People of Clarksburg awake! You are about to be the victims of the biggest property tax rip-off in Montgomery County since I started reading the Washington Post as a newspaper delivery boy in l952! Having collected thousands of voter signatures on a charter amendment to restrain property tax increases at the Germantown Giant (Clarksburg doesn't have a major food store) and having attended the Clarksburg Civic Association this week as a local real estate broker, I can tell you that the people of Clarksburg got no notice of this huge tax some people want them to pay for thirty years or more. Where was the disclosure in the real estate purchase contrascts? This whole issue is having a depressing effect on Clarksburg property values. Buyers are shying away and homes are not selling as a result. I provided a list of the direct dial numbers to all nine council members at the civic association meeting this week. Don't call the council switchboard, call the direct council member lines. My suggestion at this point is political action before somebody in county governmet who is used to dumping on Clarksburg, orders up the "appropriate legal opinion." Let's take a day and march straight down route 355 as a community to the county council. If it is too far to walk for some, take a pick-up truck some or even most of the way. This lifetime unprecedented $1,500 annual fine is too much for any thinking Montgomery County citizen to take.

Here are the direct dial numbers for the council: Phil Andrews: 2407777906; Roger Berliner: 2407777828; Marc Elrich: 2407777966; Valerie Ervin: 2407777960; Nancy Floreen: 2407777959; Mike Knapp: 2407777955; George Leventhal: 2407777811; Marilyn Praisner: 240777798; Duchy Trachtenberg: 2407777964. I have met all of these council members. They are all reasonable people. They all succumb to lobbying. They all like to see tax money coming in the door. They all like to hear the views of the voters.

Developers counting on the tax district to fund the majority of the infrastructure that was required of them to build in Clarksburg is preposterous! Bet they didn't count on the property values doubling or tripling either when they were making all of their profits!

This resident and homeowner attended the County Council Management & Fiscal Policy (MFP) Sept. 25th session mentioned in Miranda's Blog. I spoke to Kathleen Boucher, Council Senior Legislative Attorney...

I asked, "why did the staff and council fail to connect the dots from the infrastructure site plan conditions of regulatory approval (building the "stuff") to a contractual promise to REPAY the developers?" The answer I got was shocking. "There is no contract to pay back the developer for the "stuff". The need to pay the developer stems from a "policy" that the council will vote on."

In other words, MoCo Council & Exec need to get the message from ALL the citizens of MoCo that it's NOT A GOOD POLICY to just give the money back to the developers because the developers ASKED for it!!!

I ask that everyone who reads this calls each council member to tell them you want them to vote against passing a DD tax.

Talk, Talk, Talk, that's all these people do in this County government. Is this why I voted many of you into the offices you now hold...what a mistake.

We have an action that is clearly ILLEGAL and yet you [County] simply won't act! Where are you getting your pay checks from anyway--must be the developers because I cannot see any reason why we have all this "feet dragging" on this issue. Must be corruption or incompetence or a combination of both because this county is certainly NOT acting in the resident's best interest. I still cannot believe we pay such high taxes for this type of leadership that forces residents into legal battles.

Bottom line: The County needs to put the developer in their place, get them to fulfill their agreed upon duties, finish the infrastructure they agreed to build and tell them the District Fees they want to impose are NOT going to happen.

I am not paying twice, triple or quadruple for what are public amenities that many more in Clarksburg will avail themselves of when all this is said and done. We are already paying a $650+ water/sewer infrastructure bill on top of our property taxes YET water/sewer are also items listed within this proposed development district--can anyone say DOUBLE-DIPPING? I've also heard the developer is trying to get paid for things twice by slipping various projects into this proposed District fee. I cannot confirm this as fact but the thought that the developer is potentially treating this district tax as some budget item to be manipulated for their gain or to pay for projects that don't fall under our specific infrastructure is criminal. Lack of oversight...ya think?

At a bare minimum ALL COUNTY RESIDENTS need to share the burden just like up-county residents do for projects in the eastern and southern parts of the SAME COUNTY. Hey, it's called raising property taxes. The only reason they won't go this route is because there would be much more scrutiny over what the developer wants to get paid for and residents wouldn't stand for it on that scale either.

To the County...get your act together and do the right & legal thing for a change...it's not too late.

Thanks for listening...

It is obvious from the Council members' comments that they realize the tax is illegal. All they have to do is decide against the entire idea. It would mean admitting they were wrong.... which seems to be a problem for them.

I'd like to see that the county officials that received donations from builders, developers and attorneys associated with this mess recuse themselves from the evaluation of the legitimacy of this tax. There is at least an appearance that our county government is being sold out from under us. If county officials who accepted contributions from these groups were to recuse themselves from deliberation and vote, the citizens of Clarksburg may yet be insulated from a tainted process.

When will someone hold this crooked County government accountable? We are trapped without representation here in Montgomery. Haven't the Feds gotten a whiff of the corruption yet? Are they unaware of how those in power are abusing that power to violate the laws that are supposed to protect us?!
The County did not follow the development district law in terms of "consent" requirements, let alone in terms of common sense policy or faithful representation of those they allegedly represent. After-the-fact, they merely ordered up a report to label what was illegal and insufficient as "legal" . . . even though the report itself is nothing more than twisted excerpts of law and fragments of historical records carefully selected to create the wrapper around the Council President's predetermined conclusion (i.e. we must label this "legal" or we will have to deal with Germantown residents when they realize what has been done to them).
The County has no obligation to developers to levy a development district tax. Infrastructure items are already required of the developers and they would not escape those requirements if the County said NO to development districts in Clarksburg. So, the big question remains: WHY IS OUR COUNTY GOVERNMENT BEING DRIVEN BY DEVELOPER WHIMS? Do we need to clean house again? Or, do we need to implore the Feds to come in and expose what's really going on in the back rooms of our County government? Beware Montgomery's Charter if that happens!!

Marilyn Praisner et al- you are very confused about who your constituants are. It would be interesting to start looking through the web of connections to find out why Ms. Praisner is so compelled to pay back the developers for expenses they agreed to pay. Ms. Praisner is way too generous with other people's hard earned money. What do you produce for society except a bigger burden for each citizen?

I live in Clarksburg Town Center and have watched our developer totally destroy the vision they created when I purchased here. They have mislead us about almost everything. We look to the county executive and council for protection from the developers, but you sided on the DD with the developers. Hasn't there been enough of that in our county? We put our faith in working through the county for a reasonable solution - it is disappointing that the results are so developer sided. What a disappointment our county government has turned out to be. I will not be able to live in Clarksburg once I have to fund the developer's pockets (so much for the little guy, you promise to protect), and the move will be out of Montgomery County since I have lost faith and hope with this county's government.

Seems like a perfect opportunity for an aspiring Washington Post report to write a story on corruption in local government.

Clarksburg infrastructure development must be shard by the developers and the Montgomery county government. County executive and executives ....wake up! Do not take side with the developers.