Montgomery County is being hampered by its own achievements, with county leaders often having to make a strong case that Maryland’s most populous county actually has legitimate problems requiring state and federal money.
That was one of the messages hammered down by several key leaders, including newly elected County Executive Ike Leggett, during an annual breakfast held Monday in Bethesda to set legislative priorities for the upcoming session.
Leggett, in outlining his main goals for the county, said the perception statewide is that Montgomery County’s residents are “cheese-eating, white wine-drinking” rich snobs who don’t understand the plights of less-affluent areas. In reality, though, the county faces significant challenges with regard to transportation, growth management and education, which he said truly are “problems of success.”
“People want to live and work here,” he said. “And that means more demand for housing, more students in our schools, an increased demand for police and fire units to protect us.”
Leggett said that residents, through their votes last month, made it clear they do want growth, just of the controlled sort. He also stressed the need for state funds to prevent large-scale road projects that “look awfully good on paper” from remaining just that — on paper.
“Our county’s needs do not begin and end with the ICC,” he told the hundreds in attendance.
On that same note, elected officials from outside the county peppered their speeches with much talk about transportation. U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen, for one, advocated for the Corridor Cities Transitway, which is a 13.5-mile transit line between Shady Grove and Clarksburg, to ease traffic flow in the upper portion of Montgomery County.
“We’re united in getting funds for that while also protecting the Capital City Crescent Trail,” he said. “We can do both.”
Newly elected U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin stressed that Maryland’s senior senator, Barbara Mikulski, was recently appointed chairwoman of the highly influential Appropriations Committee, which should give Maryland a firm voice in the Senate. And his five committee assignments, he said, reflect major areas of importance for Montgomery County and the state as a whole: foreign relations, budget, environment and public works, small businesses and judiciary.
“Yes, we need to spend more money on education. Yes, we need to fully fund No Child Left behind. But in order to have the money, you have to change foreign policy,” he said.
Gov.-elect Martin O’Malley echoed many of the improvements voiced by the other officials, paying particular attention to the need for affordable higher education and to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.
