Montgomery County Honors U.S. Women’s Hockey Team gold medal winner Haley Skarupa

Today we recognized Haley Skarupa, a member of the U.S. Women’s Olympic Ice Hockey Team, for her competitive efforts and for winning an Olympic gold medal at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games.  See the video. Here's the full press release:

ROCKVILLE, Md., April 23, 2018—The Montgomery County Council will congratulate Haley Skarupa, a member of the U.S. Women’s Olympic Ice Hockey Team, for her competitive efforts and for winning an Olympic gold medal at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games. At the beginning of the Council meeting, Councilmember Sidney Katz and County Executive Isiah Leggett will present Skarupa with a proclamation recognizing her outstanding achievements.  The meeting will take place in the Third Floor Council Hearing Room.   

The U.S. Women’s Olympic Ice Hockey team competed in the 2018 Winter Olympics held in Pyeong Chang, South Korea and earned their first gold medal in 20 years. The Americans defeated Canada 3-2 in an overtime shootout.

“It is quite an honor to recognize Haley Skarupa for her gold medal performance in Pyeong Chang during the Winter Olympics,” said Councilmember Katz. “We have so many talented residents in District 3 but this accomplishment really sets Haley apart!”

“I am so proud of Haley for accomplishing her dream to be on the U.S. Women’s Ice Hockey Team and compete in the 2018 Olympic Winter Games,” said County Executive Ike Leggett. “Haley earned her gold medal through hard work and perseverance. It was not easy, but she refused to give up. Montgomery County is home to the brightest and most talented youth in the world and Haley is an inspiration to any young person who is working hard to achieve their goals and reach their full potential.”

In addition to Skarupa being an Olympic gold medal winner, she also has won three International Ice Hockey Federation Women’s World Championships and three Four Nations Cups.

Councilmember Katz, County Executive Leggett and the Council congratulate Haley Skarupa for her outstanding achievements as a member of the U.S. Women’s Ice Hockey Team. Residents and leaders in Montgomery County, Maryland and across the country take great pride in her accomplishments.

The Council meeting will be televised live by County Cable Montgomery (CCM). The channel can be viewed on Cable Channels 996 (high definition) and 6 (standard definition) on Comcast, Channels 1056 (HD) and 6 (SD) on RCN and Channel 30 on Verizon.

The Council meeting also will be available live via streaming through the Council web site athttp://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/COUNCIL/ondemand/index.html.

Prescription Drug Take-Back Day is Saturday, April 28 between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.

Here's complete information regarding Montgomery County's participation in DEA's Nationwide Prescription Drug Take-Back Day:

On Saturday, April 28 between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., community members can drop off unused, unwanted, or expired prescription drugs, as Montgomery County once again participates in the Washington Division of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA’s) National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day. Understanding the prevalence of opioid overdoses and abuse, this event is a particularly important means for the public to safely dispose of unused and unwanted opioid prescriptions and prevent their life-threatening abuse.

County law enforcement agencies and the Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse Prevention Office are co-sponsoring the effort. This is a safe, free and anonymous opportunity to dispose of unused, unwanted or expired prescription drugs and is part of a national effort to prevent the increasing problems of prescription drug abuse and theft that continues to occur nationwide.

Drop-off locations will be open to the general public throughout Montgomery County. These locations will accept prescription drugs and over-the-counter medications only. Liquids, illicit drugs, needles, sharps and syringes cannot be accepted as part of this take-back program. Officers will staff collection boxes in the parking lots of the following facilities or in facility lobbies:

Bethesda
MCP 2nd District Police Station – 4823 Rugby Avenue

Chevy Chase:
Village of Friendship Heights Community Center – 4433 S. Park Avenue

Chevy Chase Village Police Station – 5906 Connecticut Avenue

Gaithersburg:
MCP 6th District Station – 45A West Watkins Mill Rd.

Gaithersburg Police Station – 14 Fulks Corner Avenue

Asbury Methodist Village – Apartment Center Lobby  – 301 Odendhal Ave, Bldg. 405

Senior Living at Kentlands Manor – 217 Booth St., Kentlands

Germantown:
MCP 5th District Station – 20000 Aircraft Drive

Rockville:
Rockville City Police/Montgomery County Sheriffs – Rockville City Police Station 2 W. Montgomery Avenue (Lobby of Rockville City Police building)

Maryland State Police Rockville Barrack – 7915 Montrose Road

Bender Jewish Community Center (JCC) of Greater Washington – 6125 Montrose Road

Silver Spring:
MCP 3rd District Station – 1001 Milestone Drive

Fire Station 1 – 8110 Georgia Avenue

Takoma Park:
Takoma Park Police at Takoma Park City Building Lobby – 7500 Maple Avenue

Wheaton:
MCP 4th District Station – 2300 Randolph Road                                                             

Residents are encouraged to bring in medications containing controlled substances but will accept any medications brought for disposal. All sites will take pills and medication patches of all kinds. If possible, prescription labels should be removed or personal information should be blacked out; however, pill bottles will still be accepted if the labels are attached. No questions will be asked. This is an opportunity to safely empty out a medicine cabinet of drugs that are no longer needed.

Disposing of prescription drugs through a drug take-back day is the safest option. If it is safe to dispose of a drug by flushing it down a toilet, the drug label or prescription information will indicate that option is an appropriate means of disposal. Otherwise unused drugs should not be poured down a sink or flushed for disposal.

Drugs should not be thrown in the trash unless specific safety precautions for safe disposal are followed. The County’s Division of Solid Waste Services offers these suggestions:

Place unwanted or expired medication into a plastic bag (with a seal) or other empty container with a lid to prevent liquid medications from leaking out.
Mix with kitty litter, coffee grounds or sawdust. (Liquid medications can be solidified using kitty litter or sawdust.)
Seal the bag and/or container.
Crush pills or tablets.
Put the container and/or bag containing the medication into your regular household trash.
Remove the label with the patient’s name from the original medicine vial or bottle.
Place the empty plastic vial or bottle into your blue County recycling bin. Empty aerosol inhalers can also be recycled in recycling bins.
Unused and/or expired medicines that remain in home cabinets are highly susceptible to diversion, misuse, and abuse. According to the DEA, rates of prescription drug abuse in the U.S. are alarmingly high, as are the number of accidental poisonings and overdoses due to these drugs.  Studies show that a majority of abused prescription drugs are obtained from family and friends, including from the home medicine cabinet.

The returned medications on Drug Take-Back day will be incinerated according to federal and state environmental guidelines.

Recognizing Regeneron Science Talent Search Finalists

Congratulations to Montgomery Blair High School students Sarah Gao, Andrew Komo, David Wu, and Alice Zhang for being named among the 40 finalists in the Regeneron Science Talent Search and competing for top honors at a high-profile event in Washington D.C. The Regeneron Science Talent Search was formerly known as the Intel Science Talent Search and the Westinghouse Science Talent Search. Despite the change in sponsors/names over the decades, it is still the nation's oldest and most prestigious science competition, having honored the nation's most promising young scientists since 1942. Each of the finalists received a $25,000 award and David Wu received an additional $90,000 award for fifth place. See the video of today's presentation.

In her project, Developing Phage Endolysins as Novel Therapeutics for Multi-drug Resistant Bacterial Infections, Sarah Gao identified enzymes that may contribute to improved therapeutics for antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacterial infection.

In his project, Cryptographically Secure Proxy Bidding in Ascending Clock Auctions, Andrew Komo developed a coded system that can be used to protect large-scale online auctions from serious threats, such as cheating and fraud.

In his 5th place award project, Nonuniform Distributions of Patterns of Sequences of Primes in Prime Moduli, David Wu improved current methods for gathering data on prime number patterns, which could impact cryptography and cybersecurity, and potentially make future work on prime number patterns more productive.


In her project, A Dynamic Programming Algorithm for Minimizing Delays in Traffic Intersections, Alice Zhang created a traffic signal protocol to speed the flow of cars and trucks driving through intersections.

Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) Will Hold Open Houses on I-270 and I-495 Managed Lanes Study

MDOT will hold public hearings this month on the I-495 and I-270  traffic congested projects. There are two hearings scheduled in Montgomery County. The first is Wednesday, April 18, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Clarksburg High School, 22500 Wims Road. The second is Thursday, April 19 from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, 4301 East West Highway.

The state will provide the public with an introduction and overview of the study, welcome public comment on the study scope, and answer study-related questions.  You can also comment on-line at the study’s website, by email at 495-270-P3@sha.state.md.us, or by hard copy during the public workshops. Hard copy comments can also be mailed to the I-495 and I-270 P3 Project Office at the Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration, 707 North Calvert Street, Mail Stop P-601, Baltimore MD 21202.

Today, April 10, 2018 is Equal Pay Day

Today is Equal Pay Day. It symbolizes how many extra days in 2018 women must work to equal what men earned in 2017.  In today's Council session, Nancy Navarro and I presented a Proclamation to Elissa Blattman, President Montgomery County NOW, in recognition of Equal Pay Day.

Even though the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act passed more than five decades ago, women continue to suffer the consequences of inequitable pay differentials. In fact, year-round, full-time working women earn only 82 cents for every dollar earned by men.  The pay gap exists in every occupation, including those dominated by women. The pay gap is worse for women of color. Over a working lifetime, this wage disparity costs the average American woman and her family an estimated $700,000 to $2 million in lost wages, impacting Social Security benefits and pensions.

You can watch today's proclamation presentation here.

Council Reviewed the County's Employee Training and Policies Related to Preventing Workplace Harassment

On Tuesday, April 3, the Council reviewed the County's employee training and policies related to preventing workplace harassment.  As part of our oversight responsibilities, the Council  requested a review of workplace harassment policies across County government departments, County agencies and bi-county agencies. Representatives from Montgomery County Government, Montgomery County Public Schools, Montgomery College, the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) and other agencies participated in the discussion.

We were updated on the policies, procedures and training requirements that provide harassment-free workplaces.  The Council staff report includes a complete list of participants, and you can watch a taped version of the complete discussion.

Test of the National Wireless Emergency Alerts System - Thursday, April 5, 10-11 a.m.

Montgomery County will participate in a planned regional test of the national Wireless Emergency Alerts System (WEA) on Thursday, April 5; 10 – 11 a.m. Expect your WEA-enabled cell phone to vibrate and produce a loud warning signal twice before receiving a text message: "A test of Montgomery County Emergency Wireless Alerts System. No Action is required." Here's the complete media advisory:

On Thursday, April 5 between 10 and 11 a.m., 20 Washington metropolitan-area jurisdictions, which include all of Montgomery County, will simultaneously issue a test message to the public through the national Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) system. This will be the first live regional test using WEA’s geo-target capabilities and is expected to reach 5.2 million people.

The WEA system should not be confused with the local “Alert Montgomery” or other emergency alert programs in jurisdictions within Montgomery County, or used in other metro-area jurisdictions. The local programs are separate from this national system. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) launched WEA nationally in 2012. It has been used more than 33,000 times across the country to warn the public about dangerous weather, missing children, and other critical situations – all through alerts on WEA-enabled cell phones and other enabled wireless devices. Most types of phones are WEA-enabled, an older “Flip Phone” might not be. The public does not sign up or register for WEA, and there is no fee for the service.

On April 5, individuals in the participating jurisdictions will receive a message customized to their area. Within Montgomery County the message will be: “A test of the Montgomery County Wireless Emergency Alerts System. No action required.” The alert will trigger a loud (somewhat annoying) noise and will cause the receiving device to vibrate. Both the loud audio signal and vibration will be repeated twice, while displaying the text-like message on cell phones and mobile devices.

Again, individuals do not sign up to receive a WEA message, they come automatically. Therefore, the test alert may come as a surprise to people who have not previously received a WEA message.

If a real-world event impacts the planned WEA test on Thursday, April 5, the back-up test date is Monday, April 9, between 10 and 11 a.m. 

The WEA system allows government and public safety officials to target emergency public safety information and imminent threats to safety to a specific geographic area. It uses a loud warning sound and text-like messages on an individual’s WEA-enabled cell phone or other enabled mobile device. The WEA system allows the messaging to be more targeted and efficient, which is critical during an emergency. 

Periodic testing of public alerts and warning systems helps local governments assess the system and identify any needed improvements. The test ensures that Public safety officials have reliable methods and systems that will deliver urgent alerts and warnings to the public during an emergency or disaster. 

Jurisdictions participating in the exercise will draw a geo-targeted map in their WEA system. Cell phones or mobile devices located outside, but near, the participating jurisdictions may receive the WEA test because this technology uses carrier towers. Individuals who are travelling through several jurisdictions during the testing period will receive alerts from each jurisdiction they enter. Individuals visiting the Washington metropolitan-area during testing will also receive the alerts.

The jurisdictions participating in the WEA testing include: City of Alexandria, City of Bowie, City of College Park, City of Fairfax, City of Falls Church, City of Gaithersburg, City of Greenbelt, City of Takoma Park, City of Manassas, City of Manassas Park, City of Rockville, District of Columbia, Arlington County, Charles County, Fairfax County, Frederick County (MD), Loudoun County, Montgomery County, Prince George's County and Prince William County. People in these jurisdictions during the WEA test will receive an alert on their cell phone or other mobile device(s).

Link for: Answers to Frequently Asked Question’s (FAQ’s) about the testing.

Link for: Additional information on WEA.

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Media Contact: Lucille Baur, Lucille.Baur@montgomerycountymd.gov