Vote for Team Rockville
The Action Committee for Transit endorses the Team Rockville slate for Rockville City Council. Team Rockville is committed to stopping the destructive plan to widen I-270, to making lively, walkable mixed-use neighborhoods flourish around the city’s Metro stations, and to increasing the supply of affordable housing for Rockville tenants.
The two current council members on the slate have shown their commitment to a better Rockville. Town center resident Virginia Onley, the slate’s mayoral candidate, has worked hard to make downtown Rockville thrive. Mark Pierzchala initiated the citizen movement against the I-270 widening. They are joined by three first-time candidates: James Hedrick, who has a particularly far-seeing urbanist vision, Cynthia Cotte Griffiths, and David Myles.
Team Rockville’s main opponents, the Rockville Forward slate, is mired in the failed ideas of the 1950s. Incumbent Mayor Bridget Newton served in 2017 as chair of the Washington region’s Transportation Planning Board. In that position she repeatedly rubber-stamped the highway-building plans of the Maryland Dept. of Transportation. In a key 17-12 vote, she supported a new highway bridge across the Potomac from Montgomery to Loudoun County, an idea steadfastly opposed by Montgomery County elected officials, environmentalists, and transit advocates. She and her slate’s other incumbent, Beryl Feinberg, have also worked to limit the building of needed housing near the Rockville and Twinbrook Metros.