Marc Elrich—
Takoma Park's teacher-politician
heads for the county council...probably

by Ethan Goffman

A surprise ousting of established politicians occurred in September's Democratic primary. Among the new members of the Montgomery County Council--assuming the usual Democratic victories in the general election--will be Takoma Park's Marc Elrich, a fifth grade teacher at Rolling Terrace.

A politician who teaches elementary school teacher is a rare species, and Elrich will bring something distinctive to the County Council.   His concern with community, and worry over how rapid growth threatens it, builds on his 20 year service on the Takoma Park City Council, as well as his teaching experience.

Elrich's teaching career began sixteen years ago as something of an accident.   "I wanted to do something different and I was looking for something socially useful," he explains.   "I hadn't thought about teaching but I wound up in a long-term sub job.   And the job grew on me."

In the classroom, Elrich explains, "you have to be patient and you have to be perseverant because things never change as fast as you want them to.   You want kids to learn something tomorrow and they don't learn it necessarily tomorrow."

Elrich is a pragmatist with some unexpected views.   While teaching he discovered "something of a disconnect between theory and practice.   I'd say that some of the things that I was taught didn't work really well in the classroom, and some of what was considered old and conservative worked better."

Noticing that kids in small groups were talking and distracted, he changed.   Rather than reverting entirely to the old ways, however, Elrich formed his students into flexible rows, so that they could easily form into small groups, taking advantage of whatever method was best for a given situation.

Teaching has also widened Elrich's knowledge of community.   It has, he says, allowed him to "know the people in my neighborhood in a different way.   I was intimately involved with the kids in my neighborhood across a very wide socioeconomic spectrum and so there's an interaction and a glimpse of people's lives that you don't normally get when you run for election, knock on some doors."

Having glimpsed so many young lives, Elrich believes keenly in Takoma Park's rent control because he understands the difference it makes for people struggling to get by.   He explains that, "I've seen kids who, the hot meals they got were the hot meals they got in school, who literally in some cases didn't have food over a weekend."

The flexibility, patience and perseverance that he uses in teaching have served Elrich well in the political process.   He explains his success on the city council as operating from, "a kind of realization that between what you want and what you get there's the process of getting there.   And that other people have legitimate points of view and you have to figure out how you craft solutions that most people feel comfortable with."

Elrich further avoids simple ideological solutions.   Discussing county-wide issues, he exclaims about "slow growth" that, "I hate to use that word."   Rather, he says, "It's not slow or fast.   It's about whether you have the infrastructure, and that whatever growth you do have has to match the infrastructure."

He argues that Montgomery County lacks the transportation capacity to continue the pace of growth: "There's not a single road that you can build south of Rockville."   And the Purple Line, a proposed east-west transit link, lacks funding and faces entrenched local opposition.   "So you've got no roads you can build," says Elrich, "your entire mass transit planning is based on one east-west connection which is a fraction of what you need."

Elrich also sees a lack of other major infrastructure in Montgomery County, including enough schools, police, parks, "every single thing you can think of."   A key way to support growth, he believes, is "making developers pay for new infrastructure" needed to support their projects.

Elrich also believes in regional planning to shift growth.   "We haven't engaged in a discussion about what it would be like if we focused on job development in Prince Georges' County," he explains, "or what it would be like if more jobs and housing went into the district."

Not surprisingly, schools are one major element that Elrich focuses attention on.   "We're way behind on modernizations," he says.   He also believes that there are far too many portables, temporary structures useful for an upsurge in students.

It comes back to the schools, to local service.   For Takoma Park, Elrich explains that his presence on the county council "means having an elected official who understands municipal issues."   Since Takoma Park, as well Rockville and Gaithersberg, provide services such as policing also handled by the county, he believes that municipal areas are "subject to double taxation," that rebates from the county do not cover expenses.   For Elrich the problem amounts to one of process, that "right now people don't feel that it's fair to the city and we don't have any kind of negotiating procedure where we get to work out our differences."

Yet Elrich also says that, despite his deep ties with Takoma Park, his 26 years as a resident, he was elected serve the entire county.   "I didn't run as a Takoma Park politician," he explains.   "In some ways Takoma Park is less different from the rest of the county than is often imagined.   In reality our kids go to the same schools and face the same problems."   Elrich aspires to be a council member for all Montgomery County residents, transcending income and geography.

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