Shark Week bigger than ever after Montgomery County loses Discovery

Shark Week 2019 merchandise

arrives in Montgomery County

Discovery Communications is pulling out all the stops for Shark Week 2019, which is scheduled to begin on July 28. A special line of Shark Week merchandise has just arrived in CVS Pharmacy stores in Montgomery County. The annual shark celebration was once a point of pride for the County, when Discovery's corporate headquarters was located in Silver Spring. This year's event will be the first Shark Week since Discovery fled moribund, anti-business Montgomery County for business-friendly Knoxville, Tennessee, and it's a painful reminder of one of the Montgomery County cartel's most humiliating defeats.

Among the great items you will find at CVS are a realistic Shark Week Deep Sea Diver playset, with everything kids need to recreate their favorite Shark Week scenes. The Shark Week Isle of Jaws Collectible Shark Set includes 10 sharks.  There are big Shark Week stuffed sharks hiding in the coral reefs, er, shelves of the display, including a hammerhead.

Pack official Shark Week beach towels for Ocean City, and try to forget a great white surfaced off the shore of Maryland last week. Or play it safe, and watch Shark Week at home on the couch with official Shark Week throws and blankets, including a Shark Week Leopard Shark blanket with "glow in the dark eyes."

Speaking of glowing in the dark, the old Discovery headquarters has become a massive monument to Montgomery moribundity in downtown Silver Spring. The tower looms high above, with the missing Discovery corporate logo giving a ghoulish, haunted vibe. I've captured here some of the final traces of Discovery still left at the building before they are removed.

The Montgomery County Council and expensive economic development entity should have recognized Discovery needed attention when the famous Chompie Shark Week mascot no longer appeared on the facade of the building during Shark Week. Instead, Tennessee actively courted Discovery, ultimately providing the winning site with low taxes, and a campus with direct interstate and airport access in Knoxville. Horrifyingly, we later learned that over the same weeks that Tennessee was sealing the deal in negotiations with Discovery, the Montgomery County Council was taking up all of its time debating whether or not to ban circus animals.

Heckuva job, Brownie!

Nighttime noise ahead for some in Rockville Town Center

The City of Rockville says sewer lines are failing in the vicinity of 1 Dawson Avenue, and 14 S. Adams Street in the Rockville Town Center area, according to a filing with Montgomery County. It has requested a nighttime noise waver to replace the sewer lines starting next week.

Nighttime work on the sewer lines is scheduled to begin on or about June 2, 2019, and will take about two weeks to complete. Work hours will be from 9:00 PM to 7:00 AM. Among those in closest proximity to the noise will be residents of Beall's Grant and the Metropolitan.

Beer & Wine Cellar grand opening Friday in Rockville

The newly-expanded Beer & Wine Cellar, at the back of Congressional Plaza at 146 Congressional Lane in Rockville, will celebrate its Grand Opening tomorrow, May 31, 2019 at 5:00 PM. They now offer fresh sandwiches, which you can enjoy with beer or wine on the premises. There will also now be outdoor seating for this summer season.

Darnestown's Windridge Winery tasting room on Planning Board agenda

Windridge Vineyards grapes growing
along Darnestown Road

Windridge Vineyards at 15700 Darnestown Road in Darnestown has proposed adding a winery tasting room to their property. That proposal is now coming before the Montgomery County Planning Board, at their June 6 meeting.

Map of proposed vehicle access point (in blue)
for the tasting room on Darnestown Road

The proposal includes a new road access point on Darnestown Road, at the Bellingham Drive intersection. Windridge would also provide a 10' multi-use path along the frontage of their property as part of the project. Planning staff is recommending approval of the tasting room. Windridge hopes to open the tasting room this summer.

Sisters: The Village Cafe targeting June opening at Cabin John Shopping Center

Sisters: The Village Cafe is now only weeks away from opening at the Cabin John Shopping Center at 11325 Seven Locks Road in Potomac. The Thai restaurant's manager says they are aiming for an opening in the second week of June.

You can see the outdoor patio is ready to go. Inside is a dessert bar serving Magnolia bakery items, with a retro movie theater marquee. Sisters is right next to Shake Shack, and is from the owners of the Sisters restaurants in Fairfax County.

Female entrepreneurs spotlighted at Rockville Town Square pop-up shop

Several woman-owned local businesses are participating in a temporary pop-up shop spotlighting female entrepreneurs at Rockville Town Square. Arcay Chocolates, Aroma by Anette, Durango Dog Company, and Saints Valley will be selling their products at a vacant storefront next to Sushi Damo on Maryland Avenue through May 26, 2019. The pop-up is open Thursday-Sunday from 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM.

MoCo Council hikes property taxes, slouches toward bankruptcy in disaster budget

Property tax bills will rise for almost all Montgomery County residents in the coming year, after the Montgomery County Council approved a disastrous $5.8 billion FY-20 budget Thursday. The vote virtually ensures future tax hikes will be necessary, as the Council also went on a spending spree despite starting off with a $208 million shortfall. Increases in spending on Montgomery County Public Schools, already proven to have no impact on student performance despite record-large MCPS budgets this decade, will be a major cause of tax hikes down the road. Once the MCPS budget is raised, state law requires the Council to maintain that level of spending going forward.

The fact that the Council had no qualms about spending even more than MCPS asked for despite that binding maintenance-of-effort state law raises questions of the councilmembers' fitness for office. Councilmembers approved the massive spending on MCPS while knowing that there are only two uncertain sources to pay the additional $16 million, and one of those is a one-time $5 million possible payment from the state for upgrading the County's long-failing 911 system. The other $11 million? LOL - they'll figure it out. And thanks to the law, we now have to give MCPS - the system that has declined in performance even as spending on it has surged - that amount every single year going forward. We already are in the red every single year as far out as the forecasts go as it is. Heckuva job, Brownie!

"The annual [property tax] bill for the average homeowner will increase," the Council's press release on the budget vote acknowledges - while not admitting the real-world dollar value of that increase, which is far more than the "average" cost cited often by the County. That tax hike comes after the Council and County Executive Marc Elrich promised voters they would not raise taxes. 

Bloated and filled with loot for the Montgomery County cartel, the budget maintains the corrupt Council's MO of "managing the decline," and continuing our slow slouch towards Gomorrah. The Council has failed to take a single action on our economic development crisis since taking office last December, forgoing for another year any sensible attempt to increase our revenue from commercial development or attracting major corporate headquarters - something Montgomery County hasn't been able to do for over twenty years. Instead, the County has sunk to rock bottom by every economic development benchmark, even behind tiny counties like Culpeper and Rappahannock. It's humiliating.

Considering the Council has raised property taxes every year except 2014, imagine what will happen when the national economy goes into a recession. We are now in the weakest position ever to confront such an economic challenge. Given the County's massive debt, the much-touted AAA bond rating will be in jeopardy as soon as bad times hit, and we are due for a bust cycle any month now. Remember: we have to maintain this level of MCPS spending and county employee pay hikes every year no matter how bad the revenue picture gets.

With that in mind, it's obvious that while our leaders may be tools, they aren't exactly the sharpest tools in the drawer. But that's the caliber of leadership you end up with when most voters don't bother to research the candidates before voting, and simply go by the party affiliation after the name. We can't go on like this.