[Part II] Campaign Trail: Space Invaders

Last night I was out at John F Kennedy HS, speaking along with all of the other candidates, to people invited by the Sierra Club of Montgomery County and the Action Committee for Transit (the Montgomery County Maryland Advocate for Smarter Transportation).

Not all that many people came, but then again, Montgomery County isn't all that well known as a hotbed of really active and involved members of the Sierra Club, which mostly concerns itself with issues about preserving the unadulterated wildernesses. In Montgomery, we don't have a lot of unadulterated wildernesses; we have a lot of 3rd-growth woodlands in the parks, though these are well-preserved and we have a lot of re-infiltration and re-establishment of woodland creatures. I suppose we could consider it good that the wildlife is re-establishing itself in a re-established urban semi-natural domain, which we all like to protect.

The Action Committee for Transit brought out a lot of the Urban Planning Blogspace people, and this interacts with the Sierra Club of Montgomery in a sort of strange-bedfellows way. But this is almost to be expected as the "Smart Growth" contingent of ACT meshes well with Sierra Club: both tend to want to concentrate people where people ought to be concentrated, and to preserve nature where it can be preserved, even if it is only a very simplified and approximated restoration of the nature originally to be found here where we now live.

I think all of the candidates expressed themselves well. However, in a move I thought was not well-done, the Republican and the Green candidate were shuffled off to their own severely under-attended session in another space. This was protested, and rightly so, though in deference to the organizers I did not rise to join the protest. Indeed, regardless of Party, we are all up for election and we all ought to be put in the same space to answer the same questions to the same audience. A very important point, but I digress.

I can't give you point-by-point, I will leave that to other reporters, as after all I am a trifle prejudiced, being a candidate.

But I will give you some idea of the follow-on.

---

After the show, there was much milling around and people talking to each other, all as it should be.

However, there was one interaction which I have to discuss.

This is something that personally really bothers me, to the point of "I just can't stand it".

---

SPACE INVADER

I have a very deep sense of interpersonal spacing.

Most people seem to inherently understand Proxemics, the study of interpersonal spacing. After all, it's culturally defined, by definition.

This one old fellow got up all in my space. Look, call me what you will, but if I can reach out and touch your eyeball with my shoulder, you are standing too damned close.

I don't let my mother, my father, or my sisters stand that close.

If I had a lover, I might let her stand that close, side-by-side, arm-in-arm.

But if you are a man, don't come up to me in a public place in a political appearance and stand closer to me than I would let my own child stand in public. Especially if I don't know you and haven't ever seen you before. If you're a woman I've never seen before and don't know, don't stand that close. That is clear lack of comprehension of boundaries. In Proxemic terms, for Americans of "old-school" culture, this is a lack of comprehension of boundaries bordering on either psychosis or intentional violation of space in an attempt to harass.

I am perfectly happy to shake hands. I am perfectly happy to sit and drink coffee. I could even maybe dine across a totally standard table, and if I know you well enough -- if you are family or that close to familiar, if you are a dear friend -- we could eat off of the same plate.

But if I don't know you, I don't care how co-conspiratorial you are in terms of political solidarity. Men can whisper to each other, in the Roman way, if they know each other well enough. But if I don't know you...

Social space, outside of a crowd in a party, is the distance between me and you shaking hands, or the distance of my outstretched arm. Don't follow me across a parking lot at a distance closer than I would use to carry my aged mother to an ambulance. Don't try to herd me like a dog herds sheep, by pressing and invading my personal space. Especially don't impute that I can only carry Flower Valley if I let you get closer to me than I'd let someone stand if I was trying to get cruised in a gay bar, old man. I'm not your "chicken", "chicken hawk".

And never again stand so close to me and then whip out your car keys like I'd whip out a Buck knife. Under Maryland law, you have been warned. "Don't do that. Ever." Come no closer to me than a handshake, nor stand closer than that distance.

Have some sense of boundaries. I'm approachable, but I am not your bitch.

Boundaries, bud. Boundaries. Stay on your side of the line.

And if I have to let you run roughshod over my boundaries to carry Flower Valley, all I can say is, "what kind of respect do I owe to whoever does carry Flower Valley".

Goddamned CREEP.

Focused Neighborhood Assistance Program

With very short notice, the Gazette announces a meeting date for parties interested in the Focused Neighborhood Assistance Program ("FNAP").

This targets parts of Councilmanic District 4 just south and east of Aspen Hill proper.

The troubled swath of neighborhoods -- which lie between Georgia Avenue and Veirs Mill Road, north of Randolph Road and south of Matthew Henson State Park -- was generally built in the timeframe of the very early 1950s and typically has a lot of smaller houses, generally with a semi-finished walk-up attic, semi-finished basement, two or three bedrooms, and one or two bathrooms, perhaps as small as 850 square feet. It has been particularly hard-hit by the housing-bubble and the following collapse of the real-estate bubble and construction-employment bubble. It's got one of the highest rates of foreclosure and "walk away" vacancies.

This is definitely in the region of concerns for the Greater Glenmont Civic Association and its members.

The meeting is scheduled for:

Tuesday 31 March 2009, 7:00-9:00PM
Wheaton High School Cafeteria
12601 Dalewood Drive

[Part I] Candidate Debates (Montgomery Community Television)

At 7PM tonight, Friday's question-and-answers session taped at the studios of Montgomery Community Television will be broadcast. It will be recurrently broadcast on an as-yet-unknown schedule until April 21st, the primary election date.

This was pretty straightforward, sort of an open and shut case, so to speak.

Tomorrow night, come see us from 7:00 - 9:00 PM, at:

Paint Branch High School Auditorium
14121 Old Columbia Pike
Burtonsville, MD 20866

This event will be sponsored by the Paint Branch High School PTSA.

Ah, Burtonsville. Overlooked by so many, forgotten by so few.

Shadowy Consultations Over REAL ID in Annapolis

Today, the Gazette posted an article about a shady closed-door meeting between leading lawmakers and Federal homeland security officials.

It seems that an allegedly routine meeting should not have been held behind closed doors. To add an even higher level of suspiciousness to the affair, attendance was limited and timed so that at no time would there be a quorum of the House Judiciary Committee present. According to the Gazette,

Despite that, lawmakers went to great lengths to ensure there was not a quorum of House Judiciary Committee members present at any one time to stay within open meetings guidelines. As a new committee member would enter the room, another would leave.

The panel has 22 lawmakers, so no more than 11 could be present to keep things above board.

When House Judiciary Chairman Joseph F. Vallario Jr. (D-Dist. 27A) of Upper Marlboro began to spread the word about the meeting during a floor session last week, some committee members grew uncomfortable with the method in which it was being held.

Given the Obama Administration's recent focus on securing the border with Mexico -- due mostly to the deteriorating situation in the Mexican "Guerra Narcotrafficante" which is approaching outright revolution in some locales -- it's a reasonable speculation that legislators who have been dragging their feet on bringing Maryland up to speed in terms of adopting REAL ID standard, were told "officially unofficially" that Maryland would in fact be adopting REAL ID within weeks or face loss of significant amounts of Stimulus Package funding.

Maryland is one of only four states that will give driving permits or State ID to persons who cannot prove legal residence.

Mexico's Drug War has killed thousands in the last year, with many of those being law-enforcement officials, judges, and other government officials. Journalists have also been a common target.

Before now, this had largely been an internal affair of Mexico, but the war has been spilling onto US soil, with killings and retaliations all along the highways and in the cities of the border states. Phoenix, AZ, now has a rate of kidnapping exceeded only by that of Mexico DF, Mexico's capital city. It's widely believed that it's only a matter of time before the Mexican drug cartels and associated gangs in the distribution system begin to target Americans, and their mode of operation has always been to strike at as high a level of official as can be reached. Maryland's driving permits and identification cards have been exempted from compliance with REAL ID, and are thus the most fraudulently-obtained documents east of the Mississipi. This high level of risk combines with the ubiquitous use of this unsecured document to access all Federal facilities in the District of Columbia and environs, to make the Maryland DL almost a hazard in and of itself.

Candidate Forum Event Dates -- Come Out and Decide

We have helpfully mounted a Calendar of Candidate Forum Events at the District 4 Organization wiki.

Please attend at least one of these forums so you can see and hear your candidates. As the Young Democrats say on their flyer, "It's your $4 billion... Choose who spends it!"

Here's My Frakkin' "Green Cred"

If you don't have any idea of the meaning of "frakkin'" or "Green" or "cred", stop reading now.

Unless, maybe, you'd like to read a little essay I wrote about why Futurism is important.

For those who are not entirely devoid of Clue, this includes a nice MP3 of Faith No More playing their awesome track "We Care A Lot".

And we really do care a lot.

Because We're Out to Save the World.

It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it.

And if elected, to the best degree I can enable it, We Shall.

Maryland Politics Watch Going Partisan Again...

In an article bemoaning the sorry state of the Slow Growth Movement, Adam Pagnucco wails about how terrible it is that Alison Klumpp has endorsed Ben Kramer because Ben Kramer develops shopping centers, generally at established major intersections fairly close into town.

Evidently the difference between the folks who are trying to Pave the Bay, and the people who turn corner lots into shopping centers in the middle of long-established suburbias, continues to elude Mr Pagnucco as he fosters a spin that this election is only about Nancy Navarro and Ben Kramer.

Focusing on how even if Ben Kramer is his only campaign contributor, since he's a "developer" therefor Ben Kramer is "taking developer money", the moderators of Maryland Politics Watch -- which should perhaps rename itself to Nancy Navarro Watch and Astroturf Emporium -- refuse to publish any of my comments which contradict the message they wish to keep "on point" against Ben Kramer:

But Adam: I haven't taken a cent of developer money. I wasn't expecting to take any developer money, either.

I'm certainly not a sad day for the Slow Growth movement, indeed, outside of infrastructure improvements to play catch-up for better traffic flow in and around outlying communities and their connections to the urban-core destinations, I support no development whatsoever other than in mixed-use high-density re-development in areas presently very well-served by public mass-transit and with sufficient water/sewer infrastructure capacity. I also support upgrading water/sewer infrastructure capacity, of course.

Evidently I make far too much sense, and unlike some candidates that he supports, I'm not taking Developer money, I'm not taking Union money, I'm not widely perceived as the "Manchurian Candidate" for the School Board and Teachers' Union, and in fact I am not getting any money that I know of... therefor I will be working for all of the people and not for Special Interest Groups, other than for the Save Wheaton Library folks, and they haven't donated a cent to me so far as I know.

Aspen Hill Stabbing Suspect: Not Old Enough to Drive

According to the DC Examiner, Jose Romero, 14, and Alvin Rey Valdez, 16, of Wheaton were charged with attempted murder and first-degree assault. Their victim was himself only 20 years old. He was stabbed Wednesday March 11, 2009 at a bus-stop at the crime-plagued intersection of Georgia and Hewitt Avenues.

Knives are increasingly the weapons of choice for young criminals. It is believed that this is in part due to Maryland's stringent gun-control laws, and in part due to the universal availability of knives.

On the Disturbances in Downtown Silver Spring...

Sorry, folks, sometimes you just have to repost. This was originally at the comments page for Final Word on DTSS "Melee", regarding the melee that broke out after the Mixed Unity "go-go" show on March 7, 2009 in downtown Silver Spring.

---

Anonymous of March 13, 2009 7:09:00 AM writes, in-part:

[ ... ]

The scariest person I ever met was a young white man in a very poor part of Pennsylvania, and I was damn glad that there were iron bars separating him from me. Some of the most loathsome gang members in this nation are white supremacist skinheads. Russian mobsters are a plague in Brighton Beach.

But that's there. Here around D.C., the gang members are mostly black and latino. It's not racist to point that out, but it is ridiculous to deny it.

Yes, statistics are statistics and it's useless to deny it.

But let's take a trip through the past into Twinbrook and Aspen Hill neighborhoods of "East Rockville".

It's kind of funny how in Aspen Hill, when I was growing up I never ever heard the phrase "poor white trash", mostly because if anyone had said it they'd have been saying it about most of the community and most of the community would have piled right on. Despite the exceptional lily-whiteness of these communities up until fairly recently, a surprisingly large percentage of the people with whom I attended highschool went on to live most of their lives either behind the bars of the jailhouse or prison, or behind the bars of disapprobation and outright shunning. At least a lot of the illegal aliens aren't predisposed to burglary as seemed to be almost universal in the community in which I grew up, I have to give them that much.

As time has gone on, and civilization has crowded in and has left the barbarians no place to hide, the sociopaths have tended to kill each other off or get themselves put into their graves mostly in ways that the coroner calls "death by misadventure".

Sociopathy knows no race nor class nor culture, other than the parody of culture they always evolve among themselves. PWT are mostly weeding themselves out, caught between the low birth rate and the high standards for getting ahead and raising a child to reproductive age.

It's not as if the police aren't trying to help the sociopaths help themselves right into lifelong institutionalization. As much as some people like to trot out statistics about how the crime rate is higher for this or that ethnic group, it's a lot more on point to trot out statistics about how many people wind up behind bars (or in the ground) because they belong to a pan-ethnic group of people suffering from profound disorders of conscience, or lack thereof.

The problem is, it's almost impossible to distinguish between the natural and normal mental processes of teenagers and the profoundly disturbing incapacities of adult sociopaths. This explains, in part, some of the institutions we see in cultures from all around the planet. Certain trials, as it were, are left for the young adults, and as they pass through these trials we find out who is going to emerge from the glib sense of entitlement of teenagers into the more cooperative and considerate status of adult, and we also see who will never grow up and will always need to have someone watching them because they'll never comprehend limits or boundaries.

So, in that sense, this concert was a deep success and the crowds of kids you see on Ellsworth or 10,000 comparable "scenes" around the planet are there for your study.

Be on the scene and be in it. But know why you are there, and why the scene is there.

I see a lot of people posting and they're talking about "the kids" or they're talking about blacks and latinos and whites and who knows, eventually someone's going to bring up native-americans or pacific-islanders. I see a lot of anger and probably people see a lot of mine. But coming from me, it's just that I grew up in an all-white neighborhood mostly notable for the high percentage of psychopaths and sociopaths and the most important lesson learned -- although few ever learned how to articulate it or that there was even a simple word and concept to describe it -- was that you can't usually tell a sociopath just by giving them a quick look up and down. You've got to see them operate. And then once you see them operate, you never take your eyes off of them for even a second.

One of the reasons for the enduring popularity of Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" among young adults of a certain age is that it deals with that final clicking into place of the awareness that some people -- most of them, thankfully -- are what you call "dynamic characters" in the terms of literature. As they move through the events of the story, they change, usually growing "for the better". But some people just never change, they never grow up, and this final realization in Kerouac is one of the most compelling passages in modern English literature.

And that's what you -- and the cops -- are looking for down on Ellsworth. You're looking for the people who never change. Every kid steals candy, but most of us grow up out of it. The ones you want down at Ellsworth are the ones who stop stealing candy because they stopped stealing. The ones you don't want down there are the ones who stopped stealing candy because they found better things to steal.

Stealing, of course, is just an illustrative metaphor, for behavior that violates, that doesn't recognize boundaries and rights.

Kids of the age that folks are complaining about are kids of the age that are just a hair too young to understand what Kerouac was saying. But pick out a few of those kids and watch them for a few years, and almost all of them will feel Kerouac in their bones... and you'll know who they are. You'll also know who are the ones who will never "get" Kerouac:

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"

But will that flame settle down to the sort of steady burning that you want in your hearth, or will it flare up into dynamite and knock things over? Only time and observation will tell..

In the meanwhile, the sparks are struck and the match is lit down on Ellsworth, in Adams Morgan, and in 10,000 scenes around the world. For most of the kids, they'll flare and sputter a bit like any candle does when you light it, and settle down into the steady burning light upon the darkness that is the basis of society.

Some won't.

But let's not deny the spark to all.

Teen Club Band Nite, or Day, or Something

Come one, come all, as long as you are a card carrying student at a Montgomery County Public High or Middle Schools, to the Executive Office Building Terrace in Rockville, MD, for the Battle of the Bands.

Back in the days when we cavemen clubbed sabertooth tigers with our brontosaurus bones, we used to get these sorts of things once a month at nearly every Junior High and High School in the County.

How times have changed! Once a year and it's a big deal in downtown Rockville.

Feh.

Chamber of Commerce Questionnaire Posted

Here is a link to my completed questionnaire from the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce.

They never sent me a copy of it, and so I was forced to go steal a completed version from Maryland Politics Watch. I edited it and herewith submit it for your approval or approbation.

Astute observers will notice that I manage to include elements from the local Urban Planning online community's wish-list, and hopefully I will provide some rays of hope to the Coalition for Smarter Growth observers.

Please read carefully! Please understand, as I do, that perhaps I was not sent the questionnaire due to an oversight. It may also be that the Chamber of Commerce knows that for them to ask me how I feel about future growth is sort of like a man asking his wife while she's in the depths of labor "does it hurt, honey, and when do you think you'll be ready to have sex again?" and then being silly enough to be within arms' reach at the time.

---

Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce
The Voice of Montgomery County Business
Candidate Questionnaire - District 4 Special Election

Name: Thomas Hardman
Party Affiliation: Democrat

1) WHAT IS YOUR VISION FOR THE ROLE THAT MONTGOMERY COUNTY WILL PLAY IN OUR FUTURE GLOBAL ECONOMY?

Montgomery is already a leader in biotechnology and medical research and this will continue into the future. We are part of a region that is a major driver of the global Information Technology industry. We can also become a global leader in population stabilization, preservation and restoration of natural ecologies integrated with created human facilities and systems, and as coming massive waves of technological change wash over the world with the introduction and ubiquitous deployment of nanotechnology, we shall have to harness the unparalleled intellectual resources and educational achievement of our community. There will be opportunities to harness and obstacles to surmount but we will have to press forward with all deliberate speed to provide sane and sensible leadership, even if at times that leadership has to say "let's slow the pace and not rush headlong into the unknown without pausing to think through the possible consequences of our policies and actions".

a. WHAT WOULD YOU DO AS A MEMBER OF THE COUNTY COUNCIL TO REACH THIS VISION?

I will promote the combined interests of both the Urban Planning and the Environmental Conservation communities. I will promote a willingness to listen to a wider and more diverse array of scientists, engineers, biologists, and researchers. I will try to pay more attention to education and reason than to political process and forces. I will promote conservation and restoration of natural resources and ecologies and will promote the concepts of "green and renewable" anyplace this can be applied. I will consider the life of the planet before I consider the profit of reckless expansionism.

2) DO YOU BELIEVE THAT PROVIDING INCENTIVES FOR COMPANIES TO LOCATE IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY?

We have so much business in Montgomery County that nearly half of the workforce has to reside outside of our jurisdiction and we thus have the country's second-worse commute. Until and unless this is resolved satisfactorily, we have no business offering incentives to attract companies to relocate here to add to our current woes.

3) ECONOMIC DOWNTURN HAS RESULTED IN DECREASED REVENUES FOR MONTGOMERY COUNTY. WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE ARE THE BEST METHODS FOR BOOSTING COUNTY REVENUES? WHAT SHOULD BE TRIMMED FROM THE COUNTYS BUDGET IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMES?

Montgomery already has some of the highest tax rates in the nation, and Maryland ranks 45th of 50 in "positive business climate" and Montgomery is widely ranked as one of the worst places in Maryland for "business climate", mostly due to the levels of taxation and the regulatory compliance load. Thus, it's clear that the only thing that can be done is to reduce the level of expenditures for programs, and that could mean cutting or eliminating programs entirely, or it could mean streamlining programs and increasing levels of efficiency.

4) GIVEN THAT MARYLANDS INVESTMENT IN TRANSPORTATION CONTINUES TO DECLINE AND TRAFFIC CONGESTION REMAINS A HUGE CONCERN FOR VOTERS IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY, HOW DO YOU BELIEVE THAT THE COUNTY COUNCIL SHOULD ADDRESS OUR TRAFFIC RELIEF?

First, we stop inviting in more companies and their employees than we can house. We must develop and deploy more effective mass-transit and public-transit systems to allow cost-effective alternatives to the private automobile. We should promote more transit-hub-oriented redevelopment. We have already mostly reached the limits of legal new development and we should not abandon our committment to the Agricultural Reserve. In general, there should be no growth which is not "Smarter Growth", and it's time to revision our aging suburbs and redevelop existing arterials and communities to be more "friendly" to mass-transit, keeping in mind at all times that we must promote both "walkability" and the survival and restoration of our Urban Forest and other elements of natural Maryland ecologies.

5) WHAT IS YOUR POSITION ON SOME OF OUR KEY TRAFFIC RELIEF PROJECTS INCLUDING THE PURPLE LINE, CORRIDOR CITIES TRANSIT WAY AND THE WIDENING OF I-270?

The Purple Line must be built, and we need to consider other east-west alignments for future mass-transit needs. The Corridor Cities transitway must eventually be built. Yet our greatest hurdle will always be restraining the growth of Montgomery's commuter population, until and unless we have provided sufficient mass-transit and public-transportation alternatives to encourage the majority of long-haul commuters to leave their cars at home rather than clogging up the freeways.

6) PLEASE DISCUSS YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE MASTER PLANS THAT WILL COME BEFORE THE COUNTY COUNCIL IN 2008 INCLUDING: GAITHERSBURG WEST, GERMANTOWN AND WHITE FLINT, AS THESE AREAS ARE ALL OPPORTUNITES FOR IMPORTANT ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.

Given the current economic conditions and the near total collapse of the housing market, any discussion at all of "economic development" is premature at best. Also, given that there is a massive dearth of housing in general and affordable housing in particular, here in Montgomery, and given also that there is a massive oversupply ratio of jobs to residences, if we're going to be building or developing anything, we must build and develop affordable housing much closer in towards the business campuses and research/industrial cores.

Thus, until and unless a very flexible vision emerges for Germantown and Gaithersburg master plans which addresses Limits to Growth and Ecosystem Preservation/Restoration, walkable high-density mixed-use transit-hub-oriented and well-transit-served development characterized by ample "affordable housing" and "moderately-priced dwelling units", we need to reconsider any thoughts of moving ahead with development up-county. Furthermore, there is no need to rush into anything, and I call for an extended period for public commentary that invites a much broader range of community activists and local community organization involvement in that public comment process. This would not be an effective moratorium on new development nor on moving forward with developments already approved.

White Flint's Master Plan includes significant transit-hub-oriented high-density mixed-use "walkable" development on and around corridors already very well served by both new roads, re-developed roads, and mass-transit in the form of both MetroRail/MetroBus and county-run Ride-On buses.

Germantown and West Gaithersburg would be, effectively, Expansionist and would tend to contribute to increased Suburban Sprawl. White Flint, quite to the contrary, is Consolidationist, and refines and concentrates development where massive public infrastructure for transportation already exists.

7) WHY WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE A MEMBER OF THE MONTGOMERY COUNTY COUNCIL AND WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH?

I intend to bring strong advocacy for the constituents of Council District 4, which in past years has been almost overlooked as a vibrant and deserving part of Montgomery. We feel ignored and left to wither on the vine, as it were, and we want our share of consideration, maintenance, and revitalization.

Regards,
Thomas Hardman

Part II -- Parks v Recreation at County Council

Yesterday there was a hearing on whether or not to fold Recreation into Parks, or to fold Parks into Recreation, or just leave the two as they are.

Nothing was directly resolved, and there will be more public hearings on this, where the members of the Public have an actual chance to sign up to speak.

Yet the general picture that I took away from this was that the County Council members present -- Marc Elrich and Nancy Floreen were the only ones I could actually see from my boxed-in little corner of the standing-room-only crowd -- were well aware that rumors were flying.

Parks made an excellent presentation, so far as I was concerned, pointing out that due to the size of their organization, it would not be too difficult for them to absorb the functions, and even the personnel, of the County's department of Recreation, which in any case mostly operates out of buildings on lands owned by MNCPPC Parks. Recreation, on the other hand, didn't make a particularly good case for being able to absorb Parks without resolving a whole raft of labor issues including transferring retirement packages, etc., with a subtext left hanging that this could be a playground for Union representatives trying to force issues. Yet one thing definitely came out of the statements of the delegation from Recreation: County Executive "Ike" Leggett really wants the County's parks to be entirely under his own, and only his own, top-down authority.

I wonder why that would be.

Parks and Planning v. Recreation & Executive Privelege

Here's a letter I sent to Councilman Marc Elrich on March 4, 2009, in response to an article in the Gazette about consolidating Parks and Recreation.

Mr Elrich,

You may or may not remember me, we've met a time or two at various Civic Association or Town Hall meetings around 2006-2007 or so.

I read with some dismay, and considerable approval, that you are seeking to consolidate Parks and Recreation, seeking to consolidate duplicated efforts and thereby get cost savings. This was one of my major platform planks in last year's Special Elections for District 4, and it will again be one of my major platform planks.

However, I should stress that it is much better to consolidate them under Parks, rather than under Recreation. Why, you might ask?

Simply, Parks understands both parks and recreation. Recreation understands recreation, but does not understand parks.

I've been living here since 1963, and I have had many experiences of both Parks and Recreation over the years. One quick way to tell the difference between them was that Recreation was in the buildings, and that's all that they knew or understood. Parks was not in the buildings; Parks was the great outdoors and if they had buildings, mostly those buildings were there to teach you about the great outdoors and then get you to go out and enjoy your new knowledge and learn more.

Parks runs fantastic little outdoors museums and conserves what's left of our natural heritage and invites us to partake of it. Parks shares with everyone and invites everyone to enjoy the parks in their own way, to be relaxed, to do things at your own pace, to sit around and unwind, or get on
a nice game of anything from soccer to baseball. Recreation turns their jealously guarded buildings into little armed camps, and they do their best to make it difficult to use any outside facilities that may be appended to their buildings.

With Parks, the building is the afterthought, and the main program is to let nature flourish and to let people enjoy it. With Recreation, the program is everything.

There is quite a comments thread that you should probably read, at:

http://www.justupthepike.com/2009/01/whats-up-pike-cheap-food-expensive.html

That should give you some idea about why Parks needs to run recreation, rather than Recreation turning our parks into something that can be barely called a park.

Here's the part that you probably most ought to read:

--

"There is a large and evidently nice Recreation Center on Bauer Drive near the intersection with MD-28. I have been in there exactly one time in the last 20 years, and that was to attend a "town hall" type meeting featuring our State Senator (Mike Lennett, a very astute fellow) and someone from Isiah "Ike" Leggett's budget staff, and they were pretty much duking it out in front of the voters over who got which chunk of the tax gouge, and which income strata was going to take the brunt of it.

The place was nice and clean and required people to enter with an access-control ID card, excepting us non-subscribers who were allowed to go in to the meeting room down one hall, but not down the hall the other way. Personally, I am not at all interested in making use of any facility which demands a background and credit check as a prerequisite, and I imagine that the average young-adult isn't much interested in that sort of crap, either. I realize that most of them have got used to this fascist institutionalized crap in schools and they'll probably have to be used to it in the workplace anywhere that pays more than minimum wage, but checking into jail isn't my idea of 'recreation'."

--

Sir, let's just say, I've never been "carded" to get into the Parks, and I spend time in the parks each and every day, and every time I get near any facility run by Recreation, all I get from them is vibes of "won't you please go away, you low-rent piece of filth".

I know where agencies paid for with my tax dollar make me, and everyone else, feel welcome. I know where agencies paid for with my tax dollar pointedly exclude me.

Parks understands recreation and it understands parks.

Recreation understands... I'm not sure of what, but I know that what they understand, I do not like.

Please leave Parks in charge.

Regards,

Thomas Hardman

---

Now, suddenly rumors have come to me that the reason that Parks is intended to be split out of the bailiwick of the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning commission is this: If the Montgomery County Parks are split off from the MNCPPC and are handed to Montgomery County Department of Recreation, suddenly the parks are effectively the property of the MoCo Executive.

And "Ike" Leggett could then say "well, we don't have to run anything past Parks and Planning, they're all ours" and then the Parks in question could be given -- not sold, but given -- to developers, with the understanding that all of those park lands will be converted to "affordable housing".

If this is right, folks, the game's afoot. If this is true, the scheme is to turn Montgomery's cherished parks into low-rent apartments.

Citizens Should Get What They Want, Not What County Decides Citizens Should Get

In Adam Pagnucco's article on "Pay and Go" -- a discredited County policy which allowed developers to pay a fee up front which was supposed to offset infrastructure upgrade costs such as roads and schools that would result from more houses with more traffic and more students -- we hear the tale of how Cary Lamari, a current candidate in the District 4 Special Elections, resigned from the Mid-County Advisory Board in 1999 because of pressure to never dissent from official County policy.

As reported in the Gazette ("Advisory board's resignations prompt debate over free speech", Curreri, FrankMontgomery Gazette, Jan 13, 1999):

In his resignation letter to Duncan and the board, [Cary ]Lamari said he was departing prematurely because the board's chairman, Henry Lee, told him that board members should not publicly express any position conflicting with Duncan's or adopted county policy.

"I truly have a moral conflict with this philosophy," Lamari stated in the letter. "To me, silencing dissenting opinions is counter to the purpose of an Advisory Board. I fundamentally believe you are a good Executive for Montgomery County, but there are times when citizens will honestly, sincerely and legitimately have opinions that conflict with yours."

In a recent interview, [Steve] Mann said that before resigning, he was interested in running for vice chair of the board, which would have required a majority vote from the board's membership. But Mann said that Lee told him in a phone conversation: "If I was vice chair, I would have to agree with everything Doug Duncan said."

"Henry [Lee] told me there were concerns about my being vice chair," Mann continued. "And that [the vice chair] should be more judicious. I'm not just going to blindly follow what Doug Duncan says, even though I agree with 90-95 percent of the things."

This is a really fascinating article and gives a lot of detail on both the finer points of the "Pay and Go" debate, and it also gives some fascinating insight into the (alleged) personalities and actions -- as well as the stated opinions -- of all involved with this particular incident.

I gave a rather lengthy comment on this debate and on related subjects which you should probably read.

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There is something fundamentally wrong with applying governmental pressure to citizens who are seeking to represent other citizens through law-abiding dissent. It's one thing to ask someone to maintain good order in a meeting called and run under specific procedure, such as a Civic Association meeting called under Robert's Rules of Order (parliamentary procedure), but Lamari's resignation points up a sad tendency in Montgomery County to try to run everything from the top down. Everyone is apparently expected to get in line, even when their specific position inherently mandates dissent where conscience might dictate.

I've been to meetings where representatives of the County pretty much come in and tell you how they do things, and then they just pass the microphone to other folks. If they are asked any pointed or complex questions, they give answers which probably border on incomprehensibility or irrelevance, and allow no opportunity to call them on the incomprehensibility or irrelevance. And rest assured, somehow whoever is running that meeting will never again allow that questioning person to speak again. They might, after all, spawn dissent by asking a question that the agency representative is unwilling to answer, or -- heavens forbid -- actually utter a criticism.

If elected, I will do my best to foster a healthy culture of dissent, of loyal opposition, and I will try to always remember that there are people out there with ideas we haven't yet heard or considered, and there are always people out there whose opinions we need to hear.

And we don't just need to hear these people...

We need to listen.

Wheaton Library Question

I realize that the Wheaton Library is just a tad outside of District 4, but it deserves some consideration here.

First, please see "Is wheaton too "modest" for a nice downtown library?" from our fine District 4 blog, Just Up the Pike.

Then see comments here. From that comment:

Noah Wolfe said...

I'm concerned about Montgomery County's proposed plan for the Wheaton library (at Georgia Ave). As you may have heard they are considering selling the land the library sits on to developers and then rebuilding the Wheaton library about a half mile down the road. I'm not against all development but I don't think this plan makes any sense. In an economic situation like this the county should be holding onto assets, like land, and not building more housing where traffic is already unmanageable (Georgia Ave).

I use the Wheaton library about once a week. It's a great facility and is in a great location. I don't understand the logic of this proposed plan. I've created a Facebook page to support keeping the library where it is. Please join the group at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dont-Move-the-Wheaton-MD-Library/54828552380?ref=mf

Please link to this page and forward it to others as well.
Thanks!

I still have issues about how the Wheaton Central Business district drove my favorite used-book store out of business, and now they want to spend taxpayer money that's in short supply, to build a library that a lot of Wheaton residents don't want, right about where they drove my favorite used-book store out of business, and they want to tear down the old Wheaton Library and sell it -- probably for cheap -- to developers.

This does not sound fair to me.

Campaign Takes Turn for the Hideous...

Over at the comments page for "Nancy Navarro Opens Campaign Office: Video One", one commenter asks a reasonable question: "I do not recall any local council district candidate at any time opening a campaign office. Is this rented space, or in-kind donation from the owner of Plaza Del Mercado (Federal Realty Trust?)"

Someone posting as "David" -- some commenters believe this is David Moon, Nancy Navarro's campaign manager -- says:


Rocky, I find your insinuations to be over the top. Number one, I don't think we need to provide any explanation for you or anyone else's baseless conspiracy theories.

But, number two, that being said, I am really not in the mood to deal with the same demonizing, witchhunt accusations that were played against us last time, this time. We have a campaign to run, and last time we took over Nancy's house to stuff envelopes, launch canvasses, and the like. I'm sure Nancy Navarro wasn't terribly thrilled at having members of the campaign team (including myself) sleeping on her floor at 4:00 am some nights trying to undo the nasty propaganda campaign that was being waged against her (by ???).

So having said that, we have a ton of volunteers, not much time, and a lot of voters to contact. If you find that suspicious or unusual, so be it. This is nothing different than when we ran Raskin's campaign, but somehow anytime it involves Nancy, there's always a conspiracy to be found somewhere. I suggest new hobbies would be in order.

Oh, and ps, we're paying fair market. At least some of the developers seem to be standing with you know who, as it seems are some of your "slow-growth" friends. You should do a forum comment about THAT conspiracy.


What the heck? This is the sort of mental processes you expect from someone in the stages that come immediately before collapse in either an acute case of adult-onset paranoid schizophrenia, or maybe just chronic methedrine intoxication. To be fair, it could also be the result of a totally madness- or dope-free case of sleep deprivation, about a week's worth. He does talk about spending many a sleepless night.

But the topper comes from the anonymous blog "troll" known as "foolio":


How is this for transparency: I would like to know where Ike Leggett, Marc Elrich, Phil Andrews and Duchy Trachtenburg stand on early voting and why there are rumors out there that they have been working behind the scenes to kill it.

I would also like to know whether Ben Kramer and "finger in the wind" Leggett had anything to do with Paladino getting out of the race. That doesn't seem very transparent now, does it?

And Rocky, you were tight with Praisner, right? At least the photos would indicate you were -- so I'm sure you could just pick up the phone to Ben Kramer's campaign manager (who apparently was also Don's manager) and find out for us whether these rumors are true? Both about who was opposing early voting and about which of the anti-growth councilmembers are supporting the pro-Pay and Go, developer, Ben Kramer (heir to Kramer Enterprises, owner of much of Montgomery County's commercial real estate)?

Since you care so much about transparency, I would prefer that if Marc, Duchy and Ike are going to support a developer, that they do so publicly. Why hide from your friends?

You seem to have a lot of spare time to post forum comments, so maybe you could help us get to the bottom of all of this. The progressives of Montgomery who care about being backstabbed through candidate endorsements are dying to know.

We're already used to this from Ike "finger in the wind" Leggett's endorsements of Al Wynn, Ida Rubin, and perhaps Kramer -- but the rumblings about it coming from the self-declared "transparent" and "progressive" gang is shocking.

This is all MUCH more important than the invented and delusional transparency issues the rest of you are putting out there. Who is District 4 Voter -- Cary Lamari? Is that actually, a District 4 Candidate? Speak now!


All I can say is, if these bloggers who so avidly support Nancy Navarro in any way truly and perfectly echo or reflect her mental processes, let the voters beware: They'd be voting for either a psychotic or a sociopath. If they don't truly and perfectly echo or reflect Ms Navarro's campaign, she needs to publicly disavow these people or be tarred with their clearly icky brush. Indeed, if I was a true enemy of Nancy Navarro -- which I am not, I am totally in favor of a clean and transparent process of Democracy -- I would be posting this kind of mad idiocy in order to discredit her by association.

I was up at Plaza del Mercado Shopping Center today to buy some tobacco, maybe a little after noon, one-ish or so. I've never seen so many people acting so weird up there as I did today, and that is saying quite a lot. As crazy as these online supposed supporters of Navarro seem to be, maybe they've gone over-the-cliff paranoid and have been passing around pictures of opposition candidates, which might explain the treatment I've got from that CVS in the last two days.

Folks, it's a Special Election for County Council, it's not the Cold War. Try to get a grip.

Campaign Website Starting to Come Online...

The campaign website is starting to come together, which is to say, "I'm working on it".

Here's the front-page blurb so far:

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After the dual tragedy of the loss of Donald Praisner a year after the passing of his wife and longtime Council member Marilyn Praisner, the voters of District 4 once again must exercise their right to vote for representation on the County Council.

I can make no claims to longstanding friendship with the Praisners, though I certainly wish their family well. Yet there are some elements of the "Praisner Legacy" of Fiscal Prudence and Slow Growth and concern for the Environment that I shared with them.

Nobody can take the place of the Praisners in the history of Montgomery County or in the hearts of their family and friends. Yet someone must carry on the work they started and carried on for so many years.

I don't simply desire Fiscal Prudence, these harsh economic conditions absolutely demand it.

In these harsh economic times that demand Fiscal Prudence, we must cut back on even the appearance of spending money we don't have towards projects that seem to be setting up excessive Growth and Over-Development.

Even as people are losing their jobs in record numbers at record rates, taxation in Montgomery County is at an all-time high. We must reduce the burden on taxpayers by cutting back on programs that cannot demonstrate quantifiable results that show a clear trend of solving the problems for which they were created.

We must economize where we can, especially with recurrent and predicatable expenses in upgrading our information systems. To this end, I propose that insofar as it is possible, we will replace proprietary non-free software with Open Source software. Already, the Montgomery County Public Schools are seeing very significant savings from using the "Open Office" suite of office productivity tools. Yet they are still paying significant costs just for an operating system for their computers. Well-developed and user-friendly Open Source operating systems abound, and are preferred by server and network technicians because of their exceptional stability and capability as well as their license costs. We should be able to save at least $100 per computer across almost the entire County office enterprise, at a bare minimum. This is my field of expertise and I can guide this transformation, and as a Council Member I will always keep in mind that the taxpayer is overburdened, and needs to see savings in the County enterprise.

We must create new jobs and even create new industries. I have been on record for a long time as promoting solar energy and an industry based on solar and other renewable energy sources.

As we create new industries and populate them with jobs that have growth potential, we must continue -- and accelerate -- our reclamation of damaged ecologies and we must preserve the environment as much as possible.

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