Gajewski Town Hall Recap

Council Member >Piotr Gajewski held his first-ever “Town Hall Meeting” last night at City Hall, an event which he said may become quarterly. I was there.

I counted a total of 27 citizens attending. People whose names I know who were there included, in no particular order: Frank Anastasi, Cynthia Cotte Griffiths, Art Stigile, Brigitta Mullican, Christina Ginsberg, Mark Pierzchala, Joseph Jordan, Jacquie Kubin, Belinda Engels, Bob Reiver, Carl Henn, Roald Schrack, Sally Stinner. (If you were there and I do not know your name, I apologize. Let me know!)

I found the meeting to be both civil and frank. At some points, emotions seemed to be running high. Over the course of the meeting, a handful walked out in frustration at various points. Having led many community conversation sessions myself, I can say that my impression at the time was that it must not have been an easy meeting to run.

This is just a recap taken from my notes. It’s not meant to be authoritative. It does not cover every subject that came up, but I think this hits the key themes and most of the key points that were made. I try to keep my opinion out of it and just stick to the facts. I welcome others to make corrections and clarifications. The best way to do that is in the comments, so all can see.

Around Rockville In Eighty Days

Gajewski began the evening recapping some of the legislative accomplishments of his first 80 days in office. The accomplishments (or activities) he listed were for the whole council, not just his own. His list included improving pedestrian safety at Richard Montgomery High School, the Rockville Green Building program, adopting a comprehensive financial policies document, and instituting paid parking in Town Square (there were others too).

He also gave a sneak preview of a new “City Vision” — indicating that it contained the aspiration that Rockville should become known as a cultural center, including both high culture and popular culture events.

Then he launched into the substance of the meeting.

District Court House

The first subject was the new District Court House. (I am not going to recap the substance of that issue here, as Rockville Central readers are probably pretty well studied up on it.) He started with what he called a “civics lesson,” complete with a diagram on the white board, outlining the facts — which he summed up as:

• The City has no role;
• The State’s wishes trump the City’s;
• The state funding process is such that, should the court house not get a “go” in the current state budget, the project would then go away and not reappear for ten years or so.

He then began stepping through a time line. When I asked, he said that it had been provided to him by Phil Simmons. (This was later clarified by someone else’s question after the meeting: It is evidently a time line prepared by State Delegate Luis Simmons.)

The time line reconstructs events back to 1999, and builds a case that, since that time, the City has known the court house was coming, directed the state to the “old library site” in the first place, and did not raise objections to the location of the court house even when plans were presented to the Mayor and Council in 2005 (in that meeting, according to the time line, then-Mayor Larry Giammo is said to have objected to the design and lack of parking for the planned building, “but not to the site itself.”)

The meeting began to get heated here. Some participants (including Frank Anastasi, a Rockville Central contributor, and Sally Stinner, a West End resident, among others) jumped in a few times with clarifications to the time line and additions designed to show that the city (and its citizens) had been trying throughout the entire process to raise objections about the new court house, dating back to 2001, but were continually rebuffed and told it was a “done deal.”

Council Member Gajewski held to his point. “From the State’s point of view,” he said, “they did everything right.” It was, instead the City that “dropped the ball” by not objecting officially when it had a chance to do so in 2005. Given the current situation, Gajewski said:

“There are two options. First, the court house is going forward. Swallow hard, admit it, and think about what we can do to make it work better. The second option is the one I call the ‘Nuke Option’ . . . which is to get really creative and start talking about lawsuits.”

Of the latter option, he said that he did not see will among the council to go that route, but was unsure. “Six weeks ago,” he said, “we were unanimous in believing that if it were a choice between a court house on that site and no court house at all, we would choose the court house.” He went on, “Since that time, I know that Council Member [John] Britton has changed his mind.”

For his part, he said, he saw merit in the view that, “Rockville needs to be a mature municipality who is a responsible partner.” In other words, he went on to elaborate, the best course of action is to accept that the court house will be built, and look at ways to mitigate its impact.

Water Maintenance Fees

Next up was another contentious issue, water utility maintenance fees. The City’s sewers were built after WWII, 50 years ago, and they are now worn out — there has been
no plan to replace them. The City has essentially done no preventive maintenance on its 180 miles of water and sewer pipes, just ongoing repairs as needed; it is time now to pay the piper.

Gajewski said that surcharges were on the way, probably in the neighborhood of a surcharge that WSSC recently instituted of about $300 per year. He said that he felt that such fees ought to be indexed so that lower income people could afford them — and that, before asking citizens to pay, the City ought to look harder at ways it can reallocate its existing budget.

In a later email to some community members, Council Member Gajewski expanded on his views:

“I do feel that the City is coming to this issue at the right time (a few years ago, pipes weren’t bursting), on a similar schedule as other water authorities (WSSC for example), and, of course, the charge that is coming is a fee not a tax. From a personal perspective, as a King Farm resident, I will not be subject to the City fee (not yet quantified), but will have to pay the additional WSSC fee, estimated at about $300 per year. This is especially annoying as at King Farm I have completely new pipes, so that my fee will be going to replace other pipes in the WSSC system. The pipes at King Farm will not need replacing in my lifetime.”

A New Form Of Government

Finally, Council Member Gajewski seemed to surprise many in the room when he asked what they thought of the idea of switching to a “strong mayor” form of government. “In the current model,” he said, “accountability goes out the door.” With a strong executive, who is elected and has control, someone is accountable in a way a group of elected officials is not.

A few citizens said that the problem was not the form of government, but the quality of oversight that the council is currently exercising over staff. More than one citizen said they felt as if council members were “led” by staff, and not given enough options. (One participant pointed out that the council is indeed given three or more options for most issues, and that they are free to follow or reject advice of staff.)

Mark Pierzchala, who had been silent for the whole meeting, spoke up. “We just had a city election,” he said. “We had eight candidate forums. Tens of thousands of doors were knocked on. Not once did the form of government for the City come up. Now, with the election over with, the subject comes up. I am not necessarily opposed, but I think that a campaign is the right time to begin raising those questions. Now is not the time.”

Gajewski disagreed, saying, “I think during the campaign, you are running within the system,” so it is difficult to campaign on changes one would make to the system.

One Citizen’s Questions

Among the handful of citizens who left was Belinda Engels of Twinbrook. She later sent the following (edited for length) to Rockville Central:

I was at the Town Hall Meeting this evening and I give Mr. Gajewski a lot of credit for having the meeting and for answering questions posed in, what appeared to be, an honest and straight forward manner. . . . If I may pose my questions on Rockville Central perhaps someone with answers will respond.

1) Has the State of Maryland made any projections as to what the next step will be after the new Court House is built on the site of the old library and they discover that it is not adequate for their needs in a short time due to the growth of the population in Rockville and Montgomery County in general? After all, the millions of dollars to build the court house is taxpayer money, in one way or another, and it is senseless to build and have to build again at a different site in order to expand.

2) As I understand it, the planning phase of our “smart growth” has been going on for years. Projected traffic studies, environmental impact studies, etc. have been done and I would like to know what the projected profile of a Rockville resident in 5 years and 10 years is. I am sure that a profile(s) have been done and I’d like to know what persons and family units Rockville wants to have here. More and more I get the feeling it isn’t us — the people currently residing here.

3) In reading about the once a week trash collection we will be getting soon and how it will save the average household about $100 per year in increases, I notice the article says “bulk trash will be picked up by appointment.” This is a weekly service that was included in our regular trash schedule for as long as I can remember. Will we now be charged extra for bulk trash pickup? WSSC removes bulk trash but charges the customer extra for the service. You call and they come out to see what you have to dispose of, how much there is and then they give you a price for hauling it away. This system could void any savings to customers going to once a week trash collection.

4) We are going to have an increase in our water bill to cover updating the pipes, treatment plant, etc. I would like to know if the development of the Twinbrook metro and Rockville Pike areas will be using City of Rockville water and sewage or WSSC. Are we paying for improvements in order to service the new developments, after we have had to deal with broken water lines, clogged sewer lines and [had to] pay to replace our water lines from the street into our homes so we could have decent water flow for many, many years [while we have received] many promises of improvements?

5) I live on Ardennes Avenue, one block off Veirs Mill Road, at the opposite end of the Twinbrook Metro stop and I would like to know the future of our on street parking. I have asked a number of times and never gotten an answer.

I appreciate any assistance in getting my questions answered.

Thank you,
Belinda Engels

As I said at the beginning, this is not an exhaustive and authoritative recap, but it hits the high points. If you were there and have different recollections, or feel there are key points that I missed, I encourage you to bring them up!

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