VIDEO: Trahan Announces a Bid for City Council

Saying that he is a voice for the people who offers the strong leadership that Rockville needs, Planning Commissioner Dion Trahan announced on Sunday that he is running for a seat on the City Council. 

Addressing supporters at in Rockville Town Center, Trahan asked voters to “be my rock. Let me be your rock.”

Trahan talked about bringing a collaborative approach to the council.

“I promise to bring your ideas, your voice to the table,” he said. “Because when people say ‘Dion, tell me what this campaign’s about,”—no, no, no, no—you tell me what you need. You tell me what your voice is. Because for too long, City Hall, they’ve been telling us what we need—dictating. So that ends. It ends right here today.”

The city holds nonpartisan elections in odd-numbered years for the four seats on the City Council and for mayor. This year’s election will take place Nov. 8.

Former City Councilman Robert E. Dorsey and Rockville resident Jeff Streeter spoke in support of Trahan’s candidacy.

Dorsey reflected on his seven terms on the council from 1993 to 2007, when, he said, members of the City Council had “friends” on the school board, in the county’s delegation to the Maryland General Assembly and on the Montgomery County Council.

“It’s important that the new members of our Rockville City Council focus on the fact that most of what has to happen for Rockville involves people not necessary within the boundaries of Rockville,” Dorsey said. “We need someone who can work well at other levels.”

Streeter talked about meeting Trahan through his involvement in their neighborhood’s homeowners association and watching him quickly ascend to the ranks of planning commissioner, a post Trahan assumed in March 2010.

“He’s going to bring the energy of this new generation of Rockville residents to the City of Rockville,” Streeter said.

Trahan took a planning perspective in a speech in which he criticized the City Council for several recent votes.

He criticized the council’s that had been included the past four years.

“Is this really the time to be raising taxes?” he said.

Trahan said a proposal to change the name of East Middle Lane to Choice Hotels Lane is an example that “the very character of our city is under attack.”

The proposal was seen as a concession to Choice Hotels International, which .

“In an almost successful backroom deal in City Hall, East Middle Lane, which has existed since 1803, was put on the auction block in a fit of desperation by our current elected body,” Trahan said. “It was my motion on the Planning Commission that stopped it—with some help.”

The Planning Commission rejected the name change in a 4-2 vote on April 13.

“And I continue to try to stop this soul-gripping exercise that unfortunately has become all to commonplace in the city,” Trahan said. “And I’m prepared to do it again, but this time as your City Council member.”

Trahan also criticized the City Council for “espousing a greener Rockville,” yet .

“Now I’m no engineer—and I am from the South—but even I know that allowing more pavement in green space is not going green,” he said.

Trahan also questioned the direction the city is going in with the , which he called a “White Flint light.”

“Like many of you, if my wife and I wanted to look up and see high-rises instead of stars, we’d move to DC,” he said.

Trahan called for the Rockville Chamber of Commerce “to be given the opportunity to play a more central role and given credit for being the economic catalyst that it is” and said that the city must foster small businesses that “truly [are] the economic backbone of our city.”

Without naming specific programs, Trahan said that voters should “hold government programs that were designed to be an auxiliary self-sufficient enterprise accountable as self-sufficient and begin the weaning-off process of relying on the city budget.

If ordinary citizens are being asked to go with less, shouldn’t the programs that citizens’ tax dollars subsidize be held to the same standard?” he said. “I think so.”