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Montgomery County Council approves submitting 11 federal earmark requests
Summary
The council voted to submit 11 proposed federal earmarks covering transportation, public safety, health and youth services to congressional delegation portals with a March 7 deadline.
Montgomery County Council members voted to submit 11 proposed federal earmark requests to the county’s congressional delegation for consideration, county staff said.
Sarah Morningstar, of the Office of Intergovernmental Relations, told the council the projects span transportation, public safety, health, youth programs and environmental revitalization and that the delegation portals require submissions by March 7. “We’ve been directed to please come in with projects that are not related to what we have already in FY ’25 bills,” Morningstar said.
The list staff presented includes a Wheaton Environmental Arts Walk and Streetery ($1,800,000), an out-of-school-time network for youth ($1,000,000), a joint public safety operations center ($3,200,000), a perimeter fence for a public safety technical operations facility ($975,000), a public-safety youth immersive summer program ($200,000), vehicles for mobile crisis outreach teams ($200,000), a public-health sexually transmitted infection services request ($776,138), Georgia Avenue bus lanes ($6,400,000), a right-of-way stump-removal request (amount not specified as eligibility is unclear), installation of high-efficiency street lighting ($1,240,000), and an AI-based policing and community engagement project in collaboration with the University of Maryland (about $4,000,000). Morningstar said staff will work with the congressional offices to identify appropriate federal accounts for each request.
Council members raised no questions before the motion to submit the list was moved and seconded. The council then voted in favor of submitting the projects for consideration. The council’s packets also included an initial list of local bond and state capital requests that staff said will be tracked separately.
The projects will be entered into the open portals for Senators and the member of Congress whose portals are available; Morningstar said deadlines for current open portals are March 7. She said staff will monitor additional portals for other members of the delegation and follow up as required.
The council’s action was procedural: staff will submit the requests and continue coordinating with the county’s congressional offices on eligibility and refinement of each submission.
