Mark Pierzchala Running To Be Rockville City's Next Mayor: Profile

ROCKVILLE, MD — Rockville City Councilmember Mark Pierzchala is on the Nov. 7 ballot in the Rockville City mayor's race.

Pierzchala is running against Monique Ashton, a business executive, community leader, and a member of the Rockville City Council.

In addition to choosing the city's next mayor, Rockville voters will decide who, from the following 12 candidates, will serve on the seven-member city council: Danniel Belay, Kate Fulton, Richard Gottfried, Harold Hodges, Barry Jackson, Ricky F. Mui, David Myles, Anita Neal Powell, Paul Scott, Izola (Zola) Shaw, Marissa Valeri and Adam Van Grack.

Related: Ballots For Rockville City Election To Be Mailed To Registered Voters

Patch invited each of the candidates running in the mayor's to fill out a questionnaire about their campaigns. Patch does not edit the responses of candidates to its election questionnaire. The following are Pierzchala's responses.

Name

Mark Pierzchala

Position sought

Mayor of Rockville

Age (at the time of election)

71

Campaign Website

www.Mark4Rockville.org

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government?

My wife Lesley Cross works for Montgomery County Public Schools.

Education

Master of Science in Statistics

Occupation - Please include years of experience

Latest: 40-plus years of experience as a statistician in the federal government and as a survey methodologist and systems analyst in the private sector for complex data collection efforts. The last 12 of these were in my own business. I will formally close the business in late 2023 but haven’t taken work since end of November 2022. Before: I was in the U.S. Peace Corps for 2½ years.

Previous or Current Elected or Appointed Office

12 years over a 14-year stretch as a Rockville Councilmember, from 2009 to present.

Why are you seeking elective office?

I am the best suited to identify and take on Rockville’s most difficult issues. My record shows that I am, by far, the most successful in the time I have served. Having led from a Council seat, I now should lead from the Mayor’s seat.

The single most pressing issue facing voters is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

Cost of housing. Allow, encourage, and incentivize the development of many more homes around transit centers and along transit corridors. This idea is to align supply with the demand. Housing costs are too high because of a large shortage of units whether rental or ownership.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

I have 12 years of experience as a Councilmember; my opponent has four. I have a length of service and a strength of service that she cannot match. This unmatched record of success includes a list of accomplishments that only I, among the currently elected, can offer. I am willing to make difficult decisions, while my opponent cannot even tell a forum audience how she stands on a few referendum questions.

I identify difficult issues and lead on them. I am willing to take on special interests, which has often resulted in unwarranted verbal abuse against me

If you are a challenger, in what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community (or district or constituency)?

The present mayor and I effectively collaborated on I-270 opposition, each in our own way. Her work on North Stonestreet is well done. But there are five (3 tax-generating) buildings in Town Center that are against her votes or actions. The Senior Center addition and the Gude Drive Maintenance Facility are also against her votes. Her record on new housing developments, especially affordable housing, is poor. She once suggested defunding Rockville Economic Development, Inc. (REDI) – it exists today because I thwarted that idea. Councilmembers have had to take the lead on difficult issues. She is hostile to many city staff members and does not respect the division between the elected body as policy makers and city staff as the day-to-day managers. She does not share information and pursues ideas that are not workable such as the undergrounding of Route 355 from south of Veirs Mill to north of Beall Avenue. This idea has delayed the city’s work with WMATA on the redesign of the Rockville Metro Station by one and a half years.

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform.

In addition to cost of housing:

• Town Center revitalization
• Environment
• Public safety with community-oriented policing
• Better treatment of city staff by elected officials

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

There are many votes or supporting actions that I took that were unnecessarily controversial. The following is an incomplete list of some big items.

Town Center

The Choice Hotels International attraction (3-1-1 vote).

• This led to the Upton (now BLVD 44) with its Cambria Suites Hotel.
• The success of which led to the Ansel building.

New, badly needed police station (3-2 vote)

Housing

Fireside Park Apartments – 2012 vote (3-2) and 2018 refinance vote (4-1)

• Victory Housing/Court – I supported the Roman Catholic Archdiocese – sadly, it withdrew its request for Mayor and Council to submit a letter of support to the state for tax credits due to heavy community opposition and the unwillingness of some of the elected to stand up to that hostility.
• Bainbridge – a.k.a. Silverwood by Shady Grove Metro (3-2 vote)
• National Lutheran Home conduit bond to get them lower interest rates (3-2 vote)

Led on Twinbrook Quarter

• Champion District project idea – this is a redevelopment district concept that the Twinbrook Quarter development took advantage of that encourages aggregation of land to build an entire neighborhood and removes barriers to construction, resulting in many more homes and Moderately Priced Dwelling Units
• When there was heavy community opposition, I took the lead on supporting it

Senior Center expansion

Gude Drive Maintenance Yard expansion

Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance

• Aligning Rockville’s school capacity guidelines with the County’s guidelines – my Team Rockville colleagues passed this in the 2 years I was off the body – I worked with the Rockville Chamber to successfully lobby for this crucial change.
• Getting rid of the fire response time standards that would have stopped key development areas in the City.

Defended REDI from an attempt to defund it

• Maryland Women’s Business Center – would not be here today had REDI been defunded
• Attraction of Choice Hotels International

Twice brought proposals for King Farm Farmstead redevelopment – these would have resulted in huge cost savings for the City – the latest proposal was defeated 2-2 in a closed session in 2019.

Fostering Community Trust Ordinance – a key component of Rockville Community Policing (3-2 vote)

The current Town Center Master Plan initiative is because of me – I brought this forward when the 2040 Master Plan process failed the Town Center neighborhood, (5-0 vote).

The best advice ever shared with me was:

Identify the big issues you want to address that are achievable and focus most on those.

What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

I have biked every street in the city at least six times and walked every street once - all of these in formal, documented efforts. I also led Rockville’s neighborhood opposition to the I-270 widening, spurring many thousands of comments to state officials.