Residents complain Leggett’s facilities plan created ‘civil war’

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett’s massive overhaul of county facilities has residents saying their communities are being pitted against each other as they fight to keep police and fire training grounds, and a school food warehouse out of their backyards.

“You’ve created a civil war within the county ... you’re taking that trash and dumping it in someone else’s backyard,” said Brian Benham at a meeting in Montgomery Village Wednesday night where county officials floated plans for moving those facilities to property in the community.

Benham was joined in his outrage by about 50 residents who hammered officials on their plans, calling into question the environmental impact of a proposed “burn building” where firefighters train in real-life flames, the noise from racetracks for high-speed chase training and the vermin that could come with the food distributed to the county’s schools.

In December, Leggett proposed shifting county facilities away from their current locations, opening the doors for long-planned residential development around the Shady Grove Metro station and further growth of Johns Hopkins University’s presence that surrounds the training academy in Rockville.

Leggett says the move will be cost neutral; the county will save by selling highly valuable property and building on less expensive land and through more efficient space use.

But the residents in the areas where those facilities are heading perceive the move as the county favoring growth in one area over the lives and happiness of people already living in others.

“Our quality of life and property value should not go down so another community can flourish,” said Terry O’Grady, a founder of the Mid-County Citizens Alliance.

Diane Schwartz Jones, an assistant chief administrative officer, countered, “We’re not looking to pit one community against another ... we have public facilities and they need to go places.”

Officials have said updating the 40-year-old training academy would cost $24 million and it would need more work in 10 years.

Each time the county has floated its plans to a community it has met stiff resistance.

Poolesville residents helped push back plans for moving the training facility there and Gaithersburg residents have yet to be convinced of accepting a liquor warehouse and police administrative offices. 

fklopott@dcexaminer.com

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