Mayor's Parting Shots Signal a Divisive Election

During Rockville's election campaign this year, the outgoing mayor posted a notice on his blog urging voters to kick out three council members. There's a chilly relationship between the incumbents and a fourth council member who is running for mayor. And some residents are bothered by what's going on.

Political observers describe the nonpartisan campaign as one of the most uncivil in recent memory. The divisiveness is largely focused on one issue: trash collection.

When voters go to the polls next week, they'll replace three-term mayor Larry Giammo, 43, who is not seeking reelection. Council member Susan Hoffmann, 63, a Giammo ally, is vying to take over his job, facing local activists Mark Pierzchala, 55, and Drew Powell, 52.

Eleven candidates are running for four seats on the Rockville City Council, including the music director of the National Philharmonic and a former candidate for mayor. On his blog last month, Giammo endorsed Hoffman, who agreed with him on the trash collection issue, but recommended that residents not vote for incumbents Robert Dorsey, Phyllis Marcuccio and Anne Robbins, who opposed him.

"Too often, city council meetings have been marked by grandstanding, negativity, and incivility," Giammo wrote. "Too often, the focus of the city council has been backwards-looking, on minor details, and on creating contention. Too often, important facts have been ignored or disdainfully dismissed. Too often, the city council has been paralyzed by indecision."

A citizens group has criticized Giammo and also issued its own slate of candidates, which does not include Hoffman, though the group thanked her for her service in a news release.

Giammo "has a right to endorse anyone who he wishes, but I did not feel that some of his comments were professional," said Lora Meisner, a coordinator with the community group Real Rockville, which formed in March as a result of the trash issue. "I think Larry in his last term thought he could rule rather than govern. He and Susan Hoffmann decided they didn't want citizen input on the trash issue. He just couldn't understand why anyone would dissent."

Hoffmann and Giammo favored changing the city's twice-a-week trash collection to once-a-week pickup, based on positive feedback from residents who participated in a pilot program. The council favored a public hearing on the issue before a vote last December; Hoffmann and Giammo didn't. When the council approved holding a hearing anyway, that's when friction began developing, some council members said. In July, by a 3 to 2 vote, with Giammo and Hoffmann dissenting, the council adopted a semiautomated system with twice-a-week collection.

"I didn't think a public hearing was necessary," said Hoffmann, who has served three terms. "We had heard from the people who had had this experience [with the pilot program] and I think that's all we needed. I've never felt that it was me and Larry versus the world. I am eager to work with whoever the residents of the city of Rockville elect to serve them."

Some residents also opposed the council's vote to keep twice-a-week trash pickup.

"I never heard any justification for that decision," said Art Stigile, the founder of the Web site Rocktrash.org and supporter of a proposal to give residents a choice between once- and twice-a-week pickup.

Although trash collection has been a central theme in the election, there are other issues: development, traffic, the budget and environmental initiatives. Next year, the mayor and council will update the city's zoning ordinance, which has not been revised since 1975. Of the preliminary proposals in a draft document, the most contentious among residents is an emphasis on mixed-use development, which combines high-density office, retail and residential uses in a single property