Below is a message from Mike Diegel, the president of the Allied Civic Association, a group of people who represent Montgomery County civic and community groups.

Happy New Year, all,It’s been a while since I sent anything out to the Allied list, and it’s past time. As many of you know, there’s an effort, begun by the county, to bring the Birchmere to Silver Spring on the site of the old J.C. Penney building, currently owned by the Lee Development Group. This morning, I met with Bruce Lee to talk over the situation. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this project right now is in danger.

It appears that the proper state folks, from the governor to members of the state delegation, are enthusiastically on board and ready to propose the appropriate legislation (one bill has already been introduced) to get this funded along the lines of the agreement announced last fall ($4 million state, $4 million county). The problem exists within the county. That’s something that we as residents can have some influence on, but those who support this project will need to get to work.

Apparently, the influential sources working behind the scenes to kill this deal are closely associated with the county arts community, who seem to think that their funding will be threatened. For example, someone is spreading misinformation that the Birchmere will require an ongoing annual subsidy to survive, which is the case with some of the other arts facilities recently opened in the county. This is not true. The Birchmere not only will not be competition for any subsidies, but also, according to Lee, would be required to pay back the $8 million.

I won’t bore you with project/proposal details in this e-mail. I would like to hold an Allied meeting in February and allow the LDG team to present them at that time.

It’s interesting to note, especially for those of us familiar with intracounty squabbles over resources for the arts, entertainment districts and so forth, that in Bethesda Magazine’s recent article titled “67 Things We Love About Bethesda,” bringing the Birchmere to Montgomery County was listed a #3. According to the magazine, “The Birchmere coming to Silver Spring [is] the missing link in the Bethesda-area’ s arts and entertainment scene. Finally, a place to hear top-name musical performers in our own back yard.”

No kidding.

In the meantime, many of you are familiar with Silver Spring Forward, a group begun last year to rally grassroots support for this project. This group was started by a couple of my neighbors, Dan Cohen and Alan Friedman, and I’ve been helping them out from time to time. The effort was wildly successful in its early stages; the web site collected more than 1,200 statements of support from area residents, commitments from candidates, and so forth, and is being given much credit for Doug Duncan’s agreeing to revive the project and come up with the agreement that was announced. Now, they would like to take the next step. Not only would they like Allied’s endorsement, which we can discuss at the meeting, but SSF also needs help, in the form of volunteers to assist the grassroots efforts, as well as someone who can help redesign/update the web site, or contribute to the hiring of someone to do so.

Please take a moment to forward this e-mail to your neighborhood association’ s e-mail list, or post it on your listserv, Yahoo! Groups or whatever means you use to communicate with your neighbors. Anyone who supports this project and would like to help in some way should feel free to contact me directly. The next couple of months are critical.

For a change, we can actually get a promised public amenity under optional method development first, instead of last?or not at all.

Thanks,
Mike Diegel

Click here to e-mail Mike Diegel.