Large Water Main Break Forces Road Closures, School Dismissal: Police

 From Patch, reporter Gaby Arancibia. To read the full story go here.

From Friday April 9, 2026

ROCKVILLE, MD — A massive water main break has forced the closure of multiple roadways in Rockville and prompted an early school dismissal.

The Montgomery County Police Department said Friday that the water main break was traced to the 2100 block of Wootton Parkway.

The Thomas S. Wootton High School is located at 2100 Wootton Parkway.

Independent Inspector General & Audit for Park & Planning and WSSC: Annapolis Update

The bill to establish an independent Inspector General for M-NCPPC and WSSC is long overdue. It was introduced by Del. Ben Kramer (District 19) and was voted out of committee, although three of our representatives, Kumar Barve (District 17), Anne Kaiser (District 14), and Charles Barkley (District 39), voted no and did not want to see it get out of committee.

We understand both agencies are opposed to this effort at some control and transparency and are working either to kill the bill or water it down. Members of the County Planning Board have stated their difficulty with this effort at transparency, so MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD IN ANNAPOLIS!

The bill information is here. The bill is MC/PG 110-17.

Please contact your House and Senate representatives and tell them we need a strong independent Inspector General for these agencies and independent audits. At the moment there is no oversight and little transparency at these agencies.

Also please contact Mike Miller, President of the state senate who has the ultimate say in whether a bill will pass. His email is: thomas.v.mike.miller@senate.state.md.us.

To find your representative, go here.

Because local government matters too.

 

Need for an Independent Inspector General for WSSC & M-NCPPC...What You Can Do

The County Council received their weekly briefing on State Bills yesterday from the County's lobbyists.

Here is the memo listing all the bills they are tracking

http://montgomerycountymd.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=136&event_id=5009&meta_id=130653

Among the bills they discussed is MC/PG 110-17 or HB321, sponsored by Delegate Ben Kramer, which would establish a very much needed Office of Inspector General for our Bi-County agencies, WSSC and the Maryland National Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC).  Due to their unique structure as bi-County agencies, they are not under the jurisdiction of the Montgomery County Ethics Commission .  In addition, the Montgomery County Office of Inspector General does not have the same oversight of these 2 Bi-County agencies as it does for other County agencies.. They are also not subject to performance audits by the State's Office of Legislative Audits as other State agencies are.

The members of the Montgomery County Delegation Metro Area Committee will be the first to discuss in a worksession next week.

Metro Washington Area Committee:
This committee works on all WSSC bills as well as M-NCPPC bills which do not deal with land use or transportation issues.  Al Carr, Chair Pam Queen, Vice-Chair, Kumar Barve, Kathleen Dumais, Ben Kramer, Shane Robinson

In addition to contacting the Metro Washington Area Committee members, please contact your State Delegates to request support for this very important bill that will resolve the inconsistencies and lack of clarity, and help promote the public's trust. 

http://montgomerycountydelegation.com/contact.html

Here is a link to the Bill Information:
http://montgomerycountydelegation.com/MCPG110-17.html

It is hard to imagine why anyone would vote against having these agencies under the jurisdiction of an IG just as all other County and State agencies are (except MCPS).  Delegates Barve, Kaiser and Barclay voted against scheduling this bill for hearing but fortunately, 18 other delegates voted to have a hearing which was held on Friday.

So far, the Montgomery County Civic Federation, UFCW Local 1994 MCGEO, and Montgomery County  Taxpayers League testified in support of the bill.  WSSC and the Montgomery County Planning Board are trying to kill the bill. They claim it's duplicative because they have an internal auditor. An internal auditor with an annual contract is not comparable to an independent Office of Inspector General who can investigate a variety of matters while remaining independent and not subject to annual contract cancellation by the Commission that approves their contract.

During the briefing yesterday, the County's intergovernmental relations representatives stated that County Executive Leggett supports the concept of an Inspector General for both of these agencies.  Several Councilmembers commented that they get more complaints from constituents about these 2 agencies than any others.  Having an IG in place is a very important step toward improving the public confidence in these agencies.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to contact your Maryland State Delegates and Senators to support this Bill.

Them That's Got: Double Dipping in MoCo

Here is an interesting editorial in today's Washington Examiner.  Ever wonder why your taxes don't go quite far enough here in progressive Montgomery County? This could provide an answer.  Thanks to the editors of the Washington Examiner for covering our county so well.

Examiner Local Editorial: Montgomery County and double-dipping developers

One reason Montgomery County is in such deep financial straits is that it has been overpaying developers, including $3.7 million for the same Germantown pumping station and water main for which they were also reimbursed by the Washington Suburban Sanitary District, according to a Feb. 15 interim report by county Inspector General Thomas Dagley. In 2005, at the beginning of the project, WSSC said it would reimburse the developers even though the project was being financed with tax-exempt Montgomery County bonds. However, an unnamed official in the county's Finance Department refused to issue an assignment letter to WSSC. And when Dagley's office later asked for documentation to support the cash payments, "OIG was not provided any purchase orders, invoices, or other detailed financial records by MCG Department of Finance that supported the developers' requests for reimbursements as required by MCG procedures."

Read more at the Washington Examiner here.

Weekend Roundup

So much news, so little time!  Here are three items that echo interests of readers of this blog.  First off, County Executive Leggett has proposed cutting funding to the internal audit program for the County.  Read about it here, in the article by Alan Suderman in today's Washington Examiner.  I don't know whether this is good or bad, really.  As there is no oversight anyway, would we taxpayers be saving money should this go through?  Tough call.  Councilmember Valerie Ervin (D-District 5) of all people voted against the cut.  Yet when she was on the Board of Education she did not do the tough work of a fiscally responsible BOE, rather, she let the budget go through the roof with no oversight.  Similar for Councilmember Nancy Navarro (D-Developers) who also for some inexplicable reason voted against the cut.

Second item, this one regarding transparency.  Apparently the UK has launched an open data site, that, according to the article, by Marshall Kirkpatrick, puts our federal data.gov to shame.  Wonder how it compares to our Montgomery County "efforts" at transparency.  Read the article here, at ReadWriteWeb. Or see for yourself, at data.gov.uk.  Here's what the home page of this site says:

"We’re very aware that there are more people like you outside of government who have the skills and abilities to make wonderful things out of public data. These are our first steps in building a collaborative relationship with you."

...and by the way, they have a link to a wiki on their homepage, yes, the UK government website wants to hear from its citizens.

Finally, we see that WSSC once again wants to raise our rates, this time a whopping 9.5 percent.  This may be the most incredible article of all this weekend.  Read it here, in the Washington Examiner, and kudos again to Mr. Suderman for continuing to follow these 'breaking' stories.   WSSC is incapable of even the most basic monitoring of our dangerous watermains.  Many of these watermains were manufactured by Interpace, the company that was run out of business because it went bankrupt due to so many catastrophic failures of its PCCP pipes nationwide.  WSSC has stalled and seems unable to provide even the most basic data about these pipes.  WSSC still has not completed step one in a safety plan.  That would be compiling a map showing where all these mains are located.  The recent comprehensive article in Bethesda Magazine quoted one firefighter on the scene at the River Road failure, saying that he didn't know there was a watermain on that street.  The article also quoted WSSC officials who said in the case of a water pressure drop, the first action is to increase the flow, i.e., to raise the pressure.  Well, that explains a lot.  Is there a watermain running under the street at your school? It would be prudent to check.

Have a great end of the weekend!