Silver Spring reps rev for new Congressional session

By Jennifer Deseo | Jan 6, 2009

Tuesday marks the first day of the 111th Congressional session, and two Maryland reps — Chris Van Hollen (District 8) and Donna Edwards (District 4) — want the nation to know that downtown Silver Spring is in the House.

Representing South Silver Spring, Van Hollen (below) packs serious cajones as the House’s liaison to the Obama transition team. Currently, the three-term Dem is hustling for a major economic-stimulus package in the range of $700 billion to $1 trillion — the thickest ever in US history, Bloomberg News reported.

US Rep Chris Van Hollen

Some of that cash will support job-training programs in MoCo, if Van Hollen and county administrators have their way. On Monday, county exec Ike Leggett (D), council member Mike Knapp (D-District 2) and peeps from Van Hollen’s office pitched for a $1 million slice of that economic-stimulus pie to give mad skills to the underskilled.

“Any federal stimulus has to bolster our county workforce-development programs so we can help individuals and employers,” Leggett said during Monday’s press conference in Rockville. “The stimulus package can help us prepare folks for jobs that are available right now, and for jobs for the future.”

If the money happens, it could be parsed out to nonprofit groups like Silver Spring’s Casa de Maryland, which would train people in construction trades, Leggett spelled out in a 28-page proposal last month. The money also could bolster nursing programs at Montgomery College in South Silver Spring and Columbia Union College in nearby Takoma Park.

While Van Hollen has thrown his weight behind MoCo’s job-training gigs, it’s unclear which way he’ll swing on the Purple Line mass-transit project. Some of his constituents in South Silver Spring just wanna see the damned thing built. But other constituents in Chevy Chase don’t want it to run along the Capital Crescent Trail, one of the proposed routes between Bethesda and downtown Silver Spring.

Van Hollen previously said he had nothing but love for the Purple Line, but that “any light rail line must be designed in a way that protects the Capital Crescent hiker-biker trail.”

US Rep Donna Edwards

On downtown’s north and east sides, second-semester freshman Donna Edwards (above) works the home foreclosure front. On Wednesday night, her office hosts a public forum at Montgomery College’s Germantown campus on how homeowners can fend off foreclosure, a nasty issue in parts of Silver Spring beyond the Beltway.

But the relatively new rep, who kicked fellow Dem and incumbent Al Wynn to the curb last February, isn’t afraid to dip her toes in the turbulent, trash-strewn sea of international politics. On Friday, Edwards said the United States ought to play a bigger role in cleaning up the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Speaking specifically on Israel’s incursion into the Gaza Strip, Edwards said in a press statement that the United States “must work actively for an immediate ceasefire that ends the violence, stops the rockets, and removes the blockade of Gaza.” Her position flips the script on the rest of the Democratic party, which generally supports Israel’s claim of self-defense, online magazine The Huffington Post wrote.

The conflict is in its 12th day, and European leaders haven’t had any success in getting the Israelis to chill with the military bombardment, or in getting Gaza’s Hamas leadership to quit shelling southern Israel, The Washington Post reported.

“Israel has a right to protect its citizens, but I remain convinced that military measures have only a limited role to play,” Edwards stated. “A political and diplomatic resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the only way to stop the violence permanently and bring long-term stability to the region.”

Photo of Rep Chris Van Hollen courtesy of Flickr user Studio08Denver. Photo of Rep Donna Edwards courtesy of Flickr user MatthewNStoller. Lead photo of the US Capitol courtesy of Flickr user KTylerConk.

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County budget bites into downtown dining guide

By Jennifer Deseo | Dec 1, 2008

While most Silver Springers were carving Thanksgiving turkeys, the county council was carving what’s left of this fiscal year’s operating budget. Two days before the holiday, the council approved $33 million in cuts, $9 million less than what MoCo exec Ike Leggett recommended.

Most of the cuts run across the board and put off backfilling long-vacant county jobs. Other cost-saving measures hit closer to home:

  • Downtown Silver Spring’s dining guide. Expect fewer copies of the annual restaurant guide to show up, now that $4,300 has been lopped off its budget.
  • Montgomery College’s Campus Connector. The college hoped to give students a free lift between its Takoma Park/Silver Spring and Rockville campuses. But when bids overshot the expected $280,000 budget, the college and county council agreed to nix the idea.
  • The police academy’s class of 2009. Fifteen recruits will earn their badges in January, five fewer than previously planned. That allows the county to save $172,000, according to the council and MoCo exec Ike Leggett.
  • Reading material for public libraries. Almost $790,000 was cut from library stacks, which county council members chose over rolling back service hours or cutting staff. However, top librarian Parker Hamilton said in November that online and electronic reading material could make up for fewer books.

The cuts to this year’s budget don’t even touch the $500 million gap in next fiscal year’s rolls.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Jeff Keen.

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Speed-cam fines could foot ambulance bill: Andrews

By Jennifer Deseo | Nov 19, 2008

County council members on Tuesday announced a bill that would quash MoCo exec Ike Leggett’s proposed fees for emergency medical services.

Instead of charging health insurance companies for ambulance services, which Leggett pitched earlier this year, council member Phil Andrews (D-District 3) proposed to use red-light and speed camera fines to cover the ambulance tab.

“The county executive has posed the ambulance fee as the only way we could fund the purchase of new equipment for the fire and rescue service,” Andrews said in a press statement. “This bill shows a way that we could fund the purchase of much-needed equipment without implementing an ambulance fee, which most people in this county do not want.”

Under state law, MoCo must use speed-monitoring revenue on new public-safety programs, not to cover existing expenses. However, Andrews’ proposal would use half of that revenue to buy new gear for fire and rescue services. A quarter of it would go to countywide pedestrian-safety programs; 15 percent to the PD’s traffic-safety programs; and 9 percent to municipal pedestrian-safety programs.

It’s unclear how much money those speed- and red-light cameras haul in each year, though individual snapshots cost speed demons $40 each; red-light runners catch a $75 fine. Under Leggett’s plan, health insurance companies would be hit with a bill of $300 to $800 for each ambulance trip; uninsured patients roll for free.

According to Leggett’s advocates, health insurance companies already charge policy holders for ambulance services, and the county would be collecting nearly $15 million that’s already been paid for. Opponents worry that fees would dissuade the uninsured from dialing 9-1-1 during an emergency.

Council member Don Praisner (D-District 4), who sits on the public-safety committee with Andrews and at-large Dem Marc Elrich, previously dumped on Leggett’s pitch. Insurance forms could confuse patients, he said. On the flip side, Elrich said the county was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

“Everyone needs to take a sober look at where the county budget is,” Elrich told his colleagues last month.

The council’s public-safety committee takes its licks at Andrews’ idea on Dec 4.

Photo courtesy of the MoCo PD.

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Long Branch shooting suspects nabbed in Texas

By Jennifer Deseo | Nov 14, 2008

US marshals busted two men in Texas for their possible roles in the shooting death of a teenage boy in Long Branch.

The suspects — 20-year-old Gilmar Leonardo Romero, and 30-year-old Mario Ernesto Milan-Canales, both of unknown addresses — were nabbed Thursday morning without incident on a public bus in Houston and taken into custody, a MoCo PD press statement said.

It’s unclear why the dudes were in Houston, or what led marshals to them. Houston sits on the northwest coast of the Gulf of Mexico, about 350 miles north of the US-Mexico border crossing at Weslaco.

The investigation launched on Nov 1, when about a dozen teens — including 14-year-old Tai Lam — hopped a Ride-On bus in downtown Silver Spring and headed for Long Branch. Cops believe Romero, Milan-Canales and 20-year-old Hector Mauricio Hernandez, of the 8600 block of Flower Avenue in Takoma Park, hopped the same bus at two different stops. Words were exchanged between the two groups, though what was said is still under investigation.

When the bus reached Piney Branch Road at Arliss Street, the suspects got off the bus. But before the bus’s rear door closed shut, at least one of them turned and fired on the teens with a handgun, the police said. Three kids were shot and taken to area trauma centers.

Lam, a freshman honor student at Montgomery Blair High School, died that night; two of his companions — a 14-year-old boy and a 15-year-old boy, both unidentified — survived and were released from the hospital.

“This was random, as far as we can tell,” police chief Thomas Manger said at a public meeting Monday.

Hernandez, also a possible MS-13 gangsta, was arrested in Maryland on Nov 7 and charged with first-degree murder. He is being held without bond.

Romero and Milan-Canales were indicted around the same time — Romero for first-degree murder, Milan-Canales for accessory after the fact. Both are awaiting extradition from Texas.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Mark Strozier.

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Early voting, slots approved

By Jennifer Deseo | Nov 5, 2008

Voters statewide approved constitutional amendments that would let them vote early enough to make their date with the one-armed bandit.

According to the state board of elections, 69 percent of Maryland voters gave a thumbs up Tuesday to ballot question 1, which opens the door to pre-Election Day voting, as well as absentee balloting for people who aren’t necessarily absent. Eighty-five percent of voters in The Penguin’s exit poll agreed.

It’s unclear how soon the early-voting law will go into effect, but for some Silver Springers, it can’t happen soon enough. “I voted at NOAA and had a three-hour wait,” Penguin reader Jaime said Tuesday. “This is absurd!”

When it came to ballot question 2, which would allow slot-machine gambling to feed the state’s education coffers, almost 59 percent of Maryland voters — and 52 percent of MoCo voters — said bring it on. That’s in contrast with the 69 percent of Penguin exit-poll participants who turned down the proposal.

“We don’t need to fund educational projects by bleeding bank accounts from gambling junkies, retirees on fixed incomes, or people who like to bet on ponies at the race track,” wrote Penguin reader IHateYuppies. “We can find other ways to raise money for our schools.”

On the county level, 64 percent of voters approved ballot question A, which will scratch parts of the county charter pertaining to running a landfill and burying sewage sludge on residential property. The charter amendment also had something to do with phone service from the C&P Telephone Co. Whatever.

The outcome for ballot question B ran a little closer: 50 percent of voters agreed that a unanimous county council would be needed to increase property taxes beyond the current cap. The other 50 percent disagreed, saying a majority vote was good enough for them. The Penguin is calling this one “too close to call”.

Silver Spring voters also had Congressional reps to choose. Sort-of incumbent Rep Donna Edwards (D-4) holds a 71-percent lead over her rivals, though precincts in Prince George’s County have yet to report their scores. Those results are pretty close to the 67 percent that Edwards scored in The Penguin’s exit poll.

In District 8, incumbent Rep Chris Van Hollen took the cake with 74 percent of the vote. Those parts of downtown Silver Spring to the south and west of the CSX railroad tracks are in that district.

Oh yeah, and Barack Obama won the presidential race.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user iotae.

Updated Nov 5, 2008, to clarify Chris Van Hollen’s turf in downtown Silver Spring.

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Council brainstorms to beat back foreclosures

By Jennifer Deseo | Sep 23, 2008

ROCKVILLE — The number of home foreclosures in Montgomery County may be down, but don’t let the Repo Man catch you napping, a panel of experts spelled out Thursday for county council members.

“The best results are achieved when homeowners are reached far in advance of foreclosure,” said Roger Glendenning, an adviser to the council’s economic-development committee. ”Avoiding foreclosure is a win-win situation.”

And if one must come close to losing a home, then why not do it in Maryland? The state is a leader at beating back home foreclosures, and recent stats show a 20-percent countywide drop since the beginning of the year, Glendenning reported. In the 20910 zip code, which includes downtown Silver Spring, foreclosures during the same period dropped by nearly 30 percent.

One could chalk up those numbers to a state law passed in April. The emergency legislation keeps the foreclosure dogs at bey for 90 days after a homeowner defaults on a mortgage, and for another 45 days after an intent-to-foreclose notice is sent.

Downtown Silver Spring’s healthier housing market also could be due to that old real-estate mantra: location, location, location. Homes within the Beltway tend to sell in 30 days, while sales on upcounty homes can take up to a year, Meredith Weisel, with the Greater Capital Area Association of Realtors, told the committee.

Case in point: Parts of Germantown, Montgomery Village, and that neck of Silver Spring around Layhill and Bel Pre Roads are in serious trouble. Each of those spots logged more than 100 foreclosures in the second quarter of this year alone, Glendenning said. Parts of Gaithersburg, Wheaton and Calverton are also up a creek sans paddle.

So what’s a county to do? Hit the streets with mortgage counselors who can help homeowners renegotiate the terms of their loans, Glendenning pushed.

“Delinquent homeowners need to know they have a shoulder to lean on,” Glendenning told committee members. Pre-foreclosure counseling, he said, “is the backbone, and should be the core of what every jurisdiction looks at.”

There are just a couple of hitches to that. According to Richard Nelson, with the county’s department of housing, there aren’t enough mortgage counselors to go around. On top of that, there aren’t enough lenders willing to renegotiate with those high-risk borrowers.

To kick both problems, Nelson is hollering at Annapolis for help. Currently, the county and state have a nonbinding agreement to cover a reluctant lender’s loss up to 30 percent if it chooses to rework a mortgage. And the state might pick up the tab for more mortgage counselors, using money it gets from the feds, Nelson said.

“This whole cycle is going to continue for another 18 months,” Nelson told the committee. “But what we do won’t be money or effort wasted.”

Lead photo courtesy of Flickr user Respres.

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