when MoCo wants to draw big businesses, it's "pay to play" (updated)

This won't be coming to Montgomery County any time soon.

It looks like the former Borders on Ellsworth Drive will be empty a little longer: Andy Shallal, owner of local restaurant/performance space chain Busboys & Poets, says he won't consider opening a new one in downtown Silver Spring because the Montgomery County Council dipped out on a resolution asking Congress to cut defense funding. He and other peace activists held a press conference at the County Council building this morning to protest their decision.

Why did Montgomery County, renowned for its progressive politics by both the Daily Caller and Utne Reader, back down? While local businesses at Fenton Street Market are getting put through the wringer by Montgomery County bureaucracy, defense contractor Lockheed Martin got a direct line to the County Executive to express their offense. From the Examiner:

After months of lobbying by county peace activists, several members of the Montgomery County Council drafted a resolution calling for the Pentagon to drastically cut military spending and "end wars abroad." But that measure has been spiked after the county's largest defense contractor made its displeasure known and Virginia began courting that contractor . . . 

County Executive Ike Leggett asked the council to table the resolution because it is "a dagger pointed directly at the heart of Montgomery County."

Montgomery County has long watched the cranes rising over Tysons Corner with anxiety, openly wondering how it compares to Fairfax County and seeking to draw and keep large companies on their side of the Potomac. Aware that they can't beat the lower tax rates in Fairfax, MoCo works hard to show corporations that they're welcome here by throwing lots of incentives their way in a process that friend of JUTP David Moon compares to extortion.


Live Nation is one of the large corporations receiving public money to locate in Montgomery County. 

And there are plenty of examples. Big-box retailer Costco will get $4 million to open a store at Wheaton Plaza. The county and state each put in $4 million to build the Fillmore music hall, which is operated by Live Nation. The county cleared four city blocks and closed several streets in downtown Silver Spring to assemble enough land for Discovery Communications to build its headquarters. When Marriott threatened to leave Montgomery County ten years ago, they got $44 million in grants, low-interest loans and tax credits to stay. Maybe Choice Hotels should've done the same: they received a paltry $4.3 million from MoCo, the state and the city of Rockville to move their headquarters from Silver Spring. (Meanwhile, Walmart just announced plans to open up in Aspen Hill without any public help at all, it appears.)

Lockheed Martin is perhaps the county's biggest coup: it's their largest employer after the federal government and county government, with 7,000 jobs, contributing $7.1 billion to the local economy each year. Nonetheless, they represent just 1.46% of the county's 509,000 jobs. By comparison, the 2007 Economic Census says that there are 8,000 employed in religious or non-profit organizations, 12,000 employed in "janitorial services," 15,000 employed in real estate, 23,000 employed by MCPS and Montgomery College, 26,000 employed in restaurants, 30,000 in "computer systems design" (which includes defense-related work, among other things), 48,000 employed in retail, and 54,000 people employed in health care (Adventist HealthCare and Holy Cross Hospital, the county's two main hospital systems, are among its ten largest employers).

Certainly defense spending is important to Montgomery County and Maryland, but not as much as it is in Virginia, which receives twice as much funding from the Department of Defense, according to this analysis from Maryland Politics Watch. But it's not the dominant industry in the county by a long shot. Not only that, but even if Congress spent more money on health care and education, the county would still benefit due to the presence of government installations like NIH, Walter Reed and the FDA.

Montgomery County condemned four streets to provide land for Discovery Channel's headquarters.

The county was stung after pulling out all the stops for Northrup Grumman and Hilton Hotels, both of which are now in Virginia, and doesn't want Lockheed to do the same. But it should be clear by now that Montgomery's getting played. Everyone knows they don't have any say in congressional funding. But now that Lockheed knows Leggett got spooked their opposition to a symbolic gesture, they know he'll throw everyone and everything under the bus to keep them in the county.

Talk about a great bargaining position!

I enjoy Busboys & Poets and I agree with Shallal's argument that our federal government need not spend so much on blowing up foreign countries. Nonetheless, I think Andy Shallal's posturing is a little silly. As one of our intrepid commenters on JUTP's Facebook page pointed out, Shallal has a Busboys & Poets in Arlington, home to the Pentagon. And by threatening not to locate in Montgomery County unless they meet his demands, he's doing exactly what Lockheed Martin did. But unlike Lockheed Martin, MoCo isn't going to capitulate to Andy Shallal.

Which raises a new question: should Montgomery County be focusing less on a few large corporations, particularly those who work to blow up foreign countries, and giving more attention to smaller businesses who'd actually benefit from a few million dollars in aid?

fenton street market (2009-2011)

Fenton Street Market in May 2010.

Fenton Street Market, which served as an outlet for artists and craftsmen, a stage for musicians and performers, a venue for civic engagement and a boost to the downtown Silver Spring economy, died today after a long struggle with bureaucracy. It was two years old.

Started by local resident Hannah McCann, the market has been located at Veterans Plaza in downtown Silver Spring since last fall. This past July, Montgomery County's Office of Community & Public Facilities, which manages the plaza, decided to charge Fenton Street Market their standard fee. As a result, the market, which is entirely composed of local businesspeople, would go from paying $48 a week for the space to $1,200 a week.

Ginny Gong, director of the Office of Community & Public Facilities, argued that the market was preventing other groups who'd pay the full fee from using Veterans Plaza, despite being in the space for just eight hours each week. "Concerns about fairness have been raised because the arrangement was outside the normal competitive process," she said. "Other organizations (both non-profit and for-profit) have not had the same level of access."

Not surprisingly, local residents were upset. Nearly 800 people signed a petition in support of letting Fenton Street Market stay in the plaza at a reduced rate. "When a member of the community organizes an ongoing event that positively activates a public space and annually contributes $6.6 million to the local economy, she should be applauded and her efforts encouraged," wrote Evan Glass, president of the South Silver Spring Neighborhood Association.

County Councilmember Hans Riemer, who lives in East Silver Spring, sought to find a workable solution. "We spent tens of millions, hundreds of millions on downtown Silver Spring, and now we're coming up short on a few thousand dollars? It's ridiculous," Riemer told JUTP in July.

The county responded by releasing a Request for Proposals (RFP) for public markets in Veterans Plaza, the details of which are explained in a post on Fenton Street Market's website. Among the requirements are that the market provider must agree to move if another event wants to use the plaza; they must pay for trash pick-up and employees to staff the Civic Building, even though they wouldn't be allowed to use it; they must provide a portable toilet (despite the presence of bathrooms in the Civic Building); and they aren't allowed to have food vendors. In addition, the county must approve any signs or marketing materials used for the market, along with having full access to their financial records. For McCann, that was the last straw.

The RFP's requirements are "at odds with a diverse, community-based market establishing a presence on the Plaza," she writes. "Fenton Street Market delivers a dependable, safe, and welcoming place to come together, and a homegrown authenticity that can’t be manufactured—or micromanaged."

McCann and her then-newborn daughter at Fenton Street Market last fall. 

McCann, a writer for Architect magazine who lives in East Silver Spring, often walked past an empty parking lot at the corner of Fenton Street and Silver Spring Avenue and dreamed of opening a flea market there. After working with the lot's owner, Ulysses Glee, to "borrow" it each Saturday morning, McCann held a test-run of the Fenton Street Market over two weekends in the fall of 2009. "There are so many people here who do art," she told me at the inaugural market. "It's bringing our community together to show what we do."

The market was well received and returned the following April. When Glee began planning to build condos and a hotel on his lot, McCann approached Reemberto Rodriguez, director of the Silver Spring Regional Services Center, and Jennifer Nettles, then-property manager of the Downtown Silver Spring complex, about relocating Fenton Street Market to the newly-opened Veterans Plaza. Recognizing the market's ability to draw customers to the area, the county struck a deal with McCann to rent her the plaza during at a steeply reduced rate. 

Throughout its brief life, the market has been a boon to the local economy. An Economic Market Study conducted by the market's volunteer staff found that over 2,500 people visited Fenton Street Market each week and that its presence brought $1.9 million in added revenues to area businesses each year.

Fenton Street Market will be laid to rest on November 12, but a viewing of the 49-page Request for Proposals will be held at the market this Saturday between 9am and 3pm in Veterans Plaza, located at the corner of Fenton Street and Ellsworth Drive in downtown Silver Spring. It is survived by a weekly farmers' market and whatever else they have planned in the area. Condolences can be sent to hannah at fentonstreetmarket dot com OR ginny dot gong at montgomerycountymd dot gov, who didn't know how to leave a good thing alone.

occupy protests show potential of public space

In front of Philadelphia's City Hall is Dilworth Plaza, a vast, empty public space that struggles to attract people, even though it's on top of a major subway station. Ironically, it's a few blocks from Rittenhouse Square, one of the city's and the nation's great squares. While the city plans to renovate Dilworth Plaza to make it more vibrant, the Occupy Philly protests (an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street) that began last Thursday are already doing the job.

Over 700 people are camped out in Dilworth Plaza, and when I visited Saturday afternoon, it had an air of organized chaos. There are people milling about everywhere, and like me many of them were just wandering around taking pictures. A wedding party leaving City Hall stopped to admire the scene, and a wedding photographer immediately starts snapping pictures of the bride in front of a group of protest signs. Another runs over to a group of skateboarders, kneels down, and says, "Show me your best trick."

Meanwhile, the protesters have set up first aid tents, information booths, and even a library. A tent city lies between two rows of trees. And the plaza's normally windswept open areas have been given over to a drum circle and a sort of Speaker's Corner, where a guy talks through a megaphone that America's thirty-seventh in education worldwide. "I wanna hear everyone say 'We're number 37!'" he yells, struggling to be heard over the honks of passing cars. (It's unclear whether they're showing approval or being overly aggressive and obnoxious, as is the way of Pennsylvania drivers.) Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter even made an appearance to show his support for a peaceful demonstration.

I really hope Occupy Wall Street and its offspring morph into an actual agent of change. I get frustrated that my generation hasn't found a common cause in the way our parents united around civil rights or protests against the Vietnam War. One idea my friends and I have kicked around is that we haven't united because we can't relate to each other. Even with the Fair Housing Act, many of our communities experience de facto segregation by race and class, isolating us from people who are different.

In order to come together as a generation and a country, we have to know each other first, and we need great public spaces to do so. If Occupy Philly does anything, it shows how important the urban realm as a place for expression and for gathering.

mulligan . . .

Let's be honest: you're probably tired of me writing about the curfew. And I'm tired of writing about it, too.

Much as I think it's ineffective and a way for Ike Leggett to appear "tough on crime" without actually doing anything (except for providing more cops in downtown Silver Spring, which not surprisingly is very effective), I know people have their reasons for supporting a curfew, even people I like a lot. Of course nobody wants to go out and worry that they're going to get stabbed. I certainly don't.

A few months ago, I was arguing with Reemberto Rodriguez about the curfew and he gently reminded me that people naturally get upset about the topic because they were "speaking from emotion." I've been to meetings and seen that emotion coming from curfew supporters, but I see it in myself as well, and I don't think I do my argument any good when I call people names.

After all, there are so many actual facts why curfews don't work. In theory, that should be enough to convince most people without attacking them.

I'd like to do my part and use this space to talk about this very emotional issue in a civil, constructive manner. I'd also like to spare y'all and try to find other things to write about, of which there are plenty. Come back next week and we'll talk about something else for the first time in three months.