This weekend marks the end of the school year, Father’s Day and Juneteenth commemorations and celebrations.
Some students will only get a short break before returning to the classroom for summer school. This has been an historic year for MCPS. It was a year in which it asked for, and received, record amounts of funding. We have an outstanding school system, and we have to continue to invest in it. Our per pupil spending has been declining for more than a decade and it is extremely difficult to provide the necessary investment in our staff and students without the funding. We all benefit when our schools are well run and highly ranked. We are supporting salary increases so that we can be competitive in the region to retain the best educators, give them the support they need to succeed and give teachers a reason to come to MCPS.
I hope everyone has a great summer. I encourage parents to give their kids an opportunity to participate in the Montgomery County Public Libraries Summer Reading Challenge. Readers earn e-badges to help animals in need of adoption at the Animal Services and Adoption Center, Manna Food Center to provide meals to families in need and solar energy via Montgomery Parks Foundation. Last summer’s similar program recently won an award from the National Association of Counties.
The program will kick off this Saturday at the Rockville Memorial Library. It will take place rain or shine from 10:30 a.m.-noon on Saturday. The book party will include free books for kids who sign up, a family story time presentation and appearances by area mascots including our very own MCPL Kindness Mascot.
Crossvines Officially Opening Soon in Poolesville
A beautiful new facility is opening in Poolesville. "The Crossvines" had a ribbon cutting with about 200 people on Monday and will officially open in July.
The Crossvines is a grape-crush facility intended to help grape farmers and winemakers. Though grapes and winemaking offer a high value crop to farmers, it can take three-to-five years to produce a full crop of grapes after vines are planted. Equipment necessary for crushing grapes and making wine can add a million dollars or more to the costs. The crush pad we built is intended to be a community resource and will enable farmers who grow grapes to use The Crossvines facility to de-stem and crush the grapes, and then process the liquid for its final destination – a wine bottle.
The brand-new facility also is an event and meeting venue and an educational space for farmers and students learning about agriculture. Programs at Montgomery College will help develop a new generation of winemakers.
It was exciting to see the realization of an effort that began about 10 years ago when I listened to a talk by Kevin Atticks, then the head of a firm supporting value-added agricultural organizations and now the Secretary of Agriculture. He was speaking at a conference on winemaking in Maryland, and he said that the reason we had not replicated Northern Virginia’s wine country model had more to do with our winemakers and less to do with our environment. Once I learned that this side of the Potomac River is just as good for producing the right kind of grapes for fine wine, I started looking into how to make it happen. He also explained the flaws that some crush pads had experienced. So, I proposed an operational structure that would avoid problems that had arisen elsewhere.
I wanted to facilitate a crop that would increase the potential income of farmers in order to help ensure the viability of agriculture in Montgomery County, reinforcing the goal of creating the Agricultural Reserve in the first place. This facility will reduce the costs of entering the wine making business, allowing farmers to begin growing and then using Crossvines to process the grapes, until they grow to the point that they can buy their own equipment. There is already a financial incentive to provide grapes for winemakers in Maryland because they are required to use grapes grown here in our State before buying them from elsewhere.
By the way, our region is perfect for growing European-style red grapes. You can taste Maryland wines yourself starting July 8 at The Crossvines restaurant and bar.
It took a lot of partners and coordination to get us to Monday’s ribbon cutting and grand opening celebration. I want to thank the University of Maryland for helping us build Crossvines the right way. I want to thank leaders in Poolesville for trusting us when we came to them with this idea. I want to thank our State leaders who shared the vision for Crossvines and supported our request for state assistance to build this project. I really want to thank Keith Miller of the Montgomery County Revenue Authority for listening 11 years ago and then doing the research that enabled us to plan the path forward. I also want to thank Mark Weller for putting together the team that built this great facility. The crush pad and the event center will be a major attraction in the County.
This investment will boost agricultural tourism as well. The Crossvines will be able to host special moments, including weddings, get-togethers with friends or a rendezvous spot for out-of-towners. Poolesville, the County and the State all stand to benefit from what happens at The Crossvines. I cannot wait until it opens and gets a chance to breathe.
Helping Developing Review Improve
The public is invited to a series of public listening sessions as part of an effort to improve the County’s development review process with a special focus on economic competitiveness. The first of the three public sessions is from 2-4 p.m. on Friday, June 22, in the County Council Office Building, which is located at 100 Maryland Ave. in Rockville.
You can read more about this important work here.
Oak Barrel & Vine Opens in Gaithersburg
Montgomery County’s Alcohol Beverage Services is continuing to improve the county’s offerings, this time adding a store in Gaithersburg. The new store in Gaithersburg Square on Frederick Avenue will be hosting free tastings through Sunday to celebrate the grand opening.
With the help of stores like this, ABS now contributes more than $35 million annually in revenue to the County’s general fund. The total for the past decade is more than $306 million. This is an example of how we are giving our customers more of what they have asked for with a newly designed store that offers more space for tastings and more locally produced liquors and wine.
The Oak Barrel & Vine designs will eventually be brought to all of our stores; we also have upgraded stores open in Montrose and Cabin John Village.
To participate in free tastings this weekend at the first ABS store in Gaithersburg, click through this link to see a scheduled tastings and get other details about the opening. You can also watch this video to learn more about the new iStore experience for businesses buying alcohol wholesale through the County.
Microgrid at Animal Services and Adoption Center
This week we celebrated a project that has already proved to be a huge success. The Montgomery County Animal Services and Adoption Center is home to the County’s fourth microgrid, which produce clean energy and provide resiliency for the facility.
After five months of construction, became operational in November of 2022. That came just a few days ahead of a plane crash that knocked out power to 100,000 people. While the plane was stuck in electrical wires near the Montgomery County Airpark in Gaithersburg for several hours, the resiliency hub at the nearby Animal Services and Adoption Center made it possible for the facility to remain open throughout the whole ordeal.
We thanked GreenStruxure for its work turning our idea into something viable and David Dise’s leadership at the Department of General Services. This is something Montgomery County is leading the way on. We cannot expect to meet our Climate Action Plan goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2027 and 100 percent by 2035 without projects like this.
We are also building models for other communities to follow. Our microgrid at our Brookville bus depot is the largest bus microgrid in the country. We also have microgrids at our public safety headquarters and the correctional facility.
We know that we can’t fix climate issues all on our own, but we can use victories like this to help others see that there are solutions out there that are within our reach. Electrifying the power grid is not possible overnight, but I am excited by the possibilities that projects like this suggest we can achieve with time, partnership and commitment.
African American Legends Awards
As part of our Juneteenth celebration this year, Montgomery County’s Office of Human Rights is bestowing African American Legends Awards to individuals who are at least 75 years old and considered living legends in our community. The six awardees have helped shape the cultural heritage of the African American community. These are people who have dedicated their lives to service, advocacy and selfless acts of kindness in Montgomery County.
The ceremony on Friday night, June 16, kicks off an entire weekend of events wrapped around Juneteenth. BlackRock Center for the Arts in Germantown also will host a daylong festival Saturday, June 17, from noon-10 p.m. The free event is meant for the whole family with music, educational activities and movies on tap. An Artisans market and curated food trucks will also be available. Organizers are asking visitors who drive to park at the Montgomery College Germantown campus or Seneca Valley High School and take a shuttle to Blackrock. Ride On buses will also be available from Shady Grove. For more information about Saturday’s events, visit blackrockcenter.org/Juneteenth.
Saturday is the 14th annual Silver Spring Blues Festival. There will be an all-star lineup of blues performers from 3-9 pm. Tickets are not required. Visit silverspringtowncenter.com for a full lineup of artists.
On Monday, we commemorate the emancipation of enslaved African Americans on Juneteenth. Montgomery County has marked the holiday for nearly 30 years. This year, we are making it a fun weekend for the entire region through the Annual Scotland Juneteenth Heritage Festival. It includes special events from Friday to Monday spread with events in Wheaton, Bethesda and Gaithersburg. There also will be neighborhood celebrations in Scotland and Cabin John Village, to name a few. For more information and to plan your weekend, visit JuneteenthScotland.org.
Juneteenth was largely an invisible holiday for far too long. To be honest, the celebration of the Fourth of July as the monument to American freedom and independence rang pretty hollow to the Black community in a country that had enshrined human slavery in its constitution. In the years that followed the end of slavery, segregation continued and there was a denial of basic human rights that was, and is, a real contradiction to what the Fourth was meant to celebrate.
The recognition of Juneteenth is important and some in our community call it their Independence Day. I hope you get a chance to make one of the many events held in Montgomery County to honor Juneteenth.
Caribbean American Heritage Celebrations
We honored this week the contributions made by Caribbean Americans in Montgomery County and across the nation. There was a luncheon ahead of a proclamation we shared on Tuesday. That evening, we held our annual celebration bringing together the community for a dinner and to recognize their accomplishments and contributions to Montgomery County. There was also last weekend’s festival honoring Caribbean Americans that you can view photos of here.
I would like to thank the members of the Caribbean American Advisory Group for its work making sure we continue to make every community feels welcome here.
During my first term in office, I took measures to address the issues of diversity, equity and social justice at all levels of the County government with the creation of the Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice. We have implemented processes to look at policies, budgets and service delivery through a racial equity lens. I am committed to addressing and moving forward issues important to communities within Montgomery including, but not limited to, public safety and support for our youth.
COVID-19 Update
Turning to COVID-19, we could not have started the summer in a better position. Case rates are near historical lows and hospitals are only seeing a handful of patients with COVID, far below the levels that would lift us from the “low” community status that we have been in for the last few months.
I am still encouraging you to get your bivalent booster if you have yet to get one yet. You can still book an appointment through the County, your physician’s office or nearby pharmacy. The booster shots have helped prevent us from having cases of COVID that put people in the hospital. As long as it is around and mutating, boosters will probably be with us as they are modified to be effective against emerging variants. But the one simple truth I leave you with is: no one has to die from COVID. Getting vaccinated is the best protection you can have.
As always, my appreciation for all of you,
Marc Elrich
County Executive
