Look Them in the Eye

And now we see their true colors. After frenzied lobbying by Director of Economic Development Steve Silverman, a majority of the County Council has caved in and supports a $4 million subsidy to finance a Costco at Westfield Wheaton. The Gazette has not named them, but we will: Nancy Floreen, George Leventhal, Mike Knapp, Duchy Trachtenberg and Roger Berliner. Here is what they have done.

First, let’s understand exactly what this is. The money is going to Westfield Wheaton – a profitable mall that received $6 million in county money just five years ago – to subsidize construction of a building that will house Costco and other retailers. Of the 475 jobs that will be subsidized, at least 200 will be employed by Dick’s Sporting Goods and other rock-bottom-paying companies. Costco employees will start at $11 per hour. These are the very jobs that other counties get for free, and that Best Buy created just outside Westfield Wheaton for free. Environmental standards governing the gas station that Costco will construct in the Sligo Creek watershed will be summarily discarded so that the project can be rushed through. All of this is motivated by the fact that county officials are fearful of losing Northrop Grumman to Virginia and want to have an election-year “victory” to show for themselves. We can’t attract the best of the best anymore but we can still buy ourselves a Costco!

The cost of this cannot be measured merely by the $4 million the county will give away to Westfield. You see, the Lords of Annapolis are watching us. The county has a story to tell them to save our tattered fiscal hide: we are allegedly poor. We are running half-billion dollar deficits forever, we will say. We will ask for waivers on the state’s Maintenance of Effort education spending requirement every single year because we are too poor to pay for our schools. But when we look Maryland Superintendent of Schools Nancy Grasmick in the eye to beg for relief, she will say, “You’re not poor. You can afford a $4 million subsidy for Westfield.”

We are also allegedly too poor to afford the costs of teacher pensions. Under the proposal drafted by our own Senate Delegation Chairman, our deficits will go up by tens of millions of dollars every year. But when we look the Lords of Annapolis in the eye to beg for relief, they will say, “You’re not poor. You can afford a $4 million subsidy for Westfield.”

Next year, when the General Assembly returns to pass a tax package that will inevitably hit the county hard, we will say that we cannot bear it. But when we look the Lords of Annapolis in the eye to beg for relief – again – they will say, “You’re not poor. You can afford a $4 million subsidy for Westfield.”

Here is a secret for our readers. The reason why the administration and many on the County Council cannot comprehend these facts is that the county officials and the statehouse delegation rarely talk to each other. A state Delegate is hardly more likely to get a phone call from a county elected official – even one who shares a common district – than he or she would from Barack Obama. That goes both ways. The last time the council and the delegation held a joint meeting, it was such a train wreck that many delegation members vowed to never participate in any such thing again. Rockville and Annapolis learn about each other the same way you do – by reading the Post, the Gazette and blogs. The county government has no idea how budget blowups like the $65,000 bathroom, the police helicopters, taxpayer-financed junkets for Council Members, multi-thousand dollar staff “retreats” at county parks and gold-plated body guards look in Annapolis. What should we expect Mike Miller to do when we whine about our supposed poverty while showering million-dollar giveaways on low-wage multinationals? How can we expect our state legislators to defend such actions?

But it gets even worse. Every Council Member who supports squandering $4 million on this subsidy will be shortly voting in favor of a devastating budget that will wreak havoc across the county. Council Members, when representatives of the poor and helpless come to ask that you refrain from gutting their services, look them in the eye and say, “No, the money is better spent on Westfield.” When the bus drivers and librarians come to ask that you spare them from furloughs and layoffs, look them in the eye and say, “No, the money is better spent on Westfield.” When parents come to ask that you not increase class size, look them in the eye and say, “No, the money is better spent on Westfield.”

And after the poor and the bus drivers and the librarians and the parents go away empty-handed while Westfield carries our money back to its headquarters in Australia, look your people in the eye and tell them why on Earth you deserve to be their Council Member.