My Letter to The Gazette about Regulating Electronic Cigarettes

Check out my letter in today's Gazette explaining why we must regulate the use of electronic cigarettes in Montgomery County. For your convenience, I have reprinted it below:

It is hard to keep up with the mounting evidence that electronic cigarettes pose more risks than their marketers would like us to believe, especially for children and teens.

Although electronic cigarettes do not produce tobacco smoke, they do contain nicotine and other dangerous chemicals. That’s why I introduced a bill in the Montgomery County Council to prohibit the use of electronic cigarettes in public spaces where traditional cigarette smoking is banned, including in public buildings and restaurants. The bill also would prohibit use of electronic cigarettes by minors and would require child-resistant packaging for them.

The use of electronic cigarettes, commonly called “vaping,” has grown dramatically since the product’s introduction in 2007. The practice has become so commonplace that the Oxford Dictionary selected the word “vape” as its 2014 “Word of the Year.”

Perhaps swayed by the belief that electronic cigarettes are safe, or emboldened by the fact that e-cigs have little odor that parents could detect, teens who have never tried traditional cigarettes are using e-cigs. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that e-cig use has tripled among teens in just two years. These young people are unwittingly putting themselves at risk for nicotine addiction and nicotine poisoning, as well as potentially graduating to harmful tobacco products.

What exactly is in an electronic cigarette? It is hard to say. In addition to the most common ingredients — propylene glycol, nicotine and flavorings — studies have revealed a lot of unsavory things, like carcinogens, heavy metals and even silicon fibers in some e-cigs. But with 90 percent of electronic cigarettes being manufactured in China, where production lacks even the most basic of regulations, they could contain just about anything.

Many states, including Maryland, prohibit the sale of electronic cigarettes to minors. Municipalities including New York City, Los Angeles, Boston and Chicago, also have enacted restrictions on their use.

While the Food and Drug Administration is currently considering regulations to address electronic cigarettes, it is not clear when those regulations would be finalized or take effect. In the meantime, I’m not willing to gamble with the health of our current generation of young people. We must put some protections in place, and we must do it now.

Nancy Floreen, Garrett Park
The writer is vice president of the Montgomery County Council.

Letter to The Gazette on Smoking Ban

Check out my letter in today’s Gazette in response to their November 20 editorial about my proposed smoking ban. For your convenience, I have reprinted the letter here:

Secondhand smoke is classified as a “known human carcinogen,” and it is responsible for about 3,400 lung cancer deaths in non-smoking adults in the U.S. each year. So when The Gazette asks, “How far are Montgomery County’s overprotective overseers willing to go?” [Nov. 20, “Kicking Montgomery’s smokers to the curb”] I say, as far as the county’s property line. As elected officials, we at the County Council are stewards for public health, and it is our responsibility to make sure our public facilities are healthy and safe.

The Gazette correctly states that smoking is banned in most public spaces already, and my bill would extend the ban to property owned or leased by Montgomery County, not including public rights of way. The ban also would not include parks.

Some may say that’s going too far, but according to the Surgeon General, secondhand smoke contains more than 7,000 chemicals. Hundreds of them are toxic and about 70 are known to cause cancer. Secondhand smoke especially affects children and women who are pregnant. According to the American Cancer Society, there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke.

I want parents to be able to take children to the library; county employees to be able to go to work; and people who are sick to be able to enter our health clinics without passing through a hazardous cloud of smoke. My proposal is not about taking away the rights of smokers. It is about providing safe and healthy access to public facilities for everyone.

Nancy Floreen, Garrett Park

New Zoning Means Montgomery is Open for Business

Check out my opinion piece which appeared in today's edition of The Gazette. I have reprinted it here for your convenience:

We have a new tool for economic development, and it comes from a place you wouldn’t suspect — the zoning code. In this case, changes to the zoning code represent modern and innovative action that helps the private sector create jobs and commerce right here in our communities. The new tool is what we call the commercial/residential, or CR, zones.

After months of study, the Montgomery County Council made bold changes to a complicated and sometimes inconsistent zoning code that has been characterized as unfriendly to both businesses and communities.

The new family of CR zones can strip away much of the red tape that has hindered business, particularly small business, for decades. By allowing a hodgepodge of commercial zones to be replaced with three flexible CR zones, we’re making our standards clearer, more predictable and ultimately more accessible to those who can create jobs and housing.

The CR zones do away with the traditional approach of land use planning by specific uses, such as commercial or hotel, and replace it with zones that allow commercial and residential uses to coexist in the same street or block. The zones strictly regulate the height and density of buildings, thereby creating attractive communities where people can pick up a pair of shoes, grab a bite to eat and catch a movie on their way home from work, all without getting in a car.

Some people have expressed fears that skyscrapers will go up right next door to their single-family homes. That couldn’t be further from the truth. CR zones provide incentives for business to develop in ways that benefit neighborhoods and focus density near transit. They are designed to create interactive streetscapes where people can live, work, shop and play all within one neighborhood. It is important to note that the zones will place absolute limits on the allowable total density and building height.

The original CR zone already has been applied to the White Flint Sector Plan, which centers on the White Flint Metro station and which the council adopted in 2010. That ambitious and complex plan soon will transform the White Flint area along Rockville Pike into an exciting destination where strip malls are replaced by housing, stores and restaurants located together. Now the CR zones, which include lower-density provisions for towns and neighborhoods, are ready for other locations to be determined through our master planning process.

My hat is off to the Planning Board, planning staff, community activists, council staff, the council’s Planning, Housing and Economic Development Committee and all who participated in creating the family of CR zones. This new tool is an action statement to the business community that Montgomery County’s doors are indeed open for business, while at the same time serving as a commitment to residents and communities.

Nancy Floreen, Garrett Park

The writer is chairwoman of the Montgomery County Council’s Planning, Housing and Economic Development Committee.

Maintenance of Effort Waiver Denied

The State Board of Education denied our Maintenance of Effort waiver request with Board members Blair Ewing and Donna Hill Staton dissenting. This means the Council now must reconcile a $79 million budget gap as I indicated in my previous posts. I will continue to post budget information (right) as it becomes available so you can follow along. You can read more in The Gazette.

Accommodating (not Aggressive) Growth

Randy Scritchfield's letter to the editor appeared in this week's Gazette. I've reprinted it here:

Contrary to the March 18 letter, "Floreen's aggressive growth stand is wrong," I found County Councilwoman Nancy Floreen's position ("Change we better believe in," March 4 commentary) visionary and accommodating — not aggressive.

Ideas such as making it easier for homeowners to have accessory apartments reflects not only the current economic times but addressees a meaningful demographic need.
Councilwoman Floreen speaks of a "practical" economic plan — a word not typically used in conjunction with economics in this county.

She cited a recent "acute" example (the Hilton Hotels decision) to make the case for our chronic problem — an inadequate and poorly articulated "Business is Welcome to Grow Here" message.
As American families are reconsidering what they are doing at home, Montgomery County could reconsider what we do in our own house (of intra-county economic policies) and put a new welcome mat out on our front porch for business, large and small.

Randy Scritchfield, Damascus

Change We Better Believe in

You'll find my op-ed column in today's Gazette. I've also reprinted it here:

Tough times should focus us all on what is important. When the economy is strong maybe we can endure a political conversation that focuses on peripheral issues and takes for granted our prosperity and high-quality basic services. But not now.

As Montgomery County faces the stark reality of falling home values, private sector layoffs, empty storefronts and dire economic predictions for the future, we must take stock of where we are and where we need to go. We always have valued a high quality of life. We usually measure this by the success of our schools, our diversity, our parks and the depth of community engagement in all things great and small.

That quality comes at a price. Despite the county's reputation for having an uninviting business climate, we have been fortunate to have a vital business sector as the backbone supporting a wide range of services. Yet our success has inflated both the cost of doing business and the cost of our housing, pricing out jobs and would-be residents, causing long commutes and road congestion. As the fiscal horizon continues to darken, government needs to reassess past practices so we can continue to support our expensive mission.

Economic development issues need to take priority. This means long-term policies that continue to work over time, not just the short-term injection of cash from the federal stimulus. Recently, Hilton Hotels chose to locate in Fairfax County, Va., to take advantage of tax incentives and a business-friendly environment. We need to start winning bidding wars with the Hiltons of the world, and we need to revamp our processes to encourage, not hinder, job growth.

We also need to support the elements of community that help us all succeed. We can do this at no cost to the taxpayer and to the benefit of many. For example, by creating incentives for the growth of child care providers, we make it possible for parents to go out and earn a paycheck. And why not make it easier for homeowners to have accessory apartments? That would have multiple benefits — allowing seniors to age in place and helping cash-strapped families pay their bills while providing the affordable housing our workers need.

We must change the way Montgomery County functions. If we are to continue to satisfy our community's high expectations for quality of life, let's focus on "yes," not "no." With more jobs and a stronger support system for them, we can spread the tax burden across a larger base, enhance our work-life balance, promote entrepreneurship, encourage diversity and ultimately make the county a more affordable place to live.

A practical economic plan will pay for all that is good in our community. That's what sustainability really means, and that's the change we all should believe in.