Looking back, the county could have done more to help mom-and-pop shops during downtown’s redevelopment. Looking forward, there may not be much the county can do for some, a somber county executive confessed Monday night.
“Many of those who should have been the beneficiaries of a largess of support became the victims,” MoCo exec Ike Leggett told 150 small-business owners stuffed into Georgia Avenue’s old firehouse. “We failed to properly address them.”
Resentment lingers among some Fenton Village business owners and long-time East Silver Spring residents, who feel the county’s focus on attracting big business leaves them in the lurch. Rising commercial rents and redevelopment also threaten to displace some shops, two proprietors testified.
Leggett admitted there was no infrastructure on day one to help those small businesses that survived Silver Spring’s lean times. But county procurement director David Dise said microenterprise loans were now available to them, and county contracts would be easier to score.
Roger Stanley, with the department of housing and community affairs, offered to pick up half the tab for cosmetic improvements to shop facades. He also said loans would be offered to repair second-floor spaces along Georgia Avenue, many of which are in crappy shape and leased illegally.
But with a $400 million budget gap projected for the next fiscal year, Leggett couldn’t guarantee the business owners any help with higher rents or relocation.
“We will look at some of the displacement questions, but I can’t tell you that I’ve got the resources to help with rent,” Leggett told the crowd. “We don’t currently have a program to do that.”
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I have a mixed opinion on this. The new downtown Silver Spring would have never taken off unless we got some big chain retailers and restaurants to anchor the revitalization. From an economic development point of view, I can understand this approach.
Small business interests have been ignored. Hell, the interests of working and middle class interests have been ignored by the county based on their cozy relationship with real estate developers.
The County leadership tried to turn Silver Spring into a pseudo Yuppieville. Now, we have county officials saying, “Whoops…we didn’t realize that Silver Spring has an economic and culturally diverse population that would benefit from the growth of small business and affordable housing”.
Whoops indeed.
A special note to Jennifer… are you going to cover the Congressional primary race between Al Wynn and Donna Edwards? This is an important story for Silver Spring voters. Although most of us live in the 8th Congressional district (Van Hollen), there is a large swath of neighborhoods north and east of downtown that lie in the 4th Congressional district. The Maryland party primary is coming this February 12. Just a recommendation as an avid reader of your news blog.
Do you offer political endorsements? That would be awesome if The Penguin stuck its neck out and made a public editorial declaration.
Thanks for your comments, IHY.
Regarding the District 4 primary, I’ve done a little coverage of that race. I tried to cover yesterday’s televised debate between Wynn and Edwards, but both candidates fixated on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and PG County. Neither had much, if anything, to say about MoCo. Big snooze. (An even bigger snooze when you consider that Penguin HQ is in District 8.)
However, I will cover the primaries in general next Tuesday. That should be interesting.
Regarding endorsements, I don’t feel it’s appropriate for media outlets to favor candidates. As a journalist, I serve facts in my stories. As a human being, I offer opinion in the “Holler back” section. But as an editor, I respect Penguin readers enough to know they can make up their own minds. They don’t need me to tell them who to vote for.
I’ll stick my neck out with an editorial declaration when I vote next Tuesday.
Jennifer, if you don’t mind your readers making an endorsement:
DONNA EDWARDS 2008!
Thank you.
I’m voting for Pedro…
Actually more of SS is in Dist 4 than Dist 8. According to the data on which the last redistricting was based, the 2000 Census, 61 percent of Silver Spring is in District 4, the remainder in District 8. (Silver Spring CDP [Census designated place] is mostly inside the beltway, but includes the area outside between Sligo Creek, the Northwest Branch and University Blvd.)
Thirty eight percent of District 4 is in Montgomery County. It goes up the eastern side and across the northern side of the county, all the way to Germantown and Clarksburg.
District 4 represents 51 percent of PG and 29 percent of MoCo. You would think, from press coverage, that it is a Prince Georges County District. Not really.
On Tuesday, February 12:
VOTE DONNA EDWARDS!
VOTE BARACK OBAMA!
That’s all I got to say for now.
RB wrote:
Hate to say it, but the candidates themselves make it sound like a PG County district. Like I wrote earlier, it’s all Edwards and Wynn spoke about during yesterday’s debate.
But I’ve got a follow-up question: 51 percent in PG + 29 percent in MoCo = 80 percent total. Who’s got the other 20 percent?
Kevin Gillogly has been covering the D4 race, especially the debates, on Maryland Politics Watch blog for the past two months(http://maryland-politics.blogspot.com/).
Jennifer Deseo wrote: “But I’ve got a follow-up question: 51 percent in PG + 29 percent in MoCo = 80 percent total. Who’s got the other 20 percent?”
Those percentages don’t add. You’re calculating the percentages the wrong way: Montgomery County is 38 percent of District 4 and Prince Georges is 62 percent. That is: MoCo in District 4/ (divided by) Total pop in District 4. (251,258/662,062=.380 ). Same for PG (410,804/662,062=.620).
The 51% is proportion of PG total pop. in District 4. [PG in Dist 4/ Total PG pop] (410,804/801,515). The rest is in Steny Hoyer’s District.
For Montgomery 29 percent is in Dist. 4 and most of the rest is in District 8.
I didn’t see yesterday’s debate..but most of Edwards’s political and conservation activity has been in Prince Georges, as I understand it (the new development in Fort Washington ..National Harbor), so that is the only local activity her opponents could attack her on. She has had no reason to represent people in MoCo so far.
Edwards is definitely the better candidate. Wynn is so bad that in general elections before the last one, I either didn’t vote for Congressman or even voted (gulp!) for the Republican candidate (who had no chance) as a protest vote. Until after the last election, when he had a close call, Wynn generally voted for the special interests rather than his constituents’ interest. He voted against Net Neutrality and for the credit card companies in the bankruptcy bill for example. He also has generally not responded to my e-mails and, when he has responded, has tried to explain why his vote for a special interest is really for my benefit!
I applaude the county in trying to help the small business owners in Silver Spring but I do not want to see the county do what it did for Barry’s magic shop. That ~$250,000 the county gave to Barry’s magic shop to relocate was outrageous. They did not even wind up staying in Silver Spring. What a waste of my tax dollars!