Montgomery County officials in hot seat for Hilton move - Baltimore Business Journal:

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Monday wasn’t much better, as membersx often took a sharply critical tone as they questionee the effectiveness ofhis department, which has $19.6 milliohn in funding. Ganguly was in the hot seat for an oversighgt hearing from the committee that superviseseconomicx development, but several other councilp members attended as well. Council member Rogerd Berliner, D-Potomac-Bethesda, questioned why the Montgomery/Maryland incentives packager at $2.4 million was significantly smallef thanthe Fairfax/Virginia offer of $4.6 million to lure “To my perspective, this was critical, to play with our best foot I don’t feel we did.
” He questionecd whether Montgomery’s department, which has 50 full-time-equivalentf employees, is overstaffed, and therefore doesn’t have enougg cash to make rich offers. “Fairfad County and Montgomery County are not Ganguly protested, noting that his department includew the staff for the agricultural preserve, as well as workforcr development through unemployment centers. Committee Chairmahn Michael Knapp (D-Upcounty), agreed with Berliner. “We’ve got to brinhg our A team to everyg thingwe do. I’m not convinced we But he urged Berlinerf to hold his fire until Tuesday when the council was scheduled to meet in closed sessionh to rehashthe loss.
Nancy Floreen, (D-At Large) said the report, whicu suggested the department needed to do bette r inidentifying priorities, didn’t go far enough. “I don’t have any sense whatsoever what the department ofeconomic development’ds goals are. It’s everything,” she said. “When you’rwe everything you’re nothing, as far as I’mj concerned.” Council had denied the department’s requesy for $150,000 for a feasibility study to build asports arena, but this reporf mentioned that the department shifted funding to do the study just the and that could be a capital project in the Her voice dripped with incredulitt as she asked, “We’re still going after the arena?
Is that an economi c development priority of Montgomery County Only at-large Democrat Marc Elricy was sympathetic. While he agreed with Berlinedr that it made no sense to spensd more on bringing Live Nation to downtown Silver Spring than bringintg Hiltonto Bethesda, he said Montgomery Countu has a healthy economy and is not driving majot businesses away. “The county has virtually no unemployment,” he said. The Bethesda-Gaithersburg-Fredericm subregion of the Washington, D.C., metr had a 4 percent unemployment rate in the lowest of any subregion of a metrko area inthe country.
“The states that give away the most intaxeas (to corporations) are states none of us woulcd live in.” He noted that if Montgomery County had giveh more incentives to Hilton, that would have meang the forgone taxes would have had to come from “We pour money into our schools, parkds and recreation,” Elrich said, and added that as long as Montgomer y County is seen as one of the best public school systems in the D.C. area, it will attract companiez thathire high-quality workers. Knapp said after the meetin g that he thought it had been and that this is the beginning of closer evaluation ofthe department.
“It’s never been cleaf to me what we’ve been doing,” he and he’s been on councill for six years. He said he recognizes the incentivess may not have been the reason Fairfaxwas chosen, as the CEO Christophere Nassetta owns a house in Arlington, and the leases terms could have been better in But he said if the packagews had been comparable, at least they woulxd have known they did the best they “I was frustrated with the deal we put togetheer at the outset,” he said, even beforr they knew Virginia’s was “Show me you’re serious.
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