{"id":7668,"date":"2017-03-01T08:00:46","date_gmt":"2017-03-01T13:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=7668"},"modified":"2017-03-01T08:06:30","modified_gmt":"2017-03-01T13:06:30","slug":"ike-leggetts-dump-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=7668","title":{"rendered":"Ike Leggett\u2019s Dump Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n

No one knows exactly when the worst dump fire in Montgomery County history started.\u00a0 It was first reported to authorities on October 22, 1994<\/a>.\u00a0 A 40-foot high pile of trash at the Travilah Road dump had ignited and begun spreading airborne foulness throughout the vicinity.\u00a0 The Washington City Paper reported<\/a>, \u201cThe slow smolder spewed clouds of acrid smoke\u2014filled with floating ashes and shreds of trash\u2014and a putrid odor that engulfed the North Potomac area for miles around. The noxious fumes temporarily shut down Stone Mill Elementary School and forced residents from their homes; some had to take temporary refuge in motels.\u201d\u00a0 More than 200 people reported respiratory problems<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Incredibly, the county government did not act immediately to put the fire out.\u00a0 Rather, it wanted dump owner Billy Mossburg and his family to put it out themselves<\/a> despite their long history of bad blood<\/a> with both the county and their neighbors.\u00a0 The Washington Post reported<\/a>, \u201cThe county doesn\u2019t have the equipment to do the job, and it\u2019s better for the company to spend its money under county supervision than for the county to spend tax money and bill Travilah Recovery later, said Capt. Ray Mulhall, a fire department spokesman.\u201d \u00a0The county posted two environmental inspectors and three fire officials to the site to \u201censure everything is done right.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Internally, the administration of outgoing County Executive Neal Potter debated what to do.\u00a0 Meetings of county officials went on for two hours or more without resolution.\u00a0 Some in the administration worried about liability.\u00a0 Others were concerned about who would pay to put out the fire.\u00a0 Some worried about the difficulty of getting trucks into the dump or whether lights could be installed for night-time fire-fighting.\u00a0 Just as a course of direction seemed in reach, someone would bring up more questions and the meetings would resume.\u00a0 And the fire kept burning.<\/p>\n

It was Paralysis by Analysis, then and now.<\/p>\n

County Executive Ike Leggett has a dump fire, too.\u00a0 It is otherwise known as the Department of Liquor Control (DLC).\u00a0 Maligned for many years for its poor service to licensees and consumers, it was the subject of a landmark Washington City Paper story<\/a> during Leggett\u2019s first year in office.\u00a0 The DLC is not a threat to public safety as Billy Mossburg\u2019s dump once was.\u00a0 But it chases away consumers<\/a>, stunts the county\u2019s restaurant industry<\/a> and costs the county and state nearly $200 million a year in economic activity<\/a>.\u00a0 After a number of scandals including employee theft<\/a>, employees drinking and driving on the job<\/a> and use of an inventory system run with sticky notes<\/a>, the County Council proposed a bill allowing private distributors to fulfill some special orders.\u00a0 Delegate Bill Frick (D-16) went further, proposing a bill that would have allowed voters to decide whether to continue the liquor monopoly.\u00a0 After initially supporting the council\u2019s bill, Leggett opposed both of them and promised that he would fix the DLC through a task force<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The result of the task force?\u00a0 Paralysis by Analysis, of course.\u00a0 The task force\u2019s eleven members included just two licensees and no consumers<\/a>.\u00a0 It had three meetings during which invited speakers extolled the benefits of government liquor monopolies.\u00a0 It concluded with no task force statement and no proposal.\u00a0 The administration completely ignored a proposal to recover DLC\u2019s profits<\/a> and pretended for months that the proposal never existed<\/a>.\u00a0 The Executive offered a tweak<\/a> that no one else supported and later withdrew it, alleging that DLC\u2019s problems were solved<\/a>.\u00a0 This is despite the fact that DLC suffered massive supply failures during the Christmas and New Year\u2019s Eve week the prior two<\/a> years<\/a>.\u00a0 On each<\/a> occasion<\/a>, Leggett defended the liquor monopoly just prior to its meltdowns.<\/p>\n

The pattern here is the same as the reaction of County Executive Neal Potter to the Travilah dump fire.\u00a0 Be cautious.\u00a0 Worry about money.\u00a0 Pretend that things aren\u2019t so bad.\u00a0 Play for time.\u00a0 Maybe the problem will go away by itself.\u00a0 Maybe public interest will move on to something else.<\/p>\n

In the end, the Travilah dump fire was undone by an event it could not burn away: an election.\u00a0 Incoming County Executive Doug Duncan raced from his inauguration directly to the Executive Office Building and demanded that county officials do everything possible to put out the fire.\u00a0 Eight days later and roughly seven weeks after it was first reported, the fire was out<\/a>.\u00a0 The county later sued the dump owner<\/a> to recover the cost of fighting the fire.<\/p>\n

Here is the great lesson of the Travilah dump fire for today\u2019s dump fire at the DLC.\u00a0 Meetings and task forces won\u2019t put it out.\u00a0 Neither will consultants, financial analyses, promises, tweaks, defensive blog posts<\/a> or PR campaigns<\/a>.\u00a0 One thing is needed to deal with the liquor monopoly.<\/p>\n

Bold action.\u00a0 From a new County Executive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. No one knows exactly when the worst dump fire in Montgomery County history started.\u00a0 It was first reported to authorities on October 22, 1994.\u00a0 A 40-foot high pile of trash at the Travilah Road dump had ignited and begun spreading airborne foulness throughout the vicinity.\u00a0 The Washington City Paper reported, \u201cThe slow … Continue reading Ike Leggett\u2019s Dump Fire<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,1449,167],"tags":[1545,1439,1549],"class_list":["post-7668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-department-of-liquor-control","category-ike-leggett","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-department-of-liquor-control","tag-ike-leggett"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-1ZG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7668"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7672,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7668\/revisions\/7672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}