Q & A with Valerie Ervin

What's your analysis of the budget? Where are you going to cut?

This is a tough question. How do you close this huge gap without furloughs, lay-offs, or severe cuts to library services, recreation services, and every kind of service residents take for granted? Public safety, education, and the health and human services safety net are the most important things, and even they will likely be squeezed.

On the County level, there's very little money for road and school repairs. We currently have no money for bridge repairs in Takoma Park, which is at the top of the priority list for Mayor Williams and the City Council. We're hoping this project will be covered by the federal stimulus package.
The silver lining of the economic downturn is that our congressmen and senators are really engaged with County issues. They are calling and asking us, what do we need? Local issues have become national priorities.

We've always seemed sheltered from a recession. What's different this time?

Historically, we've had a solid housing market, and unemployment has never been a problem, but housing is way down, and we are losing jobs, especially second jobs. Macy's and Sears laid off workers. Circuit City closed. These are places where people had second jobs to cover the cost of their mortgage. That's a huge problem. Income tax revenues are off mainly because of job loss.

We know help is coming in the form of federal money for infrastructure. For people who have never worked construction, especially women, it will be an opportunity for new job training. And it'll be an opportunity for small local businesses to get government contracts.

So construction here will move away from housing to infrastructure?

We've already moved away from housing. New housing units dropped by about 7,000 units last year, a disconcerting collapse. Our growth was 0.08 percent, which is really no growth. If people aren't buying and selling homes, we don't get recordation taxes, impact taxes, and so on. Revenue from real estate dropped about 40 percent.

For years we've been blessed with loads of riches from property taxes and real estate taxes, but the housing market is no longer sustainable. Even before the downturn, we actually were starting to run out of space. Montgomery County was planned to grow to a million people, and we're almost at that point.

Certainly the roads seem saturated.

We need more transit, more ways of moving people around other than cars, such as the Purple Line and rapid-bus lanes. To the extent we can do more building and revitalize neighborhoods, we have to build smart, near transit. Growth was always supposed to be along the traffic corridors, Georgia Avenue, Rockville Pike, I-270. In the outer rings there was supposed to be less growth. That's why the Agricultural Reserve was created in perpetuity.

We want to maintain the Agricultural Reserve. We want to maintain our tree canopy. We want to be very cognizant of our environment. So I don't think we're going to grow that much more.

This is the new reality? Growth is over and done?

That's a conversation progressive people need to have. In the last decade the tensions here have been around growth. When I ran in 2006, the question was growth or no growth. Well, the reality now is that there's no growth. And no growth dramatically impacts budget revenues and can infringe on quality of life. Less revenue means more difficult choices and fewer services.

These aren't easy issues. We need to pause and think. I believe we're about to experience a paradigm shift. The way to get America back to work is to build sustainable communities, the green-collar economy Obama talks about. Job growth is a good thing, and development on its face is not a bad thing. It's the way growth is implemented.

One theory is that the Purple Line will bring growth.

Actually, if you follow the Purple Line from Chevy Chase all the way to New Carrolton, the only place that's really expected to grow is Langley Park, the International Corridor. Since Langley Park is in two counties we're developing a bi-county sector plan. It doesn't happen very often that you sit down with your counterparts in Prince George's County and work out a vision for the next 50 years.

This is one of the most important things I'm doing right now because nobody has paid much attention to Langley Park during the conversation about the Purple Line.

In Prince George's individuals talk about green-field development because they have still have tracts of open land. Some would like to build through the roof in Langley Park, which would cause major gentrification. I'm opposed to that. We need to preserve the flavor of the area and its culture. We should revitalize the area, not create a boomtown.

Housing is the most obvious change that's needed. Many of the multi-family units are in horrible condition and need to be rehabilitated. Even if a family hasn't got the means to buy a house, they should be able to move up into a nicer multi-family building. Montgomery Housing Partnership has created great examples in this area.

Will the immigrants who've started small businesses be allowed to stay?

They're worried they'll get moved out. That's part of the challenge of working with Prince George's. But one reason we want the Purple Line to run down University Boulevard is to encourage a boulevard experience and keep those small, local businesses.

Langley Park is all about micro-businesses and mom-and-pops, and they're thriving. These are not throw-away businesses. It's a different kind of shopping. There's bartering going on. It's like the local economies in countries where these folks come from, all the Diaspora of West Africa, Central America, and South America. That's why it's called the International Corridor.

You've been working with local businesses to create a kind of alternative to the Chamber of Commerce.

I have been working with LEDC to serve businesses that may not have the resources to join the Chamber of Commerce. This is not an alternative to the Chamber but an additional resource. We want the people who live here to think about shopping at small local shops or dining at small local restaurants. The organization is succeeding in Wheaton and Silver Spring, and we also plan to reach out to Langley Park and Takoma Park.

I hosted a meeting along with the County Executive about a year and a half ago at the old Silver Spring firehouse. More than 200 small business owners from Silver Spring attended. I was blown away. I think the County Executive was blown away, too.

A lot of people stood up and said, we stayed in Silver Spring through the entire redevelopment, and what did we get? We didn't get anything.

What are they getting now?

They're getting networking, collective procurement and marketing opportunities through the "Think Local First" program. LEDC produced a brochure that lists all the small businesses in Silver Spring. It's a marketing tool. People eating dinner on Ellsworth Drive don't necessarily know there are all these other restaurants within a few blocks.

Is there funding for other local projects?

We're hoping to get separate money for one project I really love. A while ago a woman stood up at a meeting and suggested we turn some of our pocket parks into community gardens. Then my son, who goes to the University of Maryland and is majoring in environmental science, did class work at a public garden in the District, and he asked me, why don't we have gardens like that over here?

So I wrote up a proposal, and Royce Hanson at Park & Planning thought it was a great idea. He wants to identify parkland where the lease is about to expire and set up farming co-ops. I think it's going to happen. We're looking at three possible sites in this area, small plots, but suitable for intensive gardening with raised beds. People will be able to divide the land and plant vegetables and herbs.

A lot of immigrants have no place to purchase vegetables from their native countries, and this is one way to fill that void. They can grow their own.

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You said there might be separate funding?

The Chesapeake Bay Trust is making a big push for urban greening. They've been working hard to bring the idea of environmental sustainability to people of color. I sit on the board of the trust, and that's one of the reasons they chose me.

They've given a lot of money to planting trees in Baltimore, but they've just started putting money into our area. Community gardening could be an idea they like. They gave a big grant to Friends of Sligo Creek for a joint project with CASA de Maryland. They want to engage people who are not normally considered environmentalists. Of course, the immigrants who come from all over the world to live here really do believe in the stewardship of the plant. We just have to engage them.

One more question about growth and sustainability. What's your take on the expansion plans of Montgomery College in Takoma Park, big structures being jammed next to homeowners?

The new parking garage is the worst. I met with college officials the other day, and I asked them again, explain to me why we are spending millions of dollars on another car garage when we want people to take other modes of transportation. .

I would prefer that the College build classrooms instead. Half the students at the college either walk or bike or take the Metro. They don't drive. There already is a garage on campus, and it's never full. Here we're talking about a new paradigm focused on mass transit and pedestrian access, and they're planning to build a garage?

Can the garage be stopped?

I don't know. The previous County Council appropriated the money so the horse is out of the barn. It was a decision made in a vacuum, and now people are asking whether it's truly needed. If everyone would stop and reconsider maybe we could arrive at a different conclusion. Don't get me wrong, expansion is necessary. But there are several parts of the current plan that may not make sense for the students or the community.

The College now wants to move English and math classes, basic requirements, out to the Germantown campus. Our kids would have to trek 30 miles, these same kids who don't drive. That makes no sense. Our kids already have to go to Rockville or Germantown so they can conduct science experiments in a good lab.

The Takoma Park campus needs a state-of-the-art science building. Rockville is getting one, and Germantown is getting a huge new facility for biotech and nursing. So why are we building a garage on such valuable land on our campus?

Should more of the expansion take place across the train tracks over by Georgia Avenue?

That's another conversation we need to have with Montgomery College. I'm hoping we can agree on a plan that's reasonable and meets the needs of the community.