Wheaton & Kensington Chamber of Commerce Officially Opposes CBA Bill

The Wheaton & Kensington Chamber of Commerce has gone on the record officially opposing a bill that would require large retailers to sign a community benefits agreement.

The chamber sent a letter to the Montgomery County Council outlining its position in opposition to the controversial bill. The Wheaton & Kensington Chamber of Commerce joins four other chambers of commerce--Montgomery County, Bethesda-Chevy Chase, Greater Silver Spring and Gaithersburg/Germantown--

The bill, if passed in its current version, would create new hurdles for the development of the Costco in the Westfield shopping center in downtown Wheaton, according to its developers.

A community benefits agreement, which would be a legally binding document, could require the retailer to do the following, according to Bill 33-11:

• engage in hiring practices and training programs that favor Montgomery County residents,
• mitigate traffic, security, noise, lighting and environmental impacts on the surrounding area,
• assist community organizations
• take action on “any other issue that is relevant to the operation of a large retail store of the community near that store.”

At the November 8 board of directors meeting, the chamber voted unanimously to send a letter to the council opposing the bill, according to the chamber administrator, Vicky Surles.

Matt Barry, the general manager of Westfield Wheaton and the vice president of the Wheaton and Kensington Chamber of Commerce, explained the situation to fellow members of the Wheaton Urban District Advisory Committee at its monthly meeting yesterday night.

“We’re not going to move forward with Costco until we get it written into the bill that Costco is exempt,” Barry told the committee. “We’ve been promised an exemption.”

In a , Clive Mackenzie of Westfield urged the council to “adopt amendments making it clear that ‘regional shopping centers’ are exempt from any proposal adopted by the Council.”

And what if Westfield and Costco don’t get that exemption?

“We’ll just pull back. We won’t do it,” Barry told the other WUDAC members.

Westfield temporarily halted construction two weeks ago “as a result of the uncertainty created by this proposed bill,” according to Mackenzie's written statement. The statement continues, “After discussions with many Council members during which we made our concerns on the bill clear, Westfield has ordered construction to proceed”--even though Westfield and Costco do not yet have that written exemption.

At the Planning, Housing and Economic Development Committee’s morning worksession on November 7, Montgomery County Councilmember George Leventhal (D-At Large) said that Westfield representatives had told him that Council President Valerie Ervin (D-Dist. 5), who is sponsoring the bill, had promised this exemption to Westfield and Costco.

Ervin has denied making this promise.

“We’re going to move forward in hopes that this bill will not affect us,” Barry told Patch after the November 8 WUDAC meeting. “We’d be very disappointed if this bill was passed.”