This email filled my inbox May 5, 2018.
More of the text of the letter read as pasted from a different page view with a link to the D1Neighbors web site:
Marc has now received 20 organizations’ endorsements. He wrote yesterday about being endorsed by NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland PAC as their “Champion of Choice.” Today, we wanted to tell you a little about the endorsement of D1 Neighbors, a group of residents who live in the westernmost area of the county, including Chevy Chase, Bethesda, Potomac, and Poolesville. D1 Neighbors supports local officials who believe in “balancing growth and infrastructure in ways that make Montgomery County a great place for both residents and employers.”
Among the reasons D1 Neighbors lists for supporting Marc:
“Marc Elrich has set the highest standards of all the County Executive candidates for funding his campaign. Not only is he funding his campaign using MoCo’s public financing of elections system (no contributions over $150, no contributions from corporations), he rejects campaign contributions from individuals in (or representing) the real estate development industry. Marc is the only member of the County Council who has never accepted contributions from developers and their representatives, and is the only Democratic County Executive candidate who has not taken development industry donations.”
“Marc Elrich understands that MoCo has to balance support for businesses and job creation with other county needs, including the adequacy of schools, roads, transportation and green space, as well as environmental stewardship, safety, and care for our seniors.”
“Whether it is championing for workers by seeking a fair minimum wage or championing for homeowners who believe that the Planning Board fails to treat residents as important voices in the planning process, Marc Elrich has a well-deserved reputation of pursuing results that are fair to the stakeholders.”
These are some of the same reasons communities across the county support Marc - both before and during his 12 years on the County Council, he has consistently listened to neighborhoods and individuals and worked with them to enact better policy. As your next County Executive, Marc will continue to stand with residents committed to making Montgomery County the best it can possibly be.
Not a dime's worth of difference exists between housing builder ('developer') demonization of d1n.org in 2018 and neighborspac.org in 2006, among other civic and citizens associations, exercising massive resistance to new housing that isn’t a high density of high income people maintaining class segregation intersectional with segregation by other protected classes.
I wrote about it here in this clip of a past post
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.
Meredith Wellington’s use of the same rhetoric about developers buying too much influence with county council members and executives is slightly different. She whines about property and income taxes, owed by richer individuals who aren’t paying the fair share of maintaining a county civil society (commons of local government) based on their inflation adjusted share of wealth that has grown since 2009. Austerity budget costs have lead to dividing economically and socially marginalized populations by a severity contest /oppression olympics in more restrictive eligibility criteria that leaves many vulnerable individuals with needs unmet by private nonprofits either.
A combination of Meredith Wellington as District 1 council member and a county executive Marc Elrich destroys the legacy of Bethesda as a slightly mixed income community, except for a few poor residents as a large enough population to plausibly deny NIMBY and 'tokenism' by inadequate private donations to Bethesda Cares or Montgomery Coalition for Homeless or Montgomery Housing Partnership or Bethesda Methodist
The formerly inclusive legacy of Bethesda as a moderately mixed income residential area is based on etymology of the name in the Hebrew phrase "Bet Chesed" explained in the Suburban Hospital lobby display of a rock of Bethesda, taken from pool of Bethesda, in what is now Jerusalem, under Israeli government sole (not shared) sovereignty, recognized further by the 2018 US Embassy move from Tel Aviv without regard for consequences, for bilateral and regional peace between Israel, Palestine and other states in the region, of the decision.
What Meredith Wellington and 2018 Marc Elrich supporter Tony Hausner wanted in 2012 from the Montgomery County zoning code rewrite
would have had further class segregating and displacing effects. They lost their battle on accessory apartments in 2011.
After a hearing on the zoning code rewrite was finished Meredith Wellington sent out another message congratulating members of Neighborhood Montgomery for what they had communicated
to the county council. Note the title of the email message "Community Voices were heard at the Council hearing on Tuesday." Being heard does not equate to 'getting what a person wants.' Too many citizens and civic groups participating in the planning and land use process in Montgomery County, Md falsely equate being heard with winning the planning and zoning outcome they advocate for as part of a two-step advocacy strategy.
If a civic or citizens group fails to win the policy outcome they desire then the members and leaders of the civic/citizens association frequently pivot to something wrong in the land use process. Or how candidates pay for their campaign communications and GOTV operations by demonizing an opponent in the past planning and land use advocacy who was perceived to have 'won' a 'better' outcome than the mostly existing homeowners whose interest in maximizing their personal resale and rental profits, while still listing a property for sale, has a narrower benefit than units built by new housing builders and managed particularly as rental apartments.
Appropriating the word "sensible" to Neighborhood Montgomery's land use vision puts those who disagree in position of being perceived by audiences to the land use dispute as 'not sensible' (code for low degree of impairment psychosis slang word 'crazy') simply a kinder, gentler way to equate political disagreement with mental illness. Equating political disagreement with intellectual disability has been shamed by the 'say the r-word to end the r-word' stigma busting campaign of Special Olympics and United Cerebral Palsy that ended up replacing the term 'mental retardation' with 'intellectual disability.' The intent is the same on Neighborhood Montgomery's part to somehow belittle and delegitimize any land use views contrary to the views held by Neighborhood Montgomery leaders.
Both, and presumably their organizationally-endorsed choice for county executive Marc Elrich, likely still want as few new residents as possible with close proximity to R60 & R90 the most expensive zoning category of land used for the most expensive housing type in 2018.
I will compliment D1Neighbors (d1n.org) for one thing. Look up all candidates' donors, including candidates who boast of listening to residents of a county and calling themselves 'community friendly,' using the "active receiving committee" at this link.
As Montgomery County, Md continues to attract new residents (grow) "other county needs, including the adequacy of schools, roads, transportation and green space, as well as environmental stewardship, safety, and care for our seniors," in the text of the d1neighbors endorsement of Marc Elrich for county executive, cannot continually be used as pretexts for opposing the construction of new housing or the rehabilitation of existing housing to create more affordable housing units even d1neighbors.org and Marc Elrich would agree are needed. Each time one person gives up a search for housing, at a price point affordable to people earning below 60% of the six-figure Montgomery County median income, by moving to another county while continuing to seek a job in Montgomery County and lives in Frederick, Howard or Prince George's counties they likely represent one more car congesting I270 or I95 or state-funded local roads like MD 355, MD 193, MD410, MD97, US29 or MD650. Current residents fail again, by each unsuccessful Montgomery County housing search, to make Bethesda, and the rest of Montgomery County, MD, a welcoming community to all people regardless of how much income and wealth one person earns and has saved.
