Wednesday, November 07, 2018

Fresh off victory, Elrich to support Moses African Cemetery at HOC today

Montgomery County Executive-elect Marc Elrich
greets the Rev. Segun Adebayo of
Macedonia Baptist Church in 2017
Less than 24 hours after prevailing over a $1 million effort by developers to stop him from becoming Montgomery County Executive, Marc Elrich will make one of his first appearances as County Executive-Elect this afternoon at a meeting of the Montgomery County Housing Opportunities Commission. According to leaders at Macedonia Baptist Church in Bethesda, Elrich will be there to stand in solidarity with advocates for the preservation and restoration of the desecrated Moses African Cemetery. The cemetery is located on the site of Westwood Tower on Westbard Avenue, which was purchased by the HOC from developer Regency Centers.

HOC officials had claimed publicly that they were tabling any potential development on the cemetery site, which is largely buried under asphalt and 60' of fill dirt since it was desecrated in the late 1960s by the Westwood Tower construction team. That claim was met with great skepticism by cemetery advocates. Their concerns were legitimate, as HOC is now moving forward with a new plan to consider redevelopment options for the site.

In a letter to Macedonia Baptist Church, HOC's Executive Director Stacy Spann outlines a plan to form an advisory board of "stakeholders from the wider community" to explore these options. “This is a cynical move by HOC to grab power by forming a sham advisory board that will kick MBC to the curb,” the Rev. Dr. Segun Adebayo, Pastor of MBC, said Tuesday. “But for the efforts of our church, a parking garage and apartments would already be standing atop Moses Cemetery with the blessings of those very same so-called stakeholders. Macedonia will not allow HOC’s $20 million conflict of interest dictate the fate of our ancestors. If HOC had any credibility it would recuse itself from the process.”

Elrich now has considerable leverage over the HOC, as the County Executive appoints the board's commissioners.

52 comments:

Anonymous said...

2014

Riemer, Hans DEM 132,818 15.20%
Dyer, Robert REP 75,404 8.63%

2018

Riemer, Hans DEM 228,430 18.2%
Dyer, Robert REP 78,137 6.2%

Anonymous said...

I agree with the term limits sentiment. Research has shown that they lead to worse governance because it forces us to vote for inexperienced leaders on a regular basis.

washingtonpost.com/opinions/heres-why-term-limits-are-a-bad-idea/2016/10/21/19494762-84d2-11e6-92c2-14b64f3d453f_story.html

Anonymous said...

This woman is crazy. Get a real job woman and put your money where your mouth is.... why didn't she purchase the land? Why was the land sold to begin with? That's what I thought!

Anonymous said...

Why were Russians at Bethesda Elementary polling place yesterday?
They claimed to be with the "BBC" and interviewing people.

One question they asked a resident coming out from voting:

Russian: "Just for fun- if Donald Trump was running against Vladmir Putin, who would you vote for"

Resident: "I'd go for a third party candidate"

Anonymous said...

First council election I can recall that the Post didn't write one word about and had all of the Democrats refuse to debate.

Meanwhile, all of the content about the exec race (weekly articles in the Post) and dozens of debates amounted to nothing. It went as everyone expected- landslide for Marc.

Riff Rafferty said...

Glad the adults the County residents elected last night are showing up to do their job. The church goers are still whiners and shouldn't be pandered too, but at least the election results were a success and the adults won!

Anonymous said...

Daily reminder: the alleged cemetery land was owned by a black benevolent society. They sold it more than 50 years ago, fair and square. The church should direct their anger as the seller, not the current owner.

Robert Dyer said...

3:53: Your definition of an "adult" is someone who will desecrate a cemetery for private profit in concert with their developer sugar daddies?

7:45: Wrong. Direct your anger at those who have built or tried to build on the cemetery since the 1960s, even while knowing it was a black cemetery the whole time.

11:07: The Post has disgraced itself by not publishing a single sentence about the Montgomery County Council races in the entire general election.

7:48: As if we needed any more evidence of fraud in Montgomery County elections.

5:51: Intriguing the voter universe mysteriously increased by almost 100,000 in only four years. The cemetery precincts came in strong for Riemer. No media coverage, no debates. You can't tell if it's Montgomery County or Russia.

Baloney Concrete said...

Again with the “cemetery precincts” nonsense?

“the voter universe increased by almost 100,000 in only four years”

Registered voters, 2014: 634,659
Registered voters, 2018: 655,415
Difference: 20,756

Anonymous said...

"The Post has disgraced itself by not publishing a single sentence about the Montgomery County Council races in the entire general election"

Why bother? The four Republican candidates didn't even bother to campaign. It's the same repeats who didn't even face a competitive primary.

Anonymous said...

Election results:

ZOMBIES: 4

HOBOES: 0

Anonymous said...

The statement the "The Post has disgraced itself by not publishing a single sentence about the Montgomery County Council races in the entire general election" is patently false. However the Post did disgrace itself with its false, inaccurate and over-the-top news, editorial and endorsement barrage against Marc Elrich for Montgomery County Executive in both the primary and general election. Nonetheless, Elrich won decisively over both oppenents in the general election's three way race. In general, I don't think their local endorsements are worth much.

Anonymous said...

5:08 am Dyer appeared at events across the county. All debates were cancelled this cycle.

Well, there were Democrats primary debates, but that was a clown show with a cast of dozens of candidates.

Anonymous said...

The post's pro floreen barage was unfortunate.

But not writing one article about the Council race is deeply embarrassing to the Post. I guess they truly have given up on local coverage. That's why others like Dyer are filling the gaps in local news.

Anonymous said...

The Post endorsement definitely helped Larry Hogan.

Robert Dyer said...

1:07: Please link to a Post article about the general election At-Large Council race, then (hint: there isn't one). The Post was in collusion with...County Over Party PAC? The MoCo cartel? Amazon? The Democratic Party? Time and investigation will tell. h

Three precincts still uncounted over 48 hours after polls closed?

https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/Elections/Resources/Files/htm/2018/generalelection/results/EV_EDCum.HTM

#BurtMacklinFBI

Anonymous said...

The Post had plenty of articles about the Council races leading up to the primary.

The Republicans didn't field any serious challengers nor did they have any competitive primaries. They didn't have any candidates at all for Council Districts 3, 4, and 5. They fielded only one candidate each for County Executive, Council Districts 1 and 2, and fielded only four candidates for the four At-Large Council seats.

The Democrats had 6 candidates running for County Executive.

The Democrats had 33 candidates running for the 4 At-Large seats.

The Democrats had 8 candidates running for District 1, 3 for District 2, 2 for District 3, 2 for District 4, 3 for District 5.

Of the 7 Republican candidates who ran, 3 had run previously in 2014 and previous years and been defeated by double-digit margins.

Robert Dyer said...

8:58: I didn't ask you about the Democratic primary - I asked you to link to a Washington Post article about the general election Council At-Large race. You have so far been unable to do so, because there is no such article.

WTF is a "serious challenger?" Marc Elrich ran more times than I have for the Council before he won, and he became the most-popular politician in Montgomery County after that.

WTF is a "serious challenger?" It's not up to the journalist to editorialize about who he or she thinks is a "serious challenger," a term which you haven't even defined for us. Journalism 101 - a course Jennifer Barrios at the Post desperately needs to take as soon as possible.

The Post and other media outlets were clearly in collusion in this election. The question is, with whom?

The biggest mistake the cartel made was going over-the-top in fixing the election results. I clearly had the most name recognition of anyone in the At-Large race, and I was on the right side of the major controversies that should have driven the election year media coverage (which never appeared). There's no way I shouldn't at least be well over 100,000 votes.

Likewise, Dick Jurgena did light years better against Craig Rice with far less money than Ed Amatetti. Do you really think it's credible that Ed would finish that much worse after working like mad for two full years and a six-figure campaign account, a much more visible campaign?

A voter universe that expanded by 100,000 in only 4 years? LOL. We didn't even get that many more residents, much less registered voters.

The results don't pass any credibility test, which was a huge miscalculation by the cartel. Now the election may be tainted, and we'll have to investigate for the next four years into what happened.

Anonymous said...

"A voter universe that expanded by 100,000 in only 4 years? LOL. We didn't even get that many more residents, much less registered voters."

Not really that hard to understand. Turnout in mid-terms tends to be lower than during presidential, but it was much higher this year due to anger over Trump, not just in Montgomery County, but nationwide. But it was still lower than the turnout in the last three presidential elections.

Turnout in Montgomery County

2008 - 79%

2010 - 51%

2012 - 82%

2014 - 39%

2016 - 63%

2018 - 54%

No mysterious "expansion of the voter universe by 10,000".

Anonymous said...

"I clearly had the most name recognition of anyone in the At-Large race"

How did you come to believe that?

Anna said...

I see.. you've set this special time aside to humiliate yourself in public?

Anonymous said...

Bethesda Beat definitely wrote about the Republican candidates in the 2018 Montgomery County general election.

https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-beat/opinion-mocos-pathetic-republicans/

Robert Dyer said...

4:35: That was not covering the race - it was a sad,false, pathetic opinion piece by a very bitter man who has been following my career closely for most of this decade. He knows I'm right on every issue, as his reports on the moribund County economy prove.

Robert Dyer said...

4:24: Uh, because I do have the most name recognition. Ask 10 people on the street in Bethesda who any of the Democratic winners At-Large are. Get ready for blank faces and stammering voices. Sad truth: The majority of voters don't even know who they just elected to the County Council.

They're going to find out - and they'll have no grounds to whine or complain for the next four years.

4:26: You must be talking about Hans Riemer, who remains the least popular councilman in MoCo history. Despite being president this year, he finished last among the four. LOL You set him up for that one.

Anonymous said...

That's funny...you never called Adam Pagnucco "a very bitter man with sad, false, pathetic opinions" when you repeatedly claimed that he said that Montgomery County's economy was "moribund".

Robert Dyer said...

4:20: So you're claiming over 100,000 more voters turned out in 2018 than in 2016? LOL, that's some new math.

Robert Dyer said...

5:19: You're right, because those articles weren't false. His comments about Republicans in the opinion piece you linked to were demonstrably false. I was the most-visible at-large candidate in the County this year.

While I agreed with his excellent articles on the moribund economy, only a bitter person is forced to take cheap shots at candidates he knows are totally correct on the very economic issues he has written about.

Instead, he wrote an article helping Democrats who presented no specific plans to address our economic development crisis (worst in the region), and couldn't even say they supported or definitively opposed specific infrastructure projects. Shouldn't you know your positions before declaring for office?

Kind of like the police union not endorsing me - with a verifiable RECORD of supporting Montgomery's Finest over a decade of activism - but endorsing two of my opponents who are on the record opposing police officers, and who have never spent a minute advocating for our police officers and their benefits.

You're in a hole right now trying to defend the corrupt MoCo cartel - my best advice to you is stop digging, and start supporting Robert Dyer.

Anna said...

I've always said I was no fan of Riemer. Your assumption that I voted for him is wrong.

Anonymous said...

"So you're claiming over 100,000 more voters turned out in 2018 than in 2016?"

Who said that?

2016 General Election, Montgomery County

Total registered: 656,354
Ballots cast: 420,321
Turnout: 64.04%

2018 General Election, Montgomery County

Total registered: 655,415
Ballots cast: 358,879
Turnout: 54.76%

Anonymous said...

Who founded this "MoCo Cartel"?

Robert Dyer said...

5:32: You did. If you are now admitting that over 100,000 additional voters didn't come out, how do you explain the 100,000 additional votes received by the four Democrats who won in the At-Large race, and the huge jump in Craig Rice's margin of victory this year against a better-funded opponent who has been door-knocking for two years?

Even you've got to admit I'm right that something doesn't add up here. The Spider Sense is tingling like crazy. We've got a full blown election tampering and voter fraud scandal on our hands, and the election results may not be legitimate.

Robert Dyer said...

5:34: I don't know, but it consists of developers, certain unions, and allied media outlets and community organization.

Robert Dyer said...

*organizations.

Anonymous said...

Or did you mean to say, "So you're claiming over 100,000 more voters turned out in 2018 than in *2014*?"

2016 General Election, Montgomery County

Total registered: 634,659
Ballots cast: 246,987
Turnout: 38.92%

2018 General Election, Montgomery County

Total registered: 655,415
Ballots cast: 358,879
Turnout: 54.76%

Yes, 111,892 more did vote in 2018 than in 2014. What is your reason for doubting that, other than being unhappy with losing in both years?

Anonymous said...

If the "MoCo Cartel" includes community organizations, then I guess those communities like them.

Robert Dyer said...

5:44: No, many of those organizations do not represent the interests of the community, such as civic associations that ally themselves with developers. New strategy since White Flint sector plan - literally pay a guy to move into the neighborhood and take over the civic association. Unreal. And then he leaves as soon as the plan passes.

Robert Dyer said...

5:43: And how many of those 111,892 are Democrats? Think about it.

Robert Dyer said...

5:57: No, too busy. You have time, though, as evidenced by your round-the-clock trolling of my blog. Enjoy your tax hike.

Anna said...

Too busy doing what? Election's over.
What's keeping you so busy now?

Anonymous said...

Too busy blaming everyone but himself for losing. Three times in a row.

Baloney Concrete said...

Mr. Dyer, you lost an election in a HEAVILY Democratic County in a year where Republicans (Hogan being a notable exception) are extremely unpopular.

Not only that, but as far as I know you barely campaigned at all. I saw David Trone or his people outside the Metro station at least a dozen different mornings. Rose Krasnow and Hans Reimer also came by one morning each during the primary. Didn’t see you once during the primary or general. I also didn’t see a single Dyer yard sign except the one you held at Taste of Bethesda. How do you expect to win if you don’t put yourself in front of voters?

Anonymous said...

Robin Ficker's signs were everywhere.

I didn't see any signs for Dyer or the equally hapless Alzona, Day, Banach, Fiotes or Musser or for the hapless but lovely and talented Shelly Skolnick.

Anonymous said...

1:07 What I, Anonymous said...
"The statement the "The Post has disgraced itself by not publishing a single sentence about the Montgomery County Council races in the entire general election" is patently false. However the Post did disgrace itself with its false, inaccurate and over-the-top news, editorial and endorsement barrage against Marc Elrich for Montgomery County Executive in both the primary and general election. Nonetheless, Elrich won decisively over both oppenents in the general election's three way race. In general, I don't think their local endorsements are worth much."

I stand by that statement in its entirety. A sentence and an article are not the same thing. I'll take you're word that the Post may not have dedicated a whole article to the At-large MoCo Council race, but that's not the same as saying they didn't cover it or write a single sentence about it, they did both.



1:07 PM

Robert Dyer said...
1:07: Please link to a Post article about the general election At-Large Council race, then (hint: there isn't one). The Post was in collusion with...County Over Party PAC? The MoCo cartel? Amazon? The Democratic Party? Time and investigation will tell. h

Robert Dyer said...

10:18: Total BS. There's not a single sentence covering the general election At-Large race. A sentence declaring the winners after election day is not campaign coverage - and they didn't even have the guts to write the names of the other challengers.

Facts: There was not a single sentence written about the general election Council At-Large race. You can't link, because there is no such article.

Robert Dyer said...

7:44: You obviously don't get around the county much. I literally had more signs on lawns than any of my opponents.

Having said that, signs don't win campaigns, or else Ficker and Bill Day would have won in landslides. Use your brain for once, although we are skeptical you have one that is functional.

While my involvement in the big issues like Westbard should have given me bipartisan support in the election - had it been written about in the media - the real issue in the election is the total number of votes tallied for me is artificially lower than it should be (should be at least be over 100,000 mark), and the winners' margin is ridiculously artificially huge.

You guys were so desperate to prevent any type of positive news about Robert Dyer in the election that you went over-the-top, and now instead of moving forward on a positive note to the next election, there is controversy about the results. Remember, hacking experts have noted about 5 points between your ballot going into the scanner and the final tally that the results can be electronically manipulated very easily in Maryland.

Then look at the current results. #Oops

Finally, you are a complete idiot for claiming that because I never entered your living room where you are anchored to the couch like Jabba the Hut, I somehow never made any public appearance during the campaign, The thousands of people who saw me all year are laughing at you right now.

Anna said...

Actually no-one is laughing at him, except you Mr. Dyer.

I'm not anchored to my couch and I've driven around a fair bit of the county and I didn't see your abundance of yard signs either. Were they all in you home neighborhood?

Robert Dyer said...

6:32: You don't drive on Bradley Boulevard, and you claim to live in Bethesda? LOL People are now laughing at you, as well.

Best of all, my signs outnumbered those of the "winners."

"Have to assume the worst." - Rick Scott

Anna said...

No I didn't see them on Bradley. I haven't been on Bradley that much recently.
What part had your signs?

'Best of all, my signs outnumbered those of the "winners."' - Terrific! Make sure you take them all down...that always ticks me off when they're up months and months later (Bongino).

Always look on the bright side of life
(Whistle)
Always look on the light side of life
(Whistle)

Anonymous said...

So Dyer had (how many?) signs on Bradley Boulevard.

Where else did he have signs?

Robert Dyer said...

4:55/8:41: LOL. My signs were all collected after the polls closed, except those that were stolen by MCPS (they owe me about $20.00) and put into landfills, or were not on the lawns when I passed by that night.

You guys need to get around the County more before attacking those who are getting things done. I had signs on LAWNS (not just thrown up illegally in the rights-of-way like your favorite candidates) on several major roads, as well as in neighborhoods.

Anna said...

I'm just thinking out loud here, but maybe...since so many didn't see your signs... next time you should have a whole lot more signs. Just a thought.

Anonymous said...

How many of your signs add up to "$20.00"?