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The request, from Kentlands resident and long time activist Richard Arkin, comes at a time when a coalition of Kentlands and Lakelands residents that question the financial viability of the proposal have collected 900 signatures from residents who oppose the plan to move several facilities and agencies to the GE Tech Park and Finmarc properties.

Arkin asked Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett two months ago for all information relating to the plan that includes buying 100 acres off Darnestown Road.†

The county responded to his request June 25 noting that Arkin would be billed $16,640.82 for the information. The cost includes an estimated 218 hours of research at $46 to $104 per hour.

Arkin did not expect to be charged for the information and has asked the county to waive the fee.

Leggett's office was initially cool to that idea.

"If you want some specific stuff that's not the moon and the stars, we're more than happy to work with you," Leggett spokesman Patrick K. Lacefield said Friday. "But it doesn't seem like a prudent use of limited tax dollars to spend $16,000 on this kind of request."

On Tuesday, Leggett's response warmed somewhat, sending Arkin a letter saying the county is willing to discuss a waiver.

Arkin said he is willing to narrow his request. But given the difficulty he has had to get more information about the plan to buy the land and move two county agencies there, he has set a high bar for relenting.

"I've been met with an evasive answer to every question I've posed," he said Monday. "It is totally a fait accompli; the public was never going to have a chance to look at this and have opportunity to ask meaningful questions."

Arkin's frustration is one thread among the growing community clamor for more details.†The plan calls for the acquisition of†the 100 acres along Darnestown Road that would house the county police headquarters in an existing†six-story building and would consolidate the county's Department of Liquor Control into a warehouse. A new police and fire rescue training facility and a food warehouse for the county school system would be built at the 130-acre Webb Tract near Montgomery Village.

Because the plan is still taking shape, county officials have not been able to give the kind of details that residents have demanded.

The latest entry to the fray is a group calling itself "Concerned Taxpayers of Montgomery County." The group has evolved from a dozen Kentlands and Lakelands neighbors†worried about†traffic and compatibility issues to a network of†as many as 100†residents focused on the plan's financial implications, said member Neil Harris, who is president of the Kentlands Citizens Assembly.

Drawing its support mostly from the Lakelands, Kentlands and North Potomac, the group has collected nearly 900 signatures opposing the plan. The petition was delivered to the County Council on Monday.

"There are so many things wrong with this plan - it is too expensive, too secret, too vague about the County's future plans for the land ..." group chairwoman Rachael Hammoudeh, who lives in the Kentlands, said in a statement last week. "We are bringing this to the County Council to plead for some sense."

Much of their question focuses on a so-called "land swap," where the county would acquire the 100 acres on Darnestown Road while handing over lucrative development rights of land around the Shady Grove Metro station.

Given the 100 acres' prime location,†CTMC puts the current value at more than $100 million.

Lacefield, Leggett's spokesman, rebuffed the estimate but wouldn't discuss the value.

"It really wouldn't be appropriate since we're negotiating over price," he said. The county expects to come to terms on the deal next month.

He was adamant that there has not been a decision on a "land swap."

Lacefield said that upgrades to the existing building will cost about $20 million, but†pointed out that owning the land rather than leasing it would carve "millions of dollars" out from the $23 million the county pays every year to rent space.

And given that the new facilities off Darnestown Road and at the Webb Tract will "last for decades," Leggett is proceeding undeterred.

"We're moving ahead, and we're getting good support for this," Lacefield said. "It just makes sense."