Category Archives: Montgomery County Politics

Unclear On The Concept

Shorter Adam Pagnucco to Kathleen Matthews: here’s all the reasons why your campaign for Congress sucks. You know what would really help? Support meeeee! That’s some quality persuasion right there. Dale Carnegie would be proud. But even apart from the “insult her, then suggest she support you” problem, the advice is terrible. Already subject to criticism, as I’ve pointed out, for being a… Read more »

Purple Line Announcement Fakeout

Turns out the January 15 (i.e., today) deadline was not really a deadline. Bethesda Magazine: Maryland Transit Administration officials are still evaluating proposals from four teams that are bidding to build the estimated $2.2 billion, 16-mile light rail line. The MTA, in putting out a request for bids, had set Friday as the date it would notify a team it… Read more »

A Position I Didn’t Know I Held In An Organization I Didn’t Know Existed

In response to my after midnight post about Adam Pagnucco’s letter to County Attorney Marc Hansen, Barry O’Connell was sufficiently outraged that he wrote the following Facebook post.    Pure comedy gold. “Explaining how to read a legal case” = “scathing blog based hatchet job.” I had no idea. And would it have been a better or worse “hatchet job” if it… Read more »

Don’t Try This At Home

I’ve been a lawyer for almost (gulp) 25 years now. One of my pet peeves when I was in private practice was when clients would offer their own legal advice or even better - this actually happened - advice from their bartender. Which opened up a whole host of other issues, but that’s a different story. Law is the only… Read more »

Outsourcing The Liquor Argument

Councilmember Roger Berliner, the lone member of the Montgomery County Council supporting privatization of the county’s liquor monopoly, has a Facebook post up about some of the problems that the Department of Liquor Control had over the holiday season. There’s a number of comments, but this one is particularly instructive. Until some of the many good questions raised by the commenter are answered,… Read more »

George Leventhal Responds To Franchot Report 

From Facebook: I like and respect my old friend Comptroller Peter Franchot but I wish he would exercise more due diligence and help Montgomery County government figure out means to mitigate the damage that would be done to our operating and capital budgets by giving away a profitable asset (liquor sales) to private interests and getting nothing in return. It seems… Read more »

The Inigo Montoya Alcohol Report

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” The word in this case being not “inconceivable,” but “revenue.” Yesterday, Comptroller Peter Franchot held an event to tout his new “report” about all the “revenue” that will be gained by doing away with Montgomery County’s alcohol monopoly. I kept hearing Inigo Montoya’s voice over… Read more »

New Board Of Education Candidate?

Reliable sources indicate that a new candidate is considering a run for the MoCo Board of Education, most likely in District 2 but potentially in the at-large race. Oscar Alvarenga is the president of the Summit Hall Elementary School PTA, and he was recently voted the PTA President of the Year by the Montgomery County Council of PTAs. Here’s a… Read more »

Peak Ad Hominem

As attentive readers of this establishment know, there’s a big fight going on over the issue of alcohol distribution in Montgomery County. The chief advocate for change has been Comptroller Peter Franchot, who is advocating for a bill to open up the County’s monopoly on alcohol distribution. Among the many opponents of such a change is MCGEO, the union representing… Read more »

ICYMI: Post Summary Of Alcohol Issue

Over last weekend, Bill Turque of the Post had a very good writeup of some of the basic questions surrounding the alcohol privatization issues currently being considered by the county’s legislative delegation. I missed it - if you did too, here you go. A snippet to whet your appetite: Montgomery’s monopoly in the alcohol business — as the county’s exclusive wholesaler of… Read more »