The following was submitted by a reader that wished to remain anonymous. In March of 2023 County Executive Marc Elrich traveled to Taiwan with a Montgomery County Delegation that included Council Member Fani-Gonzalez. As reported by mymcm, he was invited to speak at the 2023 Smart City Summit and Expo and decided to use the…
Property taxes are always a painful subject. So painful that when your partner comes in late at night after a 60-minute commute, you may not want to open with, “DoorDash is delivering our two Philadelphia sushi rolls, and we have to pay $6,500 by September 1.” Regardless, with courage and valor, we must face the…
In Part 1 of this series we described the background to removing deed restrictions, in Part 2 we described some of the immediate impacts on existing property owners, and in Part 3 we exposed who is responsible for the circumstances leading up to this legislation. In this final post we discuss what options remain for…
The premise of Bill 2-24, introduced by Councilmember Will Jawando, is flawed. He states that consent searches of motor vehicles during traffic stops disproportionately affect Black and Brown residents. Data from the Maryland race-based traffic stop dashboard shows, however, that there are no real disparities in consent searches by race. 13-14% of all races consent…
In Part 1 of this series we described the nature of deed restrictions, and in Part 2 we described some of the immediate impacts of unilaterally removing those restrictions. In this post we discuss the conditions leading to HB1300 came to be, and who is responsible for those conditions. Recall that HB1300 voids restrictions appearing…
MoCo government has contracted with something called “MGT Consulting Group” (a vendor it has used before) to search for racism and “gender discrimination” in markets the County is in and with sub-contractors the county government uses. This same contractor has secured the same “Disparity Study” service with neighboring Frederick County, MD, as well. It is…
We have written extensively about CASA in the past and how it hoovers up large amounts of Maryland taxpayer money. The self-acclaimed “foremost immigrant organization in the mid-Atlantic region and a national leader in supporting immigrant families” is also very politically active in MoCo, and due to this activism it ran into a public relations nightmare…
Fresh off the New Hampshire Avenue, Takoma Park street takeover on February 10th, Montgomery County Exec Marc Elrich has invited the county to celebrate the next “street takeover” with his “MoCo Riderzz”. Details were still forthcoming about where and when the street takeover would occur, but the County Exec promised he’d “put that notice out…
In Part 1 of this series we described the background and potential extent of HB1300 and its intent to void restrictions on multi-family housing. In this part we’ll describe some implications of this legislation, one of which was articulated by a resident of Olney to an Annapolis delegate (redacted). “I am writing this note to…
A deed is a set of conditions that are part of a sale of real estate. The buyer undertakes to uphold the deed’s restrictions, covenants, and agreements. As the property moves from owner to owner, the conditions of the deed survive. The purpose of some deed restrictions is to provide predictability to buyers of the…