Hindu temple burglarized in Laytonsville

A Hindu temple in the Laytonsville area was burglarized on October 17, 2024, Montgomery County police report. At 4:45 PM that afternoon, three suspects broke into the JSS Spiritual Center at 7710 Hawkins Creamery Road. They allegedly stole money and property and fled. Police describe the suspects only as a male and two females. If you have any information about this incident, call police at (301) 279-8000.

Senior citizen assaulted at Lidl in Montgomery Village

Montgomery County police are asking the public's help in identifying and locating a suspect who assaulted a senior citizen at the Lidl supermarket at 19225 Montgomery Village Avenue on September 30, 2024. At 5:07 PM, police say, a woman assaulted the victim in the parking lot outside the store. Surveillance video released by police appears to show the suspect violently push the senior citizen to the ground.

Police describe the suspect as a Black female of unspecified age, wearing a black shirt, gray sweatpants, and sandals. Anyone who can identify this suspect, or has any information about this incident, is asked to call police at 1-866-411-8477. Tipsters may remain anonymous.

Tous Les Jours update in Gaithersburg (Photos)

Here's a look at the construction progress on Tous Les Jours at 1 Grand Corner Avenue at Rio Lakefront in Gaithersburg. The South Korean bakery, whose name means "every day," offers a hybrid French-Asian line of baked goods, sandwiches, coffee and teas. Tous les Jours expanded to the United States twenty years ago. It now has over 1700 locations worldwide.

Koi Sushi "coming soon" to Gaithersburg

Koi Sushi is coming soon to Gaithersburg, according to signage posted on its future storefront. It will be located at 201 Boardwalk Place at Rio Lakefront. That is right next to another new arrival at the Peterson Cos. property, Mason's Famous Lobster Rolls. Progress on the interior fit-out of the restaurant is unknown, as the windows are blacked out.

Mayan Monkey Brewing Co. opens in Gaithersburg

Mayan Monkey Brewing Co. is now open in the historic building at 227 E. Diamond Avenue in Olde Towne Gaithersburg. The house-brewed beer is ostensibly the big draw, but it is being combined with a menu of authentic Mexican favorites with modern tweaks, and a few American items mixed in. Mayan Monkey is also aiming to be a vibrant live music venue in Montgomery County. Operating hours are 11:00 AM to 10:00 PM Monday through Thursday, and 11:00 AM to 12:00 AM on Fridays and Saturdays.

Landscape design firm burglarized in Damascus

Montgomery County police responded to a report of a burglary at Natural Surroundings Landscape Design & Build at 26500 Howard Chapel Drive in Damascus on October 7, 2024. Officers responding to the scene found evidence of forced entry at the business. Unspecified property was stolen, police say. No description of the suspect(s) is available at this time. 

Clarksburg apartment building for sale

An apartment building constructed only four years ago in Clarksburg is already on the market. Axiom at Cabin Branch, a stack-and-pack style mid-rise development, has 272 units. It has luxury amenities and is in a prime location adjacent to the Clarksburg Premium Outlets mall, as well as I-270. The asking price for the property is not provided in the online listing, which is being handled by Berkadia.

Montgomery County willing to mortgage Upcounty's future to kill M-83 Highway

More than half a decade ago, the Montgomery County Council again nixed plans to build the M-83 Midcounty Highway Extended that has long been in the County's master plan. The highway was one of two major infrastructure projects that were essential to the major growth proposed for the Upcounty area, and Clarksburg in particular. When Clarksburg was allowed to grow more than 800% in population earlier this century, its new residents were promised the M-83 Highway, and a Corridor Cities Transitway light rail system that would connect the proposed new growth centers between Rockville and Clarksburg to the Shady Grove Metro station. In the end, however, all of the growth was allowed to occur, and developers reaped their massive profits - but the promised highway and light rail were never built. That display of naked greed by our developer-controlled County Council wasn't enough - now the Council and Planning Board want to remove the M-83 from the master plan altogether, so it can never be built.

Such a move would be a dereliction of duty by the public officials charged with ensuring adequate infrastructure to maintain a functioning transportation system. Montgomery County doesn't have that even today. Imagine what traffic will be like in another decade with leaders who continue to block completion of our master plan highway system.

As a quick review of the correspondence received by the Planning Board ahead of two public meetings and a November public hearing on changes to the master plan reveals, it isn't residents who are asking for the M-83 to be removed from the plan. In fact, the only letter from an actual Upcounty resident on the question is asking the Planning Board to keep the M-83 in the plan. Those who are asking to have the highway removed are the same handful of tiny groups who have tried to block construction of the highway at every turn. M-83 wasn't even up for discussion, until these groups met privately with Montgomery County Planning Department officials earlier this year.

Our anti-highway, war-on-cars Planning Board is all too eager to indulge this ultra-minority request. Shockingly, so is the "leadership" of the Montgomery County Department of Transportation. The same MCDOT that once determined that Alternative 9a - the master plan alignment of M-83 - should be constructed, until the Council politically interfered with the department, overruling sound traffic engineering practices with radical ideology.

Montgomery County officials continue to rule against the wishes of their own Upcounty constituents. You know, the folks who pay their salaries, and keep the lights on at the County Council and Planning Department. 

You would think the Planning Department and County Council would at least feel a stinging sense of shame at their disastrous record on growth in the Upcounty.

Think again.

Longtime residents will well remember the talking points planners and Councilmembers alike sold us as they rammed through sector plans for new growth centers like "Science City," Watkins Mill, Damascus, and Clarksburg. There would be job centers right in these areas, so many new residents wouldn't have to drive down I-270 to Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia! There would be vibrant town centers in Clarksburg and Watkins Mill! There would be a library in Clarksburg! There would be an M-83 Highway between Montgomery Village Avenue and Ridge Road, which - given that we knew the vast majority of new Upcounty residents would commute by car - would divert much of the new Clarksburg, Germantown, and Damascus traffic from I-270, MD 355, and little old Brink Road onto a modern parkway that also would include a major new bicycle link! And for those who could be convinced to board a convenient rail transit alternative, there would be a Corridor Cities light rail system!

None of it ever happened. Not one bit of it.

And no politician paid the price. Even in the myriad of scandals surrounding Clarksburg alone, the Council and Planning Department let Derick Berlage be the lone fall guy. Now, after collecting twenty years' worth of fat checks from their developer sugar daddies, they want to kick Upcounty residents where it hurts one more time, really hard.

They'll probably get away with it. Again. The Council is pretty open about the fact that there simply aren't enough votes in the Upcounty to pose a risk to the holders of the At-Large Council seats in the next election year. And the individual Upcounty Council districts have been severely gerrymandered, to ensure that the residents of the various growth areas like Clarksburg, Damascus, and Germantown can't unite to knock out any one Councilmember come election time. They have repeatedly thumbed their nose at Upcounty residents, and privately call County taxpayers "suckers" and "losers."

Getting away with murder doesn't make it right, however. The Planning Department, Planning Board, and County Council will continue to augment and solidify their legacy of shame, failure, embarrassment, reckless irresponsibility, and dereliction of duty. They'll continue to let a handful of special interests, and their developer sugar daddies, block economic growth and progress at every turn. 

We've seen the results of the failure to build the M-83 Highway, the new Potomac River crossing of I-370 to the Dulles area in Virginia, the Rockville Freeway, the Northwest Freeway, the North-Central Freeway, and the Northern Parkway in Montgomery County. Residents sitting in traffic. Higher shipping prices. Job creation and business growth numbers at or near the bottom in the D.C. region. And a failure to attract a single new major corporate headquarters in over a quarter century.

Heckuva job, Brownie!!

Walmart thief had concealed weapon, police say after Germantown arrest

An alleged thief inside the Walmart Supercenter at 20910 Frederick Road at the Milestone Shopping Center in Germantown was packing heat, Montgomery County police say. The suspect entered the store at 6:03 PM on October 8, 2024, and allegedly took merchandise. Daryl Howard, 44, of Gaithersburg was arrested, and officers allegedly found he was carrying a weapon.

Howard has been charged with multiple firearms charges, two of which are felonies. He has also been charged with resisting arrest, possession of a controlled dangerous substance, illegal possession of ammunition, theft, malicious destruction of property, disorderly conduct, failure to obey a reasonable and lawful order, and obstructing and hindering an officer. According to Maryland court records, Howard is being held without bond.

Aggravated assault in Gaithersburg park

Montgomery County police responded to a report of an aggravated assault at a park in Gaithersburg late Wednesday afternoon, October 16, 2024. The assault was reported in the 8300 block of Fairhaven Drive at 5:00 PM Wednesday. 

Shoplifting incident leads to cocaine bust in Germantown

A shoplifting incident turned into a drug bust when Montgomery County police arrived at a clothing store in Germantown on Monday afternoon, October 14, 2024. Police were called to the store, which appeared to have been at the Milestone Shopping Center, at 3:50 PM Monday. The suspect in the theft attempt was found to be in possession of cocaine.

Montgomery County Council pushing plastic bag ban

The Montgomery County Council has only done three things this century: raise taxes, drive business away from and out of the county, and ban stuff. You won't be surprised to hear that they are at it again, with another new law that will do all three. As a body that only copies legislation from other jurisdictions around the country, they're actually a bit late to the table on this one, but they're going to try and ban plastic bags. That goes for grocery stores, and restaurant takeout.

The ban also includes a new tax. There's already a tax on each bag you receive at a business. The deceptively-titled Bring Your Own Bag Bill will ban plastic bags altogether, and place a 10-cent tax on paper bags. They'll say you won't have to pay it, if you remember to bring your stained and germ-ridden reusable shopping bags with you. The press release falsely claims that the bill will create "a more sustainable future for the County," and "improve the effectiveness of the carryout bag tax law." 

If you ask yourself - or anyone outside of the small world of the Montgomery County cartel - to name one thing the Council has done to improve the quality of life since 2000, good luck getting an answer. They haven't. They've just raised taxes, driven business away, and banned stuff. To be fair, they've also jacked up your health insurance premiums with the ambulance fee, and your auto insurance premiums by defunding the police, leading to skyrocketing auto theft and stolen auto parts. Heckuva job, Brownie!

The faces change, but the Council stays the same since the cartel seized control of it in 2002. Smug, arrogant, and corrupt, with delusions of innovation, while plagiarizing the dumbest legislation from Eugene, Oregon to Sacramento, California. Your taxes go up, and so do their salaries, just like Bell, California. They said a bag tax would save the environment, just like they claimed natural gas was the solution to global warming. Lies, all lies, that evaporated as quickly as the Council-mandated paper straw does in your iced coffee. Incompetence combined with autocratic power is a recipe for failure, which is all we've seen in Montgomery County this century. 

But this is what a majority of Montgomery County voters continue to vote for, and they're getting exactly what they wanted. As the writer from another Maryland jurisdiction where voters don't have the heart to punish the elected officials who reliably fail them once wrote, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”

Boby's Furniture burglarized in Montgomery Village

Boby's Furniture was burglarized in broad daylight on September 29, 2024, according to Montgomery County police. But it doesn't sound like much of a crime. Around 2:24 PM that afternoon, a male suspect entered the store at 9645 Lost Knife Road in Montgomery Village, and stole...nothing. The store is open at that time on Sundays; perhaps the suspect entered an employees-only area? Police describe the suspect as a Hispanic male around 40 years of age.

Gaithersburg Planning Commission to rule on final site plan for Walnut Hill Sheetz

The Final Site Plan for the second Gaithersburg location of Sheetz will go before the city's Planning Commission this Wednesday night, October 16, 2024 for possible approval. Proposed for the parking lot of the Walnut Hill Shopping Center at 16529 S. Frederick Avenue are a 4959-square-foot Sheetz convenience store, with six, double-sided gasoline filling stations. The plan also includes new east and west sidewalk connections to increase pedestrian access to the site, a new retaining wall and fence to be constructed to the east of the site, and a new trash enclosure facing South Westland Drive. Planning staff are recommending approval of the site plan with conditions, including correction of minor drafting errors on the Final Site and Forest Conservation plans, and revision of the recently-approved comprehensive sign plan for the shopping center to include the new Sheetz signage.

Mayan Monkey Brewing Co. installs signage in Gaithersburg (Photos)

Exterior signage has been installed at Mayan Monkey Brewing Co. at 227 E. Diamond Avenue in Olde Towne Gaithersburg. The brewery missed an early summer opening date, but activity at the former Growlers building has created confusion about whether Mayan Monkey is open or not. So much so, that they have had to post an all-caps disclaimer on each of their Instagram posts stressing that they are not open. A number of private events have been held that were invitation-only. The brewery's website still says "Coming soon!"

Big Lots closing in Germantown

Big Lots is closing at 20926 Frederick Road at the Milestone Shopping Center in Germantown. This is one of 46 additional Big Lots store closures found on a list posted by Columbus Business First. Fortunately, the Big Lots in Montgomery Village is not on the list. Big Lots filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on September 9, 2024, the latest victim of America's vanishing middle class. 

Boyds burglars sought by Montgomery County police

Montgomery County police are seeking the public's help in identifying and locating two suspects who allegedly burglarized a home in Boyds on September 26, 2024. At 8:35 AM, the two suspects were caught on camera entering a house in the 22000 block of Knoll Crest Court. One of the two suspects is described by police as a White male of unknown age wearing a black jacket, black pants, and black sneakers. If you can identify either suspect, or have any information about this burglary, you are asked to call police at  1-866-411-8477. Tipsters may remain anonymous.

NIST awards potential $1.5 million to develop regenerative medicine curricula

Gaithersburg's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has awarded a potential $1.5 million to two organizations, with the goal of developing regenerative medicine standards curricula. Brammer Bio, LLC, and Gaithersburg's own Standards Coordinating Body (SCB) for Gene, Cell and Regenerative Medicines and Cell-Based Drug Discovery, will each receive $250,000 per year, with the option to renew for up to three addition years of funding. 

Regenerative medicine includes cell therapy, gene therapy, and therapeutic tissue engineering. It relies on the human body's own healing abilities to regenerate or replace damaged organs, cells, and tissue. As a rapidly-growing field in medicine and research, regenerative medicine is a promising new avenue in preventing, treating, and curing cancer and genetic disorders.

NIST was charged by the U.S. Congress last year to help develop the regenerative medicine workforce of the future. It oversaw a competitive process earlier this year, through which the two winning organizations were identified. Now these organizations will endeavor to create training programs on the standards, protocols, and measurements that will provide a foundation for the field going forward.

“We are thrilled to announce our new partnerships to develop an innovative standards education program, paving the way for flexible and immersive learning experiences that support advanced biomanufacturing,” Sheng Lin-Gibson, chief of NIST’s Biosystems and Biomaterials Division, said in a statement this morning. “These educational programs will facilitate the adoption of standards and best practices to increase quality and consistency of advanced therapies and ultimately bring down costs.”

Photo courtesy Robert Rathe/NIST

Sam's Car Wash expanding to Damascus

Damascus drivers will soon have a new car wash option close to home. Sam's Car Wash is planning to open a Damascus location at 26201 Ridge Road (MD 27). According to the company, Sam's is the oldest family-owned-and-operated car wash business in the Washington, D.C. area. Monthly memberships and commercial fleet services are available. It looks like they still offer self-serve car wash bays, a feature rapidly disappearing from some competing car wash chains in Montgomery County.

ATM stolen from Germantown gas station

Montgomery County police are investigating the theft of an ATM machine from a gas station in Germantown on September 23, 2024. One or more burglars forced their way into the station building at 5:19 AM, ripped out an ATM machine, and fled. Police do not have a description of the suspect(s) at this time. If you have any information about this incident, call police at (301) 279-8000.

Arrests made in Montgomery Village armed robbery

Montgomery County police have arrested two suspects in the September 17, 2024 armed robbery in Montgomery Village. The suspects allegedly approached the adult male victim in the 18200 block of Lost Knife Circle at 3:14 PM that afternoon. Police say they displayed unspecified weapons, and assaulted the victim, before taking his money.

Jose Ortega-Mejia, 29, of Germantown, and Abner Ortiz-Cruz, 23, of Gaithersburg have been arrested and charged in the incident. Ortega-Mejia has been charged with felony armed robbery, felony 1st-degree assault, 2nd-degree assault, theft of less than $100, possession of drug paraphernalia, conspiracy to commit armed robbery, conspiracy to commit 1st and 2nd-degree assault, and conspiracy to steal less than $100. He is being held without bond.

Ortiz-Cruz faces similar charges, with an additional charge of concealing a dangerous weapon. He is also being held without bond. Lost Knife Circle continues to rank among the highest-crime streets in Montgomery County.

"Sirius" failure for Montgomery County, Maryland as Virginia wins UK defense firm's US HQ

Officials in Montgomery County and the State of Maryland just can't seem to get "Sirius" about economic development, coming up empty again as a U.K. defense firm has followed so many others to Virginia to establish its first U.S. headquarters. Sirius Analysis, a defense management software consulting company headquartered in Portsmouth, England, will open its American headquarters at 4525 Main Street in Virginia Beach, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced in a statement. The headquarters will bring 105 new high-wage tech jobs to the Old Dominion. 

Youngkin said Virginia and Massachusetts were the two finalists competing for the headquarters. There's no indication that Montgomery County or Maryland officials even bothered to compete. This despite Sirius having sought a location near military bases, of which Maryland has twenty, compared to Massachusetts' paltry six. Did we blow it, or what?

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin

“Sirius Analysis choosing Virginia Beach as their U.S. headquarters showcases the Commonwealth's magnetic appeal in global defense innovation,” Youngkin said in a statement. “This expansion bridges UK-US defense collaboration, bringing cutting-edge analysis capabilities to our shores and creating valuable job opportunities for Virginians.”

“The arrival of Sirius Analysis signals a bright future for our region's tech ecosystem,” Virginia State Senator Aaron Rouse said. “By choosing our Virginia Beach for their U.S. operations, Sirius Analysis is not just creating over 100 high-skilled jobs, they're planting seeds for a new wave of innovation by strengthening our position as a hub for defense technology." 

It's long past time Montgomery County and Maryland's elected officials conducted a "Sirius Analysis" of their failures to attract corporate headquarters to locate here. Virginia is laughing at us.

Photo credits: Sirius Analysis (top), Office of Gov. Glenn Youngkin (bottom)

Montgomery County Public Libraries hit by network outage

Montgomery County Public Libraries announced that they are experiencing a system-wide network outage, due to an "underground fire in Baltimore this past weekend." The fire damaged a fiber optic cable network that serves public libraries statewide, MCPL said in a statement this afternoon. 

All Montgomery County libraries remain open on their normal schedules, and it is possible to check out books and materials. However, MCPL’s Wi-Fi, public computers, printing, scanning and copying services are currently unavailable, and MCPL believes the outage may last for several days. Libraries and school systems in all Maryland counties have been impacted.

Repairs to the fiber optic system are currently underway, MCPL stated. Baltimore City officials do not yet know the cause of several recent underground fires that have impacted electrical and communication utilities. This past weekend's fire was followed Monday by a major Verizon cell service outage impacting multiple states, and today by an eight-hour Sony PlayStation Network outage that affected users worldwide. Neither Verizon nor Sony have indicated the cause of their service interruptions so far.