The county’s new tax on use of shopping bags starts January 1.  Starting next year you will be charged an additional 5 cents for each bag you receive from a retail store.

For details: http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/mcgtmpl.asp?url=/content/pio/Bag/index.asp

The state is in its current round of redistricting, as the governor adjusts voting boundaries to comply with recent federal census changes and reward political benefactors.  As the current plan reports, our voting district is changing again so that we can be gerrymandered out of where we live and represented together with our common interests all the way up to the Pennsylvania state line.  While the map is low resolution and difficult to confirm, I believe we’re now in a proposed area that stretches around Baltimore and up to the top of the state.

Mark Elrich’s June 2011 newsletter outlines a number of topics.  Rapid Transit caught my eye, as the county looks at a very long term (finished 2040!) plan to add dedicated bus lines through the county.  I suppose by the time its finished we won’t be able to afford gas or will have retired out of the county, but the details can be found in the newsletter.  The information on the amount of money the county has given Wheaton Plaza was also interesting, given the budget pressures at hand.

While Mark is an at-large councilperson and not directly representing our neighborhood, I find his newsletters to be well written, informative, and filled with important information about the council activities.

From Nancy Floreen’s regular correspondence, she offered these facts and commentary on the dismal state of affairs that is local power distribution in Montgomery County.

Pepco Work Group Releases Survey Results
The results are in. The County’s Pepco Work Group received nearly 12,000 responses to the survey it conducted in January and February. A total of 10,895 residents responded, while 654 businesses completed the survey. Among the findings reported by Pepco customers taking the survey are:

• Almost 95 percent reported they had experienced at least one outage of more than five hours in the past year. Just over 50 percent also reported that they had experienced non-major-event-related outages of more than one hour in the past year.
• The economic costs of long outages experienced in the past year can be estimated, based on reports obtained from survey respondents, from $22.9 to $114.6 million for residents in Montgomery County and $21.1 to $211 million for businesses. Pepco’s Montgomery County customers appear to be incurring outage-related costs that are on the same magnitude as Pepco’s 2010 earnings of $139 million.
• Of the respondents who experienced outages of longer than five hours, almost 65 percent reported calling Pepco more than twice to check the status of the outage. Only 5 percent of Pepco’s residential customers reported that they did not attempt to call Pepco at all. Of those who experienced long outages, 85.5 percent incurred costs or other economic losses that they otherwise would not have incurred.
• A full 609 commercial respondents, or 94.9 percent, experienced one or more outages of longer than five hours in the past year. Of those who experienced long outages, 83.3 percent incurred costs or other economic losses that they otherwise would not have incurred.

Progress on reliability continues to be complicated, so here’s a refresher:

• Last summer, Pepco disclosed that it ranked in the bottom 25 percent of utilities for two common measures of day-to-day reliability, and the company released a Reliability Enhancement Plan.
• On August 12, the Maryland Public Service Commission opened an investigation into the reliability and quality of the electric distribution service of Pepco.  A key element of the investigation was an independent consultant’s review of Pepco’s system reliability.
• In the recent State legislative session, legislation was adopted requiring the PSC to establish reliability standards for the delivery of electricity to retain customers and to establish penalties for poor performance.
• The Pepco Work Group’s Report, which was issued on April 20, will be conveyed to the PSC to inform its work over the next year on the reliability standards and other issues associated with its oversight of Pepco.
• We hired Stanley Balis, a nationally recognized attorney with more than 30 years specializing in utility regulation and related issues, to represent our interests in a number of cases coming before the Public Service Commission, including the investigation into Pepco’s reliability.

7 hours after power went out for most of the county, PEPCO is currently providing the following notice on their web site:

Important Message

Our crews are assessing the damage caused by a powerful thunderstorm that hit our service territory. We will be working around the clock until everyone is back in service. If you see a downed wire, stay away from it and call 1-877-PEPCO62. At this time, we anticipate the restoration effort will last for multiple days.

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2009/05/12/montgomery-md-spends-1-300-hr-on-car-sharing-service/

Ouch!  The county apparently spent 100,000 on vehicles for sharing by county employees that go mostly unused as employees prefer their own county vehicles.  Perhaps they should haveidentified who would be giving up vehicles first?

Thanks to WUSA-9.

Del. Kirill Reznik sends this new in his regular correspondence:

One bill in particular that I have received many constituent emails about is HB 831 or local bill MC 922-09. This bill will prohibit the use of leg hold traps in Montgomery County. As I have mentioned before, these traps are an inhumane way to trap animals and I am glad to report that after some strong deabte and a contentious hearing, we voted the bill out of local Delegation with no amendments. I appreciate the heavy constituent input to vote the bill out with no amendments and I am glad that we were able to do so.

No leg traps in the neighborhood, please.

A press release received this week outlines the County Executive’s statement on the current budget woes in Montgomery County.  The entire message is posted below in the more section - apparently it takes several months for this press releases to be posted on the County Executive’s web page (current 5 months behind).  Tough times ahead for fans of county spending.  And an interesting take on the phrase “closing the gap”, where we see a $587 million budget gap is closed through a 1.9% increase in spending.

Continue Reading »

Roger Manno sent a promotional Email from 1/17 describing his legislative agenda about mostly fringe issues.

Continue Reading »

From the County Newsfeed:

Date: December 19, 2008 2:39:47 PM EST
Subject: Montgomery County Board Vacancies

County Executive Isiah Leggett is committed to representation on all of the County’s boards, committees, and commissions that is reflective of, and responsive to, our County’s residents.  Public participation contributes to the work of County government and provides a valuable service to the community when a variety of issues, concerns, and viewpoints are presented.  Currently, there is a valuable opportunity to serve on the following:

• Forest Conservation Advisory Committee
• Mid-County Citizens Advisory Board

The deadline for application is January 9, 2009.

Please share this notice with anyone who may be interested.  You may access vacancy announcements for boards, committees, and commissions through the following link.

http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/apps/exec/vacancies/pr_list.asp