Montgomery Council members Tuesday raised questions about the deal written by County Executive Ike Leggett to bring live music to Silver Spring.
On Jan. 18, Leggett announced the county had a lease with California-based Live Nation, which operates the Fillmore and House of Blues music venues, for the site of the old J.C. Penney store on Colesville Road.
The deal also included $4 million in county and state funds to create a new music hall in the historic building.
Some council members complained Tuesday that the county should have issued a request for proposals, opening up the process for bids and competition from other interested parties before signing a letter of intent with Live Nation.
“I think it’s very hard to determine whether this is a good deal or a bad deal since we had no open bidding on this project,” Council Member Marc Elrich said. “I feel like we’re sort of boxed into a situation where we’ve gone so far down the road that there’s no way out and we have to accept this.”
Council members do not have the ability to negotiate or solicit contracts, but they could effectively kill the project by refusing to appropriate county funds for the venue.
Tim Firestine, Montgomery’s chief administrative officer, said the county is not required to solicit requests for proposals on economic development projects and that county leaders moved quickly to cement the deal after another plan fell through last summer.
Firestine said officials worried they could lose state funding if they didn’t find a substitute project.
In November, Bethesda resident and 9:30 club owner Seth Hurwitz offered his own proposal, but was turned down. County officials said Montgomery’s reputation would suffer if they considered his offer at that time, when they had a non-binding agreement with Live Nation on Sept. 27.
