Dear Friends,
Montgomery County honored the most decorated female Olympian in U.S. history, county native Katie Ledecky, on Thursday. The nine-time Olympic gold medalist returned to her alma mater, Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart, as the County unveiled an honorary road marker—“Katie Ledecky Lane”—at the intersection of Cedar Lane and Elmhurst Road. The County also proclaimed October 17, 2024, as “Katie Ledecky Day.”
Katie is a 9-time Olympic Gold medalist and 21-time World Champion. Her hard work and dedication inspire swimmers and young athletes across the DMV and the nation. On social media she never lets the world forget the bonds she formed through her local swim club, proudly telling the world that she will forever be a Palisades Porpoise.
Katie has been an inspiring role model for young people, not only here in Montgomery County but across the world. She shows all of us what it means to set goals, work hard, and stay humble along the way.
Katie is also an inspiration outside the Olympic-size pool. She has represented Montgomery County with grace and excellence. Earlier this year Katie was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Biden– the highest honor any civilian can receive from our nation.
She may have grown into a global icon, but she never forgot where she came from. I am glad we got this opportunity as a County to show our appreciation for her accomplishments. You can watch the livestream of the event on the County’s Facebook page.
Attainable Housing Strategies Ignore Smart Growth Principles
I have been out talking with a number of people in the community about the Attainable Housing Strategies (AHS), and many people have been writing to me as well. I have been impressed with the depth of analysis by residents and their skills at pinpointing some of the many problems with this initiative. My staff and I have been working on documents to provide more backup information and analysis, and this week, we had Google notebook review a 4-page document of ours, and to my surprise it came up with a summary that really captured some of the key points. I’ve repasted it here (with some edits):
The proposed "attainable housing" plan for Montgomery County, Maryland, while aiming to increase housing supply, fails to adequately address affordability, lacks a clear understanding of housing needs and capacity, disregards environmental concerns and undermines previous planning efforts. The Planning Board's lack of transparency and their failure to consider equity issues are also of great concern. Also of great concern is that the proposed plan will likely displace residents without providing meaningful solutions to the County's housing challenges.
I thought that was a pretty accurate summary, and I will continue to provide some of the details that support it. I have already noted two reasons for my opposition to the AHS, the absence of affordability and the Planning Board’s failure to properly assess housing needs in the context of current capacity and our master plans. This week, I want to focus on how AHS undermines fundamental Smart Growth planning principles that define the concept of walkability or walksheds.
As background, our County has been a leader on smart growth principles. Our general plans (before the disastrous Thrive 2050) supported smart growth principles, clustering growth around transit stations and minimizing sprawl construction. Additionally, we have Ride-On, our robust bus system that we are continually trying to improve. There are also many bike and pedestrian options.
Unfortunately, the AHS does not follow smart growth principles. It is widely known and accepted that walkability is defined as about a 10-minute walk to transit, which is usually about a half mile in a straight line. And it is an even shorter distance between the workplace and a transit stop – about a quarter mile. In other words, there’s a good chance that people will walk about 10 minutes from their homes to use transit and walk about a quarter mile from transit to their workplace.
From the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG): Walksheds show planners how easily people can walk to transit.
“Planners assume that on average, a person can be expected to walk about ten minutes to get to a destination like a train station. That’s typically about a half mile in a straight line.”
They then explain that it may not even be a full half mile because “in the real world ten minutes of walking often does not get us as far as we would like.” They looked at walkability around the Shady Grove Metro Station and noted that the walking options are limited and concluded, “Only 17 percent of the area within a half mile of this station is deemed walkable.”
The COG study also looked around the Clarendon Metro Station in Virginia and found that more than 70 percent of the area within a half mile is walkable. I mention Clarendon because either way they use half mile or about ten minutes as the definition of walkable – which is the standard.
By contrast, the Planning Board uses a one-mile standard to at least partly justify their increased density and reduced parking requirements because of the “walkability” of an area. Why? People who live one mile “in a straight line” from a transit station are very unlikely to walk to transit – one mile is usually too far and a straight line, or “as the crow flies” is often more than one mile because of both obstacles to walking along the way and the lack of a straight path.
Walkability is an important principle that cannot be ignored. It is not realistic, nor supported by fact, to assume that people will walk a mile or more to get to transit. Yet, AHS establishes its “Priority Housing Districts” based on that assumption, promoting “walkable” communities with “access to… multiple modes of transportation” based on a straight-line one-mile measure (“as the crow flies”). This makes no sense. Residents are not flying crows.
While this is only one problem of the AHS, it does highlight the underlying flawed assumptions in the Planning Board’s recommendations. Worse than the flaws and assumptions, is the willingness of the Planning Board to make up a metric that does not exist in the real world.
In future weeks, I will comment on more problems and concerns with plan sent to Council.
Early Voting Begins Next Week
Next week, early voting centers will open ahead of this year’s presidential election. In Maryland, early voting will be available from Thursday, Oct. 24, through Thursday, Oct. 31, daily, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. There will be 14 early voting centers. You can find an early voting location here or text EV and your ZIP code to 77788. Once those locations open, the County will track wait times through the Board of Elections website.
If you requested a mail-in ballot that has likely already arrived at your home. You still have until Tuesday, Oct. 29 to request one. You can return them by mail or put them in one of the 58 drop boxes. You can find the location of a drop box near you by finding this map when you visit 777vote.org.
The County’s Board of Elections is already canvassing or preparing the mail-in ballots it has received so that when polls close on Tuesday, Nov. 5, the ballots that came back early can be easily processed along with the rest.
Board of Elections leaders encourage you to vote early or to turn in your mail-in ballot as quickly as possible. If you choose to put your ballot in our drop-in boxes, you have until 8 p.m. on Election Day. Starting next week, those boxes will be collected twice a day.
I want to thank Board of Elections board members David Naimon and Amie Hoeber for joining my media briefing this week to share some of this critical information. They stressed that it is not too late to sign up to become an election judge. Follow this link if you are interested.
I want to thank everyone in advance for their work in making this election successful-- from our County staff to the poll workers-- they all work together keep everything moving smoothly at polling locations and at election headquarters during this busy time.
FY26 Budget Community Conversation
This week I resumed my series of ‘community conversations’ about the budget with a visit to Silver Spring. There was a good crowd, which is a positive sign as we finish out the early stages of formulating the FY26 operating budget.
I moved these conversations to the months leading up to the formation of my recommended operating budget because it is important to get information about your priorities as we are forming the budget, not simply feedback after it has already been completed.
We will likely have fiscal challenges, and we will work with our partners in the County and at the state level to develop new funding sources to address those challenges. We will work to develop effective solutions that help us better address all the needs in Montgomery County.
The next ‘community conversation’ will be this Monday, Oct. 21, from 12:30 to 2 p.m. at Leisure World in Silver Spring. Additional space will be made for remote viewing at the Damascus Senior Center and Wheaton Community Recreation Center. This time, we are inviting older residents to be the audience and to offer suggestions on what to prioritize in the budget. On Wednesday, Oct. 23, we will host another ‘community conversation’ in Chinese at the Chinese Culture and Community Service Center in Gaithersburg.
Our budget represents many of the values and goals we share as a community. I hope everyone gets a chance to watch these recorded forums or attend one in person.
Emphasis Remains on Road Safety Following Injuries to Sgt. Pat Kepp
This week marks one year since we saw a horrific incident on our roadways. Sgt. Pat Kepp was responding to reports of a reckless driver along I-270. He left his vehicle to deploy stop sticks and was intentionally hit by the driver he was trying to stop. The suspect had multiple prior charges for speeding and aggressive and reckless driving, but he still had access to a vehicle. Sgt. Kepp was nearly killed and lost both his legs that night.
After two months, Sgt. Kepp was out of the hospital and rehabbing with prosthetic legs. He has worked hard to return to the Montgomery County Police Department on a limited basis. He is sharing his DUI expertise, advising other officers, and working with our Alcohol Beverages Services to prevent the sale of alcohol to minors. His strength and dedication to our community is commendable.
If you missed it this past Spring, the Montgomery County Police Department honored the officers who responded to the scene that night and helped save Sgt. Kepp’s life. You can read more about their efforts here.
You should not be able to drive at outrageous speeds and go free because we cannot chase you. There has got to be a way to prevent senseless acts like this. It is not fair to the innocent people who get killed on our roads when these lunatics create accidents.
We are working with our state representatives to impose more severe penalties for those who taunt our patrol officers, speed off at ridiculous speeds, and put our community in danger. These people do not simply need to be ticketed, they need to be in jail and have their vehicles impounded, and their licenses taken away.
Specifically, we would like to see changes to the criminal and traffic codes that require suspects in cases like this to appear before a judge so that judges can determine if something more than a ticket is needed to deter this behavior. Sending a serious message about the severity of their actions is the only way to drive home the point that their behavior must change.
Rabbi Attacked in Silver Spring
On Monday, a man was sent to jail after allegedly attacking a rabbi with a wooden stake. Police are trying to determine if this was a hate crime or just a coincidence that the victim is Jewish.
Our County’s faith liaison has reached out to the Rabbi and the congregation to offer help. Montgomery County has regional service centers and resources like the Office of Human Rights and Committee Against Hate/Violence that can offer support. In moments like this, it is important to demonstrate our strong support for groups that feel targeted. We all share this community and deserve to feel safe walking down the street.
Cybersecurity Awareness Month
On Tuesday, I helped welcome cybersecurity professionals, students and job seekers to the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence. Montgomery County and the Maryland Department of Commerce are proud cosponsors of the center. It is a vital tool in today’s economy, tracking 65 million events every day from its headquarters in Rockville.
The center started 11 years ago with the goal of bringing together experts from industry, government, and academia to address the real-world needs of securing complex IT systems and protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure. Montgomery County renewed that partnership last year.
This is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, an important thing to focus on especially because we are home to many advanced technology companies. We have satellite manufacturers, radar and CHIPs companies serving commercial and Department of Defense clients. Cybersecurity is a priority in the private sector too and with global headquarters for Marriott, Choice Hotels and Sodexo.
This week’s conference was a good reminder that security on all your devices is paramount as well. The center has many resources available to help you as a small business owner or someone who needs to protect your own bank account. You can learn more about how the center serves the public by visiting nccoe.nist.gov.
Food Scraps Recycling at Farmers Markets
Montgomery County is increasing efforts to accept more food scraps from the public for composting. The Department of Environmental Protection is working with three farmers markets in our area to collect more food.
Those receptacles are set up at the Bethesda Central Farmers Market, the Downtown Silver Spring Market and the Olney Farmers and Artists Market. The Silver Spring market opens at 9 a.m. on Saturday (and 10 am in the winter), while the Bethesda and Olney locations are open at 9 every Sunday.
The following food scraps can be recycled at a drop-off location:
- Bread and grains
- Coffee grounds and tea leaves (minus the filters)
- Cooked food
- Cheese and yogurt
- Eggshells
- Fruit and vegetable scraps, including pumpkins
- Meat, fish and bones
So, instead of just finding locally made products at these farmers markets, I encourage everyone to take advantage of this program, collect their food scraps, and bring them with them to help us all create a more sustainable Montgomery County.
As always, my appreciation for all of you,
Marc Elrich
County Executive
