What We’ve Accomplished

It’s about ‘we’ not ‘me.’

While I am proud to have contributed meaningfully to the substantial list of achievements we’ve made as a City over the past 18 years, I want to first acknowledge that our greatest achievements have been ‘collective,’ not ‘individual.’ To be clear, I’ve played an important role, but we would not be in the position we are as a City without an all-around strong team – my City Council colleagues, our staff, our volunteers, our community partners, and our residents.

I truly believe that our elected group here in Gaithersburg has been the most effective governing body in Maryland.

Even as we further transition from a smaller organization to a larger, more formally-organized government, we remain lean, efficient, and dedicated to providing excellent service.

We have maintained the lowest tax rate for any of Maryland’s largest municipalities with only one property tax hike in the past 60 years. We are debt-free. And citizen surveys reflect the overwhelming satisfaction of our residents with the level of service we provide. Those are strong fundamentals.

That said, it hasn’t been our practice to rest on our laurels and become complacent. Focusing in on just the last few years, here’s a list of some of the things that we’ve accomplished:

Passing the Lakeforest Redevelopment Plan

Redevelopment at Lakeforest has been a long time comin’! I remember speaking about it in my very first campaign, back in 2005. And it wasn’t until 2024 that everything came together on the private side and the public side, allowing us to approve the plan for redevelopment.

The plan calls for a mixed-use development; residential, retail, and employment uses – along with parks and green space and an updated transit center. There will be up to 1,600 residential units, most of which will be multifamily apartments and condos, as well as some townhouses.

In order to give the developer “early vesting,” we negotiated an additional near-$5 million deal for payments to the City to be used for “civic uses,” which are to-be-determined.

The Council and I are beyond excited for the future of the property and are looking forward to the first step, which will be the demolition of the old mall building.

I believe that, if this project comes together as well as I hope it will, it has the potential to revitalize and transform the whole east side of our city. Fingers crossed!

Business & Economic Development

Over the 18 years I’ve been in office, the Council and I have made enormous strides in economic development, fostering a healthy local economy and bringing thousands of good job opportunities to the City.
Through an extensive public process, we completely overhauled our zoning code, making it much easier to understand and work with. We called the project “Retool Gaithersburg,” and it came off so well that it garnered a 2025 Sustainable Growth Award from the Maryland Department of Planning.
One of our biggest recent successes was landing the huge Novavax expansion, which may result in a large, new campus for the company and close to 1,000 new jobs here in the City.
We annexed the shopping center at Walnut Hill, which has since undergone substantial renovation, including a beautiful new mural, and attracted a new Aldi grocery store to the community.
We welcomed a new IKEA showroom at Rio and a Container Store at Crown.
Montgomery County’s very first Wawa, Sheetz, and Royal Farms have all opened in Gaithersburg. I like to joke that we have all of Maryland’s most glamorous gas stations!
At the former Leidos property (at Rte 124 and 355), we welcomed the new Matan life sciences campus, which will bring more good jobs to Gaithersburg and has already brought in what-seems-to-be the busiest Chick-fil-A in America.
We approved and welcomed the beautiful new dining pier at Rio.
The Council and I approved a concept plan for a new mixed-use development by KIMCO at 355 near Watkins Mill Road (across from Spectrum) as well as several other plans which will set the table for future growth and revitalization in our community.

Education

In 2022, with the City’s approval and partnership, MCPS opened the new Harriet Tubman Elementary School. The school property includes a number of shared amenities for community use during non-school hours.
We worked out an agreement with MCPS to allow them to move forward with the construction of a new high school at Crown. The school is scheduled to open in 2027.

Public Safety

Our new Police Station and Council Chamber opened in 2024. It is beautiful, functional, and we’re all super happy about it! Please come visit.
Our police officers and our code enforcement team continue to have an exemplary record of interactions with the public.

Transportation

The I-270/Watkins Mill Interchange has become an essential piece of our transportation network. It’s a project that I – and others – worked very hard to get funded and constructed.
In partnership with the State and Federal governments, we recently opened the NIST shared-use path, for pedestrians, joggers, and bikers, so that now, people can get all the way around the NIST campus without having to cross a major intersection.
We continue to work with Montgomery County to facilitate one of our top transit projects, the Bus Rapid Transit project, which will serve Gaithersburg along Rte. 355.

Environment

Our Environmental Services Division in concert with our Environmental Affairs Committee are working on recommendations for a new Climate Action Plan, which we hope to draft and adopt in the next year.
We’ve completed several storm-water/watershed improvement projects that will reduce the pollution coming from our City that goes into our streams – and ultimately to the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay.
We’ve implemented an energy efficiency audit of City facilities and will use the findings to measure our efforts to reduce our energy consumption.
Our Public Works team has completed the conversion of convert all of City-owned street lights to LED.

Affordable Housing

We just cut the ribbon on the Gardens of Gaithersburg, a project with Montgomery Housing Partnership in which they rehabilitated 79 affordable units on Rte. 355 (right next to the Popeye’s)
The newly approved Lakeforest redevelopment project will include more than 200 new affordable units, plus a number of “gap housing” units, smaller housing products, that will be affordable even it market price.
And there are other proposals in the works, including a redevelopment and expansion of the apartments next to the Casey Community Center.

Tenant Protections

Last Fall, the Council and I passed a suite of new laws intended to benefit our large community of renters. They include fee disclosure requirements to help tenants understand all of the costs that will be associated with their rental unit before they go through the leasing process.
The new law requires landlords to provide adequate notice when there will be disruptions of utility service, or to use of common areas.
Our law also prescribes regular testing for radon in the lower floors of multifamily buildings.

Quality of Life

In our latest random polling survey of City residents, 86% of respondents described Gaithersburg as an “excellent” or “good” place to live, with high marks also given for quality of the City’s parks and recreational programs and facilities, quality of recycling, yard waste and bulk pickup collection, quality of customer service by City employees, quality of City buildings and facilities, and quality of police services.
In 2022, the City debuted its newest social service program, the Financial Empowerment Center, which provides the opportunity for any resident, regardless of income, to receive one-on-one financial counseling with the goal being improved credit scores and reduction of debt.
We approved a new, opt-in parking permit program that is available for any neighborhood in the City.
We cut the ribbon on Pleasant View Park.
There are new turf fields (with organic infill) at both Kelley Park and Robertson Park.
The Gaithersburg Book Festival has attracted more than 15,000 attendees several times and is poised for further growth.