City kept public out of discussions on location of day labor center

Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2005

I am writing to The Gazette because the city of Gaithersburg appears to have designated the pages of the newspaper as a replacement for open discussion in the council chambers.

The city has collaborated with the county in the imposition of a day laborer employment center in Olde Towne. The city did not have one public hearing on this topic, invite one private citizen to participate in a meeting or provide written notice of this project to a single businessman or resident living in the city.

The city is still refusing to hold a public hearing on the topic, and refuses to provide any information on the sites considered for this project or the site selection criteria.

City representatives including the mayor and assistant city manager attended nearly a dozen closed meetings over the course of the past year. During this same time period they also held a charrette and public hearings to develop a master plan for Olde Towne Gaithersburg, an area that includes the site of the center.

They hired a planning firm and invited the public to comment. The plan was presented to various committees of the city in April, to the public in May, and adopted in June 2005.

But this was all a charade because the lease for the center was signed in March. The city had already agreed that 17 N. Frederick would be a day laborer center, not the multi-story residential⁄retail mix shown on the master plan. The employment center plans could have been discussed at these public meetings. These plans should have been discussed at these meetings. But the city chose to keep everything secret and lie to all the citizens who participated in the public process.

This flawed process has resulted in an even more flawed decision, which needs to be reconsidered in the light of day. This center has been touted as serving ‘‘the community.” So invite the community to give feedback in public, and see if it really meets the needs of the community in the best way possible.

Cathy Drzyzgula, Gaithersburg