Moore Announces For City Council

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Today Tom Moore is officially declaring his run for City Council. We here at Rockville Central do not endorse candidates, but we love participation in our local elections and are pleased to provide information on all the candidates.

He announces his candidacy with this statement on why he wants to be a City Councilmember:

Our federal, state, and county governments have been hit hard by this recession. Rockville’s city government has largely been spared so far, but there is trouble coming. I will be a leader with the energy to address the tough decisions that lie ahead, and the flexibility to catch whatever curve balls get hit to us. I have been involved in Rockville’s planning, our traffic, our libraries, and our neighborhoods. I have worked with our seniors. I have helped drain the politics out of some of our most touchy compensation issues. My background in Rockville’s public safety is unmatched among council candidates and incumbents.

If elected, my number one task will be what ought to be the number one task of everyone associated with Rockville’s government: The continued delivery of exceptional services to our residents. I will work to assure that we have affordable housing that respects our neighborhoods. I will pressure Rockville’s commercial landlords to quickly fill their empty spaces, such as the SuperFresh site in Town Center. I will work with the county and the state to ease Rockville’s traffic woes. I will monitor the implementation of our new green building code and make sure it achieves its goals without bringing unintended burdens. And I will work well with my colleagues, no matter who they are. There has been far too toxic an atmosphere among councilmembers; the people of Rockville deserve better.

More information can be found at his website.

If you would like to meet this new candidate, he’s kicking off his campaign in person at Giuseppi’s Pizza on Sunday, July 12, 2009 at 1PM. He says “Come thirsty for a little bit of civics and hungry for a lot of pizza!”

Rockville Adopts Budget On 3-2 Vote

>Our friends at the Gazette have a very good recap of the details on the Mayor and Council’s vote Monday night to adopt a new budget for Our Fair City. The vote was three-two in favor:

The City Council on Monday narrowly adopted Rockville’s fiscal 2010 budget with an operating budget that is nearly 1 percent less than fiscal 2009 while including salary increases for all city employees.

The adopted operating budget is $101.8 million, a decrease of 0.9 percent, or $893,705.

The Capital Improvements Program is budgeted at $68.2 million, a decrease of nearly $5.5 million over last year.

Councilwoman Anne M. Robbins and Councilwoman Phyllis R. Marcuccio voted against the budget, with Robbins saying her opposition is primarily due to the cost-of-living and merit increases for city employees totaling $1.78 million that is included in the budget, a concern she has raised throughout the budget process. . . . Marcuccio’s concern was with the budget process and said she still had outstanding issues that were not addressed.

“The process we use on the budget I’m sure is very efficient and very thorough as far as the staff is concerned, but it’s not very satisfying as far as a council member is concerned,” Marcuccio said.

City Found In Violation Of Open Meetings Act

>According to the Gazette, the state’s Open Meeting Compliance Board has ruled that the when, at the end of its January 26 executive session, the Mayor and Council directed City staff to explore a lease agreement for Red Gate golf course, it “extended beyond the permissible bounds for a closed meeting under the act.”

The ruling was in response to a complaint brought by Rockville resident (and Rockville Central contributor) Joseph Jordan. “I didn’t have a problem with them discussing personnel matters or getting legal advice, but when they took a vote on what they were going to do I thought that was out of bounds,” he told the Gazette.

Mayor Susan R. Hoffmann told the Gazette she disagreed with the finding: “We were dealing with legal advice and legal advice was perfectly appropriate under [state law] to be in executive session.”

The compliance board decided that the Mayor and Council were OK getting legal advice from the city attorney, and that “much of the discussion involved matters properly considered under the personnel exception as authorized by the act.” However, the board said the they crossed the line when they told City staff to begin negotiations over a possible lease of Red Gate.

Mayor And Council On Pay Raise: "No Thanks."

The Rockville Mayor and Council voted Monday to reject the city’s Compensation Commission recommendation that the legislators’ stipends be increased by 2% based on cost of living data.>

The Gazette quotes Council Member Phyllis M. Marcuccio: “No, thank you, I suppose is the only way I can put it. . . . We certainly know this is not the time.”

The move keeps legislators’ pay at $25,750 for the Mayor, and $20,600 for Council members. Council Member Piotr Gajewski proposed a reduction in these amounts (to $19,000 and $15,000 respectively), which he said would save the City $30,000 per year. His proposal failed for lack of a second.

State Of The City Set For Weds., Feb. 11

>This from Our Fair City:

Please join Mayor Susan Hoffmann, Councilmember Phyllis Marcuccio and Councilmember John Britton for an open discussion on the “State of the City” – brief presentations on the activities of the Mayor and Council in the past year and issues that our community may address in the upcoming year.

Following the presentations, the floor will be open for questions and public discussion. In the spirit of “Buy Rockville” and to enable attendees to shop and dine prior to or after the public discussion, the “State of the City” discussion will be held in the first floor meeting room of the Rockville Town Center Library on Wednesday, February 11th at 7 p.m. All are welcome.

Pierzchala Declares Candidacy For City Council

The election campaign of 2009 officially began today as >Mark Pierzchala declared his candidacy for City Council by sending this message:

I announce my candidacy for Rockville City Council. In these days of economic stress, Rockville will have to make many hard choices. I am the person who will provide clear, strong, and respectful leadership. I will be “A Leader for Our Times”.

In considering whether to mount a campaign for council member, I ultimately could not accept the first budget passed by the present Mayor and Council that authorized 23 ½ new City Staff positions and that raised spending 9.5%. Even if economic forecasts at that time had been rosy, and they were not, this level of spending increase is not acceptable.

Other major themes of my campaign include the simultaneous promotion of economic development and ecological renewal; a return to civility and a more open government; and strengthening communications between the neighborhoods, elected officials, and City Staff.

I will wage a vigorous and honorable campaign. All candidates have a passion for Rockville and there is honest disagreement on direction. It is time that Rockville had a sharply focused campaign on policy issues and I intend to provide that.

Since it has been a while since the last city election, I thought it might be a nice time to reiterate the Rockville Central approach to elections (an article from the last city election on that is here). We see ourselves a resource for the people of Rockville, a safe space for dialogue and a source of information and news.

Rockville Central itself does not endorse any candidates. While we may hold individual opinions, when we express them it will be clearly indicated as opinion. And, we always bend over backwards to be fair, transparent, and open — actively seeking contrary opinions to our own. And we will always be open to dialogue with readers and members of the community.

Here is what you can expect us to try our best to give you:

• A way to know who is running for what City offices, with a link to their campaign website
• Significant news items or analysis that relate to their positions on City issues or the overall viability of their candidacy
• Interviews with candidates — written recaps and full audio (see below for how you can help)
• Personal opinion — tagged as opinion — about the election if it seems honestly helpful
• A direct statement from each candidate, either text or video or both
• A photo of each person running for City office
• Other information and that seems useful

We will try to make sure you won’t get:

• Screeds, rants, tirades, anonymous flame-wars, personal attacks
• Ideological invective disguised as “news”
• Trumped-up “investigation” pieces that amount to nothing
• Glowing puff-pieces disguised as “news”
• Endorsements by Rockville Central
• Punditry, predictions, and insider politics

As a political geek, I am delighted the election season is here and I wish all candidates the best of luck!

No Action Taken On Beall's Grant II [updated]

After a Citizen’s Forum that featured fifty speakers split almost evenly for and against, the Mayor and Council took no action last night on a proposed resolution in support of the proposed affordable housing development, Beall’s Grant II.>

The resolution in support was needed by the Montgomery Housing Partnership, the development’s sponsor, in order to apply to the State of Maryland for Low Income Tax Credits, a key piece of financing for the construction. The application is due today.

The lack of support means that MHP cannot apply for the state funding in this round, and must wait nine months. According to MHP, this will add up to $1 million in cost to the project and some observers have said it may derail it altogether.

The project has been the source of great controversy for a number of months, after having seen smooth sailing. Despite the West End Citizens Association’s board endorsing the project in February, a number of residents say they first heard of the initiative when it came up for review at a July Planning Commission meeting. That meeting was highly contentious. Since that time, “Stop Beall’s Grant II” signs have appeared throughout the West End neighborhood as well as elsewhere. Montgomery Housing Partnership has also worked behind the scenes to garner support for the project.

In recent weeks, MHP and local residents have met to negotiate possible reductions in the scope of the project, with little evident progress.

The crowd spilled out into the hallway, where people watched on monitors. Throughout the audience, people held signs indicating their support or opposition. Twenty four citizens spoke in favor and 26 spoke against the project at last night’s Mayor and Council meeting. [UPDATE: Other accounts have 53 speakers. There were three speakers who spoke in a row employed by and representing MHP. I didn't count them.]

However, the members of the Mayor and Council focused on an issue few raised in their statements. In the hours just before the meeting, Montgomery Housing Partnership’s chief, Rob Goldman, had hit upon what he hoped would be a strategy to keep MHP’s funding application alive while still offering guarantees to the local residents that MHP would still have an incentive to continue negotiations. The strategy involved the Mayor and Council writing a letter in support to add to MHP’s application, but not passing a resolution. The Mayor and Council would defer the resolution until ninety days later, at which point it would only pass it if it felt MHP had continued negotiations in good faith.

The letter would be enough to initiate the application process, but before settling, it is a state requirement that there be a formal resolution in order for the financing to be completed.

The new strategy, while of interest to some members, raised questions for others about procedure. The group agreed that they had been laboring under the impression that last night’s meeting was the “drop dead deadline,” according to Council Member John Britton. But with the new plan, and a new deadline, Britton said, “we might have approached this evening differently.” He said he was “taken aback” by the new tactic.

Council Member Anne Robbins asked City Attorney Paul Glasgow whether the two-step plan had merit and whether it would do what MHP said it would. “I don’t know because I only found out about the idea at five o’clock today,” replied Glasgow. “I think what Paul said speaks volumes,” Robbins said. She later said she felt “ill-used” by the way the idea came up.

For her part, Council member Phyllis Marcuccio said that after a pivotal meeting in October when MHP and WECA vowed to negotiate, she “wished there had been a flurry of meetings” to work out a compromise. But meetings had only begun in the last few weeks. While some point to MHP for the delay, MHP said it had been asked to follow WECA’s lead, and WECA had not formed a committee to negotiate until only recently.

“There were missteps on both sides,” said council member Britton. “WECA was schizophrenic” about a committee, having first not created one and then created one, and MHP “had communications problems. If you wanted our support, this whole strategy should have been laid at our feet weeks ago, so we could see it.”

The two clear supporters of the Beall’s Grant II project, Mayor Susan Hoffmann and Council Member Piotr Gajewski, appeared in favor of the new idea, but there was no support for it.

As debate drew to a close, and the group was considering the original question of whether to pass a resolution in support or not, Mayor Hoffmann read with permission from a letter by Rockville resident Bill Newhouse. “I am concerned that Beall’s Grant II is being subjected to greater hurdles than other developers have to endure,” wrote Newhouse.

However, this was not enough. The agenda item died when none would make a motion to bring the resolution up for vote.

[NB: Quotations are from my notes and may not be exactly verbatim.]

Mayor And Council To Consider Beall's Grant II, Approve New Zoning Plan

Many >Rockville Central readers have been following two issues that have generated a fair share of controversy: Beall’s Grant II and the new zoning ordinance that various bodies have been working on for more than a year.

Both of these issues are scheduled to be taken up by the Mayor and Council at Monday’s regularly scheduled meeting at 7pm at City Hall.

• On Beall’s Grant II, the Mayor and Council will consider whether to pass a resolution in support of the project in order to enable it to be eligible for low income tax credits from the state.
• On the zoning ordinance, the Mayor and Council are expected to take the final action of approving it.

I should be at Cub Scouts that night, but I plan to attend in order to discuss Beall’s Grant II. I know that a lot of my neighbors and friends (who hold all manner of views on the issue) are planning to be there too. It should be a lively debate.

For those who are curious, and for transparency’s sake, here is the long version of what I plan to say.

Gajewski Town Hall Meeting Features Calm Debate

This evening I attended Council Member >Piotr Gajewski’s quarterly town hall meeting at City Hall. Like the inaugural such meeting (back in February), which I attended and found to be “civil and frank,” this one had much to recommend it.

I am glad Council Member Gajewski holds these informal meetings, as it allows people a chance to be heard and to ask questions. While the attendance ebbs and flows and there are certainly a few of the “usual suspects,” there were people there who spoke up who were definitely not accustomed to stepping forward. This was a way “in” to civic life for them.

Topics covered in the meeting — these were primarily brought up by attendees themselves — included the Twinbroook Neighborhood Plan, the city’s rezoning effort, parking fees in Town Square, overall philosophical approach to budgeting and expenses, and the new task force to look at possible term limits for boards and commissions. (There were others; these were just a few.)

On that last point, Council Member Gajewski sounded skeptical: “We appoint something like 160 members of boards and commissions overall. Annually we probably appoint 30, 40 or 50. That is a big task. . . . It is in the Mayor’s court to recruit good people and put them forward and get the Council members to come forward.”

He also made a point that I had not heard before: the City Charter gives the mayor the power to appoint members of boards and commissions, with the approval of the Council. So, in order to institute actual, enforceable term limits, it would take an amendment of the City Charter. I am not an expert on such things, so I can’t speak to whether there are ways around that. I do know that the question of how best to recruit and appoint citizens to serve on commissions for the City is worthy of discussion.

Some attendees brought up various aspects of planning — especially as it relates to Twinbrook. Gajewski said that, in general, the City has not necessarily done a good job of managing the process of developing such plans (like the new zoning ordinance). His preference would be for City staff to gather input and write the first draft of most planning documents: “I would have liked staff to take input and take a first crack at it, then the planning commission, then when it arrives at the Mayor and Council’s doorstep there are maybe three policy issues to be decided.”

As many Rockville Central readers know, the Mayor and Council are right now considering the 2010 city budget. “We are heading into a conservative budget,” Gajewski said. “The good news is, we won’t raise taxes. The bad news is, we won’t lower the tax rate.” He went on: “We need to be very careful of expenses. . . My pet peeve is that we don’t charge enough money for some of our services. And in some cases we are in a business we do not need to be in.” Gajewski offered the example of youth soccer, which is also offered by other organizations, “who do fine.”

Near the end of the meeting, Gajewski turned the tables on the group and asked us a question. “I am not sure where I come down on this,” he began. There is a proposal to allow a zoning exception to Marlo furniture so as to allow them to have a self-storage business in their now-empty warehouse. There are good arguments for and against (recounted well in this Gazette article). On the one hand, times are hard and this move could help keep the business afloat. On the other hand, we are spending a great deal of energy developing a plan for Rockville Pike, and this is arguably the most important intersection in the City along that street. Self-storage is not now allowed in the zoning, nor is it contemplated to be in the new zoning law – would it really be the right thing to allow this use?

The give-and-take that followed was a joy to see for a civic geek like me. People weighed the options and thought the issue through. We didn’t take a vote or anything, so I won’t speak for the people present as to whether they changed their minds or not. It was just enough, for me, to see people engaging with one another so earnestly, and to see an office holder wrestling with a tough issue along with them.

The subjects moved on and later, as the meeting drew to a close, attendee Mark Pierzchala capped the evening with what I thought was a fine idea, if some of the finer points can be worked out. “We are looking for ways to bring more people to Town Square,” he said. “What about an ice skating rink?”

Bring back an ice rink. I think that could be a cool idea.

Gajewski Town Hall Thursday, Nov. 20

>Rockville Central readers were among the first to read about City Council Member Piotr Gajewski’s plans to hold periodic “town hall meetings” and were the first to be able to read a recap of the inaugural one. Since that time I haven’t been able to attend, but I am happy my schedule has cleared up and I am looking forward to the next one.

Here’s the info:

Council Member Gajewski Town Hall Meeting
Thursday, November 20, 2008
8:00 pm
Black-Eyed Susan Room
Rockville City Hall
111 Maryland Ave.

I am in favor of such “individual” events held and convened by members of the Mayor and Council, as it allows citizens a chance to get to know office holders on an individual basis, as opposed to only seeing them as part of a group. Each of the members of the Mayor and Council bring their own particular viewpoint, strengths, and approach to the collective work of governing Our Fair City, and I enjoy seeing how they interact — and also how they think things through on their own.

Comment Period Closes Today On New Zoning Ordinance

This is just a reminder to all those who have been following Our Fair City’s efforts to reforge our decades-old >zoning ordinance.

The deadline for public comments to get into the official record, which has been extended a few times, is set to close at the close of business today.

See the City’s press release for more info on how to comment.

The Mayor and Council are set to meet to discuss the new ordinance on Monday, November 17, with a target adoption date of December 15.

Most Dangerous Intersections In Rockville

In a >Gazette article outlining a proposal by Council Member (and, by the way, frequent Rockville Radio listener) John Britton to place Darnestown Road on a “road diet” and squeeze it from four to two lanes, there is appended a list of the ten most dangerous intersections (for pedestrians) in Our Fair City.

The City put this list together in April, but I only now just noticed and it seemed a worthwhile thing to know. So, I helpfully mapped them all out below:

(Don’t forget, if you are getting this by email, you’ll have to come back to the blog to see the map.)

Here is the list of intersections:

1. Route 355 and Halpine Road
2. Veirs Mill Road and Atlantic Avenue
3. East Jefferson and Monroe streets
4. Jefferson and South Washington streets
5. First Street and Baltimore Road
6. Route 355 and Edmonston Drive
7. Route 355 and First Street/Wootton Parkway
8. Route 355 and East Middle Lane
9. Route 355 and Redland Road
10. Shady Grove Road and Fallsgrove Boulevard

Back to Council member Britton’s proposal. It’s got a funny story behind it. It seems it is in response, according to the Gazette,

. . . to a letter the city received from the county that said the city’s request to remove trucks from Darnestown Road was not viable because the road is an arterial road and allows a high volume of traffic, including trucks.

“And because trucks use it, it has to be designated an arterial,” Britton said.

“I read that book, it’s called ‘Catch-22,’” Mayor Susan R. Hoffmann joked during Monday’s [Mayor and Council] meeting.

In addition to serving on the governing body of Our Fair City, Britton is a member of Montgomery County’s Pedestrian Safety Advisory Committee.

Mayor And Council: More Time For Zoning, Extend Moratorium

For >Rockville Central readers who are curious how Council Member Piotr Gajewski’s proposal to “indefinitely suspend” Our Fair City’s effort to redraft the zoning ordinance fared, our friends at the Gazette have provided an update that covers the important points.

At Monday’s Mayor and Council meeting, according to their article:

By a vote of 4 to 1, the council extended the halt on new construction in the city through Dec. 31 or until the zoning ordinance goes into effect, whichever comes first. This is the fourth time the moratorium has been extended since it was first approved in November 2006.

The council also voted to extend time for a decision on the zoning ordinance until Nov. 27. The law requires the council to come to a decision within 90 days of the public hearing. The last public hearing was on June 30. Not extending the time would have allowed the application to expire and the process would have to start all over again.

The sole no vote was that of Council Member Gajewski, who said in an email last Sunday that he would prefer to use text amendments to accomplish needed zoning changes.

Gajewski Proposes Suspension of Zoning Revisions

This evening’s >meeting of the Mayor and Council may be even more interesting than one would have previously thought.

Sunday evening, Council Member Piotr Gajewski proposed via email to his colleagues on the Mayor and Council that they “step back and indefinitely suspend our work on the Zoning Ordinance.”

As many residents of Our Fair City know, Rockville is nearing the end of a lengthy review process where the overall law that governs all zoning throughout the City is being redrafted. This began with a committee called RORZOR, which included a number of citizens, who then drafted a proposal that was passed along to the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission revised that proposal and passed it on the the Mayor and Council, who have final authority and responsibility for adopting it.

Tonight was slated to be a worksession on the final draft of the proposed ordinance.

Council Member Gajewski wrote, in part:

Many agree that the process to try to comprehensively revise Rockville’s zoning ordinance has been flawed from the outset.

A committee of well meaning lay-people created a first draft document that was much criticized and contained major problems.

Off to a bad start, the problems only compounded when the Planning Commission entered the arena and, after taking public input, tried to make lemonade out of the lemon it got.

The document improved some, but even by its own admission, the Planning Commission punted on many major issues.

Throughout the process, staff has had the difficult task to keep up with ever-changing new ideas and demands, so that the technical execution of the document has struggled. The document continues with major technical flaws that renders it unusable in present form.

The reality that has emerged is that Rockville is better off with the current zoning protocol than it would be with what is being proposed.

He goes on to suggest that, where changes are felt to be needed, they can be dealt with on a targeted basis, by making text amendments to the existing zoning ordinance. “Individual text amendments that focus on specific elements will allow us to delve into the necessary details more easily, allow everyone to better understand what we really intend, and ensure that we avoid unintended consequences,” Gajewski writes.

Tonight’s meeting is, as always, at 7:00 pm at City Hall. It begins with Citizen’s Forum, where any citizen can address the Mayor and Council (to do so, it is best to call the City Clerk 240-314-8280 by 4:00 p.m. to get on the list). The full meeting is televised on The Rockville Channel and will also be available through the City’s new video on demand system within a day or two.

My Opinion: Woodley Gardens Shopping Center Was Not In Need Of Rescue

>Monday morning, I got an email from a friend asking about whether the City was planning to rezone the Woodley Gardens shopping center — the one on Nelson Street with local landmarks Carmen’s and the Hard Times Cafe, among other neighborhood businesses. They’d heard that this would be discussed at Monday’s Mayor and Council meeting. I checked the agenda and found nothing on that subject.

But plans were in the offing. If you read the Gazette, you know that a number of residents came to Citizens Forum that night and spoke up about the idea of rezoning that shopping center from its current “C-1″ zone (which means it is commercial) to a possible mixed-use zone that will be called “MXNC”:

Residents of Woodley Gardens attended Monday night’s council meeting in droves to oppose what they thought was a decision to rezone their neighborhood shopping center on Nelson Street. . . . However, council members responded that while they had not yet voted on the issue, they support designating the shopping center as mixed-use commercial (MXC), which would allow for the same height and density that now exists, but with differing setbacks. . . .”That to me is a dead issue,” Councilman John B. Britton said Monday. “MXNC was already decided among my colleagues that that was not going to work.”

This gathering was evidently driven by an item that had appeared in the draft new zoning ordinance that the RORZOR committee developed.

Watching the video of the proceedings, the pleas from local residents as well as business owners were heartfelt, well-reasoned, and persuasive. The only problem is that the Mayor and Council had already heard about the issue and were definitely inclined to go along with the residents on this one. Their Civic Association president, Jim Reschovksy, had already testified to the Mayor and Council on the subject and won their hearts (and minds).

The Mayor and Council are charged with reviewing, amending, and finally adopting the new zoning ordinance. It is their responsibility, as the ones who are politically accountable, and they are going through the massive document line by line. This is taking time. In the meantime, they have made no decisions. (They are meeting in a worksession tonight to discuss the draft, and will devote the September 22 meeting to further discussion. They hope to adopt the ordinance on October 6. Furthermore, they may choose to reopen the public record on the ordinance — stay tuned.)

The group who testified appeared to have been organized and requested to attend — a flyer had been circulated and many speakers said they had just heard about the issue a couple of weeks earlier. Their talking points were all very similar. The whole thing appeared designed to convey a groundswell of support — which there was. But, sadly, the energy of this group appeared to have been activated without reason.

Says the Gazette: “‘Mr. Reschovsky represented your view well,’ [Mayor Susan] Hoffmann told the audience. ‘When [he] did, it certainly sealed the deal for me and I’m not surprised that the community prefers to keep the character of the shopping center.’”

My fear is that the citizens who took the time to come to City Hall and testify may now feel as if they were brought under false pretenses. The organizers, presumably, could have checked on the status of Woodley Gardens Shopping Center with a quick phone call and would have found that perhaps other important issues were more worthy of their time. This one already had been handled.

I hope that, next time there is an issue that demands community input and about which residents’ good energies are needed, that they are still willing to step forward as they did Monday night.

What do you think?