Rockville Candidates for Mayor: Voters Face A Real Choice

In the spirit of service, I’ve completed interviews with all the declared candidates for Mayor of Rockville, our fair city. That’s Susan Hoffmann, Mark Pierzchala, and Drew Powell.>

Yes, there are similarities: They all agree that the City of Rockville provides excellent service overall, and the city staff are top-notch. They especially point to the Parks and Recreation Department as stellar. They have all lived here in Rockville a long time (at least a decade), and elsewhere in Montgomery County. They all speak with a real fluency about the inner workings of the city, its budget, its rules, and ordinances. They all think the City Council needs to work better together. And, they all care deeply about Rockville’s future. In that sense, you’re not going to go wrong no matter who you choose in November.

But Rockville voters face a real choice when it comes to mayor this year. These are three very different candidates.

Here is a quick recap of my conversation with each one. I’m trying to present a fair snapshot of what each candidate is about. If I get something wrong it is not because I secretly favor one candidate over another. It’s just an honest mistake. I encourage you to use the “comment” section to continue the conversation. (If it gets ugly I will disable it, though, so be warned!)

I asked a lot more questions than I have room for here. You can find a podcast audio — to check my work! — of my interviews linked after each candidate writeup.

SUSAN HOFFMANN

Susan Hoffmann, a West End resident, is a current member of the City Council completing her third term. She points to her experience is a key qualification for being mayor. In her “day job,” she is in charge of marketing for Silver Spring and was a part of the redevelopment of that part of town, an experience she brought to the task of redeveloping our Town Center and creating the Town Square. To be sure, she does not take all the credit for that, but she had a large hand in it. With more development apparently on the horizon for Rockville, Susan points to her experience working with public/private partnerships.

Susan says her main campaign issue, though, is the city’s contribution to global warming. She wants to reduce the city’s “carbon footprint” through what she calls her “clean and green initiative.” Her first move if elected would be to conduct a benchmark energy use study on all city operations. Beyond that, she says she will focus on public safety. “Families need to feel safe in their homes and when they are out walking in neighborhoods,” she says. She will also work on “the traffic nightmare that seems to affect the entire region.”

Beyond Susan’s environmental initiative, Susan also points to her accomplishments in service to the city as reasons for voters to elect her. “You need to look at all the options,” she says. “I have the experience and have demonstrated the leadership.” She spearheaded the Rockville Shuttle (currently Ride On Route 45) to connect more people to Town Square, she played a key role in getting Town Square built, and she served on the Planning Commission for five years prior to her most recent six years as a member of City Council.

To her opponents, she says, “I hope [you] will keep the campaign clean and there will be an adherence to the truth. The people of Rockville deserve no less.”

Susan says it’s hard to say which is her favorite Rockville restaurant. “It might not have opened yet,” she says. “There are so many.” Her favorite Rockville park? While she has praise for her neighboring Monument Park, she loves Mattie Stepanek Park near King Farm.

(Audio of this interview is here. Large file, 4MB)

MARK PIERZCHALA

Mark Pierzchala, president of the College Gardens Civic Association, is running because he is disappointed with both the City Council and the mayoral candidates — he says they are not bringing up the right issues. He sees four key issues that aren’t being addressed properly: the budget, trash, the new zoning ordinance, and working together. His chief issue is the budget. While the City is running a surplus (we have an AA+ bond rating, which is excellent for a city our size), nevertheless our spending has gone up. Mark looked at the numbers for the last decade: Adjusted for inflation, per-person spending in the city has gone up 50%. “A lot of that is because of the Town Center investment, which I support,” he says, “but not all of it.” He thinks we need to get a handle on extra spending because the good times and surplus won’t last forever.

Like the other candidates for Mayor, Mark doesn’t think the trash issue has been handled well, and thinks it should have been over by now. “Basically, [the council] chose the most expensive, most pulluting, most cost-increasing option they could,” in their most recent vote.

More important, though, is the fact that the city’s Zoning Ordinance is being redrafted. This is not a revision, but a whole rewrite, and will impact what the city looks like for decades to come. Mark is impressed with how hard the zoning commission is working on this issue, but he is disappointed that no one is really focusing on it in their campaigns.

Why should voters choose Mark? “I’m the new guy,” he says. “I don’t have the history of the last several years. . . . I work hard to bring people together to a viable position.” He also points to his work as College Gardens Civic Association president as providing important experience. “I bring a neighborhood perspective,” he says, while at the same time working on a wide variety of issues. Finally, to his opponents, Mark says this: “I think it’s going to be a wonderful race. . . . We’re just going to go at it the best we can. I am not going to attack my opponents personally.”

Mark’s favorite Rockville restaurant is India Palace in College Plaza and his favorite city park is College Gardens Park, natch. What you don’t know about Mark is that he recently taught himself to ride the unicycle.

(P.S., I had to ask him, so I will pass this knowledge on to you. Mark’s last name is pronounced per-SHAY-lah.)

(Audio of this interview is here. Large file, 4MB.)

DREW POWELL

Drew Powell lives in Woodley Gardens and is current chair of Neighbors for a Better Montgomery, a volunteer group that works on overdevelopment and campaign fincance issues (among others). Drew sees many important issues facing whoever is the new mayor. Chief among them, he says, is zoning and development. He thinks this has not been done well in the city or the county: “Without question, one of the thing
s the city does similar to the county is decide on zoning, what gets built where, and development,” he says. “Those things have the greatest impact on people’s quality of life.” Drew positions himself as someone working to pull back the reins on overdevelopment. “We saw a major sea change in 2006 with new candidates for county council. There was an outcry from citizens on out-of-control growth.”

Beyond overdevelopment, but connected to it, Drew thinks city spending is an issue. He points out that one third of every city tax dollar is being spent on Town Square and asks how we can really afford that. (He also points to the city’s current use of outside counsel instead of having its own legal department as wasteful. According to Drew, the city spends about $1.6 million per year on legal fees to two outside firms. Neighbor-up-the-Pike Gaithersburg, which is slightly larger, spends just $150 thousand per year.) Drew is also worried that overdevelopment is harming the city’s environment, especially its tree canopy. Overall, he says, we need to ask these questions of all new development: “Does it enhance our quality of life? Is it something we can afford? Will it help us move forward as a city?”

Drew says he sees this race as really between him and city council member Susan Hoffmann, whom he criticizes as being too connected to developers. “I believe our vision of where Rockville needs to go is very different. . . . ‘Smart Growth’ can be dumb growth if you ignore the facts.” He points out, for example, that Town Center is in jeopardy of failing because it has not attracted enough residential customers yet. He also points to a new development near the Twinbrook Metro Station as a mistake. The new mixed-use development will attract about 1,500 new residents, he says. “But according to the U.S. Census, only 30% of the people who live within a half mile of a Metro station use it. These people are all going to also drive cars. All these cars are going to come onto the roads, where we’ve got intersection failures already.” The bottom line, for Drew, is this: “This is a community of neighborhoods. Once we’ve lost that, we won’t get it back.”

Drew did not want to name one favorite restaurant but I was able to squeeze out of him that he loves Bombay Bistro. And he does see eye-to-eye with Susan Hoffman on at least one thing. His favorite city park (while he praises the Senior Center and Welsh Park) is Mattie Stepanek Park by King Farm.

To his opponents, he says, “I wish then the best; my opponents are fine people. I have nothing ill to say about my opponent or anyone else who is running.”

(Audio of this interview is here. Large file, 4MB.)

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