Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich has been in public office, in either Takoma Park, MD city government or Montgomery County government, a staggering 35-plus years. That’s thirty-five, all in a row.
In 2006, Elrich began his ascent in local politics, finally winning a seat on the Montgomery County Council after three previous attempts had come up short. He was finally moving up from the part-time Takoma Park City Council to the full time MoCo Council.
But the part-time job on the Takoma Park City Council is where this series begins. It is here that we can explore the mindset and policy-making of arguably the person most responsible for the “managed decline”, the economic and housing stagnation Montgomery County finds itself in today, in 2023. Former three-term County Executive Isiah “Ike” Leggett shares responsibility as well for MoCo’s current economic stagnation.
“Decline” isn’t just our word, by the way, or the word of rank partisans. “Affluent but in decline, Montgomery County to pick future” reads this headline from Axios News in July 2022. Marc Elrich squeaked out the thinnest of Democratic primary wins shortly thereafter.
Per Montgomery County’s own “OLO Report 2023-2: Economic Indicators for Montgomery County and Surrounding Jurisdictions“, the number of private establishments, across all industries, in Montgomery County has basically been stagnant-to-declining for 15+ years. This graph is pulled directly from the OLO Report (below):
Back to the Beginning
Elected to the Takoma Park, Maryland City Council in 1987, Mr. Elrich began his ‘public service’ in 1988. One of the first times we see his name on Takoma Park City Council Minutes is in January 11, 1988.
A younger Elrich is clearly involved in tenant rights, rental housing, and private property disputes from the start of his political career. He is also (interestingly) against more bureaucracy at the city level. Here he is, within a week of swearing in, disputing the need of a “Takoma Park City Recycling Task Force” to have essentially no ability to review the transactions the City Council engages in with other parties. In prior interviews, Mr. Elrich has called himself a “fiscal conservative” on the Takoma Park City Council.
But by far, Elrich’s name comes up the most during City Council meeting notes in the areas of zoning, housing and apartment or house rent disputes between landlords and tenants. Within a few months of being elected to the Takoma Park City Council, Elrich was nominated to be the City’s representative on the Silver Spring Sector Plan:
Why? Because in reviewing these earlier City Council minutes, Mr. Elrich fit right in to a City Council that was either hesitant to approve new development without significant foot-dragging, or was outright hostile against new construction proposed in Takoma Park by entrepreneurs or developers.
But even among these stagnationistas and long time NIMBYs in Takoma Park government, Marc Elrich was clearly the loudest voice against how people and developers use their own private property. In March of 1988, Elrich was the only City Council Member who abstained from a vote approving a subdivision of a lot so that an individual could construct a 5-bedroom, 4-bathroom home on their property for resale.
The pattern repeats itself among many other votes and topics in the late 1980s / 1990s of Takoma Park, Maryland. And now the pattern is showing up in Montgomery County writ large. In 1998, Elrich used Takoma Park City government to promote an activist protest outside the County Council building in Rockville. Elrich pushed Takoma Park City residents to attack a proposal that deserved review, but would have unquestionably made home and new community planning and construction faster in Montgomery County.
Heading into Part 2, we’ll explore Marc Elrich’s rhetoric regarding Takoma Park’s unification with Montgomery County in the mid-1990s.
Photo Credit: Clyde L, Unification Archive, Historic Takoma Archives.
