Posts by Cavan Wilk

It is clear that the enclosed walkway was erected with the rush hour commuter in mind. The walkway makes perfect sense for commuters walking from the parking garage to the Metro. It's light out and there are plenty of people around. My friend noted that at night she couldn't much see around the curve in the sidewalk. It was completely impossible to see around the corner into the parking garage.

It is disappointing that the walkway couldn't have been designed with safety and comfort in mind. I don't think that the enclosed walkway was built to feel unsafe at night on purpose. I think that the concept that a young woman would walk there after dark was just never taken into consideration.

Lighting, mirrors, and perhaps periodic openings for egress are all necessary attributes for a workable temporary walkway. These considerations will be even more important if this walkway is still there in the late fall, when the sun sets before the commute has ended.

Montgomery County can do better than this. The county should plan for pedestrian safety after residents leave those destinations and walk home from the Metro. They should require that if a sidewalk is obstructed due to construction, that a safe alternate route be provided. And that detour should include lighting and other safety features if necessary.

Education
Delegate Sol Gutierrez emphasized that she has a constructive working relationship with the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA) that dates back to her time serving on the Board of Education in the early 1990's. Ana and her three sons all received a quality public education in Montgomery County. She first ran for the school board because she saw that the county was experiencing demographic changes.

When she returned to the county in the early 1980's after living five years in South America, she was dismayed because it appeared that two different school systems were emerging, based on changing demographics. She looked at the available data and noticed that an achievement gap was developing in parts of the county. When the MCEA was informed of the data, they began collaborating together to implement an educational vision.

Ana recalled that the disposition of the Board of Education during her first term and her second term were very different. The Board during her second term "was very anti-union." Ana worked to focus the anti-union sentiments on improving the processes related to teacher development and evaluation. She said, "If we wanted to improve education, we had to work with the teachers.

The MCEA was a good partner, very collaborative and very progressive." They designed a process where teachers would be given ongoing support and training. If a teacher was judged to need performance improvement, they would be given professional development along with a defined timeline for improvement and standardized expectations. While working with the MCEA, she noted "in many ways, they were more forward thinking than the board."

Delegate Sol Gutierrez's education accomplishments at the state level have included the passage of legislation that more accurately defines the graduation rate, years before the federal government did. Her future education initiatives include extending the mandatory attendance age as a means to reduce the drop-out rates among minority students. Such an extension would include provisions for a system of interventions and enrichment classes to support the higher attendance age. She also favors legislation that would track, report, and intervene with primary school students with low attendance. Poor attendance in elementary school is often a precursor of low academic achievement and with dropping out in high school.

Economy
Because Delegate Sol Gutierrez serves on the House Appropriations Committee, she is acutely aware of the critical economic circumstances that the state and country are currently in. One of the country's ongoing economic problems that is holding back recovery is that banks are refusing to lend to small businesses. The large national banks (the Too-Big-to-Fails) all have large non-performing loans on their balance sheets. Therefore, they are reluctant to lend to any commercial entities except the biggest of big business. However, a few small banks took the kind of risks that the Too-Big-to-Fails took. They simply aren't big enough to cover the gap that the anemic national banks left. Ana sees potential for Maryland to create a special fund to incentivize the solvent, more agile, in-state community banks to increase small business lending.

Because of the ongoing Great Recession, Ana is also pushing for major revisions to established economic projection methodologies. I agree completely. Many economic systems behave differently when an economy is in a liquidity trap. Under normal economic circumstances, if the Federal Reserve maintained (effectively) zero percent interest rates for two years, we would experience very high inflation. The fact that this hasn't happened further bolsters the need to revise inflation and budgetary projection methodologies to incorporate current conditions, along with irregular business growth and investment behaviors.

Purple Line
When I asked Ana how she came to be a champion of the Purple Line, she replied, "The Purple Line embodies what I understand to be social justice." Just like the Metro, it will provide quality transit for all, regardless of socio-economic status. "I understand what it's like for a single parent to have to get up at 5am to catch a bus, then catch another bus to get to work on time… while a child has to wait for a school bus alone." She continued, "We have a two-tiered transportation system right now. The Purple Line will be a major step in creating a high-quality transportation system for all."

Ana also recognizes that the Purple Line will be among the most efficient and competitive light rail project in the United States. When it comes to cost-per-rider metrics, the project scores very well, mainly due to high expected ridership.

She also emphasizes the environmental benefits of smart growth, such as focusing new growth around transit stations inside the beltway rather than bulldozing thousands of acres of old growth forest to create new car-dependent exurban subdivisions.

Because of the placement of the bus stop located on the south side of Marinelli across from the Metro entrance, there is a desire line across the street. The wall makes pedestrians go the long way around, and is typical of the conventional mid-20th century transportation orthodoxy which asserted that cars and pedestrians should be kept separate.

Additionally, the wall creates hazards for motorists. While I was taking photos, I saw two motorists turn left from southbound Rockville Pike (MD 355) into the oncoming lanes on Marinelli Road. A friend of mine who lives in one of the apartment buildings adjacent to the Metro said to me that she did the same thing the first time she turned left onto Marinelli. This wall violates the concept of driver expectancy. Drivers often drive based on what they expect, not necessarily according to actual conditions. To many drivers, a wall implies the side of the road rather than a median.

The wall also partially obstructs drivers' view of pedestrians in and around the crosswalk. It is especially hard for drivers to see road hazards, shorter pedestrians, children, and wheelchair users.

A more progressive approach would be to relocate the bus stop directly across the street from the Metro entrance. The stop line for cars approaching the Rockville Pike intersection on westbound Marinelli Road would also be moved back to allow a crosswalk to occupy the new desire line to the bus stop and NRC headquarters across the street.

As White Flint develops into a more urban area, Montgomery County will need to begin to treat the needs of pedestrians as more important than those of drivers. If Rockville Pike remains as hostile to pedestrians as it is now, no amount of density will turn White Flint into an urban center.

Our experiences around the Washington region have taught us that opening a Metro station has the potential to completely change the local economic systems, provided that the government and landowners take advantage of their infrastructure investment. However, the Gazette article shows that the investment in transit is not being leveraged:

With a new high-end apartment and condominium complex being built on Layhill Road, the raising of Georgia Avenue over Randolph Road and the move of the fire station to the Glenmont Metro, where a new, 12-floor parking garage is being built, residents are holding out hope that a sparkling new shopping center could be just a few years away.

One can't emphasize enough that an elevated highway and a walkable neighborhood in the same space are mutually exclusive things. If you only plan for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. That is just as true in Glenmont as it is anywhere else.

The landowners of the Glenmont Shopping Center appear to be far less business savvy and enlightened than the coalition of landowners who cooperated to plan for the recently passed White Flint Sector Plan that envisions a new human-scale town. It appears from the article, that there is none of that kind of cooperation going on in Glenmont:

Karen Durbin, the manager of Arcade Florist, has been selling flowers to shoppers since 1969. When asked how the shopping center has evolved over the years, she laughed as a co-worker slowly dropped a thumbs-down.

"The problem here is that there's a lot of different landlords, and they don't cohesively get together, Durbin said. "...Major renovations? The only thing I ever see them do is work on the parking lot."

As more and more new projects are completed in the immediate area that leverage their proximity to the Metro, the Glenmont Shopping Center will become more and more of a weight around the neck of revitalization.

If the shopping center gets a street grid as a result of a suburban-to-urban retrofit, there will be more connectivity with the surrounding small streets like in the White Flint Sector Plan. People living within walking distance of amenities in a new mixed-use development adjacent to the Metro will contribute to reversing the whirlpool of induced demand.

If the demand for road space could be better managed, Montgomery County wouldn't have to build the overpass for Randolph road over Georgia Avenue. (Sadly, the county DOT's Level of Service traffic metrics will always recommend building more roads.) The county would get tax revenue from redevelopment because walkable urbanism has more billable floor space per unit land area, and also a smaller road bill. I wonder why no one thought of it, despite the fact that it has already been done within Montgomery County in Bethesda, Silver Spring, and soon White Flint.

Montgomery is very lucky that the landowners in the White Flint Sector Plan area are forward-thinking enough to cooperate to improve environmental sustainability while increasing their long term profits. Clearly, the county is not as lucky in Glenmont. I have never met the landowners of the Glenmont Shopping Center. I do not know how they view their commercial rental property. However, I do know that any profit-seeking private business is motivated by improvements to their own bottom line. They stand to make a fortune in either redeveloping their property as a mixed-use town or by selling it to someone who will. The article in the Gazette demonstrates a lack of vision in the area. However, the county needs to provide zoning and planning support to make something happen.

Developers are profit-seeking businesses just like any other. It is up to the citizenry, through its elected officials in government, to set up a business environment that incentivizes developers to do the right thing. The landowners in White Flint had to jump through hoops to do the right thing. The status quo will not produce more transit-oriented, sustainable, human-scale towns. We can do better than dreaming of a more sparkly 1960's era strip mall flanked by a Metro station on one side and an overpass on the other. That's just putting lipstick on a pig. The opportunity costs are too high to waste the investment of the Glenmont Metro station.

The FTA's New Starts program receives a very small fraction of the federal transportation budget, which mostly consists of gas tax receipts. The gas tax was conceived as a mechanism to have motorists pay for road costs. A car owner has to buy gasoline in order to use the roads. As more roads were built, more motorists drove more miles. The government then used the higher gas tax receipts to build more roads, causing higher gas tax receipts, etc. It was a very intelligent system when it was conceived. The gas tax's purpose was to provide funding for roads. It was never meant to provide construction money for transit. As long as transit funding is connected to the gas tax, its construction will remain anemic.

Transportation infrastructure (including roads) is not a profitable endeavor in the United States, except for some purely freight uses. The only time in history it was profitable was between the Civil War and World War II. A company would build a streetcar or subway line from a city center to land that was too remote to be worth anything to someone who commuted to work on foot. When streetcar service began, the value of the land surrounding the stations greatly increased because it was then connected to the city center. The streetcar builder would then sell the greatly appreciated land and make a profit. While our remote places are now dozens of miles more remote than they were in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, new transit infrastructure can still dramatically increase property values.

The creation of the gas tax was a clever way to repurpose some of the economic activity created by new road infrastructure towards funding roads. Similarly, a better way to fund new transit infrastructure would be to capture some of the new economic activity created by transit. It worked a century ago when done by private companies. It will work in the near future when done by the citizenry through its elected government. In Arlington County, Virginia, 33% of all tax receipts are collected in the Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor, which takes up only 8% of the county's land area. The positive difference in tax receipts between what the Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor now generates compared to what the dying strip malls that used to line the corridor would be generating is immeasurable.

We should set aside a small fraction of all tax receipts from new transit-oriented development into a Transit Trust Fund. There will be more transit-oriented development as more transit is constructed. Tax receipts from new transit-oriented development that go into the Transit Trust Fund would then be used to build more transit. The new transit would then generate more transit-oriented development, further adding to the fund. It will create a positive feedback loop and a snowball effect similar to how the gas tax once filled the Highway Trust Fund. Just as all levels of government were once incentivized to build more roads to increase gas tax receipts so they would have more road money, government would then be incentivized to build a starter transit line so they could increase the money in the Transit Trust Fund, and so on.

Once the Transit Trust Fund becomes large enough, the federal government could start offering to contribute some large fraction of the construction costs towards building transit projects, subject to well-defined metrics. Back in the 20th century, the federal government provided 90% of the funding for the construction of Interstate Highways. Unsurprisingly, lots of Interstates were built over three decades. It is probably not realistic to expect the federal government to be so generous with new transit projects in the near future. A vastly different fiscal situation, combined with higher materials and labor costs implies a different construction timeline. The first decade would be much slower as the fund fills up from the first tax receipts from the first projects that are currently being planned.

Transit-oriented development that has already been built should NOT be subject to the Transit Trust Fund. Most local and state governments around the country are in trying fiscal situations because of the ongoing Great Recession. I doubt that most could afford even the small fraction of tax receipts that would go into the Transit Trust Fund. Rather, I propose that new transit-oriented developments around new transit stations should pay into the Transit Trust Fund. There should be no subtraction from any local government's already tight budget.

The expansion of our road network in the 20th century provided lots of construction contracts, in addition to more economic activity related to building cars and car-dependent sprawl. The Transit Trust Fund would similarly provide decades of transit construction contracts, in addition to more economic activity related to building transit vehicles and transit-oriented development. The former was a novel idea in the mid-20th century. While we now understand that its model of land use is unsustainable, it provided a backbone for economic growth for decades. While the details of the Transit Trust Fund would have to be ironed out in the political process, the model would work on the local, state and/or federal levels. The Transit Trust Fund would incorporate the most successful infrastructure funding strategies of the 20th century and put them towards a sustainable 21st century template for decades-long economic growth.

The southwestern corner of Veterans Plaza has an amphitheater that will double as an ice skating rink during winter:

The photo was taken in the evening during a free outdoor concert. The corner of Ellsworth and Fenton is in the background. The steps provide the audience seating for the concert.

When designing good urban places, architects and advocates often use the term "sense of place." On a city street, sense of place refers to the positive feeling a pedestrian gets from being in a defined human-scale space. The space is delineated by consistent rows of buildings that come up to the sidewalk (or just behind the sidewalk in the L'Enfant City).

A small urban park's sense of place is bolstered by its clear boundaries with the rest of the urban fabric and the consistent row of buildings that are visible across the street. Veterans' Plaza has an excellent sense of place. The amphitheater takes advantage of the topography and has a retaining wall behind it. The new Silver Spring Civic Center provides a clear human-scaled boundary on the east side of the park. The shops across Fenton Street and Ellsworth Drive provide a similar effect as the buildings surrounding McPherson Square.

Veterans' Plaza has received some minor criticism. Montgomery County Planning Director Rollin Stanley said:

"The new space will, by virtue of its location and the attraction of the shops on Ellsworth, be successful. Already, crowds are gathering to see the programmed events. All that's missing is the spontaneity, the creative interpretation of the space that the turf generated. Frankly put, it is over designed.

When I was walking around, I observed that the layout of the park was accommodating to both concert-goers and regular social interaction. The park's internal space had some temporary overprogramming. The temporary stage and tables made sense in the context of an organized free concert. Without the temporary tables and stage, I can see the otherwise unprogrammed space providing a good canvas for spontaneous social interaction. The designers of Veterans' Plaza embraced the primary lesson of The Turf: less is more. I was skeptical that the new park would be as successful as The Turf. I was concerned that the designers would overdesign the public space and try too hard to inflict their "vision" of how people should use public space. Rollin Stanley is correct that the most successful small urban parks tend to have ample unprogrammed space. They're centers for informal social gatherings. While The Turf was a celebrated urban park, it is not the only template.

I take my hat off to Montgomery County for the success of the design of Veterans' Plaza in downtown Silver Spring. The Turf was not an easy act to follow and it was far from inevitable that its successor would be as much of a civic asset. I have said many times over the past two years that we need to learn from the mistakes of the recent past while embracing the successes that were cast aside and forgotten in the same time frame. The designers of Veterans' Plaza ignored the temptation to make it a monument to their own greatness like a starchitect would. Instead, it serves as a monument to the vitality of Silver Spring.

Chris talked about the voluntary public campaign finance legislation that continues to be considered in the General Assembly. A compromise was struck last year which would significantly increase the contribution limits for those who decide to stay in the private funding system. He said that in some respects this compromise would actually make the situation worse since it would allow those who stay in the private system to raise even larger sums of money from lobbyists and political action committees. This compromise would ensure continued special interest control over the legislative process since most if not all of the representatives who control the legislative process would stay in the private system. Chris called the compromise a "cynical bone thrown to first-time candidates."

I pointed out that many challenging candidates employ a strategy of painting themselves as an outsider in a campaign against "the establishment." "How would you keep from falling into the mindset of 'the establishment' that you care currently criticizing?" I asked. Chris pointed out that he has capped his contribution limit at $500. He also emphasized that he is not accepting donations from businesses, political action committees, and Maryland registered lobbyists. Chris said that this will enable him to maintain his independence and passion for innovation in the General Assembly.

District 20 has been a long-time axis for Purple Line support, both among its elected officials and among its voters. Chris emphasized he would be a champion for the Purple Line as an essential part of his smart growth platform. He expressed, "We need to reorient how we think about transportation and planning. We need an efficient [intra-regional] train that is more convenient than driving and also provides economic incentives to use transit." From the conversation, I inferred that Chris understands that planning and transportation go hand-in-hand. If you don't have human-scale walkable urban places to connect, transit can't be more efficient and convenient than a private automobile.

As part of his platform of bolstering a clean energy economy, Chris feels that an important first step would be to put more emphasis on the existing Maryland Clean Energy Center. Ironically, it is currently in car-dependent western Rockville, miles from the Red Line. It was put there because the office space was donated.

He asserted that Maryland has fallen behind the rest of the nation mainly as a result of the Maryland General Assembly not making this issue a priority. We're ahead on smart growth (which says as much about other states cluelessness on the matter as it does about Maryland's success) but behind on placing an emphasis on clean energy. Maryland is fortunate to have a very wide and deep human capital talent pool. We could leverage our proximity to the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a clean energy economy similar as we have leveraged our proximity to the National Institutes of Health to create a robust biotech industry.

Most importantly, we already have a political consensus that creating a clean energy economy is the right direction to take. The creation of the Maryland Clean Energy Center is a physical manifestation of that consensus. Now the center needs significantly more resources to drive Maryland forward in this emerging industry.

2) On your website, you articulate your detailed views about the role of taxation in our society. You also emphasize the need for the Maryland House of Delegates to be proactive rather than sitting back and waiting for the Governor to submit his/her budget. What taxation and budget policies do you envision proposing as a Delegate representing the 18th District?

Taxes are the price we pay for our civilization. No one has accumulated wealth simply on the basis of his or her own exertions outside of the greater community. We all benefit from and depend on our public works, such as schools, hospitals, parks, libraries, and law enforcement officials.

As a founder and leader of the Progressive Working Group, Maryland's newer progressive coalition, I have lobbied to develop and maintain progressive tax policies. Unfortunately, this year, the Maryland General Assembly allowed the millionaire's tax bracket to sunset. None of the District 18 delegates co-sponsored Delegate Ivey's bill to stop the sunset.

In addition, large multi-state corporations are still allowed to avoid Maryland taxes. A process known as combined reporting would disallow this practice and bring in hundreds of millions of dollars annually. 23 states already prevent such tax avoidance. The current District 18 delegates are led on this matter by Senator Madaleno, who strongly opposes combined reporting, as well as progressive taxation in general.

I believe that neither progressive taxation nor combined reporting will drive millionaires or corporations to ferry across the Potomac to live in Fairfax County, a common mantra from many conservative-leaning Democrats in Montgomery County.

The basic fact is that the County has reached the limit of its taxing ability and is now resorting to nuisance taxes such as the 80% increase in the energy tax and the new cell phone taxes, as well as the ambulance fee. The only way to pay for the services we prize here in the County is through adequate, progressive, equitable and sustainable taxation from Annapolis.

Any other taxes should be progressive and not target the middle class, unless they serve an overriding purpose which benefits the middle class as well as everyone else.

3) Recently, the Washington Post took note that Maryland's smart growth laws have been "toothless." As you are aware, downtown Wheaton has been designated as a "Smart Growth Area" by the state of Maryland. As a delegate, what steps would you take to advance progress in Wheaton?

I will work closely with the Montgomery County Council and Parks and Planning to move our smart growth projects forward, the most recent being White Flint and the Great Seneca Science Center. Currently, communication between the Council and the state delegation is very poor. As a Council staffer who knows the elected Councilmembers as well as their staffs and the permanent staff, I will be uniquely suited to serve as a bridge between the two bodies.

If we [Montgomery County] are ever to be taken seriously as the economic power in Maryland, we need to present an assertive united front. Our County does produce 24% of the state's GDP with only 17% of its population.

The Wheaton sector plan is currently under discussion and should appear before the Council next year. We've recognized that Wheaton will not become like Bethesda or Silver Spring, but be more of a residential center. I support that form of development.

While I do not see the importation of Costco as a smart growth move, as few would shop at Costco via Metro, a solid majority of the neighboring residents seem to desire Costco and I support the County Exec's plan. However, I oppose the fast-track creation of a 16 bay gas station on public health grounds. It should be called what it really is — a truck stop.

I also intend to introduce legislation that will mandate equipping all gas station pumps with advanced vapor recovery nozzles to minimize ground level ozone. Wheaton already has 14 gas stations, and we need to reduce this major factor in smog production and pulmonary disease.

Disclosure: I reside in District 18.

The wilderness parks are attractions themselves. They are valued for their place outside the urban fabric rather than their interaction with it. On the other hand, small urban parks are valued for their symbiotic interactions with their surroundings. If a small urban park is too big, it starts to disconnect from its surroundings. It then becomes stuck in limbo: too big to interact with its surroundings but too small to offer that sense of escape that a wilderness park offers. Poplar Point in its current state is an example of a park that is neither fish nor fowl.

Vibrant surrounding urban area. The now-extinct Turf in downtown Silver Spring was an unintentionally brilliant example of a successful small urban park. The Ellsworth Drive development has been a rousing success from its opening. It attracts a consistent, vibrant pedestrian atmosphere. Many Washingtonians discovered and rediscovered Silver Spring in the 2000's as a result of the increased social standing and amenities brought on by Fenton Street's proximate transit access, mixture of eateries, retailers, and activities. It only makes sense that people walking around enjoying the amenities would want to sit down and take in the vibrant atmosphere.

The Turf was an empty space at the corner of Ellsworth and Fenton Avenue that was being held in limbo while it was decided what would be built there. In the interim, artificial turf was put down over the ground. A new park was born. The success of the Turf even caused some concern in landscape architecture circles.

A vibrant surrounding area doesn't have to be a commercial and nightlife district like in Silver Spring or Dupont Circle to have a successful small urban park. Logan Circle and Lincoln Square are surrounded by quiet rowhouse neighborhoods and are both successful centers of place.

Eyes on the street. My office is proximate to McPherson and Franklin Squares. My older co-workers have told me stories about how back in the 1980's and early '90s, there was crime in Franklin Square on weekdays in broad daylight. While I don't know the exact statistics, the area did have a seedy reputation at the time.

The historic downtown DC (the part centered on Metro Center) was in a depressed state with lots of office vacancies. There were not many people walking around near Franklin Square compared to today. Regardless of whether there actually was seedy activity, it was much easier for it occur without a large public presence. Similarly, a lack of eyes on the street gives the impression that there is seedy activity, regardless of whether such a reputation is deserved.

It is also very hard to have enough eyes on the street if the surrounding neighborhood isn't dense enough. Logan Circle works well as a neighborhood park because it has enough neighbors in walking distance. If you grew up in a car-dependent subdivision, contrast the vibrance of Logan Circle to how much use the little hyper-programmed park in your subdivision got. The most pedestrian-friendly road infrastructure won't make a vibrant, successful urban park if there are too few people nearby to enjoy it and deter seedy activities.

Because of the largely low-density car-dependent land uses in Wards 7 and 8, many of the parks east of the Anacostia do not have enough eyes on the street to prevent the development of unfavorable reputations. Similarly, the woods between Garrett Park and White Flint Mall don't have enough density around them to be used as a celebrated park, despite the location between a residential area and a major retail destination. (The new White Flint Sector Plan will address some of the connectivity issues with a small park and connections to the new street grid.)

During the 2000s, we started to re-learn many fundamental principles about how to revitalize and build celebrated sustainable, human-scale traditional towns and cities. During the post-war period, we collectively forgot how to build parks that didn't involve large access roads, acres of surface parking, and hyper-structured activity spaces. Let's use the lessons we've learned in the revitalization of the small urban parks in Northwest DC and Capitol Hill, along with the construction of new small urban parks in Silver Spring and Bethesda, to make our existing and new walkable urban places even greater.

2) On your website, you emphasize job creation in Montgomery County and Maryland as a top priority. Where do you envision locating the job growth? Also, how do you advocate planning for the residential growth that would result from positive job growth?

I believe in smart growth, and one of the most important aspects of smart growth is to support existing communities by developing areas where infrastructure already exists. A program of revitalization can be very beneficial to an unincorporated area like Wheaton, a city, a county, and a state, as our neighbors in the District of Columbia are experiencing with the eastern end of downtown and the Verizon Center. I don't think we need an excuse before we make everyone's life better. We must ensure that as residential growth occurs, the existing infrastructure is maintained, improved, and services which residents rely on are not neglected. Once we have effectively navigated our way out of this current economic downturn, a number of incentive based programs can be more fully implemented to also encourage job and residential growth. As a delegate representing District 18 it will be incumbent upon me to listen to the community.

In addition, we need to protect as much of Maryland's natural resources and biodiversity as we can while we still have it. Redeveloping blighted areas should take precedence over cutting down trees for new low-density housing. We watch as Virginia destroys millions of trees in order to expand local roads and highways because they invested so little in preventing sprawl.

3) Recently, the Washington Post took note that Maryland's smart growth laws have been "toothless." As you are aware, downtown Wheaton has been designated as a "Smart Growth Area" by the state of Maryland. As a delegate, what steps would you take to advance progress in Wheaton?

More than anything, ensuring smart growth programs are properly funded goes a long way to solving the toothless reputation they have developed. Money talks at least as loudly as regulation, and properly incentivizing developers and giving tax breaks directly to family businesses purchasing homes or leasing office space in targeted areas will help mold development into a manageable state.

The most important thing we can do, though, is to solicit input from the residents of Wheaton. I believe in asking the people who have to live there for help in guiding our development of the area, rather than dictating how their environment will be developed. I've heard several opinions, for example, that Westfield Wheaton Mall needs to remain an indoor mall. Others believe it should be redeveloped into a walkable mixed-use mall with shops, offices, and apartments. Ultimately, the residents should decide, and I look forward to hearing more from them.

Disclose: I reside in Wheaton in District 18