Pay and Go and the Special Election, Part Three

Pay and Go, a proposal to lift some of Montgomery County’s infrastructure requirements from developers, produced one of the biggest conflicts over development policy this county has ever seen. It played a big part in the 1998 County Council elections. And two District 4 special election candidates have a history with it: Delegate Ben Kramer (D-19) and former Montgomery County Civic Federation President Cary Lamari.

Kramer, the son of former County Executive Sid Kramer and a commercial property owner, had run unsuccessfully against Republican Nancy Dacek for the District 2 seat in 1994. In 1998, Kramer ran for an At-Large County Council seat. In a July 1998 debate sponsored by the Gazette and News Channel 8, Kramer said he favored the application of Pay and Go to commercial projects. According to the Gazette:

Kramer said the law is needed to help the county compete in the metropolitan area and in the region for businesses.

The Gazette labeled Kramer as belonging to the “pro-growth camp” in the At-Large race along with Steve Silverman, Mike Subin and 2006 Leggett campaign manager Fran Brenneman. Kramer finished seventh of eight At-Large candidates despite having “high-profile endorsements from County Executive Douglas M. Duncan and powerful public employee unions.” The Gazette reported:

“I don't have an answer [about what happened],” said a key Kramer supporter, Gino Renne, president of the Municipal and County Government Employees Organization.

Lamari was not a candidate for office – his first run for an At-Large seat would come in 2006. But he was a member of the Mid-County Advisory Board and called for a “complete reversal” of Pay and Go in December 1997. The Gazette said that Lamari was a “harsh public critic of Pay and Go since it was enacted, writing opinion pieces against it in local newspapers and leading rallies to try and have the policy overturned.”

In January 1999, Lamari quit the advisory board. The Gazette stated:

In his resignation letter to Duncan and the board, Lamari said he was departing prematurely because the board’s chairman, Henry Lee, told him that board members should not publicly express any position conflicting with Duncan's or adopted county policy.

“I truly have a moral conflict with this philosophy,” Lamari stated in the letter. “To me, silencing dissenting opinions is counter to the purpose of an Advisory Board. I fundamentally believe you are a good Executive for Montgomery County, but there are times when citizens will honestly, sincerely and legitimately have opinions that conflict with yours.”

Lamari also alleged that board chairman Lee told him that County Executive Doug Duncan had “concerns” with Lamari’s expression of his views. Bruce Romer, Duncan’s Chief Administrative Officer, appeared before a November 1998 Mid-County board meeting to offer advice to board members. Lamari recalled Romer “stated that being a member of a board limits our freedom to express concerns as individuals that may be different from county or executive policy. Mr. Romer spoke of a continuum, a sliding scale of control, from volunteerism to being an employee of the county.” Romer disagreed with Lamari’s account, saying the question of when a board member crosses the line should not be addressed.

Regardless of the circumstances of Lamari’s departure from the advisory board, he was clearly an active opponent of Pay and Go and on the opposite side of the issue from Ben Kramer. Lamari went on to become President of the Montgomery County Civic Federation and opposed the development liberalizations of the 2003 Annual Growth Policy. Kramer left electoral politics before returning to win a District 19 Delegate seat in 2006.

Growth activists are famous for their long memories and District 4 has lots of them. Are they willing to overlook Kramer’s support for Pay and Go and vote for him in the special election? Will they throw all their effort behind Lamari, who criticizes Pay and Go to this day? Or will they go their separate ways? And what will the slow-growth County Council Members and Ike Leggett do?

We’ll find out by April 21.

Read More...

Summary only...

Pay and Go and the Special Election, Part Two

The 1997 passage of Pay and Go, a proposal designed to free developers from some of the county’s infrastructure requirements for new projects, set off a firestorm in the 1998 County Council elections. Nowhere was the heat more intense than in District 5, where Takoma Park City Council Member Marc Elrich used the issue to bludgeon incumbent Pay and Go supporter Derick Berlage:

In District 5, Elrich says the county would grow just fine without Pay and Go, which is designed to speed the development process, requiring developers to pay for 25 percent of the cost on road projects needed to serve the development.

Berlage counters that high-tech companies have been choosing to move to Frederick County or Northern Virginia, and said Pay and Go is needed to help attract those companies to Montgomery County.

Elrich said the county shouldn’t try to look like Fairfax County. Instead, he says the county needs much higher impact fees. He suggested a development impact fee of $15,000 on new homes to pay for schools and roads. This presumably would be passed on to the homebuyer.

Elrich said the county has two problems with its growth policy: “It’s both letting growth go and letting growth go for free.”

Older neighborhoods, many of them included in District 5, end up subsidizing schools and roads to serve new developments in the upcounty, Elrich said.

“It really hurts the downcounty when you let somebody build cheap in the upcounty. It devalues the older neighborhoods,” he said.

Berlage says he has been a leader against sprawl, opposing master plans that encourage sprawl, such as one for Clarksburg, while encouraging more growth in areas served by mass transit. Berlage also cited his status as a leader against the Intercounty Connector.

Elrich calls Berlage a “total hypocrite,” saying he’s changed his tune on developer contributions. In 1990, Berlage didn't accept developer money. This time he is accepting some developer contributions, although they total less than a quarter of what he raised, according to spokeswoman Susan Madden. As of Aug. 10, he had raised $77,700.

Elrich said that if Berlage was doing a good job, he “should have plenty of money” without resorting to developer money.

Berlage said Silver Spring is no longer at war with the business community, and said Elrich is still using business as a “bogeyman.”

Elrich went further on his website, where he called Pay and Go “possibly the worst legislation in 50 years.”

In District 3, challenger Phil Andrews used Pay and Go to target incumbent William Hanna:

In District 3, Hanna said he regrets his vote for Pay and Go for residential development: “That was a mistake on my part. I admit it, and I corrected it.”

Hanna said commercial growth still needs a “kick-start” from Pay and Go, which Andrews disputes.

Andrews says that he, too, is for growth, but in areas that can support it -- near Metro stations and existing schools -- rather than allowing sprawl and building the new roads and schools that sprawl requires.

Andrews also accuses Hanna of being “beholden to developers” because Hanna accepts developer campaign contributions.

Hanna, a former Rockville mayor and city councilman, says it’s only natural that he gets contributions from developers because he favors development. Hanna has a vision of the county as a high-tech research and development campus, and said development is needed for that vision to come true.

“I resent the implication that somehow my vote can be bought, and that's what they are saying of course. But that's politics. You've got to have a thick skin, but you don't have to like it.”

And you thought 2006 was intense, hmmm?

In the meantime, Pay and Go was running into problems. Days after passage, County Council Member Neal Potter introduced amendments to eliminate residential projects from the program and raise fees for commercial projects. County Executive Doug Duncan proposed prohibiting developers from withdrawing projects approved under the old system and resubmitting them under the new regime. Pay and Go sponsor Gail Ewing responded:

“Doug Duncan, who wants nothing to do with us, is now one of us,” said Councilwoman Gail Ewing (D-At large) of Chevy Chase. “Doug Duncan has told every media outlet ... about the ‘bad guys’ over at the council who can’t make a decision. Now, lo and behold, Duncan is one of his own ‘bad guys.’ The Pay and Go decision was made weeks ago, but oh no, Doug opens it back up with his amendments.”

In May 1998, the County Council removed residential projects from Pay and Go but grandfathered in some projects that were filed before then. Park and Planning found that Pay and Go only accounted for 1.3 million square feet of 11 million square feet of commercial construction approved in 1998. “It's not like the floodgates are open,” said Joe Davis, the acting director of the development review division.

The results of the 1998 elections sealed the fate of Pay and Go. Program sponsor Gail Ewing, an At-Large County Council Member, retired and was succeeded by fellow supporter Steve Silverman. Program opponent Neal Potter also retired and was succeed by fellow opponent Blair Ewing. Derick Berlage defeated Marc Elrich by a 7,765-6,275 margin in District 5. But challenger Phil Andrews ousted William Hanna in District 3 by a 6,195-4,030 margin, shifting the balance of power. The County Council voted to end Pay and Go by a 5-4 vote in October 1999, with Andrews, Blair Ewing, Marilyn Praisner (District 4), Betty Ann Krahnke (District 1) and Nancy Dacek (District 2) voting for repeal and Berlage, Silverman, Ike Leggett (At-Large) and Mike Subin (At-Large) voting to keep it.

What does the above story have to do with the District 4 special election? Two of today’s candidates, Delegate Ben Kramer (D-19) and former Montgomery County Civic Federation President Cary Lamari, took positions on Pay and Go during the debate. We’ll find out what they were in Part Three.

Read More...

Summary only...

Pay and Go and the Special Election, Part One

For all the discussion of developer contributions a year ago, none of the four District 4 candidates last time had any record on the development issue. This year, two of them do. But to find out what those records are, we had to go back over a decade to one of Montgomery County’s most hard-fought development battles: the legendary throwdown over Pay and Go.

Prior to 1997, Montgomery County’s famously complicated development policy included two elements that were despised by developers. First, if a project caused traffic to exceed county congestion standards, the developer would have to either bear the entire infrastructure improvement cost or wait for the county to build it. Second, some areas were subject to outright moratoriums. At the time, residential development moratoriums applied to Aspen Hill, Clarksburg, Damascus, Fairland-White Oak, Montgomery Village-Airpark and North Potomac. Commercial moratoriums applied to Clarksburg, Derwood, Fairland-White Oak and Montgomery Village-Airpark.

Some in the county believed these rules held back employment and population growth and created a competitive disadvantage against Fairfax. In May 1997, At-Large County Council Member Gail Ewing introduced Pay and Go, a plan supported by the Suburban Maryland Building Industry Association that was intended to provide an alternative development process. Under Pay and Go, developers would no longer be required to bear the entire cost of infrastructure improvements necessitated by their projects, but could merely pay a fee to the county. The county would then be responsible for building new capacity. The fee system would apply inside areas subject to moratoriums, effectively ending them. The Gazette laid out the fees in the plan:

Under the Pay and Go plan, developers would pay $2.50 per square foot for commercial space and $3.50 per square foot in areas where development has been halted. They also would pay $1,500 for a multifamily unit, $2,250 for a townhouse and $3,000 for a house -- but $2,500 for a multifamily unit, $3,500 for a townhouse and $4,500 for a house in areas where development is halted.

For months, debate raged over the plan. Supporters said it was necessary to jump-start the economy and would raise money for transportation projects. They claimed that Montgomery County had a reputation as “hostile to business” and that Pay and Go, as a four-year pilot, would be just one step in a different direction. Former County Executive and current County Council Member Neal Potter, an opponent, said this:

“We don’t need more jobs. I don’t know that we need more housing, that's questionable,” said Councilman Neal Potter (D-At large) of Chevy Chase. He added the council should ask itself, “Is this a help in building the infrastructure? [Or] is it just a proposal for building developments in basically undesirable areas?”

Opponents also pointed to a proposed development in South Germantown that required $17 million in infrastructure improvements under the current system. Under Pay and Go, the developer would be allowed to contribute just $4 million in fees.

The County Council passed Pay and Go in October by a 5-4 vote. Voting in favor were Gail Ewing (At-Large), Ike Leggett (At-Large), Mike Subin (At-Large), Derick Berlage (District 5) and William Hanna (District 3). Voting against were Neal Potter (At-Large), Marilyn Praisner (District 4), Betty Ann Krahnke (District 1) and Nancy Dacek (District 2). Ironically, Republicans Krahnke and Dacek opposed a plan backed by the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce and a substantial portion of the county’s business community. Doug Duncan signed the bill the following month.

The Washington Post promptly proclaimed “Developers Win One in Montgomery” and Pay and Go became a big issue in the 1998 County Council elections. We’ll find out how big in Part Two.

Read More...

Summary only...