Sleeping victim awakens to find laptop stolen in Rockville

Dozing off in public places can make you an easy target for criminals in Rockville, as we saw earlier this year when a sleeping diner had their smart watch stolen. This time, the victim was sleeping on a sidewalk in the 1600 block of Rockville Pike early in the morning on July 23, 2024. Sometime between 3:00 AM and 4:00 AM, Rockville City police say, someone stole the victim's laptop as they slept. If you have any information about this incident, or can identify a suspect in the case, you are asked to call police at 240-314-8900.

Aldi opens at Walnut Hill Shopping Center in Gaithersburg

Aldi is now open at 737 S. Frederick Avenue at the Walnut Hill Shopping Center in Gaithersburg. The grocery store is the new anchor tenant for the retail center, which has undergone major renovations to update the property. Aldi hopes to succeed where previous grocers like Weis Markets failed here, and will also have to compete with the new Amazon Fresh opening nearby on Shady Grove Road on August 8. Still to come at Walnut Hill is a Sheetz convenience store and mega gas station. 

Rockville police arrest suspect in July 20 stabbing of four

Rockville City police have arrested the suspect in the July 20, 2024 stabbing of four people near the intersection of Dawson Avenue and Upton Street. Ricky Lee Dyson Jr. of Rockville is now charged with four counts of 1st-degree assault, four counts of 2nd-degree assault, and four counts of reckless endangerment. The 1st-degree assaults are felonies; the rest of the charges are misdemeanors.

According to Maryland court records, Dyson is currently being held without bond. A preliminary hearing in the case has been scheduled for August 23, 2024 in District Court in Rockville. 

Records also indicate that Circuit Court Judge Eric Johnson reopened an existing 2021 drug conviction case, after ruling that the alleged assaults were a violation of Dyson's probation in that matter. Johnson issued a bench warrant for Dyson's arrest on July 25, and it was served today along with the warrants issued for the alleged stabbings.

Photo courtesy Rockville City Police Department

Self-storage unit broken into in Rockville

Montgomery County police are investigating a burglary incident at Extra Space Storage at 11850 Parklawn Drive in Rockville. Police are not sure when the burglary occurred, but the crime was discovered at noon on July 14, 2024. Officers responding to the scene found evidence of forced entry to one of the storage units at the facility. Unspecified property was stolen from inside the unit.

If you have any information about this incident, or can identify any suspects involved, you are asked to call police at (301) 279-8000.

Police respond to assault outside Rockville home

Rockville City police responded to a report of a 2nd-degree assault outside of a home in the Twinbrook area Sunday morning, July 28, 2024. The assault was reported in the driveway of a home in the 700 block of Gail Avenue at 10:54 AM Sunday. That is right off of Veirs Mill Road near First Street.

Montgomery County Council cuts Elrich out of picture on life science center launch

Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich joined WMATA General Manager and CEO Randy Clarke and elected officials at the North Bethesda Metro station yesterday to formally launch the search for a developer to build a Life Science Center at the transit stop. But you wouldn't know this from watching the Montgomery County Council's video on the press conference. Elrich's speech was completely omitted from the Council report, which included excerpts from comments by Clarke, Council President Andrew Friedson, and even U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen. The snub was particularly notable, as Elrich has been the main driver of the Life Science Center from its inception.

If it were up to the Council alone, the site adjacent to the Metro station would have been yet another residential housing development. Elrich was the rare County elected official to acknowledge that MoCo needs more high-wage jobs as much as it does new housing, when he proposed the biotech use for this site several years ago. Yet the Council attempted to take all the credit for itself in its Monday video, similar to Congresspeople who vote against infrastructure projects in their districts, only to later claim credit for them once they come to fruition.

The attempt to cut Elrich out of the launch announcement was only the latest cheap shot by the Council at the Executive. Some on the Council resorted to subterfuge and outright deception in their successful effort to deep-six Elrich's proposal to restore funding for the Office of the People's Counsel. Councilmembers are still pondering whether to create a competing ballot question for the one that will give voters the option to oust Elrich with a two-term limit in the November election. Perhaps they are weighing the possibility of opening the executive seat to one of the ambitious Councilmembers, versus reducing their own future executive terms by one. 

Virginia continues to crush Maryland in job creation

The economic development outlook remains bleak on this side of the Potomac River, as Virginia absolutely crushed Maryland in job creation last month. Just eight days after CNBC declared Virginia "America's Top State for Business," the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the state added 15,000 new jobs in June. That gave Virginia the third-highest job creation number out of all fifty states last month. By comparison, Maryland barely surpassed a third of that total, generating only 5,600 new jobs in June.

Maryland's unemployment rate rose to 2.8% in June, while Virginia's dropped to 2.7%. The biggest area of job growth in Maryland was in the government sector. In contrast, Virginia's largest job growth was in the private sector, in Professional and Business Services. While Maryland has only added 27,800 jobs total since January 1, Virginia was able to add more than half of that in the last month alone.

Montgomery County used to be a major engine of economic growth not only in Maryland, but in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region. It has now ceded that role to Northern Virginia, as MoCo increasingly becomes the bedroom community for workers who are employed elsewhere in the region. In fact, a new Bethesda-to-Tysons express bus has just been proposed to serve those workers commuting to Virginia in the morning. Tysons - and Northern Virginia as a whole - continue to add major corporate headquarters, while Montgomery County hasn't added a single one in over a quarter century.

It's that high-wage job growth that allowed Virginia’s general fund revenues to end fiscal year 2024 $1.2 billion over the official revenue forecast. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin cited "robust job growth" as the driver of that better-than-expected revenue.

In contrast, Montgomery County remains focused on the revenue-sapping activity of adding bedrooms, instead of boardrooms. Aside from presiding over a strong biotech sector that was created by wiser leaders years before they ever took office, MoCo's elected officials continue to put all of their economic development eggs into the residential housing construction basket.

Instead of building a new Potomac River crossing to Dulles International Airport, completing our master plan highway system, creating shovel-ready job sites, and focusing on attracting Fortune 500 companies and aerospace and defense firms to vacant office parks from Clarksburg to Bethesda to White Oak, our County Council is focused on building more luxury apartments and townhomes.

Montgomery County Council President Andrew Friedson told an audience of real estate developers hosted by Bisnow on July 18 that “[i]n Montgomery County, we’re really trying to change the narrative. We have to view housing as the economic infrastructure that we have to build communities.” That's definitely not the narrative guiding Northern Virginia, Texas, or California. We're in real trouble, folks.