Democratic Party winning candidates serve the disabled and disability communities better than Republican incumbents

    Primary elections try to push candidates to be better supporters of policies that help segments of the electoral base of a political party.  Candidates adjust their positions slightly if they think that will win more votes from the affected segment, and allies of the affected segment, of the electoral base.  

  General elections should be about electing the primary election winners who would do the least harm, if not the most good, for the issue (or identity) politics communities.  

  From a long term perspective of multiple primary and general election cycles, Democratic Party general election candidates fight for and have created better policies, implementing laws, for the community of people with disabilities and their temporarily-able-bodied friends and families.  

Here's how.  



  Republicans help #PwDs with one hand and slit the throats of people with disabilities (#PwDs) with the other. Republican Pres. Richard Nixon helped by watering down calls for a universal basic income by creating SSI (Supplemental Security Income) with means tests that force beneficiaries into deeper poverty.  Later Republicans created private (ABLE Act of 2014) accounts that suspend, rather than terminate, SSI benefits until account assets are ‘spent down.’  It is a legislative precedent that should not be repeated as Social Security and Medicare trust funds are ‘spent down.’  Democrats went along with the ABLE act because they were in the minority and individual elected officials (politicians) represented states or districts of states that were relatively less progressive economically if not socially.  Raising the FICA cap by greater amounts each year, with a goal of scrapping the cap entirely, is a better long term policy outcome.  

 Republican Pres. George H.W. Bush signed the ADA in 1990, after winning a 1988 election campaign that featured a racist ad, about a failure of prison furlough judgment by the MA prison system, when Bush’s opponent was governor of MA. The producer of the ad, Citizens United, was the same organization that ended limits on spending by IE groups by 2010.

  More mass incarceration and punishment, rather than correction of criminal behavior that is implied in the name of most jails and prisons (Correctional Institution/Institute/Facility) and their supervising state and local departments (of Correctional Services), resulted.  Republican lawyers for thug corporations sued to raise and shift costs of individual enforcement to the harmed individuals.
The ADA amendments act of 2008 corrected for some of the bad court decisions.  


  HR 620 in the 2017-18 Congress is reversing both the ADA and the 2008 amendments act. 

People with the disability of autism (who call themselves autistics in a rejection of person-first language because of a belief autism cannot be separated from the person as an additional resistance to medical models of disability) have started identifying as LGBTQ first and autistic second, and conflate neurodiversity with diversity of sexual orientation, gender identity and public expression of gender identity,  to achieve faster individual inclusion at less monetary and time cost to the individual, in the absence of a regulatory and administrative state, to do more good for more people more quickly.  The pace of positive social change still remains less equal for autistics who can’t ‘pick a state or local, in the absence of federal protected class recognition, civil rights law-defined protected class’ because they don’t identify with as many marginalized ‘identity politics’ communities that are simply crowd-sourced civil rights law protected classes.

Marc Elrich carries 2005 paper ideas into 2018 campaign remember in November (June)

Update June 17, 2018 link to full paper by Neighbors for a 'better' (rising median income) Montgomery Jim Humphrey. Humphrey co-opts rhetoric as a 'steady state' and 'optimum scale' 'environmentalist' to serve the purposes of housing resale market supremacy with profits for current homeowners only not new home builders ('developers') with higher percentages of MPDUs to house everyone on wait list without displacement to other counties.

 This tweet crossed my 'mobile device' (cell phone) screen.


I replied one time here


and here.


The third reply I posted showed that Marc Elrich had built enough of a relationship with "Where are the Brakes?" paper author Jim Humphrey that he appeared on the same stage for a photo opp(ortunity) to present an award to their mutual friend Wayne Goldstein who died in 2009.  

Not only was the civic activism relationship close but the 2018 statement "I prefer to put jobs in Frederick" reveals agreement with the "steady state" or "optimum scale" population growth control paradigm Jim Humphrey expressed in 2005.  That view has led to displacement of people to Frederick in the first place mostly by wealth and income class because people cannot afford the same living standard in Montgomery County.  

Only turnover in voting population between 2005 and 2018, as well as short memories among voters who turn out to vote, prevent the class segregation and displacement from costing Marc Elrich votes in the June 26, 2018 primary with early voting June 14-21, 2018.    


 

 
https://twitter.com/Nyr194/status/1002135109313679361
https://twitter.com/alpert/status/1001905170966614016

Meredith Wellington D-1 council + County Executive Marc Elrich + Tony Hausner support for both = more middle class MoCo displacement

   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

Church yard sales.

  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.   

Amazon HQ2 single land use zoning and Knopf, Brown, Elrich and Andrews existing homeowner-biased vision of 'community friendly'

  Norman Knopf's law partner David Brown was honored as a "community hero" in 2004 and showed his hostility to renters in a 2013 letter.

 [dead link since retrieval of the letter copied and pasted below]

 http://m.gazette.net/gazettenet/db_285534/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=w3dq0lqW






It’s time the development process needs to have a new paradigm developed.

Before any projects are approved first by the Planning Commission and later by the County Council, there ought to be input from independent economists and sociologists.

Here in North Bethesda, the land of the construction crane, myriad developments have been approved and have begun. Here are some questions that might not have been asked:

(1) What are the economic rationales based on? If on experience, that assumes the future will be a continuation of the past or present. We are living in times unlike the past. For example, future generations will be electronic-educated with different work goals. Have existing developments reached the promised potential?

(2) Since virtually all of the residential units are rentals, won’t that change the societal effect on the area? Renters do not have a financial interest in the community. Renters tend to move more often than homeowners.

(3) Do decision makers understand true traffic effect? For example, the only traffic counts are for vehicles passing through intersections. Where do they start, stop and end? The conference center promised at least 10 percent of its attendees will use public transportation. Has anyone checked on that? (I live across the road from the center, and I doubt 1 percent fill that category. Most cars are single occupants.

(4) What is the economic Plan B in case Plan A does not work out? A lot can change between the time construction begins and when it opens for use. The Wisconsin where I live is a perfect example of that because it was being built when the economy was strong, but when it opened its unit sale prices were so far out of line buyers stayed away until the prices dropped radically.

There is an old saying: Measure twice before hammering once. A lot more innovative thought needs to go into development decisions and their processes.

David H. Brown, North Bethesda



  Renters have an interest in living in a nice community, with good schools particularly if they have children.  They rent, often houses as well as apartments, because they can't afford appreciated resale existing home sale prices such as the resale prices demanded by those who bought into "The Wisconsin" condo low and want to resell at enough profit to pay for replacement housing and moving costs.  People may also rent to save a down payment to buy.  Renters could also have been foreclosed on or short sold previously owned homes in the post 2007-9 housing market and general economic 'great recession' with spotty and savagely unequal rates of state and local GDP growth from 2011 to the present.  Landlords have an interest in maintaining the community, surrounding their immediate properties, to keep rents high including house and townhouse landlords.  As much as 1/3 of Montgomery County, MD are renters.  And [corrected link] many renters don't move (page 18-19)


 [screen shots added May 30, 2019 update]

as often as David H. Brown would have former readers of the now defunct Gazette believe.


   Now-exposed tenant-hater David H. Brown moved on in 2014 to calling out a lack of coordination in changing uses for the land now used for Lord and Taylor that is also the former site of the now demolished White Flint Mall.  There is another Lord and Taylor just over the District of Columbia border near the Friendship Heights WMATA Red Line metrorail station.  Parking at that location is restricted entry and may require payment.  


  Another unasked, and unanswered, question in the planning and land use policy community of tenant and homeowner citizens, property owners and county government is how many customers of the Lord and Taylor store that is all that's left of White Flint Mall drive from upper northwest DC or southwest Montgomery County bordering subdivisions in the built-up, single use, residentially-zoned 'green wedges' between the Wisconsin avenue, River Road and Massachusetts avenue corridors.  License plate views in the parking lots as well as sales tax receipts paid by each location to either DC city or Maryland state governments can start to answer the question if Lord and Taylor's reluctance to close their store is based on customer residency overlap because of free parking in the White Flint store and paid parking at the Friendship Heights store.  

   Montgomery County and Maryland state government subsidy packages offered to Amazon.com if they choose to build HQ2 where White Flint Mall stood are based, in part, on easier coordination of large development, and reuse of large pieces of land, if only one owner builds a 'development' to serve one use that is not residential.  


  Planner and council development oversight process 'fatigue' with mixed use development oversight results after 12, and maybe 16, years of civic/citizens hostility to virtually all new housing units proposed.  "Oversight fatigue" continues unless the new housing units are 'well designed' and 'respect the character of the neighborhood' (code words for regressively more expensive and raising resale prices proportionately).  Supremacy of an increasingly unaffordable resale housing market over the new housing market results.  The supremacy of profit-taking in the resale, and one existing rental unit turnover at a time, and rental housing markets enabled by 'community friendly' council members and county executives Marc Elrich, Phil Andrews and Isaiah Leggett and their friends in the civic/citizens association and Montgomery County Civic Federation (100% existing homeowner) 'community,' is further perpetuated by lawsuits brought by land use lawyers like Norman Knopf and David H. Brown who lose their cases while still driving up new housing developer costs.  Elrich's, Andrews' and Leggett's resistance to 'smart growth' is protected by lawyers for existing homeowner resale profit interests.  

  Most 'smart growth' mixed use development near public transit has become a higher density of higher income people.  Lower income and working class people displaced out of Montgomery County if their name doesn't 'come up' a 'winner' on waiting lists for various types of mostly HUD housing choice voucher-subsidized housing and MPD (moderately priced dwelling) Units, where moving out of Montgomery County, MD, is the 'free market' and individually privatized solution to reducing the waiting list time if not enough affordable housing units are both produced and retained.  A slow and steady displacement of residents, to Frederick, Prince George's and Howard Counties and the District of Columbia, on the basis of income class results, because of massive existing homeowner resistance in the service of the special interest of individual resale profits for each homeowner, as Montgomery County, Md grew anyway between 2003 and 2018. 



[dead link since retrieval of letter copied and pasted below]

http://m.gazette.net/article/20140910/OPINION/140919787/-1/white-flint-development-plan-lacks-coordination






Wednesday, September 10, 2014
White Flint development plan lacks coordination


Thanks to the county’s unimaginative approach to development, new construction will continue to be DIY — do it yourself. What we have is a hodge-podge of buildings totally lacking in symmetry of design. For example, here in the North Bethesda/White Flint sector, exteriors lack cohesion. In any parcel, one building is a poor relation to its neighbor.

Why is this happening? Absence of bureaucratic courage to be innovative. Why? There are those who wonder who is in charge of change, Council or the Planning Commission. It is my understanding that the planners are an advisory arm of the lawmakers.

When a new project is submitted for approval, decision makers consider design symmetry a long-lost cousin. In a word, lack of coordination.

But, we should not be surprised. There is little if any thought given to understanding where vehicles begin their trips, where they stop and how often, plus where they end. There are lots of calculations about vehicles passing through intersections, and which way they may turn. In truth, many of those trips begin/end way beyond a particular sector.

Part of the problem stems from economic/vehicular/societal assumptions. It would help to know who are the people flooding into new residential units. Where they work, shop, how often they use public transportation versus private vehicle usage, etc. would be helpful. “Build, and they will come” is a dangerous motto.

The current North Bethesda/White Flint development plan lacks coordination with surrounding sectors. For example, take Wisconsin Avenue/Rockville Pike/Md. 355 is not just one long roadway. The “buck” stops at vastly different “communities” as if they were cocoons.

Instead of relying solely on developer predictions of viability, county development decision makers should hear from independent experts in fields such as economics, society psychology, etc. It also would do well to have higher educations students take part in fact gathering and analysis for class credit. Some of their ideas and conclusions might be refreshing.

It is a given that developers gain profits, and the county gains tax revenue. There is nothing wrong with that. But, a little more imagination and coordination could encourage decision makers to have the courage to create a new era of development that could raise the bar for the rest of the nation.

David H. Brown, North Bethesda



The writer has been a rotating chairman of the Rockville Board of Appeals.
  

Norman Knopf, 2018 event organizer for Marc Elrich, civic litigator history back to 2005

  Much turnover in the Montgomery County (#MoCo) electorate between 2002-2018 make it difficult for many voters to remember how Marc Elrich is beholden to the special interest of single-family and townhouse (s/f and t/h) homeowners in the civic/citizens association community (with its umbrella group montgomerycivic.org).   


  Civic/citizens association members believe they should be the only county residents profiting from development in the form of their resale prices generating enough profit to pay replacement housing and moving costs.  


  Providing an estate for survivors (adult children or other estate executors) if a person attained the ultimate goal of 'aging in place,' supported by senior housing advocates, namely dying in place is another more-highly valued profit from real estate sales than building new housing units.  If survivors of a deceased homeowner don't choose to move into the house, to keep ownership 'in the family,' houses are often torn down and replaced to repeat the cycle of a single unit owner-occupied home as growing asset value.  Teardowns don't add units only fill up more space on residentially-zoned land lots. 

  Marc Elrich thanked attorney Norman Knopf for organizing a q and a in Chevy Chase section 4 (Town of Chevy Chase). 


  Norman Knopf, and his law partner David Brown, have made a legal career of representing citizens/civic associations, with the money to pay their fees a marker of wealth and class privilege, filing lawsuits against the county and builders of new housing (singled out and demonized as 'developers') in #MoCo local political discourse since after the 2002 local elections.  

  Wealth and class privilege transcends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protected classes of race and national origin, as one Chevy Chase section 4 (Town) homeowner of likely South Asian/Indian subcontinent national origin Ajay Bhatt sued to retain the fence he built on right of way land needed to build both the Purple Line and a bike trail crossing Columbia Country Club's golf course just west of Connecticut Ave (MD route 185).  Bhatt had to earn a high income to afford his house in the first place even before fence construction, demolition, and litigation, costs. 

  Consensus views emerged that new housing builders' ('developers') influence must be limited by applying the bipartisan national issue of campaign finance reform in the local context of public campaign financing for the 2018 MoCo elections.  The elections have more candidates than usual because of the imposition of term limits that were a backlash to raising property taxes on a property tax base that has become regressively less affordable since 2003 when 'developers' were originally singled out.  


   Social liberal and fiscal conservative economic views in a Democratic-voting county, where Republicans only have 'open and accountable government' and fiscal issues left to organize around as backlash to 'scandals' like the responsiveness of the Department of Liquor Control to business orders, leading even Democratic candidates in the 2014 and 2016 elections to call for privatization of liquor sales.   Beer and wine sales already are privatized while stores cannot sell below a Montgomery County (Dept. of Liquor Control) DLC price.   

  To appear to be 'bipartisan' and not 'one-sided' unions and their PAC donations as well as corporate PAC donations are also singled out as much of the county government budget is payroll and benefit packages to county employees.  
  
  Candidates who still accept PAC money have the decision to accept it used against them as a 'negative campaign' or 'opposition research' issue.

  Corporations (including new housing builders/'developers') have given far more money to candidate committees and 'slate' (group of candidate) committees than unions.  

   It is inaccurate to assert and, indeed a lie, to equate corporate and union PAC donations.


   More relevant to local Montgomery County, MD elections since 2002 the finance, insurance and real estate (development) industry spent over 3 times as much money as that spent by unions on candidate and party committee ('campaign finance') donations in the 2012 election cycle.  


    

   Often abbreviated as FIRE it has also been called 'wall street' (of the NY City borough of Manhattan) as that is where its capital is assembled for income and retirement investing, at individual and institutional levels, as well as state and local government public finance (think of bonds that pay for most infrastructure with taxes before and after the infrastructure is in use). 


  One example of Norman Knopf and David Brown's legal work included suing Montgomery County itself to prevent the sale of unused county land to a private owner who wished to build one more house in an already expensive neighborhood where even older homes sell for over $1 million




 A connected [and wealthy] community working together was the key to the preservation of Maiden Lane Urban Park. In February 2000, the Maiden Lane site was sold by the county to a private buyer to build a home. Alerted to the news of the sale in June 2000 when trees on the site were marked for cutting, the community sparked into action and formed the Committee for the Preservation of Maiden Lane Park, hiring the law firm of Knopf and Brown and initiating a legal fight between the county, buyer and the community which lasted for four years.
The awards presented Saturday reinforced the years of effort to preserve Maiden Lane Urban Park.  Awards were given to Norman Knopf and David Brown from the law firm of Knopf & Brown, to former County Council President Blair Ewing and former [Republican predecessor of term-limited Roger Berliner] Councilmember Howard Denis for their support in passing two County Council resolutions in 2001 urging that Maiden Lane be made a park and to Department of Parks Land Acquisition Specialist Bill Gries for his guidance to the community in brokering the land transfer.





 leading to many older homes being torn down and replaced with bigger homes.   

 Republican Councilmember Howard Denis, the last Republican member of the Montgomery County council, replaced another Republican Betty Krahnke in a 2000 special election after Krahnke was forced to resign because of health reasons.  Roger Berliner was a Democratic councilmember in a rich, and growing richer one rental and owned housing unit turnover at a time, social liberal fiscal conservative Republican district first elected as a local manifestation of a national Democratic 'wave election' of 2006.


  I call 'mansionization and teardowns' suburban renewal (analogous to urban renewal in the past) that displaced from the neighborhood any person who, for a long list of reasons, couldn't 'keep up' with rising 'costs of living' mostly housing purchase (or rental) and maintenance.   Inclusionary zoning and mixed income housing policy goals, that should be enforced in all sector and master plans, were set back perhaps permanently.  


  Another example of Norman Knopf and David Brown's work that weakened inclusionary zoning and mixed income housing goals by enriching existing and new 'market rate' single-family homeowners one sale at a time, over time, occurred just 'outside the beltway' where existing homeowners unsuccessfully fought new townhouses 



 Neighbors objected to that entrance, arguing additional traffic would pose safety risks and force them to move their parked cars on what is now a small neighborhood street. But the neighborhood association, which hired anti-development attorney Norman Knopf, didn't have much of a leg to stand on when it was revealed residents are technically parking illegally right now because of the small size of the road.


in the Fleming Park neighborhood (subdvision) bordered by Grosvenor Lane and Fleming avenue. 



   Current shoppers in the Kensington Safeway at Connecticut and Knowles avenues with a bus stop served by multiple bus routes (Ride On 34, 5, 7, WMATA L8 kept operating on weekends by Ride On)  may not be aware of Norman Knopf's history of being retained to prevent the replacement of an older grocery market with a larger market. 

  The Safeway store in the 4 Corners North Silver Spring neighborhood on eastbound MD route 193 (University Boulevard) is still operating in the same store design and space as the former "Soviet Safeway" in Kensington that Kensington First raised the replacement costs of in their attempt at litigation carried out by Norman Knopf.   

  Only the inability of Kensington First to privately fundraise Knopf's fee, which Mr. Knopf would not reduce, forced the dropping of the lawsuit.  Cafe Monet and Cottage Monet later went out of business in their Armory Avenue storefront.



Kensington First withdrew its appeal of the Montgomery County Planning Board’s approval of the project on July 29 because ‘‘we just didn’t have enough money to pay our lawyer, Norman Knopf,” said Judy Hanks-Henn, president of the group.
Knopf’s fee for filing and representing the group for the appeal was $10,000. The group had raised more than $8,000, said Caya Cagri, another Kensington First member, but pledges for the remaining amount ‘‘just didn’t pan out.”
Knopf declined comment. The group has returned the money to the donors.
Approved by the Planning Board last July, the new store will be 54,000 square feet, more than twice the size of the current store. It will also have a total of 268 parking spaces in street-level and below ground lots.

Hanks-Henn said Kensington First has never opposed the store. But, the group argued the new store should have to conform to the stricter design requirements for Kensington’s historic district across the street, even though it was not officially in the district.
The Planning Board rejected that argument when it voted unanimously to approve the project in July 2004. Kensington First filed the appeal on May 13, a month after the board issued a written opinion confirming its approval of the project.
The decision to withdraw the approval was ‘‘very disappointing,” said Cagri, who owns Café Monet and Cottage Monet, a gift shop, on Armory Avenue. ‘‘We put a lot of work into it. I don’t know what to do.”
  


   The Montgomery County Civic Federation honored Norman Knopf with a "Community Hero" award in 2004.  By 2005 Mr. Knopf wouldn't act in the spirit of the award by reducing his legal fee to Kensington First to handle a land use lawsuit that was already on questionable grounds because the Kensington Historic District boundary excluded the Safeway property at issue.   Additional legal costs probably raised the costs to future businesses in rent to the shopping center owner and are reflected in lower labor costs from fewer cashiers (only 1 or 2 lanes in use) as well as 'self check out' machines.  People may have also changed their food purchases to home delivery from Safeway, and other food sellers, as well as subscriptions to community supported agriculture local farms.  Very few local community supported agriculture farms offer delivery to customer homes.  Customers must plan to pick up their weekly 'fruit and vegetable boxes' in shopping center or school parking lots to get value from their subscriptions.


  Readers of this post can now be more informed voters in the June 26, 2018 Montgomery County Democratic primary election by deciding for themselves if they like Marc Elrich's relationship with Norman Knopf who raised the housing prices and rents of new residents as well as making them stand in longer 'supermarket checkout' lines even for self checkout machines. 

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.