With affordable units vacant in Rockville & countywide, does MoCo really have a housing "crisis?"

Ability to lose 162

units, low demand at

Halpine View raise new 

questions about MoCo's 

supposed affordable 

housing "crisis"

How serious is the affordable housing "crisis" in Montgomery County? We've been hearing off-and-on about the Montgomery County Housing Opportunities Commission's development plans for the Ambassador Apartments in Wheaton since 2012. At one point, it was said that a new building would be constructed on another part of the property, allowing current residents of the Ambassador to remain in their homes. But now, the building - a former Best Western hotel at the corner of Veirs Mill Road and University Boulevard - has been shut down and fenced off. Businesses in the ground floor have also been vacated.

Residents have supposedly been relocated by the HOC to other properties around the county. However, the HOC declined to respond to media inquiries made earlier this week by press time. From what I can find in County documents, it appears the building will be demolished at a cost of up to $1.5 million, a cost that will be picked up by County taxpayers. HOC has previously requested the funds from the County Council for that purpose.

Demolition was to have begun this year, and construction of the new development was to break ground in 2019. It appears that would still be possible if demolition occurs soon.

The loss of 162 low-income housing units near Metro - and the apparent ability of the HOC to find that many vacant units for the departing tenants - raises questions about just how serious the affordable housing "crisis" is in Montgomery County. Last year, the owners of Halpine View in Rockville off Veirs Mill Road stated that demand for their affordable apartments was declining, and that they had a substantial number of vacancies.

Beggars cannot be choosers, as they say. A modest, older apartment at Halpine View or the Ambassador would beat being homeless any day of the week. There should not be vacancies at Halpine View, and it should not have been possible to find vacant homes for 162 families before closing the Ambassador. Dogged apartment hunters would surely have found these affordable gems in their desperate housing searches. What is going on here?

County residents are being told we must now throw traditional, common-sense zoning rules out the window to address a housing "crisis," a move that will destroy existing single-family home neighborhoods. It appears further study of just what is going on here is clearly needed before making such irresponsible planning and fiscal decisions, especially with the County facing a structural budget deficit every year as far out at the forecasts go. More transparency is also needed. How many vacant affordable apartments are there countywide as of today? Taxpayers and homeowners deserve to know before accepting the new onerous costs, and reduced quality of life, that would come with adding multifamily urban housing within residential SFH neighborhoods.

Work begins at BurgerFi in Rockville

Construction has begun at the future BurgerFi restaurant at Pike & Rose. The large "coming soon" signage was moved aside to allow access to the construction entrance when I went by this week. I had not seen any activity there previously.

Mayor and Council to discuss adequate public facilities standards December 17

It's deja vu all over again, as developers who successfully weakened adequate public facilities standards in Rockville only three years ago return for yet another bite at the apple. This time, there is a mysterious pressure to further reduce adequate public facilities standards to allow more development near the Rockville and Twinbrook Metro stations.

The Mayor and Council have scheduled a discussion on the topic for their December 17, 2018 meeting, which begins at 7:00 PM. Will the standards be weakened again? That answer could turn on whether or not a public hearing and vote on the matter can be taken before January 8, the day that Councilmember Julie Palakovich Carr is expected to resign from the City Council to take office as a state delegate from District 17.

A process to replace Palakovich Carr will be discussed at the Mayor & Council's December 10 meeting. Palakovich Carr would provide the deciding third vote to weaken the standards; once she is off the Council, the pro-development Team Rockville faction would no longer be assured of a 3-vote majority. The new councilmember would be the deciding vote, and we don't know the position of that yet-unknown person on APFS matters.

Any change would be a contentious one - a majority of citizens opposed the 2015 change to align Rockville's school capacity standards with Montgomery County's. That opposition never weakened; the issue was only decided in favor of the developers because Team Rockville held a 3-vote majority on the Council.

If any proposed change fails to pass by early 2019, it could become the key issue in next year's City elections. One of the problems in arguing for the change is that proponents promised the 2015 change that allowed several developers to move projects forward would solve school overcrowding in Rockville. With a development moratorium looming as soon as 2020, that was clearly proven to be a false promise.

Assault at Twinbrook Safeway

Montgomery County police detectives have released photos of a man they accuse of shoplifting and assault of an employee at the Twinbrook Safeway store, located at 1800 Rockville Pike, on October 17 around 1:00 PM. Detectives say the suspect stuffed merchandise from the Safeway's shelves into a bookbag, and then attempted to walk out of the store without paying for any of it.

Confronted by a "loss prevention employee" as he left, the suspect allegedly then pulled a knife out of his back pocket, and pointed it at the chest of the employee. The suspect was able to then flee the store, and was last seen boarding a Metro train at the Twinbrook Metro station nearby.

Anyone with information about this theft and first-degree assault and/or the suspect involved is asked to call the 1st District Investigative Section at 240-773-6084.  Those who wish to remain anonymous may call Crime Solvers of Montgomery County toll-free at 1-866-411-TIPS (8477). Crime Solvers will pay a cash reward of up to $10,000 for information provided to them that leads to an arrest in this case.

The alleged thief making his getaway
at the Twinbrook Metro station

Rockville Historic District Commission to hold emergency meeting December 6

The Historic District Commission has scheduled an emergency meeting for this Thursday, December 6, 2018 at 7:00 PM at City Hall. Commissioners will review an emergency application from the Mayor & Council that seeks to permit the demolition of an underground concrete structure at the Rockville Civic Center. The structure is not yet identified in the meeting agenda, but is stated to be blocking the construction of an already-approved retaining wall at the center.

Dr. Bear making house calls at Congressional Plaza this holiday season

The doctor is in at Congressional Plaza in Rockville. Dr. Bear has appeared at the shopping center for the holiday season. When you make a donation to Children's Hospital, Dr. Bear lights up, filling passersby with holiday cheer. Text LIGHT25 to 50555 (see photo below to double-check) to donate $10 to Children's Hospital, and light up Dr. Bear.

5.11 tactical gear store opening in Rockville

5.11, a tactical gear retail store aimed at law enforcement professionals and preppers - but now expanding into the outdoor and fitness retail markets, is opening soon at 12212 Rockville Pike. The store will be located next to Men's Wearhouse.

Parent company 5.11 Tactical began as a pants supplier to the FBI training program in 1992. That evolved into a larger retail line of products marketed to the law enforcement community. 5.11 is now broadening its reach into bricks-and-mortar sales with 11 new stores opening nationwide, including this one in Rockville.

Given that another soft-on-crime Montgomery County Council was just elected, despite surging violent crime, 5.11's motto of "Always be ready" may be a timely and appealing one to County residents.

Pour Vino n' Hops opens in Rockville

Pour Vino n' Hops is now open at 42 Maryland Avenue, in the ground floor of the Upton apartments in Rockville Town Center. Try and buy hundreds of hand-selected fine wines from here and around the world, and choose from a selection of local and imported craft beers. They also offer charcuterie and cheese pairings for your selections.

Escapology to open escape room in Rockville

Escape rooms are continuing to pop up around Montgomery County, but Escapology will be the first to open at a new, "town center" development. Pike & Rose will be the first such development to lease to an escape room in the County. Escapology will be located on Old Georgetown Road, next to the NAVA Health & Vitality Center.

Escapology's escape room games will host up to eight players at once. The first game being offered at the Pike & Rose location is Antidote. Set in 2015 in the Nevada desert, the game challenges you and your teammates to find the antidote to a biological weapon virus that has infected everyone inside a secret facility - after a clumsy member of your team accidentally releases it. Locked inside the contaminated facility, you must locate the antidote and escape before the facility self-destructs.

Photos courtesy Escapology

Derwood hit-and-run victim dies

Montgomery County police announced that one of the victims of a suspected hit-and-run collision in Derwood on November 18 has died. Oscar Eduardo Rivas-Macal, 23, of Gaithersburg was thrown from the 2006 Chevrolet Cobalt in which he had been a passenger that night. The car left the roadway and rolled over on an embankment off Muncaster Road. Rivas-Macal died Friday at a local hospital, police revealed over the weekend.

The driver of the Cobalt remains in stable condition. Police are still looking for a dark-colored Ford Mustang, which they believe may have been involved in the accident. However, detectives have released no tag number, model year(s) or other identifying information about the Mustang, making this a needle-in-a-haystack search covering cars from the 1964 to the 2019 model year.

Anyone with information about this accident is asked to call the Collision Reconstruction Unit at 240-773-6620.

GSK Biopharm seeking "best and brightest" for its Rockville expansion

Rockville pharmaceutical manufacturer GSK Biopharm is recruiting new employees for its expanded facility. The firm held an informational reception for potential employees at True Respite Brewery last week. Biotech is one of the few bright spots in an otherwise-moribund Montgomery County economy, and GSK is in the process of a $139 million expansion.

“Working at GSK Rockville has been an extremely rewarding experience for me," GSK Supply Chain Logistics Specialist Andrew Buscemi told BioBuzz, an online publication about the regional biotech industry. "The work we do here is very engaging and truly makes a difference in people’s lives,” said Buscemi, "The opportunity to provide life-changing medicines to people is further enhanced by the people and positive culture here at Rockville.  Site leaders are very purposeful in cultivating a sustainable work-life integration, which is one reason I hope to stay with GSK for a long time to come.”

Prospective employees can fill out a Recruitment Survey form online.

Rockville Town Square Christmas decorations (Photos)

The Christmas tree was lit last Friday at Rockville Town Square. Here are some photos of that, and other holiday lights around the development.

Rockville Pike Craft Beer & Wine opens (Photos)

Rockville Pike Craft Beer & Wine has opened at 1800-D Rockville Pike, in the ground floor of The Galvan apartments near the Twinbrook Metro station. The interior looks modern and sleek, and they have a nice bar and tasting area in the front part of the store. Certainly a much-appreciated addition for residents of the building.

Pho 95 reopens in Rockville (Menu+Photos)

Pho 95 has reopened under new management after a renovation of the restaurant, which is located in the Ritchie Center on Rockville Pike. The menu looks good. Pho 95 is next to the new Japong Bakery in the shopping center.

Montgomery County embezzlement covered up until after Election Day

Officials were told

$6.7 million stolen in

April 2017 by IRS;

plea deal was in works

long before Election Day

Montgomery County elected officials withheld the fact that a County employee had embezzled nearly $7 million in taxpayer funds until after Election Day on November 6. The case and the cover-up again prove that the local media, including the Washington Post, are not actively investigating corruption in County government. And that there's no low our elected officials won't stoop to in protecting themselves and their allies in the Montgomery County political cartel.

Media reports show little questioning of officials in all three branches of Montgomery County government, two of which - the Executive and County Council - had direct oversight of Byung Ill "Peter" Bang, who allegedly embezzled over $6.7 million while serving as chief operating officer of the Department of Economic Development.

The press apparently believes it is credible to assert that neither the Executive branch nor the Council noticed $7 million unaccounted for, over a seven year period. To show how obsequious the press is toward Montgomery County officials, the same Washington Post that sent three reporters to Tallahassee to investigate Andrew Gillum's developer scandal and Judge Roy Moore's prowling of local malls in Alabama, supposedly never caught one sniff of the Bang case brought to County Executive Ike Leggett's attention by the IRS in April of 2017?

Unreal.

According to Leggett himself, entire new divisions and units were created in the Executive branch, a new contractor was procured and funded (by the Council, which must make all such disbursements), and every single manager in County government was specially retrained - all since April 2017. Yet none of these transactions were noticed, and not a single employee leaked the story to the Post or any other media outlet?

Please.

Consider how bad the story makes reporter and Democrat County Council uber-fan Jennifer Barrios of the Post and others look. Journalism 101 would suggest a quick review of campaign finance and judicial records for the suspect. Yet no story I could find about the Bang scandal mentions two cases easily found in Maryland court records - a foreclosure of a Gaithersburg property owned by a Byung Ill Bang in 2007, and a tax lien judgement entered against a Byung Ill Bang less than three months ago in Montgomery County Circuit Court, for failure to pay state taxes. Both closed cases should be highly relevant to a financial fraud news story, wouldn't you agree?

Montgomery County elected officials failed to notice incredible sums of missing money, clearly indicating that - unless they were in on the action - they never audited Mr. Bang's department over the entire last decade. Remember when a nonprofit politically-connected to the Council "lost" hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer funds it couldn't account for a decade ago? The press not only didn't "follow the money," but stopped asking about the missing money altogether. Voters who just wanted 9 Democrats on the County Council - literally no matter what - went ahead and reelected the same old crooks again - hey, what's a few hundred thousand dollars, right?

There's a price to be paid for such ignorance - $6.7 million, in this latest instance alone. That's how much taxpayers are out thanks to corrupt and inept elected officials, "journalists" who are in the tank for the local political cartel, and the low-information lemmings who make up a sizable chunk of the Montgomery County electorate.

It's beyond credibility to suggest that the timing of Mr. Bang's dual court appearances Friday - not only a week after Election Day, but the traditional day when anyone who has bad news releases it to get lost on the weekend - was not politically-coordinated at all levels to protect Montgomery County Democrat elected officials. The same officials who facilitated and enabled Bang to allegedly pull off a $7 million heist in the first place.

It's outrageous.