So you want to protect your neighborhood from overdevelopment? And you want strong schools and good jobs? Those are mutually compatible goals, right? Not in Montgomery County.
As we have seen in Parts One, Two and Three, two groups claim to be Montgomery County’s “real progressives.” The neighborhood progressives believe that the county’s problems stem from a voracious, corrupting and polluting development class. The new progressives believe that the county’s most serious problems are caused by a lack of equality of opportunity in education and jobs. These two groups disagree on their diagnosis of the county’s ills and their proposals for improvement. And that disagreement has boiled over into open conflict.
Some of these battles are small but reveal the larger struggle in the background. The Hillmead dispute pitting neighbors wanting to enlarge their park against affordable housing advocates is one example. Another is the conflict over whether to preserve the Falklands apartments or replace them with a larger housing project that has set the Montgomery County Civic Federation against Action in Montgomery. A disagreement between Just Up the Pike blogger Dan Reed and East County civic activist Stuart Rochester over the proper course of revitalization in Burtonsville erupted on Just Up the Pike a few months ago. Even the Purple Line dispute contains hints of this struggle, pitting people protecting their neighborhoods against people seeking to improve the quality of life for working-class commuters. There will be many more of these small but intense conflicts over the next few years.
More serious is a rupture between the unions and the civic federation. We covered the debate over whether to reduce the public employees’ FY 2009 cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) to close the county budget deficit extensively on this blog. Much of the support for the COLA cut came from tax-weary civic activists who had previously backed limits on development. Montgomery County Education Association board member Eric Luedtke cautioned the civics on this guest blog post: As a number of prominent members of the slow growth community have recently been calling for cuts to employee salaries, salaries which are sustainable in the current budget situation, a sense has developed among many public employees that the slow-growth community is anti-union. I personally don't believe this is true, as I know a number of leaders of the slow-growth movement who are passionately pro-union. But the debate in the recent Council District 4 election, statements circulating by e-mail from Civic Federation activists, and comments made by a number of slow-growth members of the council make that argument a difficult one to maintain…
Former Montgomery County Civic Federation President Wayne Goldstein did not heed Luedtke’s warning. After the FY 2009 budget debate was resolved without reducing the COLAs, Goldstein offered the following opinion:
I would argue that it's a bad idea on the merits to cut the salaries of those employees who teach this county's children, protect its citizens from crime and fire, maintain its roads, and staff its libraries. But leaving aside the merits of the arguments, the slow growth coalition in the county is courting disaster right now. And given that, 2010 looks to be a very different election year than 2006 was.In what could perhaps be described as the most complete abandonment of its budget responsibility in the 58 years that the Montgomery County Council has existed, Councilmembers voted unanimously last Friday to close much of the largest operating budget gap ever by balancing it on the backs of property owners. This Council did not require that even one cent be contributed by the county's unionized employees to help close the gap. Instead, these well-paid workers will receive generous wage and benefit increases equal to 8 to 10% of their current earnings…
These two sides are now significantly suspicious of each other: “the civics” vs. “the unions,” as if each was somehow monolithic. Nonsense. I, for example, am a career trade unionist who is also active in my civic association (which did not take a position on the COLAs). But no matter – we are led to believe that the two and their allies are now fundamentally opposed, each holding the only key to the palace of progressivism.
Despite the effort of 2 Councilmembers to stand their ground by insisting on a reduction in the union COLAs, in the end, they too abandoned any effort to say no to the unions. By initially saying no and then surrendering their high ground of shared sacrifice by joining in a so-called compromise, these Councilmembers look even weaker than if they had just given the unions what they demanded in the first place. There was much posturing by all of the Councilmembers last Friday as they tried to rationalize and even conceal their failure to set limits for the unions for the future. There was self-serving talk about honoring current contracts, either because it was a noble and just thing to do, or because Montgomery County has the best, hardest working employees of all, or because the Council had already accepted and paid for the first year of the current union contract last year.
There was wishful talking about the Council telling the unions ahead of time what they would accept for the next union contract. This was said as if such a statement could possibly constrain unions from relentlessly demanding ever-expanding wages and benefits in the secret negotiations of collective bargaining where the county negotiators are also unable to stand up to hardened union negotiators…
This Council has begun to vigorously dig a hole of fiscal irresponsibility. It needs to stop digging and to climb out of this hole while it still can. Otherwise, things will end up badly for all of us.
In the next round of county elections in 2010, neighborhood progressives and new progressives will come together around very different candidates. That will create demands on all the leaders, all the activists and even the bystanders to choose sides. Be a progressive or be with “the others.” There will be no middle ground.
One day, whites, blacks, Latinos, Asians and everyone else will live in rough economic and demographic parity. The county’s downtowns will be dense and walkable centers of culture, residence and industry. Sky-high gas prices will discourage auto use and spur the creation of a much more elaborate bus and rail network than we have today. And the battle over the ICC will recede into dim memory just as the conflict over the North Central Freeway has. But it is clear we will not get to this future without a fight.
Will the next generation of county leaders really be able to get past today’s conflicts? Maybe, maybe not, but one thing is certain. They will all be calling themselves progressives.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Who are the Real MoCo Progressives? Part Four
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
12 comments:
Adam
While I applaud your attempt to get a handle on the many and diverse groups all loudly voicing opinions in Montgomery County I proffer the theory that we all wear many hats. You do us all a disfavor by claiming that different philosophies fit neatly into your "type" boxes. In reality, most situations are neither as simplistic nor as stark as they seem. Often we live daily in an area with overlapping interests that may sometimes be in conflict.
While civics may work for historic preservation ie., the Falklands, others work for environmental concerns in watershed preservation. I as both the President of a civic association (GOCA) and the member of several environmental groups do not see a conflict here. I also am aware of the need for affordable housing and support AIM in their quest in this area. I do not believe that builders in the past should have been allowed to buy their way out of providing affordable units - a practice now wisely discontinued.
By labeling me a so-called neighborhood progressive you limit my sphere of interests; I perceive my type of progressive as both flexible, adaptable and at times free-wheeling. I grew up in a union family and both understand and support the need for unionization in our public arenas and elsewhere. I have worked in health care all my adult life and see a need for a single payer plan to ensure a fair and adequate option for all.
When I was on the campaign trail I heard the question asked - 'what do these immigrants want?" My answer was - "They want the same as every other resident of the County - They want the chance to live in a decent affordable house in a safe neighborhood where their children learn at a good school and they can find a job that pays them a livable wage."
My kind of progressive thinks that is the way it should be. I celebrate our diverse county and applaud the richness of our multi-cultural experiences. I also welcome all kinds of progressives into the big tent that is our county.
You make it sound like "progressive" is the buzzword that everyone wants to, and has to, make their own. Given that the alternatives would seem to be "reactionary" or "retrogressive", I suppose you're correct, but you're setting up a sort of dichotomy that's practically irrelevant, in the way that party politics in the US were each claiming to be "all American" and nobody was claiming to be "Communist" except for some genuine fringe elements. Still, the real dividing lines within "all American" were there, and in some cases were both deep and wide.
Thus I propose that the generic term "progressive" is a waste of typing or of breath. More appropriately one might label the factions within "progressivism" and give those labels primacy, though of course it's going to be essential to accurately define the labels and to apply appropriately-defined labels to groups that actually fit those labels. Otherwise it's all just gabble and double-speak.
Also, Montgomery County politics and people active in it frequently overlook the million-ton behemoth in the room, the Federal workforce that lives here.
In Wednesday's Gazette, one Jim Goff of Germantown writes a letter to the editor that may in fact be ironic surrealism, or surrealistic irony, or perhaps he's actually serious. He proposes that Montgomery County start acting as a "gatekeeper" and as best I can tell, he's actually blaming all of our traffic woes and overcrowded schools on the Federal workforce, and almost comes right out to demand that we consider banning Federal workers and delivery traffic from Montgomery roads.
He also proposes that many, if not all, of Montgomery's woes could be ameliorated if only the Federal government would stop concentrating its jobs in the District and environs. I'm not sure if he is even aware of the "BRAC" ("Base Realignments and Closures"), which are in fact responsive to a strategic and tactical necessity in a nuclear age of not putting all of your administrative eggs in one basket, combined with the understanding that a truly modern fighting force is much smaller and requires less physical facilities than the older, more manpower-based, armed forces.
Mr Goff seems to think that perhaps if only we moved all of those pesky NIH workers to Kansas, perhaps construction workers and even waitresses would be able to get to work on time without having to leave early to deal with the endless traffic jams caused by the Federal workers and their hangers-on.
Mr Goff might seem to be most typical of the sort of Montgomery resident, who often call themselves progressives but who are more rightly derided as selfish NIMBYs, that growl like jealous dogs when they see someone even glance at their chew-toy. There simply aren't a lot of jobs in MoCo that aren't inherently dependent on either the various Federal presences or their contracting money or spin-off resources. Why does he think that the big-money industries in MoCo tend to have the word "bio" or "gen" in their names? Does he even consider that the sprawling campus of the National Institutes of Health and its research resources might have something to do with all of the biotechnology firms that have sprung up just up the Rockville Pike? Aside from Federal work, or County work provisioning community services and support to the Federal workers (and their agencies' hangers-on), there isn't a lot of industry here in MoCo, unless maybe you're talking about Construction, most of which is as dependent on the Federals (and hangers on) as is the biotech industry. Let MoCo actually play "gatekeeper" to the District in any other way than being the first line of defense, and there won't be any need for any kind of construction here, other than bulldozing the vast acreages of vacant housing.
This is the sort of idea that I have tended to attribute to people who call themselves "progressives", instead of simply living a lifestyle that quietly enfolds and is informed by Progressivism. This guy seems to think that he has an actually novel idea that doesn't amount to pontificating without consideration of consequences. Or maybe he's being ironic. Maybe he doesn't quite understand that he proposal is far from new and in fact the present situation exists after all that could possibly be done, in terms of scattering the Federal enclave nationwide, has already been done and was mandated nearly two decades ago.
Yet this all falls within the bailiwick of the various kinds of "progressive" that Adam so ably categorizes. It's jealous-dog NIMBY versus broad-thinking people intending to serve the greater good. Both of these find themselves confronted by Organizations such as the Unions, or Monolithic Management Fronts, and all of these are collectivist-"progressives" and any of their actions tend to minimize the rights of the individual who, frankly, is barely allowed to exist in the Borg Hive Ship of Montgomery County. You will be Assimilated into your Civic Association and they still will do what they think best regardless of how much of their membership may declare that they loathe the stated intentions and declared direction of that leadership. Still, that might be better than the various single-issue groups like the "Shower Nuts" who don't seem to care how much people laugh at their jealous-dog growling and pathetic chihuahua teeth-baring so long as they get the chew-toy that is the object of their demented fixation. And the strange thing is that the shower-nuts types usually manage to get what they want. Whether the Powers-That-Be cave into the demands because they fear the power of angry poodles or because they're mortified in embarassment, it's difficult to tell. Or maybe it's just progressive to cave.
In my humble opinion, Real Progressivism would involve all of these people eventually working out a compromise that might turn out to satisfactory to all even if pleasing to none. As long as people are trying to put their foot down and declare that only they have the power of the right behind them -- or are merely just the ones with a winning level of power -- this isn't embedding permeative social justice into the very fabric of community life, public systems, and political dialogue. It's just more power-grabbing, even if they're singing Kum-Ba-Ya as they try to pick your pocket or run a trolley down your street.
Sharon, my intent is not to label you, but your statements during the last special election reflected one variety of progressive thought in the county. You emphasized the need for "prudent fiscal and moderate growth policies." Others emphasized economic growth, treating public employees fairly and ensuring equal opportunity for newer residents in the county. It's not that you disagree with the latter goals, but you certainly prioritized the former ones.
I realize that any attempt to categorize disparate views is imperfect, whether it's right vs. left, old vs. new or any other taxonomy. But there are lots of people with good intentions who totally disagree about what a "progressive" is. That debate belongs on the table, and with this series, it now most certainly is!
Sharon/Adam, you are both right.
I think for me personally, the problem and irritation is that there seem to be some civic activists that think they're "progressive" simply because they oppose development in their neighborhood -- but they have no connection to the broader movements. Sharon sounds like she's not in the camp, but I can't say that I've found that's true for others.
There are plenty of anti-development people who otherwise completely right-wing on social justice issues, immigration, foreign policy, environment, health care, etc.
Adam, I'm glad you're engaging in this dialogue not because it is divisive or will answer any particular questions, but merely because you're challenging the automatic assumption that in Montgomery the progressive axis ONLY revolves around the development/anti-development spectrum. I've always found that paradigm stifling and artificial.
The End Gridlock team elevated this framing and suffered for it in 06 -- but I don't think the civic fed community does MoCo any favors by artificially keeping it alive.
The question Adam raises that is perhaps the most intriguing is what does this mean for slating and alignments in 2010.
Adam,
I am going to agree with Sharon here and with the words of the anonymous "Lefty" in an earlier blog post on this matter: there are more than one type of progressive.
Yes, in the last special election we had two camps and they may have broken into two camps but the MoCo progressive you write about are not just two.
You claim "your side" as the one for economic growth -- hogwash. You and I were on different sides a year ago and yet we both concur that we need economic growth to sustain our county. Your comments highlight that only your view of economic growth is the one that counts. Not true.
The difference between the competing views of economic growth highlights the exact reason why you can't lump progressives into two different camps.
You have presented a very good piece. It is one of your better efforts and congrats on that, but you are doing as if it were a color by number exercise. It is not.
Case in point, I know environmentalists who supported Don and others who were just as passionate about Nancy. In the upcoming election who knows where they are going to be. That is what the upcoming special election so interesting.
Again I disagree with the premise but your post was clearly thought provoking.
Foolio,
Your final paragraph is spot on. The coalitions that worked in 2002 failed in 2006. Could the same hold true for the 2006 coalition in 2010? Could be.
Your comments could have just as easily been written by Teacher and activist, Eric Luedtke, and his comments while I may not agree completely have strong merit.
The county is different today than it was in 1999 and it will be change a decade out. Finding a way to build bridges where we can and offer honest differences where we disagree is a hallmark of MoCo that will lead us to progress. Is that progressive? Yes. Can we all agree on who and what is a progressive? No.
Still your comments are a very good read.
I started to write one of my patented long screeds, then I read the comments of Foolio, Kevin and Adam, and I realized that, for once, what I had to say could be summed up in just a few words:
Grab your guns and saddle up, boys and girls. The 2010 campaign has officially begun.
Excellent series, Adam, particularly of the immigrant experience, and thought-provoking commentary.
I agree with Sharon and Kevin, and would like to add about Sharon to bolster the larger point-of-view that this is a very complex picture. I know Sharon from her work on the Progressive Working Group, which is progressive in the broadest sense (and even there, if we don't have a constituent group tied to a specific issue, such as repeal of the death penalty, we will SEEM less than completely inclusive), and on the board of Mobile Med, which is narrow-casting but as progressive as you can get by any definition -- providing medical care to the uninsured.
So looking simply at her upcounty activities limits your view of her as a complete activist, let alone a complete person. This probably holds for many others as well.
Dana, Foolio, Sharon and Anonymous Lefty,
We agree on something -- so either we are part of the same side of 2 sided progressive coin or there are more than 2 sides to progressives. lol
Still an enjoyable series to read.
Kevin,
I believe Adam has done us a service, particularly, as Lefty has said, campaign 2010 has begun. These issues will be argued and debated and thrashed out over the coming 18 months.
Outside of Adam, I see almost zero substance and almost 100-percent raw blather in these responses.
Am I the only person here who's past his Twenties? If so, maybe I'll go wander elsewhere, sorry if I wandered into some kindergarten where the "young folks" feel it's necessary to ignore older people. That's okay; when you ignore us, we move on. When we ignore you, it lasts most of the rest of your life of going nowhere.
Either critique, condemn or congratulate, but if someone bothers to contribute, you really ought to comment.
Foolio always deserves remarks and responses. I find it astonishing that he can't seem to even admit to the discussion that there are people who were called "progressive" back in the 1970s because they demonstrated and were activist about Zero Population Growth and Earth Day and saving the planet and not paving the Chesapeake Bay or even its watershed. "Development" as an economic rationale for politics is, for those progressives, utterly secondary to considerations of "development" and an earth-crushing imposition of concrete because that's all that will house a population growing at a rate that's clearly insupportable much beyond the middle of the next decade.
And most of the other commentators here don't want to discuss that, either, it would seem. Why? It's reasonable to assume that it would force them to argue rationally, rather than fill up space by typing up fluff and posting it just to show that they dropped by.
Adam, you are again to be commended, because whether or not any given person disagrees with you or not, you definitely do your research and you actually bother to think of at least a few substantive topic-starters each and every day.
Mr. Hardman, my momma once told me that if I couldn't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.
I started to say what I thought of your view of the world a couple of times yesterday, but then thought better of it. My dear departed mother would be proud of me.
Post a Comment