More News

As Gov. Martin O'Malley and his closest staff took their seats for a cabinet meeting last week, they did not have the usual quaint view of historic Annapolis out of the windows behind them.

Instead, they gathered Thursday in downtown Silver Spring as the bustling urban district became Maryland's ‘Capital for a Day.'

As part of a monthly program in which the state's political elite hold meetings in different host communities throughout the state, the program gives local legislators an opportunity to confer with their state counterparts. A number of Montgomery County officials—including County Executive Isiah Leggett (D)—took full advantage of the governor's presence on their home turf to broach serious topics, most notably, the 2011 budget and the state's projections for the even tighter fiscal outlook likely to unfold next year.

"We need to make sure that [state officials] are prioritizing the same things we're looking at: education, transportation and providing jobs," Leggett said following his comments before O'Malley's cabinet meeting in the Performing Arts Center of Montgomery College's Silver Spring/Takoma Park campus.

"Secondly, I think that they need to recognize the point I was making that we do need additional revenue of some kind," Leggett added.

O'Malley (D) agreed, highlighting the importance of protecting the close relationship between Annapolis and the rest of the state.

"The counties certainly aren't spared in this misery," he said of the budget, responding to questions after his cabinet meeting. "The most import thing that all of us can be doing right now is things that save jobs, create jobs, retain jobs or improve the conditions that allow the businesses to [do the same], ... and I think Ike Leggett and the county council have been stepping up to this challenge."

O'Malley went on to cite downtown Silver Spring's business model, built as it is around the Metro Red Line transit hub, as an example to the rest of the state as to what needs to be done to weather the economic recession.

"There are so many things about the redevelopment and the rejuvenation of Silver Spring that should inspire people throughout our state," he said. "The arts, the entertainment, the LEED certified buildings and ... being at the forefront of movements like the driving imperative to move and grow in smarter ways — all of that comes together in Silver Spring."

The governor wasn't alone in his praise for the region; Maryland Secretary of Business and Economic Development Christian Johansson described Montgomery County as one of the "strongest horses" in pulling the state from the recession, while Shari Wilson, the state's secretary of the environment, had nothing but kind words for nearby Takoma Park in her tour of the city earlier that morning.

"You all are showing us how to do it in Takoma Park," Wilson told Takoma Park Mayor Bruce Williams in a tour of two of the city's stimulus-funded environmentally sustainable projects Thursday morning.

Wilson toured the "green roof" on the city's community center, in which vegetation was planted on a section of the community center's formerly cement walkways to absorb water runoff and provide environmentally friendly insulation. Wilson and her staff also examined a storm-water retaining wall on Linden Lane that filtered potentially toxic rainwater runoff before it entered nearby Sligo Creek.

"We do have projects like this throughout the rest of the state, but we don't have a sustained funding source for them," Wilson said during the tour, citing the tight economy. "It's going to take local jurisdictions looking at how they can get a sustainable funding source in place; Takoma Park was the first jurisdiction in the state to do this."