By Adam Pagnucco.
Welcome to a new format I am starting for Montgomery Perspective: written interviews. From time to time, I plan on asking influential people in the county a short list of questions to which they reply in writing. This is going to be part of the mission of this site: Montgomery Perspective will represent not just my perspective but those of others too. I hope you enjoy these posts!
Our very first interviewee is Gaithersburg Mayor Jud Ashman, who first sent me a guest column way back in 2009. Jud was elected to the city council in 2007 and became mayor in 2014 after his predecessor, Sidney Katz, was elected to the county council. I regard Jud as one of the best municipal officials in the state and he is certainly the man to see in Gaithersburg when politicians are running for office. Let’s get to our questions and his answers!
Q: You have owned multiple businesses so you don’t have a lot of spare time. Why did you decide to run for elected office?
To paraphrase a recent meme, I came for the indignation; I stayed for the inspiration.
Like most people, when they first get involved politically, it started with outrage! This was back in 2001. My kids were attending schools that were absurdly overcrowded. The City was entertaining a development proposal that was going to make it a lot worse. This motivated me to get involved. Some friends and I organized people from the PTAs and the local neighborhoods to oppose the plan. That was the “indignation” part.
The “inspiration” part would soon follow. I’d never been involved with politics before, and my preconceived notions of it were based on what I’d seen on C-SPAN and national news. So, it was a revelation to me that, at the local level, elected leaders listened to and considered what you had to say. Their discussions at the dais were respectful and civil. Our Mayor at the time, Sidney Katz, made a big impression on me with the collaborative way he ran meetings. (To this day, I aspire to make people who come to our meetings feel as welcomed as Sidney made me feel.) I also found myself surprisingly interested in the agenda items at those meetings that had nothing to do with the development I was fighting.
My group and I won the day on the development. (Postscript: the project later came back and was approved after MCPS broke ground on a new middle school.) And I started to realize that there was a calling for me in local public service. I began involving myself more and more at City Hall and, four years later, ran for City Council. As I write this, more than 20 years since, I can tell you that I’ve never stopped being inspired by what local government can achieve, and by all that our wonderful city has to offer.
So, yes, my time is limited, but I’ve always felt that serving Gaithersburg was worth the effort. Honestly, it is a labor of love.
Q: The City of Gaithersburg is known for its interest in economic development. How does your city pursue this priority?
Gaithersburg has indeed been successful on the economic development front. Our efforts have added at least 3,000 jobs in the City over the last ten years – with many more in the pipeline, and our commercial vacancy rate averages about half that of Montgomery County’s. I think our successes stem from this fundamental position:
We all appreciate the services that the City and the County provide; in order to pay for those services, we need to foster businesses, jobs, and a thriving local economy.
How do we do that? Here are five elements that have worked for Gaithersburg.
1. A business-friendly culture.
The Councilmembers, staff, and I are friendly and welcoming to businesses of all sizes. We value these relationships and take care to establish and maintain trust. We believe that it is a GOOD thing when people want to invest in your community.
2. An organizational structure that works.
Gaithersburg has an *in-house* economic development office. This makes a difference because, unlike having a separate economic development entity, our team is able to work directly and collaboratively with our planning department, code enforcement, legal services, and others to help lead businesses through the relevant processes. And our corporate partners find that we operate a fair, fast regulatory process that keeps projects on schedule.
3. Pushing for the highest-and-best uses.
While we often welcome development and redevelopment in Gaithersburg, we don’t just say “yes” to everything that comes our way. Our economic development team helps us evaluate the highest-and-best use for different properties, providing the information and analysis the Council and I need to make smart decisions that work over the long term.
For example, over the years, we were approached by both a car dealership and a self storage facility about locating at a certain property on Firstfield Road. Based in part on staff analysis, the Council and I did not agree that these were the best uses for that property, and decided instead to wait for a better opportunity. We didn’t have to wait very long; last year, Novavax came to us with a plan to build a huge new campus there, which promised to be home to hundreds of new, high-paying jobs. We were thrilled to approve it. Looking back on it, it is very gratifying to see our patience and due diligence pay dividends for our residents.
4. Putting our money where our mouth is.
Out of our own City budget, we fund business recruitment and expansion projects by way of two grant programs. This is something that I believe we in Gaithersburg do more aggressively than any other municipality in the region. To date, these grant programs have awarded more than $3 million, and brought several thousand job opportunities to Gaithersburg.
5. Forging the right partnerships.
We partner with County and State economic development agencies to attract and retain businesses. Our economic development team has cultivated close relationships with real estate professionals – brokers, investors, and landlords – to market Gaithersburg as a premier place to do business, as well as to identify and adapt to commercial real estate market trends. And we work with our developer partners to create attractive, mixed-use communities at locations that meet employer and employee priorities.
Q: One complaint I have heard from many Upcounty activists is that the county government allegedly pays too little attention to Upcounty. Is that view accurate, and if it is, what can the county do to correct it?
The concern is legitimate. I think some of that is rooted in the historical reality of the downcounty voting in higher numbers than the upcounty.
That being said, I see improvement, and it is our hope that the county government’s service to the upcounty will continue to evolve in a good way. Our city’s relationships with the County Council and the County Executive are pretty strong. I am optimistic that the new and redrawn County Council districts will also add value for all of us.
The upcounty is becoming, more and more each year, the economic engine of Montgomery County. I think everyone is acknowledging the important population and demographic shifts that are happening up here (as I write this from the most diverse small city in the United States).
What we need is for the County to support us when it comes to good development and redevelopment opportunities, economic development initiatives, and new infrastructure.
On that last item, when it specifically comes to transportation, it’s important for everyone at the county level to keep in mind that, aside from traditional bus service, we don’t have viable transit options in the upcounty. Our residents sit in terrible traffic every day. For us, it’s not a “roads vs transit” question; we need “all of the above.”
Q: The saga of Lakeforest Mall goes on and on. How close is that property to getting redeveloped?
At this very moment, we are closer than we’ve ever been to a redevelopment at Lakeforest. The biggest hurdle to getting this done has always been the complication of having multiple owners; five, to be exact. Earlier this year, however, one group, a company called WRS, was able to buy out the other four. As I write this, WRS is preparing an application to rezone along with a sketch plan for a future redevelopment. I expect them to submit this application in the very near future.
Don’t get me wrong; there is still an extensive public process to come. But getting to this point represents real progress.
Redevelopment at Lakeforest remains my top priority for the City of Gaithersburg. But it can’t just be any redevelopment; we will get one shot at this in our political lifetime; it needs to be a grade A redevelopment. I’m excited that we’re about to embark on the first steps – and I know our Councilmembers are as well.
Q: You are always going to be known as the creator of the Gaithersburg Book Festival. The festival was going strong until the pandemic hit. How is it going now?
In terms of attendance, the Gaithersburg Book Festival (GBF) is likely still a top 25 literary festival in the United States. (I’m basing this on a ranking we got a few years ago in a Publishers Weekly list.) And I’ll note that, while I’m honored to serve as the Founder & Chair, it is more than just me! GBF represents the work of many dedicated, brilliant, and talented people – volunteers, staff, sponsors, partners – who make our Festival awesome.
In May, we returned triumphantly to in-person format after two years of virtual programming and debuted our new venue, beautiful Bohrer Park. We had an estimated attendance of 18,500, which is great, though not a record for us. I think we would’ve gotten even more if the temperature that day wasn’t close to 100 degrees… in May!
By the way, if you weren’t there but want to take a look at some of the programs, you can still catch a few of them on our YouTube channel, Montgomery Community Media, and on C-SPAN.
Readers, you definitely want to save the date for the next GBF, May 20, 2023. We’re already working on it, and it’s gonna be amazing!
Q: If you could change one thing about the state or county governments, what would it be?
My tongue-in-cheek answers to this are “stop making us elect judges!” and to the General Assembly, “stop trying to legislatively save the municipalities from themselves!” as well-intentioned efforts to do just that seem to come up every session.
Obviously, though, if a Genie popped out of a lamp and gave me just one wish, those two wouldn’t quite make the cut.
My serious answer is I’d want both our state and county governments to focus more on economic development in order to grow and preserve our tax base. I’ll reiterate my mantra from an earlier question: in order to pay for the high quality government services our communities deserve, we need to foster businesses, jobs, and a thriving local economy. We have a lot of room for improvement on this score.
Maryland currently ranks 46th in the business tax climate index. On that score, we are behind our neighbors Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. When businesses make a decision about where to locate, this is a huge factor. And it leads us to a situation like the one described in a pre-pandemic article in the Washington Post: “in the first 10 months of 2019, Northern Virginia gained an average of 19,500 jobs from a year earlier, compared to 5,700 jobs in the District and just 200 in suburban Maryland.” To put it simply, our neighbors are crushing us, and we need to do better.
Along those same lines, I’m concerned about our state’s tax base shrinking as residents, particularly retirees, opt to move to lower tax jurisdictions. The recent “wealth migration,” triggered by the pandemic, led to Maryland’s tax base shrinking by an estimated $1.9 billion in 2020.
Now, I don’t want to paint an entirely ‘doom and gloom’ picture here. There is a tremendous range of policies, programs, and legislation in our state and in our county that I’m extremely proud of and for which I believe our elected leaders are absolutely worthy of admiration. We just need to also be more business-friendly. That’s the one thing I would change.
Q: You have been a municipal official for 15 years. Will we ever see you run for higher office?
I love serving the City of Gaithersburg. I wake up every day grateful for the opportunity and for the trust our residents have invested in me. I am still inspired by our city. It is still enjoyable for me to work side by side with our City Council and our staff. And I believe that I am still adding value to our governing body.
I won’t rule out ever running for higher office. But I still do love this job and believe there’s important work for me to do here, yet.
Q: I don’t know anyone who loves Quince Orchard High School football more than you. How did that start and when can they be admitted to the Big 10?
Football has always been a big part of my life, so, way back in 2004, when my son Jeff decided to go out for the team at QO, I knew I was destined to be that dad who went to every game – and who, at times, would be loud and opinionated and thoroughly embarrassing to those around me.
Jeff played through the 2006 season and, during those years, I fell in love with everything about spending my Friday nights with the Quince Orchard Cougars; the community spirit in the stands, the aroma of the grill, the team’s electric field entrance to Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” the band playing the fight song, the awesome student section, known affectionately as the Red Army, and, obviously, the game itself. What’s not to love??
When Jeff graduated in ‘07, my daughter Jenna was still at QO, so I still had a legit excuse to go to the games, at least through ‘09. But here we are in 2022… I no longer have that excuse. I have become ‘that guy!’ I’m a little less loud and embarrassing than I was in those first few years, but I love the whole experience of Quince Orchard football every bit as much as I ever did. And I have fun playing amateur journalist, capturing highlights and posting them on Twitter.
The QO football program is really something special and worthy of a great deal of pride for our community. The team has made it to the state final, I believe, 7 times in the last 15 years. I was there for every one of them and am hoping we’ll get back to Navy Stadium again this year.