Town of Chevy Chase Council member John Bickerman isn’t up for re-election until next year, but he says a slate of three candidates running for three open spots on the council in May is running against him.
“People canvassing for the slate are telling people I will become mayor and I will eliminate leaf collection,” Bickerman said last week. “They’re trying to make the election a referendum on me.”
Bickerman made the claims almost a year after Fred Cecere’s highly controversial secret write-in campaign ousted incumbent Pat Burda, with whom Bickerman often clashed. When the write-in result was confirmed, Bickerman and Cecere voted ally Al Lang as mayor of the five-member council, a move that further split the town of slightly more than 2,000 people.
The Lang-led council then eased the town’s rules for removal and maintenance of trees, slashed some parts of the budget and proposed reinstituting a town property tax to compensate for an expected shortfall brought on by state overpayments in income tax distribution that must be repaid.
With Lang not running for reelection, Bickerman says Burda and outgoing council member Kathy Strom are supporting the slate of three candidates and using the possibility that Bickerman could become mayor against two other candidates who might support him.
Bickerman said last week he won’t become mayor because he plans on giving up his council seat and moving out of the town this fall. He said he didn’t want to give up his council seat before the May 3 election “because it would cause chaos in the town.”
Mary Flynn, who’s running on the slate with former town and Montgomery County Council member Scott Fosler and Barney Rush, denied Bickerman’s allegations last week, but acknowledged the bitter feelings dating from last year’s election linger among residents.
“It’s hard to really stay completely out of it because there are very strong personal disagreements, but that’s not my fight,” Flynn said. “I’m trying to convey what’s important to the town. I’m just not interested in commenting on John Bickerman’s accusations.”
Bickerman said the slate’s goal is to “go back to the old ways,” referring to the town’s rules for trees on personal property and variance requests for home modifications, something scoffed at by those who supported Cecere. The Lang-led council made minor home variance requests reviewable by the town manager, meaning they no longer have to be reviewed by the full council in an official public hearing.
“I think it was a good thing to relax the administrative variance,” Flynn said. “I trust our town manager to understand the code, which I believe he does. The devil’s going to be in the details in all of this.”
Flynn, who recently founded a group called the Coalition of Bethesda Area Residents to help represent single-family neighborhoods on the edge of downtown Bethesda during the county Planning Board’s ongoing update of the Bethesda Downtown Plan, said her priorities are to focus on major issue such as the impending construction of the light-rail Purple Line and not to roll back what Lang, Bickerman and Cecere did over the past year.
“I’m focused on trying to make sure that we do a really great job with the concessionaire regarding the Purple Line and its implementation,” Flynn said. “Not much work was done this last year. Of course, I’m also very concerned with what’s going on with the Bethesda [Downtown] Plan. I’m not against development but it needs to be done properly.”
Henry Smith, who with Jennifer Burton is one of two candidates not on the Flynn-Fosler-Rush slate, said his focus as a council member would be on development in downtown Bethesda and the Purple Line.
Construction on the Purple Line, which will run behind many homes in the town, could begin as early as this year.
“This is a political battle with the county,” Smith said last week. “Everybody’s doing good work and everybody has good intentions in the town, but we have to get on the same page. We have to deal with the county executive and the County Council and frankly, as far as the Purple Line goes, I know there are going to be hundreds of change orders that are going to come along. I’m going to take these challenges to Rockville and to Annapolis.”
Smith also said he’s “prepared” not to vote for either Bickerman or Cecere as mayor for the next year.
“I know that Kathy Strom has endorsed some people. Nobody’s endorsed me,” Smith said. “Having said that, if people are continuing to base their decisions on what went on over the last four years, we’re just not going to make any progress.”
The town’s Election Board is hosting a candidates’ forum at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Town Hall and the town has published statements from all five candidates.
