As Duncan Muses, Words for Leggett and O'Malley Aren't All Kind

Even out of office, Douglas M. Duncan knows how to make news. In an interview in this month's Washingtonian magazine, the former Montgomery county executive takes some subtle -- and some not-so-subtle -- shots at his successor, Isiah Leggett (D), and his former Democratic primary rival for governor and new boss, Gov. Martin O'Malley.

The interview with features editor Susan Baer checks in with Duncan more than two years after he dropped out of the governor's race to seek treatment for depression. Duncan, now chief administrative and finance officer at the University of Maryland at College Park, says he feels "better than I have in years. It's nice to be able to smile again, see joy in little things." He described his struggle with depression as "moving to Hell for a couple of years" and talks about the process of finding the right medication.

Duncan says his attention is fixed on the college campus, but he still offers opinions about the management of the county he led for more than a decade. He says he worries, for instance, that the county's public schools are in danger of sliding backward in part because Montgomery obtained less state money for school construction than expected. He calls it "very unusual" that the county received less state aid than in the previous year and says, "I'll leave that to Ike Leggett to answer."

When asked whether he would second-guess any of O'Malley's decisions, Duncan says: "I'm a state employee. I'm not allowed to speak about the governor."

Through his spokesman, Patrick Lacefield, Leggett said he wishes Duncan "well in what he's doing now." But Lacefield offers a different take on several of Duncan's assertions.

Overall, he said, the county still got $1 million more in state money despite a lousy budget year. Yes, the county received about $9 million less than the $55 million it requested for schools, but Lacefield said, "Is it a good amount? Yes."

Duncan also says that he is concerned about the future of Montgomery's biotech corridor and that the county is not doing enough to promote start-up companies. Leggett got rid of Duncan's economic development director, David W. Edgerley, who was then tapped by O'Malley to lead the state's Department of Business and Economic Development.

"It has done very well," Duncan says of the Interstate 270 corridor and the Shady Grove Life Sciences Center. "But I worry that we're starting to slide a little bit.

"I think in Montgomery County right now there's an attitude that we're just going to shut things down. We're repeating the mistakes of the early '90s that we shut things down when there's a recession, which makes the recession that much worse."

Lacefield pointed out that Leggett has initiated a massive relocation of county offices that would free up a key piece of land at the Shady Grove site and has secured property in the eastern part of the county to encourage high-tech and health sciences businesses.

Unprompted, Duncan also brings up a sore subject: the new bathroom in Leggett's suite of offices. Duncan tells Baer that he does not typically track Montgomery news but gets calls from time to time.

"I got called by the press on the bathroom issue in Montgomery, where the exec is building a private bathroom at enormous expense, which I think is ridiculous."