MCPS super calling for end to walkouts after Trump supporter beaten in MoCo/MCPS-backed student protests

After strong initial support from Montgomery County officials for student protests this week, and the gang-style beating of a Richard Montgomery student at a Tuesday protest, Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Jack Smith is now calling for an end to the walkouts.

Yesterday's attack has "required us to rethink the situation" regarding student walkouts, MCPS Superintendent Jack Smith will tell students this morning in a video message. Smith will tell students who defy the order that they will face disciplinary action, a change from the "bring a note from Mommy" policy MCPS had just 24 hours ago. "I am asking and expecting all students to remain in school," Smith will say.

The Tuesday promise by the Montgomery County Council of "community safety" and "respect" for every resident of the jurisdiction apparently didn't apply to Donald Trump supporters. A 15-year-old Trump supporter was brutally beaten by as many as six students, eyewitnesses said, during an otherwise-peaceful protest by Richard Montgomery High School students yesterday in Rockville.

Wearing a Trump "Make America Great Again" cap, the boy was repeatedly punched, thrown to the ground, and then kicked multiple times by his attackers, according to WTOP, which quoted Rockville City Police Major Michael English as saying the students "jumped him and beat him up pretty bad." The student was transported by ambulance to a local hospital. Media accounts suggest he could have potentially-serious head injuries, describing him as "disoriented" and groggy following the beatdown.

According to the Rockville police, only one of the attackers has been identified, but is not in custody. They say the attack occurred in the 100 block of Maryland Avenue, the location of the County Council building where councilmembers declared peace and respect for all just 24 hours earlier. Police say the identified 17-year-old student will face second-degree assault charges.

To his credit, RM principal Damon Monteleone condemned the attack. Dan McHugh, VP of the Montgomery County Young Republicans, said he was "appalled" by the violence. "We condemn any act of violence, or hate crime of any kind, directed towards any candidate [an] individual supports," he said Tuesday.

Councilmember Hans Riemer
endorses student walkouts on
Facebook

The violent turn left councilmembers and MCPS officials in a bad spot, after they strongly endorsed the student walkouts earlier this week. Principals have facilitated the walkouts in most cases.

It's certainly a positive to have hundreds of students this engaged in the political arena - hopefully they'll register to vote, and governments will consider lowering the voting age to 16, as Takoma Park has. It's also ironic to have politicians who claim to be concerned about pedestrian safety egging kids on to walk into busy state highways during school hours.

County and MCPS officials could face legal consequences, should these students be injured during the hours we are paying exorbitant dollars to give them a free education. The parents of the beaten student certainly have grounds for a civil suit against MCPS in this case. Guess who would make the payouts in those lawsuits? You, the taxpayer.

It now appears Smith has come to the same realization.

Our other local officials seem to have missed yet another of the messages of the successful passage of term limits last week - residents are asking them to be the adults in the room on this, and so many other serious issues. Facing so many crises from our budget deficit to a failed transportation system to our moribund private sector economy, the last thing we need is Hans Riemer and George Leventhal trying to be the "cool dad."

Perhaps the most immoral crisis of all, is our worsening achievement gap at MCPS. One thing's for sure - that gap didn't get narrowed while students were walking around highways and malls this week.

Union reaches tentative agreement with Giant, likely avoiding strike

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 400 has reached a tentative collective bargaining agreement with Giant parent company Ahold, averting a strike if the agreement is approved by members at a meeting today. A marathon negotiating session that ran late Tuesday produced the breakthrough.

According to a UFCW Local 400 spokesperson, the deal will preclude takebacks Ahold had sought in the new contract. If successful, the agreement will avert a damaging holiday-season strike.

New name, new management for longtime Rockville gas station (Photos)

The sign says it all: "Under new management." So does the sign that disappeared. The longtime Exxon station at 200 N. Washington Street in Rockville has a new name, after decades under its original. Hickman's Exxon is now Town Center Exxon.

The switch in ownership actually happened over the summer, but the official rebranding is only happening now. That may be because original owner John Hickman passed away on October 17. I like the retro font on the "town center" signs.

The original J.C. Hickman
sign, from Google Maps

Same wall, now with
"Town Center Exxon"
sign

Wingstop opening Wednesday in Rockville (Photos)

Wingstop is planning to open this Wednesday, November 16, at 891-E Rockville Pike. The popular chicken wing chain has already had a location in Fallsgrove. This new location is in Wintergreen Plaza. As you can see, the interior looks ready to go here, including the Coca-Cola Freestyle machine.

Americana Centre seeking historic designation in Rockville

One of the most visible properties in Rockville could be one of the most protected, if the Historic District Commission and Mayor and Council approve. Americana Centre's Board of Directors has filed a request with the City seeking historic designation for the venerable condominium property.

Very much an icon of the "urban renewal" phase of the later-mid 20th century in Rockville town center, Americana Centre is now surrounded by a landscape of change, however slow its pace.

Carl M. Freeman and Associates was chosen by the City of Rockville to design the complex, which opened as a rental property in 1972. Quickly converting to condominium, the property was the first residential high-rise in the city. But the complex also includes many garden-style and townhome units, as well.

Folks with Delaware beach property may be familiar with another Freeman property, Sea Colony in Bethany Beach. The firm also has several other Americana-branded developments in the area, including one now known as Glenmont Forest. That garden apartment community is now in danger of demolition and redevelopment, thanks to our corrupt County Council's passage of a destructive Glenmont sector plan.

Americana Centre may be spared from such an ignominious fate - staff is recommending approval of historic designation for the property. The HDC will review the request at its November 17 meeting at City Hall, scheduled for 7:30 PM.

Meanwhile, the staff report is very much worth a read if you are interested in midcentury modern Rockville, including an extremely rare aerial photo of the Rockville Mall.

Staff report photo of
Rockville Mall

New Montgomery College parking garage expected to deliver by Spring 2017 semester

The new parking garage at the Montgomery College Rockville campus is expected to be completed and ready for vehicles in time for the Spring 2017 semester start in January, according to a spokesperson from the community college.

Photo by Marcus Rosano/Montgomery College

Term limits win big in MoCo as voters throw the bums out

Montgomery County voters delivered a powerful repudiation of the County Council at the ballot box yesterday, with a whopping 69% voting YES on Question B, in favor of term limits. At least four councilmembers, Roger Berliner, Marc Elrich, Nancy Floreen, and George Leventhal, will be barred from running again for their seats in 2018. Councilmembers Nancy Navarro, Hans Riemer, and Craig Rice will be able to run for a final term in 2018, but cannot run again in 2022. Navarro received a save from voters yesterday, who voted by 79% on Question C to allow her partial term in 2009 to not count as a full term.

The vote was a major victory for neighborhoods across Montgomery County, whom the Council had thumbed their nose at violently in the last year. In Damascus, where councilmembers supported an urban-style low-income apartment building in a part of the small town that already has a disproportionate amount of low-income housing and a high crime rate, term limits won 88% of the vote in early voting.

Councilmembers had also unanimously approved construction of bus depots at the Carver Education Center and WINX property on Westmore Avenue in Rockville, only to be hit by a tidal wave of blowback from residents who found out they'd be awakened by 400 blaring truck horns as early as 4:00 AM each morning.

Lyttonsville residents and business owners found themselves being pushed out by potential urban-style high-density development. And, perhaps most controversial of all, the Westbard sector plan found the Council voting unanimously in favor of urban-style growth in a Bethesda neighborhood nearly two miles from the closest Metro station - despite vehement opposition by over 90% of their Westbard-area constituents.

Most ironically, the Floreen-led Council boldly voted unanimously again yesterday to approve the Westbard sectional map amendment, that will make their high-density Westbard plan formally the new zoning across 44 acres of currently low-rise suburbia, just feet from single-family homes. At the same time, voters were ending the careers of four of them at voting booths around the county. How sweet it is.

A 69% vote against the County political machine was a rare primal scream from the normally staid, obedient and docile MoCo electorate. How did it happen?

Give civic activist Robin Ficker his due. The attorney worked tirelessly to collect far more than the number of required signatures, and debated opponents in numerous forums to promote Question B. For all of the criticism directed at Ficker, he has now scored some of the largest political victories in County history with the property tax cap and term limits. 

One may have led to the other. The 9% tax increase, which supposedly raised $90 million for public schools without a radically-new strategy to justify it, ended up being 10% or larger for many homeowners. At the same time, the Council voted themselves a massive raise while claiming we were cash poor, personally enriching themselves at taxpayer expense. Politicians in Bell, California went to jail for the same circumstances.

Aggrieved communities coming together was the other factor. Neighborhoods targeted at the same time by the Council for the bus depot ended up supporting each other, instead of trying to push the depot to the other's neck of the woods. Lyttonsville supported Westbard in testimony and numerous events.

And yesterday, the citizen group Keep Damascus Rural endorsed term limits. In its announcement, its leader, Seth Gottesman, wrote:

Why should we in the up county care? Because our leaders count on specific communities not being able to significantly impact an election result. If other communities stand by or are uninformed while this sort of leadership occurs to another because it doesn't impact them directly, it will come to us as well and the culture of rejecting the desires of the community will continue and that affects everyone. When our leaders are held accountable, the culture can start to change and that takes all of us from all communities. We have to support each other.

Powerful stuff. Ironically, it was through a Council agent's compulsive trolling on my blog that it accidentally became public that the Council was indeed calculating the number of votes they would lose if they supported the Westbard plan. And that they had concluded those votes alone were not enough to cost them the 2018 election.

How wrong they were.