FBI HQ in PG!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When people (apparently including the FBI director) say they have concerns about the PROCESS, what it really means is that they don't like the RESULT of the process.

There are multiple points of the process where there has been undue influence. First criteria heavily influenced by VA senators and FBI leadership. Then Trump intervention. Then revised criteria obviously put thumb on the scale for MD.

It was messy and ugly and political from the beginning.

The criteria have always favored VA - which is why the final selection is weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When people (apparently including the FBI director) say they have concerns about the PROCESS, what it really means is that they don't like the RESULT of the process.

There are multiple points of the process where there has been undue influence. First criteria heavily influenced by VA senators and FBI leadership. Then Trump intervention. Then revised criteria obviously put thumb on the scale for MD.

It was messy and ugly and political from the beginning.

The criteria have always favored VA - which is why the final selection is weird.

There were several aspects of the original criteria that were not relevant to selection except to favor Virginia. For example, location of other law enforcement agencies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Feel bad for the largely white FBI that won't be living in PG County

Clearly you have never been to this area. Fwiw, I don’t think people usually move when their agencies do. But new people coming in will probably look at university park, and Bowie where the elem schools are very good and privates are an affordable option. Greenbelt also has a great elementary thanks to all those nasa kids but the housing choices are limited. Or they will look at aa county and Crofton (we have lots of LEO families), odenton (already lots of ft Meade families) for good public upper schools. Anyway yay for Md glad we lost Amazon and got fbi instead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should have made the location contingent on infrastructure improvements by Maryland. A new American Legion bridge, a new river crossing at route 28, and the continuation of 495 express lanes to 95.

I do wish Maryland invested more in realistic transportation. I moved from Fairfax co to MD and I'm so envious of all the added lanes to 495, 66, and 95 in VA. I frequently drive with my kids with me, so personally I love the HOT lanes.

Nobody has worse roads than VA.

Try driving the "top side" of the beltway. Or the merge of 270 and 495. It sucks. At least VA does something to address the traffic. MD does nothing.

Building more lanes does not address traffic. Providing amenities in transit rich locations and mass transit allows people to move from one place to another without sitting in traffic. Name a single instance where adding more lanes "addressed the traffic"

You can't.

Also, Greenbelt is nowhere near the top side of he beltway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chris Wray says No.

Chris Wray doesn’t have a say. Isn’t this the second time Greenbelt was selected under two different processes?

Congress has the final say. We'll see who has more pull between MD and VA and just not spending the money and leaving it in DC. I wouldn't discount the third option

Dc certainly needs a dedicated in person work agency these days they should offer them a sweet deal. But they have to get their crime under control first wasn’t it a federal agent that just shot the carjacker?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should have made the location contingent on infrastructure improvements by Maryland. A new American Legion bridge, a new river crossing at route 28, and the continuation of 495 express lanes to 95.

I do wish Maryland invested more in realistic transportation. I moved from Fairfax co to MD and I'm so envious of all the added lanes to 495, 66, and 95 in VA. I frequently drive with my kids with me, so personally I love the HOT lanes.

Nobody has worse roads than VA.

Try driving the "top side" of the beltway. Or the merge of 270 and 495. It sucks. At least VA does something to address the traffic. MD does nothing.

Building more lanes does not address traffic. Providing amenities in transit rich locations and mass transit allows people to move from one place to another without sitting in traffic. Name a single instance where adding more lanes "addressed the traffic"

You can't.

Also, Greenbelt is nowhere near the top side of he beltway.

I love people like you you. You’re the reason why MD is falling behind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Chris Wray says No.

Chris Wray doesn’t have a say. Isn’t this the second time Greenbelt was selected under two different processes?

Congress has the final say. We'll see who has more pull between MD and VA and just not spending the money and leaving it in DC. I wouldn't discount the third option

Dc certainly needs a dedicated in person work agency these days they should offer them a sweet deal. But they have to get their crime under control first wasn’t it a federal agent that just shot the carjacker?

That was a federal solution to the crime problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When people (apparently including the FBI director) say they have concerns about the PROCESS, what it really means is that they don't like the RESULT of the process.

There are multiple points of the process where there has been undue influence. First criteria heavily influenced by VA senators and FBI leadership. Then Trump intervention. Then revised criteria obviously put thumb on the scale for MD.

It was messy and ugly and political from the beginning.

It's always political. Look at how Trump Admins didn't select AWS for the cloud contract because of his feud with Bezos. Then after Trump left, guess what happened.. yep, the they pulled the plug with Microsoft, and the contract now includes Amazon.

[Anonymous]

The Virginians are like petulant children who didn't get picked for the dodgeball team. They are going out of their way to nitpick and find so many ways to complain that they don't want to commute from Virginia to Maryland.

The fact is that Greenbelt and PG County are not cesspools of crime or poor junkyards. I have lived in worked in Greenbelt and lived in PG County for 31 years. I work at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center right in Greenbelt. I have many, many friends who live in the surrounding areas including the neighborhoods around the selected FBI site. We choose to live here and raise our children here. Our children go to schools in the area. I know people who live in Bowie, Greenbelt, Beltsville, Laurel, College Park, Hyattsville and more. I've watched these kids grow up, go to good colleges and get good jobs. I know very few people who have been victims of crimes. The crime levels are higher in some areas mostly in the areas inside the beltway. Those who live outside the beltway rarely see crimes and the crime level outside the beltway is comparable to other beltway counties.

Yes, just like the the BRAC moved many of the army folks up to Ft Meade, there were many who complained about having to commute. You know what? A significant portion of those relocated employees now live happily in the surrounding areas and like their work-life balance living here in MD. This will happen to the FBI too. They currently have more staff that live in Virginia. After the new HQ opens, over the next few years, there will be a shift and some people will continue to live in VA and many people will move to the MD suburbs to live closer to work. Some people who live in Virginia will switch to jobs closer to home, some people who live in Maryland will get an opportunity to work for the FBI when they didn't want to work at the downtown location, and new recruits and transfers will look to relocate to the area surrounding the HQ. That's the way relocations go. There are already some FBI agents who live in MD and commute down the the Hoover building. If the Springfield location was selected, they would be facing the same issues that the Virginia employees face.

The Greenbelt location is right at a metro station. Those touting that Springfield is also a metro station fail to acknowledge that the Springfield location is about 1 mile from the metro and the roads between the warehouses and the metro station are not currently designed to handle the extra traffic that the FBI HQ would add. Estimates were that it could take 20-30 min at busy times to get the 1 mile to the metro station. It was estimated that it would be faster to walk the one mile than try to move your car from HQ to the metro station.

The Greenbelt location is currently a parking lot for the metro station and it is shovel ready to start construction as soon as the construction contract is awarded. The Springfield location would require months and a lot of money to first evacuate the 16 warehouses that are currently in use and occupied. All of those things would have to move. Then they would have to prepare to demo the existing buildings before they could start the project. It would add at least 2 years to the opening of the facility at that location. The GSA estimated that it would cost tax payers around $1B more to use the Springfield location by the time the project was completed.

As for location, NSA is at Ft Meade. DIA is based at Bolling AFB. There is a federal district courthouse within a mile of the proposed location and the FBI will probably have a lot of cases that will be tried there. Homeland Security has a training center in Laurel about 5-10 min away. It is likely that there will be some cross training going on there. ATF, one of the agencies that the FBI works the most with, has an office in Hyattsville. FBI works much more with ATF than they do with CIA Langley.

There were many reasons that Greenbelt was a good choice. Maybe not the one that Virginia resident employees wanted, but there were many good reasons for the selection.

[Anonymous]

It is funny to me that people think the nearby presence of Federal District courthouse would be somehow important or relevant to the FBI’s national HQ.

It’s like so what, there’s also a Federal District courthouse in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

If there was any specific court of first instance that would be important to the FBI as part of their national operations it would be the FISA court and that’s in DC.

The second most important District court for the FBI would be the District courthouse in Arlington, because bringing cases there gets them access to the 4th Circuit in Richmond, which is famously known as “rocket docket”. That’s why a lot of Federal cases are tried there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There will still be a smaller contingent in DC and Redstone Arsenal. In fact most of the functions moved in 10-15 years, if this actually happens will be more admin type, finance, IT. This will affect hiring.

No everyone won’t metro to Greenbelt. That’s wishful thinking. Even if everyone did people will just stay inside the building and then clog traffic in all directions. Infrastructure should have been part of the discussion.

Wait till DC gets into the fight about losing all these workers that were supposed to save the economy.

Yes Greenbelt will get an FBI building but it’s not going to be the entire FBI. Yes there will be a slight bump in housing values but the idea this is going to save Greenbelt. Ha that’s funny.

DC has the universities to employ the DC residents, for better or for worse.

But I do agree that Maryland needs a bridge or two, because I do not foresee current FBI employees moving to Maryland. The lack of bridges should tell you something about the mismanagement in Maryland.

Also, other PP - don't worry about interaction with Langley. Not an issue.

My suspicion is that MD will use the FBI site selection as a rationale to request federal transportation funds to cover the additional infrastructure costs. They did the same for the consolidation of Walter Reed at NAV Bethesda, but this is going to be significantly larger scale. A lot of articles coming out lately about budget shortfalls, including in the transportation trust fund because MD has decided to siphon those funds off to pay for the Purple Line.

Dear Washington,

We write to request your assistance in financing transportation improvements around the site in Greenbelt that we recently cajoled the General Services Administration into selecting as the next headquarters site for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Your assistance is necessary because, as you know, we can't balance our budget, we overtax our residents, we overtax our remaining businesses, and we underinvest in our infrastructure. We also excel at wasting public resources to support boondoggle transportation projects like the Purple Line that benefit rich people while leaving other projects like Baltimore's Red Line extension that benefit poor people to wither on the vine.

We are so deserving of the new FBI headquarters. We know that our high corporate tax rates, high income tax rates, stifling business regulations, rising crime, declining public schools, obsolete highways, stagnant population growth, and lackluster economic growth make us an attractive and desirable location in the eyes of FBI employees and their families. Of course, our state flag is the cherry on the cake!

I'm sure you'll understand that despite our endless pushing, cajoling, and threatening to land this facility in the name of "equity" (we really had nothing else to offer as an incentive or justification), we'll need even more federal money to get our roads around Greenbelt updated. After all, we seemingly can't do anything by ourselves.

Sincerely,
Maryland

In your desire to be snarky, you just contradicted yourself.

First, the Purple Line was only considered a boondoggle by the rich, white folk in Montgomery County who couldn't imagine using it. But the Purple Line will give good public transit options for people commuting from the densely inhabited southern Montgomery County to UMD, NASA, FDA, IRS, National Archives and more. Plus Montgomery County loves their businesses with hourly wages, like Starbucks, Whole Foods and other supermarkets, and upscale eateries and yet those workers can't really afford to live near where they work. Their hourly wages, despite being "living wages" are not "living in Montgomery County" wages. With the purple line, hourly workers and gig workers can live in less expensive areas like PG County and take public transportation to work.

Also, this boondoggle will also allow white collar FBI workers who make higher salaries to live in Montgomery County and commute by public transportation to work. The Purple line has a stop that is one Green line metro stop away from the new location. They'll be able to take the Purple Line, make one transfer and get to the station across the parking lot from the new building. This will make commuting from anywhere on the red line much shorter than taking the red line all the way downtown and back out on the red line.

So, with the new FBI HQ, the Purple Line will be getting even more use than was originally projected. There are so many people who want us to invest less in highways and more into public transit. Well here is a public transit option and a government location selection that will make public transit in general, and this project specifically more useful and attractive of an option.

[Anonymous]

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[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There will still be a smaller contingent in DC and Redstone Arsenal. In fact most of the functions moved in 10-15 years, if this actually happens will be more admin type, finance, IT. This will affect hiring.

No everyone won’t metro to Greenbelt. That’s wishful thinking. Even if everyone did people will just stay inside the building and then clog traffic in all directions. Infrastructure should have been part of the discussion.

Wait till DC gets into the fight about losing all these workers that were supposed to save the economy.

Yes Greenbelt will get an FBI building but it’s not going to be the entire FBI. Yes there will be a slight bump in housing values but the idea this is going to save Greenbelt. Ha that’s funny.

DC has the universities to employ the DC residents, for better or for worse.

But I do agree that Maryland needs a bridge or two, because I do not foresee current FBI employees moving to Maryland. The lack of bridges should tell you something about the mismanagement in Maryland.

Also, other PP - don't worry about interaction with Langley. Not an issue.

My suspicion is that MD will use the FBI site selection as a rationale to request federal transportation funds to cover the additional infrastructure costs. They did the same for the consolidation of Walter Reed at NAV Bethesda, but this is going to be significantly larger scale. A lot of articles coming out lately about budget shortfalls, including in the transportation trust fund because MD has decided to siphon those funds off to pay for the Purple Line.

Dear Washington,

We write to request your assistance in financing transportation improvements around the site in Greenbelt that we recently cajoled the General Services Administration into selecting as the next headquarters site for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Your assistance is necessary because, as you know, we can't balance our budget, we overtax our residents, we overtax our remaining businesses, and we underinvest in our infrastructure. We also excel at wasting public resources to support boondoggle transportation projects like the Purple Line that benefit rich people while leaving other projects like Baltimore's Red Line extension that benefit poor people to wither on the vine.

We are so deserving of the new FBI headquarters. We know that our high corporate tax rates, high income tax rates, stifling business regulations, rising crime, declining public schools, obsolete highways, stagnant population growth, and lackluster economic growth make us an attractive and desirable location in the eyes of FBI employees and their families. Of course, our state flag is the cherry on the cake!

I'm sure you'll understand that despite our endless pushing, cajoling, and threatening to land this facility in the name of "equity" (we really had nothing else to offer as an incentive or justification), we'll need even more federal money to get our roads around Greenbelt updated. After all, we seemingly can't do anything by ourselves.

Sincerely,
Maryland

In your desire to be snarky, you just contradicted yourself.

First, the Purple Line was only considered a boondoggle by the rich, white folk in Montgomery County who couldn't imagine using it. But the Purple Line will give good public transit options for people commuting from the densely inhabited southern Montgomery County to UMD, NASA, FDA, IRS, National Archives and more. Plus Montgomery County loves their businesses with hourly wages, like Starbucks, Whole Foods and other supermarkets, and upscale eateries and yet those workers can't really afford to live near where they work. Their hourly wages, despite being "living wages" are not "living in Montgomery County" wages. With the purple line, hourly workers and gig workers can live in less expensive areas like PG County and take public transportation to work.

Also, this boondoggle will also allow white collar FBI workers who make higher salaries to live in Montgomery County and commute by public transportation to work. The Purple line has a stop that is one Green line metro stop away from the new location. They'll be able to take the Purple Line, make one transfer and get to the station across the parking lot from the new building. This will make commuting from anywhere on the red line much shorter than taking the red line all the way downtown and back out on the red line.

So, with the new FBI HQ, the Purple Line will be getting even more use than was originally projected. There are so many people who want us to invest less in highways and more into public transit. Well here is a public transit option and a government location selection that will make public transit in general, and this project specifically more useful and attractive of an option.

Did you post that with a straight face?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Feel bad for the largely white FBI that won't be living in PG County

Clearly you have never been to this area. Fwiw, I don’t think people usually move when their agencies do. But new people coming in will probably look at university park, and Bowie where the elem schools are very good and privates are an affordable option. Greenbelt also has a great elementary thanks to all those nasa kids but the housing choices are limited. Or they will look at aa county and Crofton (we have lots of LEO families), odenton (already lots of ft Meade families) for good public upper schools. Anyway yay for Md glad we lost Amazon and got fbi instead.

Also cheverly, Hyattsville and college park are good options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should have made the location contingent on infrastructure improvements by Maryland. A new American Legion bridge, a new river crossing at route 28, and the continuation of 495 express lanes to 95.

I do wish Maryland invested more in realistic transportation. I moved from Fairfax co to MD and I'm so envious of all the added lanes to 495, 66, and 95 in VA. I frequently drive with my kids with me, so personally I love the HOT lanes.

The areas around tysons and the like 20 lanes of traffic is an absolute hellscape.