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After reading the article ["Hopkins agrees on long-term biotech vision," Feb. 24], and the Memorandum of Understanding between County Executive Ike Leggett and Johns Hopkins University, I was surprised to learn that the parties used the prospect of a new Gaithersburg West National Cancer Institute facility as their first success story.

The JHU official stated that some 1,800 of the 2,400 NCI employees would be researchers, but a memo from NCI management to its employees described the new buildings as office buildings consolidating administrative functions now split in several county locations. Whatever the headline says, that is not most people's vision of world-changing biotechnology.

The NCI employees are now located in Rockville and North Bethesda. I read the Environmental Impact Statement for the move, which described the three properties NCI considered — the other two were in Rockville and North Bethesda near the White Flint Metro station. Does it really fulfill our biotech vision when government scientific agencies choose to relocate offices to Gaithersburg West rather than the Rockville and White Flint?

According to the MOE, Johns Hopkins still made no commitment of its own facilities or researchers to Gaithersburg West. If this MOE is the only outcome of all County Council member Mike Knapp's negotiating with Hopkins, he must be pretty

chagrined.

Pamela Lindstrom, Gaithersburg