Dear Friends,
It has been another eventful year with big openings, accomplishments to celebrate and events to look back on fondly. Montgomery County will continue to push ideas that bring our community together and move us forward. Before we step into 2025, I hope you enjoy this look back at some of the big moments from 2024 in photos. I also review my top 10 of 2024 in this week’s video. You can watch the video here.
January began with an important opening in East County. The first Maryland Sprouts Farmers Market serving the DMV is also the new anchor tenant for the Burtonsville Crossing shopping center. It took many years to see this shopping center come back for this growing community that has desperately wanted to see revitalization.
We strive to make your experience with Montgomery County as excellent as possible. One way to do that is to listen to our employees. We encourage their ideas to make our government more efficient. The photo above is from one of our accelerator events demonstrating how we have put ideas and improvements into motion.
Rep. Jamie Raskin was among many guests in February at the opening of the Silver Spring Aquatic and Recreation Center. The opening was one of the County’s top Facebook posts this year.
Montgomery County enacted the Right of First Refusal law 44 years ago to preserve affordable housing and to prevent tenant displacement. In March, we celebrated a change in the law making it easier to use and help more renters stay in their homes.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and his team joined Montgomery County leaders on a bus tour to get a better sense of how our County operates. During our visits and on the bus, we discussed a range of issues, such as public safety, economic development, housing and the environment.
In March, the County Council and I awarded $900,000 in grants to 136 nonprofit organizations in Montgomery County who are at risk of, or who have, experienced hate crimes. We continue to hear from people in our faith communities about verbal attacks, intimidation or worse. This money helped pay for security guards, training and cameras and made more of our neighbors feel safe.
We have also used grant money to help community organizations provide food for those in need. Our Office of Food Systems Resilience has facilitated partnerships and coordinated strategic purchases like a cold storage infrastructure to allow more locally grown produce to benefit hungry families. This photo is from Food Waste Prevention Week in April.
I do not often get a chance to wear a t-shirt at work, but when I do, I make sure it carries a message I believe in. I got this out of the closet for Montgomery County’s Energy Summit in April. Here is video of my comments from that event. Our next Energy Summit is April 8-9, 2025.
The two photos above are from the grand opening of Montgomery College’s fourth location, the East County Education Center located in White Oak. I had been pushing this effort since before becoming County Executive, and I am happy residents in East County have much easier access to Montgomery College education.
In May, I used my State of the County speech to outline the work we’re doing to make our community more inclusive through a more effective government. My speech touched on education, public safety and affordable housing, to name just a few topics. You can watch it here.
The Montgomery County Police Department has made great progress in addressing the changing needs of our community, including piloting and expanding the use of drones. I am proud that we found a new leader from within the department when Marc Yamada became the first Japanese American to assume the role of police chief. Chief Yamada, like me, is a MCPS graduate.
The opening of the rebuilt Talbot Ave. bridge is an important milestone for Lyttonsville, one of the County’s historic African American communities, located in Silver Spring. The bridge connection is a symbol of the past segregation and the work done since to recognize the discrimination and bridge the historic divides.
Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service welcomed a new leader this year in Corey Smedley. He became the County’s first African American fire chief and quickly bonded with the community he serves and the first responders he leads.
I returned to the classroom for career day at Eastern Middle School, where I talked to students about my life and encouraged them to follow their passions and never stop learning.
It was my pleasure to honor Emma Patterson, 88, who retired this year after raising over 30 foster children. Her story was celebrated nationwide, including on ABC News.
In June, we raised the Pride flag over Rockville and Silver Spring to show unity and support for the LGBTQ+ community.
We broke ground on what Axios called the nation’s most ambitious effort to provide clean, sustainable public transit. The microgrid that is being built in Derwood will eventually replace more than 3.8 million gallons of fuel used for Ride On buses annually. By 2035, the depot is projected to accommodate 200 zero-emissions buses. Read more here.
Volunteers who help make Montgomery County a better place for everyone to live were honored at this summer’s Montgomery Serves Awards.
We honored Juneteenth at a County celebration and joined the Scotland community’s Juneteenth parade that celebrated the historic African American community.
We also honored this year’s African American Living Legends. They were recognized for their lifelong dedication to service, advocacy and selfless acts of kindness. You can read more about them here. Photos are on our Flickr page.
This picture is one of the popular posts from my X account (@montcoexec). It captured my participation in the Takoma Park Fourth of July parade, which is where I began my July 4th celebrations before moving on to celebrations in Chevy Chase, Somerset and elsewhere.
In July, I attended a Summer of Peace event at the Upper County Community Center. Four events were held in various community locations, and they featured food, music, entertainment and information about County resources. The Summer of Peace events are an important part of the Youth Harm Reduction Initiative, which is designed to reinforce violence prevention and promote family engagement and positive youth development practices.
Just before the Summer Olympics in Paris began, we honored three-time Olympic medalist, gymnast and entrepreneur Dominique Dawes with a new sculpture at the Silver Spring Aquatic and Recreation Center in Silver Spring.
We were amazed by all the remarkable athletes from Montgomery County performing their best in Paris. One of the County’s top posts on Facebook was the one above cheering on 16-year-old Quincy Wilson, from Gaithersburg, who competed in a qualifying heat for the 400-meter relay and won a gold medal. Wilson became the youngest male U.S. track and field Olympian ever.
I was excited to see a Memorandum of Understanding move forward with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Agency to develop the area around the North Bethesda Metro station and help usher in new neighbors and partners for the anchor tenant, the University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing. The deal was one of the Washington Business Journal’s top developments to watch.
I was proud to stand with Councilmember Kate Stewart and the parents of Melanie Diaz as I signed the Tenant Safety Bill into law giving renters further safety protections. Melanie died in an apartment fire and her parents, Cesar Diaz and Zuleika Madera, have not stopped their efforts to make living in high-rise apartment buildings safer.
In August, I visited six National Night Out locations in Olney, East County, Silver Spring, Bethesda, Rockville and Germantown to celebrate law enforcement, community partners and everyone’s role in public safety.
We launched an innovative hunger relief program this summer with Instacart Health to make it easier for struggling families to shop for groceries. This photo is from the MC Groceries launch event, and this article published by the Washington Post details the struggles associated with the ‘SNAP Gap.’
This year, I embarked on economic development trade missions to China and South Korea. I returned to South Korea in the fall for the Global Innopolis Network Initiative, which gave me a chance to meet with leaders from cities all over the world. One of our County’s greatest strengths is its diversity, which makes it attractive to companies around the world.
The 19th annual Salvadoran Festival was a great way to showcase the culture and customs of the Salvadoran community. Our community's diversity is one of many things to celebrate about Montgomery County.
I did an interview aboard a bus for the launch of the first phase of the Great Seneca Transit Network with our Pink & Lime bus routes. This is an important expansion of our Ride On services because it helps connect people via public transit to jobs in life sciences, the Universities at Shady Grove and the Adventist Medical Park.
In September, I helped celebrate the eighth annual Wheaton Arts Parade and Festival, which had more than 500 participants. You can see a recap of the event here.
This photo from the opening of CentroNia is one of the year’s top posts on X from my @montcoexec account. The former Silver Spring library site was converted to a child care center, and it highlights our community’s commitment to providing affordable, accessible and high-quality child care education to everyone, even those who cannot afford it.
Millipore Sigma is one of multiple businesses that have located or expanded operations here. Millipore Sigma expanded its operation in Montgomery County with the opening of a $286 million Biosafety Testing Facility in Rockville. The facility will increase its workforce from 870 to 1,170 over the next several years and help solidify our area as a world-class hub for innovation, collaboration and economic growth.
We welcomed Maryland Secretary of Housing Jake Day to the County and gave him a tour of some of the affordable housing work that is finished or under construction, including the Leggett senior housing in Silver Spring and Allium Place on Randolph Road, which will include affordable family-sized units and opportunities for low-income home ownership.
In October, our African American Health Program hosted the first “The Park Goes Pink for Breast Cancer.” We partnered with Maryland Del. Pamela Queen on the awareness event highlighting the importance of early detection and regular screenings.
The County honored the accomplishments of Olympic swimmer Katie Ledecky and proclaimed “Katie Ledecky Day.” This year, Katie became the most decorated female athlete in U.S. history, winning her ninth gold medal. The road in front of her alma mater, Stone Ridge of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda, now bears a road marker with the honorary name of “Katie Ledecky Lane.”
This year we held 11 community conversations about our upcoming Fiscal Year 2026 operating budget. This picture is from our Chinese language forum. You can read about all the different budget forums in this press release.
In November, I joined other elected officials and community residents at the opening of the new fire station in Clarksburg. We are proud that our first responders now have an excellent facility to serve this fast-growing community.
Montgomery County is leading the charge when it comes to the adoption of electric vehicles and expanding EV charging infrastructure. It was great to share our progress with Gov. Wes Moore.
The Thanksgiving Parade in Downtown Silver Spring gave everyone a chance to recognize Thea LaFond (Dominica) and Aaron Owusu (Eritrea), two local Olympic athletes who competed on behalf of Dominica and Eritrea, respectively.
Small Business Saturday gave me the chance to visit three businesses in Silver Spring and Wheaton. It was interesting to meet and talk with local owners about their community businesses and I even had a chance to try out a little boxing!
Past and present awardees were recognized at the 14th Human Rights Hall of Fame ceremony. Read about this year’s inductees in the press release.
The University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing turned two years old. It has spun off one company already while work is being done with federal and private partners on groundbreaking research to advance medicine. This project started with a vision I had to create the County's first graduate-level institution that would serve the needs of our bio, life sciences, tech and hospitality industries, and it is now a reality as a center for innovation, research to help with health outcomes and a driver of future economic development efforts.
Days before Brig. Gen Charles E. McGee would have turned 104 years old, he was honored at the library bearing his name with a memorial presented by the Distinguished Flying Cross Society. His extraordinary service and leadership continue to inspire us all.
I celebrated the achievements of 177 certified nursing assistants, certified medication technicians and geriatric nursing assistants who completed the American Muslim Senior Society’s CNA Scholarship and Employment program. These professionals do some of the hardest and most important work in health care.
The year ended with many events with our diverse community groups focused on celebrating 2024’s accomplishments and looking ahead to 2025.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the year in review – we couldn’t capture it all, but hopefully, it gave you a sense of some of what has been happening. And you can always visit our Flickr page for photos from numerous events throughout the year: Montgomery County, MD’s albums | Flickr
Here’s to a happy, just and prosperous New Year.
As always, my appreciation for all of you,
Marc Elrich
County Executive
