Monday, October 28, 2024

Paid parking coming to Takoma Junction parking lot next month


Get ready to start paying for parking at the Takoma Junction parking lot at 201 Ethan Allen Avenue next month. Metered parking will operate using the ParkMobile app beginning in mid-November, the City of Takoma Park says. The parking fee at Takoma Junction will be $1 per hour, with a maximum of 2 hours parking permitted. 

Paid parking will be enforced between 7:00 AM and 7:00 PM Monday through Saturday. Parking in the lot will be free on Sundays. No overnight parking will be allowed.

Friday, October 25, 2024

Maryland fugitive captured in Takoma Park


Takoma Park police "came into contact" with an individual who was wanted in another Maryland jurisdiction on October 15, 2024. The encounter took place in the 1100 block of University Boulevard at 12:50 PM that afternoon. An officer ran the subject's name through a database, and discovered they had three outstanding warrants in Prince George's County. The subject was immediately taken into custody.

Thursday, October 24, 2024

Armed robbery of woman in Aspen Hill


Three armed teens ganged up to rob a lone woman in Aspen Hill on October 10, 2024, Montgomery County police allege. At 4:15 PM that afternoon, police say, the three suspects approached the adult female victim in the 3200 block of Bel Pre Road. One of them displayed a weapon. They took money and property from the woman, and fled on foot.

Police describe the suspects only as three Hispanic males, ages 16 to 18. If you have any information about this incident, call police at (301) 279-8000.

Wednesday, October 23, 2024

Silver Spring apartment building for sale


One of the apartment buildings to pop up in downtown Silver Spring over the last decade has already hit the market for sale. Fenwick Apartments at 8616 2nd Avenue is a stack-and-pack style mid-rise development with 311 units. Located 5 minutes from the Silver Spring Metro station, the building's 20,000 square feet of amenity space includes an art collection, a fitness studio, a pool, and a private business center. The listing indicates the building was completed in 2014, but does not include the asking price for the property.

Tuesday, October 22, 2024

Montgomery County willing to mortgage Upcounty's future to kill M-83 Highway


More than half a decade ago, the Montgomery County Council again nixed plans to build the M-83 Midcounty Highway Extended that has long been in the County's master plan. The highway was one of two major infrastructure projects that were essential to the major growth proposed for the Upcounty area, and Clarksburg in particular. When Clarksburg was allowed to grow more than 800% in population earlier this century, its new residents were promised the M-83 Highway, and a Corridor Cities Transitway light rail system that would connect the proposed new growth centers between Rockville and Clarksburg to the Shady Grove Metro station. In the end, however, all of the growth was allowed to occur, and developers reaped their massive profits - but the promised highway and light rail were never built. That display of naked greed by our developer-controlled County Council wasn't enough - now the Council and Planning Board want to remove the M-83 from the master plan altogether, so it can never be built.

Such a move would be a dereliction of duty by the public officials charged with ensuring adequate infrastructure to maintain a functioning transportation system. Montgomery County doesn't have that even today. Imagine what traffic will be like in another decade with leaders who continue to block completion of our master plan highway system.

As a quick review of the correspondence received by the Planning Board ahead of two public meetings and a November public hearing on changes to the master plan reveals, it isn't residents who are asking for the M-83 to be removed from the plan. In fact, the only letter from an actual Upcounty resident on the question is asking the Planning Board to keep the M-83 in the plan. Those who are asking to have the highway removed are the same handful of tiny groups who have tried to block construction of the highway at every turn. M-83 wasn't even up for discussion, until these groups met privately with Montgomery County Planning Department officials earlier this year.

Our anti-highway, war-on-cars Planning Board is all too eager to indulge this ultra-minority request. Shockingly, so is the "leadership" of the Montgomery County Department of Transportation. The same MCDOT that once determined that Alternative 9a - the master plan alignment of M-83 - should be constructed, until the Council politically interfered with the department, overruling sound traffic engineering practices with radical ideology.

Montgomery County officials continue to rule against the wishes of their own Upcounty constituents. You know, the folks who pay their salaries, and keep the lights on at the County Council and Planning Department. 

You would think the Planning Department and County Council would at least feel a stinging sense of shame at their disastrous record on growth in the Upcounty.

Think again.

Longtime residents will well remember the talking points planners and Councilmembers alike sold us as they rammed through sector plans for new growth centers like "Science City," Watkins Mill, Damascus, and Clarksburg. There would be job centers right in these areas, so many new residents wouldn't have to drive down I-270 to Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia! There would be vibrant town centers in Clarksburg and Watkins Mill! There would be a library in Clarksburg! There would be an M-83 Highway between Montgomery Village Avenue and Ridge Road, which - given that we knew the vast majority of new Upcounty residents would commute by car - would divert much of the new Clarksburg, Germantown, and Damascus traffic from I-270, MD 355, and little old Brink Road onto a modern parkway that also would include a major new bicycle link! And for those who could be convinced to board a convenient rail transit alternative, there would be a Corridor Cities light rail system!

None of it ever happened. Not one bit of it.

And no politician paid the price. Even in the myriad of scandals surrounding Clarksburg alone, the Council and Planning Department let Derick Berlage be the lone fall guy. Now, after collecting twenty years' worth of fat checks from their developer sugar daddies, they want to kick Upcounty residents where it hurts one more time, really hard.

They'll probably get away with it. Again. The Council is pretty open about the fact that there simply aren't enough votes in the Upcounty to pose a risk to the holders of the At-Large Council seats in the next election year. And the individual Upcounty Council districts have been severely gerrymandered, to ensure that the residents of the various growth areas like Clarksburg, Damascus, and Germantown can't unite to knock out any one Councilmember come election time. They have repeatedly thumbed their nose at Upcounty residents, and privately call County taxpayers "suckers" and "losers."

Getting away with murder doesn't make it right, however. The Planning Department, Planning Board, and County Council will continue to augment and solidify their legacy of shame, failure, embarrassment, reckless irresponsibility, and dereliction of duty. They'll continue to let a handful of special interests, and their developer sugar daddies, block economic growth and progress at every turn. 

We've seen the results of the failure to build the M-83 Highway, the new Potomac River crossing of I-370 to the Dulles area in Virginia, the Rockville Freeway, the Northwest Freeway, the North-Central Freeway, and the Northern Parkway in Montgomery County. Residents sitting in traffic. Higher shipping prices. Job creation and business growth numbers at or near the bottom in the D.C. region. And a failure to attract a single new major corporate headquarters in over a quarter century.

Heckuva job, Brownie!!

Monday, October 21, 2024

Silver Hot Dog food truck robbed in Silver Spring


Three men allegedly ganged up to rob the Silver Hot Dog food truck in downtown Silver Spring, Montgomery County police say. At 7:16 PM on October 11, the truck was parked in the 1100 block of Wayne Avenue. The three suspects approached the truck, and fled with money and property. Police describe the suspects only as three Black males. If you have any information regarding these suspects or this incident, you are asked to call police at (301) 279-8000.

Friday, October 18, 2024

Assault reported at Harmony Hills ES in Aspen Hill


Montgomery County police responded to a report of a 2nd-degree assault at Harmony Hills Elementary School in Aspen Hill early Monday evening, October 14, 2024. The assault was reported at the school at 6:04 PM Monday. Harmony Hills is located at 13407 Lydia Street.