The Montgonion Cleans Up Glenmont

This is the unlikely story of how The Montgonion, a parody news website known for farcical stories and community pranks, cleaned up the center of Glenmont using satirical articles, social media pressure, complaints to government agencies, letters to corporate executives, and online trolling.

The dramatic results are plain to see.

The Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA) cleaned a major dumping area of rubbish and overgrowth. Montgomery County Department of Environment (DEP) and Code Enforcement took action to compel a dozen businesses to clean the Glenmont Shopping Center grounds. Lidl grocery store filled two dumpsters with trash from their property and landscaped long neglected areas. WMATA removed up rubbish piling up at Glenmont Metro Station.

From Making Jokes to Making Change

The Montgonion launched in 2023 and had one of its first viral hits with Glenmont Galleria Plans Clear Council. It claimed a luxurious eight-story mall was replacing the dilapidated Glenmont Shopping Center, anchored by Bloomingdale's, Macy's, and Nordstrom, with ritzy retailers like Cartier, Louis Vuitton, Prada, and Tiffany & Co. The Galleria would include the finest restaurants, an indoor ski resort, and a 48-lane bowling alley.

Despite the outlandish claims, many people believed the Galleria story and comments skyrocketed under Montgonion social media posts. “The Galleria piece sparked a lot of online conversations about Glenmont's decay, and that was the goal," says Montgonion creator Glenn Fellman, who grew up in the area and remembers a time when the Glenmont Shopping Center was a proud focal point of the community.

Last year The Montgonion expanded its repertoire to physical satire and community pranks. In September, Glenmont residents awoke to find an eight-foot "Coming Soon" banner for the Glenmont Galleria planted prominently on the Glenmont Shopping Center grounds at the corner of Layhill Road and Georgia Avenue. At the time Fellman says he was stunned by how much trash had accumulated at the busy intersection and took some pictures.

The Galleria sign prank got a lot of laughs from netizens in on the first joke, but many residents driving by the sign were fooled. The MoCo Show heard from so many people that they published an article debunking the hoax.

Squalor Prompts Action

At the end of January, Fellman visited the Glenmont Shopping Center and saw 30-gallon bags of trash dumped in the storm water control basin, loose litter everywhere, and the front end of a car deposited in the weeds. He looked at his pictures from four months earlier and it was the same trash, but now with twice as much on top.

"This wasn't decay, it was squalor. If no one else was going to deal with Glenmont's garbage, The Montgonion would," Fellman said.

In February the Montgonion installed a realistic 3'x5' public notice sign announcing plans for a new landfill and dump at the Glenmont Shopping Center in front of the trashiest spot, where the Galleria sign had been. The Montgonion produced an accompanying satiric piece about the dump that mocked property owners, and Montgomery County Councilmember Natalie Fani Gonzalez, for ignoring the problems.

The Montgonion landfill sign stood in plain sight for two weeks in front of thousands of daily commuters. The Montgonion began posting and tweeting pictures of the garbage, tagging council members along the way. Fellman reached out to a few of them privately asking for help. None responded, and nothing was happening.

Meantime, Fellman made his way into the alley behind the shopping center, where he found mounds of trash, overflowing dumpsters and scurrying rats. The grounds around the Lidl building were just as bad. A half dozen discarded shopping carts broke the greasy surface of a polluted storm water retention pond next to Planet Fitness.

Fellman photographed everything and The Montgonion made biting social posts with pictures of the mess, tagging county council members in the hope one might step in. None did.

Fellman went to Lidl but managers wouldn't speak to him. His emails to Lidl executives and their media department went unanswered. So, the Montgonion began trolling their social media too, putting snarky comments and pictures of garbage on Lidl US social media posts. Lidl didn't react. A popular, off-color Montgonion piece about a mattress abandoned for weeks behind their store also got no Lidl reaction, despite being posted to Lidl social media.

Lidl wasn't paying attention, but others were beginning to take notice and the Montgonion's posts were getting thousands of views. The Silver Spring Patch reported Lidl's litter problem.

Finding the Change Makers

Fellman used Montgomery County 311 to report issues, which he says was a fruitless approach that saw complaints mischaracterized, submitted to the wrong departments and ultimately closed with nothing done. He wrote directly to various state and local department heads, always with CC to county council members. No council members ever replied, but the government employees eventually did.

Once engaged, the agency and department heads communicated about areas of responsibility, coordinated inspections, contacted property owners, and scheduled crews to clean up public property. They kept The Montgonion publisher abreast of their progress.

At the end of March, Maryland State Highway Administration crews completed a multi-week project taking down the 20' tall overgrowth and dumped garbage from the Layhill Road and Georgia Ave storm water retention area.

Montgomery County Code Enforcement issued orders to property owners, who mostly complied. The alley behind the shopping center is "90% better" according to Fellman.

The Montgonion finally got Lidl's attention by tagging Lidl UK in social media. British Lidl officials weren't impressed by their Lidl US counterparts and compelled action from across the Atlantic. Two enormous dumpsters were filled with parking lot trash, years of invasive vine growth were removed, and new landscaping installed. With Montgomery County Department of Environment involvement, the polluted retention pond was cleaned.

The last major areas with serious trash issues, the grounds of the Glenmont Metro Station, were cleaned in early April. Like Lidl, WMATA ignored multiple messages to corporate executives but ultimately reacted after a scathing Montgonion social media post.

Lipstick on a Pig

The improvements in Glenmont are dramatic, but Fellman calls them "touching up the lipstick on a pig."

"Glenmont Shopping Center fell into disrepair in the 1990s. In the 35 years since, residents have repeatedly asked the county and store owners to make safety improvements and upgrades. Three county planning board studies spanning the last four decades recommended those changes and more, but nothing has happened."

"I have no illusions that the improvements made in the past few months are anything but temporary, or that county leaders will do anything to address systemic problems," Fellman said.

Juvenalian satire is known for being pessimistic. For the Montgonion's take on Glenmont, it seems justified.