County Executive to Get $65,000 Bathroom
$65,000 Bathroom Set for Leggett as Tax Hike Weighed

By Ann E. Marimow
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 20, 2008

As Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett works to raise taxes and eliminate 225 jobs, a construction crew is installing a bathroom in his locked suite of offices, complete with a small sitting room and shower. The cost to taxpayers: $65,225.

Leggett's aides said yesterday that his security detail did not want him using the public restroom because walking to and from the facility could expose him to harm. The shower was included, an aide said, because Leggett lives about 40 minutes away from the Rockville office and regularly attends evening events without having time to freshen up at home.

"I don't see this as a big expenditure," Leggett (D) said. Describing himself as "the guy who flies coach and spends sparingly," he said, "It's not something I asked for."

The timing of the project could be politically problematic. The bathroom budget was approved in June, but the construction coincides with his proposal to raise property taxes, offer employee buyouts and trim spending to close a $297 million budget shortfall.

"I can't believe they would do that now. We're taking it on the chin, and we're looking for every dime we can find," said County Council member Valerie Ervin (D-Silver Spring). "I think this is an extravagance, not something that has to be done."

Ervin said she uses the public restroom on the sixth floor of the council building, although there is a bathroom with a shower available to council members and their aides in their secure suite of offices.

For almost all of his 12-year tenure, Leggett's immediate predecessor, Douglas M. Duncan (D), used a public restroom. He had a private bathroom when he was first elected but scrapped it to create a kitchenette for employees. A major renovation of the executive's floor in Duncan's first year cost more than $1 million.

"We had perfectly good bathrooms right at the elevators," he said yesterday. When asked whether he ever felt unsafe using the public restroom, Duncan chuckled, "Heck no."

In the District, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) uses the public bathroom on the Bullpen floor at city hall but also has access to a private bathroom in the mayor's suite upstairs. Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson (D) has a private bathroom that predates his election.

Unlike many government office buildings in the District, Montgomery's have no metal detectors or security checkpoints. To get to the public restroom, Leggett must travel through an often crowded lobby area and down a hallway.

"We have had some challenging, disgruntled employees or citizens demanding to see the county executive, and from a security perspective he can walk into that," Chief Administrative Officer Timothy L. Firestine said. "Quite frankly, Ike didn't want [the new bathroom], but we more or less suggested from a security perspective that he needs it."

So a crew has been working after hours to transform a closet and small office across the hallway from Leggett's Rockville office into the bathroom and "shelter-in-place." The estimated $65,255 cost includes basic tile, a Santec faucet, Toto toilet, and prefabricated countertop and sink. The price could go up $12,400 as workers wrestle with water drainage issues.

"It's not marble and gold fixtures," Firestine said.

Early yesterday, Firestine called the new facility private, to be used by Leggett and his guests. However, Leggett later stressed that all of his aides, "from the secretary on down," would have access to the bathroom.

"It was not done exclusively for me," he said.

Leggett's senior adviser, Jennifer Hughes, defended the decision to build the bathroom and said yesterday that it was not newsworthy.

"Citizens come up to him wherever and whenever. Ninety-nine percent of the time he doesn't mind that; that's what he wants and expects. The one time he doesn't want that is, understandably, when he's doing his private business. I would hope that people would understand that not everyone respects that need for privacy," she said.

In creating a secure bathroom, the administration is following recommendations from its Department of Homeland Security, while trying to balance Leggett's safety with his calls for a "highly inclusionary, transparent form of government," as he put it in his 2006 inaugural address.

During Duncan's administration, the doors leading into the executive's offices were unlocked, and the two conference rooms off the lobby were enclosed in glass. Now, the glass doors are accessible only with a security card; the stairwell door to the second floor is secure; and the glass surrounding the conference room has been frosted.

County employees have joked privately that the frosted glass sends a message contrary to Leggett's promise of transparency. Firestine said the exposed room was distracting to meeting participants.

As Leggett's budget writers made decisions about spending cuts in recent months, the question was raised by aides about whether to proceed with the bathroom.

Firestine said his answer was, "Absolutely."

"I'm not going to take a risk of a security event occurring because Mr. Leggett has to use the bathroom in an insecure area," he said.

Marvin Weinman, president of the Montgomery County Taxpayer League, suggested a solution. Leggett, he said, should make a statement by off-setting the cost of the bathroom with an additional spending reduction of the same amount.

"If he has a need for that, then he should find a cut somewhere else," Weinman said.

Staff writers Rosalind S. Helderman and David Nakamura contributed to this report.