The Silver Spring Penguin

County council members worry that Silver Spring’s civic building could become a private club if a nonprofit group runs the show.

“Once you determine that a nonprofit is going to decide how a public building is used, you’ll have conflict,” council president Marilyn Praisner (D-District 4) predicted at an economic development committee meeting on July 30.

The nonprofit in question is the Silver Spring Town Center, Inc., formed by an executive steering committee in 2001. The group’s mission is “to assure effective and diverse programming” at the civic center, explained Sheryl Brissett Chapman, the group’s interim president.

However, council members worry that the group’s programming could be too inclusive. “Having a board that believes itself to own a public building is going to be a challenge,” council member Nancy Floreen (D-At large) said at the committee meeting.

“This has to be open to everyone,” Floreen added.

When asked whether other organizations would be allowed to use the civic center for its own programs, Brissett Chapman said, “Absolutely.”

“Silver Spring Town Center would serve to stimulate building and plaza usage by promoting exciting and dynamic programming, and by leveraging county resources with private support,” Brissett Chapman wrote in an email to The Penguin.

The group hasn’t hired programming staff yet, but it plans to once the building nears completion. The board also is planning some community outreach to get a feel for the community’s interests, Brissett Chapman explained.

Still, Praisner wasn’t buying it.

“The broader community has equal access to that building. Tax payers from Germantown have contributed just as much to this building as Silver Spring,” Praisner said at the committee meeting.

“I don’t know how many ways the county can say no to this nonprofit, and I don’t see the council changing that view,” Praisner added.