Montgomery Candidates Shying Away From Growth

Silverman and Leggett Play Down Their Records and Cater to Voters' Opposition to Sprawl

Council member Steven Silverman has described himself as a "moderate" on growth. (Timothy Jacobsen)

There was a time when growth was something politicians bragged about in Montgomery County.

They would point to the office towers sprouting along Interstate 270 and to the expensive homes popping up from Germantown to Silver Spring.

But today, voter concerns about traffic and school crowding have altered the political landscape, forcing the two leading candidates for county executive to play down their pro-growth records and to emphasize their ideas for containing sprawl.

Early in their campaigns for the Democratic nomination, council member Steven A. Silverman and former council member Isiah Leggett emphasized their differences in style. Silverman promised to be a decisive executive, and Leggett played up his image as a mediator.

With slightly more than three months to go before the September primary, the focus has shifted to issues. Leggett and Silverman are aggressively tapping a powerful vein of voter discontent over the pace of growth that came into focus with the discovery of building violations in Clarksburg, where homes were built too high and too close to the street.

"Somehow growth has become a dirty word in some people's minds," said Rockville resident Cheryl Kagan (D), a member of the state House of Delegates from 1995 to 2003.

Leggett has blamed county leaders for failing to manage growth, and he has promised to slow it so schools and road improvements can catch up. Leggett, who served on the council from 1986 to 2002, also said that he would limit contributions from developers to no more than 25 percent of his overall haul. He has criticized Silverman for what he calls his overdependence on developer dollars.

Silverman, elected in 1998, is trying to play down his staunchly pro-growth reputation and turn voters' attention to what he considers Leggett's development-friendly votes during 16 years on the council. In recent public forums and interviews, he has described himself as a "moderate" on growth and promised to spend more on roads and transit. And he has made the long-debated Purple Line -- a light-rail link between Bethesda and New Carrollton -- a major issue and accused Leggett of insufficient support.

"These guys are smart, and they read the temperature, and the temperature is to cool it a little bit," said Bruce Adams (D), a former council member who ran unsuccessfully for county executive in 1994.

The Montgomery race offers a stark contrast to the mayoral contest in the District, where education has emerged as the main issue as residents worry that bad schools will decrease property values. As more people move to Montgomery for its well-regarded schools, many residents are concerned with pulling up the drawbridge behind them to preserve their quality of life.

"We're at a critical point in Montgomery County where we have to say, 'Let's take a look and see whether we can afford the kind of development in the next 10 years that we have had in the last 10 years,' " said former county executive Sidney Kramer (D), who was elected in 1986.

Business leaders worry that politicians are responding to hysteria. They point out that Montgomery's population growth has been slower than that of other jurisdictions. From 2000 to 2005, the population increased 6.21 percent in Montgomery, compared with 50.66 percent in Loudoun County, according to census figures.