Over several hours of testimony, some themes of agreement began to become clear on both sides of the debate. Opponents expressed frustration at the failure of the Montgomery Parks department to formally get public input on the currently-temporary road diet prior to last night's hearing, questioned why other needed park-related renovations and improvements are being ignored in favor of a road diet no one asked for, cast doubt on the scope and accuracy of Parks' traffic study data, recounted traffic jams and incidents where ambulances with patients aboard were stuck in them, and protested Parks' last-minute separation of the approval of a road diet from the approval of a nebulously-defined "linear park" that even the department can't provide a final vision for.
Supporters of permanently shrinking the road argued that nearby residents should not have the last word on a park facility that belongs to the entire public, praised the reduction of speeds and impervious surface along the parkway's right-of-way, said it provided a unique open area for teaching children to ride bicycles, and suggested that redesigning roads around people rather than cars would boost adoption of cycling over time.
The hearing began with a lengthy presentation by staff from the Planning and Montgomery Parks departments. A process that has been unusual from the beginning remained true to form, as Montgomery Parks trail planner Kyle Lukacs went beyond the standard presentation of the proposal in his remarks. Lukacs essentially began to testify and argue at length in favor of the road diet. Unlike residents, he did not have a 3 minute time limit, and proceeded to engage in a point-by-point rebuttal of the arguments he expected would be raised in the public testimony that would follow him.
That testimony began with interim Planning Board Chair Jeff Zyontz awkwardly calling on Town of Somerset Mayor Jeffrey Slavin, one of the most prominent Democrats, activists and elected officials in the County, as "Jeffrey Salvin."
Slavin said the various forms of the shapeshifting road diet over the last few years "have confused, frustrated and endangered the citizens of Somerset." He recounted a meeting he had with Parks officials and County Councilmember Andrew Friedson (D - District 1), at which the department "revealed its true plans: to close part of Little Falls Parkway permanently."
The Somerset mayor said he was incredulous that Friedson described this closure to him as "a win-win" scenario. He noted that such a change contradicts the existing Westbard sector plan recommendation, and that a drastic change like the road diet should have been sought through a sector plan amendment process. Slavin suggested Parks instead chose its arbitrary strategy of simply implementing the diet by itself because "they wanted to make this change with as little public input as possible."
Resident David Johnson presented a petition with over 3000 signatures calling on the Board to vote against the road diet proposal. He said he had personally experienced a near head-on collision while driving the current configuration of the parkway between Dorset Avenue and Arlington Road, where there is no longer a median separating oncoming traffic in both directions. As Johnson questioned the traffic modeling used by Montgomery Parks, and the wisdom of reducing capacity on the main artery between the growing Westbard and downtown Bethesda areas, a resident waiting to speak via Microsoft Teams exclaimed, "Oh, Jesus!"
The blasphemous interjection preceded perhaps the biggest newsmaking moment of the evening. Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service Operations Division Chief Charles Bailey was quoted in a snarky Washington Post article about the parkway controversy last month, regarding the road diet's impact on emergency response times. "If there were some demonstrable impact to safety, then I would be throwing up red flags in the background, and I just don’t see them," the Post quoted Bailey as saying.
Given that the road diet currently reduces the parkway to one lane in each direction, with no median, no shoulders, and no way for police, fire or rescue vehicles to manuever around traffic jams on the major artery, Bailey's comments were startling to most anyone with common sense. Of course emergency response would be delayed during traffic backups - there is literally no way for emergency vehicles to circumvent a traffic jam. But Bailey's quote provided a voice of authority that Parks could use to slam the lid on the public safety argument, and Parks ran with it, even including it in staff reports to the Planning Board.
Kenwood resident Patricia Johnson was one of many in the community who were perplexed by Bailey's lack of concern over the impact on a major fire and rescue response route used by multiple departments. She got in touch with Bailey, "and asked him if he knew where the road was." It turns out that Bailey was under the impression from the Post reporter that the segment of the parkway being discussed was the section between River Road and Massachusetts Avenue, describing the speed bumps recently installed there. "He didn't know where that piece of road was when he was quoted in the Post," Johnson testified.
About a month later, Bailey was called to the scene of an accident on Little Falls Parkway along the actual road diet segment. Johnson said. Later, Bailey called Johnson to say that he now understood and shared her concern. "I see it now," he told her. "You have a point. I'm going to talk to my chiefs," Bailey said, according to Johnson. She added that she has seen fire trucks that would ordinarily travel the parkway now cutting through the residential neighborhoods around it, where narrow streets and speed bumps further slow response times.
Leanne Tobias, representing the Springfield Civic Association, reported that an ambulance carrying an injured person had been stopped cold multiple times along the road diet section of the parkway. "I was the person in the ambulance, actually," declared Somerset resident John Stewart. "And it was actually shocking to me that the ambulance stopped several times."
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| Pete Rizik, President of the Kenwood Citizens Association |
The fact is, the road diet has never been raised at a meeting of the NCPC, much less voted upon, as is required under the Capper-Cramton Act before such changes could be implemented by Parks. Staff at NCPC are not the NCPC commissioners. Only the commissioners can sign off on changes to the existing use of the parkway, and they've never done so since Parks sold a piece of Little Falls Parkway Stream Valley Park to a private developer for $500,000 in 2011.
"Demand proof from Parks that it has NCPC approval," Kenwood resident Christopher Danley advised the Planning Board. Until they can show approval in writing, Danley said, such claims are only an assertion.
Another development from the public hearing was a question that has been relatively overlooked in the discussion so far: If the County has extra money available for a project no one had even asked for, why is it not using that cash on existing park facilities that are outdated or in disrepair, or needed additional facilities like parks in the Westbard area or the Willett Branch Greenway?
Resident John Nicholson of Sumner was the last speaker, but made some of the strongest points of the evening on this very question. He said there are four County parks within walking distance of his home, but when he asks his children which park they would like to go to, they name parks just over the border in the District. Nicholson asked them why they wanted to go into Northwest Washington, and they replied that the playground equipment and athletic field and basketball court surfaces are newer and in better shape than those at the Montgomery County parks near them.
I could immediately understand the logic of this argument, as I grew up in the Westbard area, and I too would often ask to go to the Palisades Recreation Center and Playground (where there were still trolley tracks near Arizona Avenue), Turtle Park near American University, or Fort Bayard Park. If you go to a park in the Palisades, Nicholson said, "you'll see lots of Maryland license plates."
Likewise, Lynne Battle of Westbard Mews asked the Board why the Little Falls Parkway road diet and linear park construction money wouldn't be put toward the Willett Branch Greenway, an amenity promised but not yet delivered via the Westbard sector plan of 2016. Stacey Band of the Bradley House condo association suggested commissioners direct these funds toward widening the Capital Crescent Trail, and to needed repairs and improvements to the Little Falls Stream Valley Trail. The irony is that Montgomery Parks funded its initial road diet on the parkway in 2017 by illegally using money from a County trail maintenance fund - the very fund that apparently was never tapped during Montgomery Parks' neglect of the Little Falls trail.
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| Jenny Sue Dunner testifies |
The question of why Parks is now separating the vote on the abandonment of 2 of the parkway's 4 lanes from the matter of what will replace them troubled many speakers last night. Until Parks has presented a clear vision of what that facility will be, why would the public or commissioners sign off on handing that land over from its existing function? The gambit calls to mind former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's famous advice that "we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what's in it."
"We're talking about the closure of two lanes" without having reached agreement on the purpose of it, Westmoreland Hills resident Sofia Blake said in describing her main objection to the road diet. "Parks hasn't even shared its final plan with you," noted Danley, the Kenwood resident. Lloyd Guerci of Chevy Chase West questioned how the value of the linear park could be deemed sufficiently beneficial or desirable to the public, if residents have not even had the opportunity to look at a fully-realized plan for the future park, and provide testimony supportive of it yet.
Steve Shapiro said that such a final vote on the traffic capacity with only vague ideas of the facility that would replace it "puts the cart before the horse." Somerset resident Stewart was equally unpersuaded by Parks' vague promises of a park it can't define, even as it compares it to New York City's vaunted High Line. "To learn now [that Montgomery Parks is saying to the Planning Board], 'the reason we asked you for this is for a linear park, but we're not going to tell you what that is. We're going to try some things,'" Stewart said.
How about those sparkling traffic reports, or the completely opposite observations of residents on opposing sides? Traffic is either jammed or it is moving more smoothly than ever, depending upon who you are listening to. "I have not observed any change in traffic on Little Falls Parkway or Dorset Avenue," reported Somerset resident David Kathan. "It's caused the northbound traffic to back up all the way to Dorset Avenue," leading to cut-through traffic on Dorset, countered Somerset Town Council member Debbie Heller.
Opponents attempted to bolster their arguments about traffic jams, meager use of the closed lanes by cyclists, and increased danger at the parkway's Capital Crescent Trail crossing by providing video evidence collected over many hours, days and months along the parkway. Sumner resident Carl Becker noted the irony that a road diet that had its genesis in the "multilane threat" posed at the original CCT crossing configuration, has ended up restoring that very threat in its latest iteration. Becker also provided such voluminous video chronicles of the parkway that there was barely time to scratch the surface of them. He asked the commissioners to please review the video content.
Here are some of the videos he presented:
Emergency vehicles trying to navigate the parkway; cyclists running CCT crossing stop signs
Southbound traffic backups on Little Falls Parkway
Proponents of the road diet and linear park may have been outnumbered, but had an equal number of points to make in favor of the downsized parkway. Alison Gillespie has taken up cycling again in recent years, and testified that she has "been overjoyed to find more safer places to ride" than existed when she rode bikes in the past. She often bikes through Bethesda, and has found that the closed lanes on the parkway "provide a lot of recreation space that is badly needed."
Another contentious "Zoom moment" resulted when Gillespie contrasted Kenwood residents' opposition to closing half of the parkway to cars with the neighborhood's car-restrictive policy during cherry blossom season. The first thing Kenwood does as crowds descend on their community is to "get rid of the cars," she said. "Bull****! Bull****!" an unidentified participant on the Microsoft Teams call shouted in response. "People that live close by to parks don't get the last say," Gillespie concluded, arguing that parks belong to everyone in the county.
Somerset resident Kathan noted that closing half of the parkway between Dorset and Arlington could improve the health of the Little Falls watershed below it. "We need to remove impervious surfaces," he explained. Another benefit, according to Kathan? "Late night drag races are a thing of the past."
Bethesda resident and retired career firefighter Richard Hoye gave a strong endorsement of the proposal. "It's a groundbreaking plan, and I fully support it," he said. Hoye added that the wide space provided by the closed lanes allow him to more easily ride with his dog in a sidecar, and for families to bike side-by-side, something rarely possible on the busy CCT. Cyclists using cargo bikes or trailers are "a growing segment of the community," and would benefit from the permanent closure of the southbound lanes, he said.
David Woodward of Montgomery Village theorized that children of the plan's opponents would likely disagree with their parents' view on the road diet. Being able to ride to downtown Bethesda in the fresh air would be beneficial at a time when the mental health of many young people has been strained by the pandemic experience, and by increasing isolation among teens. He suggested installing speed bumps on adjacent neighborhood streets to discourage cut-through traffic (all of those neighborhoods already have speed bumps in place, it must be noted). Woodward closed by exhorting the Board to "do the right thing - you all know what that is."
Daniel Langenkamp, whose wife Sarah was killed by a truck driver turning into a driveway while she was cycling home in the bike lane on River Road last year, spoke in favor of the road diet and increased room for cyclists on the parkway. Green Acres resident Bryce Geyer said the closed lanes on the parkway are "probably the best place I've seen in the D.C. area" to teach someone how to ride a bike. He found it a much safer place to teach his children than the narrow and crowded CCT, or in parking lots, where cars present a danger.
Interim Board Chair Zyontz said that commissioners will review the testimony and exhibits that have been entered into the record over the next couple of weeks. A vote on the road diet is scheduled for the board's April 13, 2023 meeting.
Hedrick found nine, and then some, when every councilmember supported his appointment at yesterday's Council session. Some councilmembers who showed unusual spine in opposing Council President Evan Glass's behind-the-scenes maneuvering when the new Council first convened last December found their knees buckling on Tuesday. A tweet prior to the meeting inadvertently revealed that the Council had already reached a decison to unanimously support Hedrick, an agreement that was come to off-the-record, out of public view. Some of the same councilmembers who took Glass to task for making decisions off-line in December about committee assignments went along with his ex parte process this time.
It's likely the Council circled the wagons in this case because Glass could have sold the Hedrick Holdouts the argument that this was a vote on principle, of the power and will of the Council versus the executive. Does this mean the more independent minds on the Council will now support the Glass agenda for the rest of his term as president? No, as the competing bills on rent stabilization clearly show.
Is the Hedrick appointment reason for opponents of Thrive 2050 and its threat to end single-family-home zoning to get their blood pressure up? No. As I noted Saturday, Hedrick's support of Thrive and upzoning are hardly unique on the new Planning Board. The Council will not appoint anyone who opposes Thrive. Hedrick's votes will likely be indistinguishable from any other commissioner this Council would have appointed in his place.
If anything, Hedrick's appointment may improve the quality of the Board's work. Even if you disagree with the plans and policies he might vote to approve, his experience as chair of Rockville Housing Enterprises gives him an expertise on some of the technical and practical issues of multifamily housing that has been lacking in some of the commissioners in recent years. Board observers won't soon forget the many classic "amateur hour" moments from the Casey Anderson era, such as commissioners determining the maximum height for a parcel in the Westbard sector by looking at a distorted Google Street View image during a meeting.
One thing is for certain: the Hedrick controversy aside, the developer campaign contributors to the County Council are over-the-moon about the Planning Board situation as a whole. By all rights, the many scandals that ended with the forced resignation of the entire Board last year should have triggered comprehensive investigations by the local media, the Council, the Maryland Attorney General, and the FBI - starting with Farm Road and ending with Liquorgate. Some people might have even been looking at time behind bars in federal prison. Few could have imagined that the Council would be able to not only entirely sidestep investigations, but also seize the unprecedented power to appoint an entirely new Board and Chair all at once.
We can wonder why the media and those other levels of law enforcement agreed to look the other way, much as they did during the 2018 County government $6 million embezzlement scandal. But we can truly know why the Council found the chutzpah to sweep the Anderson-era scandals under the filthy Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission rug.
Once again, it goes back to one of the most pivotal moments in Montgomery County political history: the victory of the County political cartel over the Columbia Country Club in the Purple Line struggle. The elected officials dared to grab the third rail (pun intended), and when the next election came around, they realized that they weren't electrocuted - they were reelected! Turns out, especially when you have the local media in your back pocket, the third rail is a brass ring. If we can beat the Columbia Country Club, they concluded, we can beat anybody.
Energized to try their luck, the 2014-2018 Council approved a massive property tax hike, and the Westbard sector plan. They even aggressively defended the cover-up around, and ongoing desecration of, the Moses African Cemetery in Bethesda. While they ended up getting term limits, albeit with extremely-generous 12-year terms, when the actual elections came around in 2018...the voters - whose posteriors were still smarting from a tax and Westbard spanking they had just received two years prior - voted for the same or similar candidates who had delivered the beatdown to them.
The Council couldn't believe its good fortune. Realizing it now enjoyed serious Trump-shooting-somebody-on-Fifth-Avenue immunity, it could now go for broke. "Smart growth" around transit stations and the 2014 pledge that "we just want the shopping centers, we won't touch the neighborhoods" suddenly gave way to developer fever dreams like Thrive 2050. Serious players like Kenwood and the Citizens Coordinating Committee on Friendship Heights who had to be bargained with in the past could now be ignored, resulting in decisions like the Little Falls Parkway road diet scandal, and the Westbard-area road closure fiasco.
Of course, the Anderson-era Planning Board was the harbinger of this iron-fist, winner-take-all era we've now entered. Gone are the days when well-argued testimony from a resident could lead a commissioner like Francoise Carrier, Amy Presley or Norman Dreyfuss to change their mind on an issue. When you come to a Planning Board session in recent years, you know how the vote is going to go, with extremely rare exceptions. Your only role as a resident or civic association officer is to at least get the opposing view on the record for posterity.
One can hope independent minds will somehow emerge on the new Planning Board. But the Council demonstrated such closed minds in its interview process, that it's hard to believe this new Board won't redefine the term "lockstep" with frequent unanimous votes.
Consider that among the applicants for the interim board was former Rockville Mayor Larry Giammo. By every measure, Giammo was - if anything - overqualified to serve as a Planning Board commissioner. As mayor, Giammo successfully delivered the $400 million revitalization of Rockville Town Center. He also had served as a commissioner on the Rockville Planning Commission prior to that. And after leaving office, he has been a leading voice for the interests of City residents on growth, development and school overcrowding issues. In short, someone familiar with the nuts-and-bolts of development and its impact on public facilities and infrastructure, but with a record of representing the best interests of the community. That is the essence of what you would want in a Planning Board commissioner, right?
The Council didn't even include Giammo on its finalist interview list.
That tells you everything you need to know about the credibility of the County Council in this process.
Representatives of five businesses that specialize in what a County press release calls "Smart Cities-related technologies" will also travel with the delegation. The companies are DFSFederal, Lumo Imaging (located in Potomac), Machfu (Rockville), Person Clinic (Rockville), and TSS, LLC. Not mentioned in the press release is whether their travel costs are being paid for by the County, or the businesses themselves.
The event will culminate this Friday, when Elrich will meet with Chiang Wan-an, the mayor of Taipei. Elrich will be one of only four members of the 1,300 expo participants who will participate in the mayor’s conference-ending press conference.
“I’m looking forward to meeting with Taiwanese business and academic leaders to learn more about their activities and to speak with them about why Montgomery County is a top location for them to enter or expand their presence in the United States," Elrich said in a statement. “Getting Montgomery County’s economy moving and working for everyone is my top priority as the Chair of Council Economic Development Committee,” Councilmember Fani-González said in the joint statement with Elrich. “That is why I am thrilled to join the County Executive and County business leaders on this delegation to Taiwan to bring investment and jobs to the County. We will aggressively court businesses and academic and research institutions to choose Montgomery County for their next location.”
"I met with Mr. Hedrick for almost two hours on Friday, March 10," Elrich wrote, "and have reviewed his participation in land use issues in Montgomery County, his comments on social media, and other work. After this review, I have decided to disapprove his appointment to the Planning Board." Elrich noted that the recent replacement of the entire Planning Board due to a series of scandals, none of which have been investigated by the County Council or Maryland attorney general to date, made restoration of confidence and public participation in land use decisions essential to establishing a functional board.
"In the nuanced work of planning, there is a need to recognize the opinions and lived experiences of others and to come to the table ready to work together," Elrich wrote. "During my interview with Mr. Hedrick, he made it clear that he has no interest in doing this difficult work. Instead, his comments to me, as well as on social media, demonstrate an ideological close-mindedness as well as a disdain for those whose views do not comport with his."
"Mr. Hedrick’s view is that we need greater housing densities everywhere, that he has 'heard the same arguments' from those who oppose his view, and that he 'doesn’t have a lot of patience with those people,'" Elrich continued. "He seemed unaware that over the past 16 years, master plans have been used to substantially increase housing densities. He also seemed unaware of the fact that the forecasts for population growth in the county are based on the densities adopted in these master plans. This demonstrates a basic lack of understanding of the county’s master plan process, one of the most important elements of the Planning Board’s responsibilities and one that requires balancing sometimes competing policies – what rezoning is needed to encourage buildout; what steps must be taken to promote racial equity and social justice issues such as displacement and gentrification; what consideration must be given to the environmental consequences of increased land coverage."
Elrich has long pointed out that Montgomery County has already approved sufficient new housing units to meet the forecasted need by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments by 2030. He has also sought to highlight a number of projects that would either preserve or create new affordable housing that his office has orchestrated since 2022. And many note that developers haven't even begun to fully build out all of the available "smart growth" areas near Metro stations in downtown Bethesda and Silver Spring alone - nor the numerous "dumb growth"areas not within walking distance from Metro that the Council has deemed "activity centers," such as Westbard. In this context, Elrich and other slow growth advocates are perplexed as to why developers are now seeking to rezone existing single-family-home neighborhoods for multifamily housing, before even cashing in on the many land-use victories they've already won since 2002.
The controversial Thrive 2050 plan approved by the Council and previous, scandal-ridden Planning Board will provide only more luxury housing at market rates, despite claims that the plan was designed to increase housing opportunities for those who can't currently afford to live in the county. Even the Council's own consultants warned councilmembers that they had failed to adequately solicit and obtain feedback from people of color on racial and equity issues surrounding Thrive 2050. While proponents said Thrive 2050 would increase options, it in fact reduces options, by eliminating the single-family-home neighborhoods that are the main draw for homebuyers who choose the suburbs. Home prices in the few cities that have eliminated single-family-home zoning have not fallen as proponents have promised, but only continued to increase. The ultimate winners have been developers, not homebuyers or the poor.
However, Hedrick was not the only Council appointee to support Thrive 2050. Elrich wound down his letter to Glass by emphasizing the need to reduce the "toxic atmosphere" of the previous Planning Board, arguing that the appointment of Hedrick would not contribute to that effort. The boards of the last decade have been seen by many residents as only responding to the desires of developers and their paid lobbyists, very few of whom have registered as such with the state. Resident concerns were typically ignored, or even belittled, by planning commissioners.
"The appointment of a new Planning Board is an opportunity for a fresh start, removed from the toxic atmosphere that permeated the defunct Planning Board at all levels, including social media," Elrich wrote. "Unfortunately, Mr. Hedrick perpetuates, rather than alleviates, that atmosphere. He has made insulting and dismissive statements about those with opposing viewpoints. When asked about this, he disappointingly expressed no regrets."
"Such rigid views are anathema to restoring the reputation of the Planning Board and the public’s confidence in its decisions. Land use planning in Montgomery County is at an inflection point that will determine how we move forward in addressing housing and community building mindful of the important role land use decisions play in ameliorating the increasingly apparent effects of climate-driven storm events on our homes, businesses, and transportation systems. We need Planning Board members with good judgment who are open-minded, constructive, and, above all, interested in hearing from all sides in a fair and transparent process before they have reached a decision. Mr. Hedrick does not meet those standards."
Elrich concluded his letter with an almost-Trumpian touch of all-caps, declaring "the appointment of James Hedrick to the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission is DISAPPROVED." It was not immediately clear if the meeting between Elrich and Hedrick was recorded in any fashion, so that Elrich's characterizations of Hedrick's responses could be verified. Elrich's sizeable constituent base among homeowners countywide appeared to be satisfied by the decision, based on social media reaction. The move by Elrich was exactly the sort of action his voters put him in office to take, and puts the Hedrick holdouts from the February 28th Council approval vote on the spot this coming Tuesday, when Glass promised the Council would discuss Elrich's veto.
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| James Hedrick |
“I am disappointed that County Executive Elrich disapproved James Hedrick’s appointment to the Montgomery County Planning Board," Glass wrote in his statement. "Mr. Hedrick received affirmative votes from a supermajority of councilmembers to become a Planning Board member on Feb. 28."
While Hedrick received a supermajority of eight votes from the eleven member Council that day, he will need at least one more if the Council is to override Elrich's veto and be appointed to the Board. Glass wrote that the Council will "discuss" the veto at its next meeting this coming Tuesday, March 28, 2023.
Hedrick was a candidate for the Rockville City Council in 2019. He currently serves as the chair of Rockville Housing Enterprises (his term expires June 1), and as the vice-president of Action Committee for Transit.
