Teaching Tech to Seniors in Montgomery County, MD

Carol D’Auria: This is the Good Government Show.

Mitzi Herrera: See? You find it. Montgomery is the county’s premier program for providing technology training to older adults. The purpose of the program is to enable older adults to fully participate in the digital economy, to be able to use the Internet and technology for daily living, and to connect with their community and engage in civic participation.

Tom Kamber: When older people are trying to learn technology, we just need to take it as it is and teach people at the pace that people are naturally learning a completely new language to beginners.

Mitzi Herrera: I think what’s most impressive is the level of confidence that our participants have after participating in the program, particularly our multi-week classes. So there’s folks that before they might have had to, they felt like they had an impatient grandkid who’s, you know, I’m telling you something, and then you didn’t get it all at once. And then there is a certain level of frustration.

I think the fact that folks feel like at the end of this, I can do it. I can confidently manage things on my own. I am not afraid of the Internet.

Carol D’Auria: Welcome to the Good Government Show. I’m Carol D’Auria.

David Martin: And I’m David Martin. And today on the Good Government Show, we’re going to talk about helping seniors and other older adults using technology.

Carol D’Auria: And this is the story you told me about and the one you wanted to do. So I’m guessing the story is personal, isn’t it?

David Martin: It is personal. And I’m going to say that’s part of how this show came together.

Carol D’Auria: Okay. So what happened?

David Martin: Well, it all started when I went to see my mother. I love my mother. Let me just start there, Mom. Love you, mom. She’s 85.

Carol D’Auria: You better say that.

David Martin: I love you, Mom. She’s 85 and she lives alone in Connecticut. And I went to her house and I saw her old desktop computer, and it was actually the one I bought her, like 20 years ago, maybe longer, I don’t know. And then I saw she had an iPad, but it was a first generation iPad and she had it kind of sideways and a keypad.

So even though it was iPad, she’d sort of set it up like it was she was using as a laptop.

Carol D’Auria: You know what, David? At least she was using it.

David Martin: But it wasn’t really working for her.

Carol D’Auria: Are you sure? Or was it just not working the way you wanted it to work?

David Martin: Okay. All right. Fair question. But the answer is both. And this is something we’re going to explore on this show.

Carol D’Auria: And so let me get this straight. You decided to change mom’s computing and it all went well, right?

David Martin: Oh, not even. Not even close.

Carol D’Auria: I had a funny feeling.

David Martin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, so here’s what’s going on. The iPad she was working with wasn’t letting her do some of the things she needed to do. She couldn’t access her doctors records, she couldn’t book appointments. And she was the secretary of a local condo association. And that taking her notes, it was like a multistep process to write up the minutes.

So it was a real problem.

Carol D’Auria: All technology just working against her. It sounds like.

David Martin: That. And as you will soon see that in me.

Carol D’Auria: Did you ever use a computer before?

David Martin: She did actually, just before she retired. The last few years, she worked in a hospital. She ran an office and she had a computer on her desk. And she was able to do, you know, the basic functions for her job. So I got her that old desktop years ago, and as far as I knew, she seemed to be using it pretty well.

She could email, she could save photos, she could look stuff up and. But basic stuff.

Carol D’Auria: Until you decided to help.

David Martin: Okay. You lose the attitude. But yes, I decided to help. I’m going to help. And it’s my fault. I should have known because a few years ago we got an iPhone. Most of we got that. So she could swap pictures and text with the grandchildren. But I’ll just cut to the chase. That didn’t go well. Okay. But I didn’t have an iPhone, so I wasn’t much help.

My wife and daughter tried and that didn’t go so well either. But I get it. It’s new technology. And look, she got along for seven years without a computer, without a smartphone. She doesn’t want to use Waze. So, you know, why bother?

Carol D’Auria: Okay. Right.

David Martin: Well, two years ago, this is when this is when disaster struck. Two years ago, Christmas, I got her a new laptop. I got rid of the old iPad, got her a new laptop. It was Microsoft based, not Apple. And I won’t bore you with the trips back and forth, but that didn’t work out. So I wound up taking it back and replacing it with a new and more expensive iPhone. I told her, Mom, you have to stop swearing at me.

Carol D’Auria: She was swearing in you.

David Martin: Well, it was a lot of this damn thing. This damn thing. Why are you buying me all this shit? I don’t think we were so sure. We say.

Carol D’Auria: You. I think we can. It is our podcast. All right.

David Martin: We’ll change it to shite. Why are you bothering me with all this shite? So last year I was at the NACO conference in Prince George’s County, Maryland, and I was listening to the winners of the Achievement Awards, and I heard Montgomery County, Maryland, for their information technology senior planet Montgomery.

Carol D’Auria: The light bulb went off.

David Martin: Oh, it did. And I want to know how they did it, how they talk technology to seniors and what, if anything, I do to help mom.

Carol D’Auria: So a personal, good government story. I like that.

David Martin: Yes, me too. So let’s go down to Montgomery County, Maryland. So Montgomery County is a Washington, D.C. suburb. So the towns that are there, you may have heard of Bethesda, Silver Springs, Rockville, there are a lot of folks that work for the government there and they live there. It’s a biotech hub. The FDA is headquartered there. The National Institute for Health is in Bethesda, Walter Reed Army Institute for researchers there.

Carol D’Auria: So there’s really a lot going on.

David Martin: Yeah, there really is. And there’s about 1 million people there. So it’s a pretty active county. And Montgomery also has an aging population. So with access to so many services, you know, folks don’t want to leave. And about 20% of Montgomery’s populations over the age of 65 and it’s a diverse population, they have a significant Asian and Hispanic citizen population.

Carol D’Auria: So that means the county really has to look for ways to help all its citizens.

David Martin: Right, exactly. Now it’s time to meet our county hero. This time it’s Mitzi Herrera. I’m going to tell you her title because it’s a good one. Mitzi is. Are you ready? You might might write this down. Is the Ultra Montgomery director for Policy, Planning and Special Projects, which includes the Office of Broadband Programs, Technology and Pricing.

Carol D’Auria: The Real Deal is a mouthful. I can’t imagine she repeats that every day.

David Martin: I don’t think she does. But she’s a busy lady and you already heard a little bit from her and wait. Waiting here more in her role, Mitzi was seeing older adults looking for help and she was seeing the population changes in the county. And with some of the biotech firms, this was a place where seniors could really benefit.

But the county also realized that keeping these seniors in the county had value, and not just for them, but also for family members who lived in the county, too.

Carol D’Auria: So the kids want to be closer to mom and dad.

David Martin: Exactly. She also noticed that many health firms were looking to include seniors in their plans. And if you want to sell things to seniors, things like medical devices or online services, they have to know how to use them. Right.

Mitzi Herrera: We determined that older adults lag furthest behind in adopting technology. And so what we looked to do was to see how we could create a pilot to provide technology, training skills to older adults and then try to branch that out into more partnerships with health care providers and looking to see whether some medical startups are getting different kinds of entrepreneurs and startups and having a location in Montgomery County where not only do you have access to quality infrastructure, you have the ability to meet with federal regulators, and you also have a population of older adults who are tech savvy and can participate in clinical and business trials.

Carol D’Auria: So this is really the one who said, I can make this better. Right?

David Martin: Right. And she was thinking about this when she met Tom Kamber. They met at an industry conference. Tom was awarded for an innovative program to teach technology to seniors. They met and talked, and that was the beginning of your plan at Montgomery. So here’s Tom’s story about that creation.

Tom Kamber: I started running a training program in Bedford at the Betty Shaz Complex, a bunch of senior citizens. And they helped me design a really successful program for getting older people to learn technology and feel good about it. And that spread around New York City to about 50 different locations over a number of years. And then we began looking to expand it outside to other states.

And that was when I went to that conference and I met Mitzi and she said, Let’s get some funding together and see if you can bring that model to Montgomery County and see if we can engage some of our local libraries and senior centers.

Carol D’Auria: So they’re off and running.

David Martin: Right. So let me tell you about Tom. He is the founder and executive director of OATS, and that stands for Older Adults Technology Services, and he created Teacher Planning. And Oates is affiliated with AARP. He’s a nationally recognized expert in teaching technology to seniors. And he made me feel really much better about not being able to teach technology to my mom.

Carol D’Auria: So it wasn’t just you you were off the hook.

David Martin: Well, look, if Tom can teach his parents, what possible chance do I have? But he also explained that some of the dynamics.

Tom Kamber: Involved when you’re 80 year old mother calls you up and says she doesn’t know the difference between wi fi and wireless or can’t find the USB port on the side of her laptop, it immediately triggers all of that negativity for people because suddenly they can see Mom being really helpless and their mother feels really helpless. And it often devolves very quickly into acrimony.

Carol D’Auria: Well, that makes a lot of sense.

David Martin: It really does. The other thing Tom told me was that too often people get an upgrade, you get a new phone or a new computer, and they give the old one to mom and dad. So they’re starting off old technology that was probably dying. So they start with an inferior product to work with.

Carol D’Auria: Which doesn’t help. It’s very interesting. You think you’re doing them a favor and helping them, but it doesn’t really help.

David Martin: No, exactly. And it’s no fun to be your parents. Parents and parents have a hard time learning from the kid, you know, whose diapers they changed and teaching technology is complicated and it can’t be treated like it’s easy. You can’t just say, Hey, mom, it’s simple. Just do this.

Tom Kamber: Learning technology is a lot closer to learning a language, and it takes six months to get good at it. It certainly takes three months for a beginner to get good at this. And that means a couple of times a week, it means several hours or certainly an hour a day, two or three times a week. For beginners to get started.

It means they should have a book that they can refer to and some kind of educational methodology that takes a little time for people to learn, and it requires that the content is relevant. You can’t teach it to people as if they’re six year olds. And so there’s a few different moving parts there. And for some reason people don’t really take that into account when they try to bring an older person online for the first time, or have somebody restarted a completely new platform which takes similarly long periods of effort.

Carol D’Auria: Okay, good. Now we have a plan to offer the classes and Tom is the right guy to make this happen.

David Martin: Right. So coming up after the break, we’re going to see how those classes go.

Carol D’Auria: The good government show is sponsored by Liquid. Welcome back to season two, Liquid.

David Martin: And we still love Liquid and not just because they are a sponsor again. But Carol, here’s a fun fact. A recent study found that over 80% of retail shoppers conduct online research before making a purchase. Do you do that?

Carol D’Auria: Well, yeah. You know, I do it when I know what I’m buying. Like, for instance, we needed some bug spray for the backyard. We were having a party, but we have dogs. So I didn’t want anything toxic for the dogs? So I had to run down a lot of products online.

David Martin: So you did your research.

Carol D’Auria: I did.

David Martin: All right. Good. And if you’re in a business, you really have to do your research because you really want to evaluate who you’re working with and making sure the company you are about to partner with, you want to make sure it’s a good fit.

Carol D’Auria: That makes sense. So you want to stand out to other companies that are checking your company out.

David Martin: Exactly. And that’s where Liquid comes in. They can help your business create a digital presence with impact. So you can be impressive to new businesses and keep your customers.

Carol D’Auria: And it’s not just about a website. See how much I’ve learned about Liquid since the first season?

David Martin: You are Liquid-aware, good for you, right. So they can guide you where to advertise, make sure your social media is relevant, and it engages your customers. They want to make sure your digital story answers your potential customers’ questions before they even have to ask them.

Carol D’Auria: And that’s but Liquid is good at: creating a full marketing and online digital presence.

David Martin: Liquid’s been around for nearly two decades. They have a lot of experience and a lot of research to back up their.

Carol D’Auria: Plans and they have a team of designers, marketers, strategists and developers that can help companies in many industries with award winning creative campaigns, content and websites.

David Martin: All good reasons to have Liquid plan your next digital marketing strategy. So check them out and talk to a liquid professional. Visit them at www.liquidint.com, that’s www.liquidint.com.

Carol D’Auria: And you will love liquid as much as we do.

David Martin: Because they’re our sponsor. We love Liquid.

We want to welcome back as a sponsor to the Good Government Show, Kutztown University of Kutztown, Pennsylvania.

Carol D’Auria: And you want to talk about their rugby team?

David Martin: Well, they do have a good rugby team that just won a national tournament. And what I did was I called a friend, his daughter played at Kutztown, she played on the rugby team and asked him what did he like best about Kutztown?

Carol D’Auria: You mean besides the rugby team?

David Martin: Yeah, besides the team, obviously the team first. But he responded immediately and said something I didn’t know. His favorite thing is the chicken tower or it’s also called the Angry Chicken.

Carol D’Auria: What? I hesitate to ask. The Angry Chicken?

David Martin: Well, it’s such a landmark that it’s actually the school’s logo. It’s a clock tower. And apparently when you look from a special angle, the clock looks a little bit like a chicken with an open beak. So it’s the angry chicken.

Carol D’Auria: Okay, then. Well, let’s talk about the other stuff like that their degree program in music business is now nationally accredited. They offer undergraduate certificates in cybersecurity and technical writing.

David Martin: So is this what we do? Is this technical writing?

Carol D’Auria: Oh, no, no, no. Take his class and maybe get better at writing.

David Martin: Oh, come on. That’s not fair. You know what? You would benefit from the new graduate certificate program and be a school social worker. Maybe you’d be nicer.

Carol D’Auria: All right, well, the point is, Kutztown is a forward-looking university. They also offer Pell Promise scholarships. And for students to qualify, student tuitions and fees are all covered.

David Martin: And that’s just some of why we like Kutztown and are happy to be associated with this university. Oh, my friend thought it was really cool that sometimes the locals stay right here in a horse and buggy. So check out Kutztown University. That’s Kutztown University and cheer on the rugby team.

Carol D’Auria: Of course.

David Martin: Yes, please.
The Good Government Show welcomes a new sponsor for season two, and that’s NACO. And that’s the National Association of Counties. Carol, did you know that county government affects more people than any other form of government?

Carol D’Auria: Well, I do now. Funny you would think city or the federal government is bigger.

David Martin: Well, right, but. But it’s not. You’d think about this. Roads, highways, hospitals, schools, recycling, law enforcement, water, sewers: in most of the country, those services are maintained by the county. That’s county government.

Carol D’Auria: And we want to see good county government. And that’s where Naco comes in.

David Martin: Exactly. They’re a nationwide organization that represents all 3,069 counties across the U.S..

Carol D’Auria: Now, that’s a lot of support and more importantly, brain power.

David Martin: Exactly. And they have many organizations and committees and they do things like share best practices and they work together on national issues.

Carol D’Auria: And they are urban, suburban and rural counties that have different challenges. But they can still work together.

David Martin: Yes, they all work together. So NACO helps county government work better. And as we see in this and other episodes, when county government works well, that’s just good government.

Carol D’Auria: So thanks, NACO, for providing us with great stories and helping support good government.

David Martin: And thanks NACO for supporting the good government. And remember, citizens, don’t forget to vote.

Welcome back to the good government show. We’re down in Montgomery County, Maryland. We’re teaching technology to seniors. We have a plan. And in Tom Campbell, we have the right organization to get this started. And one of the things Mitzi realized was it didn’t have to be perfect. They just had to start.

Mitzi Herrera: And I say the biggest thing is that we just did it. You know, I think that there is a lot of counties and we’ve we’ve the the fact is, is that we started this program in 2016 and people wondered why are we providing training for older adults? Then we had the pandemic and suddenly people said, why doesn’t why don’t all people have computers and Internet at home?

The thing that I think the thing that makes us stand out is that we saw that there was a problem and we took action. We didn’t have the perfect program or we didn’t come up with the biggest program, but we tried to get something going. And by virtue of having it going, it enabled us to grow the program and expand.

It, expanded into more languages and more locations and more participants.

Carol D’Auria: And that’s what I’m talking about. A government worker saying, let’s just make this happen.

David Martin: Right? So what this is, is good government moving quickly and efficiently and partnering with the right people to bring the experts on they needed. Here’s Mitzi again talking about that.

Mitzi Herrera: And it’s sort of just a lot of the pieces fit together. The things that we were looking for were things that they were offering. They were looking to expand at the time that we were looking to do it, and it was a relatively manageable project. And then what we really brought to the table was the ability to leverage within county government all of the various departments and agencies.

Montgomery County has 22 libraries. We were already offering wi fi. We had six senior center where we were offering food. We had space to provide classes. We came from a technology department, so we were able to address being able to get computers and devices and it all just kind of came together.

Carol D’Auria: So with her position in the county, she knew who wanted the classes and where to hold them right?

David Martin: So it all came together quickly.

Carol D’Auria: So what do they teach over at Senior Planning?

David Martin: Montgomery Well, they start with the basics.

Mitzi Herrera: Are our basic class that we’re offering what we want to think of is what people are really learning is technology and Internet basics. So whether you’re learning on an iPad or a Chromebook, it’s not so much that you need to know how the iPad or the company’s to work. What you need to know is how do I use email?

How do I get surf the Internet safely? How do I use Zoom? Because that opens up. Those are sort of foundational. So some of our classes are just based on that sort of foundational, how you use those basic skills.

David Martin: And they have classes on passwords and email and they also branch out into other areas.

Mitzi Herrera: We have them in the financial area. So those can be ways that you can use purchasing things online to save money, creating monthly budgets, other ways that you can save through using free video services and so forth. And we have an area of sort of a personal enrichment. Those can include some of them include introductions to social media.

So how you use various Facebook, Instagram types of things.

David Martin: Here’s Mitzi with sort of a longer list of their offerings.

Mitzi Herrera: We have created a whole series in partnership with our Department of Environmental Protection, which is focused around energy savings. So those can be engaged from paying your bill online using more efficient light bulbs, how to get home audits and so forth. We’ve also got classes that are focused on technology. So how you use voice assistants, smart phones, picking computers and television.

We have classes that are focused on how you do, how you find online resources preparing for a telehealth appointment. We have ones around. Some are focused on how you can use Fitbit and similar devices as part of exercise programs and health programs. We have classes around online shopping, health resources, protecting your information online. And then we’ve also got some some focused on job searching, using home delivery apps.

Carol D’Auria: Wow. This is an impressive range of classes. It really.

David Martin: Is. Okay. And here’s the wild thing. Prior to the pandemic, they had about 200 people going through Multi-week classes. But with Zoom and the pandemic, they suddenly had 48,000 people taking classes just through Zoom.

Carol D’Auria: Wow.

David Martin: And just as a number one class was.

Carol D’Auria: That Zoom.

David Martin: Play, how do you see that?

Carol D’Auria: It’s a huge jump. And this program had the county’s support.

David Martin: It does so now it’s time to meet Craig Rice. He’s a county commissioner. He’s the head of the NACo Human Services and Education Committee.

Craig Rice: So many of our things are online now, whether it’s telemedicine, whether it’s dealing with bank accounts. My mother was frustrated the other day because she couldn’t get an appointment that she needed to have to go into the bank, which she normally does. And they told her that she could do it online. She didn’t have an online account set up.

And so it was walking through those kinds of steps with me to help her with that. But the reality is, is that not every senior has that that every senior has a child who’s there, who’s present, who’s able to walk them through and the patience to deal with that. And that’s what these programs represent.

David Martin: And this is why we love Greg Rice. He’s a listener and folks and yes, I know he’s a listener. So if you haven’t listened to it yet, as soon as you finish this episode, finish the episode, go back to our home page and check out our Season two preview. Because I talked at length with Craig about the show and the role of government and it was a really interesting conversation.
He likes the show. He told his friends and he has a lot to say about good government, including this program in his county.

Carol D’Auria: And we love our listeners.

David Martin: Especially Craig, because he sees the need and the benefit for programs like this.

Craig Rice: These programs represent inclusion for our senior community, making sure that they remain a part of our society because so much of it is technology dependent. You can’t even go through the drive thru these days without being pushed into utilization of an app. And so even for ordering McDonald’s sweet tea takes some technological expertise these days, we need to make sure that we’re empowering our seniors with all of this information, with all of the digital literacy and skills so that they can continue to be a part of our community.
And that is what I love about Senior Planet and the tech aspects of this. It really is something that keeps our folks connected.

Carol D’Auria: So I know you talked to some folks who actually took the classes. Did anyone get a goal saw?

David Martin: Well, yes. I mean, I don’t know if they actually got a gold star, but let’s start with something. And this is someone whose life really changed thanks to senior planet Montgomery and here’s part of our conversation. Okay. So you’re going to meet this woman and she’s from Barbados. So listen closely.

Derrice Dean: My name is there is being I’m 78 and I took about five classes.

David Martin: What was the most important thing you got out of these classes?

Derrice Dean: The step by step. That’s what I found most helpful, because first of all, I’m a visual person, but I also like detail and that was what was important to me. And it worked for me. I was able to follow what they were doing and literally integrated into what I was doing to the point that it became a norm and become very adept at Zoom, which I was afraid of at the beginning.
But I am now using Zoom almost every day, all day, and I’ve learned a lot of little tricks and how to navigate it much better. I think the main thing was they broke down explanations so that they didn’t talk over your head. They didn’t use a lot of technical terms. And I was able to relate to what they were talking about and put it into everyday pylon.

David Martin: Stories far from me, tired producers and host CaribNation TV When the pandemic hit, she suddenly had to become a Zoom host, and that changed how she work. And that’s why she turned to Senior Planet Montgomery.

Derrice Dean: Zoom Live was my prime concern. I wanted to be able to do that comfortably and efficiently, and I think I achieved that. I’m now able to use it without getting into a panic over when I had to do it. It was something that had made me very nervous, but not anymore. I now can do an official interview and program with anybody using Zoom fairly comfortably.

Carol D’Auria: Well, good for her. She realized she needed some training and she got it right through senior planning. Right. So I guess she found the classes quite helpful.

David Martin: Very helpful. She did.

Derrice Dean: Well, I was impressed to me first was that there were some older people who were teaching the courses, which was encouraging, I think, because it gives you the message that you can learn to do things not because you’re old. You can’t. Some people can if they’re willing to, if they’re interested and curious enough.

David Martin: Abbas Malek is a retired college professor and he was so impressed with the senior planning programs, he plans to take even more from him. Yeah.

Abbas Malek: The classes I took, I find it very, very interesting, very different than university classes. The objective of the classes was to train me, not educate me and they achieved their goals. I got the best training ever petitioning PhD level, but I never thought classes like this that can be so simply they can train you into subject matter. They are taking.

Carol D’Auria: A retired professor, taking senior planning classes. This is a pretty strong endorsement, if you ask me.

David Martin: It is. It is. You know, I mean, he loves the classes and he’s going to take more. But let’s go back to race one more time. And I don’t think she I don’t think she mind if I called her a technophobe, but she was certainly not an early adopter. But these classes really made a difference.

Derrice Dean: I use a nervous wreck. If I had to deal with it, I, I was just very apprehensive about it. And I would tell people all the time, if it has to do with technology, I don’t want to have too much to do with it. Just give me the basics and I’ll stay away from as much of it as possible.
Now, I’m not so afraid of it. I’m quite open to taking challenges and searching things out.

Carol D’Auria: Then is great progress, isn’t.

David Martin: It? It is for her. And she told me that one of the classes showed her how to find videos on YouTube, which, you know, as you know, you can pretty much find anything on YouTube that will tell you how to do practically anything. But now she’s totally comfortable with those videos. And I asked her about folks she took the classes with.
She said the teachers were extremely patient and made sure everyone understood what they were doing.

Carol D’Auria: Just like you and your mom, right?

David Martin: Well, exactly. Okay. Not exactly. But that’s the benefit of a program like this. They find success and the seniors find it on their own.

Carol D’Auria: And that’s really a good plan.

David Martin: It really is. So if you have a senior citizen who needs some technology help, go to senior planet dot org. And if you’re in Montgomery, there’s going to be a list of classes. But remember, Tom runs a national organization otes so there could be a program there, you.

Carol D’Auria: Know, could really help a lot of people.

David Martin: You know, one of the many benefits that you told me about was the applications that classes are meant. There’s a lot of folks that are doing things like online fundraising or volunteering somewhere just started online. Small businesses and other folks are just way more comfortable making online doctor’s appointments like my mom. But others have taken advantage of the area.

Health programs have signed up for pilot programs, and that’s going to help other people down the road.

Carol D’Auria: Oh, great. Benefits of being a lot more comfortable with technology. So who gets the last word on this one?

David Martin: So last word is going to Commissioner Rice. He was really enthusiastic about the program.

Carol D’Auria: And our.

David Martin: Show and our show, but he had a really inspiring way to look at the senior planning program in the county.

Craig Rice: These are all things that speak to quality of life. They don’t always have a direct, delineated line to a number in terms of profit or advantage for the individual government. But you can see in so many ways in which that impact is there and that impact actually garners some great outcomes for us and garners great outcomes for the individual as well.

Sometimes it’s just the right thing to do and making sure that you have folks that are connected, that can’t be taken advantage of, that are well versed and able to just live out their lives. Those are all positives for us.

Carol D’Auria: The right thing to do. I like that.

David Martin: That’s what good government is all about. Doing the right thing. It may not be the most popular thing or the thing that guarantees you reelection and may be opposed by the not in my backyard crowd. And it may cost money. But if it’s the right thing to do, that’s what government is supposed to do.

Carol D’Auria: And they are doing it in Montgomery County, Maryland.

David Martin: They are. And that’s our show.

Carol D’Auria: I’m Carol D’Auria.

David Martin: And I’m David Martin. Thanks for listening. See you next time on the good government check. Don’t forget to follow the Good Government Show on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss any of the great stories we tell. Join our community on Facebook and be part of the conversation. Join our discussion on Twitter. If you like our show, tell your friends to listen, too. For more extras on the show, check out our website: www.goodgovinstitute.org/.

The Good Government Show is produced by Valley Park Productions. Jim Ludlow, David Martin and David Snyder are the executive producers. Jason Stershic is our producer and editor. Some transcriptions were done by Kofi Ajeasi Ampah. Our hosts are me, David Martin and Carl D’Auria. Join us again for the Good Government Show, wherever you listen to podcasts.