Among the candidates who spoke were yours truly, Robert Dyer; Brandy Brooks, Bill Cook, Ashwani Jain, Meredith Wellington, Jim McGhee, and Ana Sol Gutierrez. Jarrett Smith and Craig Carozza Caviness could not attend, but their comments were read into the record.
Jo Saint George, the Criminal Justice/Legal Redress committee chair for the County NAACP chapter, said it was "disappointing" that private developer Regency Centers sold the Westwood Tower property to the HOC without addressing the cemetery issue. In her experience as an attorney in Arizona, she said, developers would usually respect any cemeteries or graves found on their property, and it was unusual for the local government to bail them out by purchasing a cemetery site. The controversial outcome in the Moses cemetery case suggests "there is possibly not a respect for the lives" represented by the graves, she said.
Gutierrez said she was surprised that the HOC was not taking advantage of the many grants and loans available to preserve and commemorate sites like the Moses African Cemetery. As a legislator in Annapolis, she said she frequently sees such funds being approved for other counties. Gutierrez offered to help the HOC obtain such funding.
Brooks urged commissioners not to continue trying to sweep the cemetery issue under the rug. Cook promised "our voices will only get louder," reciting the names of the commissioners for effect, when he warned that they would go down in history associated with the same racism and greed that led to the original desecration of the cemetery in the late 1960s.
Resident Wendy Hestick testified that the HOC's mishandling of the cemetery reminded her of the agency's poor record at Tobytown, another historic black community which still exists in Potomac. The scandal over the Moses cemetery led to the neglected cemetery at Tobytown being tidied up about a year ago. HOC's record is anything but tidy, however, as some have noted the agency built houses on top of some of that cemetery's graves years ago.
The County only recently was shamed into providing long-requested bus service to Tobytown, as well. Hestick said one problem is that HOC is not accountable to the community, only to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD recently published a scathing audit of HOC's units in the County, where 75% of the apartments inspected failed to meet HUD standards. Shockingly, the County Council ignored the audit when approving HOC's ambitious plans to redevelop the Westwood Tower site, and build a parking garage on top of the Moses cemetery. Well, knowing the County Council, it probably wasn't that shocking.
Will HOC take the leadership steps needed to differentiate itself from the clear record of institutional racism in Montgomery County government? Stay tuned!
15 comments:
Ana Sol Gutierrez for the win on this.
Robert Dyer's "advocacy" for affordable housing can best be described as "concern trolling".
Another phrase I've learned! Thanks, 5:35AM; much appreciated.
Yesterday's article: "Candidates speaking today will include Robert Dyer; Shruti Bhatnagar; Brandy Brooks; Craig Carozza-Caviness; Bill Cook; Hoan Dang; Ana Sol Gutierrez; Ashwani Jain; Will Jawando; Jim McGee; and Dalbin Osario."
Today's article: "Among the candidates who spoke were yours truly, Robert Dyer; Brandy Brooks, Bill Cook, Ashwani Jain, Meredith Wellington, Jim McGhee, and Ana Sol Gutierrez. Jarrett Smith and Craig Carozza Caviness could not attend, but their comments were read into the record."
Looks like Shruti Bhatnagar, Hoan Dang, Will Jawando, and Dalbin Osario bailed on you?
Notice they didn't read a list of names of the people supposedly buried there? Because they don't know!
Blame the Black benevolent society that sold the land with this alleged cemetery more than 50 years ago. They should be getting mad at them, not the latest owner.
Also if they want a museum, no one is stopping them from setting one up with private money, just like many museums in the County that are privately funded. Looks like the church has some spare land in the back of their property where the parking lot is. Given how important they claim this is, I'm sure they are happy to spare those spaces for a museum.
It is seriously starting to look like nobody stands with Dyer. Appears that the aforementioned candidates and even Robin Ficker are distancing themselves from Robert. I guess skewing the news and threatening folks don't sit well with most MoCo voters?
I love the idea of a museum that connects the Westbard area to its past. Nothing in the current project plan has any historical connection. The museum would serve the community well.
Who's gonna pay for building, running and maintaining the museum, "Roald?" Are you volunteering?
Did anything interesting enough to warrant a museum actually happen there? Or is it just that people were buried here a century ago? The mere fact that people lived, then died, does not in itself warrant a museum. What would be the draw for potential visitors?
Robert, did you speak at the meeting? Neither your article nor the Bethesda Beat article mentions that. If you didn't, you let a huge opportunity go to waste.
Then museum should memorialize the roots of the area. Also tell the tale of the desecration.
This is a community ammenity in a plan with so little in that department.
Who's gonna pay for building, running and maintaining the museum?
"Roald?" are you offering to sponsor it?
What exactly are the roots of the area? That some people happened to live there? Then a parking lot was placed over a grave site?
Sounds like an exceedingly crappy museum. But I guess that's what the residents want because their ultimate plan is simply to have no new people in the area. The grave itself is just a MacGuffin.
So did anyone watch Robbie humiliate himself in Randolph Hills?
@11:36 I guess they can fill the museum with information about the "struggle" against the planning board. They'll have pictures of 20 protestors marching down River Road back in 2017, and maybe even a printed archive of Dyer blog posts on the issue. That'll will be one of the hottest museums in town, so they can easily charge $20/ticket.
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