Office Changes - September Update

Dear Friend:
Over the summer, my legislative office has had some big changes.
After about six years with me in a few different capacities, my Chief of Staff, Joseph Swit, has moved on to another great opportunity in state government. Joseph has been an incredible help as I transitioned across different roles and committees over the past few years, making sure all of those changes were seamless and my legislative agenda progressed. He was also outstanding at dealing with constituent service cases, including the many unemployment cases we helped navigate people through during the height of COVID and numerous complex matters with the State Highway Administration. Thank you Joseph!
And after working for me at various times in different roles since 2016, the Environment & Transportation Committee Secretary Rebecca Stryer has gone on to continue her education. JFK’s aide and speechwriter, Ted Sorensen, was referred to as his frontal lobe and while I’m no JFK, Rebecca has been my frontal lobe particularly for the past two years in the Majority Leader’s office—always making sure I was ready to jump up to discuss a bill—and on the committee—especially helping us navigate transportation funding challenges and solutions. Thank you Rebecca!

 
2024 ELECTION
 
The 2024 General Election is fast approaching. The local drop boxes for ballots that we have all become familiar with since the pandemic have popped up and ones around District 16 are listed below. If you need reminders about mail-in voting, here is information on the State Board of Election website. By the way, if you apply to vote by mail, I highly recommend that you choose to receive the ballot by mail and not email delivery. Email delivery is convenient but it requires you to print your own ballot and--after you mail it back in--the Board of Elections needs to copy it over to a standard ballot for counting which slows down the overall process.

LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
 
Each fall, the Montgomery County Delegation to the General Assembly holds a series of meetings as we prepare for the next legislative session. These include a meeting with the Maryland Department of Transportation; a priorities hearing where residents can tell us what they want us to work on; and bill hearings on local legislation. The schedule is below.

I am pleased to announce that I scored 100% on the Humane Society Legislative Fund scorecard. I am even more excited that both House of Delegates-scored bills went through the Environment & Transportation Committee that I chair.
The methodology and list of bills can be found here.

BUDGET UPDATE
 
The Comptroller of Maryland released the fiscal year 2024 close-out report recently. With all of the accounting done, there is a $479.5m surplus which can be applied to future expenses. Read the full report.

 
TRANSPORTATION UPDATE
 
The formal transportation budget process kicked off at the beginning of September with the release of the draft capital program. You can read the document here. Although actions the General Assembly took last year mitigated some of the worst potential cuts to local road and transit aide, there is still a significant funding shortfall impacting the transportation budget and freezing most programs.
You can hear me discuss the transportation budget in a bit more detail on the I Hate Politics Podcast here.
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A provision in the state budget requires the Maryland Transit Administration to submit Purple Line progress reports every other month. The key charts are below (the milestones are unchanged from the last report) and here is the full report.
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The Maryland Port Administration recently posted their July 2024 data for their public terminals—the first full month the port was reopened. Here is data comparing July 2024 to the previous four months of affected operations (March-June 2024), the last full month of regular operations (February 2024), and July 2023 (to address seasonal variations).
The good news: the Port is recovering. Autos, Steel, and Forest Products exceed July 2023. The bad news is nothing else equals or exceeds July 2023, especially containers which are a plurality of overall tonnage and have a long road back ahead (they are at 60% year-over-year). The source of the information is here.

​COMMUNITY NEWS
 
-Congratulation to District 16's John D. Brewer, Jr. on his appointment to the Maryland Port Commission. You can read about the appointment here.
-Two District 16 residents are winning awards from Potomac Community Resources: Joseph Leasure, Outstanding Youth Volunteer Award, and Anna Carter Sullivan, Outstanding Adult Volunteer.
-Congratulations to Todd Rosenberg, who is receiving the Sara and Samuel Lessans Community Leadership Award from the Jewish Community Relations Counsel of Greater Washington.
-Several District 16 residents have been appointed or re-appointed to county boards and commissions over the past month: Maura Lynch (Domestic Violence Coordinating Council); Lavontte Chatmon (Domestic Violence Coordinating Council); Kavita Battula (Solid Waste Advisory Committee); and Michael Goldman (Washington Suburban Transit Commission).
-Congratulations to Anne Derse, a Moco360 Women Who Inspires. Read about it here.
-Bruce Adams is this year's recipient of the Community Service Award from the Bernie Scholarship Awards Program. Congratulations Bruce!