Scandal, Chevy Chase, MD Edition

No two scandals are alike.

Each scandal tells you something about the place it happens.  Take Chevy Chase, MD.  A write in candidate for a town council seat won against an incumbent, who was running unopposed.  No one, least of all the incumbent's supporters, saw it coming.  Now, the town is traumatized.

I know.  Pick your jaw up from the floor.  It's as bad as election night at Fox News in 2012.  So, what are the issues behind said trauma?   

1. In Chevy Chase it is hard to get a permit to cut a tree cut down.  You have to fill out a lot of paperwork and explain yourself.  And, then, you'll probably still get turned down.  

 (These people clearly DON'T know you're lawyer!) 

2.   If you cut down a tree without a permit, you can spend six months in jail. 

(Do you suppose Chevy Chase has its own stocks and whipping post?)

3.  The campaign for the write in candidate used social media to organize.  As one resident explained to the Washington Post "It wasn't a fair fight.  There were some people in the know through social media, and that’s a modern phenomenon."  

(Translation:  Don't this town's upstarts know the 21st century hasn't arrived yet in Chevy Chase?) 

 
4.  One resident can't eat on his deck.  The town's regulations for new building are so stringent he couldn't build the deck large enough to fit a table.  

(Can malnutrition be far behind?)

 


When you're done giving to the victims of Nepal, you might want to consider setting aside a little for those poor traumatized souls in Chevy Chase, MD. 

Purple Line Follies--Snarky but Revealing

Last Wednesday, Washington Post metro columnist Robert McCartney wrote an editorial in which he shared some unwelcome news with the Town of Chevy Chase---the Town is not, as was previously thought, the center of the universe.  

Ok, he didn't say that.  He was far more polite.  He suggested the town should stop spending its tax money on lobbying to have the Purple Line moved from its current route and instead work to lessen its impact.  The line's route has now been approved by federal, state, and local governments.  It isn't likely to move. 

Well, not surprisingly, the Town of Chevy Chase didn't like that.  No, it didn't.  Not one bit.

On Saturday, the Washington Post's editorial page gave its "Local Opinions" space to Jim Mich, a resident of the Town of Chevy Chase. Mich wrote in to say that McCartney was wrong--the Town is indeed the center of the universe.

Ok, Mich didn't say that either.  But he was miffed that McCartney had stereotyped the Town's residents as "a bunch of rich people who don't know what to do with our money."  He also suggested the state could learn something about "sticking to a budget" by watching how the Town manages its money.

When I got to that line in Mich's letter I thought to myself "Oh no he didn't!"  So, naturally, I kept reading.  And, what I found was revealing.

Mich stepped outside of the normal parameters of Purple Line critique (that it will put children in harm's way, cut down hundreds of trees, cost too much, and increase traffic) and said what this is really about--stopping development.   

As Mich argued, "The driving force behind the Purple Line is the people who want it to provide a catalyst for more development. This is a development issue, period, and we would be remiss if we suddenly took a back seat to the development industry which, left unchecked, will run amok to the detriment of residents."

So, what to make of the anti-development sentiment here? 

My first reaction is that trying to stop development in this region is akin to thinking you can stop a barn fire by closing its doors.

According to Census quick facts the District added nearly 45 thousand people between 2010 and 2013.  That's a percent change in the population of 7.4% (in the US as a whole the percent change was only 2.4%).  Census quick facts for MOCO show greater than average growth as well.  Between 2010 and 2012 the county added almost 33 thousand people (a percent change of 3.4%).

You can't blame developers for numbers like these (and I say this as someone who blames developers for a host of things).  The DMV has a lot going for it--plentiful, well paying jobs being one of the main draws.  So, stopping the purple line won't stop population growth.  However, not building the line in the face of this growth will make it harder to move around the inner suburbs.

In light of these trends, the Town of Chevy Chase's opposition to the purple line seems more like a 'the rest of you be damned' sentiment than a garden variety 'not in my backyard' one.