In response to an inquiry by a reporter for a local paper the following response was given on February 14, 2012
Response to Questions1) When and Why was Rockville Community Coalition formed?
In the summer of 2011 a series of events occurred that brought to a head the desire to form an effective group to counter the decline in leadership and civility on the Mayor and Council . The events contributing to this were the contention over the future of the Golf Course that was losing money in ever increasing amounts, the restrictions imposed by the Adequate facilities Ordinance with respect to portable classrooms at College Gardens Elementary School and the proposed Silverwood apartments, the court cases stopping the Victory Gardens Retirement Home, and frequent harassment city staff and the City Manager. It got to the point where it was made clear that the City Manager would be made the target in the next election. The final note in the tragedy was the retirement of the City Manager, Scott Ullery, a man of tremendous ability and integrity that decided to quit.
I don't have any record of the numerous early meetings of 2 or 3 people but the first recorded meeting of about 16 people was at my house on August 31, 2011. The attendees were former members of the Mayor and Council as well as members of several city Boards and Commissions and longtime civic activists like myself. We knew that we were not in any position to greatly influence the election.. One effort was an attempt to hold a forum for candidates for the forthcoming election at Richard Montgomery High for students, to try to increase participation by young people. We also handed out non-partisan information flyers at candidate forums. Subsequent to that three meetings were held before the election to expand our membership and decide the name of the organization and its organizational structure. Some members of the group, on their own, tried to help candidates of their choice. We are now a 501C4 corporation in the state of Maryland. Any political activity such as supporting candidates will be done by a separate organization organized specifically for a particular election, meeting the regulations of the Rockville Board of Elections. We currently hold an open meeting every month and several other meetings of subcommittees and the executive committee.
2) How big is the group now?There are now 33 names on the mailing list. About 17 , on average, come to our monthly meetings. We have a number of subcommittees, about 7 members in each. We are adding people constantly. We plan to have a much larger membership that does not have to come to meetings but will receive newsletters, special reports and detailed coverage of Mayor and Council as well as Planning Commission meetings. We are planning Forums and other educational activities that will attract residents who will not necessarily become members.
3) Who is RCC composed of?RCC is composed of former Mayors and Council members, former and current members of City Boards and Commissions, former candidates for office in the city, members of the Chamber of Commerce, civic activists and previously inactive residents
4) What are your Major long and Short term Goals ?Our major goal now is educational. Most of the members of our group have a long history of constructive civic involvement and seek no political power at the present ( but possibly may in the future) but understand that Rockville has a great history of citizen involvement. Many of us have a history of assisting candidates of our choice in Rockville elections. The city elections are non partisan and the Coalition is strongly supportive of retaining that position. We objected to the endorsement of Rockville candidates in the November election by well known partisan elected officials.
Rockville has a tremendous turnover rate. About 4000 new residents enter the city each year, about 3000 leave each year. The average stay in Rockville is about 7 years. Under these conditions many new voters in each election have no knowledge of the way the city has operated and are open to manipulation and misinformation.The long term goal is to see a Mayor and Council that are openly operating in the best interests of the residents. Now, many actions are planned with the goal of gaining power by divisive tactics and misrepresentations. Rockville has a higher educational level than the County and with transparency and adequate coverage by local media would not need our efforts
A goal of equal importance is to increase participation in civic life by all members of the community. At present only 17% of registered voters actually vote in Rockville municipal elections. The participation in national elections has been quite good but the motivation for voting in city elections is restricted generally to homeowners. The situation is far worse in Gaithersburg which has a larger number of apartments, where only about 10% vote. An additional problem in Rockville is that 40% of the population are members of ethnic groups that do not have a tradition of civic involvement. The coalition plans a major effort to more fully integrate our community and encourage ethnic groups to more fully involved.5) What Does RCC think should be improved or fixed in Rockville ?
Increase citizen participation, broaden understanding of our
city government.
To give confidence to the public, all city decisions should
be made in a transparent manner.
More fully integrate ethnic groups into the civic life.
Educate the electorate so that they will not be swayed by
misinformation and fear
The promotion of candidates that are well informed, able,
intelligent, and have the best interests of the city at heart.
To let them know that there is a group that thinks there is a better way to run the city, that wants to bring back a government that tries to open the government to all members of the community and wants to remove the areas of civic conflict and misunderstanding