Process and reality: City and County ignore citizens

by Seth Grimes

A profusion of governments have jurisdiction over Takoma Park. How many of them actually look out for residents' interests? Several recent events suggest an answer, and it's not encouraging.

I started thinking about this question when the Washington Area Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) revealed plans for a townhouse development at the Takoma station site. Don't get me wrong: I support building "in-fill" housing close to public transportation oversuburban sprawl, and I think that these new residences could add vitality to our community.

But in this instance, Metro revealed their plan as fait accompli, choosing to ignore a commitment made decades ago not to develop the site. In deciding unilaterally, they neither asked citizens' views nor informed Takoma Park City officials, who learned about the plan only shortly before it was publicly revealed. And now we're in a fight over the shape of the development, rather than a discussion of whether it should exist in the first place, which would have been proper.

Metro is sponsored by Washington D.C. and surrounding counties; to them, the Takoma Park city government is negligible. But Montgomery County is one of Metro's governing parties. If county authorities knew about Metro's plans, they should have informed and consulted us. If they didn't know, they weren't doing their job. So our City government, despite its pretenses, is in the dark and impotent, the county is not looking after our interests, and there has been no accountability.

On to the next issue: the rebuilding of Takoma Park's fire station. Again, the decision process is not pretty, and neither is the likely outcome.

The fire station, once Takoma Park's, was long ago absorbed into the county's Fire and Rescue service. The existing building has structural problems, is too small for modern fire apparatus, and lacks modern facilities. Takoma Park officials including Mayor Kathy Porter interceded with the County five years ago to ensure that the station would remain in Takoma Park for which we are all grateful.

That victory was Pyrrhic, one of those "we have to destroy it to save it" deals. The new facility, while protecting lives and homes wouldif a county-city deal goes forwardmean sacrificing housing for parking and access. The deal would chip away at our diversity, one of our most valued assets. And there are alternatives.

I won't get into the pluses and minuses of various plans, and shockingly neither will the city or county. Both refuse to even try to create a site design with construction that would not destroy housing, even though such an approach would save hundreds of thousands of dollars in purchase and demolition costs. Many of us believe we can both rebuild and save housescontact me if you want to find out howbut the city and county would stay their course rather than pause to seriously study a Community Plan presented to them.

Expediency is surely the county's motive: dealing directly with residents would be messy. Instead they are deferring to the mayor's and city council's preferences. But Fire and Rescue is a county agency. The deferential county administration has not made a legitimate choice because the city has no legitimate standing in this process beyond the advocacy role city officials arrogated to themselves. Nonetheless, our county representatives have not publicly intervened despite repeated requests to them. Citizens, not Takoma Park officials, elected them directly, yet they will not act for us.

This process stinks, but the sad reality of officials' lack of openness and accountability seems entrenched.

Maybe we'll make progress through county council elections this fall and city elections next year. But we who are trying to protect our neighborhood's safety and character have no choice for now but to continue playing the hand we've been dealt. That means speaking out in public forums and private communications, and not waiting for the next two Novembers. City and county officials need to hear that we want better, more responsive representation, and the fire station issue is a great place to start.

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