County Council Meeting Preview

The Montgomery County Council meets at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 3 and the leaders are scheduled to elect new officers for the 2013-14 year. The election of a new president and vice president will mark the end of the one-year term as Council president of Councilmember Nancy Navarro. Craig Rice is the current Council vice president.

The Council’s weekly session will be held in the Third Floor Hearing Room of the Council Office Building at 100 Maryland Ave. in Rockville. The morning and afternoon sessions, three public hearings starting at 1:30 p.m. and an evening public hearing starting at 7:30 p.m. on the 10 Mile Creek area of Clarksburg, will be televised live by County Cable Montgomery (CCM—Cable Channel 6 on Comcast and RCN, Channel 30 on Verizon). The broadcast also will be streamed through the County Web site at www.montgomerycountymd.gov. It will be repeated starting at 9 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 6.

The 10 Mile Creek issue—concerning a limited amendment to the Clarksburg Master Plan and the Hyattstown Special Study Area—also will be the subject of an overview briefing scheduled for approximately 10:40 a.m. on Tuesday. The amendment would lead to the creation of a well-defined corridor town that provides jobs, homes and commercial activities and the preservation of natural resources critical to the County’s well-being.

The amendment’s recommendations are designed to further the completion of Clarksburg, following the tenets of the 1994 plan, while taking advantage of increased knowledge about environmental protection, innovations in environmental mitigation techniques and new zones created since approval of the 1994 plan.

More information on the limited amendment can be found at:
http://www.montgomeryplanning.org/community/plan_areas/I270_corridor/clarksburg/documents/tenMilePHfinal8-7-13.pdf .

The public hearing will be continued at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 5. The Council’s Planning, Housing and Economic Development Committee is tentatively scheduled to begin reviewing the plan on Jan. 13.

One of the afternoon public hearings concerns a special appropriation of $649,000 from the Fiscal Year 2014 operating budget to provide permanent supportive housing to 15 homeless individuals prioritized as most medically vulnerable. The funding helps support the County’s participation in the national 100,000 Homes Campaign.

Another afternoon public hearing will address a supplemental appropriation of $750,000 to provide financial assistance in the form of a conditional loan to Emergent Biosolutions. In consideration of this conditional grant, Emergent Biosolutions is purchasing a building in Gaithersburg, will retain its current employment level in the County and will add 133 more employees by 2018. This appropriation is part of a larger package of assistance which includes $2 million from the State of Maryland and $245,000 from the City of Gaithersburg’s Economic Opportunities Fund.

At 1:45 p.m., the Council will receive an update from the Executive Branch on the status of implementation of the Wheaton Redevelopment Program. It is expected that part of the worksession will focus on the County Executive’s recommendation as to whether to include a child care center in the office building that will be built as part of the project. The County Planning Board recommended that a child care center be included in the building.

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