Montgomery County Capital Improvements Program - YouTube

Montgomery County has been and remains one of the best places to live in

America to put down roots to raise a family to get a job to grow a business

but how do we make sure that the county continues to have room for residents

from across Maryland across America and from around the world that's easy we

built for a better future easy to say harder to do especially when times are

tough over the past 12 years Ike Leggett and his team have worked to

literally build a better future for Montgomery County

that means more seats in more classrooms from our world-class public school

system it means more housing that's more affordable for more of us more fire

stations for a quicker response time new and renovated libraries and community

centers where you can check out the latest bestseller or join your friends

and shooting a few hoops ways to make transit more convenient our roads a lot

safer and smoother and more green space to enjoy with our families and building

that better future also means partnering with business and neighbors to boost the

jobs of the future closer to where we live

jobs of the future that allow us to better support our families strengthen

our tax base and help make our county truly a community for a lifetime under

the leadership of County Executive Ike Leggett the county put its fiscal house

back in order and weathered the Great Recession while continuing to deliver

the critical services needed by our more than 1 million residents but we did much

more than that despite tough times the county invested in buildings equipment

and services in its capital budget that have laid the foundation for it even

bigger and better Montgomery County one of the most important decisions that I

think I've made over the last few years was to in effect go somewhat

counterintuitive to what many people leaders going around the area I decided

to spend a little bit more during the recession because I wanted to take

advantage of something that I thought would working out

favor for example during the recession the cost of doing business in terms of

construction was much lower the borrowing cost was low we had a fairly

large number of projects on the books and things that we needed to build and

we alter we would build them it's just a simple question when we would do so I

decided to aggressively move forward on the building of those projects because

we could build them cheaper and we could get them done quicker and as a result of

that that has allowed us to build many many projects in the county that have

saved the taxpayers a large amount of money and get those facilities ready for

us at a quicker timeframe than it otherwise would have been we build

projects cheaper better and we got them done faster under that concept and so we

aggressively built on the height of the recession and as a result we probably

have over 50 major projects and maybe another 40 or so there are smaller

projects that we've constructed during the height of the recession that's

exclusive from schools and some of the projects and other places like parks as

well let's let the numbers do the talking over 21,000 classroom seats

added in the past dozen years for new elementary schools and two new middle

schools more than 1 billion dollars over 12 years for affordable housing to

leverage private dollars and create or preserve more than 63,000 affordable

housing units 5 new fire stations that compares to only one in the 12 years

before Leggett took office one of the challenge that I had early on was to

trying to come up with additional resources to enhance our public safety

our fire and rescue system we were challenged with resources at the height

of the recession and we had some real challenges trying to get additional

personnel equipment that needed facilities and variety of things so I

proposed an ambulance fee that would in effect be tied to the insurance that

people are already paying for emergency pick up calls and so forth it was not

warmly accepted by the public initially in fact it was rejected but I continue

to push for that idea because it was money simply on the table

the county and by so doing ultimately got it passed it does far he's provided

us eighty two million dollars and no cost to the taxpayers that allowed us to

build more fire and rescue facilities yet people train in a way that we do not

have them train earlier and yet the equipment that we needed in order to

have a better response three new police district stations a new joint Public

Safety headquarters for both police and Fire and Rescue a state-of-the-art

public safety training academy for our first responders to train in a new

Animal Services and adoption center to replace the previous dilapidated shelter

new campus facilities to water the garden of Montgomery colleges endless

possibilities and amidst all the new stuff a renewed focus on back to basics

a 1330 percent increase in resources for residential road repaving and

maintenance a new world class computer traffic signal ization system seven new

bus routes and 629 new buses 344 Moore County snow plows 36 miles of new

sidewalks more than 3000 bus stops improved 66 separate pedestrians safety

and traffic calming projects a three one one call center that is handled and

tracked over 4.3 million service requests since opening in 2010 one of

the programs we came up with the cause of refresh program the program allows us

on one hand to build new libraries we thought it was acceptable they needed to

do such as the new Silver Spring library on the other hand we needed to refresh

or repair some of the libraries we had we could build libraries at two or three

million dollars of cheaper cost and we could have those libraries done quicker

it would take probably four to six months for us to do so that has allowed

us to get those libraries up and running quicker and a much much more reduced

cost it is being a win-win for everyone the community loves it and we're getting

his libraries up and done in a very quick Horner with much much reduced cost

in all even in tough times for county government and County residents the

Leggett administration has completed 50 major projects more than the 37

completed during the 12 years before Ike Leggett took office when it was a

booming economy but numbers alone don't tell the whole tale one of Ike Leggitt

signature pieces was his smart growth initiative one of the things I was

challenged with we had about 250 million dollars of projects that we needed to

build but age projects in some of the very challenged locations in Montgomery

County when I say challenges or locations adjacent to the Shady Grove

metro in prime areas were laying I thought it was quite valuable and the

question I had was whether or not we build warehouses maintenance facilities

those kinds of facilities and locations adjacent to the metro and so what I

wanted to do is to say you know there's a better idea and a better approach here

why don't we trade locations get the monies that we will have for the land

that that we had this projects on save that the reconstruction cost and build

them at different locations throughout the county and as a result of that

became of the shaded Grove initiative the Smart Growth initiative that has

allowed us now to build a number of projects cheaper at different locations

we get new projects and now we have prime land that has on the tax field

rolled that allow us now to go forward with those projects so it's a wonderful

idea I think we created some synergy for the county and it would benefit the

county long term the executive under his overall Smart Growth initiative wanted

to make sure that we were taking the existing public safety training academy

right in the middle of the life Science Center master plan a location that was

right for use in as a live-work-play transit oriented development that would

support the growth of life science industry and research in the

Gaithersburg West Area sitting in the middle of that is a 60 acre public

safety training academy light industrial site that is literally in the way

the executives said well let's leverage this let's see how we can make the most

of this so we have done that with Smart Growth the county avoided pouring

millions of dollars into outmoded facilities that were located in areas

where high-tech jobs could be created and thousands of units of housing close

to Metro could be built by swapping land for cash and relocating county

facilities lake it created the conditions for creating more jobs and

more housing while building new facilities that could serve county

residents well for decades and that's not all the county is also supporting

job creation and development in white oak next to the federal Food and Drug

Administration in White Flint along the pike and in Wheaton all of the buildings

we've been opening in the in the last year year and a half have been LEED Gold

standards in fact when Montgomery County adopted the International green

construction code just this past year one of the questions that we were asked

was what additional actions we would have to take to comply with the IGCC

because of our commitment to environmental and sustainable design

standards when looking at the IGCC we already met all of those requirements

not only have new county facilities been built in the most green way possible

conserving energy and using renewable resources but the combined utility and

handsome design like the new Silver Spring and Germantown libraries the

judicial center annex new community centers in Mid County North Potomac and

white oak or the Silver Spring Civic building which has hosted thousands of

community meetings and events since opening its doors at a time when much of

America is lamenting the breakdown of basic infrastructure and despairs at how

to fix things Ike Leggett and Montgomery County have worked hard to make smart

choices about what to build and how to build it things that I'm looking to now

how do we position ourselves for the future given a foundation that we've

established as far I think Montgomery County is well

position our facilities are better they were last longer we've enhanced

technology at a number of our facilities around the county and replaced them in

locations that I think really suit the county very well such as provide an

ambulance and libraries and recreational centers in all parts of the county so

we're very well-positioned for that in addition to that we've trained our

personnel in such a way that they could take advantage of the community's assets

and work with the community in these particular facilities that I think would

be better fuel economy County overall investment in roads investment in

schools we have 21,000 new addition to our schools in terms of classrooms a

large number of things that we put in place there are other things that we've

constructed thus far but things that we have in the pipeline the new weed and

redevelopment site that we have the new Recreation Center in library in reading

as well Montgomery County is well-positioned for

the future but we've also cut down on the amount of expenditures so that we

reduce the amount of capital outlay funds for bonds that we'll have going

forward we will actually save about one hundred and forty million dollars in

future bond obligation so we have a good foundation we're building for the future

we're building the right way and we're doing it as cheap cost