Upper middle class here, sold in Bethesda this fall and moved to another county. Montgomery county is now dirty and poorly managed. I mean I can’t believe the electorate voted for term limits and then voted to put a term limited candidate in a higher office. He was part of that ten percent property tax increase. How stupid! I made quite the profit on my close in sh t shack, but the new owners were too millineal stupid to even educate themselves about the curriculum issue. As were the new neighbors who purchased across the street. No worries, the new purchasers are as stupid as existing voters and will gleefully pay increasing taxes, they won’t and can’t go anywhere. They are officially house poor so you’ll benefit from theirs and others stupidity. Mont county is a social experiment gone awry. Truly sad to see.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

They are largely squeezing the middle class here to pay for it. MoCo is catering to the rich and at the same time sticking their hand out to the middle class. The middle class gets high taxes, increased density and traffic, no new infrastructure or parks built neaf them and a crappy education for the kids (but they took final exams away so your kids aren’t going to complain much) .
The rich get bused to great schools miles away from their home (because you can’t have traffic into the neighborhood - perish the thought!), taxes that they can afford , subsidized country clubs , no density or affordable housing built near them, etc etc.

The middle class can afford to hit the road and I sure wouldn’t recommend that my kids settle here.

To where?

And aren't the rich getting bused to MCPS schools, therefore also receiving a crappy education (according to you)?

I don't really think of "density" (aka multi-family housing) as something to flee from. I think of it as housing for people to live in, including people who are middle-class.

When it takes you 30 minutes to drive 2 miles to get home after running a simple errand you might think differently about uncontrolled density being a great thing.

But we don't have uncontrolled density. Also, 2 miles is a good biking distance. More people on bikes = fewer cars on the road.

Anonymous wrote:
Supply and demand. Market forces. Less demand = lower prices = lower property taxes.

How many rich people do you think there are who are going to move to Fairfax (?) or Howard (?) if MCPS proposes to fiddle with the boundaries of Whitman a bit?

If there really were enough rich people moving out of $1.5 million houses in the western close-in suburbs to Ellicott City or Leesburg or some such (though why would they do that?), there would be lots of people happy to move in. The quality of life in Montgomery County would improve.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

They are largely squeezing the middle class here to pay for it. MoCo is catering to the rich and at the same time sticking their hand out to the middle class. The middle class gets high taxes, increased density and traffic, no new infrastructure or parks built neaf them and a crappy education for the kids (but they took final exams away so your kids aren’t going to complain much) .
The rich get bused to great schools miles away from their home (because you can’t have traffic into the neighborhood - perish the thought!), taxes that they can afford , subsidized country clubs , no density or affordable housing built near them, etc etc.

The middle class can afford to hit the road and I sure wouldn’t recommend that my kids settle here.

To where?

And aren't the rich getting bused to MCPS schools, therefore also receiving a crappy education (according to you)?

I don't really think of "density" (aka multi-family housing) as something to flee from. I think of it as housing for people to live in, including people who are middle-class.

When it takes you 30 minutes to drive 2 miles to get home after running a simple errand you might think differently about uncontrolled density being a great thing.

Anonymous wrote:

They are largely squeezing the middle class here to pay for it. MoCo is catering to the rich and at the same time sticking their hand out to the middle class. The middle class gets high taxes, increased density and traffic, no new infrastructure or parks built neaf them and a crappy education for the kids (but they took final exams away so your kids aren’t going to complain much) .
The rich get bused to great schools miles away from their home (because you can’t have traffic into the neighborhood - perish the thought!), taxes that they can afford , subsidized country clubs , no density or affordable housing built near them, etc etc.

The middle class can afford to hit the road and I sure wouldn’t recommend that my kids settle here.

To where?

And aren't the rich getting bused to MCPS schools, therefore also receiving a crappy education (according to you)?

I don't really think of "density" (aka multi-family housing) as something to flee from. I think of it as housing for people to live in, including people who are middle-class.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

PP, be careful what you wish for. People in million dollar plus homes pay a premium in taxes to go to a school in their neighborhoods. If the board starts bussing these upper income kids across the county to other neighborhoods, the county will see a mass exodus of wealth to Virginia.

You're right, property values across the county will drop precipitously.

What that means to the lower income people (who are not able to move because they can't afford to) is there will less tax money funding all Montco schools. Watch it vanish overnight. The only wealth left in Montco will be those whose kids are in privates.

Don't let your jealousy and bitterness of financial success make you wish for their demise. They will vote with their feet, take their money with them and the lower income poor will be left holding the rotten bag. It's called Shooting the goose that laid the golden egg.

This is the "we ought to be grateful to the rich people who insist on private public schools" argument.

Also, no one is actually talking about busing anybody across the county.

They are largely squeezing the middle class here to pay for it. MoCo is catering to the rich and at the same time sticking their hand out to the middle class. The middle class gets high taxes, increased density and traffic, no new infrastructure or parks built neaf them and a crappy education for the kids (but they took final exams away so your kids aren’t going to complain much) .
The rich get bused to great schools miles away from their home (because you can’t have traffic into the neighborhood - perish the thought!), taxes that they can afford , subsidized country clubs , no density or affordable housing built near them, etc etc.

The middle class can afford to hit the road and I sure wouldn’t recommend that my kids settle here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If lots of rich families in Bethesda made the nutty decision to pick up and move from expensive housing in MCPS (which is not perfect) to expensive housing in FCPS (which is not perfect) -- then the housing in close-in Bethesda would become more affordable to the rest of us. Yay!

And then the county would raise your taxes or cut schools funding because revenue has gone down.

Elrich has already proposed $25mil cut to MCPS, and no, Elrich can't tell MCPS to make those cuts to central office.

-dp

Who says revenue would go down if some rich people took their ball and went elsewhere?

Forgive us, please, if we're not sufficiently grateful to these hypothetical rich people who are doing us, MCPS, and all of society a favor by choosing to live in Bethesda.

Supply and demand. Market forces. Less demand = lower prices = lower property taxes.

I highly doubt they think they are doing you a favor. People live there for various reasons, mostly because it's close to their work in DC.

I don't live in Bethesda. I grew up in LAUSD, and I remember when Prop 13 passed, property taxes were frozen, and school funding tanked. It hasn't recovered since the late 70's when Prop 13 was passed. School funding in CA is terrible. In the richer areas, parents pay $1500/per child per year for things like art and PE. So, unless you are willing to pay up the nose for these extras, you should understand the ramifications of what you want to happen.

MCPS has issues, no doubt, but the school funding is one of the best in the country, and that is largely due to the wealthier areas of this county because they do pay more property taxes than the rest of the county.

I don't want my taxes to go up. I already pay enough, but I certainly don't want school funding to go down. I'm pretty upset about Elrich's proposal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If lots of rich families in Bethesda made the nutty decision to pick up and move from expensive housing in MCPS (which is not perfect) to expensive housing in FCPS (which is not perfect) -- then the housing in close-in Bethesda would become more affordable to the rest of us. Yay!

And then the county would raise your taxes or cut schools funding because revenue has gone down.

Elrich has already proposed $25mil cut to MCPS, and no, Elrich can't tell MCPS to make those cuts to central office.

-dp

Who says revenue would go down if some rich people took their ball and went elsewhere?

Forgive us, please, if we're not sufficiently grateful to these hypothetical rich people who are doing us, MCPS, and all of society a favor by choosing to live in Bethesda.

Well, there's a way to combat school overcrowding in Bethesda.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If lots of rich families in Bethesda made the nutty decision to pick up and move from expensive housing in MCPS (which is not perfect) to expensive housing in FCPS (which is not perfect) -- then the housing in close-in Bethesda would become more affordable to the rest of us. Yay!

And then the county would raise your taxes or cut schools funding because revenue has gone down.

Elrich has already proposed $25mil cut to MCPS, and no, Elrich can't tell MCPS to make those cuts to central office.

-dp

Who says revenue would go down if some rich people took their ball and went elsewhere?

Forgive us, please, if we're not sufficiently grateful to these hypothetical rich people who are doing us, MCPS, and all of society a favor by choosing to live in Bethesda.

Anonymous wrote:
If lots of rich families in Bethesda made the nutty decision to pick up and move from expensive housing in MCPS (which is not perfect) to expensive housing in FCPS (which is not perfect) -- then the housing in close-in Bethesda would become more affordable to the rest of us. Yay!

And then the county would raise your taxes or cut schools funding because revenue has gone down.

Elrich has already proposed $25mil cut to MCPS, and no, Elrich can't tell MCPS to make those cuts to central office.

-dp

[quote=Anonymous
But if an exodus to VA (or DC as their schools improve and people value proximity) actually occurred, how would the county fund the various (expensive) progressive policies its leadership and voters want? We already have budget shortfalls with an exodus of our largest taxpayers.

I am sure it is satisfying to say good riddance, but if that were to actually happen, it would be the poor who are hurt, not the rich folks who took their money/tax dollars across the border.