gaithersblog.net

Montgomery County began funding day-laborer centers as a solution for immigrant workers more than 10 years ago, and County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) believes it is time to expand the thinking. He wants to move away from relying solely on the centers to address the employment needs of a growing number of day laborers.

‘‘I’m not interested in having sites all over the county,” Leggett (D) said in an interview last week. ‘‘I do not want that to become our standard operating procedure, that every community gets one.”

Moving workers from short-term hires to permanent jobs is the long-term solution, Leggett said. His idea is to tap into the county’s economic development money to make loans to entrepreneurial day laborers so they can create their own micro-enterprises.

Under the last administration, the county recognized the immigrant advocacy group Casa of Maryland as the only agency with the know-how to run the county’s day-laborer centers.

Besides providing a formal structure to the hiring process, Casa offers English and Spanish classes, legal aid, financial advice, vocational training and citizenship classes at its centers and helps immigrants tap into a range of outside government social services.

Casa received more than $1.28 million in noncompetitive county grants last year — $1.5 million of its $3.3 million income came from government sources, according to its 2005-2006 annual report.

Critics of the county’s current policy point to a growing distaste for day-laborer centers, which serve an undetermined number of illegal immigrants.

That dynamic played out bitterly last year in Gaithersburg as landlords, business owners and neighbors to more than 30 potential center sites objected loudly enough to convince city leaders that they would never find an appropriate site. After six months of trying, the city called an end its search in November.

With county officials looking to open a day-laborer center in the vicinity of the Shady Grove Metro station, some nearby residents are vehemently against plan while others are relatively indifferent.

County Executive Isiah Leggett’s point man on the issue, Chuck Short, said the county is confident that the impact on neighborhoods will be minimal because the site is embedded within an industrial area.

However, some Rockville and Derwood residents are not convinced.

In a letter e-mailed to The Gazette, Brad Botwin, co-president of the Greater Shady Grove Civic Alliance, wrote, ‘‘Had Montgomery officials bothered to conduct any research at all, they would quickly have discovered that this property is part of the county-approved Shady Grove Sector Plan.”

Brad Botwin also has a letter in the Gazette, which is similar to one he sent to me a few days ago.

Gaithersburg police are investigating an armed robbery that happened last week in the 200 block of East Diamond Avenue.

This is the fourth armed robbery in the Olde Towne area in the past month.

On Jan. 3, a 53-year-old woman was exiting the vehicle outside her home in the 400 block of North Summit Avenue when two men, one armed with a black pistol, demanded the woman’s handbag.

I reported these incidents last Wednesday.

Note: The regulations — with a priority for displaced tenants — were in fact adopted at tonight’s Council session.

The mayor and City Council were expected to vote on revised regulations after press time Tuesday night. City leaders rounded out a year of public discussion when they approved the city’s first affordable housing ordinance last fall. It requires an allotment of affordable space in all new housing developments, rental housing and redevelopment, with the exception of projects in Olde Towne.

Several public speakers applauded the Olde Towne exemption at a hearing to comment on revisions to the ordinance earlier this month and said it would encourage more diverse residential development in the city’s center.

‘‘If there’s any hope to revitalize Olde Towne … it needs to be revitalized at market rates for both business and residential,” said resident Stephen Schreiman. ‘‘It’s the only way the city’s going to work its way out of the dilemma it’s in.”

Olde Towne is home to a majority of Gaithersburg’s 4,000 affordable apartments, which rent for $1,150 or less a month.

However, Pamela Lindstrom, a member of the Gaithersburg Affordable Housing Coalition, said there should be a financial arrangement in place of the exemption.

Gaithersburg officials are seeking public input in the their search for a police chief to replace Mary Ann Viverette, who will retire in May.

A mayor and City Council work session is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Jan. 29 at City Hall, 31 South Summit Avenue.

Residents, business and community leaders are encouraged to comment on the qualities and characteristics they think are important in the new chief.

A feasibility study is underway to determine if the current center can be reworked to serve more of the growing senior population, or if the city should explore building options.

But the city is not progressing quickly enough, some say.

‘‘As we get older, time seems to fly by and we all worry that at the pace we’re going, we won’t be here to enjoy a new senior center if you don’t move a little more quickly,” Annette Thompson, president of the Gaithersburg chapter of AARP, said at the forum.

Seniors praised the center’s staff, but noted that the facility lacks adequate space and is plagued by structural integrity issues such as water leaks.