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Dear Friends,
I hope you and your loved ones had a blessed Thanksgiving holiday. My Thanksgiving was filled with family, great food, and gratitude for the opportunities ahead to serve you. As I mentioned in my last newsletter, I’m highlighting accomplishments from my first term, which include:
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22 lead-sponsor bills and 42 co-sponsored bills,
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Eight lead-sponsor resolutions and 24 co-sponsored resolutions,
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Leading transformative reforms like guaranteed basic income, food insecurity, and law enforcement accountability,
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Responding to the pandemic and ensuring vulnerable communities were not overlooked,
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Creating opportunities for small businesses to thrive,
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Protecting renters and expanding safe housing requirements,
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Increasing funding to ensure school safety, and
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Engaging the community around literacy and student well-being.
End of Term Recap: Lifting up our Community
Please take a moment to watch Part 2 of my “End of Term Recap” video.
As always, please be in touch if I can be of assistance by emailing me at Councilmember.Jawando@montgomerycountymd.gov or calling my office at 240-777-7811.
Supporting Women and Gender Equity
At a time when women’s rights are under attack and being restricted, we must continue the work of uplifting women today and every day. I have strived to fight for women’s rights and protections through my tenure on the Council, and I will continue working toward full equality for women across the board.
Under my leadership, the Council passed the CROWN Act, banning race-based hair discrimination. I was inspired to introduce our local legislation, which joins the more significant Crown Act movement for various reasons, from wanting to end racial discrimination more broadly to hearing my youngest daughter ask me why her hair isn’t straight like the other little girls.
I also led an action to strengthen the definition of sexual harassment and provide victims with a way to seek a civil remedy. We all know that over the last several years, the “Me Too” movement has brought to light the pervasiveness of workplace harassment, and my bill helps remedy this horrible issue.
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And when the COVID pandemic ravaged our community and the nation, I recognized the pressure it yielded on every member of our society, especially the stress it put on women and caregivers. I held a roundtable and commissioned a report on the impacts of COVID on women. Women were called upon to wear many different hats during the pandemic - in their home and work lives. They faced challenges with work and unemployment, family life, remote learning, child care, mental and physical health, and even domestic violence and abuse.
This past June, the United States Supreme Court overturned a precedent that protected a woman’s right to choose. This decision was of grave concern for myself and my Council colleagues. The Council reaffirmed our commitment to women’s rights by approving a $1 million supplemental appropriation to support access to abortion services and other related purposes.
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COVID-19 Pandemic Response
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to be extremely difficult for everyone. We know the grip of the pandemic has somewhat loosened, but the beginning of the health crisis was difficult. From hybrid learning for our students to wearing masks, testing, vaccines, and, unfortunately, non-discriminate death, the pandemic hit our community and many others hard. I am grateful to Montgomery County residents for doing their part in slowing the spread of the virus so we could get to where we are now in rebounding from a challenging period.
I fought to ensure the county was equipped with adequate and equitable COVID-19 testing and vaccinations during the pandemic. Alongside Councilmember Craig Rice, I introduced a special appropriation for the African American Health Program (AAHP) to provide a targeted response to the impact of COVID-19 on African American and Black residents who had the highest COVID-19 death rates and lowest testing rates. I supported our Latino community which was also hit particularly hard by the pandemic, in backing a Council initiative, Por Nuestra Salud y Bienestar (For Our Health and Wellbeing), focused on curbing the spread of COVID-19 infections among that community.
I led the Council in unanimously approving my resolution that declared racism as a public health emergency. According to the national COVID-19 Racial Data Tracker, African Americans were nearly twice as likely to die from COVID-19 than would be expected based on their share of the population.
While we, as elected officials, encouraged our community to get vaccinated to stop the spread of the virus, I found it particularly important to do the same and lead by example. I even got my children vaccinated when the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention deemed it appropriate.
I also led the Council in the passage of a $10 million special appropriation to create a public-private partnership to fight food insecurity during the pandemic with the Greater Washington Community Foundation - Food for Montgomery Fund. I also worked with Kingdom Fellowship AME Church, Capital Area Food Bank, and other nonprofits to set up the largest food distribution hub in the county that has served as a model for other hubs in our most impacted zip codes.
I led an effort to expand renters' protections, including preventing rent gouging during the pandemic. In April 2020, the Council initially passed rent stabilization to protect renters during the pandemic. That November, I spearheaded the passage of legislation to limit rent increases and late fees for tenants to extend these protections. I urged my colleagues to provide another remedy to our county's ongoing rental crisis.
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Supporting Small Business
Over the years, I introduced and passed legislation with my colleagues to prevent rent gouging amid the pandemic and to provide small businesses with the funds they needed to stay afloat during turbulent times. As part of the MoCo Promise - which I ran on - all Montgomery County residents are entitled to a safe, vibrant and inclusive community with great schools and a strong economy. We know our small businesses are the backbone of our economy, which is why small businesses have been paramount in my service to the county.
We know that if a small business has to close its doors and can no longer be where they are, it takes a lot of rebuilding to get people to know that you’re back or that you’ve moved. Many businesses just can’t sustain that, so we passed legislation to expand the Local Small Business Reserve Program for county contracts.
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I also spearheaded legislation to assist our small businesses with rent during the pandemic. Under my direction, the county now offers small businesses grants to support rental needs.
And when our small businesses like the Polka Deli and Adaptive Phage Therapeutics accomplish incredible things, we acknowledge and amplify their contributions to our community. In 2021, I launched Our Community, Our Businesses, which highlighted a different Montgomery County business weekly as our small businesses and the economy recovered from the pandemic. We’re thankful for all our small businesses in the county that continue to make MoCo a thriving destination.
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I have more highlights to share. My final end of term newsletter will focus on my office's response to criminal justice reform in Montgomery County.
Thank you for your attention and trust in me to deliver and serve you for the next four years. I look forward to continuing to uplift our residents in my new term.
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