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Council questions Leggett’s music deal
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WASHINGTON (Map, News) - 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.
kmiller@dcexaminer.com
Comments from Examiner Readers
11:55 AM MST on Tue., Aug. 12, 2008 re: "40 percent of MontCo public safety retirees receive disability payments, report shows"
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Examiner Reader Steve said:
I guess workers in public employees unions don't get enough sweetheart deals from MoCo government. Apparently the all-Democratic council fears, or really likes the performance, of union officials and members. Union members persuade via boos and jeers at public hearings. Get a backbone guys and gals.
4 agree | 5 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Montgomery County must count obesity and Viagra use as a retirement disability.
4 agree | 2 disagree
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Robin Ficker Broker Robin Realty said:
Do 40% of retirees in your business retire on disabiity?
2 agree | 2 disagree
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Robin Ficker Broker Robin Realty said:
While Leggett know of this massive retirement disability fraud he proposed the largest property tax increase in 20 years. Next year he will proposed the largest property tax increase in 21 years. The county and doctors involved here are complicit. Doubtlessly some of these people were claiming early social security benefits while saying income was disability. The feds should look at this because the elected officials in Montgomery County have shown they are not concerned with governmenbt waste. Why is it that an unelected inspector general finds this and not the elected officials? The Council took the months of December and August as vacation instead of looking for waste like this. 3% of Fairfax retirees and 4% of Howard retirees take disability while 40% of Montgomery retirees do. Obviously there is rampant criminal fraud here.
7 agree | 3 disagree
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Robin Ficker Broker Robin Realty said:
I would think that speed cameras which have given well over 100,000 tickets in Montgomery County would have made free thousands of police man hours.
7 agree | 4 disagree
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Robin Ficker, Broker Robin Realty said:
If the county wants to serve the citizens they can abandon their plans for a great big property tax hike. The county budget was $3 billion in FY04 and is approaching $4.5 billion now while the population has increased less than 5% during this time. Why should the budget increase ten times as fast as the population during a time of low inflation?
41 agree | 36 disagree
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Robin Ficker, Broker Robin Realty said:
This is the kind of crony project that has usually sailed through in Montgomery County. The problem for the Leggett-Knapp tax increase team is that they want to seize our Pelosi rebate checks and give us a great big property tax increase to build projects like this. And we have had water bill, electricity bill and Metro fare increases and the largest tax increase in Maryland history.
46 agree | 45 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
The taxpayers funding the purchase of land from the *war company* GE smells rotten. Leggett tax schemes aren't coming from the citizens, so who is driving the county executive's agenda?
49 agree | 50 disagree
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Examiner Reader said:
Please save money. Don't do it. leggett administration spend too much money on worthless projects. Also, he gave too much raise for county employees. 7% raise is much, much higher than federal government employees. Cut property tax, and reduce unnessary projects for county residents.
63 agree | 51 disagree
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Keith Annesley said:
I suspect all the hot air coming from Robin Ficker is the true source of our global warming problem. Robin, how much longer does the suspension of your license to practice law have to run? Suspended for negligence!
52 agree | 56 disagree
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Robin Ficker, Broker Robin Realty said:
The Dow is due to drop 500 points today. How can Leggett continue with a tax and spend government?
35 agree | 51 disagree
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Robin Ficker, Broker Robin Realty said:
We shall soon see how well county residents are listened to. The county's own recent "push" poll said that only 7% of residents wanted taxes raised raised. Watch Mr. Leggett and Mr. Knapp lead an effort to exceed the charter property tax limit. They will show the 93% of residents who don't want taxes increased a thing or two. SAVE OUR HOMES!
71 agree | 63 disagree
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Robin Ficker, Broker Robin Realty said:
We need to save the homes of Montgomery Countians. We cannot afford to exceed the county property tax revenue limit. Leggett's first year was centered around his call for tax increases. The 20% increase in the state sales tax, the 18% increase in the corporate tax, the 20% increase in the car tax and a huge increase in the state income tax, more than 50% of which will be paid by the 16% of Marylanders who live in Montgomery County. Now Leggett is pushing for a 15 cent a gallon increae in the gasoline tax and a property tax increase by violating the charter property tax revenue limit. He has no shame, decency, or spine to cut spending. He asks for 2% cut recommendations in a budget that increased 8.5%. That is still a 6.5% increase, twice the rate of inflation, not a 2% cut. While the county budget increased from $2 billion in FY 98 to $4.2 billion last year, where has the $2.2 billion gone? Gridlock, crime, and SAT scores are worse!We'll buy our gas in P.G., Va., and Fre
86 agree | 65 disagree
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