Two of downtown Bethesda's most popular restaurants are endorsing term limits, encouraging customers and passersby to
vote "YES" on Question B on Tuesday's Montgomery County ballot. The venerable Tastee Diner, and more recent arrival Gringos & Mariachis, are both displaying "Vote YES on Question B" signs. If successful, the question would limit the County Executive and County Council to a still-whopping three terms (12 years) in office.
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Signs at Tastee Diner
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Roberto Pietrobono, co-owner of Gringos and Olazzo, is supporting term limits in part because of the current County Council's refusal to end the County's government liquor monopoly. YES on Question B signs are
also posted at the Silver Spring locations of Olazzo and Tastee Diner.
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Sign at
Gringos & Mariachis |
As the Tastee Diner in Silver Spring says, "It's Time" for term limits. Our incompetent and impotent County Council must go. Even if you have tuned out the presidential election,
please go to the polls tomorrow, Tuesday, November 8 and vote YES on Question B, so we can "throw the bums out."
That last picture is top notch quality!!
ReplyDeleteThis is a free blog that one can choose to read or not read.
ReplyDeleteLearn to appreciate more and complain less.
Hopefully they'll be enough common sense voters to ensure the idiotic Question B isn't passed. Alt-right Trump-sheeple like Dyer and Ficker hate Montgomery county and hate Democrats (as evidenced by their referring to them as "bums"), and are simply trying to trick voters into limiting their own power.
ReplyDeleteRight now voters have 100% control at the ballot box, a vote for Question B takes that away from them. And forces a choice between at minimum every 3 terms inexperienced and possibly incompetent candidates.
It kind of mirrors the current presidential election. No matter who is elected, they'll be inferior to Obama.
10:25: The majority of term limits proponents I speak to on a daily basis are registered Democrats. The Montgomery County Civic Federation is hardly going to be confused with the Republican Party in its positions over nearly a hundred years. There is anger against the Council that crosses party lines over development, transportation, schools and bus depots, not to mention a historic tax increase that is devastating residents while the Council personally enriched themselves with taxpayer funds. Criminal.
DeletePrince George's County is pleased with their term limits; voters have smartly rejected all attempts by corrupt politicians to overturn term limits there.
That's one of the reasons Prince George's added more private sector jobs than Montgomery County in the last decade.
10.25: I'm a liberal (yes,liberal!) who almost always votes Democratic. I'm wary of Robin Ficker and term limits.
DeleteBut the Montgomery County Council has pushed me over the edge. This Council favors developers and other insiders, plays fast and loose with the rules, cuts corners and ignores the views of its constituents.
Vote Yes on B.
(I recommend voting No on C. A close reading suggests that C would allow incumbents to run for more than 3 consecutive terms by letting District reps run At Large, and vice versa.)
10:25 AM Historically, I've been against term limits...leave it to the voters each time to decide seemed best.
ReplyDeleteBut our current Council is so out of touch and has stopped listening to residents. So, I'm now FOR term limits. It's perhaps the only way to change due to really low voting participation in the county.
I don't buy the arguments against term limits: we're giving the council plenty of time- a decade or more. Most people don't stay in one job nearly that long these days, so nothing outrageous about it.
A constant infusion of new ideas and talent from the real world is exactly what this body needs.
And I don't buy the argument that it takes new councilmembers a term or two to get "up to speed". That's like interviewing for a job and saying once hired, I'll need a couple of years to get going. If we elect competent people, I'm confident they can pick it up quickly.
11:43-- I am voting for term limits and share your low opinion of the Council.
DeleteBut I do feel that their replacements will need a year or two to get acclimated.
That said, honest replacements would be a great improvement over the current bunch.
Vote Yes on B!
You know you've lost the term limits debate when your public campaign consists of, " But but but. .Donald Trump!" And "Racist!!"
ReplyDeleteThe intellectual depth is truly staggering.
Vote YES on Question B.
So move to PG County already, Birdbrain.
ReplyDeleteThere's also a sign at Mia's right next door to Gringo's.
ReplyDeleteI'm voting for Clinton, and for term limits.
The Council seems to have a way too cozy relationship with developers, who then fund their campaigns so they can crush any opposition when it's time for the next primary.
I'm also a Clinton voter who is voting for term limits. 4:02 is 100% right.
DeleteMoribund NoVa office building about to become bedroom community:
ReplyDeletehttp://wtop.com/fairfax-county/2016/11/live-work-in-one-unit-how-one-vacant-baileys-crossroads-office-building-may-be-resuscitated/
"The Council seems to have a way too cozy relationship with developers, who then fund their campaigns so they can crush any opposition when it's time for the next primary."
ReplyDeleteLet's assume that's true. That's somehow supposed to change when half the council is replaced by inexperienced newbies desperate for campaign $$$? The special interests will just back off? And what happens when term number 3 comes around and these lame duck council members have absolutely no incentive to listen to their constituents?
All this talk about "developers" is being fueled by irrational NIMBYism since unions, civic groups, and other special interests hold a lot more sway than developers in Rockville. Of all of the jurisdictions in this region, this county is the least beholden to developers.
Just like the Brexit vote, ignorant voters gobble up lies and delusions from people like Garage and Ficker. It was pathetic to read the stories of Brexit voters wondering why mass deportations of immigrants weren't immediately implemented.
Nobody stops to think of the long-term consequences of their actions, they just blindly follow base rallying cries of "through the 'bums' [immigrants/council members] out."
The ironic thing in the situation of the council is that the NIMBY's are shooting themselves in the foot, by throwing anti-development Marc Enrich out of office.
The problem with the status quo is that serious people so rarely challenge incumbents in primaries. There is effectively no choice at the ballot box, and it's false to claim that elections are term limits in this context. It's clear that the council members cozy up to developers and insiders over time. I've seen little evidence that this group of council members has developed expertise on issues that enables them to challenge claims made by insiders and make good decisions.
ReplyDelete5:07: One building does not a bedroom community make. In MoCo, it is widespread and Ike Leggett himself said we're becoming a "bedroom community." Totally vindicating me, and making a fool of you.
ReplyDelete5:42: The Council, after 100 years in office, didn't even know that Wisconsin Avenue slows to 25 in parts of downtown Bethesda. They've failed to fix every single major problem confronting us today.
There have been numerous highly-qualified Democratic and Republican challengers, but the political machine controls the press and the handful of endorsements available. It's essentially a dictatorship in function.
5:13: How less could they listen than the current incumbents, who passed the Westbard sector plan UNANIMOUSLY despite more than 90% of their constituents vehemently opposing it?
ReplyDelete@5:13 Well it would presumably take a few years for the developers to cozy up to any new Council members, so the amount of time you have a cozied-up Council member in office is limited due to term limits.
ReplyDeleteWhat's your solution? Let Council members serve forever? That doesn't seem like it would help that situation.
I agree Elrich will be an unfortunate casualty if term limits pass, but at the same time, 12 years is enough even for the best of them (and he does have his weaknesses). In a county of 1 million people, I'm sure we can find enough qualified people to fill the positions.
And if I am reading Question B correctly, current incumbents can run for Council again after being out for a term. Question B is not a lifetime ban.
ReplyDeleteDyer's logic and deceit in a nutshell:
ReplyDelete"90% of their constituents" = 90% of NIMBY's who were specifically given the survey and responded--a very tiny portion of the total population of Westbard
6:45: Where were the residents who supported the plan during the charrettes, public hearings and votes, then? Answer the question. They were virtually nonexistent.
Delete6:45AM - can you show us the breakdown? How did your survey identify NIMBY's? How does that "sampling" of Westbard differ from the overall opinion? How did you make your determinations?
ReplyDeleteOh, I see. You're just being cantankerous. Pffft.
I'm a lifelong Republican who has been abandoned by my party. This would have been the perfect election for a strong centrist republican to become president.
So I'm voting for a woman. Men have been screwing up the country for 240 years. Let's give a woman the same opportunity. To succeed or fail as president.
@7:26am
ReplyDeleteCertainly!
Westbard Pop. (CB-2010): 1,967
According to the NIMBY hate group "SaveWestbard" they sent the survey sent to 2,400 "residents " using data from listservs and their own NIMBY mailing lists. ONLY 362 "residents" responded, and 90% of THOSE respondents--the NIMBYs--opposed the plan. So when Dyer throws around magic numbers, they're almost always made up.
9:19: Wrong, knucklehead. The 90% takes into account all public participation, feedback and public hearing testimony THROUGH OFFICIAL COUNTY PROCESSES. The poll you are citing simply confirms and reinforces that inarguable fact. All show opposition was 90% or greater. Stop lying.
DeleteAh. So you are making assumptions that everyone on listservs and mailing lists are NIMBY's. Interesting, but not true. I'm on mailing lists and I am not a NIMBY.
ReplyDeleteBe real. Everybody's numbers are magically supportive of their positions.
That's just how it works.
Is anyone still disputing the Westbard area residents were overwhelmingly against the plan?
ReplyDeleteThere wasn't any support at the meetings/input phase.