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In: Board Of Elections, BOE, Community Feedback, County Council, Local Government, MCPS

We have our first Moderately MOCO in person event which is a 2024 Board of Education Candidate Forum taking place on April 15 at the County Council building. We hope to see you there. See here for Parking and Directions information to the County Council building. Parking is free afterContinue Reading

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In: BOE, Community Feedback, County Council, Education & Culture, Government, Local Government, MCPS, Montgomery County Police Department, Policing, Public Funding, Public Safety, Safety, School Funding, Special Education, Transportation

April 8th, 2024 – This testimony was given to the County Council on the FY2025 operating budget Hello my name is Jason Makstein and I run the blog Moderately MOCO but today I am testifying as a community advocate about various items in the operating budgets. My focus will beContinue Reading

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In: County Council, District Court, Lawsuits, Local Government, Office of the Inspector General (OIG), Parks and Planning, Planning Board

March 13, 2024 In September 2023, the Montgomery County Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found misconduct of one of the County Council employees. The letter from the OIG stated that $11,490 of reservation fees were obtained and never paid for: “The investigation revealed that in 2022 and 2023, theContinue Reading

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In: Community Feedback, Community Reports, County Council, Local Government, Montgomery County Police Department, Policing, Public Safety

March 8, 2024 This was sent in as a follow up to Opinion: Defending Effective Policing: The Case Against Restricting Consent Searches and Bill 2-24 – Moderately MOCO following the County Council Public Hearing on the bill. Any councilmember who is for Councilmember Jawando’s Bill 2-24 must be prepared toContinue Reading

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In: BOE, Boundary Study, Construction, County Council, Local Government, MCPS, School, School Project

March 1, 2024 On 2/27/24 MCPS went over some upcoming boundary study updates at the board of education Facilities and Boundaries work session meeting. See the full video here or read below for a summary and to see the images. Note that as this was a discussion and work session,Continue Reading

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In: Community Feedback, Community Reports, County Council, Local Government, Montgomery County Police Department, Policing, Public Safety

February 23, 2024 Councilmember Jawando introduced Bill 2-24 to prohibit police from searching a vehicle when the driver specifically consents to the search. Consent searches are an important tool for police to address serious crime. When police reduce discretionary enforcement, such as traffic stops, violent crime rises. The Montgomery CountyContinue Reading

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In: County Council, County Executive, Development, Government, Local Government

February 20, 2024 On February 16, 2024 County Executive Marc Elrich submitted the following comments about the Takoma Park Minor Master Plan. We will show a summarization of the main parts first, followed by the County Department recommendations and then a link to the full PDF. Advertisement Advertisement Overall CommentsContinue Reading

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In: Administrators, BOE, Community Feedback, Community Interviews, County Council, Education & Culture, MCPS, Superintendent

February 13, 2024 – Employee that allegedly hindered OIG’s Investigation and was allegedly a key source of cronyism and retaliation in MCPS is back from Administrative Leave Update 2/13/24 11:30pm – This article was updated to correct the title (and subsequent details) which was originally written as “Chief of DistrictwideContinue Reading

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In: County Council, County Executive, Demographics, Government, Hate / Bias Incidents, Hate / Bias Incidents, Incident Response, Local Government, MCPS, Montgomery County Police Department, Population, Safety

Updated and edited January 21, 2024. Posted January 16, 2024. Background We’ve been working on this report on hate and bias incidents in Montgomery County Maryland for the last few years. This report is based on data from July 2022 through October 31, 2023. It is important to note thatContinue Reading

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In: Administrators, CEOs, County Council, Education & Culture, Incident Response, MCPS, Montgomery County Police Department, Restorative Justice, SROs

Multiple sources reached out to us regarding the January 2nd fight at B-CC (Bethesda Chevy Chase High School) that prompted a press release from Councilmember Jawando on January 4th, 2024 and news articles by MyMCMedia and MoCo360. Interestingly, these articles both state that  B-CC principal Dr. Shelton L. Mooney willContinue Reading