They say it works on frogs

(version 2.0)

If you turn up the heat real slow they say frogs don't know they're boiling.   I don't know about that, but I wonder what happens to a town when politicians break their promises...   real slow?

It all seems so long ago, like this was another town. It was back in the last century, as I recall: the grim 90s, when Silver Spring was a poster child for declining inner suburbs. Now, it wasn't near as gritty or dangerous as the old timers like to make out--we still had the Quarry House, Dale Music, and the Tastee Diner--but it was no shoppers' paradise, that's for sure.

The Silver Spring Armory served as the town civic center for 70 years. The county tore it down in 1998, without regard for public sentiment, say some activists. A parking garage now stands at that site.

On the very best piece of land, a little hill where Wayne runs up to meet Georgia Avenue, there sat the Silver Spring National Guard Armory. It was built in 1927 by the boys from company K after they had returned from WW I and made their bundle in down county real estate.

Architecturally the building was half way between a castle and a brick shit house and appeared to be just as impregnable.

For 70 years the Armory was Silver Spring's front yard and living room. Every Saturday local farmers sold their produce to loyal customers of Silver Spring's tiny farmers market.

Inside on the aging drill hall floor purveyors of memorabilia sold their niche wares by day, while fetching young girls celebrated Sweet Sixteen to the sound of the local school band by night. Civic-minded souls met in the musty basement for hours on end to plot Silver Spring's escape from commercial irrelevance.  

My most glorious memory of the Armory was the night the Ghermezians came down from Alberta. They had formed a league with the local politicians to enclose the entire town in a monstrous dome, which was to be called, without irony, The American Dream. Residents were horrified and came out in droves to exercise their democratic lungs. Six hundred people filled the drill hall to capacity, while another hundred had to remain outside in sputtering frustration. No one could remember when so many in Silver Spring had assembled for mere civic engagement.

Eskander, a small wiry man attired in the dark fedora that was the trademark of the Ghermezian brothers, occupied the podium to address the crowd. Not with the spiel of a salesman but with the voice of a true believer he marveled at the wonders of an urban entertainment complex that held every conceivable human want that a man could possibly make a profit on. There would be exotic movie theaters, themed restaurants, a full hockey rink, a roller coaster, and, of course, an azure wave pool that would make all future beach vacations completely unnecessary.

The poor man had not a clue about the aesthetics of the burghers of Silver Spring. They proceeded to eat him alive, or rather they would have eaten him alive had he not been a little lion of a man. No doubt he would have told the good folks of Silver Spring to go Cheney themselves, had he not been a God-fearing man.  

The more politically astute younger brother, Nader, led his incensed brother off stage under the cover of politicians who insisted, "this was only the beginning of the process."

Like the song says, you don't know what you got till it's gone. The Ghermezians were gone by 1997 and the Armory a year later. In retrospect, I kind of miss the Blues Brothers, old school developers with calluses on their hands and piss in their vinegar--nothing like these oily twenty first century developers that you can hardly tell apart from the politicians.

For five years the hill sat empty like the sacked citadel of Troy: a testament to the creed that nothing must stand in the way of commercial progress.

Seven years later, a shiny new Silver Sprung has emerged from the gloom of the last century. We now boast a vibrant commercial center that offers every conceivable want in which a person could possibly make a profit. Seven years and $150 million public dollars later, only one section of that grand public/private partnership remains unbuilt: the public part of the partnership. This part was supposed to take the place of that funky old armory—the place where Silver Spring citizens were supposed to hold their meetings, celebrate their festivals, and stage their concerts.

The problem is, was, and always will be money. Rapidly rising construction costs for the Civic Building and Veteran’s Plaza have catapulted the price tag to some $18 million— far above the $12 million that was budgeted. While the County Executive and Council are quick to highlight escalating construction costs, they are slower to mention that this is the predictable result of placing the public elements dead last in the construction schedule. Or that six years ago, they increased the size of the civic building by 30 percent to make space for the Round House Theater, but inexplicably refused to increase the budget a nickel.

For six years, the County Executive has insisted that the Civic Building and Plaza must not exceed the original budget….Dee-ta-dee-dee-ta-dee-dee-ta-dee-dee-ta-dee-dee-ta-dee...
This just in! At the eleventh hour, the County Executive has proposed to the County Council Planning, Housing, and Economic Development Committee (PHED) to increase the budget for the Civic Building and Plaza by $5.3 million.

These two community features are a critical piece of the downtown redevelopment, and completing these projects to the community’s expectations is an important goal we must strive to achieve,” Duncan said in his letter to the PHED.

This is very good news, and Doug Duncan should be congratulated for doing right by Silver Spring.

It’s still too early to break out the champagne, however. Even in the most optimistic scenario, we have another two years to wait while this project winds its way through the process of design and construction. The recommended funding increase must be approved by a majority of the county council for the next cycle of the Capital Improvement Budget. Rapidly escalating construction costs will only get worse after Hurricane Katrina. And the Executive’s letter only directly mentioned the pavilion and ice rink, which constitute $4 million of the $5 million increase; will the remaining $1.3 million be enough to save the Civic Building from value engineering run amok?
We all owe a debt of gratitude to the many individuals and civic groups that spoke out to remind our political leaders that, along with the demolition of the old Armory, they had made a deal with the people of Silver Spring—a deal that was every bit as immutable as the deal they had made with Round House, AFI and Peterson, and Foulger-Pratt and Arco.

One of the biggest challenges that remains unresolved is who will run our new Town Center. On the same day the PHED Committee received Duncan’s letter, they got another letter from the Pandit Wright, the president of Silver Spring Town Center, Inc. (SSTCI), which is the incipient non-profit entity that was being groomed to become the programming and managing entity of the facility. In her letter, Wright, a Discovery Communications executive, concedes that “broad support does not exist for SSTCI in this capacity” and she recommends the process be thrown open to a county-wide RFP process.

What she doesn’t say is that support, either broad or narrow, does not exist in any capacity for SSTCI because nobody even knows they exist. Despite, or maybe because of their impressive political connections, SSTCI board members have been unwilling to risk being out front in the fight to save the Silver Spring Town Center. Our knight in shining armor turned out to be a frog.

Even more amazing, what everybody thought was the frog—the Silver Spring Community Advisory Board—turned out to be the knight in shining armor. Appointed by the County Executive, the unfortunately acronymed SSCAB had a reputation for being Doug Duncan’s rubber stamp; the one he pulled out whenever he needed community cover for a controversial decision in Silver Spring. (See American Dream, above.) The current Advisory Board surprised everybody when it staked out a “give no ground” position on the Civic Building and then proceeded to mobilize the community in its support.

In their letter to the PHED, they minced no words in describing the County Executive’s proposed project reductions as “wrong, ill-advised, and contrary to the spirit and energy that our community has brought to this vital centerpiece of our downtown area.”

County Executive Douglas Duncan
Executive Office Building 101 Monroe Street, 2nd Floor Rockville, MD 20850 (240) 777-2500 TTY (240) 777-2544 douglas.duncan@montgomerycountymd.gov

Steven Silverman Councilmember ~ Montgomery County Council
100 Maryland Avenue Rockville, Maryland 20850 (240) 777-7960 councilmember.silverman@montgomerycountymd.gov

George L. Leventhal
100 Maryland Ave, 6th Floor Rockville, MD 20850 (240) 777-7811 Councilmember. Leventhal@montgomerycountymd.gov

Marilyn J. Praisner
100 Maryland Ave, 6th Floor Rockville, MD 20850 (240) 777-7968 Councilmember.Praisner@montgomerycountymd.gov

Tom Perez
100 Maryland Ave, 6th Floor Rockville, MD 20850 (240) 777-7966 Councilmember.Perez@montgomerycountymd.gov

Michael Subin
100 Maryland Ave, 6th Floor Rockville, MD 20850 (240) 777-7828 councilmember.subin @montgomerycountymd.gov

Nancy Floreen
100 Maryland Ave, 6th Floor Rockville, MD 20850 (240) 777-7959 Councilmember.Floreen@montgomerycountymd.gov