Once again, MoCo officials were caught asleep at the switch in the competition for Halo Labs. The company should have been a natural fit, as Montgomery County's biotech sector is the only bright spot in the County's moribund economy - Halo Labs is a life sciences instrumentation company. Their Horizon system allows subvisible particle analysis for pharmaceutical research. How Montgomery officials could have slept through such an opportunity is beyond imagination.
“Virginia snared more than $5.5 billion in capital investment for its top two projects, and its top five job-creation efforts netted nearly 28,000 new jobs in a diverse and well-executed growth strategy that has made VA a high-tech force to be reckoned with,” Business Facilities Editor-in-Chief Jack Rogers said Wednesday. Rogers declared that Virginia isn't just a top player in the tech sector, but is "dominating the field." Montgomery County hasn't even made it out of the locker room. They're too busy getting stuffed into a locker by Ralph Northam.
Virginia has shown it can not only soundly beat Montgomery County in the region's traditional sectors, but also quickly conquer new frontiers. In fact, it is already on the verge of erasing Montgomery's thin advantage in MoCo's only successful sector, biotech. Virginia "can walk and chew gum at the same time—which in this case means they’re upgrading traditional industries while accelerating emerging growth sectors,” Rogers said yesterday.
One of the least-discussed of Virginia's many advantages in attracting Amazon was its cutting-edge efforts in the exploding field of unmanned aerial vehicles, one of great interest to Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos. Just days ago, it was announced that Virginia will be the first state in the nation where drones will deliver packages, as the FAA cleared Wing to operate a pilot program in Blacksburg.
No wonder Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan is spending his week tilting at presidential windmills, and signing hundreds of radical far-left socialist bills into law in Annapolis. He has no economic development news to tout. Montgomery's elected officials spent the week arguing about whether taxpayers should give County government employees a 6% or 9% raise, after raising Council salaries to $137,000 and promising you a 4.8% property tax hike to pay for all that - but continue to take no action on our economic development and traffic congestion crises. Heckuva job, Brownie!
59 comments:
Just move there and get a job.
We all understand you are unhappy with the state of the business economy in MoCo. Lest me ask again. Instead of focusing on morbidity, why not offer creative ideas on how we could improve things. Make a concise list of what you think should be our priorities to improve the situation. Constant criticism just wears us all down. How about some constructive ideas?
5:35: It doesn't matter whether I'm happy or unhappy - the facts and statistics show the County economy is moribund by every relevant measure.
It's not constant truth-telling that is wearing the County down, it's the constant false positivity in local media that is wearing us down.
The first step is admitting you have a problem. Do you prefer how the MoCo cartel is handling the crisis - by just putting a piece of tape over the Check Engine light?
I've delivered a full list of proposals to turn things around, which you have been reading on RobertDyer.net since I posted them over a year ago.
I'm confused, Dyer. Weren't you just talking yesterday about how high Nova's vacancy rate is because they've lost so many jobs?
Am I the only one who hates the political spin Mr. Dyer insists on including on most of his otherwise informative articles?
Anna - I saw this on my FB feed this morning, and I thought it applies here.
"Check yourself. Sometimes you're the toxic person.
"Understand that you make mistakes. That you hurt people. Apologize. That's growth - understanding that there are things you need to work on.
"That's enlightenment - striving for continuous improvement, instead of faking perfection."
6:46: We can't improve the County if we keep pretending that we have wise and successful elected officials. The first step is admitting you have a problem.
6:19: I said that because of the Obama-Ryan sequestration disaster, NoVa lost many defense/federal contracting jobs which developers had built office space for.
They've had no problem creating/attracting jobs in all other sectors, and have continued to far outstrip us in that and every other economic reference point.
"I said that because of the Obama-Ryan sequestration disaster, NoVa lost many defense/federal contracting jobs which developers had built office space for."
That means that the office vacancy rate there has RISEN, not fallen. Why don't you understand this simple concept?
So group your proposals into a concise list so we can all see your ideas to improve, not just denigrate. I am not about to search through one years worth of rantings to find your ideas.
Get organized, make a list and show us the path to redemption, and stop bitching. Be constructive, not destructive.
I’ll even get you started, but you need to help fill in the blanks and add more ideas that you have proposed, but we can’t seem to recall. Please correct if I have not property stated your position or idea.
Dyers Manifesto to make MoCo Unmoribund Again
1. Enhance highway capacity using toll roads and HOV lanes, specifically xxx.
2. Add a Potomac river crossing at xxx.
3. Start a task force to target new bio-medical business relocation to MoCo, offering xxx as incentives.
4. Enhance school capacity, tied to residential growth, by implementing xxx.
5. Encourage more night time business activity by xxx.
6. Require entertainment based business uses such as theaters, night clubs, live music event spaces in new projects over xxx SF.
7. Reduce taxes by xxx, by doing xxx.
8. Protect existing single family neighborhoods by xxx.
9. Elect a more politically balanced county government.
10. You add more here...
7:33: It is all there in bullet points on RobertDyer.net.
Also, I've said to focus on attracting defense, aerospace and tech firms to the county, not just biotech.
I've got specific transportation projects, budget policy changes, etc. on that site, as well.
7:26: Moving goalposts again - I never said sequestration cause NoVa vacancy rates to fall. The discussion is about how NoVa's previous success, and budget sequestration impacts, led to there being more office space in their market than MoCo has.
Thus, NoVa falsely appears to have a higher vacancy rate than MoCo, when in reality, MoCo simply has much less office space to become vacant - it either never existed due to our moribund MoCo economy, or it was demolished and replaced with housing.
BOOM
6:00AM
Exactly
Other 7900 Wisconsin Avenue, where has office space been "demolished and replaced with housing"?
"Thus, NoVa falsely appears to have a higher vacancy rate than MoCo, when in reality, MoCo simply has much less office space to become vacant - it either never existed due to our moribund MoCo economy, or it was demolished and replaced with housing."
Love the mental gymnastics, Dyer. What you say has absolutely no bearing on how office vacancy rate is calculated. It's the ratio of two variables, and those alone:
Office space that is vacant - Numerator
Divided by
All office space, occupied or vacant - Denominator.
Is it weird that folks are spinning Amazon giving MoCo a hard pass as a positive?
I still think we had a chance if Silver Spring was pitched instead of White Flint.
I mean, the whole Discovery HQ was available and I hear there's empty office space downtown.
8:15: Come on, Saul - you know it's been far more than that. Multiple sites in downtown Bethesda, with St. Elmo Apts. site and Auburn Professional Building being the latest. King Farm, Wheaton, downtown Silver Spring.
8:19: Yes, and when you dump the extra office space into your "office space that is vacant" Numerator, is when you falsely give NoVa a higher vacancy rate, simply because it had more office space built based on pre-sequestration numbers.
BOOM
Thanks for the link to robertdyer.net. I didn’t realize that you indeed have created a list of your recommendations if you were elected. Would it be possible to revise the list to summarize what you recommend all of us can look to to fix the issues you have highlighted. Not just “Robert will...” items but since you were not elected, perhaps a new version about “How MoCo residents can work to improve our county” or something similar. Not just a political stump speech, but a white paper on how to proceed.
"Multiple sites in downtown Bethesda, with St. Elmo Apts. site and Auburn Professional Building being the latest."
You're talking about tiny, low-rise office buildings. A single suite in one of the new 20-story office buildings will have more office space than nearly all of those buildings.
8:50: Wrong! Plenty of office destroyed in Bethesda, large office buildings planned were canceled at King Farm and elsewhere in Rockville, and high rises were taken down in Silver Spring and Wheaton.
“Halo is a cannabis extraction Company that develops and manufactures quality cannabis oils and concentrates, which are the fastest growing segments in the cannabis industry.”
What makes you think this would be a good fit for MoCo?
11:00 AM What is a simulation game?
Halo Labs is not one of the vaunted “major Fortune 500” companies this blog considers so important. So why is their skipping over MoCo considered “humiliating”? (Was the county even in the running or are we just counting any corporate move anywhere in the world as a loss?)
Did Mr. Dyer reach out to the company for comment on why they didn’t select Montgomery County?
Sounds like what we need is a Democratic Governor.
3:46: Why would we not be in the running? Are you saying we're paying the economic development people and elected officials, and they're not even doing anything?
8:25: We need a governor of either party who understands the business world in 2019. One easy test is whether they recognize the significance of Dulles Airport access to attracting international corporations, which Hogan apparently does not.
"We need a governor of either party who understands the business world in 2019."
Sure, Dyer. You "understand the business world in 2019" so well, because of your experience as a "mumble mumble Recording Artist mumble mumble".
5:05: Anyone business-savvy person who has read my reports or heard me speak during elections can immediately tell I am more knowledgeable about the world of business in 2019 than our current elected officials. Their record of failure, including the legislative record and votes of the newest Council since December, speaks for itself.
"Anyone business-savvy person who has read my reports or heard me speak during elections can immediately tell I am more knowledgeable about the world of business in 2019 than our current elected officials."
Has anyone ever said this about you? Publicly?
Judging from the election results, for 2010, 2014, and 2018, County residents disagree with you.
As I recall, your only endorsement during the 2018 election was from a group called "Keep Damascus Rural", which is clearly not a group that is interested in promoting business in our County.
Anyone who has ever heard Dyer speak says he has a godawful nasal monotone and a creepy 10-mile stare and they could only stand listening to his YouTube video for 20 seconds tops.
5:27: No business group endorsed in the Council At-Large race in 2018, so nice try there.
Many, many people have noted publicly that I am more-knowledgeable about business than the Council.
I said "business-savvy" people - low-information sheeple voters, illegal voters, and Communist voters are not business-savvy people, old sport.
5:29: LOL, I guess that's why I have over 13000 YouTube subscribers, millions of views, and you're shouting at a computer screen in a dark room.
"Many, many people have noted publicly that I am more-knowledgeable about business than the Council."
Name one.
Why did you ask me a question if you’re only going to delete the answer? It’s absurdly unethical.
9:04: “Why would we not be in the running?”
That’s a great question for the people at Halo! Here are a few possibilities:
Maybe there’s some specific reason Halo chose California.
Halo manufactures cannabis oil; maybe that’s not legal in Maryland.
Maybe the county’s development people didn’t make a pitch because they didn’t hear about the company’s plans. Halo is a private company, if they didn’t publicize a search then it’s perfectly reasonable that nobody from the county would’ve heard.
Did you reach out to Halo and ask?
6:38: Delete what answer? Halo is moving from Pennsylvania. A company doesn't manufacture out of their corporate headquarters.
Are you saying that I'm aware of companies conducting relocation searches, but our six-figure salaried economic development officials and County Councilmembers are not?
That's pretty embarrassing if true, and it sounds like it's time for a massive paycut for each of them. How about performance-based salaries for economic development positions (and MCPS administrators/superintendent)?
7:03 — You asked why MoCo wouldn’t be in the running. I answered with a list of possible reasons, which you proceeded to delete — several times. Why?
Were you aware of the company’s relocation search while it was in progress, or did you become aware after they announced their choice?
Nice straw man, though.
One more thing:
“A company doesn’t manufacture out of their corporate headquarters.”
Really? Are you sure?
The new headquarters will house sales, marketing, engineering, and manufacturing personnel and serve as the company's primary Horizon® instrument production facility.
I’d think someone as business-savvy as yourself, which such a breadth of knowledge about headquarters relocations everywhere in the world, would know that sometimes companies do in fact collocate manufacturing operations with corporate offices.
7:36: I said they don't have to, Saul. They weren't required to locate where they manufacture.
Yes, I do have that knowledge - which is why I campaigned on the idea that what we not only want to attract the corporate HQs of defense and aerospace firms, but also their research and manufacturing facilities. We have Lockheed's HQ (although the Council has vigorously been trying to chase them away for years), now let's have some of their facilities as well.
You're not going to poach Boeing's Everett plant and relocate it to the Fairgrounds.
You need to nip that daydream in the bud.
How come Dyer keeps deleting comments asking how he heard about Halo Labs' move?
8:01: Certainly not while the current Council is in office!
8:09: How come I knew about it and the County officials who we pay 6-figures to follow this stuff didn't, freak?
“I said they don't have to, Saul.”
No, you didn’t. Perhaps that’s what you *meant* to say? But your own words are right up there in black & white.
Where did you learn about Halo’s HQ search? I’d think this would be helpful information to our county’s development team, and by extension, all county residents.
9:15: Classic Saul Alinsky - you're apparently the only one who doesn't realize you've moved the goalposts and are attacking on minute irrelevant other topics instead of how MoCo blew the Halo competition.
Punch thyself.
"Gov. Larry Hogan is spending his week signing hundreds of radical far-left socialist bills into law in Annapolis."
Such as?
6:34: Just start reading aloud from the list of bills he signed.
Blogger Anna said...
Firefighter protective health programs
Renovate the OC convention center
expanding the tax credit for electric vehicles
expanding workers comp to include certain medical conditions
Hospital patient bill of rights
establishing Caribbean Heritage Month
promoting hemp research and production
Stacey's Law re: changing solicitation of murder from a misdemeanor to a felony
You know, all those radical far-left socialist things...
10:52 AM 5/4/19
"VA named State of the Year by corporate relocation mag, MoCo loser in Halo Labs HQ move"
11:26: Try actually reading the whole list. Trump could beat Hogan just by reading the list of far-left radical bills he signed into law this year alone.
5:38: Red flag unconstitutional gun seizure law, 911 tax (a double tax hike), taxpayer-funded loans to federal employees, Obamacare-style insurance laws that raised health insurance premiums ("reinsurance"), Vision Zero bill, just to name a few.
Taxpayer funded loans to Federal employees? Oh...you mean the one where if the Federal government shuts down for an extended period of time, Maryland promises to help those Maryland residents whose jobs are affected by the shutdown?
Red flag gun seizure? You mean the law passed LAST year, effective 10/1/18? Maryland is one of at least nine states, including California, Connecticut and Delaware, that allow a relative, spouse, legal guardian or roommate to seek a court order to keep a person from possessing a gun. There were 148 of those in the 1st quarter. 60 percent of the petitions came from a family or household member with “specific knowledge” about the person who had access to a gun. One petition came from a health-care worker, and the rest were initiated by law enforcement, he said.
911 fee? Maryland is enhancing its 911 emergency phone system. It’s increasing a state 911 fee by 25 cents a month, and the charge will be assessed per phone rather than per household. That's a whopping $3 a year.
Vision Zero? THE PURPOSE OF VISION ZERO IS TO DEVELOP STRATEGIES TO MAKE HIGHWAYS SAFER FOR DRIVERS AND PASSENGERS OF MOTOR VEHICLES, BICYCLISTS, AND PEDESTRIANS.
(B) THE GOAL OF VISION ZERO IS TO HAVE ZERO VEHICLE–RELATED DEATHS OR SERIOUS INJURIES ON STATE HIGHWAYS. Text from HB 885
You know, more of those radical far-left socialist things...
7:10: Federal employees get paid eventually - a total rip off for taxpayers.
Red flag laws are unconstitutional - they not only violate the 2nd amendment, but deprive the victim of due process, and are therefore open to abuse and political misuse.
911 tax.
"The purpose of Vision Zero" is to "get people out of their cars," and eventually banning of private vehicles. Along with Agenda 21, it is indeed a "radical far-left" program.
Facts: The more Vision Zero has been implemented in Montgomery County and D.C., the more traffic-related deaths have occurred. It's actually dangerous to the people it claims to help, by violating best practices in highway engineering. Such as speed limits that don't fit the engineering of a particular road. And causing road rage, just as drivers go faster after passing through a street with speed bumps or other obstacles, to make up for lost time.
So, they should go bankrupt or get evicted or starve or not be able to afford their Rx's but it's okay because they'll get paid eventually? Pfft.
Red flag laws? No they're not. Other states doing it, more are in the works. We have a domestic terrorism problem we need to address. Unless you don't care about that.
Private vehicles won't be banned. That's just not true.
8:27: If you don't like working for the government, go to the private sector.
Red flag laws are indeed unconstitutional; no one has taken a challenge to the Supreme Court on it yet.
A ban on private vehicles is the ultimate goal of globalists. Good luck executing it.
Who said they didn't like working for the govt? Just like people in the private sector, they don't appreciate working for free or being laid off for months on end.
Kind of hypocritical for you to think everyone should be responsible for personally earning the money they live on.
Your opinion that they are unconstitutional. I don't recall you being a constitutional law scholar.
Again, your opinion of the ultimate goal of globalists.
9:22: They're not working for free - their pay is frozen while the government is shut down.
Red flag laws are clearly unconstitutional. Have you ever read the Bill of Rights? They violate the 2nd, 5th and 6th amendments. The language is very clear, and not subject to opinion, unlike some other issues.
Globalists have openly spoken of their efforts to nationalize transportation through fleets of government-owned autonomous vehicles.
So you think it's perfectly ok that should go bankrupt or get evicted or starve or not be able to afford their Rx's because they'll get paid eventually?
We have a domestic terrorism problem we need to address. Unless you don't care about that. I'll bet your view would be different if it was you or yours in the crosshairs of a family member or roommate.
Private vehicles won't be banned. That's just not true. You're taking it to extremes.
1:11: Have you ever heard of a rainy day fund? Irresponsibility is not the taxpayer's responsibility.
Don't tell me - "the white man is the greatest terror threat we face?" LOL
Private vehicles won't be banned if the public stands up against the government, but it's the globalists' goal nonetheless.
Obviously said by a person who has never had to struggle for money.
Yes, "the white man is the greatest terror threat we face." More people have been murdered in this country by white men. Hands down.
The "globalists." Donald Trump and members of his administration used the term globalist on multiple occasions, associating the term specifically with Jewish critics of the Trump Administration. The administration was accused of using the term as an anti-Semitic "dog whistle", to associate their critics with a Jewish conspiracy
4:58: Is Bill Gates Jewish? The Clintons are Jewish? Leon Panetta is Jewish?
They're among many non-Jewish globalists.
The "anti-Semitic" charge is nothing more than an attempt to stop criticism of people like George Soros, who is spending big money trying to interfere in the politics and legal systems of countries all over the world. He is a bad actor, to be charitable, and needs more scrutiny, not less.
It's also an attempt to halt criticism of globalism and its promoters, who are losing ground to nationalists around the globe.
No one gains magic immunity from their wrongdoing simply by their race or religion. Such an idea is completely absurd.
No, I gave you ONE way the word "globalist" is used. You realize that the origins of that word? First used to describe Adolf Hitler’s expansionism goals, “globalist” then started having anti-Semitic connotations. I doubt anyone was referring to a 15 year old Soros in the 1940's.
I you're going to blame Soros, you better blame the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch, & Sheldon Adelson too.
6:25: I do blame the koch brothers, murdoch and Adelson. Not fans of any of them. They are aligned with the Clintons and Obama, much like Paul Ryan and most GOP on Capitol Hill.
Globalism is a word that was presented in our times with a positive connotation, not as a Hitlerian term. It just happened to turn out to be a disaster for all but the elite who were behind it. Using our 1st Amendment rights, we now are free to criticize and condemn globalism and its proponents for trying to destroy the United States.
"the koch brothers, murdoch and Adelson...are aligned with the Clintons and Obama, much like Paul Ryan and most GOP on Capitol Hill."
How do you come up with this stuff, Dyer? It's 180 degrees opposite of reality.
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