Weekly Message from the County Executive Marc Elrich

Unemployment, Job Fair in East County and Homeowners Property Tax Credit

This week, federal COVID unemployment benefits expired for more than 7 million Americans, I did not want to see this happen and believe it is going to negatively impact our economy. I am proud of the assistance that we have provided our residents in Montgomery County such as our Working Families Income Supplement and distributing rental relief funds, but these funds are still necessary.

Montgomery County’s latest unemployment rate record is from July was 5.7 percent, nearly double from when pre-pandemic levels in 2019 when it was 2.9 percent. The end of the unemployment benefits will hurt these individuals and it may also hurt businesses where people were spending their unemployment. We are going to continue to work hard to support every Montgomery family who needs help.

If you are unemployed or know of anyone looking for work, I encourage you to attend the East County Regional Job Fair from 3-7 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 13, at the East County Community Recreation Center in Silver Spring.

We are also working to make sure low-income homeowners are aware of the Homeowners’ Property Tax Credit program. You can read more about it here.The deadline to apply is Oct. 1. To qualify for the tax credit program, applicants must own their primary residence and have a gross household income of less than $60,000 annually. According to the State website, the credit is based on how much property taxes exceed a percentage of a household’s income.

Protecting Our Water Quality – Ten Mile Creek

Earlier this week, I sent a memo to Montgomery County Planning Board members urging them to reject a 400-acre development in the environmentally sensitive Ten Mile Creek watershed in Clarksburg. Many residents, as well as the Sierra Club, also urged the Planning Board to reject this proposed development. Ten Mile Creek is the cleanest tributary flowing into the Little Seneca Reservoir, which is the closest backup emergency drinking water supply for 4.3 million people in the Washington, D.C. region.

Despite our pleas, the Planning Board voted, 3-1, today to approve the development, with board member Tina Patterson voting against it. There is no doubt that the proposed development will destroy the two most sensitive high-quality tributaries in Ten Mile Creek. In addition, the Planning Board approval signals a total disregard for the explicit recommendations adopted by the County Council in 2014 – with guidance and advice from environmental experts, including experts from the Planning Board’s own staff. As a Councilmember at that time, I was actively engaged in the years-long scientific review that led to those recommendations, codified in the Ten Mile Creek Area Limited Amendment and the Clarksburg West Environmental Overlay Zone. The Council and the experts were clear about the “extraordinary protection” needed for these tributaries, identifying the need to limit the impervious surface in these two tributaries. Yet the Planning Board approved a project that concentrates development entirely within these tributaries, based on the indefensible notion that the amount of impervious surface could be averaged across the entire 400 acres.

Their decision will lead to irreversible degradation of tributaries recognized as being among the highest quality streams in Montgomery County, at a time when climate change is threatening our water resources and in direct contradiction to the Council’s years-long work on water-quality preservation efforts. There is absolutely no need to accept such a destructive development plan.

Advancing Clean Energy Production

We broke ground this week on the Brookville Smart Energy Bus Depot, an integrated microgrid and electric bus charging infrastructure project. A microgrid is a local power system that uses clean and renewable energy sources on an ongoing basis. This project is an important part of our efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide resiliency in the bus charging infrastructure. This state-of-the-art project is a great example of work that we are doing to support our ambitious environmental goals. You can read more about this project here.

In closing, I want to wish a Shana Tovah/Happy New Year to our residents who observed Rosh Hashana. Here is wishing for a sweet New Year that brings an end to the pandemic and increased social and economic justice.

As always, thank you for your support.

Marc Elrich
County Executive