MoCo fumbles three more: Blackboard, HalioDX, Idemia headed to Virginia

Montgomery County officials have blown it yet again. Just three months after failing to bring 25,000 Amazon jobs to our moribund County, they fumbled the ball on three more corporate headquarters sweepstakes. Blackboard, a high-profile education technology firm, will relocate its Washington, D.C. global headquarters to Plaza America in Reston. Biotech firm HalioDX chose Richmond over North Carolina, in its final North American headquarters decision. And Paris-based Idemia, a biometric augmented identity firm, is relocating its North American headquarters from Boston to Reston, as well.

The moves will bring hundreds of additional high-wage jobs to Fairfax County, and Idemia has promised to add 90 new high-wage jobs to the new HQ. Why did both firms choose Reston over Montgomery County? The answers are the same as usual: lower business costs, and superior infrastructure access in Virginia.

Blackboard CEO and President Bill Ballhaus cited their new location's proximity to Dulles International Airport, which as I've been noting for years, has the variety and frequency of international flights and destinations international businesspeople require. Unlike Northern Virginia, which has implemented several infrastructure projects to speed travel, Montgomery County has refused to build the new Potomac River crossing that would provide direct and quick access to Dulles Airport. In fact, the Montgomery County Council is actively trying to further sabotage our outdated and incomplete transportation system, refusing to build the M-83 Highway and Montrose Parkway East, and promising to lower speed limits on all major commuter routes to 25 MPH - and secondary and neighborhood roads to 15 MPH.

The failure to attract Idemia's HQ was a humiliating defeat for a County Council that has claimed it would make Montgomery County a cybersecurity hub. Instead, Virginia's Secretary of Commerce Brian Ball was the one crowing about the Old Dominion bolstering its dominance in that field with the addition of Idemia. "We rely on innovative companies like Idemia to maintain Virginia’s position as a U.S. leader in this industry,” Ball said in a statement.

HalioDX will join almost 70 biotech firms, laboratories and manufacturing facilities at the VA Bio+Tech Park in Richmond. It's a sad reminder that Virginia is now not only handing our County Council their [briefcases] in every other economic sector, but are rapidly reaching parity with Montgomery's biotech sector. Thanks to past County leaders who served before our elected offices were seized by the Montgomery County cartel in 2002, we had a promising biotech niche in the region. Now, it's only a matter of time before even those firms begin to relocate to Virginia, once they have the critical mass of qualified workers and government incentives.

The canary in the Montgomery County economic development coal mine has been deceased for some time. Our Council not only doesn't know anything about how to attract high-wage jobs and corporate headquarters, but couldn't act even if they did. Their developer sugar daddies, who fund the campaigns of every Council member, don't want corporate headquarters taking up valuable land they could use to profit from luxury apartments.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam hasn't had much reason to smile in recent weeks, and I reckon he appreciates Montgomery County turning his frown upside down reliably several times a month. His two immediate predecessors were legendary for openly mocking Montgomery County officials for their pro-tax, anti-business ideology. By all indications, comedy hour is just getting started at 100 Maryland Avenue.

Gaithersburg Planning Commission unanimously approves boardwalk upgrades at RIO/Washingtonian Center

A good thing at RIO/Washingtonian Center is about to get better. The Gaithersburg Planning Commission last night unanimously approved a request by the Peterson Companies to expand and upgrade the popular boardwalk around Washingtonian Lake.

This is Phase 1 of a full-property update Peterson is conducting at RIO. The boardwalk updates will include upgrading surfaces from concrete to pressure-treated Southern Yellow Pine wood, new seating for pedestrians, a new stage and a new fire pit. Located at the waterfront corner of the area in question, the stage features an appropriately nautical-themed sail roof.

Peterson's Jeff Parana said the company also wants to install a turf area outside Tara Thai, similar to what they have at their National Harbor property. They also want to install a railing of the type used at National Harbor.

Commissioner Lloyd Kaufman urged Peterson to create a more welcoming pedestrian connection for people to walk between RIO and the adjacent Downtown Crown development. Parana was also asked about the status of Silver Diner, and were told it is now under construction at RIO.

MCPS caught without surveillance cameras again

Twenty years after Columbine and two years after the Rockville High School rape scandal, Montgomery County Public Schools' leadership has been caught again without adequate security cameras and surveillance at its facilities. Two recent incidents in as many months at Richard Montgomery High School proved that once again. And along with a horrible record of school violence and fighting, teachers and staff sexually assaulting children, massive cybersecurity flaws revealed in a state audit, and a failure to even perform basic background checks on security employees, children attending MCPS schools remain unsafe under the system's current failed leadership.

The RM incidents - rearrangement of cups spelling seniors to instead spell a racial slur in December, and a swastika being painted on the school last month - should have been easily resolved using security camera footage. Police and school officials seem to know the general timeframe in which the incidents occurred. If cameras were in place, it would be a simple matter to look at all movements on the campus between those reference points. The fact that no photos of suspects or vehicles have been released by police by now speaks for itself.

How can this be, in the age of terrorism and mass shootings? The County Council and Board of Education clearly do not have student safety as a top priority, An examination of some of the truly frivolous expenditures by MCPS over the last two years proves that. So, too, did the 2017 County Council security camera procurement scandal, in which taxpayers unwittingly picked up the tab for a 4-camera security system worth less than $1000 for a whopping $22,000, putting the Pentagon's famous toilet seats to shame. Those cameras were for a County government building, not a school, to boot.

We can do better. Leadership, like the bad example and behavior of MCPS-employed adults that filters down to impressionable children in their charge, starts at the top.