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From the City’s website:

Big Bang Weekend Features Something for Everyone in Gaithersburg
Posted 6/6/2008

Staying in town this Fourth of July?  Join in some local fun as the City of Gaithersburg and 97.1 WASH-FM present a Big Bang Weekend Celebration Thursday, July 3 through Monday, July 7.  All concerts are free. 

The weekend kicks off with a children’s concert featuring the ever-popular Mr. Ray on Thursday, July 3 at 10:30 a.m. at the City Hall Concert Pavilion, 31 South Summit Avenue in Olde Towne Gaithersburg. Mr. Ray brings a unique, brand of cool, hip, positive entertainment for the entire family to enjoy.  This concert is also sponsored in part by www.tots2tweens.com.

The festivities continue on Friday with Gaithersburg’s Fourth of July Fireworks and Concert at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds, 16 Chestnut Street. Gates open at 5 p.m. Walk in at Chestnut or Dalamar Streets; Perry Parkway itself and the Perry Parkway entrance will be closed. No cars will be allowed in the Fairgrounds. WASH FM starts the night off at 6 p.m. with fun and games for the whole family, followed by a concert featuring Powerhouse at 7 p.m. A special City ceremony will take place at 8 p.m., with more concert to follow.  The City’s spectacular fireworks display begins at dusk. A variety of food will be sold at this event. Absolutely NO alcoholic beverages, glass containers, rollerblades, skates, bikes, pets, or fireworks of any kind will be permitted.  The rain date for the fireworks is Saturday, July 5.

Get whisked away to little latitudes on Saturday, July 5 when B2B, a Jimmy Buffett tribute band, performs at the City Hall Concert Pavilion at 7 p.m.  You’ll feel like you’re on a tropical island as the band plays Jimmy Buffett favorites that will sweep you away to paradise.  Note that if the July 4 fireworks are postponed until July 5, this concert will take place at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds.

The exciting spirit known as “Beatlemania” is alive again in The Return, the world’s most authentic Beatles tribute band.  Enjoy this amazingly energetic concert on Sunday, July 6 at 5 p.m. at the City Hall Concert Pavilion.  Note that this concert was originally scheduled for May 31 but was cancelled due to inclement weather that day. 

One more exciting concert rounds out Big Bang Weekend.  Girl Authority, a group of real girls with different personalities and interests, come together to sing, dance and put their own spin on girl power hits when they perform on Monday, July 7 at 10:30 a.m. at the City Hall Concert Pavilion.  This concert is sponsored in part by www.tots2tweens.com.

Click on the links below for more information or call 301-258-6350 or email parksrec@gaithersburgmd.gov.

• Big Band Weekend Events
  

• On Stage Summer Concert Series

I suppose that — beyond being pleased that we now have one less thing to do to throw stuff away — one the things I find most interesting about this announcement is the news that the City is no longer using the County’s recycling facility. Instead, our recyclables are now going to Waste Management’s facility in Elkridge Maryland, which is apparently the largest in the nation, and as of September already processing a thousand tons of recyclables per day.

From the City’s website:

Gaithersburg Residents Can Now "Single Stream" Recyclables
Posted 12/14/2007


Recycling in Gaithersburg just became easier as residents of single family homes and townhouses can now "single stream" their recyclables.

Single streaming simplifies the recycling process by allowing customers to combine recyclable paper, plastic, glass, steel and aluminum materials into one single container for collection. These materials are then picked up by a single truck and taken to the Waste Management recycling facility in Elkridge, MD, where advanced recycling technology is used to automate the sorting of these materials.

Single streaming promotes recycling for those who like the simplicity of using one container for all recyclables. This system eliminates the need to separate newspapers from bottles and cans, which can take up space at home with several different bins for recycling.

This system is now in place in Gaithersburg, so residents are encouraged to use their green recycling bin and begin single streaming immediately on their regular recycling day. Click here for more information on the City´s recycling program or call 301-258-6370.

In last night’s meeting, the Mayor and Council continued to spar over the budget. In a continuation of the dispute at last week’s work session, Council members Sesma, Marraffa and Schlichting continued to support the addition of $250,000 to the home ownership assistance program, voting to approve the budget which included this provision. Council members Edens and Alster voted against this version of this budget, insisting, among other things, that the $250,000 funding level is arbitrary and unsupported by a dedicated funding source, and unlikely to be needed in its entirety in FY2008. They also were concerned about the impact of taking these funds out of the contingency budget and that the program they were funding had not yet been fully defined. (*)

While all this might be true, much of it is also true of many other budget line items. The contingency budget, for example, is more or less by definition arbitrary. Projects often need to be funded before they can be fully fleshed out. Many City programs run at a loss, and have no funding sources other than taxes, or are unable to recover all their costs through user fees. They are committing us to an aquatic center which will perpetually run at an operating loss projected to be in the million dollar range. They set aside money in the operating budget to purchase furniture, software and vehicles in future years. In the discussion, it was pointed out — on both sides of the argument — that how much they put (or don’t put) in this line item at this point isn’t all that big a problem, as they can always move it later in the year. This is certainly true; for example, money that was in last year’s CIP for improving West Diamond Avenue was spent on a consultant — the Staubach Company — to help market two City-owned properties in Olde Towne.

Thus, it seems to me that the fiscal standard the dissenters are attempting to apply to the home ownership program just doesn’t make sense in the context of the rest of the budget — which, as I suggested last week, just tells me that the overt argument is little more than a proxy for a covert argument that they don’t want us to know about.

The Mayor, who doesn’t have a vote in these matters, continued to threaten to veto the budget that the Council has now approved on a 3-2 vote. If the Mayor decides to veto this budget, there could easily be a stalemate. The Mayor’s veto will stand unless the Council can muster four votes to override. But with the Council members stubbornly split 3-2, these four votes will be hard to come by. However, if the Mayor vetoes, and the Council doesn’t override, the City will still not have a budget, which has to be in place by July 1 — less than two weeks from now — for the City to continue operations. It is my understanding that the City’s charter does not allow for a continuing resolution. In order to get out of this mess, they will need to have at least three Council members to vote for some new budget. But if the three who have voted for this budget refuse to vote for any budget that does not include the $250,000 for home ownership assistance, and the Mayor continues to insist on vetoing any budget that contains it, then the whole process will just seize up.

Following the public meeting tonight, the Mayor and Council went into executive session to receive legal advice from the City Attorney. It was disclosed that the City Attorney had prepared a “confidential” packet for the Mayor and Council, containing background on what the consequences of a veto might be; I expect that it contained all manner of doom and gloom over what, exactly, they would and wouldn’t be able to do if they had no money to spend. As a simple example, I would expect that they would have to cancel the 4th of July celebration, but at a more basic level it is open to question as to whether they will be able to carry out their public safety obligations, or even turn the lights on in City Hall. Council Member Sesma attempted to begin a conversation about the contents of those confidential packets, suggesting that the public should know what risks we face as a consequence of this standoff. Mr. Sesma asked the question of where facts left off and legal advice began, suggesting that they should at least be able to talk about the facts in open session. However, the City Attorney said that what was in the packets was a legal analysis of the facts, and it was not straightforward to separate the two. She said that during the executive session they could decide what to disclose to the public, and ultimately, I think having made the basic point that the public was not being fully informed here, Mr. Sesma let the matter drop.

The Mayor mentioned that it was his understanding that he had seven days to sign or veto the budget, but that he also understood that time was of the essence. On Thursday night, they had scheduled a joint work session with the Planning Commission to discuss the concept plan for the Olde Towne Youth Center, and to kick off the Kentlands commercial district charrette process. They will be adding to that schedule a special session to have further discussion about the budget, and it is unclear if they will be able to address all three items that evening.

I suggest that all Gaithersburg residents contact the Mayor and City Council in the next day or so to let them know that you expect them to walk away from this brinkmanship and come up with a budget before the deadline, or at least to come clean about what, exactly, they are really arguing about. Personally, I don’t even think it much matters which side of this argument — certainly at least the overt argument — you think is right, and which side you think is wrong. At this point some sort of compromise seems necessary.

(*) Moreover, they were uncertain that the program that has been in place since the approval of the West Deer Park redevelopment project was ideal; the West Deer Park project fell through, eliminating the expected funding source for the program, and only a very few tenants ultimately qualified for the assistance. The Mayor seemed also to be suggesting that he would prefer that this program be available more generally, rather than being tied to multi-family redevelopment projects.

Update: The video of this meeting is now online. Also, if you haven’t already you may want to read Cathy Drzyzgula’s comment, which summarizes last night’s meeting.

Finally, note that there will be one more budget work session tomorrow night, to discuss the capital budget.

I was not able to attend or watch tonight’s work session, but I’m hearing that it did not go perfectly smoothly — that there were multiple disagreements among the Council members concerning priorities and how they were reflected in the budget line items. One topic that I understand to have been particularly contentious was the new emergency management coordinator position, for which the City receives federal funding. The draft FY08 budget places this position in City Hall — reporting directly to Mr. Humpton — but several people believe that this position should be located in the Police Department.

I will attempt to find time tomorrow to watch the video once it is available on the City’s website, but in the mean time, if any readers did watch or attend the meeting, I encourage you to add your thoughts in the comments to this post. Thanks.

• Chris Robinson writes, City pays thousands for spouse travel:
  

  Gaithersburg may revise its travel policy after questions were raised about the city’s longstanding practice of paying for spouses to join elected officials on business trips.

  This is a story that was broken a couple of weeks ago by Sonya Burke in the Town Courier newspaper. Unfortunately, that paper has no effective online presence, so I can’t link to her original article, and it may well be gone from the stands at this point. The Gazette, in this article, to their credit did acknowledge the Town Courier’s lead on this.

  In the Gazette story, Chris Robinson appears to have some difficulty finding people who are upset about the issue, and I guess I’m going to have to be one of those who isn’t going to get all up in arms over it. I will say a couple of things, however. First, I expect that many people are ambivalent about the issue because they know that the Mayor and Council are under-compensated for what they do, and if they get a little bit extra this way it isn’t all that big a deal. What we really need is for this compensation issue to be addressed in a formal manner, and perhaps start paying these people something close to the value of their considerable time. The City is putting together a committee to study compensation (the deadline for application to be on the committee was, unfortunately, yesterday). In Rockville, a recent study concluded that the elected officials there should receive dramatic increases in their pay.

  The second point I will make is that I’ve heard that the City has a comparatively stingy record when it comes to providing travel funding for staff and the few volunteers who are required to attend some sort of training. Perhaps the staff travel policy should be reviewed as well.

• Chris Robinson writes, Study: Costly repairs needed at Senior Center:
  

  More than $2.5 million in improvements are needed at the Upcounty Senior Center in Gaithersburg to accommodate the anticipated surge in use in the next decade, according to a report the city released last month.

  I reported on this earlier. Note, however that:

  A public work session is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Monday at City Hall, 31 S. Summit Ave. in Gaithersburg, to discuss the report’s findings.

• Chris Robinson writes, Meet the city’s prospective new police chief next week:
  

  After thorough resume reviews, background checks and telephone interviews, the three-months search for a new Gaithersburg police chief recently narrowed from about 50 applicants nationwide to six candidates.

  Extensive interviews and city tours with the six are planned for next week. The candidates will attend a public reception at 7:30 p.m. March 28 at the Activity Center at Bohrer Park, 506 S. Frederick Ave., Room A.

  I’m sorry, but this just seems so, well, overly public; I’m glad I’m not applying for this job.

Today, the City put up a web page with links to PDFs of two powerpoint presentations that were shown at the workshop the other night. One is a overview of the project prepared by City staff, while the other is a “concept plan” giving a more visual context, and was prepared by architects hired by the City. The first slide below is from the former, the other three are from the latter.

The City is inviting the public to

Community Invited to Preview Initial Concept Plans for New Aquatic, Recreation Center
Posted 2/6/2007

The City of Gaithersburg will host a Community Workshop on Monday, February 26, 2007 at Lakelands Park Middle School to give the public an opportunity to review initial concept plans for the new Gaithersburg Indoor Aquatic and Recreation Center at Edison Park Drive.

Display boards will be available for viewing beginning at 6:30 p.m. City Staff and the design firm, SORG Architects, will make a presentation at 7:30 p.m., followed by ample opportunity for questions and answers.

It is envisioned that the new center will include an indoor pool with lap lanes and recreational areas, a gymnasium with basketball courts, a fitness area, and rooms for meetings and social gatherings.

The City anticipates receiving more detailed renderings of the concept plans from SORG this spring. These plans are the precursor to the development of a site plan.

Lakelands Park Middle School is located at 1200 Main Street. For more information please contact the City’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Culture at 301-258-6350 or parksrec@gaithersburgmd.gov.

Update 2: The City has posted an outcomes document for this meeting. Included in this document is the following statement (note that it says that the MNCPPC meeting is on Tuesday, February 8 — clearly this is impossible. The correct date is Thursday, February 8):

Friday, January 19, 2007, Mayor Katz and City staff met with County Executive Ike Leggett and members of his staff to discuss their efforts to establish an employment center. The county is seeking to use county-owned property on Crabbs Branch Way and the City was asked to formally support the site. The issue is scheduled to be heard by the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission on Tuesday, February 8, 2007. The City prepared a letter of support signed by Mayor Katz to be sent to Park and Planning Commission Chairman Hanson. The county believes that the project can be completed and put into operation, possibly within the next month. Following discussions later in the meeting, City Attorney Borten was directed to amend the proposed anti-solicitation ordinance to state that the legislation will go into effect upon the opening of the county’s employment center. A vote on the amended ordinance is anticipated for the Tuesday, February 20, 2007 Mayor and City Council meeting.

Update: The City has posted the video of this meeting.

Last night’s council meeting was somewhat unusual, in that more was done in the “From the Mayor and Council” portion of the session than during the whole rest of the meeting. The first regular Council meeting in three weeks, there were a half-dozen presentations to be made, two of which took a while, and one those included a long discussion. Several topics came up during public appearances, but the theme was pretty consistent — people are getting tired of the foot-dragging on the council.

The first bit of forward movement in the meeting came during the presentation and discussion regarding the Kentlands Commercial Special Study Area. This study area is comprised of the major shopping areas in Kentlands, including Kentlands Square (with K-Mart, Giant Food and Lowes) and Market Square (with Whole Foods and the movie theater). In a memo circulated before the meeting, City Manager David Humpton laid out five alternative approaches to the required study. These ranged from a meeting of the stakeholders and a report by staff, to an “enhanced charrette with extensive pre-charrette data collection process”. In the discussion, the Council were focused on the latter approach and another option which simply called for the charrette itself. The primary concern in choosing between the two was the schedule — John Schlichting, who had been trying to get this process started for four years, in particular was concerned that the more extensive process would take too long. In the end, however, the Council decided to go with the more extensive process, given staff’s confidence that the process could culminate in a charrette still being held in September. A large portion — at least $100,000 — of the funding for this process will come from two of the three major property owners in the area.

Public appearances included statements three major topics:

• The Senior Center
• The anti-solicitation ordinance. Several Olde Towne residents spoke with growing frustration regarding the lack of progress on the anti-solicitation ordinance. In the last meeting where this came up, on January 2, the Council punted on a version of the ordinance which did not require a laborer center to be in place. At that time, the Council expressed overwhelming support for passing an ordinance once a laborer center was in place. Now that such a center appears to be on its way with implementation expected sometime in February, many who have been waiting for a year and a half for this situation to be resolved thought that the Council should have been doing something about the ordinance last night.
• The clock tower, and just generally the condition of Olde Towne. Several people spoke about the need to do something in Olde Towne that went beyond talking. The clock tower and its associated plaza — improvements to the City’s own public property — has been in the City’s plans for eight years, and it still is not fully funded. By contrast, The City took less than a year to come up with nearly a million dollars — about the same amount needed for the Olde Towne project — to rebuild a plaza in Kentlands to improve private property. The Olde Towne Charrette was in 2004, and there is still no sign of any forward progress in the area; all we have is the broken ground at a stalled residential project on North Summit. Perhaps one of the most compelling speakers here was the co-owner of Growlers, who spoke about his frustration with the condition of Olde Towne, and the difficulty he faces in bringing patrons into his restaurant for dinner when they are afraid of walking across the parking lot.

Other topics raised included the status of the special improvement district to restrict early-morning alcohol sales in Olde Towne (staff indicated that work was on-going), and concern over connections between Crown Farm and Washingtonian/Rio.

In the From the Mayor and Council session, the Council actually responded to the public statements in two areas. In the case of the clock tower and plaza, Henry Marraffa put forward a motion directing the City Manager to fully fund the project in FY08. There was much discussion over whether they could even do that (they decided that since the budget wasn’t approved yet that they could ask to have this placed in the next draft), whether the plaza should be included, and whether staff should also be directed to begin work on an RFP for the project. In the end it was decided to do the budget part but leave the implementation aspects until after a consultant — The Staubach Company, which is being hired to help market the Wye Site and the Fishman building (315 E Diamond Ave), two Olde Towne properties owned by the City, to developers — has a chance to comment on the plans.

The other response to public input was to direct the City Attorney to prepare a final draft of an anti-solicitation ordinance for the next meeting of the Mayor and Council, which as far as I know would be on February 20.

Additional information about the history of the anti-solicitation ordinance:

The idea of an anti-solicitation ordinance was first raised in the report of the Day Laborer Task Force, which was released in April of last year. For the next several months, the City seemed much more focused on finding a place for a day laborer center than in passing an ordinance that would give immediate relief to the historic district residents and restrict day laborers’ activities. However, these residents, especially several members of the task force itself, did not forget about this aspect, and repeatedly raised reminded the Council of this during public appearances through the Summer and into the Fall.

In October, when the City was considering the Festival Site, there was increasing pressure to do something about it. During the October 12 work session on the proposed site, a paper copy of a draft ordinance was circulated; by the next day it was available from the City’s website. This version contained a clause stating that the ordinance

shall not be enforced until, and shall only be enforced for so long as, a formal employment center is in operation within the corporate limits of the City of Gaithersburg or in the immediate vicinity.

On October 16, Assistant City Manager Tony Tomasello stated that he thought the ordinance would be ready for introduction by November 6 meeting. However, fifteen days later, the Festival deal fell through when the County was unable to negotiate a lease.

Rather than just go ahead with the ordinance as drafted, however, the City decided to change the ordinance to something that would apply regardless of the existence of a day laborer center. This version of the ordinance was what was introduced at the November 6 meeting, and was discussed at a highly contentious public hearing on November 20. In retrospect, it is almost as if the ordinance was re-written just to bring out the most vehement opposition possible. On January 2, the Council punted once again.

Even if the ordinance were to be passed as emergency legislation last night, it would still take twenty-one days before it would take effect, and the ordinance could have included the restriction that kept it from being enforced if no laborer center existed, as that would be less restrictive than the version that had gone to public hearing. There really was no good reason why, if they really intended to pass an anti-solicitation ordinance, that they could not have done so last night.

• Chris Robinson writes, City ready to vote on affordable housing plan

  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.

• Chris Robinson writes, City seeks input in police chief search
  

  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.

• Chris Robinson writes, Seniors ask mayor, council to fund new center
  

  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.

Note: If you see any of this activity going on, please call the Police non-emergency number at (301) 279-8000.

On Wednesday, I posted about more violent crime in Olde Towne. In that post, I mentioned the problems with men hanging out and drinking along a path near the school. The path I was talking about is at the top center of this image:

Following are a number of pictures taken along that path and the opposite side of the field, near Diamond Ave, taken by a Gaithersblog reader. The First few were taken in early October of 2006, at the rear of an abandoned property on Diamond Ave., near the footpath which runs along the south side of that field:

When Gaithersburg officials were notified about the problem, a crew came out within a couple of days to clean it up. Later that month, the reader noticed even more trash accumulation — consisting almost exclusively of alcohol containers — along the path at the north side of the field:

Again the City was notified. This time it was a bit more complicated because this trash was on MCPS property. My understanding is that even though it was School’s responsibility to clean it up, in the end the City wound up doing the bulk of the work, even installing some trash cans along the walk. The same Gaithersblog reader returned late last week, and found that, while much of what was there had in fact been cleaned up, as far as the activities going on in that area, things don’t seem to have changed much:

There’s broken glass (and limes) strewn all over the place. The glass appears to be mostly from Corona bottles that have been deliberately smashed on the ground.

The trash cans were about half full. Keep in mind, this is MCPS property and there are severe penalties for having alcohol on school grounds. During the reader’s visit last week, he ran into some Gaithersburg city employees who were taking a look to see what needed to be done; they said that they’d be back on Friday to clean things up yet again. The reader unfortunately got there too late to snap pictures of the crew working, but did manage to get a shot of them leaving after finishing the job:

I think that this gives a pretty good idea of what is going in that area. There seems to be routine partying along that path, and occasionally some homeless people sleeping in the woods near the schools. While MCPS is doing next to nothing to deal with the problem, the City is at least making an effort to keep the area from deteriorating into a complete dump. It is unclear why nothing appears to have been done about the routine consumption of alcohol on school property.

Again, if you see any of this activity going on, please call the Police non-emergency number at (301) 279-8000.