Politics & Government

City Council Reviews Annual Committee Briefings

The Gaithersburg City Council held a work session on Monday evening.

The Gaithersburg City Council reviewed the annual reports and presentations from three city committees during a work session on Monday night.

Senior Advisory Committee:

Marcia Robins, a member of the Gaithersburg Senior Advisory Committee, presented city councilmembers with the group's annual report. The senior center currently has 695 members, down from over 1,000 members a few years ago, Robins said. Less than half of the current membership - about 48 percent - are Gaithersburg residents.

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The drop in membership is attributed to a membership fee hike.

"I'm hoping we can work with the county council again and the county executive to see if we can...get some additional funding for those non-residents," said councilman Michael Sesma.

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Robins also explained how the committee helps the senior center organize trips to D.C. museums and plans cultural diversity programs, among other activities.

Educational Enrichment Committee:

Joshua Schuman, an educator at Quince Orchard High School and a member of the city's Educational Enrichment Committee, delivered the annual briefing to the council. He explained the committee's mission is "to foster a climate of educational excellence, enrichment, and character development within the Gaithersburg community."

The Educational Enrichment Committee administers the Character Counts! program, awards grant money to local city schools for a variety of programs and builds partnerships between the private sector, the faith-based community and city schools.

The committee awarded $47,430.04 in grants to Gaithersburg schools for the fiscal year 2012 and granted $8,000 in Character Counts! scholarships to four high school students.

"There aren't too many other municipalities that work with their county school system throughout Maryland," Mayor Sidney Katz said. "I really think (the committee) truly does add to our students' lives and it certainly helps the community because our students are doing better because of it."

Community Advisory Committee:

"J" Persensky, chairman of the Community Advisory Committee, told the City Council that homelessness is up in Montgomery County, there is an increased need for emergency food, mental health and substance abuse resources.

The committee is "charged with exploring gaps in services for residents, making recommendations to the mayor and the city council for providing funding to nonprofit agencies that can meet the community needs and ensuring effective use of that funding."

The committee allocates hundreds of thousands of dollars each fiscal year to ensure that the community's basic needs are being met.

Persensky told the council that the committee has spend significant time taking inventory of those needs this year.

"The question we keep asking ourselves is...how can we better understand the needs in the community? Are we really hitting the right needs?" Persensky said.

By polling the community, local nonprofits and using other data, like the 2010 Census information, the Community Advisory Committee has a better of the community's pain points, he said.

For example, during the first full year of the recession, Manna Food Center served 87,000 people. In fiscal year 2011, the organization served 172,627. Data like this will aid the committee in making new allocations and reviewing old ones, Persensky said.

"There is an enormous unmet need in the county," said Councilman Sesma. "Part of this is happening because federal funding is changing, state funding is changing, county funding is changing. We've been able to fill some of those gaps so if we can target it more effectively, knowing some of this data, we'll be able to make our dollars go a lot farther."

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A video recording of the city council's work session is available online. The council will meet again at 7:30 p.m. Monday for a regular meeting.


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