Leggett: You Can't Always Get What You Want

Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) is widely viewed as someone who tries to avoid public conflict. So it was not especially surprising that he seemed to be holding out an olive branch this week to School Superintendent Jerry D. Weast, with whom he had sparred early this year over the school system's budget request.

Leggett, you may recall, told Weast that he would be unable to give Weast the entire $137 million increase the school superintendent had sought in the school system's $2 billion budget. Leggett did tell Weast he could provide about two-thirds of the proposed increase. That didn't satisfy Weast, who helped gin up a campaign to try to win more money from the County Council. In the end, the school system got most, but not all of what officials there had sought. And Weast did manage to find some unspent funds that helped bridge the difference.

On Monday, speaking to a breakfast crowd organized by the Committee for Montgomery, an advocacy group of business, labor and nonprofit officials, Leggett provided details of looming budget problems in the coming year. Yet he also said he thought department heads should carefully analyze their departmental needs.

As for schools, he said, he "didn't want a superintendent who wouldn't look at the budget honestly and say, 'This is what I need to educate the children of Montgomery County.' " So does that mean it's all right for Weast to ask for the max even if Leggett can't deliver?

Well, not quite. Apparently the key word in that sentence is "need." Leggett said he doesn't think Weast should ask for everything he "wants," but instead for everything the system "needs."

Put away those olive branches.

Growth Management Efforts

Moments after ascending to the presidency of the County Council in December, Marilyn Praisner (D-Eastern County) took steps to revamp the county's approach to managing growth. With three months remaining in her term, the council is still debating how to rewrite the rules that guide development.

The council had intended to finish its work by Aug. 15, but members formally signaled with a vote on a related measure Tuesday that the deadline has been moved to November, when the current growth policy expires.

At a council breakfast this week, County Executive Isiah Leggett politely probed, "Will we finish this in your term, Madam President?"

Praisner answered with a nod to the county's proclivity for drawn-out public policy discussions.

"To the extent anything in Montgomery County is ever finished, it will be dealt with," she said.

The council is waiting for a response from the planning board to a long list of questions, which it anticipates receiving by early October.