Preventing George Leventhal inclusionary zoning support from being smeared as 'close to developers'

  Marc Elrich, or his volunteer supporters at an individually ‘uncoordinated’ level in F2F (face to face) door to door voter contact, might dredge up 2002 “End Gridlock” ‘slate’ ‘membership’ as negative campaigning against George Leventhal because of having to return county matching funds for donations above $150 (or from out of county residents) as a ‘sign’ of ‘lack of attention’ to citizens instead of ‘developers’

as the process complaint (political populism) to distract from master plan, sector plan and zoning text amendment vote

(economic populism by effects of council votes on the ‘local economy’ that ‘works for people earning low, middle and high incomes’)

disagreements. 


  In 2006, the last year when Montgomery County, Md (MoCo) had an executive election without an incumbent, Isiah Leggett’s supporters used the percentage of Steve Silverman’s campaign donations that came from ‘developers,’ and their land use law firms, as a similar process complaint that distracted from issues of what to build where and how much (and who can afford to live in it) if the decision was to build more housing.  

  Marc Elrich is carrying Isiah Leggett’s and Phil Andrews’ ‘water’ that was originally supplied by Neighbors for a Better Montgomery leadership (Jim Humphrey and Drew Powell).  Humphrey and Powell were enabled by the late Wayne Goldstein (worked with Humphrey on the Planning and Land Use Committee of the MoCo Civic Federation) and (Elrich’s 2018 treasurer) Dale Tibbetts’ involvement in planning and land use issues with the Montgomery Civic Federation from 2002-7. 


  George Leventhal’s past “End Gridlock” ‘slate’ ’baggage’ that could tip votes for Marc Elrich is answered here


Floreen is the last surviving completely unrepentant* member of Doug Duncan’s and Steve Silverman’s infamous “End Gridlock” slate of the early aughts [2002]. For those with short memories, this is the team that engaged in character assassination of all those opposed to full development-industry ownership of the county. Floreen has spent her entire 16 years in office trying to pave everything in sight, while opposing almost all economic justice and environmental legislation. I was among those looking forward to never hearing from her again, as she is forced out of office after next year, due to term limits.


*George Leventhal was also on that disgusting slate, but has not exactly been wearing it as a badge of honor, since.

Our Revolution MoCo and Metro DC DSA replicating Cambridge Residents Alliance inclusionary zoning opposition exemplifying progressive exceptionalism

 Marc Elrich used ‘go big or go home’ demagogue-style rhetoric

without nuance regarding the threat of gentrification and displacement of Langley Park apartment tenants and residents of lower FMV (fair market value) houses when the Purple Line begins operating.  The Purple Line will be a major improvement over multiple bus connections in Silver Spring or the Langley Park transit center.

  The reference was to fears of gentrification and displacement that only happens when developers mollify
civic special interest groups,

that Marc Elrich is in the pocket of since his days founding the Between the Creeks Neighborhood Association,

Democrat
Candidate name: Marc Elrich
Place of residence: Takoma Park
Community associations, involvement: Founder and former president, Between the Creeks Neighborhood Association.; former regional vice president, Maryland Low-Income Housing Coalition; past vice president, Silver Spring-Takoma Park Traffic Coalition; past member, CURB (group to repeal Pay and Go); Silver Spring Sector Plan Citizens Advisory Committee; Silver Spring Redevelopment Citizens Advisory Committee; Transportation Policy Review Task Force; member of NARAL, NOW, NAACP, Sierra Club, Progressive Maryland



by building only housing marketed as ‘luxury,’ not ‘middle market’ or ‘no-frills,' to get resisted new housing approved at higher densities and marketed to buyers and renters paying lower than the fair market values of the nearby existing housing.


The District [and all other neighboring jurisdictions] needs housing for young families making $60,000 to $90,000. It needs housing for families making $30,000 to $50,000, well above minimum wage but considered “very low income” by Department of Housing and Urban Development standards. These are our teachers, firefighters, child-care professionals and transit operators. We also need housing for those making $20,000, $10,000 and less. These are the people who serve you lunch, take out the trash and check out your purchases at the grocery store. They should all be able to afford to live here. Reports from the George Mason University School of Public Policy, Enterprise Community Partners, and the Greater Washington Housing Leaders Group estimate the magnitude of need at each price point; we need the will, the creativity and the investments to meet it.


   On-site amenities of multi-family (apartment or condominium) housing like convenience stores, business shared office space, fitness rooms, rooftop decks with pools, ‘party rooms’ and dry cleaners are a failure of planning that is shown by a lack of businesses or public facilities nearby to provide the same service.


  The Our Revolution Montgomery County chapter (MoCo Rising) and Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America chapter is unfortunately replicating, 





The US senator from Vermont was in the Boston area Monday to support City Council and Board of Aldermen candidates endorsed by the Cambridge and Somerville chapters of Our Revolution, the grass-roots political organization that grew out of his insurgent 2016 campaign. Sanders’ decision to get involved in municipal races in these two cities, where the political spectrum runs from very liberal to super-ultra-wicked-liberal, was bizarre to begin with; Senator Elizabeth Warren, a progressive icon who actually lives in Cambridge, hasn’t similarly inserted herself into these contests.
In Cambridge, Sanders and his local acolytes faced a choice between two groups of self-styled progressives: one group bent on easing the city’s housing woes by building more units, and another group defined by its vocal opposition to higher, denser private development. Sanders and Our Revolution Cambridge sided with most of the same candidates as the Cambridge Residents Alliance — the city’s most prominent antidevelopment group.

“The political revolution is beginning,” Bernie Sanders told a room of cheering fans when he swung through Massachusetts earlier this week, “and this is what it looks like.” But if you care about holding down housing costs in the Boston area, you should hope Sanders is wrong. At least in Cambridge, the former presidential hopeful is lending his name to antidevelopment forces who are likely to make the city’s housing crisis worse rather than better.
The US senator from Vermont was in the Boston area Monday to support City Council and Board of Aldermen candidates endorsed by the Cambridge and Somerville chapters of Our Revolution, the grass-roots political organization that grew out of his insurgent 2016 campaign. Sanders’ decision to get involved in municipal races in these two cities, where the political spectrum runs from very liberal to super-ultra-wicked-liberal, was bizarre to begin with; Senator Elizabeth Warren, a progressive icon who actually lives in Cambridge, hasn’t similarly inserted herself into these contests.
In Cambridge, Sanders and his local acolytes faced a choice between two groups of self-styled progressives: one group bent on easing the city’s housing woes by building more units, and another group defined by its vocal opposition to higher, denser private development. Sanders and Our Revolution Cambridge sided with most of the same candidates as the Cambridge Residents Alliance — the city’s most prominent antidevelopment group.

In certain quarters, thumbing your nose at The Man is more important than actually getting people housed. In the Trump era, progressive municipalities have rushed to declare themselves sanctuary cities — but the bigger challenge is to give more people a place to live.




….

But spiraling housing costs are the single greatest driver of inequality in Greater Boston [and in most large cities including Washington DC and urbanizing suburban counties like Montgomery], and especially in a hot area like Cambridge. If you were lucky enough to own a home in the 1980s or ’90s, before an eds-and-meds-driven boom sent local real estate prices skyward, or if you’ve got enough cash up front for a stiff down payment now, your net worth can soar ever higher. But if you’re new to the market, or just not affluent, you’ll keep falling farther and farther behind, unless the production of new units catches up to the demand for new housing.

Progressives of all stripes can at least get behind the construction of more below-market-rate housing. Indeed, Sanders mentioned just that possibility in his speech. A city can’t just decree such units into existence, though. Unless public agencies expand their direct spending on below-market housing to once-unimaginable levels, the majority of people will continue to live in privately built units — and private market conditions will determine whether most people can afford to live in a community or not.

In today’s urban housing politics, there’s a corrosive assumption that if somebody’s making money off of development, it must be wrong. But throughout the Boston area, we could use a political revolution that lowers the barriers to building housing of any sort, including market-rate housing. That would be distinctly off-brand for Sanders — and for a thick slice of the Cambridge political spectrum. But it’s also what fairness and equality require.







in their leaders’ early support of Marc Elrich for county executive, the Cambridge Residents Alliance


Not everyone was aboard. A letter dated Saturday and signed by nearly 30 Cantabrigians rebuked Sanders and Our Revolution for weighing in “in a nonpartisan City Council race with 26 candidates, most of whom are equally progressive.”
“How – and why? – does a national leader like you choose between these candidates?” asked the letter, signed by a group including state Rep. Marjorie Decker, former state Rep. Alice Wolf, former city councillor  and activists such as Mo Barbosa and and Jesse Kanson-Benanov, a leader of the pro-development group A Better Cambridge.
The Cambridge endorsements, mainly made locally by the Cambridge chapter of Our Revolution, were identical with those of the Cambridge Residents Alliance, a group typically at odds with A Better Cambridge. But the local nature of five of the six Our Revolution endorsements was not a comfort to the letter writers. “If the answer is that you rely on the local Our Revolution organization to nominate candidates for endorsement, you lose control of the process they use and expose yourself to the risk that the local organization will nominate candidates based on their agenda and not yours,” the letter says. “Whether you intended it or not, the result of this endorsement is that you appear to have aligned yourself with one particular side of how the city should deal with the need to build housing in the Greater Boston region … This is not something in the Our Revolution platform.”
The letter drew attention from Politico, which noted its charge that the endorsements “divides, rather than unites, progressives here.”

 economically progressive views with the exception of not supporting enough mixed income housing to meet demand in all land use planning areas/neighborhoods.  Lack of attention to economic populism

in mixed income housing gets progressives called ‘limousine liberals’ (or ‘Tesla/Prius/car-sharing/soy latte and arugula liberals)’ by working-class voters

Among the books most often named-checked in lefty circles, including by Sanders himself, is “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” Author Thomas Frank’s thesis is that traditional Middle American voters have been manipulated, via their conservative social values, into voting against their raw economic interests and electing Republican politicians who do Wall Street’s bidding. Viewing this dynamic from the safety of the deep-blue coasts, progressives lament: If only people in Wichita could see what was good for them



 who feel their economic interests are ignored. 

  Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America endorsements of Marc Elrich and Chris Wilhelm, but maybe not Brandy Brooks and Danielle Meitiv, are also replicating the Cambridge Residents Alliance liberalism and selective progressivism that excludes the issue of inclusionary zoning.



  The lack of priority given to inclusionary zoning to produce and retain enough units at lower price (rent or sale) points to meet demand leads to working class people of all races, sexual orientations and gender identities/expressions and other civil rights law protected classes voting for Republican Congressional candidates like Dan Cox (R-MDCD8-2016) appealing to voters stuck in traffic with signs demanding “Widen I-270” on the northern end of I-270 south where the Frederick County housing is as cheaper as the pay is lower for the local jobs.


The economically displaced ex-MoCo (Montgomery County) residents may likely continue working in MoCo while living more distantly from their jobs.   They became roads over transit rural/suburban sprawl Republican voters for Gov. Larry Hogan in 2014 (and former Gov. Robert Ehrlich in 2002).  Electoral consequences included Gov. Larry Hogan shifting some of state Purple Line funding to counties

at the same time he cancelled funding for the Baltimore Red Line light rail

two months after April 2015 riots

exposing income and civil rights law protected class divisions as well as racist patrol and arrested prisoner treatment that killed Freddie Gray.  


  Housing developers would build housing for sale or rent to the below-median-income 'market segment’ more readily if each project plan weren't met with civic group (including Montgomery County Civic Federation 'umbrella' group) opposition on some pretext of road congestion and school over-crowding or stream valley/green space hazards.  High density housing has become acceptable to the civic/citizens association community if it's targeted to a high density of high income people. "Maintaining neighborhood character" is a common code-phrase if talking to people face to face or on social media about 'local politics.'

  Higher income new residents are accepted by citizens/civic associations because they represent 'new growth' that 'pays for itself' because richer people can afford private schools and more easily telecommute reducing road/transit congestion and school crowding.  Trips they do make replace school buses because private schools usually outsource their transportation costs to parents driving their children to and from school.  Shopping trips become delivery trucks from online shopping order fulfillment, with delivery delays from congestion of cars and delivery vehicles driven by people who couldn’t afford housing costs of walkable communities with better transit access and availability.


  “Balance jobs and housing” in the current situation is code for ‘if one can’t afford to live in a place don’t look for jobs nearby either” turning one’s ’true passions’ into unpaid ‘hobbies’ in favor of only seeking jobs with a shorter commute.  Work-life balance issues start with social problems of substance addiction and domestic violence from the personal compromises between meaningful and lucrative major life activity of how people support themselves financially. 


  In terms of progressive exceptionalism in opposition to inclusionary zoning there is little to no daylight between the Cambridge Residents Alliance and Our Revolution Montgomery County (MoCo Rising) (or Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America) in the 2018 election cycle, Neighbors for a Better Montgomery in the 2006 election cycle, Neighborhood Montgomery and their members singling out and demonizing of Rollin Stanley for calling a few women a "the coven" that 'stalks his public appearances,' cbar.info, Montgomery County Civic Federation and its member associations, Save Westbard, Robin Ficker’s petition successes for term limits and a unanimous council vote (after other ballot initiatives to raise the threshold to 7 of 9 member 'supermajorities') to raise property taxes above the CPI bolstered by his supportive special election anti-tax candidate Mark Fennel 

Mark’s Bio: Mark D. Fennel has a Heritage Foundation and Citizens Against Government Waste pedigree and was educated at Walter Johnson High School (’84) and Vassar College.  Three-time Republican nominee for Montgomery County Council, Mr. Fennel ran against former Councilwoman Marilyn Praisner in 2006, and  former Councilman Don Praisner in 2008.  A life-long resident of Montgomery County, Mr. Fennel is the proud father of a three year old son, Caleb, and currently lives in the Byeforde/Rock Creek Highland subdivision nestled between the Town of Kensington and Chevy Chase. 

against Marilyn Praisner and Don Praisner, 

the Olney Coalition and Historic Takoma.  Historic Takoma is the group (takomametro.net) behind those red “Right Sized not Super Sized” signs on peoples’ yards on Md route 410 between Fenton Street and Carroll Avenue, among other places where Historic Takoma supporters live, in homes they own with yards that entitle them to the platform to distribute ‘speech’ by displaying signs.  Condominium, and even townhouse or planned community s/f homeowners, often don’t have that freedom even with ownership.  Apartment owners often can’t display signs in windows of units they pay rent for at mortgage-comparable levels.