Reznik Report Week 8

Hi. I'm Delegate Kirill Reznik. Welcome back to my weekly video blog updating you on what is happening here in Annapolis throughout the 2011 Legislative Session.

We just wrapped up our eighth week of the Session, and it was a busy one. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to testify about my "Electronic Public Notices" bill before the House Environmental Matters Committee. Currently, local governments are required to pay for advertising certain legal notices in newspapers. My bill would give municipalities, like Gaithersburg, and counties another option. Instead, they could publish these notices on their websites - a more immediate and cost-effective way of getting the word out, and they could offer a free direct mail subscription to residents who do not want or do not have the ability to check the websites. I was happy to present this bill at the hearing and describe how it could save local governments hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars.

Yesterday, my committee, the Health and Government Operations, held an important hearing about a U.S. subsidiary of a French company seeking to run the MARC Camden and Brunswick rail lines. This company, SNCF, has been found guilty of colluding in transporting about 76,000 Jews to Nazi concentration camps during the second world war but has failed to provide important documentation about stolen property. I questioned the SNCF representatives about some serious concerns I had regarding their lack of clarity and acknowledgment of SNCF's involvement in the deportations. I have provided a link to the articles about this hearing in my weekly e-mail and in the blog section of my website.

Panhandling in Montgomery County has become a growing concern over the past few years. The County Executive and County Council have asked our delegation to grant them the authority to issue permits for soliciting money in street medians, and the Council has gone a step further and asked us to amend current legislation we are looking at to ban it altogether. We have been wrestling with this issue in the County's House delegation because of the safety concerns for drivers and the panhandlers, but also because our firefighters frequently solicit money on the roadsides for their "Fill-The-Boot" campaigns that benefit the Muscular Dystrophy Association, raising $240,000 last year alone. I'm hopeful we can reach consensus on this issue next week.

Next week will also be another busy week as I will present information at hearings about 3 of my bills. One of those bills, allowing specialized doctors to own imaging equipment was featured in an article in the Gazette today. A link to that article is also included in my weekly email and blog.

I look forward to telling you more about these bills and other events next week. As always, please feel free to contact my office regarding any thoughts, questions, or concerns you may have about any issues facing our State or local community.

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