Sign Announcing Glenmont Landfill Hearing Posted at Shopping Center

According to a sign posted at the corner of Layhill Road and Georgia Avenue in Glenmont, a public hearing is scheduled for April for a proposed "Glenmont Municipal Landfill & Dump." The sign is by a heavily littered storm drainage area in front of the Glenmont Shopping Center.

It's not true.

The sign was installed by The Montgonion, a parody news and satire website for Montgomery County, Nate Peyser, Montgonion Editor, confirmed to The Patch. A QR code on the sign leads to an article on The Montgonion in which property owners are lambasted for their neglect, local police and county employees are ridiculed for allowing the situation to go unabated for over a year, and the area's Montgomery County council member, Natali Fani-González, casually "compares" the situation to an overflowing kitchen trash can.

While the landfill and public hearing are fictitious, the piles of rubbish at the Glenmont Shopping Center certainly are not. This reporter visited the site today and was appalled by what she saw. Full bags of garbage, the front end of a car, hundreds of beer bottles and an array of plastic and paper debris litter the drainage pond and adjacent grounds.

Peyser said he noticed lots of garbage in the area last year when The Montgonion pulled off its Glenmont Galleria "coming soon" prank. On a recent visit to Story Cannabis he noticed the situation was much worse. "When I compared my photos from last September, I could see it was the exact same trash, but with lots more piled on. So I went into Google Maps and viewed the area over several dates. That's when I discovered it has been at least a year since anyone has touched the spot," Peyser said.

The Montgonion has spread its wings the past year, focusing more of its satire on social and political issues both large and small. Trash ignored by local property owners is a recent theme--Fitzgerald Subaru in Rockville and an abandoned mattress behind its building were the subject of a jarringly inappropriate headline and article earlier this month.

While it hasn't abandoned tales of exotic animals loose in the county, Peyser says The Montgonion will use its influence to change county communities for the better. "We have 25,000 monthly visitors, nearly all from Montgomery. If we can use our platform to shame a local business or elected official into respecting it neighbors and doing their job, and get a few laughs in the process, that's a good day," Peyser remarked.

The Montgonion's sign hijinks caused it some trouble last month. The site's publisher was fined $50 and cited by Park Police for posting notices--warning of the dangers of frozen hibernating alligators--on public property without a permit. "If that's what it takes to get Glenmont looking respectable again, it's worth our publisher's money," Peyser said.

As for the site of the "Glenmont Municipal Landfill and Dump," time will tell if The Montgonion's satire can accomplish what community leaders apparently cannot.