Dan Reed has applied for the Montgomery County Planning Board. Besides being a trained architect (B.S. from UMD), planner (Masters in City Planning from Penn), and former employee of Councilmember George Leventhal, he is also a prolific writer and very active in development and transportation issues. \u00a0All of this is great. What is not great are his views towards a large bloc of people whom he\u2019d like to govern.<\/p>\n
Specifically, he sure doesn\u2019t think much of people who live or hang out in Bethesda. Even though Dan stated<\/a> \u201cI don’t go to Bethesda Row often,\u201d that did not prevent him from expressing very strong opinions about people who live in the area. Here is his pitch to B-CC students<\/a> that Silver Spring is a better place for them to hang out than Bethesda:<\/p>\n You and I both know [your parents have] been taught to fear everything east of Rock Creek Park, so you’ll earn major street cred by hanging out in a place where the kids don’t all wear private or Catholic school hoodies with Timbs. (This is also an effective way to avoid your date’s ex from the Landon School who lurks outside the Barnes and Noble in Bethesda Row.)\u2026<\/p>\n Once you get a little older, you’ll discover that there aren’t many bars here, and those we do have cater to an older demographic than what you’ll want on a Friday night out. Of course, by then you’ll probably be going to a prestigious liberal arts college in some leafy New England town that those of us who came from lesser public high schools could only dream of\u2026<\/p>\n So, while you’re still in Bethesda, why not take a walk on the wild side and make some pubescent memories this weekend in Silver Spring. You can tell your incredulous friends on Monday how you went slummin’\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This screed was not a one-off for Dan and his contemptuous view of those who live in Bethesda.\u00a0 In a response on his blog<\/a> to a piece published by Bethesda Magazine<\/em>, he wrote:<\/p>\n How many fine [Bethesda] individuals think of Silver Spring primarily as an exporter of black kids? How many Bethesda youth are unaware of the glorious Friday nights to be had in Silver Spring?…<\/p>\n Alas, Bethesda Magazine must feel some kind of inferiority complex about their town’s parking garages, where each weekend so many midlife-crisis Mercedes coup\u00e9s and tricked-out swagger wagons are trapped that the streets ring with the screams of Montgomery County’s frustrated suburban \u00e9lite\u2026<\/p>\n Sometimes, I wonder why their staff of Bethesda Magazine doesn’t just pour all of their money and effort into something constructive, like battling illiteracy in DC, rather than giving a two-hundred-page-long pat on the back to people with the money and taste to live west of Rock Creek Park\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And, on yet another occasion<\/a>, Dan wrote:<\/p>\n … I claim all of Bethesda as ours, so long as they stay on their own side of Rock Creek Park so we can remember “normal people” still live in Montgomery County.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Apparently, in Dan\u2019s eyes, Bethesdans are elitist racists who think that Silver Spring is, to paraphrase Neville Chamberlain, a far-off land of which we know nothing.\u00a0 As someone whose parents moved to Silver Spring before he was born and has since spent many a day and night there (I guess we are brave enough to sometimes leave the land of \u201cshitty Irish bars and middle-aged-trendy clothing stores<\/a>\u201d), I think the tone and underlying animosity toward the people who live in Bethesda as expressed in Dan\u2019s blog posts are disturbing.<\/p>\n Yes, there are major differences between Silver Spring and Bethesda, just as there are between many other areas of the County.\u00a0 But, as a planning board member, Dan will make major decisions that will have an influence on the future of all of Montgomery County.\u00a0 The County\u2019s future should not be entrusted to someone with such blatant animosity towards a major portion of the community he will supposedly serve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dan Reed has applied for the Montgomery County Planning Board. Besides being a trained architect (B.S. from UMD), planner (Masters in City Planning from Penn), and former employee of Councilmember George Leventhal, he is also a prolific writer and very active in development and transportation issues. \u00a0All of this is great. What is not great … Continue reading Planning Board Candidate Dan Reed Doesn\u2019t Like Bethesdans Much<\/span>