Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

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All right. Good morning. How's everybody doing? Good. I'm going to call to order the May 7th uh Montgomery County Board of Commissioners meeting with the presence of all three commissioners. I'd like uh Dr. Darby to lead us in the pledge. Ice to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisibley and justice for all.

Thank you. Um, I want to start off uh today's meeting by honoring some of the most essential public servants in Montgomery County. Uh, first, this week is teachers week, teacher appreciation week. On Tuesday, I visited uh Paul Fly Elementary School here in Narstown to show my appreciation for the faculty there. Um, and that's where my two kids go to school. Uh we really appreciate the work that all teachers are doing across Montgomery County to foster a bright future for the next generation of uh of of leaders. Um I'm the daughter of a grand um I'm not the daughter of a granddaughter. I'm the daughter and a granddaughter of women who dedicated their careers uh to the public school system uh 70 uh 70 years between the two of them. In fact, my grandmother was PA state teacher of the year in 1972. uh they were powerful role models in my life and thanks to them I will always have a special fondness for educators. So again thank you to all of our teachers. Uh yesterday also marked the beginning of national nurses week. Uh I was able to visit uh mainline health uh yesterday and greet some nurses very early in the morning at Lanenol Hospital. I'm grateful to the chief clinical officer, Barbara Wodssworth, as well as the um system chief nursing officer, Betty Craig. I was able to present them with a proclamation. Um so, I just want to express my gratitude to all of the nurses across Montgomery County. Uh in particular, I want to recognize our nurses serving the county through our health and human services department. So, are they here? They're all in the front row. So, I just want you to please stand up to be acknowledged. and we are grateful for all uh that YOU [applause] SO, we're going to invite you up for for a picture and uh thanks for being here.

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Thanks for all that you do. [applause] You get to keep it. You get to keep it. Thank you. You get to keep it. All right. Uh last Saturday, uh we were thrilled to welcome more than 100 students to Montgomery Countyy's first ever youth summit. Uh in light of some of uh the things that are happening in our community, we wanted to uh find a a way to engage uh student voices uh from across the county. and not just um those voices, we wanted to make sure that we created an environment where we could talk about the importance of being civically engaged. So, this was a great program where students [snorts] uh got to directly ask us questions about county operations and county leadership and we got to hear about opportunities and concerns that they are seeing and things that they care about. Uh familiarizing our young residents with local government and public services is something that I'm passionate about and I know my fellow commissioners are as well. And so I want to thank our external affairs team for helping to organize the event. Uh Erin, Thomas, Jordan, Jojo, Meera, we are grateful that you take a lot of these ideas that we have and you actually make them a reality. So great event last week. Um two more things for me. Um uh you know recently the US Supreme Court made a decision uh in the Louis Louisiana Louis Louisiana versus uh Kalists uh decision. This decision further weakens a key pillar of the voting rights act of 1965 making it easier for states including cases like those in Louisiana to draw maps that dilute voting power under the cover of partisansship. It's impossible not to think about the sacrifices that brought us here. Leaders like John Lewis who marched across the Edund Pettis Bridge risk everything so

that future generations could have a voice. Those victories were hard fought. Progress over time has required continued attention and engagement. Moments like this highlight the importance of staying informed and involved in our democratic process. And while setbacks like this are real, history has shown what can be they can be over overcome if we stay engaged, organized, and show up in every election. Lastly, um I want to recognize our office of innovation strategy and performance. Last week, Montgomery County received the high performance government award at Open Gov's annual conference in Chicago. The award recognized Montgomery Countyy's ability to identify $14 million in annual cost savings and cut a 50 million budget deficit in half. As a result, the county delivered its first bipartisan budget in nearly a decade. The OISP team led by Eli Gilman was critical in that effort to analyze and understand how we can best be stewards of taxpayer dollars. We're continuing to look for more ways to find savings. Uh, for example, the county recently moved the majority of our virtual meetings to Teams instead of Zoom in order to save on Zoom licensing cost and and Teams is a part already a part of our Microsoft Office suite. Um, so don't worry, it's not going to affect our board meetings. We're going to still have Zoom for for our board [snorts] meetings. And I just want to Eli's here. Why don't you stand up and UH [applause] [applause] and that's led by uh Stephanie. Thank you for your your stewardship and your work as well. So, congratulations. Thanks for um you know helping us take our uh fiduciary responsibility uh seriously. So, congratulations to you and the team. Turn it over to Commissioner Lisha. Thank you.

I think we need to modify Megan the logo and make sure it has a tagline Montgomery County High Performance Government. All our t-shirts. Yeah, Eli's already got one. I don't know. [snorts] But uh uh good morning everyone and uh I'll start with a couple of things. Uh this is our final board meeting before the primary election on Tuesday, May 19th and there are 622,000 registered voters now in Montgomery County eligible to vote. To date, we've sent out 77,000 of those registered voters mailing ballots and 37,000 have come back to us. Uh want to encourage everyone to use a dropbox. It's the best way to return your ballot. It's directly to the county. We ensure that there's nothing that gets lost in the mail. So check out online our 18 secure dropboxes and their locations. [clears throat] They're available uh now today through election day at 8:00 PM. Uh and they've been open. We also have satellite offices that will have open hours this Saturday and Sunday. You can find those hours monk votes.com and our voter continues to make its way across the county and will continue to do so uh through May 15th, a few days before the election. Uh for those who are voting in person, remember to check your polling location, make a plan to vote. Uh make sure you, you know, whether you're going in the morning before work or after find some time in the middle of the day, uh it's best to make a plan. It's um it's also going to be the first election where we have electronic poll books. Uh we've piloted these in a number of precincts. I've heard great feedback across the board. It's going to make the inperson voting more uh seamless in terms of having the poll worker find your name in the poll book. It's instantaneous. You just type your name in, it comes up. And if you're

in the wrong polling place, they can immediately print out a piece of paper that tells you where to go and give you the right address. Um, we'll also be hosting a telephone town hall on Monday, May 11th at 6 PM. So, feel free uh to join that. Mark your calendar. Uh, state senator R. Haywood will also provide some important election information and what's happening with Harrisburg on this topic. Uh, so any more information on on those, just go to montage.com and look forward to seeing you all in the polls. Well, earlier this week, I was invited to deliver a keynote at the Government Innovation Pennsylvania conference in Harrisburg. It brought together Pennsylvania leaders to share strategies on how we can modernize government through AI and datadriven work much like OISV is uh doing. The whole team was there. Thank you for joining. Uh it was really great to hear from different people in agencies in Harrisburg as well as other local governments. and I shared some ideas and work that we've been doing in Montgomery County to use AI to improve our operations, including triaging 911 calls, forecasting emergency response, uh developing uh chat bots that will help it help residents more easily navigate our court system. and also uh addressing gun violence uh making it easier for us to engage in rapid rehousing work and streamlining permitting processes. Uh there's a tremendous amount of work that's being done at the county. We have our AI tales team that is working to develop the right governance framework for all of this because we want to make sure that we deploy new technology, but we also do so thinking about putting people first

and how we ensure that we're serving the public interest. In similar news, say many people may have seen uh Vertex, a local tax software company in King of Russia, announced it was laying off almost 10% of its workforce. uh about 170 people due to a shift in AI and this is very much the tip of the spear as many people project and that we'll see uh significant changes in terms of uh job displacement and we've already seen that in other places in the county as well. One of the things that is important for us to think about as leaders I'm glad we have um so many nurses here. Your profession thankfully is not likely to be displaced by AI robots anytime soon and we want to encourage more people to go into fields like nursing and um a number of things that actually our community community college has fantastic programs for. So, uh we got to continue to work as a county to think about how to get ahead of the changes we're seeing and make sure that nobody gets left behind. Um, I'll also comment on the Supreme Court ruling. It's hard to really uh share in words how devastating this ruling is for the last 60 years of civil rights and the protections that as Commissioner Wer mentioned were fought for uh through a movement that experienced uh violence and opposition that uh it took you know the it took leaders across the country to stand up and you know address and find change and all of that has been reversed uh in one decision by uh six people on the Supreme Court. And I say that because Congress

has uh reauthorized the voting rights act and the civil right the voting rights act particularly this measure again and again. So the will of the people has been such that uh these laws were needed and yet it has been overturned. In her descent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the voting rights act is or now more accurately was one of the most consequential, efficacious, and amply justified exercises of federal legislative power in our nation's history. It was born of the literal blood of Union soldiers and civil rights marchers and ushered in all inspiring change bringing the nation closer to fulfilling the ideals of democracy and racial equality. It has been repeatedly overwhelmingly reauthorized by the people's representatives in Congress. Only they no longer have a right to say it is needed. Um only they have the right to say it is no longer needed, not the members of the court. Uh it's really disheartening to see that in Tennessee they're already making moves to get rid of the only uh majority black district and change their representation in one state. There's eight states where that's already uh potentially in motion and uh people often forget uh where we were uh before the voting rights act and the civil rights act. But many of you know I taught election law for many years and it's extraordinary once you read the history of how of course black voters were once prohibited from voting at all and then they were prohibited from voting [clears throat] in party primaries and then uh political parties held conventions that prohibited black voters from participating in order to select a white candidate. Uh and through each of

those moments, those are the white primary cases, uh the courts came down and ultimately expanded the franchise and ensured that people could vote. And it took the Voting Rights Act to stop the repeated behavior and attempt to disenfranchise voters. And it took a court that was willing to defend that. And we've gone backwards decades. uh the only solution to this is for people to mobilize and yet the actions that are being taken in terms of gerrymandering are designed exactly to diminish the effect and the power of that. So, uh, we're in a very difficult place, but we should not be under any illusions about what's happening, uh, and how devastating it is because, uh, people need to recognize their own history, uh, if we're going to make sure we're still going forward. But, uh, there's an election coming up and I am glad that here in Montgomery County, we're on track for historic turnout. We've seen uh approximately 37,000 ballots returned and we're on track for about 70,000 and that's at a time in which uh more people are voting at the polls again versus 2022. So that that is heartening. Here in Pennsylvania, there's going to be a lot of work to do around the country. On a similar note, uh I want to recognize that there, uh May is AAPI Heritage Month and about 10% of our county's population identifies as Asian-American. It's the fastest growing demographic, not just in Montgomery County, but also in the United States. And as part of that, we're going to be hosting uh a film called Seat at the Table, which is about Asian-American infranchisement and uh seeking representation in public office. And that's going to be at Wednesday on Wednesday, May 20th at the Binmar Film

Institute and a number of our South Asia electeds were featured in the film. Uh I got a couple cameos. Um they're going to be on a panel uh speaking afterwards about the topic. So please join us and look forward to seeing you. With that, I'll turn it over to my colleagues for sure develop. Okay. So, what do I do first? Okay. Here we go. We got the uh this later this afternoon, I'll be participating in the fire chief association recruitment press conference. Uh I'll be joining the fire the McGomery County Fire Chiefs Association for a press conference at the fire academy. uh that they're going to be announcing an initiative to recruit 250 new volunteer firefighters um thanks through a new recruitment grant from FEMA. Uh we've talked a lot about the challenges with first responders and recruitment in recent years. Um and we've seen recruitment dropping uh in some municipalities throughout McGomery County. And it's actually not just McGomery County, it's uh throughout Pennsylvania. Uh so this is the goal is is to to bo boo boo boost up the recruitment efforts uh to try to bring in [clears throat] more uh volunteer firefighters. Um it's a it's a great effort um because you've heard us as county commissioners over the last year for example talk about that large fire SPS technology in Abington and where we had fire departments coming from uh three to four different counties. There was 85 plus apparatuses that were on site at uh throughout that three or 4 day uh uh fire uh fighting that fire and majority of the people that showed up probably 95% of the

people that showed up to fight that fire um were all volunteers. So they are critical uh they are you know a core aspect of McGomery County and that's why as uh commissioners two years ago I believe it was one of our first acts we um we created a rebate program for for our volunteer uh first responders. So, um, if if you know anyone that's a firefight, a volunteer firefighter, uh, please always thank them, uh, for their efforts because, as we've said before, when there's a fire, we run away and they run into and fight that fire. They're brave. They're all brave, uh, individuals and we want to continue to support them, acknowledge them, and help with this recruiting efforts. Also, th this month is Jewish American Heritage Month. Um, so I want to uh recognize all our Jewish uh American uh throughout uh McGomery County. Uh Jewish Americans have contributed so much to our county. Uh Jewish refugees helped us with the Second World War. They've been major contributors to medicine, law, pop culture, and um and if you allow me another historical fun fact, voters elected the first Jewish American in Congress in 1791. Um he was from McGomery he was a McGomery County native named Isaiah Jacobs is not Isaiah is how I say Jacobs and he grew up along uh Porcy Creek. Um also we have uh mental health awareness month. Um I we we this is something we talk about regularly here in McGomery County. Uh we see a growing uh uh mental illness and health uh throughout McGomery County and beyond. [snorts] Um so it's a good reminder uh to always

give people grace. We you never know when somebody's going through something in their lives. Uh so if you know a friend or a loved one who is struggling, check in on them and uh let them know that there are people here uh including our wonderful nurses are here to uh to help when needed. Um so uh we continue to do everything we can in McGomery County to assist and and me with the mental health issues throughout the county. And lastly, I know we talked about this last month that we for the first time I believe in McGomery County, we're recognizing uh motorcycle awareness month uh as in May as well. Um this is I talked about this as the last meeting. I'm really glad that we're we're doing this um because it's springtime and we see um an uptick in in motorcycle accidents where people um are end up colliding with motorcycles out there. Um main reason being is because you know typically you don't see a lot of motorcycles on the road during the during the winter months. Come into spring, April, May, you start to see more you know people out there riding their motorcycles. Um, and for whatever reason, it just doesn't register in people's minds when they come to a stop sign or intersection. They look to see if there's oncoming traffic, but they see a motorcycle coming and for whatever reason, um, they don't do it on purpose, but they just it doesn't register that there's oncoming somebody coming on a motorcycle and they just pull out. Um, so, uh, we want to encourage everyone to be extremely cautious and safe out there. uh and and you know shared the road with uh you know not only our motorcycles but we also have bicycles you know out there as well. So uh sharing the roads with them. Um so let's just be cautious uh when we're out there especially as we're going through the

spring and summer uh months. [clears throat] And I guess finally um I I'll have to comment as well on the recent ruling that we seem to be spending a lot of time on this morning. Um, first off, McGomery County has no authority or play in any of this. Um, but what the ruling really what hasn't mentioned was that the main ruling or the main portion of ruling was that goes back to the constitution. It talked about that you cannot draw congressional districts based on any specific race. Um and so what it really does is it gives the power back to the states to do um to do the redistricting and it doesn't take away the the clause of saying that you you know if you if you undo a district on race solely. You could still challenge that but it really raises the bar as far as setting up the these congressional districts. Unfortunately, across, you know, the country for years, we've seen this where um and I'll say this, I mean, both parties have been accused of jury mandering. It goes on continuously. Um I wish we didn't have to deal with this. I wish there was a simple easy process to come up with uh uh districts, voting districts, but um it always comes across as whatever parties in power they get creative in their uh drawing their districts. Um we see it go on continuously. We see it going on now. um because ultimately the the voters or the people um feel the the consequences of district and the jury mandering that occurs. Um I wish it was didn't occur. I wish it was a simp it is a simple process if you took out all of the all the details and just drew districts based on population. That was

what the original goal of creating uh voting districts was. Um but we see too many states where you see uh you know districts were drawn that were very party specific and you know again it's it's I don't believe it's right. Um and it's it's it's occurring it has occurred uh it occurred in Pennsylvania. It occurred in Montgomery County. You don't see true representation based on voter registration. And as Commissioner McKea mentioned there 623,000 registered voters here in McGomery County. you know, are the parties, you know, equally represented based on the current districts? One could argue no, but again, that's for the state to work out. Um, as counties, we could have our say, but it's a state issue. Um, and I know that there's going to be redistricting again in 2030, I believe it is, or 2030 or 2031. So um hopefully whatever leadership's in place in that year um you know throughout the states the the actual districts are drawn in a fair reasonable nonparty nonpartisan non anything related just based solely on population and that would be an incredible incredible feat but we'll see what happens. That's all I got.

Yeah. Um, I think we all have a responsibility to comment on these these things even if uh it hasn't made its way to Pennsylvania, but I just I'm just going to say to say it's just parties is just, you know, like I find that insulting just as a black woman, right, whose ancestors didn't have an opportunity to to vote. So, like it's not just about parties. We have prevalent like bigotry, racism in our politics today. And for anyone Republican, Democrat, independent that doesn't see it, like open your eyes. And Mr. Rooney, you can laugh all you want, but I'm just saying it's it's it's it's a thing. So, I'm glad we've all spoken about it. Um, but I think uh as two brown electeds uh whose ancestors struggled to even be able to cast a vote or even be able to live here, um I I would suggest that everybody tries to understand the plight of of of people that are uh just trying to ensure that they have fair representation, ensure that they have elected leaders from both parties that care about their interests regardless of how how they pray, what they look like, who they love. Um, and I just, you know, think we have a responsibility regardless of our politics to to speak out when things are are wrong. So, thank you all for sharing your perspectives. Um, and we're going to go to the corner. Something uh much more exciting. [laughter] Don't leave. [laughter]

Run away. They're like [laughter] They only like to pass things off to you. Just that's their role, unfortunately. [laughter]

Okay. Well, good morning and um thank you for the opportunity to present today. Um I'm Dr. Dr. Jannine Darby. I'm the McGomery County Coroner. Today, I want to provide an overview of the McGomery County Coroner's Office, who we are, what we do, who we serve, and to share some key trends from 2025 um that we're seeing across our county. So, this is not a doom and gloom presentation. This is um a presentation of awareness. Um this is all about what is actually going on um with the boots on the ground um daytoday and talking about um education and awareness and everything. So our work extends beyond um death investigations. We are involved in public health. We are involved in public safety. We are involved in family support. We are involved in prevention, education and also community collaboration. Um so this is a quick picture of some of my team. Um we are growing um which we need to because this is heavy work that we do on a daily basis. Um these are compassionate, professional, ethical people that is that's doing this um this work. Um so uh next slide. So what we do, so the McGomery County Coroner's Office, we investigate sudden, unexpected, unexplained, traumatic deaths. Um, so our mission is to determine that cause and manner of death while treating every deedent and their family with dignity and compassion. We al our responsibility also is to issue death certificates when um deedent don't have primary care doctors. Um also positively identifying the deedent. Um we don't want anybody that we don't know. Um and um the funeral homes getting the wrong person. So we definitely positively identify everyone.

We locate and notify next of kin. And so that's the legal next of kin. So we don't do common common um marriage. We don't do um partners. Um it has to be legal next of kin um and um lawful. We secure all personal property and we approve all cremations in McGomery County. So, we do that um to make sure that uh the death certificates are right and there's no traumatic um injuries and anything else that we have to investigate because once the the body is cremated, we lose all the evidence. So, much of our work occurs behind the scene, but it's essential to both the legal system and also the public health. So this shows a picture of McGomery County which is huge. Um so McGomery County serves a population of more than 856 um individuals and as you know we are the third largest county in Pennsylvania um behind Alagany. Um so our jurisdiction spans almost 500 square miles and we are going from corner to corner as you see the um there's a star there. this um this is where our our office is located and it's 45 minutes to each corner. Okay. So we are traveling um on the roads here. So there is approximately 8 8,000 deaths that occur in McGomery County annually. Um so the volume and diversity of the cases require the collaboration of law enforcement, health health care systems, EMS, funeral directors, social services and community organizations. We are independent agency. We do our own investigation, but we partner with law enforcement. We partner with the DA as well. Um and we come up with the cause and manner of death. So, the 8,000 um that I'm saying here, these are not all um we don't investigate every single death that

comes through. There are reportable deaths. So, as you see here on the screen, the deaths that are reported to us are homicides, suicides, accidents, sudden unattended deaths, um suspicious violence death, um certain fetal deaths, infant deaths, um all the deaths that happen in correctional facilities, um psychiatric facilities, they come to us as well. Any unidentified individual is coming to us us as well. Next slide, please. So this shows um the deaths that we that are reported to our office. Um 2025 as you can see is um 2842. Um in 2020 everybody knows what happened there. Um that was um the COVID pandemic but we're coming to a new normal now um as our population grows. So um 2842 is the total um deaths that were reported to us um last year. So this basically demonstrates a significant operational demand placed on our staff. Um every death um that that's reported to us requires review and assessment even if the case ultimately does not fall under our jurisdiction. Um so our team remains available 24/7, 7 days a week. We respond as needed. I am on call 247. I get calls at 2 o'clock in the morning, 3:00 in the morning and I respond. Next, so this um graph here shows um distinguish between our full corner investigations versus our referral cases. So the full corner um case count is um 1,232 um and the 1610 are the referrals that we get like calls from hospitals, nursing homes um to report a death to us. But the um the 12 um 32 are the ones that we investigate from beginning to

end. Um and this requires um extensive investigation for those scene responses, possibly autopsies and also toxicology and lab testing too. Next slide. So um just for for your review and just for educational purposes here, um the cause of death refers to the medical reason a person died. Um this is determined um by our board certified um forensic pathologists. Um also the scene investigation, medical history, autopsy findings, toxicology findings um and sometimes we have to put as pending when we need additional information as well on the um death certificate. So this is just a snippet of um what we have to fill out um for for the um the state requirements too. Um next slide please. So um just a snippet of um the top three cause of deaths that we see coming through our office. Number one is cardiac. Of course this is the leading cause of death in our county in our nation and globally as well. Um the second is fall and um third is drug um specifically like drug overdoses as well. So understanding these trends helps us in forming for prevention efforts and also for public health education. Um so we play a vital important role in identifying these patterns and we're able to impact our community in a positive way. You have a question.

This number the 427 is that out of the 8,000 or is it out of out of the um the 1232 out of the reported ones? Yeah. Yeah. These are the top three. So it's not, you know, we're not adding all of them, right? Yeah. Yep.

So, um, next slide. So, I know last year when I came and I talked about falls, um, Commissioner Della was very interesting. So, I broke this down for you especially. Okay. Um, [laughter] so, um, this is the type of falls that we are seeing. Um, as you can see, it's the same level falls and these are preventable. So, it's mean standing and falling, right? We also [snorts] see falls against the objects down the stairs and um from a height as well. Um so just wanted to break down um this. So same level falls are especially concerning because they are preventable. Um so in that data it demonstrates that we need to do more in regards to fall pres prevention education um home safety assessments our senior wellness initiatives. So we need to do more with that. Um and also coordinating with health care providers and caregivers um for this. Um so um this next one shows by age. So you can see the the um age group from 80 to 89. Um those are the ones that are experienced these um um same level falls. So, we're not using our canes or um walkers or maybe tripping over um a rug or something like that. Um and this is causing um uh increased mortality in in this age group. Next slide. [snorts] Okay. Was that good? Um Commissioner Dell?

Yeah. I'm just still amazed at that, you know. Yeah. The number one. Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly. So um in in the manner of death here. So uh we classify the man the manner of death is um classified um due to the circumstances surrounding the death. Um and they're put in five um categories. So every um death that we see we have to put um them in five categories here. And that's accident, suicide, natural, homicide, and undetermined. If there's two categories here, we make it undetermined. Okay. So, just wanted to um highlight that as well. So, this is separate from the medical cause of death and um it's based on the totality of the investigation. Okay, next slide. So, these are our um pigraph of all the manners of death the five. So, as you can see um number one is the natural um causes which cardiac is number one under that. Um next is accident. So we see our falls in that category. We also see our drug overdoses in that category as well. And then third is suicide. Um suicide pre um um we do a lot of education around suicide prevention. So um our numbers in 2025 was 91. They're usually between 90 and 100 um annually for suicides. All right. So, I wanted to include this um because the county is um they've been working on housing for the unhoused and I wanted to highlight the deaths involving unhoused individuals within McGomery County. So, last year was 38 individuals. That's one too many. So, I broke it up here, male, female, and then the um the race as well um as you can see here. So, um, this data helps us better understand

the vulnerable population and identify gaps in the support systems services. Um, the county is doing a great job in in um by opening um and breaking ground on short-term housing and hopefully we're leading to a long-term solution so we don't see these numbers. Um, this is not simply a mortality issue. It's also a public health and social service issue here. Um so collaborating with the housing programs um like the countyy's doing, the behavior health services, addiction resources, and other um outreach organizations remains critically important. Um so tracking this trend um I just we just started doing that um last year. This year hopefully it's less than the 38. Um so as we um continue to do um good work in the county in um housing um these unhoused individuals. Next, so these are the locations um that um the unhoused deaths um have occurred in. Of course, outdoors is number one. Um unfortunately in um this um demographic, we did have an infant that was living outdoor with their mother um that passed away. Um and um resident of another hotel, nursing home. Um you know, these are individuals that don't have um um a address in the nursing home. And then transitional housing, there was two and then one at a business behind a business as well. Next slide. So I broke it down into the manner of death as you can see. Um accident is number one and then natural and um and then so on. So okay any questions there before um okay great all right so the good news is that

um besides um you know investigating death we're also providing and saving lives as well. Um, so we do partner with um the gift of life donor program and this just shows um the organ and tissue donation um that's occurring out of our office here. So um we're just so grateful for those um um donor families that are um that are providing um and and and improving saving and improving lives um by um and also providing hope for others here. So, as you can see, there's 24 organ donors um in the there were 77 organs transplanted and then 205 tissue donors and over 380 individuals um received those um tissues. So, um we're proud to participate in these efforts and provide hope and healing to recipients and also don donor families as well. Next. So last month was donate life month and so this was just to help in providing um education around tissue donation um bringing awareness and honoring our donors and their families as well. So one donor can impact many many lives. So consider that. Okay. And then I'm about to close out here but just wanted to invite you to um some of our events that are coming up. We do a lot of educational awareness events at the coroner's office. Um we have a beautiful facility um with a training um room that we can um do these um activities and we invite you to um come and join us um for education and awareness purposes. Um so coming up next week we have um uh a seminar on infant and child death investigation. So, we have people from the county um

participating um Heather Long from the DA um office and such. And um if you need any type of continue education units, you can get that. We have attorneys um that are able to um get their uh I don't know what y'all call them, seniors or something as well. Um next slide. We also have um battle the badges um some good competition to um help save lives here. So, we are battling um our fellow coroner's office here in a blood drive on um June 10th. So, please help us win and um beat um Bucks County. So, um you know um Yeah. You like that? Yes. Yes. Exactly.

Yes. [laughter] So, um friendly competition and helping save lives here. So, please sign up here. We do have all these flyers in the back here. Come and help us um win. and also save lives as well. Next um slide. Um and thank you Commissioner Develop Develop for mentioning mental health awareness. Um we take this very seriously especially in our office. Number one is wellness because we see the worst of the worst on every single day. So um right now we're doing um wellness um um um education and also wellness um events in our office. Um we would invite you all to some, but you'll see it soon on social media. But this is one that we are definitely inviting the community to join us. We do partner um with Aby's Bakery and also Payton Hart as well. Um and this is a suicide prevention event. Um we will be crocheting if anybody um has skills in that. Um we crochet hearts um and we put like affirmations and positive messages onto those hearts as well and we provide that to the community. Um, so please join us on June 30th for that as well at our office. Next slide. And if you need to know where we are, this is our information. We have a very robust um social media presence as well where we provide education as well as um showcasing what we're doing for our community as well. Okay. And that's all I got. Thank you so much for having me. And um any questions from you? Any questions or comments?

Have you met with the uh tango belt? Say that again. No, the tango belt. It's the we we had the CEO visit, but he made a belt that uh seniors can wrap uh you know, can wear and it uh deploys an airbag in the case of a fall. I've never seen that, but it sounds It works. FDA approved. So, I was just googling it. 91 uh% reduction in hip fractures. Yes. As a result of that and 56% reduction in hospitalizations.

Yeah. So that's great. But we're also seeing the head injuries. So there's bleeds in the heads. So with the falls too. So if they can make something for that. Yeah. You know, probably not around your neck, you know. Yeah. Probably not. Yeah. So yeah. [clears throat] Well, you do do a great job. you really transformed uh the coroner's office over the last couple couple years and glad to see that you're doing so much prevention work um really kind of changing the perception of what the corner's office actually does in our community. So, thanks for the the presentation. You're welcome. Yeah, thank you. Did I help you out this year? Yeah, great job. Okay, great.

Like I said, I'm I'm still blown away that the number one cause is, you know, falling. That's crazy. Get him one of those. Yeah. Not yet. [laughter] Yeah. Yeah. So, next week I'm starting a tour where I'm going to senior um centers and talking about um fall prevention as well. So, yeah. Okay. Great. All right. So, I had a bad fall once. I had a really bad fall. I fell down a flight. I was wearing high heels, got my heel caught on the rug, and fell down a flight of steps and broke two ribs. So like it's not just I know it's elderly but like I was okay but

that could have been that could have been a statistic. Yeah, we have the decades there. So it happens. I'm almost in that 50 50 decades. Yeah. All right. Thank you. So thank you so much. Thank you all for your support for our office as well and our staff. Okay. Thanks. All right. Welcome Mike. Well the walk- on song. Well no walk up song but we are going to pivot. I hated that word on COVID, but we're gonna pivot and shift to a lot of upbeat and positive things. So, Mike, you're really dying to get through this presentation. [laughter]

We're gonna be brief, too. And I love So, I we will be brief. I guarantee you, right? Um and great job. Thank you for what you do. Seriously. Um Good morning, commissioners, and good morning, Madam Chair. Uh it's great to be here today and to give you an update on 250 and some up andcoming marketing initiatives that are taking place. Before we start, I'd be remiss to not show a quick video that's showing internationally. It's domestic. It's a It's

America [music] began with a spark. And in Valley Forge and Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, a retreat reignited a revolution on our country's [music] momentous 250th anniversary. It's time to reconnect, to remember, and to [music] reignite our own spark on a retreat unlike any other. In Valley Forge and Montgomery County, we honor our past. We celebrate the present and build the future [music] together.

So, America 250 is here. MCO is strategically positioned for America 250 to attract both domestic and international tourists. You'll hear today about our focus on hotel occupancy, attractions, hospitality, supporting more than 40,000 jobs this year. From McGomery County alone, [snorts] we're protect we've protected the county and and I like to say we balanced the county uh by hosting ma uh many major youth sports events along with association business, corporate business, festivals, and overnight leisure stays during this busy period. So we went ahead strategically. We knew that, you know, we didn't we actually didn't know what was going to happen at World Cup. Up, down, rooms are cancelling. They're not cancelling. So we have an enormous amount of business coming our way. May, June, July, McGomery County will see total room revenue growth of more than 15%. That is unbelievable. That's an all-time record. The next three months will be records in lodging, economic impact. Our restaurants are going to do very well. It is an exciting time right now for this county. Our goal this year is to achieve an economic impact of a close. I keep challenging my staff to get to $3 billion in economic impact, but it's 2.8 billion is the number. And that is again outperforming the suburban regions right now took year-over-year. So, let's start with a quick hello from two of our rockstar interns and then we're going to shift it right over to Rachel and Jake. going to come back up for questions. Thanks.

Hi, Commissioner. Good morning.

Good morning. I'm Karly Schlewg. I was born in Montgomery County and raised in King of Prussia and I'm still proud to call it home today. Um, and I graduated from Montgomery County Community College and recently Florida International University with degrees in tourism and hospitality management. And I started my position at Valley Forge Tourism and Convention in August. and I started as a visitor services intern where I would work in the visitors center at Valley Forge National Historical Park. And as of this week, I started a new internship position with the membership events and services department. And I'm really looking forward to being a part of all the events this summer for America 250. And I'm grateful for the opportunity to continue working in my hometown and my home county. And I'm just really looking forward to this summer.

Awesome. Great. Awesome.

Good morning. Uh, my name is Jamie. I'm from Montgomery County. I was raised in Limmerick. I went to Springford and I attended Penn State where I majored in advertising and minored in digital media and trend analytics. Uh in March I was brought on as an intern and I've been working very closely with the sales team and with their guidance I've worked on a number of tasks from client relationship management to uh site visits where I take prospective clients who are looking uh at uh Montgomery County as a destination and I and I show them what they have to offer. And through working uh through all these tasks and projects, I've been able to see how we can engage with our clients through every step of the sales process from leads and prospecting to execution, which looks like people hosting events in our area, people uh contributing to our economy. So, it's been really interesting seeing how that happens, and I'm really excited for this summer.

Awesome. Good to meet you both. Nice job. [applause] All right. Uh, good morning, commissioners. Thank you, Carly and Jamie. Uh, I guess you can jump ahead. Uh, thank you for this opportunity. So, here we are. I can't believe we're here. 2026. Leave. We've been talking about this for how long? 10 years now. Um Um, but I will tell you for the next three runs, three months, it's going to be quite a run here. Uh, obviously we've been talking about I'm a golfer, so I'm biased. Next week we're in Aronomic at the uh the PGA Championship and obviously we've got the World Cup and uh lastly baseball all-star game, but then there's also US Amateur at Marian U which will all benefit the county and the region. Um but I want to jump ahead real quick here. Um you know, great start to this year, resiliency for the county, uh momentum for the county. We truly knew we were going up against a very strong Q1 2025. If you remember, there was an Eagle Super Bowl run there. We had three home games. We had a parade that all impacted the county. Um and then we came to this year. I felt like we were under snow for three three months, right? Q1. Um I will call it we had a lot of noise out there as well. Um that impacted tourism. But again, the county exceeded all expectations. Uh and some of the highlights I want to point out is really capped off with uh the month of uh of March with revenue growth at 10% year-over-year. Um, and really what led to that was an increase in lever tra leisure travel as well as an increase in midweek corporate business which really capped us off. And the one item I want to point out is the revpar which repar is a revenue per available room for the month of March was $82 which led the region okay for the suburban region. The other item I want to point out is we had 5.5% uh growth in in room demand which is rooms booked in the month of March. So, we capped off a

really strong uh Q1 with a strong March, which tease us up. We can go to the next slide. Um for the rest of the year, um what are we looking at for the rest of the year? Uh Q2 we know is going to be through the roof. We're looking at 9% growth for the quarter. Now, we're going to have some months that are going to exceed that. And then obviously Q3 continued growth. And then obviously Q4 it softens a little bit. But all in all, we actually just received a new forecast yesterday. We're expecting forecasted room revenue growth for the entire year to be actually a little bit up above 5%. Okay, it's showing 4.6, but we just got new numbers um the other day. Uh we did not have time to update this slide, but we're looking at 5% year-over-year growth. But what I want to point out in the yellow is the rest of the country is not doing uh as well as Montgomery County. And there's a lot of reasons for that. We're not going to get into it. A lot of it there's a lot of noise out there. Um but the fact is Montgomery County continues to remain um resilient. Um the the one item I want to point out is, you know, not only do we have these large events that are taking place, but we also are bringing our own events. Mike alluded to that. Um we have you sports, just the other day, I got some information from our sports team. Beast of the East Flag Football, Lacrosse World Series in June, Made Hoops in July, that's over 5,000 room nights for made hoops. you add up all that uh all those events, that's 10,000 hotel rooms that we are bringing to the county. So, not only do we have these large events that that are obviously America 250 driven with the celebration of America's um birthday, but we've also layered in our own sporting events and we're also layering in our our corporate business wind week. So we protected that business. Um while other areas of the country may have had that business displaced because they thought that they were going to get a lot of travelers, say for instance for the World Cup, we protected that um business. Um then moving ahead to the next slide, how are we looking to you know round out the

year? Just for frame of reference, the tourism industry all said and done is about 2.5 billion. That's what we're forecasting for the end of 2025. 40,000 jobs all in about a 3% growth year-over-year in 2025. What are we looking at for 2026? Um annual growth of about three, but then you layer in the additional seven for the incremental growth, you're looking at about a $250 million economic impact. So, you got the 75 and the 175. So, you're taking it up to about 2.75 billion. That's what we're looking for in 2026. And the number of visitors that come to the county is over 8 million. Okay. And what's a visitor? It's anybody that travels in from outside of about 50 miles is what the definition of that is. So, [clears throat] as you can see, everything that we just talked about sets the stage for a record setting year for Montgomery County and the tourism industry.

All right. Thank you, Jake, and thank you, commissioners. For marketing, we've been using a lot of the data that Jake spoke about to put together a really strategic plan for 26. And we are now right smack dab in the middle of executing that plan. and we've already accomplished a lot. As you'll see on the next slide, we partnered with CBS for March Madness and the Philadelphia games were the most watched in the market um even when factoring in other sports. And in fact, we saw a notable increase of website traffic to our site by 11% year-over-year. On the next slide, we also launched an in-house targeted digital marketing campaign using Google ads to promote our family-friendly America 250 content for Valley Forge in Montgomery County, PA during the NFL draft in Pittsburgh in April. So, we geoargeted a two-mile radius around the stadium and fan viewing areas to reach fans uh when engagement and mobile usage would be at the highest, and we saw thousands of impressions and a really high click-through rate. And then, as you can see on this next slide, for the first time, we put together every volume of our Patriot Tales comic book for one complete graphic edition, which is completely free, by the way, following three curious kids who travel back in time to meet George Washington. They explore the people and places that shaped our nation. And it features an allnew story, plus some exclusive behindthe-scenes pages. On the next slide, we enhanced our network partnerships to include 250 marketing with weekly promos as well as featured MCO segments. And it's hard to believe, but tonight is the premiere of Cirto Sole's Luzia at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center at Oaks. You might have seen the massive tent from 422 if you're traveling up and down. This is a fantastic, colorful, top tier show that's a waking dream of Mexico with stunning visual surprises and breathtaking acrobatic

performances inspired by Hispanic culture. So, take a look at this video. [music] [cheering] And Montgomery County is one of only a few US locations to host this incredible show. And it really just speaks to our identity as an arts destination. This is also the perfect evening activity for those that will be attending the PGA Championship. And on that note and this next slide, our hotels are already jam-packed for the PGA Championship. And we'll also be promoting our 50 golf courses that we have in the county with a bunch of different ways, but to name a few, a serious radio campaign held exclusively on the PGA Tour channel, as well as a partnership with Lyft to reach the surge of ride share users that will be on site at tournament dropoff zones. And then for World Cup on the next slide, we created a blog for where to stay and things to do um spotlighting those different attractions in Montgomery County using SEO strategies with the ability to translate the content into the user's native language. And this has driven record domestic and international traffic to our website. We're also still working on plans for a multi-day watch party event in King of Prussia that will include food trucks, big screens, and a kid zone for the entire MCO community. So fingers crossed for FIFA and Fox approval. Stay tuned for more. We'll be making some announcements soon hopefully. And then on the next slide, our houses of declaration are our public readings of the document continue to expand. We've got almost 30 locations all across the county now. And to help promote these spots, we've been sharing monthly history vignettes on social media. And then of course on the next slide, we can't forget that one of our main

spotlights is supporting Valley Forge National Historical Park's 50th federal park anniversary. It's the only park in the NPS that shares a birthday with America on July 4th. And of course, our ultimate goal is return visitation in 27 and 28 for Valley Forge's 250th milestones. And then on the next slide, we're not going to reveal too much yet, but we're super excited to partner with the county on this, a celebration of the birthday twins, America and Valley Forge, um on the courthouse steps. It's going to be a a party like no other. So stay tuned for more details and announcements. We can't wait to share more. And then here on this uh next slide, you can see some of our upcoming events. Just to mark your calendars. Couple of highlights. Just want to, you know, shout out, of course, our it'll be our 12th annual freedom from hunger drive uh this fall. You can make donations at any time. valleyforge.org/hunger. And then also our fifth annual MONCO Jazzfest will be celebrating that this year. And specifically, we're working with several of the county's parks and recck departments to present concerts in parks all across the county this September. And then on the last slide, just a thank you to the commissioners for your support and proclamation of our 20th annual Valley Forge Revolutionary 5M Run and two-mile walk at Valley Forge National Historical Park, where we raised a record $100,000 for the park this year. So, thank you so much. With that, I'll bring Mike back up to answer any questions. Well, thank you commissioners and uh thank you for your support with Freedom from Hunger and the Revron and uh we are excited for this big party that's going to take place here. So, any questions for me?

I I I have a quick one. Um Yep. which is more of a challenge than a question, I guess. So, I mean, it's amazing what's all planned for, you know, 20 26 or 250 year. And I know that some of this is going to stretch into 2027. Yep. What what's the predictions uh beyond all of this? What will what what will we see, you know, do we have an idea what what future is going to look like in McGomery County as far as, you know, after this big, you know?

Yeah, it's a great question, Commissioner. Uh we constantly talk about when the hangover occurs after September, right? And we we're really focused on new business. Our ultimate drive the past six months has been to be strategically out at all new shows. So, we we just came back from the UK. Um, our sports team is just getting so many new leads right now because there's so much to do in Montgomery County. And keep in mind, the Valley Forge National Park is still going to be celebrating the next two years out with the encampment and everything else going on. Um, people take it for granted, but the King of Prussian Mall is tourism. Yeah.

And when you look over 20 million people go through there every year and all the new attractions are virtual or experiential I should say at the mall. We're going to have the biggest Dick Sporting Goods in the nation with soccer fields and with baseball diamonds and with various and golf simulators everywhere. That's an attraction. Uh so we're looking at the paradigm shift. We're always looking at new and fresh. But I feel like really really confident about 27 and 28 for McGomery County based on what we already have booked, where we're fishing right now, and what's coming in. And Rachel does an incredible job with her team just focused on um familyfriendly. That's our tagline. McGomery County is family friendly. We the best zoo in the nation and we we you know, except you know, dealing out zone can be tough sometimes. I'm the only kid, right? But um the zoo is incredible. Uh, so there's, you know, 100 miles of trails, the zoo, 17 main streets, best shopping, youth sports business is all focused on what they do when they're not playing. They're spending money, spending a lot of money. So, we're excited. We have a plan. It's a great question.

Anything else? Yeah, just thanks. I mean, you all have done a really nice job getting us to America 2 250 and I'm excited for some of the things that we'll do uh to partner together to celebrate America's birthday, but um no, I'm just you you all do just such a fabulous job. So really excited for this year and and beyond. And I would also say, you know, as you know, we have a young family. We're always looking for destinations that we can just drive to uh to to save on cost. So, like I love that you're leaning into the familyfriendly uh piece where you know people can fly or or drive and find a lot of good activities happening right here in Monaco. So, thank you and thanks for your leadership.

Of course. Excited. Thank you. No, I I did want to hear, you know, some of the wanted I wanted Monty to come through this. Yeah, but there's no food. He heard he heard you were mad at him, so he didn't want to come. I don't know what happened. [laughter] You'll see Monty quite a bit in the next few weeks. I'm excited to be at the concert along with the other mascots. One one thing I did forget is we're seeing a huge uptick right now with festivals, big festivals. So, we had an Asian food truck festival we helped [clears throat] bring in last Labor Day weekend which had over 33,000 people in two days. What was that?

It was less It's coming back Labor Day weekend. Uh we also just we're bringing in a new one for the week before uh Labor Day weekend with the same promoters. The promoters are from LA and they're really smart people and they like this region. They came to us and they said we they're in Long Island here, Charlotte and I want to say Virginia. They have these big events but they did their homework and they wanted to be here because of the region and all roadways lead to McGomery County. The turnpike 42276 and we take that for granted a lot. So, we're excited. Thanks for being here. Thanks for having us.

Okay. David Morgan for public comment.

Good morning, commissioners. I'm David Morgan from Amler.

Good morning. And uh related to uh commissioner comment in the agenda. I just want to say one quick thing about Mr. Devela's comment about bicycles and motorcycles. I know of a accident that happened with a uh with garbage truck and they'll have to have the back of the truck say they're going to swing to the right when they they go to the left and they go to the right and uh follow someone on the right side who was a bicyclist or a motorcyclist and they were dealing with that situation. So that's something to keep in mind that they can always have that swing and to be aware of that right side. Okay. Well, about the um agenda, I'm referring to information and technology which is uh page 8 of 16 and there's 269,000 for networking equipment for county moves. [snorts] So, I don't know how often that's going to happen that there's moving of forces within the county structure, but uh we approached and we're over a quarter million dollars and when we have tax increases, we have we're dealing with a 12 million for the 4% or so last year and we had the 13 million drawn from reserves. So, these these accumulate and so to watch out and I rarely hear a no vote about any spending lately. I haven't heard any can't remember any um for about a half year at least. So um then also um we have the uh data fiber data fiber service uh which is $258,000 and so the dark fiber was last month. So I'm not sure how much that is accumulating. So how do these have a cycle of mounting up so we can easily clear $2 million of spending and we had two million million of trail improvements last meeting. So just to watch that they're on the conservative side knowing that we haven't had a financial presentation this year so far. Usually was an idea of having a quarterly presentation by the CFO. We haven't seen that that I've seen. I looked at the I looked at the video a little bit of last meeting or two

meetings ago rather. So, um, how about we have an idea where we stand because, uh, we had the $50 million last April, uh, underwater. So, I just wondering how it's going. We don't have any announcement of a CFO that I know. So, who is acting as CFO and how do we know how our spending is going so they don't have a large tax increase coming up? Thank you.

Mr. Morgan, a couple of things. Um, thank you for continuing to raise the spending. So, before anything lands on this agenda, right, we've got a amazing team that is doing info sessions with us, sitting down with us individually in our briefings to talk through like what actually gets approved and goes on the agenda. There's a lot that goes on behind the scenes in terms of building uh consensus, but uh this collective board, we are going to be very intentional about thinking about this year's budget and how do we reduce cost, how do we save taxpayer dollars. We are in the home stretch of identifying a CFO. I think we have some consensus on that. So, we'll be able to make that announcement soon. And we have uh someone that will be coming on in the interim. Uh so my commitment to you and everybody else is that we will do uh a financial presentation uh here soon, but know that we've been in that little interim step um just trying to get the right person uh for the job, but we continue to work. You know, this is just one part of what we do. We we we do work behind the scenes to, you know, we understand we're in a challenging position, especially heading into next year. So, thanks for for raising that.

Joe Rooney. Mr. Rooney. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Joe Rooney. I live in Abington. And uh first I just just real quick, I went through I heard all these things about the month, but y'all didn't mention Mother's Day. I was getting to it at the end. You beat me to

the end. Well, because I know how popular I was in Women's History Month, and I made for a very interesting couple of meetings, but moms matter. And then the second one today is um uh national day of prayer. So if you don't mind, I'm just going to ask the Lord to bless our country, to bless our leaders at the national, state, and our local level. Also to bless our uh troops in the field right now, and uh also our police, everybody else that keeps us safe because uh that's what makes our country great. Uh and just another real quick thing, that was an awesome presentation they just gave. And you know why Montgomery County so popular? Because it rocks. It's a great place, greatest country the world has ever seen. And we prove it by millions of people coming here from across the border legally and illegally and uh coming into our state. So uh we have much to celebrate. Um on on the uh the uh agenda items, the EI services, and I'm not familiar with OISP, but I have to learn about that because there's about $9.4 million, and it's for kids from 0 to three. And uh we all are familiar with what went on in Minnesota, what we're learning about in uh California with these fraudulent services for child services. And it says in there that um families choose state qualified providers. So, are we protecting um ourselves the money that's coming from the state, filtered through us, and then going out to somewhere to make sure that we're not we're not running into that? Because I also noticed the Miu's in there for about 40 or 50 grand.

And we learned uh what a month ago that the MCIU was uh questioned about uh $20,000 for Kenyon um safaris and trips to Singapore and Korea. And if you read through all the articles, there's an initial article about it, but there's been nothing since then. And now the county is giving 40 or 50,000 more dollars to MCIO. Now, I know you said they don't work for the county. The county is not associated, but we are giving them 50 grand worth of business.

And uh if you looked at these people like uh Julianne Ray, they go, "We're going to have to look into it. We're going to have to make sure we have closer uh care of the money that's being spent." and another leader, Margaret Wright, sees the same thing, but nobody gives any explanations or doesn't say that the Kenyon safaris were inappropriate and we're getting the money back. So, that's just kind of a follow on to that is we don't run MCIU, but we do give them tens of thousands of dollars worth of business and it would be nice to get some followup from initial uh stories of fraud. The second one, and this is a good thing, um I noticed there's 50 grand for an F-150 hybrid. It doesn't say if it's new or used. Uh so I went and looked online. That's actually a very reasonable price.

Um I tried to look for a new one and off for so used one. So if that's a new one, that's really a good deal. If it's a used one, because I brought it up before, thank you for looking into that um for that truck. Yeah, thank you. I I don't I don't know if that's a new one or

I I would suspect it's a new one getting off the co-stars list. Um I mean I just want to comment great great points. Um, I I will mention something about um you brought up the IU and what we did, although maybe we we didn't publicly go out and say, you know, but after all that was revealed, we we had our controllers office, you know, ensure the money [snorts] that we're not giving, like as you mentioned, we're not giving the IU money. We're we're like a lot of other school districts or whatever it may be. We're we're purchasing their services. Um but we did our controllers's office did uh look at you know to ensure that the money that we're giving uh for the services that are being provided by the IU um were were rightfully you know used the pro you know what however you want to say it um having I think your February 22nd opinion I'm having a rough day with boards

day when I read your speech or when I read your speech. Yeah,

but ser I mean we we we as a as commissioners we we did you know want our controllers's office to follow up to ensure that the monies that we are you know giving for the services provided by the IU is is going you know it's it's in alignment. Um the individuals that you mentioned are on the IU board. Um, and they they and I'm not passing the buck, but they have the true oversight as far as, you know, expenses and all that that are incurred by the staff at the IU. Uh, so I agree that there should be more followup and more conversation around that, but we as a county did our due diligence. Um and um and the other the other question you have, you know, this is something that's ongoing that you know, we've been I I know I personally I I I'm sure my fellow commissioners as well have been interacting with with our our new deputy COO Tiffany who's oversees that department as well as uh our director of uh HHS as well. uh we want to ensure that the money that's coming you know coming here from the state federal state and money that we're giving is being you know appropriately spent. Uh so yes we we do have conversations associated to that as well.

The the other thing I'll say about the IU like um our controller has really rebuilt his whole entire team right and so our controller is standing over in the corner. I didn't see him [clears throat] coming. I was giving you credit and I didn't see you stand there, but you and your new first deputy jumped on that, gave us information and I I know it's still ongoing which you can't really talk talk about. Uh but want to thank you for for jumping right in on that. So, thanks for raising that public comment. All right. Next up, approval of the minutes. I'd like to make a motion to approve the April 23rd, 2026 meet uh minutes of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners meeting. Is there a second? Second, second by Commissioner Dello. Any board comment? Hearing none. All in favor? I

I. Motion carries. Uh, next up, authorization of county signitories for submissions for the to the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industries.

Good [clears throat] morning, commissioners. I'm here today uh on behalf of Department of Commerce. You know, we are an umbrella for a number of organizations. One of which is our Monco Works, our workforce development board. and I'm here on behalf of Jenny Butler, the deputy director of workforce development and executive director of Monco Works. We are here to request your approval of a res resolution authorizing the designated signatory for the McGomery County Workforce Development Board's current grant agreement covering July 1st, 2021 through June 30th, 2026. The authorized signatory form formerly designates a specific individual to sign grant related documents on behalf of the McGomery County Workforce Development Board for a particular grant period. This includes documents like grant modification requests, closeout reports, and other official submissions required by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry. LNI is requesting that we update this signatory form. And this form would designate Jenny Butler as the signatory with Jane Stein as the backup signatory. And we respectfully request your approval of the authorization as presented by the solicitor and in your packet.

Thanks. Thanks, Steve. I'd like to make a motion to approve resolution number one as described by Mr. Steve Force. I always forced I always [clears throat] because you both are Thank you. Thank you for the support. My colleagues don't don't support me. Um, [laughter] if we could do four I know I listen I do know how to read. I do know how to read but that was I mean I swear like I couldn't get your He would have Lee would have to I know how to say Lee would have to correct me all the time. So I got it. Is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Makija. Any board comment hearing? None. All in favor? I motion carries. Thank

you very much. um commissioner's reappointment to the Valley Forge Tourism and Convention Board. I'd like to um make a motion to author authorization to approve resolution number G--2 somebody they didn't finish the sentence. Um I'd like to approve resolution number G2 for the reappoints to the Valley Forge Tourism and Convention Center board. Is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Fello. Hearing uh any board comment hearing none. All in favor? I. Motion carries. Uh next up, personel personnel list.

Morning, commissioners. You should have in front of you a copy of the commissioner department's personnel list. It is a three-page document dated May 6, 2026 with a time stamp of 11:26 a.m. All positions have been reviewed and accounted for for your consideration. All right. I'd like to make a motion to approve the May 7th, 2026 personnel presentation as given by Mr. Anthony Brew. Is there a second? Second by Commissioner Della. Any board comment? Hearing none. All in favor? I. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Um I'd like to make a motion. Would you uh separate A3, please?

Okay. Um I'd like to make a motion to approve uh advertisements of bids and RFPs for Montgomery County. uh on attached exhibit A with the exception of A3. Is there a second? Second. Um uh any board comment hearing? None. All in favor? I. Motion carries. Uh I'd like to make a motion to approve uh the advertisements of bids and RFPs for Montgomery County. Uh item number A3. Is there a second? Second.

Second by Commissioner McKesia. Uh any board comment? The only comment I'd like to make um I I agree with everything within that uh RFP, that whole process, uh especially, you know, addressing homelessness and utilizing the opiate settlement funds and all that. I just don't believe that the county should be involved in uh the master leasing program.

Okay. I just I want to make a just a point of clarification. This is just uh an RFP at this point to see see who responds. So, I want to thank Tiffany and Pat and the ODA team for for thinking thinking this through. Um and so I'm I'm happy to to support seeing what responders we get for uh for this particular uh area. Um I'll do a roll call vote. Uh Commissioner McKa I. Commissioner Dello,

Commissioner Winder, I eyes have it. Motion carries. Uh, next up, I'd like to make a motion to approve the contracts, awards, amendments, and renew renewals for Southeast PA regional task force on attached exhibit C. Oh. Oh, no. Did I miss B? Oh, so you confused M. No, no, I'll just I'll start over. I'd like to make the motion to approve the contracts, awards, amendments, and renewals for Montgomery County on attached exhibit B. Is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Develop. Any board comment? Hearing none. All in favor? I. Motion carries.

Next up, motion to approve the contracts, awards, amendments, and renewals for Southeast PA regional task force on attached exhibit C. Is there a second? Second by Commissioner Matia. Any board comment? Hearing none. All in favor? I. Motion carries. Next up, I'd like to make a motion to approve the advertisement of bids and RFPs for the Southeast PA Regional Task Force on attached exhibit D. Is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Adello. Any board comment? Hearing none. All in favor? I. Motion carries. [clears throat] General public comment. David Morgan.

Yes. Morning commissioners. David Morgan from Amler. And uh I first like to comment that related to data centers, we're running low on water. And I did send the commissioners an email with a drought map we've had. Uh and so fortunately, it rained wonderfully last night. If we had rain like that every day, we'd have a great amount for the data centers. But uh there was an article in this morning's reporter saying that 75,000 gallons a day are needed by data centers often. And I was glad though that after writing to Mr. France that he designated Mr. John Leer to respond to me with an email and he mentioned this data center ordinance guide developed by the Montgomery County Planning Commission. So municipalities can get help, not reinvent the wheel every 162 and trying to deal with this influx of uh demand for water because our firefighters have put the water fires out. We have brush fires and we have drought times like we had 30 days with no rain about a year ago. Uh it's really concerning to me and water is absolutely essential. So I mentioned going to the Delaware Bay for water and putting them out there like oil rigs. So whatever can be done to get them towards Chester and just the county can help us maybe would be good. So um how willing would they be to do that [laughter] but anyway uh if he could do a presentation Mr. let her come and talk to the commissioners as we had on the Valley Forge presentation today and the corners. That'll be great. Uh I'd like to also um mention because Mother's Day was mentioned and we're running out of time. I though each year I try to present a lullaby. So today tour I said it correctly uh from Ireland Irish Lullabi as I just learned this year. So I'm going to play a bit of that for you. Yeah.

[music] [applause]

You can't forget everything, right? That's lost to mother earth. I salute them totally. Uh they're so vital and uh actually worldwide uh motherhood is declining. In America it used to be 2.1 births per mother. Now it's down about 1.6 which is low replacement. And if we can do things as commissioners, if we can encourage a presentation by Monamas, I'd be great to see them again Mr. as well as Mr. Lecher. uh if we can have uh more coordination of the health department for those puffs for anyone has a circulatory concern uh as we had in the movie night that was sponsored and we had pen medicine comment that that's really helpful after birth the uh these efforts are really important and I also want to thank this measure for the ones uh for having a um guide for the parent and infant resource guide which is only down to a couple of Spanish versions. So I asked Colin to help with resupplying them and to have them through the health office supply them to u hospitals in our area and I decided myself to do that myself but anyway to have that encouragement because pregnancy resource centers are mentioned in them and they help so many ways to make it possible to have a child today and so they offer everything that you I can imagine. I don't have time to tell you that. But um thank you for hearing about the role of our wonderful mothers and of course the infants.

Thanks Mr. Morgan. Great job. Next up, Joe Rooney. Are you gonna play us something? Mr. Rooney, come on. I have [clears throat] some hidden talent. How do I follow that? So I don't play and I can't sing. So I'm gonna spare us all that. But uh um that was really awesome. Thanks for making this meeting memorable. All right. Can I put in a shameless plug for America 250, the Greater Glennside Patriotic Association puts on the best parade that there is. Lee, have you ever been to it? I've walked it many times.

Yeah. So, it's uh starts at the VFW on Jentown Road at 4:00 in the afternoon. Please come. There's like 10,000 people there and people work hard all year long to do that. So, uh, we'd love to see you there. And Monco 250 again is a really wonderful program. And, um, Valley Forge is a great place. We got a great, uh, we live in a great place. Um, once again, Mother's Day, mothers rock, moms and wives. They deserve 30 days. They deserve recognition up here. It would been great to have eight or 10 moms up here and just give them all flowers because they do the hard work every day. And we all have moms. And we all like our moms. And for a certain number of moms in Montgomery County right now, they got kids deployed. Sons and daughters are over in the Middle East. They're over in Korea, Japan, the Philippines. My grandmother had that. My mother had that and my wife has that. So, they all deserve our prayers and our thanks also. Um, and the last thing, Neil, I mean, I'm sorry, Commissioner McKe, you know that pesky 15th amendment, right? So, with Louisiana, Louisiana vers, first off, it's 92 pages. I'd like to see a hand of everybody that's read it because I find that So, people got opinions on stuff and they haven't read it. So, um, I would encourage people if you're worrying about what they say, take a look at what Justice Leto wrote because racial discrimination is illegal. It's also prohibited. We live in the greatest country in the world. We have three commissioners up here. They weren't elected because of their race. They weren't elected because of their background other than their their abilities. And that's how we need to look at everything. So, God bless the Supreme Court. Whatever our country is, the whatever problems it has, it has

been, it is, and it will be the greatest country we've ever, ever had on the earth. And thank God for that. And I'm not saying we're perfect, but we're getting better and better every day. And Louisiana versus Cala made us a better country. And I support it 100%. Thank you. That's all for public comments. All right. Uh, any closing commissioner comments?

Well, I just want to comment on, as mentioned a couple times, Mother's Day is right around the corner and we didn't I I was saving my comments for the end for mother's, you know, so I covered other things earlier, but it is it is it's amazing, wonderful holiday, as you said. Uh, mothers are they're just amazing people. they should be uh recognized more than once a year for one day. Um and I think that most great leaders uh were all had mothers that gave them amazing amazing you know guidance and mentorship and suggestions and ideas. Um, and I think that um, you know, it's it's wonderful that we recognize mothers for one day, but um, like veterans that we should recognize them more throughout the year because, uh, they're just incredible, uh, incredible. Uh so I want to wish all the mothers in McGomery County, um those that work for McGomery County and those that live in McGomery County and beyond a wonderful uh happy uh and hopefully non uh raining Mother's Day uh this upcoming Sunday.

Yeah, I'll just I'll say the same. um not only for my own mom but for my wife Rachel. And uh there are times in which I am trying to you know be there for my son and uh in the same way that Rachel is and immediately his first response is where's mom and and that's where I learned there's it's always going to be a difference right in terms of the care. All right, I don't want to actually generalize because that's not always true, but in many circumstances um you know, there's really no no parallel uh to um the care that um moms give to those who they uh just dated, something that I certainly didn't experience. And um I'm just you know just yesterday uh Rachel took Obby to the sheep shearing that uh Kaylee Silver told me about and I don't know if you know about this. Have you ever gone to sheep shearing?

No.

So it's an activity and I thought it was like all the sheep being sheared. And by the way it's an activity the kids absolutely love because I asked Avi uh you know did you did you enjoy this? Right. And he's like, "No, it was so much fun watching a sheep get a haircut." And I asked him, "Do you think the sheep enjoy it?" He said, "No, absolutely not." But um it's just it's a joy to raise a kid and um just very grateful for my my partner and just seeing how uh you know, we're giving our son all sorts of experiences and yeah, thankful to all the moms out there. Hopefully we'll all have good brunches on Sunday and other activities that we'll do. But um the other thing I just wanted to add was um yes, the Glenside parade is awesome. So we'll definitely be there. And the there's a World Cup game the same day though. So that's going to be that's going to be complicated. But um but we've got amazing things America 50 is doing. So save for all that's to come. Go ahead.

You better sleep with one eye open for a couple days. Some may want to share your hair. I know.

Yeah. Um, so yes, happy Mother's Day to all the awesome moms out there. This will be my third Mother's Day without the greatest mother in the whole w wild wild wide world. Uh, my mother was absolutely amazing. And so, uh, I continue to honor her legacy by the way in which I live my life, but I also had an awesome grandmother as well. Um, and it's just awesome to be a mom. Uh, Max is it's a it's a lot and I think a lot of men don't realize the dance of of moms uh working moms out grateful.

Okay. I'm just making sure because it's it's a different it's a different it's a different kind of dance. Um for sure but um but have a great great day. Uh honor your mother while they're still still here. Um, and for all the kids out there, right, spoil your moms. Last year, Kevin did the reservation [clears throat] on the wrong at the wrong time. Yeah, he scheduled brunch for I think he scheduled it for 900 p.m. at night. 9 9 [laughter] a.m. Must be a good basketball.

And so, he's been pl Yes, he's been planning Mother's Day brunch for a year since since. [laughter] So, I'll let you know how he made made out. So, all right. The next board meeting is uh May 21st at 10 [clears throat] a.m. in the boardroom. I'd like to make a motion to adjourn the May 7th, 2026 meeting of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners. Is there a second? Second. Second by Commissioner Dell. Any board comment? Hearing none. All in favor? I I motion carries. Next up, salary board. I'll fight our controller up.

Any public comment? Okay. Uh Ton, if you could review our salary board list. Sure. Good morning, commissioners. I'm sorry, salary board members, you have in front of you the final copy of the salary board list of a fourpage document dated May 6, 2026 with a time stamp of 11:26 a.m. All positions have been reviewed and accounted for for your consideration. Great. I'd like to make a motion to approve the May 7th, 2026 salary board presentation as given by Mr. Anthony Brew, our chief human resource officer. Is there a second? Second. Second by controller Hart. Any board comment? Moving to a vote. All in favor? I I.

Motion carries. Uh, next up, I'd like to make a motion to adjourn the May 7th, 2026 meeting of the Montgomery County salary board. Before I do that, I just want to acknowledge really quickly a retirement. Did I do that the last time? Lee, where's Lee? Did he leave? He retired. He We're announcing Lee's retirement. [laughter] Does Leo know? [laughter] So, we uh can you just uh the we have like a 30 plus year veteran

of our parks. That's Yeah, that's all on today's his name's not here. Remind me his name. No, it's it's it was on it's on it's on Kevin Green Park at Green Lane Park. I met Kevin at Green Lane Park. he uh has given more than 30 years uh to the county. Uh we went up for a natural Easter egg uh dying event. So he and his team put on all these programs at at Green Lane Park. So I just wanted to to honor his retirement uh before we close out the meeting. So all right. Now I can make a motion to adjourn the May 7th, 2026 meeting of the Montgomery County Salary Board. Is there a second? Second.

Second by controller Hart. Any board comment hearing? None. All in favor? I.

Motion carries. Meeting adjourned. Thanks everyone. It turn jack down.