Residents ready to go to war over Westbard plan, incorporation on the table

More than 225 Bethesda residents turned out for a short-notice community meeting at the Washington Waldorf School Sunday afternoon, to strategize how to stop the runaway train Westbard Sector Plan before the Montgomery County Council can approve it this month. Organizers had to open the stage curtain to allow some of the overflow crowd to find seating.

Post on Save Westbard Facebook
page after the meeting showing the
packed room

The meeting was hosted by Save Westbard, a volunteer organization of residents who oppose the urban-style makeover being proposed for the squarely-suburban neighborhood. To give some context, the plan would bring more residents to Westbard Avenue than are in all of National Harbor, which the Washington Post described this morning as "a mini-city."

This was the most-energized crowd I've seen since the last public meeting - and that's partly because there hasn't been a mass public meeting on Westbard since early last year. All gatherings since then have either been very controlled public hearings, or smaller civic association meetings. Residents are raring to take action, with a Council vote expected perhaps as soon as two weeks from now.

The prime targets? Councilmembers' taxing and zoning authority, and Council seats from which they wield their power.

"If that means voting for term limits, if that means running someone against Roger Berliner...you can write that down," resident and Save Westbard volunteer Jeanne Allen told a reporter in attendance. A resident gathered signatures for a ballot question that, if successful this November, would prevent Berliner (D - District 1) and his at-large Democratic colleagues Nancy Floreen, George Leventhal and Marc Elrich from running again in 2018.

Elrich, who has condemned the plan as "a naked real estate ploy for somebody who's got land, and wants to get more money out of that land," was the only elected official in favor with yesterday's crowd.

Ultimately, participants voted on a series of action items, with the votes being recorded on video so there can be no question that these are majority opinions of actual residents (not DC residents buying groceries on a Saturday afternoon being asked if the Westwood Shopping Center needs sprucing up). Names and addresses were also collected to record the votes.

Attendees agreed overwhelmingly or unanimously on the following:

• Residents demand the Council delay its vote
• The 1200 housing units of Councilmember Roger Berliner's "Berliner alternative" plan are too much, when the adjacent Springfield and Sumner communities combined have less homes than that
• Height limits must be 50' throughout the plan area
• Residents demand the release of all email communications between County officials, residents and developers regarding the plan and proposed development (County officials first refused to release the emails, then demanded $1000 from the resident who requested them; the public information law requires the fee be waived if a request is in the "public interest")
• Consider incorporating the area and having their own Mayor and Council with planning authority

Allen noted that the plan area is within the highest-taxed part of the County. Loss of the southwestern Bethesda cash cow via incorporation would deal a mortal blow to councilmembers' political play-money revenue. Heck, if you're going to have a "town center" rammed into your neighborhood, you might as well have a town government. They asked for it, not the residents!

Several councilmembers appeared smugly confident in not only the passage of the plan at a worksession last month, but also in their belief that they would survive the electoral fallout of their actions. They might want to reassess that position, based on the intent of yesterday's crowd.

"We will vote against members at-large, and [Berliner], who do not agree to postpone this vote on the plan," one resident said during a question-and-answer segment of the meeting. Berliner's compromise plan has never garnered much public support. And, while no one would choose the Planning Board's version over his, it is still considered way too much for this already-developed area with crowded schools and roads. And based on the critical comments of residents (a.k.a. voters), it doesn't seem to have helped him politically at all.

Allen made the point that the Berliner alternative is not even a sure thing; no official vote has been taken yet on the plan, so it is only a recommendation. The Council could go ahead and approve the Board's version.

A statement Berliner made to some residents in the last few weeks has been brought up repeatedly at meetings and in community emails. Berliner told them he lives in a mixed-use community himself, and promised Westbard residents would like it, too.

"What does Berliner understand about the depth of opposition in this community," resident Bob Weaver asked. One resident informed the crowd that Berliner lives more than seven miles from Westbard. "He's not anywhere near our community." No member of the Council lives in Bethesda.

"They cannot vote in two weeks to destroy our community," another resident proclaimed.

Resident Bobby Lipman recalled Councilmember George Leventhal's patronizing sermon against residents at a recent Westbard worksession. Leventhal reminded them "how lucky we are to live here, as if we're the Crawley family on Downton Abbey," Lipman said. Describing his own modest beginnings, he added, "we worked to get here." Along with Leventhal's dismissal of "insistent" citizen requests for a scale model of the full Westbard build-out, the speech has rubbed many in the wrongest way. "Councilman Leventhal, that is ridiculous. That is patronizing," Lipman said.

Stan Wiggins, a Save Westbard volunteer who was engaged in redevelopment battles before when he was a Silver Spring resident, told the crowd he has "seen this movie before. It's ugly." Even Leventhal admitted during a recent worksession that the cost of County services for new development exceeds the added revenue it generates, a dagger to one of the great canards of the MoCo political cartel borne out by the latest in a string of budget deficits this year. Whatever the County can't pay for at Westbard beyond current funds is "coming out of your pockets," Wiggins reminded the audience. 

Referring to the control of most councilmembers by developers, Wiggins termed the current donations-for-profits system as the "dispossession and privatization of your political rights. This is not what the founders had in mind."

"We still have the vote," Wiggins continued, "and that's ultimately what you have to threaten them with." 

Overconfident councilmembers might do well to consider that following the development battle Wiggins engaged in decades ago, "five councilmen were thrown out of office, including the County Executive."

With all of the targeted councilmembers - who also include at-large member Hans Riemer, a vocal supporter of the plan - mulling either a run for County Executive or continuing to "age-in-place" on the Council, they might want to heed Wiggins' historical lesson.

Stan Wiggins of
Save Westbard

Check out the size of
this crowd - on a Sunday,
no less

Mad as heck...

...and not gonna take
it anymore

The Council's greatest fear...

...an informed and mobilized
electorate

Darryl Trupp, whose Fashion Craft
Cleaners is one of several
popular small businesses in the
Westwood Shopping Center threatened
by redevelopment, makes a point at
yesterday's meeting

Got to show you every part of
the room here

Not just a "vocal minority"