Montgomery County Council seeks to remove neighborhood veto power on "benefit performances"

The Montgomery County Council is proposing to strip residents of their existing veto power over "benefit performances" staged in their residential neighborhoods. Currently, entities and organizations - with a few exceptions, such as fire departments and religious institutions - who propose to hold a live music event, carnival, festival, or other performance to raise charitable funds must obtain consent from 75% of residents whose homes are within 600 feet of the performance site. Zoning Text Amendment (ZTA) 26-11: Temporary Uses - Benefit Performances would entirely eliminate this veto authority from neighbors. If passed, the ZTA would merely require that those residents be notified that they are going to be treated to a benefit performance, whether they like it or not. The performances could last as long as 15 days(!!).

I would venture to say that few Montgomery County residents are even aware that they currently possess this veto authority, much less that the Council is conniving to relieve them of it. The move continues a trend for the Council - when they're not banning stuff or raising taxes, they're systematically removing residents' ability to express objection or input on controversial matters they want to ram through, from development and road diets to bike lanes, bus depots, landfills and jails. A public hearing on the ZTA is scheduled for Tuesday, September 15, 2026, from 1:30 PM to 3:30 PM.

Montgomery County homeowners slammed as property tax bills arrive

Montgomery County homeowners are receiving their property tax bills in the mail, and jaws are crashing to the floor countywide. A super double-whammy budget by the County Council in May not only hiked property taxes yet again, but also eliminated the Income Tax Offset Credit that a vast majority of homeowners were previously eligible for. The end result has been, among homeowners I've spoken to around the county, property tax bills anywhere from 17% to 25% higher than last year. Be sure to thank your representative comrades on the Montgomery Commie Council.

Predictably, the hardest-hit areas are downcounty, in Bethesda, Rockville, and Silver Spring. Many Rockville residents are looking at $12,000 tax bills. "It was about $12,000 last year," lamented a Bethesda homeowner holding a tax bill for more than $15,000. As I have noted for many years now, Montgomery County property taxes have increasingly become a second mortgage for homeowners. It's simply incredible that the Council would slam homeowners with tax increases this high in the middle of an affordability crisis. Most of this money ends up in the pockets of the Montgomery County cartel, the puppeteers behind our Marxist County Council.

Don't forget, in May the Council also added a new wealth tax on the "rich," whom our stuck-in-the-1960s Council defines as (in Dr. Evil "one million dollars" voice) anyone making over $150,000. That's only $18,000 higher than the median income of $132,450 in Montgomery County! $150,000 is just squeaking by and surviving, especially with a County Council of overpaid, underworked oligarchs who draw an annual salary of $167,172 from you, the taxpayer, for a few hours of "work" per week. One of the best kept secrets of the Council is that many members over the years have used the lax Council schedule, and their overinflated salaries, to put themselves through graduate or law school at your expense. If only you were as criminally street smart as the County Council, you might throw the bums out on Election Day!

Another corporate headquarters leaving Bethesda for Virginia

Just weeks before the primary election, Montgomery County has lost yet another corporate headquarters to Northern Virginia. Spatial Front, a defense contracting firm, has announced it will be relocating from Bethesda to Crystal City. It will take 450 high-wage jobs with it. Spatial Front is a privately held firm founded in 2008 that specializes in artificial intelligence, machine learning, geospatial technologies, cloud services, and digital modernization for U.S. federal agencies.

Beyond the incredible tax advantages and superior infrastructure of Virginia, and the moribund economies of Montgomery County and Maryland, a person in the defense contracting field tells me that the new Maryland IT services tax may have been the last straw for Spatial Front. Beginning last July, Maryland’s Budget Reconciliation and Financing Act of 2025 instituted a 3% sales and use tax on data processing, computer systems design, and software publishing. As the Fort Meade Alliance warned Maryland elected officials, the IT tax could have the result of driving what's left of the defense contracting business out of the state to Northern Virginia. That's partly because the tax wallops companies operating under the NAICS 5415 code (Computer Systems Design), the industry group said, and could wipe out profit margins.

The Spatial Front departure again confirms all that I've been saying for years. Montgomery County and Maryland do not have competitive tax policies. In fact, Montgomery County has the largest total tax and fee burden in the Washington D.C. Metro area. All Northern Virginia counties enjoy direct access to Dulles International Airport, the only airport in the region that offers the frequency of flights to the largest variety of destinations that international businesspeople demand. Montgomery County, by contrast, has steadfastly refused to build the new Potomac River crossing that would extend I-370 to the Dulles area, an own-goal of increasingly-catastrophic proportions. And we also see the magnetism of winning these corporate headquarters. Crystal City has the Amazon HQ2, and companies want to be where the energy is.

To top off the irony of the loss, Spatial Front is moving into 2231 Crystal Drive, a building owned by Bethesda-based JBG Smith! "As Governor, I am proud that Spatial Front is moving its headquarters to Arlington," Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger said in a celebratory press release announcing the victory. "The decision to relocate and bring hundreds of high-quality jobs to the Commonwealth reaffirms Virginia’s status as the nation’s premier location for defense and technology innovation. I remain focused on working with state and local partners to bolster that reputation, strengthen our business climate, and cement Virginia as the top state for talent so we can continue to openly welcome growing and expanding companies in every industry."

While Spanberger was closing the deal with Spatial Front, the Montgomery County Council was raising multiple taxes on its residential and business constituents, attending conferences at Hawaiian resorts, advancing a moratorium on data centers and an unconstitutional gun control bill, and passing a bill on the use of masks by law enforcement that violates the U.S. Constitution's Supremacy Clause. Doh!

Remember when Tennessee was sealing the deal after wooing Discovery away from Silver Spring, and the Montgomery County Council was simultaneously debating a ban on circus animals? Wow. Heckuva job, Brownie!

Vehicle capacity reduced by 33% overnight on Wisconsin Ave. in Bethesda with bus lanes

Hiding behind Maryland and WMATA transit agency officials, the Montgomery County Council implemented a 33% reduction in vehicle capacity on Wisconsin Avenue (MD 355) in downtown Bethesda overnight. Trucks loudly roared up and down Wisconsin all night long, applying striping and lettering for bus-only lanes in both directions. The Trojan horse plan mimics the one utilized to get similar bus lanes long-sought by the Council on Georgia Avenue a few years ago. Using the identical gimmick of an insane, long-term closure of multiple Red Line subway stations between Glenmont and downtown Silver Spring in 2024, the Council stiff-armed Maryland Department of Transportation officials into suddenly declaring the bus lanes permanent. The Trojan horse is rolling down the west side of the Red Line this summer, as the Bethesda, Medical Center, and Grosvenor Metro stations will be closed from July 6 to September 6, 2026.

You can be sure that a similar announcement will be made by County, Maryland, and WMATA officials as the station reopening date approaches. The bus lanes plan is publicly sold - minus any public input - as a way to speed shuttle buses between the White Flint and Friendship Heights stations during the closure. In reality, it is a devious scheme to implement by fiat the Council's radical War-on-Cars agenda. Once again, our Marxist totalitarian-left Council is incapable of controlling its dictatorial impulses - but it is very capable of controlling your commute to work. And once again, we see the politicization of MDOT that began during the Larry Hogan administration. Twenty years ago, MDOT would have laughed about the idea of reducing Wisconsin Avenue - the most heavily traveled commuter route in the state - to two lanes in each direction, and dismissed such a proposal outright as total insanity. Post-Martin O'Malley administration, MDOT is amenable to any wacky scheme to advance a local political agenda or developer profit, no matter how contrary to engineering best practices it may be. Heckuva job, Brownie!

GEICO campus, Brookdale Park trees facing the clearcut chainsaw in Friendship Heights

What would Warren Buffett do? Well, we know what the Montgomery County Council and Planning Board will do. The recent mega-downsizing of GEICO from its lush, longtime campus in the Friendship Heights area of Chevy Chase to a modest office in Bethesda is quickly leading to a massive redevelopment of that land long feared by neighbors. Central to the plans to building luxury apartments and townhomes on the site is the removal of almost all of the large trees from the 29-acre campus.

"This includes trees that are over 50 inches in diameter; some have been there for more than 100 years," the Little Falls Watershed Alliance warned in a email. "LFWA opposes this large scale destruction of the trees as well as many other elements of the plan that will have a negative impact on the environment." Developer EYA is also seeking permission to remove trees from Brookdale Park, the organization said. LFWA is encouraging residents to email the Planning Department and County Council, and ask them to preserve the trees.

Montgomery County Council raising taxes on the middle class, cutting taxes for cartel oligarchs

The Montgomery County Council is dropping the hammer on middle class residents in its massive $7.9 billion tax-and-fee-hike FY-2027 budget, which was approved in a 9-2 vote yesterday. Councilmembers Andrew Friedson and Dawn Luedtke were the only two opposed. Facing an ongoing structural budget deficit of its own design, the Council did what it always does - reward its cartel political patrons with taxpayer largesse, protect and preserve reckless spending, raise fees, and deliver a property tax hike. But they weren't done yet! The Council added a massive income tax increase for "rich" residents making...$1 million? $2 million? Billions? No! The new wealth tax will be paid by every County resident making (in Dr. Evil voice) $150,000 or more.

If you are making $150,000 and live in Montgomery County in the year 2026, you are squarely middle class. If you are making $75,000 (the Council's laughably-outdated measure of a Joe Six Pack), you're effectively poor, and maybe getting by paycheck-to-paycheck - if you're lucky. Interestingly, no one in the local press besides me is pointing this reality out. But that's par for the course for our media Fifth Column of fellow travelers.

Affordability? Hah! The Council, which draws itself a $168,000 salary at taxpayer expense each year for their part-time Council "jobs," is once again laughing at you. Yes, this is the same Council who insiders say refer to you, the taxpayers, behind closed doors as "losers" and "suckers." Well, you lost again yesterday, your bank account will lose even more, and you'll be a sucker for sure if you vote to re-elect these incompetent criminals this November.

You're paying double what you were for groceries just six years ago, gas prices are skyrocketing, cars are priced as luxury items now, utility bills are crushing you monthly, and insurance companies are price-gouging you with impunity. What does the Council do to address the affordability crisis? Raise your income tax, raise your property tax, raise the fees you pay, and - get this - eliminate the Income Tax Offset Credit that homeowners were eligible for. That makes two property tax hikes in one budget!

Now, the Council provided its farcical definition of "rich" as those of you making $150,000 and up. Do you know what they consider a lavish mansion? Homes worth $800,000 and up. It's not just their policies that are stuck in the Woodstock era, but their entire grasp on economics. Then again, nobody on the Council went to Yale or Harvard exactly. $800,000 and up? That's basically any home inside the Beltway that's not an as-is fixer-upper, and a huge percentage of homes outside the Beltway.

Think about the federal government workers the Council claimed they were so worried about. A large percentage of those workers are making $150,000 and up. Now they're getting slammed with a double property tax increase, and an income tax hike. You can see that the Council doesn't give a damn about you or your struggles, or about the rest of us private sector taxpayers.

Who does the Council give a damn about?

The Montgomery County cartel that gets them elected, and from whom they take their marching orders. That's the real estate developer oligarchs, the Council-connected "non-profits" who funnel taxpayer funding they receive back to the campaign accounts of councilmembers, and certain labor unions. All got fully funded in this budget. Montgomery County Public Schools got a massive increase in funding, while their enrollment of actual students is dwindling by the year. Make it make sense.

When you think of these synthetic-left councilmembers raising taxes on hardworking middle class residents at a time of financial struggle, think of the oligarchy. Think of the 20-year property tax exemption that the Council provided for their millionaire and billionaire oligarch developer sugar daddies just months ago. It applies to nearly every apartment development, and therefore is robbing the County coffers of billions in revenue. That fiscal impact was already felt this year. Billions going into the pockets of billionaires, instead of schools, police officer hiring, infrastructure, libraries and parks, for at least the next twenty years.

Who will make up for all that lost revenue, and the structural budget deficit the Council itself created earlier this century? Once again, the Council made clear: You, the taxpayer. You, the homeowner. You, the small business owner. You are the loser they mock. And the cartel oligarchs are once again the winners they reward - with your hard-earned income, and your equity and security in the home that was the biggest investment of your life. It turns out the government owned it all along!

Taxes going up, government and elected official salaries going up, traffic camera ticketing going up, and friends of the Council getting rich at the expense of taxpayers - all this happened in Bell, California, and elected officials there went to prison. All this is happening in Montgomery County right now. The County where oligarchs get richer, and their puppets on the Council drop an anvil on the middle class to make sure the numbers work out.

Montgomery County government enters the grocery business before Zohran Mamdani

Montgomery County's Marxist County Council has beaten Zohran Mamdani at his own game. Before the New York City mayor could even acquire a site for his first government-run grocery store, his fellow travelers on the Montgomery County Council are poised to launch a government-run grocery wholesale business. It's a two-part scheme. 

Part 1 involves the County awarding one lucky bidder $550,000 in taxpayer funds to build, stock and operate a wholesale grocery warehouse. The government-funded wholesale operation would sell to "schools, senior centers, hospitals, food banks and correctional facilities," according to a press release from Councilmember Andrew Friedson.

Part 2? Friedson is taking a victory lap in proclaiming Montgomery County will be the first jurisdiction in the region to join the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) Local Food Procurement Challenge. Activating the Montgomery County Anger Translator, we can convert that word salad program name into the English language: The County will mandate the purchase of local farm produce by its "departments and agencies" with "public dollars" on the basis of geography, rather than stretching tight "local dollars" (a.k.a. taxpayer funds) by purchasing the cheapest products from anywhere.

The move continues two longstanding Council trends: socialism, and jacking up the cost of government by continually reducing the number of suppliers of a product or service. These include numerous laws mandating the preference or outright mandate that all bidders or sellers must be minority-owned, woman-owned, or veteran-owned. Likewise, some of the laws have excluded bidders or service providers who do not meet a particular ideological or politically-correct profile determined by the Council.

It doesn't take a Harvard economist to tell you that when you reduce the number of bidders, the cost of the winning bid automatically increases. It's called market economics, and it's only one small reason the County budget has doubled in just the last decade. Equally obvious is that the more public dollars funneled into the grocery business by the County, state, and federal government, the more local grocery prices increase. Heckuva job, Brownie!

Reardon Sullivan to launch Montgomery County Council District 1 campaign March 5

Reardon "Sully" Sullivan, a Republican from Bethesda, will officially kick off his campaign for the District 1 seat on the Montgomery County Council tomorrow, March 5, 2026, at an event from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM in downtown Bethesda. WMAL radio host and Town Hall editor Larry O'Connor will emcee the event. The exact location will be provided to attendees upon registration for the event.

CNN host diagnoses an embarrassing Montgomery County Council fiscal problem

CNN host Fareed Zakaria stirred controversy last week when he delivered straight talk on why many jurisdictions like Montgomery County have become simultaneously unaffordable while operating on fiscal thin ice. He mentioned a number of familiar factors, but he articulated a particular problem quite well: The fact that the growth of Montgomery County's budget and spending outstrip every other relevant growth factor from business growth and school enrollment to population growth. We know the County spends way too much, as evidenced by our structural budget deficit and the shocking doubling of the budget's size over just the last decade. But when you compare the lack of growth in these other benchmarks to the steadily ballooning amount of spending, the County Council's reckless budgeting looks truly ridiculous.

For example, looking at the supersizing of the County budget, you would think that Montgomery County was enjoying rapid population growth. But even as the budget has reached one record high after another, MoCo's population has actually been shrinking. The County experienced a net loss of more than 9500 residents between 2020 and 2022, and an additional net domestic migration loss of another 11,153 people between 2022 and 2023. And of course, as we know, the very rich are exiting, and the majority of the people moving in are low-income.

"The arithmetic is brutal," Zakaria said in describing a similar population loss (relative to size) over the same period in New York City. "A larger [tax] bill is divided among fewer payers."

Likewise, the budget of Montgomery County Public Schools has grown to obscene heights, even as enrollment has plummeted this decade. And the more generous the Council is with our taxpayer money toward MCPS, the worse the performance outcomes are. It's literally money flushed down the toilet.

"New York already sits at the extreme end of the American tax spectrum," Zakaria noted. So does Montgomery County, whose residents shoulder the highest total tax and fee burden in the Washington, D.C. region. Incredibly, the County Council is currently proposing to raise property taxes yet again this year, and to massively increase the already-gargantuan real estate recordation tax. Both play a role in the unaffordable housing market. Property taxes have become the equivalent of a second mortgage, and high recordation taxes already dissuade homeowners from selling their properties, reducing supply even further while jacking up prices for struggling buyers. Heckuva job, Brownie!

In Europe, Zakaria adds, the NYC and MoCo-level of extreme taxation earns you perks like "free" healthcare, university education, and "amazing infrastructure." In Montgomery County, you get an unfinished master plan highway system, an unbuilt Potomac River bridge, an unbuilt M-83 Highway, an unbuilt Corridor Cities Transitway rail system, an unbuilt Montrose Parkway East, and no bus service to Damascus on weekends and holidays. Trash collection is down to once a week, and is picked up at the curb, requiring homeowners to do most of the job by hauling bins down to the street and back. Snow from a January storm is still melting on many streets.

Jurisdictions like NYC and Montgomery County, Zakaria concluded, "are out of control, promising more, spending more, delivering less and pushing off the fiscal problems to some future date." And then he dispensed this well-worded diagnosis of a central problem in Montgomery County's "leadership:"

"Unaffordability is what happens when government becomes a machine that grows faster than the society it governs." That is exactly the situation in Montgomery County. In a County that hasn't attracted a single new major corporate headquarters in over 25 years, the only booming growth industry is Montgomery County Government, and the best position to be in is either an elected office chair, or one of the many cronies and crooks in the Montgomery County cartel who receive financial kickbacks of taxpayer funds in the bloated County budget.

Texas beats Montgomery County for Public Storage HQ despite Westbard self-storage capital

The latest Montgomery County fumble on the corporate headquarters front is hardly the highest-profile, but wields a special sting due to a dubious honor the County holds. Public Storage announced Thursday that it has chosen Frisco, Texas from among its suitors for the next location of its worldwide HQ. Fleeing California, Public Storage will join over 200(!! - hey, everything's bigger in Texas, right?) other corporate headquarters at Hall Park in the booming Lone Star state. This despite the Westbard area of Bethesda arguably holding the world's record for most square feet of self-storage, and the greatest number of individual self-storage facilities within such a cramped radius. 

"We sell boxes!" is rarely considered sizzling competition for "I Love New York" and "What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas" when it comes to prominent placemaking slogan signage. But what self-storage CEO wouldn't get a daily ego boost from looking out his window at a corner of the globe utterly dominated by his or her industry? Why, not just one, but two Public Storage facilties are even among the prominent architectural landmarks of the Westbard area.

Josh Allen-ing the chance to win the Public Storage HQ achieves the trifecta of Westbard embarrassment for the Montgomery County cartel. Multiple County Councils have failed to deliver the promised amenities, schools, parks, and public perks of the 1982 and 2016 Westbard sector plans. What did materialize since the cartel seized control of a Council majority in 2002 were numerous, gargantuan self-storage facilities that loom over every corner of that "Westbard sector." To then fail to even win the corporate HQ of one of them is the latest - albeit trivially small - reason the cartel and its puppets on the Council can't say "Problem Solved" the way Public Storage does, when it comes to the moribund County economy and its failure to attract a single new major corporate HQ in over 25 years. Heckuva job, Brownie!

Montgomery County property taxes now exceed mortgage payments for many

For many years, I have written about the fact that property taxes in Montgomery County have essentially become the equivalent of a second mortgage for many homeowners. If we believe we have honest elections in the County, suffering the highest overall tax and fee burden in the region has yet to spark revolt among County voters. Would property taxes higher than your annual mortgage payment be enough to get taxpayers reaching for their proverbial torches and pitchforks? That's why I was delighted to read Chevy Chase resident Glenn Easton's letter to the editor in the rapidly-shrinking Washington Post.

Easton reported that this shocking event - the Taxological Singularity, if you will - has now taken place. "My property taxes exceed my mortgage payment and threaten my ability - and the ability of many others - to age in place in this state." He noted that the latest tax increase on his property was 13% in 2025, and have been as high as 26%. Easton has challenged assessments of his property each time, and has lost each time. Like me, Easton is "not sure why more homeowners (and voters) are not outraged."

California voters, in a very, very different era in the Golden State, led perhaps the most famous tax revolt in America since 1776. Easton called for a similar revolt and reform to that storied uprising of 1978, which led to property tax increases being capped at 2% annually.

With all County offices on the ballot once again this November, are Montgomery County taxpayers finally ready to revolt?

The County's disastrous fiscal situation indicates that change must come sooner or later, the (somewhat) easy way, or the hard way. Our tax burden must be reduced, and our master plan highway system completed, to attract high-wage jobs and corporations to the County. Montgomery County hasn't attracted a single new major corporate headquarters in over a quarter century. The only growth is in residential housing, and our structural budget deficit confirms that the costs new housing generates far exceed the tax revenue they generate.

Speaking of revenue generation, Council members have delivered multiple tax cuts to their developer sugar daddies, even as they've raised yours every single year except FY-2015 (in which the average homeowner received a whopping $12 tax cut). Perhaps inspired by the $72 million tax cut the Council delivered to developers in White Flint back in 2010, Councilmember Andrew Friedson has successfully pushed through two major tax cuts for developers in recent years. These have created massive exemptions from property taxes for projects at Metro stations and for office-to-housing conversions. The latter law is so permissive, its 20-year full property tax exemption(!!) applies to so many projects that it will blow a massive hole in County tax revenues over the next two decades. Most offensive is that these projects were going forward anyway, with the tax elimination simply an act of profiteering.

When taxes get lighter for real estate developer Friends of the Council, guess who taxes get heavier for? Yep, you the home and business owner. We can't keep shifting the tax burden to homeowners and small businesses, and we can't keep forgoing all of the lost business and commercial revenue we are losing due to our non-competitive tax burden and moribund County economy.

We also can't keep spending the way we are. Where the Council and our equally-corrupt Apple Ballot School Board are satisfied with a generously-funded school system that performs poorly, we instead need an adequately-funded school system that performs exceptionally. And an in-depth reform of profligate spending on Council-connected "non-profits" is long overdue. Many of these have organizational directors and officers who make financial contributions to Councilmember campaigns. Taxpayer money effectively ends up in the pockets of Councilmembers, and provides lucrative careers for the donors. 

The tax policies of Montgomery County are eerily reminiscent of those in Bell, California. Elected officials there ultimately ended up in prison.

Taxation is theft, to begin with. Property taxes by their nature are insidious, particularly at the almost-comically-excessive level charged in Montgomery County. If you don't pay, the government takes your home. Which means that all "private property" is effectively owned by the government, and you are paying government a rent to live there.

Enough is enough. Beyond a stagnant economy, gross incompetence by elected officials, high violent crime, and failing transportation and school systems, is a property tax that exceeds your mortgage payment enough for you to act? We'll find out on Election Night 2026.

To the barricades!

Montgomery County Council seeks to restrict ICE access, ban face masks for law enforcement

Montgomery County Councilmembers Will Jawando (D - At-Large) and Kristin Mink (D - District 5) have introduced two bills aimed at curbing the impact of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) within the county. Flanked by community members, educators, and fellow lawmakers at a joint press conference, they vowed that Montgomery County will not be a silent partner in federal immigration enforcement that relies on "fear, intimidation, or abuse." Mink has directly engaged ICE officers in Maryland, posting video of her encounters that earned TV news coverage. 

The County Values Act (Bill 3-26), led by Councilmember Mink, focuses on restricting ICE's access to and use of county-controlled properties. Key provisions include:

• Requiring a judicial warrant for ICE to enter any areas of county facilities not open to the general public.
• Mandating clear signage in those areas explicitly barring ICE access.
• Providing comprehensive staff training on how to handle such encounters.
• Prohibiting immigration enforcement activities in county parking lots, garages, and vacant lots.
• Requiring county staff to report any observed enforcement activities and to restrict or block access where feasible.
• Directing the county to develop and post a signage template that private businesses can voluntarily adopt.

Mink's bill is cosponsored by Councilmembers Kate Stewart (District 4), Will Jawando, Shebra Evans (At-Large), Andrew Friedson (District 1), Laurie-Anne Sayles (At-Large), Evan Glass (At-Large), and Marilyn Balcombe (District 2). "We cannot make ICE agents operate lawfully, but what we can do is employ the strongest possible protocols at every facility the County owns or operates,” Mink said.

Complementing this effort is the Unmask ICE Act (Bill 5-26), sponsored by Councilmember Jawando. It prohibits masking or facial coverings by all law enforcement officers operating in Montgomery County—including federal agents like ICE—with limited exceptions for public health reasons or specific operational necessities. The goal is to ensure transparency and build trust by allowing residents to clearly identify officers. Cosponsors include Councilmembers Mink, Evans, Stewart, Sayles, and Glass.

Jawando, who is running for County Executive, cast masked law enforcement officials as a horror of America's past. "Throughout history, masks have been used in American law enforcement to shield the wearer from accountability, and used for terror, impunity, and anonymity for violence," he said. "We are seeing that play out again before our eyes, and we cannot accept that as our new reality. As our local law enforcement recognizes, safety requires trust, and trust requires transparency. Our community is calling on us to do more, and we must listen, work together, and move forward with courage to protect our community."

Councilmembers sought to make the human cost of ICE enforcement actions the focal point of a joint press conference held after the bill introductions.

Orchid Dargahi, a teacher at Newport Mill Middle School who had a family member arrested by ICE, described the "trauma" rippling through her school: "Before I can do anything else in my classroom, I need to make sure my students feel safe. But I field questions like, ‘Can ICE just come into school?’ before teaching kids how to write an essay for or against zoos."

Gaby Rivera of the Montgomery County Immigrant Rights Collective (MoCo IRC) shared the story of a 19-year-old forced to raise his younger siblings after both parents were detained. Rivera urged the Council to pass these bills alongside the previously introduced Trust Act, arguing that together, they send a clear message that the County refuses to be complicit in "fear, intimidation, or abuse."

Bethesda Row Giant makes early switch to paper bags

The Giant grocery store at 7142 Arlington Road at Bethesda Row is ahead of the game, stocking self-checkout stations with paper bags days ahead of the Montgomery County Council plastic bag ban, which takes effect on January 1, 2026. You will also have to pay a 10-cent tax on each paper bag, half of which is paid to the business, and the other half goes into the County Water Quality Protection Fund. The bags at Giant are the retro kind, missing the convenient handles found on paper bags at Trader Joe's and Harris Teeter. You can thank the obscenely overpaid County Council, while struggling with your obscenely overpriced groceries. Heckuva job, Brownie!

January 1 plastic bag ban looms over Montgomery County

The Montgomery County Council is known for doing little beyond raising taxes and the cost of doing business, and banning stuff. Councilmembers were able to do all three in their highest-profile ban of the 2025 legislative session, that of plastic bags. The ban takes effect on January 1, 2026, and impacted businesses across the county are now trying to prepare their customers to buy paper bags (remember how paper bags were causing deforestation, so we were told to use plastic?!) or reusable bags, or - ew! - reuse dirty reusable bags teeming with e coli, salmonella, and God knows what else. Ironically, Safeway, whose customer alert signage is pictured here, got its start as the Sanitary Grocery Company.

Montgomery County to deploy 140 more speed cameras, 76 more red light cameras to juice revenue

The Montgomery County Council, in partnership with the County's representatives in the Maryland General Assembly and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, are opening a rich new vein of revenue in their ongoing effort to transfer the tax burden from real estate developers onto County residents. A new state law that will take effect October 1, 2025 will allow the County to greatly expand its speed camera and red light camera programs. With this legislative assistance from Annapolis, the Council plans to deploy 140 more speed cameras, and 76 new red light cameras, countywide starting next month.

While the Council claims the motivation is safety, their own internal numbers show that during the period studied from 2021 to 2022, the total number of injurious and fatal crashes increased despite the mass deployment of such ticketing cameras countywide up to that point. The County's economy has been moribund for most of this century, and the flight of the rich to lower tax jurisdictions in the area has robbed the County's coffers of huge chunks of revenue that it previously enjoyed.

At the same time, the Council has passed numerous tax cuts for the developer sugar daddies who fund their campaigns. This has further reduced County revenues, even as the Council has increased spending each year. The Council has found that, so far, County residents have not rebelled at the ballot box regardless of the number or size of the tax increases passed, or additional taxes levied. 

As a result, since the last decade, the Council has aggressively begun to shift the tax burden from developers onto the shoulders of residents. They have raised property taxes each year with the exception of FY-2015, in which they allowed a "tax cut" of approximately $12 for the average homeowner. A new energy tax, a massive new "recordation tax" on home sellers, and a new "rain tax" were among the new levies added to what was already the highest tax and fee burden in the Washington, D.C. Metro area.

Speed cameras and red light cameras were also deployed in a concerted effort to raise revenues. Having just passed a new tax cut for developers earlier this year that will cost the County's coffers billions of dollars over the next 20 years, it's no surprise that the Council is desperate to shake their constituents upside down even harder with this massive expansion of the camera program.

Using traffic enforcement ticketing as a revenue source has been shown to be one of the most-regressive taxation methods. Such tickets - with ever-increasing fine amounts up to $425 per ticket as of October 1 - can be devastating to those on the lower income end of the scale. That fits in line with the energy, rain, cell phone, and recordation taxes, all of which are also extremely regressive.

This trend will unsurprisingly continue in Montgomery County, as the Council has grown increasingly confident that there are no political consequences to raising taxes on residents by any amount tried so far. Insiders have reported that Council members have privately referred to residents as "losers" and "suckers" whom they can hit up for almost any new tax or tax hike they can imagine. The Council has dropped more and more taxation anvils onto residents in recent years, and no storied "tax revolt" has materialized.

Instead, the Council has found it has a "green light" to use the same sort of tactics that landed elected officials in Bell, California in prison a little over a decade ago. Like Montgomery officials, the Bell officials passed massive property tax hikes on residents (check), engaged in questionable land deals that were money winners for developers but money losers for taxpayers (check), added new levies such as a "sewer tax" (check), and ordered aggressive traffic ticketing (check), while raising their own salaries to outlandish new heights. Four Bell City Councilmembers and one Bell Mayor were sentenced to prison terms, as were the City Manager and Assistant City Manager.

Construction to begin next week on latest Little Falls Parkway road diet in Bethesda

Construction on yet another road diet for Little Falls Parkway between Arlington Road and Dorset Avenue in Bethesda is scheduled to begin "on or about" September 29, 2025. This is at least the third road diet project to be implemented on the parkway in the last decade, but only the first to be legally carried out. The Montgomery County Parks Department previously imposed road diets on the parkway illegally, by not receiving the required permission from the National Capital Planning Commission that has authority over the parkway, and by illegally using money from a trail fund that had not been allocated for a road diet by the Montgomery County Council. To date, no one has been arrested, fined, or otherwise disciplined for these illegal actions.

The new road diet will again reduce the portion of the parkway in question to one lane in each direction. This time, there will be a grass median between those lanes, instead of the reckless and dangerous configuration that has existed for about 3 years, where the opposing lanes were only separated by two yellow stripes of paint. A bike path will be constructed on part of the space left by the removed southbound lane. This past weekend, a digital signboard was placed on Arlington Road near the parkway (see photo above).

Highly controversial from the beginning, the Little Falls Parkway road diet scandal will leave a legacy of shame in Montgomery County government for decades to come. The Parks Department, Montgomery County Planning Board, and Montgomery County Council all ignored the wishes of the public on this matter. 73% of the residents who testified regarding the road diet opposed it; the County is steamrolling over them and moving ahead with it anyway. That gives you some idea of their commitment to "democracy."

Instead, the Council and their allies in government are privately high-fiving each other over their second monumental victory over a perceived invincible foe. Having defeated the once-feared Columbia Country Club to implement the Purple Line for their developer sugar daddies, they are now giddy at having defeated the powerful Kenwood neighborhood on the road diet issue. Now nothing can stand in their way, as the last remaining private powers in the county capable of inflicting financial or political repercussions are now perceived to have been rendered inert. 

And beyond the actual illegal actions that were taken on the earlier road diets, the shame of destroying an expensive public roadway - further crippling highway infrastructure capacity even while increasing the amount of development in the area - for radical, War-on-Cars ideology, is beyond criminal. Once again, one must wonder at what offense, at what illegality, the voters of Bethesda and Montgomery County might finally take action at the ballot box.

Montgomery County Council votes to increase impervious surfaces days after new flood risk was revealed

The Montgomery County Council speaks loudly and often about climate change and the environment, but their warmed-over Reaganomics policies betray their true values. This has been revealed once again as the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments has commissioned new flood zone maps that show much more of Montgomery County's land area to be at risk of flash flooding than the standard U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) maps. Several of the areas highlighted on the new maps experienced significant flooding during an unusually-heavy rain event last month. But just four days after MWCOG released its new flood danger maps to elected officials in MoCo and elsewhere in the region, the Montgomery County Council went ahead and approved new zoning rules that will increase the amount of impervious surface area in many of the very neighborhoods identified as now being at high risk of flash flooding.

Under the Reaganesque Thrive 2050/"More Housing N.O.W." zoning text amendment approved by a majority of the Council on July 22, 2025, the allowed increase in impervious surfaces are almost entirely permitted in the downcounty areas like Bethesda and Silver Spring. That is where the greatest flooding risks are located. Despite having access to this new flood danger report and maps on four days earlier on July 18, our "green" County Council bulldozed ahead, and voted to approve a massive increase in impervious surfaces in the very areas at highest risk. Single-family home neighborhoods where houses are currently surrounded by soil and grass lawns will now be open to four-story apartment buildings.

Just in the River Road corridor of Bethesda alone, the properties where the greater impervious surfaces will be allowed are within the flood zones of at least three major streams. Of course, the increased flooding we have already been experiencing in Montgomery County over the last decade is in large part due to the massive development approved this century by the County Council. This is the same reason we have an overpopulation of deer and even wandering bears in the downcounty, as these animals have been forced out of their forests that have fallen to the chainsaws and bulldozers of our supply-side, trickle-down, voodoo economics County Council. The same Council that swears by the Laffer Curve - but only when it applies to their developer sugar daddies.

The reckless decision by the Council could have ramifications in the 2026 elections. Councilmembers Evan Glass and Andrew Friedson voted for the ZTA to increase impervious surfaces in flood danger zones, and they are both running for County Executive. One of their opponents in the Democratic primary is their colleague, Councilmember Will Jawando, who did not vote for the ZTA. Jawando could now use this scandal as another point to differentiate himself from his Reagan Democrat rivals. And Councilmembers running for reelection will have to answer to voters who might raise the topic on the campaign trail, to explain why they voted to put their current and future constituents at greater risk of flood damage and death. Heckuva job, Brownie!

Montgomery County Council rams through ZTA to upzone SFH neighborhoods

The Montgomery County Council took the first major step toward realization of its radical, warmed-over Reaganomics "Thrive 2050" plan yesterday, by approving construction of duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, and apartment buildings up to four stories tall on lots currently restricted to single-family homes along multiple commuter corridors. True to its form of recent years, the Council simply blew off community opposition, and a crowded hearing room of angry residents. Taunting the crowd at times, the Council's sense of invincibility was hard to hide in both their microexpressions and tone of voice. The "More Housing N.O.W." zoning text amendment - like Thrive 2050 - had no grassroots support, and overwhelming opposition among residents.

Steamrolling ahead, the Council's willingness to outright lie about the intention of the ZTA was astonishing. From the beginning, they have attempted to sell Thrive and this ZTA as addressing housing affordability issues. Councilmember Andrew Friedson specifically cited middle-income "teachers, firefighters, police officers and nurses" as being able to afford the $2 million duplexes and $1 million apartments that the ZTA will produce. This is nothing more than pure, unadulterated malarkey. Incredibly, the reporter from The Washington Post accepted this farcical statement at face value, declining to fact check Friedson, ask tough follow-up questions, or outright declare Friedson's statements as false, as the paper regularly does for Donald Trump. The Post even used the term "missing middle," which doesn't remotely apply to the multimillion-dollar units that will be constructed under this ZTA. 

Eligible properties (in pink and yellow) in
Aspen Hill, Glenmont, and Wheaton

All this ZTA will do is increase the cost of housing in Montgomery County. If the townhome right next to the parking garage with no backyard at Westbard Square is $1.x million, then the future duplex with half a backyard and half a front yard in Springfield has to go for $2.x million. Now the colonial with the full front yard and backyard and Whitman school district is suddenly $3.x million, and the new-construction McMansion is $4.x million. Heckuva job, Brownie!

Urbanization of the suburbs is the primary goal of the ZTA. For example, the map of eligible properties shows how this ZTA is advancing the plan to urbanize River Road between the D.C. line and the Capital Beltway, which I have warned you about for many years. You can see the many churches, schools, country clubs, and other large properties the Council and their developer sugar daddies imagine will be demolished in the coming years. The speed limit on River Road has already been improperly reduced to 35 MPH, the exact opposite of sound traffic engineering, as the road is designed for speeds up to 55 MPH. Eventually, under the urbanization plan, River Road will be reduced to one lane in each direction, with bus/bike-only lanes seizing the other travel lanes heading east and west. A Purple Line extension to Westbard will be planned to juice density even further. As tall apartment buildings rise along the sides of River Road, the speed limit will drop to 25 MPH. Similar plans are in the works for Georgia Avenue between Olney and downtown Silver Spring, Old Georgetown Road, Veirs Mill Road, Route 29, MD 355, and other major commuter routes countywide.

Here is how each Councilmember voted on the ZTA yesterday. The names under "YES" are the people you will be voting AGAINST on your 2026 ballot, and the names under "NO" are the people you will be voting FOR in the 2026 Democratic primary election.

YES - to approve the ZTA

Gabe Albornoz

Marilyn Balcombe

Natali Fani-Gonzalez

Andrew Friedson

Evan Glass

Dawn Luedtke

Laurie-Anne Sayles

Kate Stewart

NO - to oppose the ZTA

Will Jawando

Sidney Katz

Kristin Mink

Bethesda residents to protest Montgomery County Council's rushed upzoning bill Monday

Residents in the River Road and Massachusetts Avenue corridors of Bethesda will protest the effort by the Montgomery County Council to ram through a zoning text amendment (ZTA) to upzone their neighborhoods for multifamily housing tomorrow afternoon, Monday, July 7, 2025, from 4:30 PM to 6:00 PM at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Jamestown Road. The ZTA is a "bill of goods" being disingenuously sold by County Councilmember Andrew Friedson as a solution to the high cost of housing, when in actuality, the higher-density it would allow will be market rate luxury housing sold at $1 million and upward. Part of the highly-controversial "Thrive 2050" scam the Council rammed through during the pandemic, the ZTA is branded as "More Housing N.O.W."

When residents from Bethesda, Wheaton, and other communities that will be damaged and bulldozed by the ZTA turned out in force at the first worksession on the proposal, Friedson took notice. He canceled the second scheduled worksession, and is now rushing the ZTA for a vote before the full Council while many are out of town for summer vacations. 

What the ZTA will do is to upzone neighborhoods currently zoned for single-family homes only, to allow the construction of multifamily homes. These would include duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, and apartment buildings. Street parking and school classrooms would be overwhelmed by a massive influx of new vehicles and children. With all of the new multifamily housing selling at market rates, the ZTA is designed only to line the pockets of the developers who have contributed to the political campaigns of Friedson and other councilmembers, and will not lower the cost of housing whatsoever.

Montgomery County Council wants to ban bamboo

The few among the public who even know what the Montgomery County Council is, or what it does, would tell you it primarily raises taxes, provides reckless zoning and giveaways of taxpayer money and public land to its developer sugar daddies, and "bans stuff." It's a lazy summer for the very part-time Council, but it has just announced the latest thing it wants to ban: bamboo. If Bill 26-25 passes later this year, perhaps after the Council's long summer vacation, there would also be a new nanny state requirement that at least 50% of the landscaping in any new development be comprised of native plants, although this provision appears only in the Council press release and not in the current language of the bill.

The bill would prohibit the sale of invasive bamboo, which is a rapidly-spreading plant. It would also establish penalties for doing so. A public hearing on the bill has been scheduled for July 22, 2025 at 1:30 PM at the County Council chambers.

Most people would probably agree that bamboo is an aggressively invasive plant. Maybe it should be banned, or maybe it should have been banned a long time ago. But one can't help but notice the many crises the County is facing, and wonder why bamboo is the top priority of the County Council. The current Council hasn't passed a single bill to address our moribund economy or sustained violent crime wave. Montgomery County hasn't attracted a single major corporate headquarters in over 25 years. And we are currently facing fiscal oblivion in the coming years, regarding the County's structural budget deficit and debt. This is a part-time Council that is absurdly unserious in its legislative pursuits. We can't go on like this.