Silver Spring’s citizens advisory board says it wants to act as a bridge between the community and Live Nation, in case anyone sweats the musical acts or access to the future Fillmore music hall.

In a Nov 14 letter to MoCo exec Ike Leggett (D), the board offered to act as a “liaison between the community and Live Nation for any topic of concern to the community.”

“In order to achieve a truly successful public-private partnership in the development of this venue, the decision-making process must be transparent and the community must be an active partner,” the board wrote.

The idea of an advisory committee was sprouted by the advocacy group Silver Spring Forward, but the citizens advisory board said it was suited for the job over “a specific group [created] for this purpose,” the letter read.

Some concerns listed in the letter include the venue’s 2,000-head maximum capacity, and a crowd’s possible impact on traffic and public safety along Colesville Road. The board also worried about the “diversity” of the venue’s musical offerings, as well as its accessibility to local bands and community-backed gigs.

“We would urge that the operator of the music venue have a permanent, designated community-outreach specialist to insure that the views of residents are heard, represented and responded to,” the board wrote to Leggett.

In addition to the community-liaison job, the board asked Leggett to take a second look at Seth Hurwitz’s proposal for the venue. Hurwitz, who owns the District’s 9:30 Club, offered to flip $2 million towards the venue’s construction if he could run the show.

However, Legget has previously said that Hurwitz’s flirtation with the county was “too little, too late.”

On a related note (get it?), county council member Valerie Ervin (D-District 5) said she wouldn’t get in the middle of contract negotiations between the county and Live Nation.

” Negotiations on economic-development contracts are an executive-branch function,” Ervin wrote in a Nov 19 email. “As a council member, I cannot intervene in contract
negotiations.”

The county is on schedule to sign a lease with Live Nation before Dec 31, The Gazette has reported.