The Washington Post - USA (2020-10-20)

B2 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20 , 2020

BY REBECCA TAN

Montgomery County Executive
Marc Elrich (D) has issued his first
veto since taking office nearly two
years ago, rejecting a bill that
would provide tax breaks for de-
velopers seeking to build high-rise
buildings above Metro stations.
While Elrich said the govern-
ment “simply cannot afford” the
incentive at a time when the coro-
navirus pandemic is ravaging the
economy, advocates and most
members of the Montgomery
County Council say Friday’s veto
would block much-needed devel-
opment and affordable housing.
The bill passed the County Coun-
cil 7 to 2 this month, with Vice Presi-
dent Tom Hucker (D-District 5) and
member Will Jawando (D-At Large)
voting against it.
Lawmakers will need at least six
votes to override the veto. Council
member Hans Riemer (D-At
Large), a frequent critic of Elrich
and one of the co-sponsors of the
bill, said he expects the lawmakers
who supported the proposal to
“stick with it” when they vote
again next week.
“High-rise development on top
of the Metro is the very essence of
smart growth,” Riemer said.
Like the rest of the Washington
region, Montgomery faces a dire
shortage of affordable housing.
Regional experts said last year
that the county of 1 million and
neighboring jurisdictions need to
build at least 320,000 new hous-
ing units between 2020 and 2030,
which is 75,000 more than are
currently forecast to be built.
The bill, Riemer said, would en-

MARYLAND

Elrich veto

blocks tax

break for

high-rises

Bill to boost development

above Metro stations passed council 7 to 2

tempts to reach them, Miller said. And city regulations say the District cannot remove a living but inactive voter from its rolls until that person has failed to vote in at least three consecutive general elections. The D.C. Board of Elections is also a member of the Electronic Registration Information Cen- ter, a coalition of 30 states and federal enclaves that share voter registration data. Marc Meredith, an associate professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, said the number of people moving in and out of the District presents it with more challenges than many states. If the city continues to increase its use of mail voting, he said, it may have to devise new policies to help keep up with where those ballots should be sent. But Meredith called voters receiving multiple ballots an ex- ception to the rule and said that, even then, people are unlikely to use a ballot intended for some- one else to commit fraud. He also pointed to safeguards, such as signature matching, as effective deterrents. “We know from political science research the rates of voter fraud, whether it be mailed ballots or at a polling place, is extremely low,” he said. “There just isn’t evidence people use opportunities that arise to commit voter fraud in the rare in- stances where they come up.” D.C. voters can track the loca- tion of their mailed or dropped- off ballot using a new online tool (votedc.ballottrax.net/voter) that also indicates if there are any problems. Voters will hear di- rectly from an election official if there is an issue with their ballot or signature, Jacobs said. “We’ll move as fast as possible to reach out to voters if there’s a signature issue and get it fixed,” he added. “We’ll make multiple opportunities to the voter to have their ballot counted.” michael.brice- [email protected]

most prevalent issue voters have commented on,” Jacobs said. “Keep in mind, D.C. is one of the most transient cities on the face of the planet. There are a lot of people moving in and out, and people forget to update their voter registration.” D.C. updates its voter rolls by checking death records and, after each general election, contacting people who didn’t vote to ask if they still live at the address on file. But many people don’t fill out and return these canvass cards, even after multiple at-

multiple ballots, often belong- ing to former or deceased residents, added to voter suspicions and questions. Jacobs said the elections board has received dozens of complaints about ballots that were sent to the wrong address and is advising voters to return these ballots to the elections office so officials can update their records. (Just mark the envelope “return to sender” and leave it in your mailbox.) “In terms of people getting multiple ballots, it’s been the

policy for curing signatures, ac- cording to the New York Times. “Most of them match. We don’t want people fretting over that unnecessarily,” said Alice Miller, executive director of the D.C. Board of Elections. “But we have to do something to verify if it’s the voter.” Concerns about signatures have spiked this year, in part, election officials say, because the city is sending out so many more mailed ballots than usual. Reports on social media that some D.C. voters were mailed

ballot could be rejected.
Carolinn Kuebler, an advisory
neighborhood commissioner in
Van Ness whose constituency
includes many seniors, said she
has fielded questions from voters
who registered for the first time
40 or 50 years ago.
“Given how fraught this elec-
tion is, they’re very, very con-
cerned their votes won’t count,”
Kuebler said. “There are so many
people voting remotely — now
there’s this lingering concern [the
elections board] will see their
signature and toss the ballot.”
The elections board does not
offer a way for voters to check
the signature they have on file.
But board spokesman Nick Ja-
cobs said officials account for
changes by collecting signa-
tures from multiple sources,
including the Department of
Motor Vehicles, signed petitions
and poll books from previous
elections.
“We’re able to see the altera-
tions in signatures. We get that, as
people age, signatures change, so
that’s why we use those multiple
sources,” Jacobs said. “For the
concerns some people have raised
— my middle initial is included
here, and not there — we account
for all those possibilities.”
Neither Maryland nor Virginia
use signature matching to verify
voter identity. Ballots in these
states are rejected if the voter
forgets to sign altogether.
D.C. election officials say
about 1 percent of the 76,00 0
mail-in ballots submitted during
the city’s June primary election
were rejected — mostly for issues
with voters’ signatures.
A “very tiny number” of ballots
cast so far in the general election
have been flagged for signature
issues, Jacobs said. The board
has already started contacting
these voters to fix, or “cure,” any
problems.
South Dakota, Arkansas, Mis-
sissippi and Tennessee are the
only states that verify ballot
signatures but do not have a

VOTING FROM B1

D.C.’s s ignature verification h as some voters concerned

BILL O'LEARY/THE WASHINGTON POST

D .C. native and former Redskins wide receiver Josh Morgan shows off his T-shirt message during a voter registration event this month at the Entertainment and Sports Arena in Southeast Washington.

Private developers have not built high-rise projects above most Metro stations and are unlikely to without a targeted incentive, Riemer said. Projects built at those locations would still have to pay impact taxes under the proposal, he added, and could attract new residents who contribute income taxes to the county. “If these are developments that were going to happen anyway, there’s no need for this incentive,” Riemer added. “But it’s not.” The tax abatement had been endorsed by the chair of the Mont- gomery County Planning Board, Casey Anderson; the Sierra Club environmental group; and the pro-transit groups Action Com- mittee for Transit and the Coali- tion for Smarter Growth. “This will incentivize new development n ow, at a time when the county needs economic development, jobs, and housing,” Jane Ly- ons of the Coalition for Smarter Growth said in a statement Friday. Lyons said in an interview that she was disappointed in Elrich’s veto. While the proposal would not be a “silver bullet” to solve housing woes, she said, it would be a step in the right direction. This is not the first time Elrich has found himself sparring with the County Council over housing. In 2019, he said he would not adopt housing targets set by the Metropolitan Washington Coun- cil of Governments and the Urban Institute, placing him at odds with Montgomery lawmakers as well as with other public officials in the region. [email protected]

courage private developers to build housing on top of transit stations by exempting them from having to pay property taxes for 15 years. In return, a developer must ensure that its building is at least 50 percent rental housing and that a quarter of the moderately priced dwelling units required by the county are affordable to households that earn less than 50 percent of the county’s area median income. The council staff estimates that the proposal could help create up to 8,500 new affordable units at Metro properties. But Elrich, who was elected in 2018 over opposition from developers and the business communi- ty, said the bill “would make no difference at all” in increasing the suburb’s supply of affordable housing, arguing that a vast ma- jority of the units created would be market price. He said in an interview that he thinks housing built over Metro stations would be ex- pensive and that “the idea of subsi- dizing high-end housing is ab- surd.” Jawando agreed that the bill would provide “little public ben- efit” and said it would set “a dan- gerous precedent” to give a blan- ket tax break for all projects without first assessing if it’s necessary. Elrich said the tax abatement would deprive the county of up to $400 million in potential revenue at a time when it is facing up to $600 million in projected short- falls. The bill’s supporters on the council called that assertion disin- genuous, since there are not currently any properties to be taxed at those locations.

MICHAEL S. WILLIAMSON/THE WASHINGTON POST County Executive Marc Elrich (D) says Montgomery “simply cannot afford” the bill; advocates say it would increase affordable housing.

ciation they deserve, but I want our entire agriculture communi- ty to know that your commitment to our state and to our agriculture industry does not go unno- ticed,” Hogan said at a news conference in Hurlock after a roundtable discussion with farmers. Under the program announced Monday, the Maryland Department of Agriculture will issue direct payments of $1,000 per poultry house, up to five houses per farm. Growers who lost chickens will be eligible for an extra $1,500 per house. The program will also provide a 15 percent bonus to Maryland farmers who received federal funding in the first round of payments. Federal funding is not available to contract poultry workers. The greater Washington region recorded 1,212 additional coronavirus cases and 28 new deaths Monday. Virginia on Mon- day added 690 new coronavirus cases and 24 deaths, Maryland added 497 cases and four deaths, and D.C. added 25 cases and no deaths. The region’s number of new cases Monday was the lowest in a single day across the region since Oct. 7. michael.brice- [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

could prompt people to spend more time indoors — increasing the potential for the virus’s spread — as outdoor social activi- ties become less appealing. The regional rise has coincided with an outbreak in coronavirus cases at the White House, although local health officials said there is no clear connection. As the holiday season ap- proaches, health experts are warning that small gatherings are the source for much of the virus’s recent spread. Neil J. Sehgal, an assistant professor of health policy and management at the University of Maryland School of Public Health, said caseload trends show that it is “less safe to travel now than it was a month ago” and that “it will be less safe in a month than it is today.” On Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Gov. Larry Hogan (R) announced Monday the creation of a $10 million relief fund to provide support to poultry growers and farmers affected by the pandemic. Hogan made the announce- ment with Delaware Gov. John Carney (D), who announced the creation of a twin program in his state. Poultry workers in both states have experienced coronavirus outbreaks, which had the ripple effect of hurting the industry. “Far too often our farmers don’t get the respect or the appre-

are included in the city’s travel advisory. About 85 million people live in states that aren’t part of the advisory, with most of them in California and New York. D.C. health officials on Mon- day also unveiled a new contact- tracing tool, called the DC Covid Alert Notice (DC CAN), meant to inform residents if they were potentially exposed to the coronavirus. Residents with a smartphone will receive a push notification beginning Tuesday asking them to opt in to voluntary exposure notifications, D.C. Health Direc- tor LaQuandra Nesbitt said. iPhone users will be able to opt in through their phone’s settings, while Android users will be prompted to download an app. The service creates private, random Bluetooth “keys” for each phone user and shares that data with other DC CAN users nearby, Nesbitt said, including strangers encountered in a park or restaurant. Residents who test positive for the coronavirus will be given a code by D.C. health officials to enter into the service, which will notify everyone who received that individual’s Blue- tooth key during the previous 14 days. Nesbitt emphasized that the technology does not track loca- tion and said people who test positive for the coronavirus are not identified to other users, or to Apple or Google. She said that DC CAN works with tracing tools in other states that use the same platform but noted that Maryland doesn’t have such an exposure notification tool and Virginia has a state-spe- cific app that is not compatible with D.C.’s system. “This tool will only be useful if we have widespread participa- tion,” Nesbitt said. “So we need as many people to opt in.” The rolling seven-day average of new daily infections across Virginia, Maryland and D.C. on Monday stood at 1,703. Daily caseloads rose during much of October but have plateaued at an elevated rate for about a week. Health experts have warned for months that colder weather

REGION FROM B1

D.C. debuts mobile contact-tracing tool

ALEX BRANDON/ASSOCIATED PRESS An order by D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser s ays those arriving from a high-risk state for nonessential reasons must self-quarantine.

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The Washington Post - USA (2020-10-20)

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