Businesses 'Skip' Over Germantown, Upcounty Citizens Advisory Board Fears

Traffic woes and the need to lure businesses Upcounty dominated the discussion at the Upcounty Citizens Advisory Board’s meeting with Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett on Monday.

“We listened to what you had to say,” Leggett said during the meeting. “I’ve listened to much of what you had to say in the past, about how we can continue to make sure we’re responding to the challenges of Upcounty.”

 The Upcounty Citizens Advisory Board held its final meeting of the year at BlackRock Center for the Arts in Germantown. The board advises the county executive and county council on local issues and comments on the county’s budget and planning, particularly as they affect residents who live north of Shady Grove Road. The county executive appoints the board’s 20 members.

On Monday, the aim was to present the UCAB’s annual report to the county executive and honor out-going board members before the new term begins July 1. But it was also a chance for the board to voice concerns with Leggett and the other elected officials who attended the meeting. State Senator Nancy J. King, D-39th district, State Delegate James W. Gilcrist, D-17th district, Montgomery County Councilman Phil Andrews, D-3rd district, and representatives for Councilwoman Nancy Floreen and Councilman George Leventhal chimed in on Monday.

Most of the night’s discussion centered around talks of making Upcounty more business friendly. The board’s report to the county executive expressed concern that employers were “skipping over” Germantown in favor of Frederick, Md., because of the costs, time and regulatory rules involved in starting a business Upcounty were too cumbersome.

“There needs to be a more aggressive approach to economic development Upcounty,” said Marilyn Balcombe, president of the Gaithersburg-Germantown Chamber of commerce, in a phone interview Monday.

Leggett said traffic was a major deterrent to employers who want to settle in the D.C.-metro region. He gave as an example what happens after corporate executives land at Washington Dulles International Airport in Fairfax County, Va., — a county that has also lured companies away from Montgomery County.

“It takes them an hour and 16 minutes just to get to the Bethesda corridor,” Leggett said. “It’s a deterrent, especially to international businesses.”

Leggett said that instead of focusing on how to attract employers Upcounty, the focus should be redirected toward encouraging the expansion of existing businesses. “Let’s try to maintain what we already have because that’s going to be the source of our strength,” Leggett said.

Both the board and Leggett agreed that Upcounty’s economic destiny, for better or for worse, hinged on the uncertain fate of funding for a major state transportation initiative — the Corridor Communities Transit project, which would link Clarksburg to Shady Grove — and discussed whether a light-rail system or less-expensive bus system should be used on the CCT. King said that Upcounty’s legislators were in favor of light rail.

“I don’t care how much you dress it up,” King said during the meeting. “Marylanders aren’t going to ride a bus.”

There was some debate over whether a gas tax could help fund transportation projects — King, Leggett and Andrews said they favored imposing a gas tax if the money it generated could only be used for transportation projects.

The board’s out-going chair Joel Cockrell, of Damascus, said the board hadn’t picked a side on the issue, as to whether the CCT should operate via bus or light rail. Cockrell did note that the board differed with the county’s final budget decision to shrink staff from three to one at the Upcounty Regional Services Center, which is based in Germantown.

Monday was the last for many of the UCAB members.

Leggett honored Heinz Bachmann, a longtime advisory board member from Dickerson and the former first-chair Robert Owolabi of Boyds on Monday. Other out-going board members, Terramika Bellamy of Clarksburg and Bradley Davis of North Potomac, were not at the meeting.

As of July 1, Juan Cardenas of Gaithersburg will become the new chair; Matthew Leaken, who represents Germantown, will become the first vice-chair, replacing Owolabi; and Cherian Eapen of Clarksburg, will become the second vice-chair, filling Cardenas’s former seat.