Officials Seek Alternative To Moratorium

Montgomery County officials are scrambling to figure out a way to get around a building moratorium, required by the county's growth rules because of projected school crowding, which threatens to shut down development in downtown Bethesda.

The moratorium, invoked last week by the Planning Board, will take effect July 1 and will last a year. It could be renewed, depending on what the school system's next round of data project for the school-age population in the Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School cluster of schools, which serves residents of downtown Bethesda.

Planning Board Chairman Royce Hanson said that the agency, by law, has no choice in the matter. Instead, he said, it would be up to elected officials to do something, such as put more construction money in the schools budget to offset the crowding, which data show will occur by 2014.

Hanson noted the irony in the situation: On the one hand, the county planning agency and the executive branch are pushing for policies that would allow more development near Metro stations.

On the other hand, he said, schools cannot accommodate 50 kids in a kindergarten class or assign students to classrooms that do not have enough seats or breathing room. So, the officials' efforts could be stymied until the school crowding issue is resolved.

County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) had been publicly mum on the moratorium, but officials in his administration are looking into options.

Early this week, he offered this statement:

"The moratorium runs counter to what we are trying to do to enhance economic development activity and preserve and create jobs at a time of economic downturn. I want to look at different ways to address this issue. A moratorium should be our last resort, not our first."

One official who has not held back is the county's new economic development director, Steven A. Silverman, who ran against Leggett in 2006 and whom Leggett appointed recently to the post. Silverman promised the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Chamber of Commerce on Friday that the "moratorium will be lifted," said Patrick O'Neil, who is in line to be chamber president next year. No details on how that might happen.

Two Officials Leaving Public School System

Two high-ranking Montgomery public schools officials announced this week that they are leaving their posts.

Heath Morrison, a rising star within the Montgomery public school system, was chosen last weekend to lead the school district in Reno, Nev.

Morrison, 43, was selected from a field of 22 applicants to lead the Washoe County School District, with 92 schools and 63,000 students. Washoe has the nation's 57th-largest school system, larger than that of the D.C. public schools.