I’d like to highlight a few letters in this week’s Gazette:
- David B. Humpton: City âcommitted to finding the right solutionâ to day labor center issue
The Sept. 27 Gazette editorial (ââBreaking the day labor stalemateâ) criticized the city of Gaithersburg for its inability to find a site for a day laborer employment center. With terms like ââflat footedâ and ââsitting on their hands,â the editorial unilaterally dismissed the efforts of an entire community to find a solution.
[…]
This has been one of the most difficult issues weâve encountered in Gaithersburg. Public input has been passionate on both sides. With no support from the federal level, local jurisdictions are left on their own to struggle with the quality of life and public safety issues that surround day laborer gathering sites. Have our deliberations taken a long time? Yes. But how long is ââtoo longâ to do whatâs right?
We urge the public to come forward and continue the dialog at our public work session at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 12 at City Hall, 31 S. Summit Ave., Gaithersburg. A storefront site at Festival at Muddy Branch has become available. With public support, this location, which meets much of the site criteria set forth by the Day Laborer Task Force, could begin housing a Montgomery County-operated employment center before winter. - Michael Stumborg: city officials defended
You mention the city managerâs lack of ââpolitical firepowerâ to impose a day labor center on an unwilling neighborhood as if thatâs a bad thing. Exercising political firepower, as the county did when it unilaterally dismissed the cityâs rejection of 17 N. Frederick Ave., is done by thugs, not leaders. Your faith in county leadership is woefully misplaced. Day laborers come from County Council Districts 2 and 3. While District 2 representative Mike Knapp attended the ad hoc meetings that ironically chose a District 3 site, District 3âs ââSilent Philâ Andrews deferred site selection to the executive branch and disappeared from Olde Towne for a year. Neither action exhibits leadership.
- Stephen Schreiman: Illegal immigrant labor undermining legitimate businesses
Our elected county officials have had four years to solve the day labor problem in Wheaton, Silver Spring and Takoma Park and have failed miserably. We need to throw the incumbents out of office on Nov. 7. Our tax dollars, along with funding from Casa of Maryland, pay for the day labor centers, and between them they have accomplished Casaâs goal of accommodating more illegal immigrants in Maryland.
- Susan Gross: Tower residents concerned about CCT station placement
While residents of the Washingtonian Tower may or may not be in favor of the Corridor Cities Transitway, we are quite concerned regarding the proposed placement of transit station No. 4 as shown on the map.
- Deborah A. Vollmer: âLet everyone vote on paperâ
I wish I could have some certainty about the results, but as we all know, the primary election in Maryland was a fiasco, with those access cards arriving hours late at many polling places, and other glitches in the system. How many folks were in fact denied a vote because their polling place was not prepared to proceed with the machines for lack of access cards, and also ran out of provisional ballots, we will never know.












