Victim assaulted on street in Rockville

Rockville City police are investigating a 2nd-degree assault that was reported in the Rockville Town Center area yesterday afternoon, December 27, 2022. The assault was reported in the 300 block of Hungerfprd Drive at 3:00 PM Tuesday.

Construction of RASA Indian restaurant begins in Rockville

Construction is underway at the future location of RASA at 12033 Rockville Pike, in the Montrose Crossing shopping center. This will be the fifth location of the local Indian restaurant chain in the Washington, D.C. region. It replaces Slapfish, which closed in November. Signage for RASA has been installed above the storefront, and you can see that the Slapfish interior has been gutted to make way for the new interior fit-out.

Rockville office building could be replaced by townhomes

A vacant office building at 2115 E. Jefferson Street in Rockville could be demolished and replaced by a townhome development, if the Montgomery County Planning Board approves. Missing Middle Jefferson, LLC, is seeking to build 93 townhouses on the site, stating it has had no luck finding new tenants for the building due to the poor office market and high office vacancy rates of the county. The townhome community will not provide any additional affordable housing beyond the 15% required by Montgomery County. It will provide much more than the required open space, however, with 19.65% green space rather than the 5% minimum. The Planning Board will review the proposal at its January 5, 2023 meeting; planning staff are recommending approval of the project.

Proposed site plan for the new
townhome community

Car stolen from parking lot in Rockville

Rockville police are investigating the theft of a vehicle from a parking lot Friday morning, December 23, 2022. The vehicle was reported stolen from a commercial parking lot in the 800 block of Rockville Pike at 9:30 AM.

Assault at Montgomery Mall in Bethesda leaves female victim with minor injuries

Montgomery County police were called to Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda on Thursday, December 22, 2022, after a 2nd-degree assault was reported there. The assault was reported at 6:00 PM. @MoCoPGNews reported on Twitter that there was a fight outside of CAVA, which was broken up by Montgomery County police officers who were already at the mall. 

One female victim suffered minor injuries. Officers then searched the mall for the suspect(s) involved. This was the 12th 2nd-degree assault reported at the mall since May 18, and the first since October 18.

Frosty Siberian winds lead to falling trees, power outages across Montgomery County and D.C. area

Darkened apartments along
Georgia Avenue near Wheaton Friday night

It's been a "wild and wooly" day across the Washington, D.C. region and much of the nation, to use the words of the telephone meteorologist of old. Gusty winds that have blown from Siberia and down through Canada joined with a bomb cyclone winter weather event to start Friday with a blast of ice. The winds have stuck around through the evening, leading to many falling limbs and trees, and the resulting power outages.

There are currently 8,459 Pepco customers without power in the D.C. Metro area. Outages are widespread over the entire map of Montgomery County. The most concentrated outages are in the Silver Spring, Wheaton, Calverton, Gaithersburg and Germantown areas. In Rockville, there are significant outages in the King Farm, Twinbrook, West End and College Gardens neighborhoods. Bethesda residents are in the dark in a couple of spots along the Bradley Boulevard corridor, and in Westgate near the D.C. line. Over the border, there are outages in the Palisades and Wesley Heights in Northwest Washington.

The current temperature is 11 degrees. Winds are gusting at 18 MPH, and a wind chill advisory is in effect until 10:00 AM Saturday morning. Be sure to fully cover up if you have to go outside to avoid frostbite. Remember that dark intersections during power outages are to be treated as a four-way stop - but proceed with caution, as many drivers ignore this and will steam through the intersection anyway, or rear-end you if you conscientiously try to stop as the law requires. The best advice is to stay off the roads if you can.

Van Hollen secures funding for NIST, NIH in U.S. Senate omnibus spending package

A massive $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill for FY-2023 passed by the United States Senate yesterday will include substantial funding for two major federal employers in Montgomery County, the National Institutes of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg and the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen pressed for those and other Maryland priorities in the controversial and complicated negotiations and agreement. The deal found some Republican senators joining with the Democratic majority in an attempt to lock in spending before the GOP gains control of the House of Representatives in January.

The Senate deal includes $48 billion for NIH, and $1.7 billion for NIST. It also includes renovation funds for a failing bridge over the Baltimore-Washington Parkway to Goddard Flight Center. Van Hollen and other Democrats lamented they could not get other priorities filled in the agreement, but considered the end run around potential GOP cuts in next year's session to be a success worth compromising for. "While I was deeply disappointed that Republicans refused to support a number of key priorities, it was vital that we pass a new government funding bill instead of kicking the can down the road," Van Hollen said in a statement late yesterday afternoon. "On balance, this package will meaningfully invest in the critical priorities of our state and nation.”

Senate Republicans who voted for the bill were Roy Blunt (Missouri), John Boozman (Arkansas), Shelley Capito (West Virginia), Susan Collins (Maine), John Cornyn (Texas), Tom Cotton (Arkansas), Lindsey Graham (South Carolina), Jim Inhofe (Oklahoma), Mitch McConnell (Kentucky), Jerry Moran (Kansas), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Rob Portman (Ohio), Mitt Romney (Utah), Mike Rounds (South Dakota), Richard Shelby (Alabama), John Thune (South Dakota), Roger Wicker (Mississippi) and Todd Young (Indiana). The majority of them have already publicly distanced themselves from President Donald Trump in varying degrees.