County Executive Discussed 2024 Budget with Chinese Community Reps

Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich recently held a heated conversation with over 100 representatives from the Chinese community at CCACC Art Gallery at the Chinese Culture and Community Service Center (CCACC) headquarters and discussed the 2024 county budget. This was the first time in Montgomery County’s history that the County government held a forum in Chinese language assisted with live English-to-Chinese translation. The forum was widely acclaimed by the Chinese community. It is earnestly hoped that the County government will continue with similar forums in the future so the Chinese residents and the community at large can benefit from the government policies and programs.

The face-to-face conversation with the County Executive took place at the CCACC Art Gallery that was presenting beautiful paintings by renowned late Chinese artist Mr. Yang Hsien-Min on the evening of Tuesday, November 29. Mr. Elrich’s team and CCACC along with a number of other nonprofit organizations in the County jointly held the forum.

The forum started with a welcome speech by CCACC Board Chair Dr. Alven Lam. Next, Dr. Pofen Salem, former Montgomery County Office of Management and Budget staff and current Director of the County Department of Housing and Community Affairs, presented the financial report in fluent Chinese Mandarin, introducing the categories, sources, usage, and amount of government budget, while asking the Chinese residents to express their needs and inviting the community organizations’ leaders to participate in the discussions. Following Dr. Salem’s report, Mr. Elrich delivered a report on the County government budgeting outline and focuses, as well as the process of budget approval, fiscal revenue and outlook, community participation, and so on. The future plan of the County government includes the review of research and distribution over the past three years, climate change response, and multiple perspective inspections of various departments, said Mr. Elrich. He also indicated that the budgeting focuses on high quality education, affordable housing, in addition to bus transit systems, exhaust emissions, clean energy, public safety, invisible bias, racial equality, legislative budgets, economic and community development.

After Mr. Elrich’s report, the forum moved on to the Q&A session. Representatives of nonprofit organizations actively asked questions online and in-person on a wide range of topics, e.g., Asian American organizations’ funding, community service funding, Montgomery County Public Schools rents to community organizations, community security, libraries, Chinese psychological counseling for teenagers, mental health, etc. For example, a Chinese school is charged $30,000 for renting public school classrooms on the weekend for three months; the government lacks Chinese-speaking counselors, and medical services for the elderly are not yet adequate. All the questions received accurate and positive responses from Mr. Elrich.

In addition to the heated discussion in the fully packed CCACC Art Gallery, the online participants also actively asked questions on hot topics such as:

• Mr. Elrich said that zero emissions in 2035 is a target for the climate change program. Therefore, will the zero-emission housing greenhouse also use only electricity simultaneously? Our house in Gaithersburg consumes oil for air conditioning and heating. How should we deal with it?
• How to help retirees who have a small amount of pension and do not qualify as low-income households, and can’t reduce housing taxes, or access affordable housing?
• How to plan social welfare so as to fairly treat the retirees who have worked hard here all their lives, and the retirees who have never worked here?
• Health is everyone's concern. Montgomery County Public Schools have very good sports facilities, such as outdoor basketball courts and tennis courts. If lighting can be installed on these facilities, it can help community residents leverage these facilities. Can this item be included in the budget?
• In the past few years, the public security and school safety conditions in our community have been quite worrisome. What is our plan in this regard in Montgomery County? How can we improve the situation through budgeting?

Due to time constraints, some online questions could not be answered on site. Mr. Elrich suggested everyone continue to communicate in writing.

Mr. Elrich held 8 live and online 2024 budget forums in November and December 2022, out of which 6 sessions were conducted in English, and 2 were in Spanish and Chinese. The Chinese forum, originally scheduled to end at 8:30 p.m., was extended to 8:45 p.m. After the event was over, there were still many audiences surrounding the "Patriarch of Montgomery County" asking additional questions. Mr. Elrich kept talking with them amiably and took photos with them until 9:15 pm.

(Article by Jiying Yin, CCACC Evergreen Club Member, and May Zhou, CCACC employee.

Photos by CCACC News Team)