accepting donations that can be distributed to our unhoused population.

There's an Amazon wish list that's targeted to fill in gaps that have not already been covered by generous private donations.

You can access that at the Montgomery CountyPA.gov forward slash pit count donations.

That URL is also up on screen.

Thank you, everyone who helps to support this annual program.

Looking ahead, we will be hosting our second annual State of the County address on February 11th at Montgomery County Community College.

This event will be an opportunity for us to come together as leaders, partners, advocates, and residents to reflect on our collective progress we've made and the work ahead.

From housing and behavioral health to infrastructure, public safety and economic development, 2026 will be a year of continued collaboration.

So the theme of this event will be focused on the people, those making progress towards our goals, our partners in collaboration, and the residents who are seeing the actual outcomes.

You can RSVP to attend at www.montgummerycountyPA.gov forward slash state of the county.

Next, I'd like to welcome Pat McCurden, our new patent standard.

This role is so critical to the work we do here in Montgomery County.

HHS is one of our largest departments with nine program offices, six strategic management offices, and a 478 million dollar budget and nearly 600 county staff.

Dr.

Curtain is a licensed social worker and brings significant research experience on homelessness, re-entry, and justice-involved individuals.

She has a practical, accessible community center approach to meaning residents where they are.

She also has more than 25 years of leadership experience, most recently as a former COO and chief of staff at Gardensia, which provides substitute treatment across multiple states.

I want to take a moment to thank Nadine Miller, who stepped in as interim director for the last few months during our search.

Nadine has returned to her role as administrator of the Office of Children.

So welcome.

We're really excited to have you on our team.

And lastly, I just want to take a moment as we start our first meeting of 2026 to be clear about our plan and how we are going to run the Board of Commissioner meetings going forward.

This is an opportunity, as we all know, for us to share information with the public and also got to hear from residents directly.

And our two public comment periods for agenda items and topics remain to county business is an important space that we hold to hear from our residents.

You share feedback, you share concerns, engage directly with our government.

My goal is to ensure that this space remains open, productive, and most importantly, safe for everyone.

Our rules state that each speaker will be allotted three minutes to provide comment.

There's a timer at the front of the room with the countdown clock.

We will be strict on that time limit, apply equally to everyone in order to ensure that all speakers have an opportunity to have their voice heard.

There's a clock to the right of the podium.

Please keep your eye on it so you know when your time is almost up.

And our monetized our county solicitor uh to kindly help people know that their time is up so we can get to the next speaker.

This will allow us to be fair and consistent and applying to everyone who comes out for public comment no matter the topic for the speaker.

I also want to be clear what it means for topics to be germane to county business.

Comments should relate to issues that could come before this board of commissioners and within our authority to act on this includes county programs, services, policies, budgets, departments or actions taken by the board or county offices topics that fall outside of our county's jurisdiction or are unrelated to county operations are not appropriate for this forum.

This includes recounting incidents that are occurring in other parts of the nation and the world I want to be I know I keep saying I want to be clear but I just want to want to be clear I expect us to engage in discourse civil we can respect each other even when we disagree and I know that when we're talking about issues that are difficult or emotional it's easy for our emotions to get the bats at last.

I know it happens to me sometimes but that does not lead to productive conversation and most importantly solutions.

My goal is to hold space as a place where we can engage with one another with faith and with respect even and especially when we disagree disruptive conga in this meeting will not be tolerated and anyone in violation will be removed from our meeting.

And freedom to protest is a core value and it's imperative that we remain calm and civil even when disagree and when I know yesterday's killing of a woman in Minneapolis I want to acknowledge that it was a tragic incident we can and should be outraged and heartbroken that this is Ray and Lauren Judge and Gary Judge Hughes as well as Judge Hugh brings excellent experience and children accessible edge I will miss the favor I think we share a screen the pledge of allegiance on people although I will say um maybe the new tradition is started and that the chair joins the Christmas employee choir so later maybe Chair Winder will follow that tradition so thank you it's certainly a tough job um I think it's very helpful that you've outlined our one of the meeting and though I we moved then during the budget conversation which was helpful but um it's yeah it's not easy there's a lot of top issues that are going to come up and we've got to stay focused on things we can do um to serve our residents and confident

So no, thank you.

It's certainly a tough job.

Um I think it's very helpful that you've outlined how you're gonna run the meeting.

I know I leaned on Vendor in the budget conversation, which was helpful, but um it's yeah, it's not easy.

There's a lot of tough issues that are going to come up, and we've got to stay focused on the things that we can do uh to serve our residents and through our copy.

So uh I'll just know a couple of the things.

America 250, we're here.

This is the birthday, the birthday has been gone.

It's it's um a milestone for democracy, and of course uh there's a lot of things that uh feel precarious at a time, but there's a lot of things that are going very well uh here, uh both in the region and the country, and um the inquiry just listed in the New York Times said uh Philadelphia is the number one destination in the country right now.

I went and looked up the link, they actually said revolutionary America as the number one designation country, but that's okay.