the death and life of d.c.'s caribbean carnival

Dancers during the D.C. Caribbean Carnival last weekend. Check out this slideshow of this year's Carnival right here.

Last Saturday, D.C. held its annual Caribbean Carnival on Georgia Avenue, also known as Route 29. Part street festival, part family reunion and part excuse (if you're Trinidadian) to play in mud, carnivals are held throughout the West Indies and in cities throughout the Western Hemisphere with large Caribbean populations. The centerpiece of Carnival is a parade which runs from between Missouri Avenue in Brightwood, just south of Downtown Silver Spring, and Barry Place, near Howard University.

Carnival is a big deal for my family, being from Guyana and also being an established part of Georgia Avenue. For years, my aunt owned a small grocery at Georgia and Ingraham Street which she is currently turning into a restaurant. My uncle runs a mechanic's shop below, and my cousin lives above them in a sweet apartment that looks like something off of HGTV.

The epitome of "mixed-use," this shop, like dozens of other West Indian, Latino and other ethnic establishments up and down Georgia, are slowly improving themselves one at a time. Together, they're creating a belt of diverse, real-deal, Jane Jacobs-style (she wrote The Death and Life of Great American Cities, but more about that later) urbanity between the gentrification of Downtown Silver Spring to the north and Petworth to the south.

Silver Spring, Singular reported that a shooting happened in Downtown Silver Spring following the parade, guessing that it might've been at a related party. I can't verify that, but I thought it was a good opportunity to show a different side of the Caribbean Carnival and Georgia Avenue. Check out this slideshow of this year's Carnival right here.

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b'ville charrette: stuart rochester responds

Part THREE in a series about last week's Burtonsville Community Legacy Plan Charrette. Check out parts ONE and TWO, where we discussed the charrette and plans to revitalize Route 198.


Wednesday's Gazette says there "seemed to be a consensus" for keeping Burtonsville more or less the same among residents at last week's charrette, but I don't think it was so cut-and-dry. I was disappointed that writer Amber Parcher couldn't find anyone - and there were quite a few - that endorsed more dramatic changes to Burtonsville's struggling village center.

That being said, I wanted to offer a different take on the revitalization of Burtonsville and the greater debate over how East County should grow. Local activist Stuart Rochester, who helped guide the 1997 Fairland Master Plan, was concerned about how he was portrayed in Part Two of our series on the charrette. He asked me to post the following responses, which I have not edited.

Dan: I have had a lot of respect for you until your recent characterization of my remarks at the Burtonsville charrette, which were inaccurate to the point of caricature. First of all, I was speaking at the charrette on behalf of my table; you may have offered your own opinions, but we were instructed to convey the consensus of our table, not our own individual views.

so much more AFTER THE JUMP . . .

Secondly, neither I nor anyone at my table used the word "undesirables," nor did was this even implied except in terms of an undesirable housing mix or jobs-housing ratio from the standpoint of PRECISELY a healthy, DIVERSIFIED community. (Nancy Navarro's reference in her blog comment to alleged use of code-words when she was not even present to hear the exchange was irresponsible, and I will let my disappointment with someone who aspires to be our councilmember taking a cheap shot in absentia go at that.)

Third, your characterization of me being "worried" as I approached you in the parking lot when in fact all I wanted to do was clear the air was the worst kind of racial profiling that you yourself rightfully find so offensive.

Finally, I stand by my position that communities and schools that work are ones that are balanced socio-economically and demographically; if you feel otherwise or want to argue, we could have a fair debate but if you feel otherwise or want to argue semantics, we could have a reasonable debate, but don't demonize or caricature views you do not agree with. I would appreciate your posting this as a response item on your blog, which I was not able to access to post. Thank you, and I hope we can continue a mutually respectful conversation on this important subject in the future.

Later, Stuart Rochester e-mailed me again with another response which elaborates on what we first talked about after the charrette ended Thursday night.

I appreciate your response to my concerns. To continue to have influence and credibility, you have an obligation to report accurately. I am not denying there is racism in our society, among some residents of Burtonsville as well.

But the argument I was making goes beyond race and even beyond references to "affordable housing." The thrust of my conversation was that too many RENTAL units, as has occurred on the east side of US 29, adversely affects the community and its schools, and not because people who live in apartments are somehow inherently bad or undesirable but because proportionately they are not as vested in the community and because they create a turnover/mobility problem that affects PTAs, the continuity and quality of instruction in the classroom, teacher load and morale, etc. And they are not as likely to improve and maintain the properties they inhabit, for understandable reasons (I mentioned Tom Friedman's point, that "no one ever washes a rental car").

Moreover, this is not to say we should not have rental housing in the area but that we should not have disproportionate concentrations, which result in exactly the kind of segregation that rightfully upsets you. So the situation, and my views, are much more complicated than you portrayed them.

What really disappointed me, angered me, was your gratuitous comments about getting into a "white Lexus" and approaching you "after dark" and "looking worried". That kind of racial profiling I find every bit as offensive as you would, and has no place in civilized discussion; I still do not even understand what you meant by that crap. So let's both try to do better to explain what are earnest, legitimate concerns on both sides.

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b'ville charrette: defining "undesirable" (updated)

part TWO of a series on last week's Burtonsville Community Legacy Plan Charrette. Check out part ONE, where myself and a few local residents try to chart a new path for Burtonsville's village center.

Table 6 tries to reconcile the "old" Burtonsville with plans to redevelop its village center at last week's charrette.

After the discussion period, each of the six tables appointed a speaker who told the entire charrette what their group had come up with for Burtonsville's village center. While our table had tentatively embraced mixed-uses and increased density on a strip of Route 198 between Old Columbia Pike and Route 29, others were decidedly against it. One table advocated implementing "green design" in new construction, but insisted on keeping parking out front of the stores, even if they had to face away from Route 198.

"We don't want to attract undesirables," says a speaker from another table, suggesting that the village green proposed in every option we'd been given for the site would be a draw for crime. The "village green," currently three acres of unkempt County-owned land behind Tony's Garage, was first discussed in the Fairland Master Plan eleven years ago. while local activist Stuart Rochester - who served on a citizens advisory board for the Master Plan - argued that the inclusion of affordable housing would be "contrary" to the plan's goal of increasing diversity.

I gritted my teeth as I got up to speak for my table. People can be NIMBYs all they want . . . but "undesirable"? Did someone really say that? No matter what they meant by it, their words pointed straight to the predominantly-black apartments on Castle Boulevard, the townhouses of Greencastle, the kids hanging out on corners and parking lots or riding the Z9 bus into Downtown Silver Spring. I have friends in Greencastle. I had family not too far away.

I hoped this was a misunderstanding.

so much more AFTER THE JUMP . . .

All-residential and mixed-use concepts for redeveloping a portion of Route 198 between Old Columbia Pike and Route 29.

Calmly, I explained the conclusions my group had come to and when I was done, I turned to Stuart Rochester. "I wanted to address those speakers who referred to the 'undesirables' in East County," I added. "I do not believe there are any 'undesirable' people in my community, especially not in this gathering place we are trying to create. We need to make it welcoming, and we need to make it safe. But we are not going to keep people out. That is not the community I want to live in."

The room roared in applause. Don Hauprich, speaking for Table 5, jumped to the village green's defense, saying that it makes Burtonsville a destination. "There are people who like to go out at night with the family or with other people," says Hauprich, youth pastor at Liberty Grove United Methodist Church. "And it isn't always unseemly behavior."

Table 6 seemed to agree, saying they liked the idea of "bringing back a sense of what the town is," in the words of one speaker who recalled when Burtonsville Day parades were held in the village center as opposed to down Old Columbia Pike by the Praisner Library. "We liked Kentlands, we liked Seaside, but not as homogenized," she continues, referring to the products of more famous charrettes, "but we liked the idea of making some order in the space."

After the meeting, Hauprich says it's important to help older residents understand that development can be an asset. As a father, youth pastor and former president of the Paint Branch High School PTSA, he's interested in creating spaces for younger people to call their own, even if some people he knows would "rather poke their eyes out than go to Downtown Silver Spring," he says. "Your best bet is to get the seventy-year-old people to understand we're not bringing crime," adds Hauprich. "you may fight change, but the world is gonna change around you."

He points out that many businesses in the village center don't last long. "I don't want people to panic about 'oh, old Joe's Lawnmower Shop,'" he says. "Businesses have turned over in the past ten years, and it's not because they jacked the rents. The place is a dump."

The Bedding Barn at Route 198 and Route 29 is a local mainstay and, to many, a symbol of Burtonsville's past.

By the time I've finished talking to Hauprich, it's 9:30 and the school parking lot is empty. Chuck Crisostomo from the East County Regional Services Center is carrying display boards out to a little Chevy with the county seal on it. Stuart Rochester is leaning against his car, talking to another gentleman. "I want to have a word with you," he says the other man walks away.

I approach cautiously. It's dark, and we're more or less alone. We've known each other for roughly a year now, and Stuart Rochester has since been a good source for quotes at events throughout East County. (In fact, I last interviewed him little more than a week earlier.) He begins speaking quietly without stopping to take a breath. I put my notebook away, assuming he wants this to be off-the-record, but take it out again and start writing, and he doesn't object.

"I have seen this community brought down by transients," Stuart Rochester begins. "Too many rentals. I am not opposed to affordable housing, as long as it's not the type exploited by absentee landlords . . . too many townhouses, too many Section 8. And it's the poorest communities, Avonshire [a townhouse development at Briggs Chaney and 29], the Boulevard, that will be affected the most."

I bite my lip. I think of my cousin, who raised a daughter in an apartment in Aston Woods before moving to Calverton; my mother, who jumped back into real estate after a long hiatus by working neighborhoods like Avenshire and the Boulevard; a white friend from high school who, growing up in Greencastle, was forbidden to leave her house for fear of crime. "Then who are the 'undesirables'?" I ask.

Boarding the Z9 bus to Silver Spring at Old Columbia Pike and Briggs Chaney Road, south of Burtonsville.

"I do not believe any human being is 'undesirable,'" Rochester replies. "Healthy communities require a proportionate share of home ownership and a healthy socioeconomic balance. Our area in the 1980's took on so many MPDUs that we fell into imbalance in terms of our turnover rate in our housing. And what they call the "mobility rate" in our schools. Greencastle Elementary has one of the highest turnover rates in the County! I think diversity is important, but you want it to be a healthy diversity in terms of demographics."

"But you're not going to fix Greencastle Elementary by building a bunch of single-family houses," I reply. "This goes to the deeper root of the issue, within those neighborhoods, those households."

"Listen," Rochester implores. "The Dutch Market was important because it brought people together, across generations, across races . . . that was what was special about the Dutch Market, and that's what we need. Places that transcend race and class and bring us together as a community."

As a student of planning, can I disagree with Stuart Rochester that building thousands of apartments within the span of a couple of years is a horrible idea? But can I accuse all of their tenants of "bringing down" my community? And what exactly is this "healthy diversity"? How would you set these quotas?

And that's when it hits me. For twenty years Burtonsville had its "gathering place," at least three days a week, where all sorts of people from all over the region could come and shop and eat and mingle. You could get a whole roomful of consultants together and not come up with something as wonderful, and now it's gone. Sure, it's only moved to Laurel, you say, but it's not really the same. How much harder will it be for us to come together - on this charrette, on the revitalization as a whole - when the one thing that brought us together is gone?

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charrette launches debate over future, present of burtonsville's center (updated)

Part ONE on a series about the Burtonsville Community Legacy Plan charrette. Check out part TWO, in which we discuss the proposed "Village Green" and so-called "undesirables" in East County.

East County residents tackled the future of Burtonsville's village center last night for the Community Legacy Plan charrette, initiated by the county to create recommendations for how to redevelop the Route 198 corridor.

A discussion of how to improve Burtonsville's village center grew into a debate over demographics and crime in East County at last night's Community Legacy Plan charrette, held at Burtonsville Elementary School on Route 198.

As Burtonsville has evolved from a rural crossroads to a growing suburb, the community has grappled with the accompanying economic and social changes. Local businesses have been suffering since the completion of the Burtonsville Bypass in 2006; today, the small village center faces threats from new developments under construction in Howard and Prince George's counties.

In response, Montgomery County has hired two consulting firms to draft a list of recommendations for how the community should grow. Annapolis-based Basile Baumann Prost Cole and Associates will determine the redevelopment's economic feasibility, whileRhodeside and Harwell of Alexandria, is charged with urban design.

Route 198 as it exists now.

The consultants talked about the challenges faced by a community whose own residents had described it as "country but convenient." While it stands to benefit from nearby development, the village center struggles to remain relevant - regionally or locally. The streets are congested and disconnected; a slew of different owners with different agendas make the area look messy and disorganized; and the recent loss of the Dutch Country Farmers Market to a shopping center in Laurel destroys Burtonsville's one main draw.

so much more AFTER THE JUMP . . .

Residents look at different proposals for the Burtonsville village center before the charrette.

Charrettes are design workshops in which public officials and the general public get together to tackle a proposed development or community plan. The iconic New Urban development Kentlands, in Gaithersburg, was first planned by charrette twenty years ago; in 2003, many of the original participants got together again to plot the community's future. Closer to home, the Planning Department held a multi-day charrette for its SilverPlace headquarters development in Downtown Silver Spring earlier this month.

Last night's charrette is part of a three-month-long process to determine how to encourage economic development in the the Community Legacy Plan area, centered on the Route 198 corridor between Old Columbia Pike and Route 29. In August, the consultants will review the results from the charrette and return with more specific proposals.

The audience was broken up into six groups, each of which coming to its own conclusions about how a portion of the village center should be redeveloped. I was seated at Table 4, with a pretty eclectic group - Dr. Robert Lennon, a pastor representing the Wyndham Woods Homeowners' Association; Mara Parker, aide to Councilmember Marc Elrich; programmer Thomas Meylan, who lives in Greencastle Woods; Roni Polisar, who lives near the Patuxent, and her husband Barry, a folk singer who recently appeared on the Juno soundtrack.

Scribbled-over maps and drawings at Table 4.

As my table pored over proposal maps and photographs of example projects, the challenge seemed to be how to maintain the "small-town" feel so many people associate with Burtonsville within the need to grow. "What I like about Burtonsville is the remnants of its rural past," says Roni. "Burtonsville is the last rural outpost of Eastern Montgomery County." We all seemed to agree that the answer lay in a lot between the school and Route 198 proposed to become a "village green" in the Fairland Master Plan, drafted in 1997.

As Parker tried to figure out ways to draw visitors to the space from buildings pushed up against the road, Barry joked about adding an elaborate fountain, a rickshaw and even a mini-Roman Colosseum to spice up the area - a response, he said, to some of the more unrealistic suggestions we heard from the neighboring tables. Roni, meanwhile, mused about what made the village center so unpleasant to begin with. "I was thinking what was so unfortunate about the suburban experience," she says. "It's the parking lots."

Each of the four options offered by the consultants took parking off of Route 198 and moved it in back as a way of making the road more pedestrian-friendly. Option 1, which proposed only minor cosmetic changes to the existing buildings, was largely rejected at our table, as was as Option 3, which proposed replacing everything with apartment buildings. Without any businesses, there was no reason for anyone outside of the apartments to visit, laments Meylan, who was concerned about losing the existing businesses he frequents in the area. "Anything that reduces retail reduces my reason to be there," he says.

Many people liked Option 2, which nearly tripled the amount of commercial uses along Route 198. Barry was concerned that new buildings demanding higher rents would replace local businesses with "Starbucks, Starbucks and Starbucks," he says. Our table's mediator, consultant Kate Shiflet, suggested that an all-commercial development may not be feasible. "Without a residential component, redevelopment isn't going to happen," says Shiflet, who works for Basile Baumann Prost Cole and Associates.

A model of the Arts District Hyattsville development, one of many precedents for Burtonsville's revitalization. Photo courtesy of Chip Py.

That brought us to Option 4, which offered a mix of retail space, apartments, and live-work units. Roni was concerned about the density, but I suggested that live-work buildings - rowhouses with retail or studio space on the bottom floor and living space above - might be an affordable way for local merchants to remain in Burtonsville. She liked pictures the consultants gave us of the live-work units in Arts District Hyattsville (a development Just Up The Pike wrote about last fall), calling it "historic, but still with a small-town feel."

While all of us at Table 4 came from different backgrounds and had different ideas of how Burtonsville should look, we'd come to a pretty solid understanding of what we liked and didn't like about the four proposals. One thing was clear: we weren't opposed to change. If anything, we wanted to talk about improving the rest of the village center. The study area didn't include the shopping centers north of Route 198, including the Burtonsville Shopping Center - home to the Dutch Country Farmers Market - which will be redeveloped later this year.

"One thing that surprised me was the truncated scale," says Meylan. "I was expecting a little bit more of a comprehensive approach . . . a piecemeal approach gets piecemeal results."

to be continued . . .

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IMPACT picnic brings immigrant communities together

IMPACT Silver Spring, a local non-profit helping to bridge the divide between immigrant communities in the Downcounty, held a Community-Wide Picnic last Saturday in Takoma Park.

It looked like a normal summer get-together, with radio hits playing over a boombox, children with painted faces, and plates of hamburgers fresh off the gril. But IMPACT Silver Spring's "Community-Wide Picnic," held last Saturday at Takoma-Piney Branch Park, had higher aspirations.

"You can see all the diversity," says program director Winta Teferi. "It's important to create a strong network of people who are connected across lines of race and language. Sometimes you come to a place and you stay with the people you know."

IMPACT Silver Spring was founded nine years ago as a response to the Downcounty's rapidly changing demographics, representing the area's newly forming immigrant communities while also teaching people to advocate for themselves. Their picnic sought to bring together alumni of their Neighborhood IMPACT program, which helped renters build coalitions within apartment complexes, and IMPACT in the Schools, which encourages parents to get involved in their children's education as a means of decreasing the achievement gap between minority students and their white counterparts.

While the dual programs help people become involved in their community, political office is rarely seen as a goal, Teferi explains. "We emphasize the idea of working with others," she says. "We encourage them to work together starting from small improvements in their communities . . . we believe that big changes start very small."

so much more AFTER THE JUMP . . .

Program director Winta Teferi poses with a local resident.

Sara Mussie, a Downcounty resident of sixteen years, went through the IMPACT in the Schools program before becoming a staff member. A mother of Ethiopian descent, Mussie wasn't accustomed to working alongside her kids' teachers because of her culture's faith in their authority, she explains. "My parents hardly came to [my] school because that was the culture. There was no connection between," says Mussie. "We encourage them to have communication with the teachers."

Originally, Mussie was skeptical about the program. "I felt that I was doing good with my children," she says. "With the teacher I had no relationship. I would say 'hi,' 'bye,' go to the Parent-Teacher Conference once a year, that was it. I never advocated for my child. Once I started going through the program, that really helped me . . . and I could help others as well."

The program aims to help immigrant parents adjust to the social and cultural norms of American schools. "We give six-week-long workshops for parents how to help your child at home, how to work with the school system," explains Mussie. "It's very interactive . . . like a discussion forum. We give them the tools, how to ask the right questions, how to use a calendar."

Intern Megan Moriarty became interested about Neighborhood IMPACT after writing about it for her Community Planning program at the University of Maryland, where she graduated with a Master's degree last month. As a renter in Falkland Chase, Moriarty relates well to the individuals she works with.

"I think the same issues come up if you're a renter in Silver Spring or Takoma Park or D.C.," says Moriarty. "Same complaints, the same difficulties of being renters . . . IMPACT embraces it. What can we do to work with property managers, to work with our neighbors, to make our communities better places."

After both of IMPACT's programs wrapped up for the spring, those involved in the organization were anxious for a way to bring its members together. "We have two programs, one for renters and one for parents and we don't really do anything for both," Moriarty says. "It's a good way to get people involved and grow the network, if you will." After considering a retreat and softball team, a picnic "seemed like the easiest thing to pull off in the short term," she adds.

An Olney native, Moriarty left the Washington area for college, studying at the University of Colorado and in Costa Rica before returning for graduate school. As she becomes more involved with groups like IMPACT Silver Spring, leaving again seems increasingly difficult. "I left and never thought I'd be back," says Moriarty. "The last couple of years in Silver Spring, I can't imagine leaving now. The more you become connected, the more you understand how things work. I can't imagine doing that over somewhere else."

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robert patton, back in burtonsville and on the defense

Part SIX of our "District 4 Head-to-Head Tour," which seeks to interview all eight candidates running in a special election to replace Councilmember Marilyn Praisner, who passed away in February. A primary will be held April 15, followed by a general election May 13.

County Council candidate Robert Patton, left, and his brother and campaign manager William, at the Starbucks in Burtonsville. For more information about Robert Patton, check out his campaign website.

If you've ever been to the Turf Center on Route 198 in Spencerville, you've bought sod from the Pattons, who've been landscaping Montgomery County yards for seventy years. Last Monday, I talked to two Pattons - Republican District 4 candidate Robert and his brother and campaign manager William, himself a former council hopeful - about Burtonsville, McMansions, and just what's wrong with the County establishment.

It was hard to get a word in between their rapid-fire conversation, and you can clearly tell how close they are. "We bounce ideas off each other all the time," says Robert. "I guess that's an advantage. I got more than one head to think with."

Robert decided to run because he was frustrated by politics and politicians. The County Council is distracted by "issues they feel aren't that important because it meant they didn't have to deal with other things," Robert laments. "I understand that new problems have new needs . . . but what tends to happen is you neglect your core responsibilities. On basic terms, it's your schools, your police force, your roads. Everything that makes the basic quality of living."

Meanwhile, those in his own party aren't holding true to their own ideals. "The Republicans are saying 'we gotta cut spending' but you ask them 'you wanna build the Purple Line' they all say yes," says Robert. "I don't think it's a worthwhile investment . . . who's gonna ride the Purple Line but the people who watch kids in Bethesda?" he says, suggesting that a line on Route 29 would be more successful.

"I could never play their game," he adds. "I might never be successful in politics but I'd sleep better at night knowing I tried."

so much more AFTER THE JUMP . . .

"You know with Howie Denis and Steve Silverman there was a better feeling on the council," says William. He points out that former Democratic councilmember Silverman and the Patton brothers represented a horse farm on Route 198 that was shut down because their weekly equestrian shows caused "a lot of traffic on the roads, and people complained," Robert says. "Now they have a hundred fifty houses and now they have traffic every day instead of just on Sundays . . . there's animosity between the farm and the neighbors when we'd really just want to see a farm."

"I hate these McMansions with yards that you could cut with a weedeater, they're so small," says Robert. If elected, he would seek a minimum one-acre lot for new homes in East County - or seek other uses for the land altogether.

"We're looking at what's a better use for the land after the father's done with his land and he wants to pass it on to his kids - like a driving range or a church or something," adds William.

Robert questions the commitment of people who complain that the East County doesn't have enough amenities. "They move here for the government jobs and they make a lot of demands but they aren't planning to retire here," he says.

While he supports the proposed Burtonsville Access Road, Robert's skeptical about further development in the village center. "I think there are a lot of amenities out here. I'm kind of partial to the green space," he says. "Burtonsville's always sort of looked like an afterthought. It was meeting a demand. It was never architecturally pleasing . . . I don't begrudge Burtonsville, but I wouldn't take a girlfriend here, maybe to Seibel's for a milkshake."

Suddenly, Robert and William launch into nostalgia. "There was a tractor dealership where the Free State used to be," says William.

"I used to go to the Amish Market for ham sandwiches," Robert adds. "Even when I was a kid I used to go there it was a Chesapeake Bay Seafood House. My parents took me there when I got A's on my report card."

William laughs. "Who thought we were gonna have a Starbucks in Burtonsville. This used to be a driving range."

Robert replies with a sigh. "That's sort of the kind of rural flair this area used to have."

The rural village charm isn't what drove Robert out of the Burtonsville area twenty years ago. As a sophomore, he left Paint Branch High School because "people were stabbing each other and there were thirty students in class and teachers couldn't handle it," he states.

"I remember I was at a party not too far from here and somebody got stabbed or pulled a knife on somebody and the police came," says Robert. "And my friends . . . they said 'Hey, there are some nice cars in the neighborhood. Let's go steal stuff.' and I thought 'Who are these friends I'm picking?'"

The following day, Robert's hockey team traveled to New Jersey to play Lawrenceville, a boarding school outside of Princeton. He was so inspired by the grandeur of the campus that he immediately applied to a dozen schools across New England before being accepted to one in Connecticut. "All of a sudden I was in classes with six to twelve students, and you had to do your homework," says Robert. "You couldn't hide it."

He proposes giving Montgomery County parents a property tax rebate that functions as a voucher for private schools, reducing the school system's budget while also helping students who like himself did not feel comfortable in a public institution. "The school voucher thing isn't so much I'm partial to private schools but you're spending nine grand a kid and the schools are one hundred percent at capacity you take twelve hundred dollars and they'll be under," says Robert.

"I would argue that this would cost the county $30 million but in three years it would make them $100 million," adds William.

After prep school, college and several years living in El Salvador - first in the Peace Corps, later working for the Salvation Army World Service Office - Robert returned to Burtonsville and was shocked at how much it had changed. "Coming back, you know, it's like seeing your nephew in ten years, you don't recognize anything," says Robert. Rising house prices forced him out of humanitarian work and into landscaping, which he had done before leaving.

"He's great at it, he's fluent in Spanish," William says.

As a contractor, Robert finds himself embroiled in the ongoing debate over illegal immigration, but he favors extending rights - like workman's compensation and time-and-a-half - to workers legally in the country. "Anyone that's worth employing is worth employing right," he says.

However, he is skeptical about the effectiveness of Casa de Maryland, a government-supported agency who runs a day laborer center in Takoma Park. "The Casa program, it has good intentions and it sort of keeps them on the grid, on the radar," says Robert, "and generally I'm in favor of it. But when you have budget problems I'm not sure if it's the best way to help the Latino community."

All of Robert's employees - many of whom have been there for several years - are legal, but he appreciates the struggle all immigrants went through to get here. "The most ambitious and hardworking of the Latinos are the ones who save six thousand dollars in a place where you can make ten dollars an hour to pay a coyote who can get you across the border just so you can stand outside Home Depot trying to get a job," says Robert. "I got a lot of respect for that kind of character just to begin with . . . and then once you're here send ten percent of your income back home."

Twenty years ago, he couldn't get out of Burtonsville fast enough, but now Robert hopefully plans to stick around. "If I had some guarantee that District 4 would remain the way it is, with acres of green space, however we decide to use them, I'd consider staying," he says. "I think most candidates would say yes but most of them are lying. Everyone wants to go to Florida, but my family's been here . . . it just makes sense." Read more!

pat ryan, busy making plans (updated)

Part FIVE of our "District 4 Head-to-Head Tour," which seeks to interview all eight candidates running in a special election to replace Councilmember Marilyn Praisner, who passed away in February. A primary will be held April 15, followed by a general election May 13.

County Council candidate Pat Ryan at the Parkway Deli in Silver Spring. (Picture forthcoming!) For more information about his platform and biography, check out Ryan's campaign website.

Pat Ryan's just received an endorsement from the Gazette, but you wouldn't know it from the way he talks. On the day the paper came out last week, we met at the Parkway Deli on Grubb Road, and he sort of brushed off his campaign for County Council when talking to an
acquaintance we met.

"I'm not the favorite," he says. "Don Praisner is running. The widower."

The widower. Those two words have cast a cloud over the District 4 special election, being held to find a replacement for Councilmember Marilyn Praisner, who passed away in February. And while her husband Don is running to "carry on her legacy" in the council, it's Ryan that former JUTP guest blogger Adam Pagnucco says "may be the true heir to Marilyn Praisner from a policy perspective."

Pragmatic but deeply concerned about the glacial pace of progress in East County, the Fairland resident and local activist has thrown his hat into the ring to see that old promises are not broken. "I'd been interested in running for local office for a long time," says Ryan. "I thought it was really important for someone with a lot of local connections and really understood the district [to run]."

It doesn't help, though, that no one outside of the immediate area seems to know where he lives. "Yeah, I get a lot of blank stares . . . I say 'it's on the way to Columbia'."

so much more AFTER THE JUMP . . .

A Pat Ryan campaign sign vies for visibility along Randolph Road in Colesville.

Since moving to the area in 1984, Ryan became intimately involved in the community. A firm believer in public education, he sent his three children to Montgomery County schools through eighth grade, when they transferred to a private school at the request of his wife. During and after his kids attended County schools, he played a role in the creation of the Northeast Consortium, which for the past ten years has given East County eighth-graders the opportunity to pick from three local high schools based on their individual "signature programs."

"We were in this multicluster PTA meeting and I said 'Why don't we let parents and students choose which high school they want to attend,' and they said 'No, we don't do that in Montgomery County'," says Ryan. "One thing I saw that we don't talk about is white parents' fear of black students going to school with their kids . . . . Sherwood parents afraid of their kids going to Springbrook.

"I talked to a lot of parents ten years ago who said they moved Olney because it's a predominantly-white area and they wanted their kids to go to school with white kids," he adds.

"In a way, proposing the [Choice Program] was a way to avoid dealing with that conflict" faced by parents anxious about the presence of minorities in East County high schools, Ryan suggests. However, he stressed the significance of exposing students to a range of different cultures and experiences while in school. "What's the value here?" he asks. "Is it more important to give everybody their first choice or to give everyone a racially and economically diverse student body?"

"In a county that's increasingly diverse," he adds, "you have to make sure you're not tolerating a silent racism."

Through working with Action In Montgomery, a County-based "multi-racial, multi-faith, strictly non-partisan" group devoted to encouraging civic involvement, Ryan has become very passionate about the issue of affordable housing, making it a central part of his campaign. "I just thought it was important that the kind of issues we've been working on were heard in this race," he says.

Affordable housing isn't just about giving people a roof over their heads, explains Ryan. "I think locating housing closer to where people work deals with a lot of issues," he says. "There seems to be a lack of active visioning about how to solve this problem because people are commuting from Howard County and Frederick County to here, we have more traffic, more greenhouse gases."

As a result, Ryan has put together a five-point plan for dealing with affordable housing, which he explains in detail on his campaign website. One of the most dramatic improvements he proposes is that the County create a Non-Profit Corporation to build low-income housing using private funds.

Montgomery County lacks the necessary impetus to improve their affordable housing stock, especially when compared to the effort it puts into more lucrative ventures, he explains. "The reason Downtown Silver Spring got developed the way it did was because somebody was pushing for it in the County Executive's office, and we need someone to do that for affordable housing," he says.

Ryan's involvement in planning and land issues began in 1997, when he served as a member of the Fairland Master Plan Advisory Committee, which guided the creation of the Planning Department's master plan for the Route 29 corridor north of White Oak.

On the committee, he says, "You sort of see how a community gets shaped, how important values get protected . . . who shapes the future." However, in the eleven years since its adoption, the master plan has not been fully realized. "There's a lot that hasn't happened," says Ryan. "The Burtonsville Town Center concept is still in planning. For God's sakes, it's ten years since the plan was adopted."

With Howard and Prince George's counties bordering the planning area on two sides and a major highway bisecting it, developing a cohesive community has proved difficult. Forty years ago, Montgomery and Prince George's collaborated on the bi-county Fairland-Beltsville Plan, but it was replaced by master plans covering each side of the county line later on. "I think development which crosses the [county] line doesn't have a good track record," Ryan says. There doesn't seem to be a shared vision between them."

One example of how the two counties haven't been communicating with each other is Cherry Hill Road, which has been five lanes on the Montgomery side for nearly ten years but is only now being widened from two lanes on the Prince George's side. "If you drive down that way at any time of day traffic is just dangerous," laments Ryan. "The history of Montgomery County and Prince George's in terms of planning road capacity is not encouraging."

"I think there is this sort of sense that Prince George's County figures whenever they work with Montgomery County they'll get the short end of the stick," Ryan says, stressing why inter-county cooperation is so important. "The future of our area is intertwined with theirs . . . Don Praisner lives in Calverton, and Calverton is half in P.G., but the issues are the same. You look at traffic, you look at crime, you look at amenities, all of the issues that affect a community, and they all overlap."

"You don't solve traffic as Montgomery County. You're putting Band-Aids on a local problem," he continues. "Traffic is regional. It involves Frederick County and Prince George's County and even Northern Virginia . . . we need to get together and do more active planning . . . if we're gonna do something, we've gotta start now."

In the future, Ryan says, he'd like East County residents to consider "how we can share development space in a way that will lessen dependence on the car," he says. "Everyone in the Fairland area has a car. I know you don't."

"I do," I reply. "I drove here."

"But you look at some areas like the new Rockville Town Square where housing and shopping are in spaces where people can walk to them, that's the kind of development I'd like to see," he continues. "White Oak Shopping Center, that's probably going to be redeveloped. What do people want to see there? What's gonna happen?" Read more!

in langley park, the glass is half-full

WHAT'S UP THE PIKE: East Silver Spring resident (and occasional guest blogger) Elisabeth Null singing in concert Feb. 28; Nancy Navarro running for Marilyn's seat in special election April 15; Maryland Politics Watch examines the District 4 council race.

Day laborers wait outside a shopping center in Langley Park at sunrise.

The Washington Post profiles Langley Park, the oft-maligned neighborhood of garden apartments and pupusa trucks at New Hampshire and University Boulevard. It gives a few column-inches to Bill Hanna, one of my old professors at Maryland. To call him devoted to the cause of Langley Park would be a gross understatement. A number of residents are also interviewed, presenting a view of Langley Park we rarely see:

Molin, who moved to Maryland from Mexico, also said he likes that there are so many Latinos in the neighborhood. He drives to Baltimore for work, but wouldn't consider moving there, "because this neighborhood is more familiar," he said in Spanish. "It seems perfect to me how it is."

Maria Veator started renting an apartment in Langley Park eight years ago, moving from neighboring Adelphi.

"Here, you can do more if you don't have a car, and the rent was lower," she said in Spanish. "Now, it's high -- $1,100."

She called Langley Park the place where poorer people live -- and it makes her feel at home.

Urban planners often preach the virtues of mixed-income communities as places where people learn to get along with those of different backgrounds. It's one of the reasons why Montgomery County established its Moderately Priced Dwelling Unit (MPDU) program over thirty years ago, though in recent years it's faltered because many developers have opted to put money in a so-called "housing fund" rather than include affordable housing in their projects.

It's unsettling, then, to read that people want to live in neighborhoods with others like them, whether they reside in a McMansion in Chevy Chase or a walk-up in Langley Park. For immigrants new to the country, having a built-in community of people from home could ease the transition to American life. And there can be tension between rich and poor in some mixed-income communities, whether it's getting the cold shoulder in Gaithersburg's Kentlands (a model for this kind of development) or the stabbing of a local punk icon last summer in Briggs Chaney, where half-million-dollar townhouses are going up next to subsidized apartments.

To me, it's just a stronger argument for more integrated communities. An immigrant family in Langley Park may work their way up the income ladder and look to live in a wealthier neighborhood. When they leave, it destabilizes the community - and it's one less example of success for newcomers to see and strive for. Making Langley Park a home for more than just the poorer people may take an act of God, but it's worth creating less transient neighborhoods. That, to me, would be perfect. Read more!

when the nation's best schools just aren't good enough . . .

WHAT'S UP THE PIKE: Neighborhood outside Downtown Silver Spring could be bought out; Old men determine fate of backyards in ICC's path; Blake football player knifes opponent after game.

Riding the bus to Bethesda - be it a Metrobus or a plain old school bus - from points east is always quite a task. For starters, when you're sitting at East-West Highway and Grubb Road, which divides the Silver Spring and Bethesda zip codes, you have to consider that the same three-bedroom Colonial on the Silver Spring side is probably worth half as much as its neighbor across the street. And when you cross Rock Creek Park and see the giant houses looming over you, it's hard not to feel insignificant - dare I say less of a person than whomever must live there.

I, for one, am glad that our wealthier friends in Bethesda and Chevy Chase understand our pain, as witnessed in these comments from a Chevy Chase resident about public schools from the Post Magazine's yearly "Education Review":

"What I really object to," he said passionately, "is that they bus in all those black kids from Silver Spring. They bring them into this neighborhood, to see all of our big houses, exposing them to things they are never going to have. I just don't see the point."

Is that why Purple Line opponents in Chevy Chase want the trains to run underground? (We're not pointing any fingers at you, Pam Browning, but your neighbors suddenly look very suspect.)

so much more AFTER THE JUMP . . .

I was more than a little shocked by the article in question, "Unreal World" - which came out in support of public schools as a "counterculture" move in super-wealthy Montgomery County and its companion piece, "Learning to Conform," which argues the very same public schools are "snuffing out [students'] curiosity."

This is all, of course, from the perspective of writers living in Chevy Chase and Garrett Park, two very small, very cute, and ridiculously isolated parts of Montgomery County. At least they didn't dredge up the age-old fear that you'll get cut in public schools, even though it did happen this week: A Magruder High football player was stabbed by a member of the visiting team after last Friday's game. The opponents was Blake, my alma mater.

As a product of Blake and the Montgomery County Public Schools, I'd like to think I got an excellent, stabbing-free education, and I did. I feel that private schools are a waste of money in MoCo, but I nearly landed in one myself: my mother, having just moved to Downtown Silver Spring fifteen years ago, was encouraged by her sisters to put me in a Catholic school in the District, where I lasted exactly two days. From there, it was public school all the way.

(You say the public schools stifle curiosity? At least capital punishment wasn't allowed. I can still feel the harsh sting of the ruler against my neck from nuns irritated that I wouldn't stop laughing in class because the kid a row behind wouldn't stop tickling me.)

As much as I love the Post, it's a little frustrating that their "Education Review" would focus on the attitudes of people in a very small portion of the metropolitan area. (I never assumed that journalism was a high-paying job, but if these writers can all afford to live in Chevy Chase, perhaps architecture was the wrong field of study for me.) I sincerely doubt that most MoCo residents, whether or not they had the choice to put their kid in a private school, would consider public schools to be an outrageous proposition.

A school is a community insititution; the health of one is directly linked to the health of the other, and it's worthwhile to invest in both. Diversity is a concept beaten a little too hard into the minds of MCPS students, but that doesn't lessen its significance to a child's development or to the state of Montgomery County in the 21st century. I find there is nothing quite like riding a J4 Metrobus filled with everyone from line cooks to interns as we pass those large houses overlooking Rock Creek Park. It is always disappointing to remember, though, that inside, the residents may be looking down on you. Read more!

four corners refuses to get on the go-go train

ALSO IN THE GAZETTE: Controversial Ashton Meeting Place (which we discussed in June) goes back to Planning Board; David Fogel ouster upsets Silver Spring arts scene (which we reported yesterday).

Local favorites Jimmie's Chicken Shack play at Hometown Holidays in Rockville last May. (Not go-go, really, but still pertinent to the story below.)

As Montgomery County gears up to announce its latest plans for a concert hall in the old J.C. Penney building, a music venue of another sort is shutting its doors. The Gazette offers the disgustingly punny headline "'Go-go' a no-no" to describe how residents in South Four Corners forced the Silver Spring Boys and Girls Club to stop hosting go-go concerts.

The Washington, D.C. area has a limited history as a musical hotbed. We have a notable bluegrass/folk scene, largely in part to the fabled Birchmere. Hardcore punk and especially emo can trace their roots to D.C. in the early 1980's. And, of course, we have go-go - a melange of funk, swing, and anything in between made famous by Chuck Brown - which is unusual in that it's never really caught on anywhere else. I'm sure there are plenty of people even here who don't understand it.

so much more AFTER THE JUMP . . .

THOSE DAMN KIDS: Silver Spring's neighborhood associations are turning a deaf ear to the needs of local youth, particularly when it comes to music.

If I lived in the residential neighborhood where the Boys and Girls Club is located, I'd be pissed off if I had to put up with groups of noisy kids, strange cars parked on my street, and so on. This may not be an ideal location for a music venue. On the other hand, the possible Live Nation club on Colesville is a great location, but many people are still up in arms about it - if only because it won't feature the kind of music they want to hear.

That bias is the issue. Nonetheless, I'm still surprised by the South Four Corners Citizens' Association's demand for "more traditional Boys and Girls Club programming." What does that even mean? Aren't Boys and Girls Clubs supposed to give kids a place to spend their time, thus keeping them off The Streets? If it held shows for a genre of music that hadn't unfortunately found itself linked with violence, would the neighbors care as much? Of course not.

While Prince George's County attempted - and failed - to shut down several go-go clubs there earlier this year because they had become "magnets for violent crime," the events at the Boys and Girls Club hadn't spurred any major incidents save for a few fights, according to the MoCo police. If these go-go shows can give kids a place to make music and enjoy themselves, I say they can be a boon to the community.

The question, unfortunately, is whether the community will allow that to happen. Read more!

purple line haze: pam browning's trail

Class war butts heads with the environment as activist Pam Browning tries to keep her end of the Purple Line out of sight. Check out part THREE of a series on the Purple Line.

Activist Pam Browning on the Capital Crescent Trail. Browning's organized a petition to stop construction of the Purple Line on the popular path. Check out this slideshow of the Capital Crescent Trail/proposed Purple Line route in Chevy Chase.

I'm introduced to Pam Browning in her kitchen, spooning yogurt from a cup. Trees fill the view of a picture window behind her. A box of Trader Joe's dishwashing detergent prominently located on the kitchen counter.

"I'm a tree-hugger," she says. "You can write about that on here. It makes me want to cry."

so much more AFTER THE JUMP . . .

Like most people, Pam Browning likes trees. Organizer of the Save the Trail Petition, Browning has spent the past several year fighting the Purple Line, a proposed transitway between Bethesda and New Carrollton. Its preferred route would follow the Capital Crescent Trail, a well-used and heavily-forested hiker-biker trial that runs through her back yard.

While some 11,000 trail users have signed her petition, but it appears considerably fewer actively support ther work.

A tree is chopped down in front of a house being rebuilt.

"We're going through a lot of mansionization right now."

On our way to the trail, Browning points out a construction crew working on a new house. "This used to be the 'other side of the tracks,'" Browning says, "and now we're having all this mansionization."

A man hacks away at a felled tree in the sidewalk. "And these guys are raping all the trees," she moans. "I'm having huge battles with the town about not stopping them."

I ask an elderly woman what she thinks of the Purple Line. "Purple Line? What Purple Line?" she spits. "The trains they want to put here," Browning responds. "I don't want it. Not a bit," she says.

"The observation is that the buses aren't full," Browning says as we enter the trail. "People come here to find what they can't elsewhere in this urban area."

"They're telling us it'll be a nice trail," says Browning, referring to the Maryland Transit Administration's plans to build the Purple Line alongside the trail. To do so would involve the removal of thousands of trees dating to the area's original development a century ago. "I say it's a fiction in the most generous terms."