Monday, October 31, 2022

Bullet fired into Takoma Park home


Takoma Park City police responded to a report of shots fired on October 29, 2022 at 11:52 PM in the 6400 block of 4th Avenue. Officers searching the scene found several shell casings, indicating a weapons discharge. One resident told police that at least one bullet was fired into their home. A previous incident on the same street in mid-October centered around a vacant home, where shell casings were also found on the property.

Anyone who has any video surveillance for any of these incidents is asked to call Takoma Park police with contact information. If you hear what sounds like shots fired please call 911 if you have an emergency or the non-emergency number of 301-270-1100. This investigation is ongoing.  If you have any information, please contact police at 301-270-1100.


Friday, October 28, 2022

Five Below opening store at Wheaton Plaza


Five Below
is opening a store at Westfield's Wheaton Plaza mall. The chain is in a better position than dollar stores to weather the staggering inflation wracking the country, so it is understandably in an expansion mode. When it opens, Five Below will be next to Verified Sneaker Store.

Thursday, October 27, 2022

Montgomery County police investigate burglary and theft at Silver Spring home (Video + Photo)


Montgomery County police are investigating a burglary at a home in Silver Spring, and the theft of items from the residence. Police say they responded to a call from a home in the 600 block of Deerfield Avenue at 5:00 PM on September 15, 2022. Officers found that a suspect had gained entry to the house, and had gotten away with multiple items, including cash and credit cards.

An individual was later caught on surveillance video making unauthorized purchases with one of the stolen credit cards at a Walmart in Northwest Washington, D.C. They have released that video, and are asking for the public's help in identifying this person, and for any other information you can provide them about this incident.

Anyone with information regarding the suspect or this crime is asked to call the 3rd District Investigative Section at 240-773-6870. Callers may remain anonymous.  

Wednesday, October 26, 2022

New entrance opens at Wheaton Plaza Target (Photos)


The new exterior entrance is now open at Target at Wheaton Plaza. A reconfigured checkout area is also open. The new exterior doors are part of a major renovation at the store over the past year, and now allow customers to enter and exit Target without going into the mall itself.



Tuesday, October 25, 2022

Montgomery County Council unanimously passes controversial Thrive 2050 plan


The Montgomery County Council voted unanimously to pass the controversial Thrive 2050 growth master plan this morning. A carbon copy of a plan being pushed nationwide by developers, Thrive 2050 will allow multifamily housing to be built in neighborhoods that are currently zoned for single-family homes over most of the county. The Council voted to approve the plan despite just having announced it had no confidence in, and demanding the resignations of, the five Planning Board commissioners who formulated and edited the plan.

Zillow home values for Minneapolis 2013-2022;
"Minneapolis 2040" (sound familiar?) was passed by
the Minneapolis City Council in 2018, and you can
see that prices have only surged further upward

Many residents expressed opposition to the plan, which will change the character of existing neighborhoods drastically. Among the concerns raised by residents were increased noise, loss of green space and tree canopy, insufficent street parking, school overcrowding, and gentrification that will force retired and lower-income homeowners out of their neighborhoods. The new housing allowed by Thrive 2050 will be luxury housing, not affordable housing. Rents and home values have only continued to rise in the few jurisdictions that have adopted the radical Thrive model, such as Minneapolis.


The Council was criticized for not only failing to reach out to people of color, but for ignoring their own diversity consulting firm, who had urged the Council not to rush to approve Thrive 2050 at the cost of equity for all residents. It was equally criticized in recent days for ramming the plan through before having an independent investigation of the many scandals surfacing in the planning apparatus that birthed it. On that front, the Council has so far received a free pass from local media, with The Washington Post editorial board going so far as to endorse the rushed passage of Thrive 2050. Surely, the money the Post receives from developers for real estate advertising played no role in that endorsement.


Some on the Council are term-limited. For those seeking office in the future, their vote for Thrive 2050 may come back to haunt them, once the impacts of the plan begin to be felt. A majority of residents are unaware of the plan, and have no idea what is happening. Thrive 2050 was largely rushed through during an international pandemic emergency that has tried the patience and mental health of people around the world. Virtually no one besides the Planning Board, the County Planning Department, the County Council, and their sugar daddies in the development community, was paying attention to land use and zoning issues at a time like this.


Today's vote will likely be looked back upon with regret. But it will also be remembered as the greatest victory of the Montgomery County cartel to date. The machine recognized that once they could beat the Columbia Country Club on the Purple Line, they could beat anybody, and they've certainly taken that realization to heart. They now control every elected office in the County, with the exception of County Executive. They control the local media. All opposition was utterly steamrolled by the Planning Board and County Council. That steamroller is now going to roll into neighborhoods across Montgomery County, demolishing homes, along with the suburban lifestyle our radical elected officials despise so much.

Monday, October 24, 2022

New mural in Kensington (Photos)


A large mural is being painted on the facade of a landmark office building at the crossroads in Kensington. The giraffe image is being completed where Connecticut Avenue splits to go on to Wheaton and Aspen Hill, or as University Boulevard to College Park. A skateboarder riding down the neck of the animal is in the process of emerging from the gray brick, via the painter's brush. 


The building, 3720 Farragut Avenue, was constructed in 1963. It was renovated in 2019, and the mural is being touted as a selling point in the property's leasing materials, for making the structure easily identifiable by drivers. What do you think about this public art piece?




Friday, October 21, 2022

Montgomery County Council to defy state law in Planning appointments, as Elrich warns Thrive 2050 is tainted by scandal


Thursday was another explosive day in the Montgomery County Planning Board scandal, as the County Council is poised to defy Maryland state law by illegally appointing 5 temporary board commissioners, without waiting the required three weeks after disclosing the list of candidates. The law is very clear, and is the only codified framework for appointing any individual to the Planning Board, resident Janis Sartucci told ABC 7 News. The list of candidates was made public on Wednesday, October 19, meaning that the appointments cannot legally be made until the next Council takes office after the November 8 election.

Sartucci said she would contact the office of Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh if the Council were to appoint any commissioners before November 9. "We do have an attorney general's opinion that says when there's a vacancy in a public office, the law that's on the books is what controls the replacement process," Sartucci told ABC 7's Kevin Lewis. Several of the applicants for the interim positions are former Planning Board commissioners, meaning they could be under scrutiny themselves if a full investigation into planning scandals were carried out.

Meanwhile, County Executive Marc Elrich warned the Council about another rush job it is undertaking, to pass the controversial Thrive 2050 plan before the Council's term ends in the coming weeks. In a memo, Elrich said the Council cannot separate the Thrive plan from the scandals surrounding the commissioners and employees who drafted, edited and approved it. In addition to the question of who might have participated in ex parte discussions of Thrive over cocktails in Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson's government office as the plan was being drafted, Elrich noted that during the same period, "the Board broke significant rules with respect to the Open Meetings Law, the registration of lobbyists, and the use of the consent calendar. These violations impugn the Board's work product, and raise concerns that the Board, in search of a certain result, might have been willing to bend the rules on other occasions."

In fact, the Board has repeatedly engaged in such rule-breaking over the last decade. And only a handful of lobbyists - primarily development attorneys - have actually registered as lobbyists so far. Many who currently, actively lobby on behalf of the development industry before the Board and Council have yet to register as lobbyists. 

Elrich also advised the Council to halt its current course of "sweeping everything under the rug." He called on the Council to halt the Thrive approval process until an investigation of the planning scandals is completed, so that residents can have confidence the plan wasn't tainted by unethical and illegal actions by those drafting it.

The County Executive listed four major errors the Council has made in its last-minute push to ram through Thrive 2050. 

Error number one, Elrich wrote, was the Council adding three hastily-written chapters to the plan that have never been the subject of a public hearing. While ignoring his own and the public's comments on the plan this fall, Elrich added, the Council only addressed the comments of two representatives of developer-funded organizations that are lobbying for Thrive 2050. Elrich said that, at a minimum, the Council must hold a public hearing on the new last-minute chapters it added. He argued it would be best if the plan were sent back to a new Planning Board after the election.

Error number two, Elrich wrote, was to use an old map in the plan that pretends the County never added the Suburban Communities and Residential Wedge designations to its growth policy. Elrich brought this error to the Planning Board's attention in 2020, but they ignored his communication. He said there needs to be a new public hearing on how those two recognized land uses added in 1993 will be impacted by Thrive 2050. Elrich suggested the public "has a right to know what effect, if any, this change will have on their individual properties and on future growth in their neighborhood."

Of course, Thrive 2050 as currently written, will have massive, tectonic effects on both. Noise, overcrowding, lack of street parking, reduced school capacity, forced eviction of many residents through gentrification, loss of green space and tree canopy, and a complete change in neigborhood character are all built in to the Thrive plan.

The Council's third major error, Elrich wrote, is repeatedly misleading the public by claiming that passing the Thrive 2050 plan will not make zoning changes to their neighborhood. But the text of Thrive 2050 itself clearly states that such zoning changes may be required in order to implement the plan, and this admission was only added this month. He accused the Planning Board and Council of "withholding the information that a massive rezoning to urbanize most of the County could only take place after Thrive was enacted." The public has a right to know this, as well, Elrich said.

Error number 4, Elrich wrote, was removing quotes from the consultant hired by the Council that chastised the Council for not allowing enough time for substantive outreach to the BIPOC community, and for conducting what little outreach there was during the summer vacation season when it was harder to contact people. Elrich wrote that there must be further outreach to residents of color before Thrive 2050 is passed.

The Elrich memo makes the larger argument that the Council cannot simply state it has lost confidence in the Board and appoint a new one; it must disclose to the public the specifics of why it lost confidence, and conduct a full investigation of the many charges, claims and allegations that were made by whistleblowers inside the Planning Department. A complete dismissal of the Board has not cleared the way for passage of Thrive as the Council seems to think, Elrich concluded, but has "cast a shadow over the entirety of the Planning Board's actions."

Elrich's memo is well-written and on-point in every respect. There is no time factor or urgent need to pass Thrive 2050 this month. It is not even a unique or innovative plan. It's a carbon copy of the same "missing middle" plan that developers are attempting to ram through nationwide, including in Arlington County, using the same sham arguments. 

Thrive 2050 is nothing more than a wild, developer profit grab through a policy that would allow high-density, luxury multifamily growth on every acre of land in Montgomery County outside of the agricultural reserve - and that's on the menu next. We've learned since 2002 that all residential growth generates more cost in services than it generates in tax revenue for the County. Imagine what an even-more-unhinged growth policy like Thrive will do to a County budget already in a structural deficit, and carrying a debt so large that, if it were a department, it would be the third-largest department in the County government.