MoCo political cartel sees cemetery "protection" law as a move-the-bodies bill

Something is happening behind the scenes in Montgomery County government. This week, multiple government departments are coordinating new public messaging on the battle over the African-American cemetery at Westwood Tower in Bethesda. Developer Regency Centers, the County's Housing Opportunities Commission, and Montgomery County want to build a parking garage on top of the graves, many of which belong to the first generation of free African-Americans after Maryland Emancipation. While the HOC tested a new, but not-credible, PR message yesterday, the County Council and Planning Department scored a fake news victory with a preposterous headline in the Washington Post Metro section yesterday.

Much like the HOC headdesk-worthy statement, the article on a new cemetery "protection" bill being passed unanimously by the pro-developer County Council was all about false impresssions. A banner headline falsely stated: "Montgomery to protect cemeteries." As Bill Clinton said, "Give me a break." I actually heard from someone yesterday who saw the story, and believed that the County had stepped in to save the cemetery at Westbard. WRONG. But that is clearly what the County's political cartel - in reality just a tiny-but-powerful sliver of the local Democratic party - and headline writer at the Post had in mind, a deliberate misinformation campaign.

Anyone following the contentious battle over the cemetery on this blog already knows the bill will not solve the Westbard graveyard battle. It would not have prevented it had it been in place, and will not prevent a similar battle in the future, when a cemetery is physically "lost" to the naked eye and community consciousness. One cannot "research the boundaries of burial sites" on their ready-to-develop land IF THEY DON'T KNOW THE CEMETERY IS THERE (or pretend they don't know - the County Council hasn't bothered to inquire whether the Tauber family informed Capital Properties of the cemetery when they sold the land to them a decade ago, or if Capital Properties informed Regency Centers when they sold the 22 acres to them in 2012).

But the fake news came with a dose of chilling reality, as we've now confirmed that the County Council and Planning Department support the destruction of cemeteries, and the removal of bodies to clear the way for private profit by big corporations. Significantly, no taxpaying civilian who testified on the bill supported giving the Planning Board authority to decide if a developer gets to relocate bodies. In fact, several - including myself - pointedly asked the Council to remove that provision from the bill.

Shockingly, the Council ignored its own constituents, and retained the pro-developer proviso that would let the same Planning Board Chair who surrounded himself with police officers to speak to a representative of a black church decide whether black bodies will be relocated at Westbard.

The Council should have instead included a provision forbidding the relocation of graves in cemeteries such as the one at Westbard. This is not the discovery of a random pauper's grave during highway construction. Rather, this cemetery is formally delineated in land records, has recorded burial announcements, and has both a descendant community and church as present-day legal parties to the matter. It is also, along with the Macedonia Baptist Church, the only remaining physical remnant of the "lost" African-American community along River Road, founded by former slaves of the adjacent Loughborough plantation. Living history that has been suppressed by the County for decades, but is now forcing its way back into the conversation.

Yet, according to Planning Director Gwen Wright, "if burial sites are found" by Regency Centers (there's that conditional "if" again - the Post claims the cemetery was "probably disturbed" by construction of Westwood Tower, despite at least two witnesses who have great detail about the discovery of bodies during that late-1960s desecration), "the Planning Board would use the criteria developed and make a judgement."

"Montgomery to protect cemeteries?" Not with a move-the-bodies bill. Fake news. Should Regency, HOC and Montgomery County actually be stupid enough to try to relocate these graves, this will be a national civil rights story.