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Is Zoning a Promise?

By Patricia Fenati

Over a century ago, growth of communities was helter-skelter.  There was no assurance when building a home in a quiet place that the following year a factory would not be built beside your home, thus making the property almost worthless. But America came up with a solution to this problem starting in Los Angeles in 1908. The solution is called zoning. Zoning establishes guidelines which guide urban growth and development.

Webster’s dictionary defines zoning as: municipal or county regulation of land use effected through the creation and enforcement of zones under local law https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/zoning?src=search-dict-hed

The according to Wikipedia, the definition of zoning is:

Zoning is a method of planning where land is divided into areas called zones, each of which regulates any new development in that zone. Zones are designated for specific use (e.g. commercial, industrial, residential, single family, multi-family, etc.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoning

Both definitions express that a promise is made by a municipality (or laws governing the area) of how land will be used. Thus, a buyer who purchases a piece of property is guaranteed that new neighboring properties will follow the same zoning regulations.

Because the use of land can change over time, there is a way of changing zoning regulations for a parcel of land. It is called re-zoning. This process involves petitioning for a re-zoning hearing, advertise the hearing by signs and other notifications in a public way to notify those in the area that a property is under consideration for re-zoning. There then are public hearings in which the owners of neighboring properties can have their voices heard. If there is good reason and there is no large rejection, the re-zoning can be allowed.

Montgomery County Maryland is considering turning zoning on its head.

In one of the most beautiful counties in the nation, zoning is no longer going to be considered. (Zoning, Shmoning!) This change will move us back to the 1800’s in assurances for the property where we live. In a move that can completely devalue all property in any community, the county government is considering a plan called Thrive Montgomery 2050. Under this plan any single home in the county can be replaced with duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes. This can be done without notification, without hearings without any input from neighboring properties whatsoever. The plan is to eliminate single family housing in the county. This will turn communities upside down.

This plan also tells us that a bunch of hypocrites make up our County Council!

We are constantly lectured about global warming. The County Council requires recycling, they charge for plastic bags. When removing trees on our own property if more than 5,000 square feet of canopy or soil is disturbed, we have to have a permit to remove the tree. We are saving the planet!

Many of the neighborhoods in Montgomery County have large green spaces. We are told that more green space is needed to save the planet … the same planet where our county council is planning to turn green spaces into buildings and parking lots. This plan will destroy those green spaces, including large CO₂ eating trees. Black macadam which generates heat and cooks the air above it will be substituted for grass where parking is needed for these new dwelling units. 

I assume that now the planet can be saved elsewhere just not in our county. 

According to the Montgomery County Planning Board, we're running out of space to provide housing for the 200,000 people that the Planning Board has projected will be moving here over the next 30 years. This plan to eradicate single family homes should not be called Thrive Montgomery 2050. It should be called Projects Montgomery 2050. As the character of more and more neighborhoods dramatically change, we will probably attract more than 200,000 people who need cheap housing. We will have to build larger soviet style apartment buildings. Wait! … We already did that in this country.  We called the buildings Projects. How did that work for this country, Montgomery Council?

Montgomery Council, you are breaking a promise to the people of this county.

Breaking this promise will destroy neighborhoods, destroy the value of homes, and destroy peoples dreams, dreams which often take the better part of a lifetime to achieve.

What are your plans for the infrastructure in this county to accommodate 200.000 more commuters? Our roads are already overwhelmed by stop and go traffic and you are fighting improvement of our roads. By the way you clueless environmentalists … you know that if a car is standing for an extra half hour in a traffic jam it is spewing CO₂ into the atmosphere all that time. 

The voters of this county need to act! A group has been formed called Empowering People in Communities of MoCo (EPIC of MoCo).  Please Like and follow EPIC of MoCo on FB and Twitter.  Let’s fight this plan. Together we can make a difference.

_______________ 

Patricia Fenati is a Member of the Montgomery County Republican Central Committee and Chair of its District 14 Committee.

Homeowners Are Advised to Have Their Older Decks Inspected

With the recent deck collapses in various parts of the Washington region, Montgomery County’s Department of Permitting Services (DPS) is advising owners of properties with decks older than 20 years to have a licensed third-party inspection of those decks. DPS advises that having older decks inspected every five years is a good safety measure that could help avoid disaster.

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The old adage goes that there are two constants in life; death and taxes. But if you live in the DC metropolitan area, there is a third: traffic. 

            Their have been countless studies, hundreds of news reports and millions of anecdotal stories to  tell us why we are ranked dead last for traffic in the country. Think about that, we are worse than Los Angeles, worse than New York, worse than Chicago. All with populations multiple times that of our region. 

            Some in our region are aware of the problem and are looking to fix this, namely officials in Virginia. However, while some are looking to fix the problem, others, like our leaders in Montgomery County and Annapolis are looking to do nothing. They are interested in subjecting us to generations of a traffic nightmare. 

            Their apathy towards a solution is two-fold; they have contempt for the average citizen and they are supported by an extremely vocal minority.  

            However, their apathy towards a solution has now reached critical mass. It is now time for us as frustrated citizens to voice our concern and let the Montgomery County leadership in Rockville and Annapolis know that we have had enough. 

            The Montgomery County leadership a very vocal group of naysayers. But they are in the vast minority. How many of them are their? Five thousand? Ten Thousand? Fifteen thousand? Are we really going to allow fifteen thousand noisemakers hold hostage the other six-million residents of the greater DC area?  These noisemakers are not opposed to any particular solution, they are opposed to ALL solutions. They are more interested in making noise than finding any solutions, and the Montgomery County leaders in Rockville and Annapolis are all too happy to listen to them.

            I have written many opinion pieces, I have testified before council and committee hearings, I have written emails and spoken face-to-face. But I am just one person, and my message has fallen on deaf and indifferent ears. To be heard, we need the collective voice of all concerned traffic dwellers. The leaders of Montgomery County in Rockville and Annapolis need to hear from more than just me, they need to hear from all of us. We need to be louder than the noisemakers. 

            The noisemakers have a loud voice and they are effective. But we can be even louder and even more effective. We must write, we must testify, we must engage and we must remind our neighbors and friends to do the same. 

            In a region that shares few bipartisan concerns, it is surprising that the issue of traffic has not garnered more outrage. We all know it’s there and we all know it’s a problem. But why are we not so outraged as to take action? The prospect of defeat may keep us from engaging, but this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. We are only defeated because we refuse to engage.  It is time we say no more to this self-fulfilling prophecy. It is time we act. It is time we author and it is time we vote for action. 

            Imagine yourself on I-270 in 2035. Will you be traveling at 65 mph with the flow of traffic getting to your destination on time? Or will you sit in bumper to bumper traffic asking yourself “why didn’t I speak up when I could have?”

_______________ 

The author, Mr. Jason Neuringer is a resident of Montgomery County.

Big Tech: A conservative investor’s dilemma

Big Tech’s recent strong stock performance and large size creates a conundrum for politically-conservative investors who want to align their core beliefs with their investments. Many conservative investors begrudgingly own these left-leaning companies due to not wanting to sacrifice performance.

The reference to Big Tech companies includes the likes of Amazon, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Apple, due to their recent collective efforts to censor free speech in America. Strictly speaking, they are all not tech companies, but in the eyes of the public, they are part of the Big Tech monopoly. 

Big Tech has censored conservatives on multiple platforms in recent years. Parler, a thriving social media alternative to Twitter, was deplatformed by Amazon Web Services, Apple and Google for allegedly inciting violence at the U.S. Capitol. Facebook, not to be outdone by its Big Tech allies, banned a Virginia Second Amendment advocacy group, the Virginia Citizens Defense League, from their platform without much explanation. Twitter famously banned President Donald Trump from its platform, after suspending his account indefinitely. The Silicon Valley-based corporation said that their “close review” of the president’s account led to the permanent ban because of the “risk of further incitement of violence.” Twitter never commented about why it never banned the accounts of dictatorial regimes, such as Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei, China’s Xi Jinping, or Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Is now the time to boycott ownership of Big Tech?

The First Amendment, which protects our freedom of speech and religion, is the bedrock issue that strongly unites all conservatives. These Big Tech companies are actively undermining our freedom of speech and are emboldened by the recently elected Democratic majorities. It is not only the liberal media, liberal CEOs, and campaign contributions that we have grown weary of, but Big Tech companies now have the power to suppress conservative voices, destroy companies, and deny conservatives access to the technological infrastructure that they monopolize. This includes access to e-commerce, cloud technology, credit card processing payments, and more. Big Tech has clearly demonstrated an unabashed and unrestrained willingness to use their power to economically influence those they disagree with. If these companies continue to run roughshod over the conservative beliefs of their shareholders, the silent majority will become the silenced majority in short order. 

Results from a recent Gallup poll conducted earlier this year show positive views of Big Tech have fallen 12 percent since late 2019, and the majority of poll respondents want more government regulation of technology companies. Given the customer centric business models and rapid growth necessary to justify recent valuations, how can this level of dissatisfaction not affect the bottom line? Big Tech executives fail to realize that the implementation of liberal-leaning policies may result in lost revenue, a growing opportunity for potential new competitors, and vulnerability to government anti-trust actions.

Certainly, the general market environment should be considered and there are warning signs that Big Tech’s run cannot last forever

If you have been begrudgingly or unknowingly holding onto Big Tech stocks, this confluence of recent events highlights the need for a shift towards greater conservative advocacy. It starts with principle-focused investment and holding Big Tech and left-wing “woke” corporations accountable to their shareholders. 

Now is the time for conservatives to take action and hold Big Tech and left-wing corporations accountable and reject “woke capitalism.”

_______________ 

Donald Irvine is the Director of Political Research at Ridgeline Research, the investment adviser to the American Conservative Values ETF (ACVF) and a Member and former Treasurer of the Montgomery County Republican Central Committee.

Give Us the News         

The MCGOP is always looking for news items or great editorials. If you’ve got news of your Republican organization or club, or an item you think would be of interest, please send it to us at [email protected].

Editorials and Opinions should be between 300 and 600 words, sent in Word document format.

Our Republican Party stands strong as we commemorate our 245'th Independence Day.

Our party’s ideals and our vision stand strong. We stand for freedom of religion, freedom from tyranny, and a drive toward equal treatment, under the law, for every Man and Woman in these great and United States.

The pillars of our Republican history are steeped in the history of our great United States. From when Abraham Lincoln stood against the Democrat establishment and oppose their efforts to continue slavery to after the Civil War when we pushed through Emancipation, pushed through voting rights, pushed through women's right to vote, and ever expanded the great freedoms Americans rely on. All the time with opposition by the Democrats.

We we're still fighting the progressive proposal to divide and conquer, instead of unite! As a united Republican party, we stand in opposition to racism against Whites, Asians, legal immigrants and conservative people of color as the Democratic playbook continues to execute their strategy of intolerance.

We must be united against the progressive politicians pushing laws restricting personal freedoms, far-left school boards mandating something they call "Critical Race Theory", and folks living behind private security screaming "Defund the Police".  All the time prices are rising, crime is rising and the schools are falling behind.  We'll have none of that... I promise you we won't back down.

The grand reopening of our headquarters was an amazing success and brought together many like-minded Republicans for an afternoon of fun and fellowship. If you know of local conservative organization or groups, please point them our way so that we can continue the MCGOP goal of working together to make Montgomery County better.   

Thanks so much for your support of your local Republicans. Special thanks for the folks who stepped up this past month. Ceremonial display flags donated by the Chevy Chase Republican Women's Club and our great 1st Vice Chair Anne Koutsoutis,  Katja Bullock, Darby Gingery and others. A great Statue of Liberty portrait was provided by former Chairman Dennis Melby.

Make sure you read our Party Line newsletter this month.

• Opinion pieces on Critical Race Theory, Defunding Police, and freedom of Discussion.
• A wrap of our Maryland Republican Convention
• Sign up for our Volunteer Orientation
• See our Ads and join a Club
• Check out the fundraiser for Kelly Schulz
• Register for our July Webinar
• Volunteer to work the Republican tent at the County Fair
•  Come to our Summer Soiree July 10
• Donate to the Cause

Our party is growing and we need tech help. Anyone that has database, social media or SQL expertise and can dedicate 6 to 10 hours per week is urged to contact me. See our ad in this newsletter.

As always, thanks for being a great Republican, and if you can, send me a note at [email protected]. 

I’d love to hear from you. Your notes are encouraging and welcome.