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This topic was discussed at the most recent regular meeting of the Mayor and Council, during the “From the Mayor and Council” segment; Mr. Alster raised the question about the increasing complaints about overcrowding. In response, Mr. Humpton disclosed the existence of the internal task force. Mr. Marraffa continued on the theme, attributing the problem to Gaithersburg being a “destination” city, and linked it to other problems in the city such as illegal immigrants and gangs. Mr. Sesma said that he shared the concern about the overcrowding problem, but he pointed out that overcrowding was also a problem in college towns, added that he thought that Gaithersburg was a “destination city” as a result of all the same factors that just generally made Gaithersburg a desirable place to live, and objected to the laying of blame for all the City’s ills in the laps of immigrants. This discussion can be seen in part one of the video of that meeting.

From the City’s website:

Overcrowded Residences Present Public Safety Hazard
Posted 11/14/2006

Two recent fires in overcrowded dwellings, which could have resulted in tragedy, prompted the City of Gaithersburg to form an internal task force to address public awareness and code enforcement.

Similar to that of Montgomery County , Gaithersburg’s code prohibits five or more unrelated individuals from occupying the same dwelling unit. Additionally, the number of related individuals who may share the same dwelling unit is limited by the square footage of the unit.

Overcrowding often leads to the use of rooms for which they were not approved. For example, using a room for sleeping purposes that does not have an approved window or exterior door leading directly to the outside is illegal in Gaithersburg .

“This is first and foremost an issue of public safety,” said City Manager David Humpton. “We want to make sure that such things as electrical violations and lack of proper emergency escape routes don’t result in a tragedy that could have been prevented.”

The task force, made up of representatives from the City Manager’s Office, Planning and Code Administration, Police Department, and Public Information Office will be meeting to examine the issue from all aspects, and will explore a range of options, including a public education campaign and increased enforcement strategies. A preliminary report will be delivered at the December 4, 2006 Mayor and City Council meeting.

“We look forward to working both internally and with communities and neighborhood associations to determine how best to educate the public about the seriousness of overcrowding,” said Gaithersburg’s Neighborhood Services Director Kevin Roman, who will spearhead the effort.

For more information please contact the City Manager’s Office at 301-258-6310 or cityhall@gaithersburgmd.gov

Chris Robinson also wrote about this in this week’s Gazette:

‘‘We had a system in place for people to inform us about the problem. But we figure now that it’s gotten to be such an issue, we really need to address it,” said City Manager David Humpton. ‘‘We want to look at this and basically stop it before it happens and educate people on how dangerous it can be.”

A preliminary report from the task force will be presented during the Dec. 4 City Council meeting.

Kevin Roman, Gaithersburg neighborhood services director, said he’s received between 35 and 40 overcrowding complaints this year, and estimates it’s slightly up from previous years.

Update 2: The City has posted the text and a PDF version of Mr. Humpton’s letter of November 14.

Update: There was also a letter on November 7, 2006 from Mr. Humpton to Mr. Romer; this letter is referred to in Mr. Romer’s 11/13/06 letter to Mr. Humpton. A reader of this blog has obtained a copy of that letter. The full text is included at the end of this post, so that the three letters appear in reverse chronological order.

Following is the text of the letters exchanged between Mr. Romer and Mr. Humpton regarding the day laborer situation. The first letter included is Mr. Humpton’s response to Mr. Romer. As it was sent to me as a scanned image, I needed to transcribe it into text form. Thus, this version could contain errors and should not be considered authoritative; please consult the original, or at least the PDF version I made, before making any official comment on these to the City or County. If any readers spot errors in my transcription I would greatly appreciate it if you would let me know. Also note that I did not intend to convey the formatting of Mr. Humpton’s letter:

November 14. 2006
Mr. Bruce Romer
Chief Administrative Officer
Montgomery County Maryland
101 Monroe Street
Rockville, MD 20850

Dear Bruce:

I received your letter of November 13. 2006 and I am very disappointed by its tone, lack of acknowledgement of the City’s efforts, and its assertion that the City “is attempting to wash its hands of this issue and push the day laborers outside of City border.” This is simply not the case. We have been acting in good faith to resolve this difficult issue and will continue to do so.

I also read with interest the chronology of events contained in your letter. There was no real mention of the tremendous effort our task force and staff put, over many months, into studying this matter and formulating plans to address it. Nor did you acknowledge the exhaustive site search we undertook where we considered any location that had a potential or meeting the task force criteria.

My letter to you last week concluded with my thought that an employment center can be effective and a true benefit to all residents if established in the right location. We are trying to be practical here. The letter communicated that we were not likely to find a spot within the City and recommended that the County commence a search in a heavy commercial or industrial area in order to move forward and attempt to solve the problem. These areas are not available within the City.

While I understand that you believe that the best location for an employment center is in the City’s Olde Towne, the Mayor and City Council disagree. The Mayor and City Council have made it clear that neither 17 North Frederick Avenue nor 415 East Diamond Avenue are appropriate locations for a center for many reasons, including their proximity to residential neighborhoods and schools, traffic issues, and public safety Concerns.

I would like to address your points concerning the current gathering spot at 17 North Frederick Avenue. We have been asking you to terminate the lease there for over year and have indicated our willingness to sit down with you and resolve this matter. I understand you will he meeting with the property owner to negotiate termination of the lease. I would like to meet with you as soon as possible thereafter to discuss this matter.

In closing, I do not think that we advance a solution to the day laborer situation by continuing to exchange letters that point fingers at one another. Instead, I hope that we can continue to dialogue with you and other stakeholders to redefine a partnership that achieves the objective of creating an employment center that will serve the needs of day laborers in the City and other parts of Montgomery County.

Sincerely,

David B.Humpton
City Manager

cc: Mayor and City Council
Tony Tomasello

Below is the letter that Mr. Humpton was responding to. This text was extracted from the Microsoft Word document provided by the County, transmitted to me via the City. Before extracting this text I turned off the display of editing markup, and thus I believe that what is contained below reflects what Mr. Romer meant to say. This still did require considerable clean-up to make it presentable in the context of this web page, so again, please consult the original before making official comment, and again, I invite correction:

November 13, 2006

Mr. David Humpton
City Manager
City of Gaithersburg
31 South Summit Avenue
Gaithersburg, Maryland 20877

Dear Dave:

Thank you for your letter of November 7, 2006 indicating that the City of Gaithersburg has reversed its position with respect to an employment center for day laborers and will no longer look for sites or pursue this matter further. As communicated in the letter and your most recent meeting with County staff, I understand the City’s position to be as follows:

• The City has given up and will no longer search for potential employment center sites.
• The City believes the County should establish an employment center outside the City.
• The City will not partner with the County or provide any support for an employment center outside the City.
• The City will consider an anti-solicitation ordinance to prevent day laborers from gaining work in the City.
• The City is prepared to take zoning action against the property owner of 17 North Frederick Avenue – the property leased by the County.
• The City is prepared to address its financial obligation to the County for the County’s lease of 17 North Frederick Avenue.

We are troubled and disappointed by the City’s position which reverses prior policy decisions made by the City and upon which the County reasonably relied in providing assistance to the City. The City’s position also impacts the coalition of faith-based organizations that have been trying to fill the void created by the City’s failure to act in a timely manner to address the needs of the day laborers. A brief chronology of events is instructive.

• Day laborers have been gathering at informal locations in the City for many years. Workers originally gathered at the Spanish Catholic Center located in the shopping center across from Grace United Methodist Church. They continued to gather in the nearby parking area after the Spanish Catholic Center moved to another location.
• In fall 2004, the City requested the County’s assistance in addressing the needs of the day laborers. Through the winter and spring, County staff attended numerous meetings with City officials, including Mayor Katz, and other stakeholders to identify solutions. The City and County both agreed that the best solution was to create an employment center.
• The structure of the partnership between the City and the County called for the City to select the location of the employment center and renovate the building and grounds. The County was responsible for entering into a lease for the property and contracting with an operator for the employment center.
• In summer 2005, at the City’s request, the County entered into a 5 year lease for 17 North Frederick Avenue as the location for an employment center.
• In fall 2005, after the City demolished the interior of the leased premises at 17 North Frederick Avenue, the City pulled back from its commitment to partner with the County to establish an employment center and instead established a task force to study the issue.
• In spring and summer 2006, the City Task Force and the City Council ultimately endorsed an employment center.
• Now the City has reversed its position indicating that it has given up and will no longer pursue an employment center in the City and will introduce an anti-solicitation ordinance to disrupt those trying to find work.

This is a most unfortunate turn of events. The day laborers are City of Gaithersburg residents. The vast majority of the day laborers walk from apartments in the North Summit Avenue area and other rental apartment communities nearby to a place where they have gathered for many years to seek work. Clearly this is a City issue and it is disappointing that after two years the City is calling it quits and refusing to do the difficult work of forging and implementing a real solution in partnership with the County.

The County has spent considerable time, energy and money assisting the City and has remained a full and active partner in the process to open and operate an employment center. As you know, the County has established successful employment centers in unincorporated areas of the County (Wheaton and Silver Spring) and provides financial support to the City of Takoma Park to help cover the City’s costs of contracting for operation of an employment center.

It appears the City is attempting to wash its hands of this issue and push the day laborers outside of City borders. Although the City will no longer look for employment center sites in the City, the City would like the County to establish an employment center in an unincorporated area outside of the City. Experience in Montgomery County and elsewhere has shown that the success of employment centers for day laborers is dependent on the center being located in close proximity to the existing site where the day laborers gather. We believe that to have the greatest chance of success, an employment center must be in close proximity to where the day laborers live and have traditionally congregated and that is in the City. A successful employment center serving City of Gaithersburg day laborers would be difficult if not impossible to achieve without the City’s support, assistance and active participation. We are also quite surprised that Gaithersburg is considering an anti-solicitation ordinance when the City has not addressed the need for an employment center.

Montgomery County continues to believe that 17 North Frederick Avenue is a very viable location for the employment center and was leased specifically for this purpose. We also understand that the Spanish Catholic Center has opened for business at 415 East Diamond Avenue providing health services, ESOL classes, employment services and other services. This was a site previously proposed by City staff for an employment center and is another viable location in the City close to where the day laborers have been gathering that could also be used effectively as an employment center in coordination with the Spanish Catholic Center. There would be a certain logic to this since the informal site across from Grace United Methodist Church started with workers visiting the Spanish Catholic Center.

With regret and pursuant to the City’s request, the County is moving to terminate the lease for 17 North Frederick Avenue and will send the City an invoice to cover all of the County’s expenses in leasing the property and all of the lease termination costs, including the cost of restoring the premises demolished by the City.

The unfortunate result of the City’s decision to retreat from its prior commitments and withdraw from its partnership with the County is that there may be no employment center to provide needed services for the City of Gaithersburg’s day laborers. The County will take the next few weeks to review this issue. The County has been extremely patient and generous in working with the City. The City needs to take an appropriate level of ownership of the issue and work in partnership with the County to create a successful employment center and we encourage the City to do so.

Sincerely,

Bruce Romer
Chief Administrative Officer

Update: Following is the November 7 letter from David Humpton to Bruce Romer:

November 7, 2006
Mr. Bruce Romer
Chief Administrative Officer
Montgomery County Maryland
101 Monroe Street
Rockville, MD 20850

Dear Bruce:

Last week, after the owners of the Festival at Muddy Branch Shopping Center withdrew from lease negotiations relating to a potential employment center site, I met with Paul Folkers and Cathy Matthews of your staff to discuss possible next steps. It was requested that I provide you with a formal communication of the City’s position.

I discussed this matter publicly with our Mayor and City Council during their regular meeting of November 6, 2006. They unanimously concurred with my conclusion that, after an exhaustive search, it does not appear possible to have a site located in the City which meets the spirit of our Task Force’s criteria and is acceptable to a property owner.

We strongly recommend that Montgomery County look for a site in a heavy commercial or industrial area, already frequented by contractors, and where residential neighborhood disruptions are minimized. Given the way the City was built out, we do not have distinct industrial and commercial areas that are not near residential areas and other community uses. We concluded that, after the Festival at Muddy Branch Shopping Center fell through, to search and try to move forward with another site would be futile.

Possible locations might include Oakmont Avenue or the Montgomery County Airpark which could serve as a regional location for workers from Gaithersburg, Rockville, and the up-County as well. The newly-formed pastoral coalition has offered to work with County staff on logistical matters, such as transportation.

I was also directed to reiterate the City’s position that the gathering of workers at 17 North Frederick Avenue must come to an end as quickly as possible, and we are requesting to know the status of your negotiations to terminate the lease, as was discussed several weeks ago.

The City has spent considerable resources and effort to address this issue, and we believe that if the goal is to provide a structured employment center for the day laborers, that Montgomery County must shift its position that the site be within the City limits of Gaithersburg. An employment center can be effective and a true benefit to all residents if established in the right location.

Sincerely,

David B. Humpton
City Manager

cc: Mayor & City Council
Paul Folkers, Assistant Chief Administrative Officer
Cathy Matthews, Director, Upcounty Regional Services Center
Tony Tomasello, Assistant City Manager

Update: I have received the letters from City staff. The letter from Mr. Romer to Mr. Humpton is a Microsoft Word document. Note that the document should come up with the editing revealed; according to Britta Monaco, who sent the document to me, this is exactly how they received the document from the County. The letter from Mr. Humpton to Mr. Romer was sent to me as a multi-page TIFF. On recent Windows machines, this should open correctly using the Microsoft “Document Imaging” utility. I will convert it to a PDF and make that version available soon.

Update 2: A PDF of the letter from Mr. Humpton to Mr. Romer can be found here.

Update 3: I have posted the text of the Romer/Humpton letters. Also MoCo Progressive has some thoughts, and Cameron Barr has an article in today’s Washington Post:

Update 4: A blog reader has obtained a copy of the November 7 letter from David Humpton to Bruce Romer, informing the County of the City’s conclusion that “[…] it does not appear possible to have a site located in the City which meets the spirit of our Task Force’s criteria and is acceptable to a property owner.” I will have the full text up presently.

In interviews, Humpton and Mayor Sidney A. Katz said that the city would halt efforts to find a location. “We don’t believe there is a place we could find,” Katz said.

Humpton said this outcome represents a victory for the opponents of the center, who have included the Maryland chapter of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, an Arizona-based group that opposes illegal immigration.

“They have, in a sense, won,” Humpton said.

“His failure is a victory for the opponents? What an acknowledgment,” said Kim Propeack, advocacy director for CASA of Maryland, a nonprofit organization that aids immigrants and operates day-laborer centers funded by the county.

“I don’t know how much more vocal he wanted us to be,” said Grace Rivera-Oven, who runs a Spanish-language cable show and has supported the center. “Regardless of what the city decides, these are still people who live in the city,” she said of many of the day laborers. The city, she added, “will still have to deal with this issue.”

In an article in today’s Gazette, Sebastian Montes writes,

Tensions are escalating between Gaithersburg and county officials over the years-long and fruitless struggle to open an employment center for the city’s day laborers, with the county this week rebuking the city for ‘‘washing its hands of this issue.”

The county sent a three-page letter to Gaithersburg City Manager David B. Humpton Monday admonishing the city for ‘‘calling it quits” and ‘‘refusing” to find solutions and choosing to ‘‘retreat from its prior commitments” with the county.

‘‘It appears the City is attempting to wash its hands of this issue and push the day laborers outside of City borders,” wrote Bruce Romer, the county’s chief administrative officer.

I’m sorry, but Oakmont is not very much out of the City’s borders, and is almost exactly the same distance from, for example, the apartments along North Summit as is the Festival at Muddy Branch — about two miles. Seriously, the difference is maybe one or two hundred yards depending on exactly where along Oakmont we’re talking about. So what, exactly, does Mr Romer think is magical about the City boundary to the Day Laborers that they would be willing to go to Festival but not to Oakmont?

On Tuesday Humpton sent his own letter to Romer.

‘‘I received your letter … and I am very disappointed by its tone,” Humpton wrote. He said the county failed to acknowledge much of the city’s work and noted the assertion that the city has washed its hands of the issue ‘‘is simply not the case. We have been acting in good faith to resolve this difficult issue and will continue to do so.”

‘‘We believe that to have the greatest chance of success, an employment center must be in close proximity to where the day laborers live and have traditionally congregated and that is the City,” Romer wrote.

Mr. Romer would appear here to have a very low opinion of the resourcefulness of the day laborers. It seems that he believes that the laborers are incapable of learning — or are unwilling to learn — to go to a new location. I know that Latinos have strong traditions and the County tries to be supportive of these traditions, but it is unclear to me that this location is so strongly entrenched in their culture that they would not be willing to abandon it if something better came up. After all, most of them abandoned Central America to come here — what’s another mile or two? Mr. Romer is reaching here, I believe. I expect that he has some specific, ulterior reason why he wants to force the City to do this, and he is rationalizing it rather than being honest about his motivations.

The county has agreed to break its lease on a building at 17 North Frederick Ave. in Gaithersburg that both governments said last year would become the day-laborer center.

The county signed a 5-year, $35,000-a-year lease. When the city backed away from that plan in October 2005 under pressure from wary neighbors, the county kept the lease in hopes it might again be a viable site.

This is interesting, and it is a sign that the County has at least a small bit of sense left.

I have written to the City and asked for copies of the two letters. If they are made available to me I will post them on the blog.