The midcentury modern ranches and split-level homes lining Woolsey Drive are tidily landscaped, with house prices in the area starting at $1.5 million. 

Yet buried below lie the bones of enslaved people who worked farmland and maintained households for white landowners in the mid-1800s in what’s now the Rollingwood area of Chevy Chase. 

Now, two neighbors who peeked into the area’s bleak legacy are urging the community to acknowledge it. Chevy Chase residents Rachel Peric, 44, and Nadine Chapman, 55, hope to gain support for a statue to mark the site and to introduce local children to its history. 

A couple of years ago, Peric says, she was looking into the Chevy Chase Historical Society archives out of curiosity about the neighborhood where she grew up. She discovered that enslaved Black people were buried only a few blocks from her home.

“That prompted me to start reaching out to the historical society to just try to learn more and see if this was a history that our neighborhood could learn more about and ultimately acknowledge and honor the lives of those buried there,” Peric says.

Renata Lisowski, director of the archive and research center at the historical society, estimates that at least five enslaved people were buried in the area. The most likely location of the burial site is east of Brookville Road at the intersection of Woolsey Drive and Rocton Avenue, according to Brian Crane of the Montgomery County Planning Department, who reached that conclusion earlier this year by studying land deeds from the time. 

Peric shared her research with a neighborhood email list. Chapman added a 2021 MoCo360 story about the county’s long history of racism. The two bonded over wanting to highlight that history in their community.

“It just piqued my appetite to make sure that we’re not asleep, that we know what’s going on where we live, and we know our history—the good, the bad and the ugly, and the in-between—and we’re not afraid of it,” Chapman says. “My concern is that if we don’t know our history, we’ll repeat our history.”

Peric and Chapman held a webinar in May in conjunction with the historical society where they shared research findings and asked for help in learning more about the burial site. More than 100 residents, including author Mau VanDuren, participated in the webinar and decided to take part in the initiative to acknowledge the enslaved people. 

“[Given] my own experience as a partly Jewish person growing up in a very strict Protestant environment in the Netherlands where I was also discriminated against, I just wanted to get involved,” VanDuren says. “If we can…maybe put up a plaque or a sign or something that says, ‘This is here and this is significant,’ I think that would be a worthy project.” VanDuren says his contributions to the initiative have included research into who was living on the farm and their conditions, an effort that proved difficult as there weren’t names, but only numbers of the people who were enslaved. 

Fellow community residents Bonnie and Joe Oppenheimer also decided to join the initiative to uncover more about where they live. “This is a neighborhood thing which requires neighborhood work,” Joe says. “If we’re not going to do it, it won’t get done.” 

According to Lisowski, enslaved people likely maintained the farm by taking care of animals, cleaning the house and tending to crops. Census records indicate that this farm had 32 enslaved people in 1860, she says. 

The fact that the county recognized the site as a burial ground in 2019 is a positive step, Lisowski says, as similar burial grounds usually are faced with disputes over whether they exist. For one thing, she says, African burials—of both enslaved and free people—did not generally have grave markers as we tend to think of them, whether for cost reasons or because the community used other means to mark graves, such as boulders or dirt mounds. Another reason is that many people migrated elsewhere after the Emancipation Proclamation and weren’t around to speak up about where their ancestors were buried, she says. Finally, even known burial grounds can be destroyed for the sake of new construction, but that’s even easier for developers to do without historical societies standing in the way.

Peric and Chapman also recruited at-large county councilmember Will Jawando in their efforts to get recognition for the burial site. He kicked off the webinar and has been “connecting this work to larger efforts in the county focused on racial healing and repair,” Peric says.

“We can’t address the problems of today if we don’t address how we got here and the history of our community,” says Jawando, a Democrat who has worked as a civil rights lawyer.

Chapman and Peric say they are not looking to dig up the remains of the deceased; the most important aspect to them is educating younger members of the community. “In the next year, I would love to see that our local schools and just our community as a whole have access to this history and are using it,” Peric says. “Then our goal also is to identify a site where we can have some sort of space of remembrance and historical marker and information.” The women plan to contact Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School and Chevy Chase Elementary School to see if they can hold a seminar or some sort of discussion to teach students about the history of the area. 

Although the acknowledgment may seem small, the two neighbors say there’s no better place to start to make a difference than in their neighborhood. 

“We start here in our community,” Peric says, “and this is the piece we can do.” 

This story appears in the November/December issue of Bethesda Magazine.

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Arjun Akwei, a 2020 Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School graduate and Harvard student, was selected for the Schwarzman Scholars graduate program in November. The program will take the 21-year-old to Beijing, China to study foreign relations and explore the country for a year starting in August.

Schwarzman Scholars is a fully funded, one-year master’s degree program at Tsinghua University, the top-ranking university in Asia, according to Conor Newton, the associate of communications and marketing for the program.

The program is one of the most prestigious graduate fellowship programs in the world with only 150 scholars selected out of nearly 4,200 applicants – around 3% acceptance rate, Newton said.

The selection process begins with an initial application that is open to anyone between the ages of 18 and 29 with a bachelor’s degree, according to Newton. The application requires recommendation letters, transcripts as well as an essay and video component. From the initial pool of applicants, about 400 are selected for the interview round, which is led by business executives, non-profit leaders, and experts in their fields, Newton said. After the interview round, 150 scholars are chosen to the new cohort.

Upon learning he was accepted into the program, Akwei said it was a “heartwarming experience” that took him back to the days of college acceptances nearly four years ago.

“It was something that I had put a lot of time into and not something that I was really banking on, given that I know how selective and challenging these things tend to be. But it felt like the start of a new and very different adventure,” he said.

When he isn’t studying, Akwei is running the Harvard Undergraduate Think Tank, or researching China’s Belt and Road initiative (a massive infrastructure project launched in 2013 with the goal of connecting China to the rest of the world). Additionally, he works as the director of policy for Del. Joe Vogel’s (D-Dist. 17) congressional campaign.

“Our community should be proud to know Arjun is among only [57] Americans selected for this prestigious global program,” Vogel wrote in a text message. “I have deeply valued his work on my team. He is a true public servant who is passionately committed to serving for our state and country.”

Akwei is headed to Beijing next summer and said that he is looking forward to traveling around China and shadowing mayors of towns who are embracing climate-friendly development and leading the way in poverty alleviation.

He said that there is a lot to be learned from China in how the country has addressed climate change with climate-friendly cities and high-technology integration.

“These are things that I would love to see the United States do and if I can learn some of those lessons while I’m there and bring them back to the U.S. – ones that are able to be effectively integrated into our system – that would be a really special takeaway for me,” he said.

Akwei’s interest in international relations partially comes from his multicultural upbringing – his father is from Ghana, his mother is from Malaysia and other family members live in India – but also stems from a commitment to community service that began in Montgomery County, he said.

Akwei grew up in Chevy Chase and attended Chevy Chase Elementary School and Westland Middle School in Bethesda. He now studies government with a minor in astrophysics at Harvard.

In the future, he hopes to commit to a career in public service, focusing on foreign policy in China and India and potentially running for office at the local, state or national level, he said.

“Chevy Chase, Westland, B-CC were the places where I got involved in student government and sort of cultivated this interest in policy work,” he said. “And that connection to the community is still what drives me to work on, say, Joe’s congressional campaign and before that his state delegate campaign.”

Akwei has already spent some time living outside of the United States. As a child, he lived in India for three years and spent the summer between his sophomore and junior year in high school living with a host family in Beijing, he said.

Akwei also speaks Mandarin at a conversational level and hopes to improve his language skills during the year in China. He began taking Mandarin classes in middle school, he said.

Another experience that shaped his interest in foreign relations was a trip to Accra, the capital of Ghana, to visit family members. He described seeing Chinese construction sites around the city and being fascinated by the projects and what they meant for Ghana and the U.S. The trip later informed the research he conducted on the Belt and Road Initiative while spending the summer in Beijing. It also moved him to try and understand the relationship between China and Ghana to make it safer, productive and constructive for both sides, he said.

In this forthcoming experience as a Schwarzman Scholar, he sees a special opportunity to have a role in building a bridge between the U.S. and China, too.

“I think it is essential that we have leaders who are willing to move past a lot of the, I don’t know, platitudinal mistrust and general divisions that exist between the United States and China,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of preparation and policy and government now that’s preparing for a future of conflict and competition, but not a lot of preparation and thought going into how we build one of coexistence and cooperation.”

Akwei also sees the Schwarzman Scholars program as an opportunity to be a leader and re-envision what the U.S.-China dynamic could look like. He said that this mentality is “very much the future that we should be aspiring to.”

“To be a part of that kind of group who embraces the same mentality of we need to build bridges rather than deepen divisions seems like a really meaningful experience for what I hope to go on to do in the world,” Akwei said.

The post Chevy Chase native, Harvard student selected for prestigious Schwarzman Scholars program appeared first on MoCo360.

Forty-six hours before his football team kicks off a new era, one that its fans hope will erase a quarter century of miserable memories, Washington Commanders owner Josh Harris—a lifelong fan himself—is sitting in a room on the third floor of Planet Word, the downtown D.C. museum dedicated to language. Hundreds of words, stacked 22 feet high, cover one of the walls. Among them: belief.

A native of Chevy Chase, the 58-year-old Harris is a former wrestler who has always believed in the power of sports to unite, which is why he pivoted to the world of sports after making a fortune in business. In 2011, he bought the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers, and his sports and entertainment company has gone on to add the NHL’s New Jersey Devils, part of the British soccer club Crystal Palace, and a host of other venues and smaller teams to a portfolio that also includes the NFL’s Commanders, which he purchased in July for a record $6.05 billion.

Harris waits to walk across the street to Franklin Park for a season-opening pep rally for fans who have put their faith (another word on the wall, located right next to greedy, which has been used more than once to describe the guy Harris bought the team from) in him and his all-star ownership group of minority partners—which includes Montgomery County magnate Mitchell Rales and NBA legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson. He’s contemplating what those first moments in the FedEx Field owner’s box might mean to him. 

“I’ve owned sports teams, and this feels like a playoff game to me,” says Harris, whose Sixers and Devils have made postseason runs. “A lot of work has gone into getting the team prepared for opening day and also getting the stadium prepared. Thousands of details. I feel tremendous anticipation and excitement.”

The son of an orthodontist and a teacher, Harris attended The Field School in Washington, D.C., before earning a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He went on to Harvard Business School, where he met his wife, Marjorie (they have five children together), and at the age of 25 co-founded the private equity firm Apollo Global Management. Forbes estimates his net worth at $6.6 billion.  

Despite all his success, Harris still yearns for competition. 

“Sports has been a triple play for me,” he says. “Being around the best athletes in the world, giving me an avenue to compete. As I get on to, let’s say, my more mature years, being able to help a city is very important to me.”

Chief among his long list of priorities is finding a new home to replace the reviled FedEx Field. Although the team spent $40 million on upgrades to the stadium before the season, remaining there is not in the long-term plan. Under former owner Dan Snyder’s reign, Maryland, Virginia and the District showed little appetite for luring the team, but now that Harris has taken over, that seems to have changed. If he’s able to turn around his beloved once-proud franchise, he will become a hero in his hometown. That’s the dream—which is one of the bigger words on the wall. 

We spent 45 minutes talking to Harris on that Friday afternoon in September before the regular-season opener. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.   

As an owner, when you watch your team play, can you just be a fan? Or do you always have a million different things running through your head?

It’s like being a fan on steroids. It’s turbocharged. I can only compare it to when I was just a fan versus now. My emotions are much greater. At the same time, you’re hosting literally thousands of people. You have to be available to a lot of different people. When you win a big game, the elation that you feel is incredible. When you lose, I get into a bad mood. What I do now, because it’s not fair to my family and other people that are close to me, I become a little more stoic. I give myself a little time to get over it. I try to not show it on the outside. When you’re at the game, obviously people are watching you, and so I feel a lot of stress. The players are playing the game so there’s not a lot you can do about it, so you need a little bit of training to keep your emotions on the inside.

Were you a big sports fan growing up?

I was all in on sports. We missed the Senators, so we would go down to Memorial Stadium and watch the Orioles. There were no Nationals. I was there when the Capitals came. We were there for the opening of the Washington Bullets in Landover at Capital Centre. But the dominant sport in Washington always was football. That was the sport that, by far, we mostly focused on. 

Do you remember your first game at RFK Stadium?

I do remember being at RFK as a really young person, walking down East Capitol Street. I remember walking in, feeling the noise, and hearing the fans roaring and cheering. I remember looking up at [then-owner] Jack Kent Cooke’s box. It was an amazing place. 

What was it about the franchise in that era that you so respected and admired? 

It was always a winning franchise. It was a uniter of Washington. I had this amazing year in 1982-83 when I saw the Red— the Commanders—I almost slipped up—beat Dallas, and then that famous John Riggins run on fourth and one [to win Super Bowl XVII]. For me, sports was always very important, and the Commanders always stood for unity and winning and values. 

You were a wrestler growing up and in college. The wrestlers I’ve known speak about the sport in almost spiritual terms. What is it about wrestlers that sets them apart?

Wrestling changed my life in terms of the discipline and intensity that it brought to who I was as a person. In wrestling, you go out on the mat and it’s you against another human being. They’re trying to drive your head into the mat and dominate you physically. There’s nowhere to hide. It’s a combat sport. There’s nothing like the experience of getting physically dominated as a learning experience to then say, ‘I didn’t like that. I don’t want that to happen again. How can I avoid that happening again?’ That’s about running and lifting and training and practicing and putting a tremendous amount of grit and tenacity into your lifestyle and who you are as a person. Wrestlers tend to over practice. They tend to constantly work, condition. No one’s ever accused me of being outworked. It pushes you to your absolute limit. You’re exerting 120 percent of your being, of your soul, to survive. There’s no one that’s going to help you but you. Life is tough, so you have to prepare and be ready for it. 

You went to the Wharton School at Penn and then on to Harvard Business School. What attracted you to the world of business?

My dad had been an orthodontist. My mom was a teacher and then a homemaker. I knew absolutely nothing about business. I went to Penn and I took an econ class and I really liked it. Then I found out there was this school called Wharton, which turned out to be the best undergraduate business school in the country. I said, Wow, maybe I should do that. I found my calling early as an investor. A lot of people are blessed with innate skills. I was blessed as an investor and a business builder. I remember senior year my dad saying, ‘You should be an accountant; that’s really the safe way to go.’ I said, ‘No way.’ I went to Wall Street. 

That was the top of the food chain in terms of where the best and the brightest people wanted to go. I went to a place called Drexel Burnham Lambert, which at that point had created the high-yield market. I went to this thing called the Financial Analyst Program, which is like a boot camp for finance where you work 100 hours a week but you learn about the most interesting deals with the smartest people. At the end of that two years, I said, ‘I’m going to apply to one school, and if I get in, I’ll go; otherwise I’m going to keep working.’ Harvard Business School let me in. I always kept shooting above. With young people I always say, ‘Shoot for the moon; shoot for the stars. Dream big. Even if you miss, you’re going to be better off.’ 

Why did you decide to get into sports?

When I look back on it now, something inside of me was very moved by sports, both in terms of my personal affinity to playing it—later in life I did marathons and triathlons, and I’m still very into fitness—but also the sort of common purpose and the shared experience that sports gives a city. Deep in my memory—I didn’t know it at the time—was this notion that sports brings people together. I had heard that the Sixers might be for sale. The Sixers hadn’t won for a long time and had lost a little bit of their way. They were losing a lot of money, and the city had gotten tired of them. I called them, and then 18 months later I led a group to buy the Philadelphia 76ers. They were between 25th and 30th in the league in terms of revenues. 

We rebuilt the Sixers and we won more than 50 games the last five seasons. We love Philly. They are sports passionate and they have supported the team, and they are constantly holding us accountable in many ways. We are a championship contending team. We haven’t quite pushed through yet, which creates frustration for everyone, most of all me. But we’re right there. We have to slay the leprechauns at some point: We have to beat the Celtics.

How involved in on-the-field/court/ice personnel decisions are you?

I believe in hiring and retaining and motivating and holding accountable the best coaching staff and front office people, and then trying to support them through organizational building. And creating edges relative to competition around the league. Obviously, players win championships. Owners don’t win championships. Player selection, game strategy, player health and safety, all that stuff is advancing scientifically very quickly. We’re on the cutting edge of everything in terms of trying to support the franchises. 

I’ve been doing a bunch of that here already in terms of looking at how we can support [head coach] Ron [Rivera], [executive vice president of football/player personnel] Marty [Hurney], [general manager] Martin [Mayhew] and their staff as to the analytics, player health, sport science. We’re starting to make some strides in our thought process. You’ll probably see some new people showing up soon. 

As far as being involved, I think on really big decisions that are millions and millions of dollars that are franchise-changing decisions, I’m of course going to be involved. On smaller decisions, I like to be briefed, I like to see how people are thinking, but I’m not going to micromanage. 

What did you find most surprising or disturbing about the way things were done with this franchise once you took over?

The franchise was in need of significant investment. In the stadium, everything from plumbing and leaks and bathrooms to sound systems, ovens. On the football side, it’s the same thing. There’s a lot of things to do here. On the sports side, it’s a tent for the players’ families, it’s Gatorade stations, it’s extra hot tubs so the players don’t have to wait for them and can get home. Dozens and dozens of small items. 

The interesting thing to me also was that the players had noticed that in their own stadium sometimes there were more opposing fans versus home fans. They said, ‘We really appreciate you being here because we think that now our stadium’s going to feel like a home field.’ That was really surprising to me. 

What do you feel your role is in terms of rehabilitating the team’s reputation in the community and within the league?

I want the team to be something that my kids can be proud of, that the city can be proud of, that fans and their kids can be proud of. That’s how I’ve tried to live my own life. I want it to stand for excellence and integrity, and so we’ve come in very quickly and sent that message. We’re asking a lot of the business staff and certainly the front office and the coaching staff and everyone. To build a championship contending team, you need to pace everything up. 

In sports, when you own a franchise, it’s very different than business. The public holds you personally accountable. There’s so much publicity that people expect you, as the managing partner, to be accountable for the organization. That’s a huge responsibility that keeps me up at night because life is complicated. Things happen. You do your absolute best, but I spend a lot of time thinking about how do we set this thing up so we stand for integrity, excellence, inclusion, diversity. I’m proud to say that the team and [president] Jason [Wright] have done an amazing job. Ron and his staff have an incredibly inclusive organization. We’re upping everyone’s game, but it’s a bumpy road. It’s not a straight line.

Obviously there’s been a lot of talk about a new stadium. What are a few of your favorite stadiums or arenas, and what qualities do they share?

I always start with football and winning games, because no matter what else we do, if we’re not successful at that, we’ll be judged harder. If we’re successful at that, it’s easier. I think RFK was a place where if you were coming in as an opposing team you didn’t want to be there. So it was like an extra man on offense and defense. I was talking to Troy Aikman, and he said, ‘I didn’t like to go in there.’ 

You want that, and then you want a place that’s accessible, that’s inclusive, and where the fan experience is elevated. That’s a complicated mosaic. Really big picture is creating positive economic activity for places that might need it. Building a stadium in

Newark [New Jersey], building our [Sixers] practice facility in Camden [N.J.], building where we’re attempting to build in Philly, these are all things where we’re helping thousands of people and using contractors from diverse backgrounds. We’re really focused on how do we create economic activity in the right places. The overall goal would be to do all of that. Obviously, it’s going to take some time to figure out.

Let’s talk about nicknames. I’m not going to ask you about changing the nickname, but what are the components that make up a good nickname?

Look, right now we’re really focused on football, the fan experience and engaging with the city. Right now we’re focused on avoiding distraction, and we’re all behind the Washington Commanders. 

Sports is a very zero-sum game, but in your first year, aside from wins and losses, how are you going to judge the success of the season?

Certainly everyone’s always going to judge wins and losses, and that’s the way it should be judged. We got here at training camp, so the reality of it is our ability to affect that [this year is minimal]. We think Coach Ron is a good leader, and we’re very excited about the season. The other components are going to be: Have we created engagement with the city? Have we started achieving change on the narrative? Have we started to make this team something that people are proud of? Have people started reengaging? Are there more home fans than away fans at our games even when we play the Giants? …I’m not going to mention any other teams. I don’t want to get myself into trouble (laughs). 

Do we own that noise? And then, have we improved FedEx Field? Have we started to make strides in the community in terms of helping people? Have we started to make some progress on our thought process around the next venue of the Washington Commanders?  

You and your wife, Marjorie, founded Harris Philanthropies in 2014. What’s your philosophy when it comes to philanthropy?

My grandfather was a U.S. postal worker from Philly. My other grandfather was an appliance repairman. Their parents left Eastern Europe to avoid religious persecution and came through Ellis Island. My dad and my mom went to college, the first in their families. And now here I am, and I’ve experienced tremendous success through business. I always look at it as if someone paid it forward, someone gave me the opportunity to have this, and so I look at my life as I have a finite amount of time. I’m religious. My job is to make the world a better place and impact the most people as quickly as I can. 

We’re big investors in after-school sports. Backing entrepreneurs. Basic financial literacy. Then we do health and wellness for communities in need. Education. We gave the largest gift to the [Philadelphia] Police Athletic League in history. 

It’s super exciting for me to be able to come home to the area where I grew up and be able to help people. 

Do you spend much time in Montgomery County these days?

Well, my mom still lives in Friendship Heights. I went and visited my old house in Chevy Chase. I just knocked on the door. It’s right near East West Highway and Beach [Drive]. It looks similar. I grew up in a three-bedroom house, two levels on a quarter acre. 

I just knocked on the door and they answered. We had a long discussion. It was pretty funny.

This story appears in the November/December issue of Bethesda Magazine.

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While Beyoncé prepared to play her second show at FedEx Field Sunday, her husband and sister went to brunch at Opal, an American bistro in Washington’s Chevy Chase neighborhood.

Social media posts revealed Jay-Z and Solange were in the 80-seat dining room for hours, later posing for a photo with the restaurant’s staff.

“Jay-Z was laughing, clapping, being so kind to staff. Love to see it,” Kelly Pace Hayes, a marketing and social media consultant posted on X (formerly Twitter).

Later that night, Beyoncé performed after chaotic rain delays that prompted her team to pay $100,000 to keep the Metro running after its regular closing time.

Opal, which opened in October 2022, has earned positive reviews. David Hagedorn, dining critic for Bethesda Magazine and MoCo360, says “Opal has the makings of a great neighborhood restaurant—a talented chef at the helm; affable, well-versed servers; and a (mostly) unfussy seasonal menu.”

The post Jay-Z and Solange spotted at Opal in Chevy Chase appeared first on MoCo360.

County Executive Marc Elrich said Wednesday that while he won the July Democratic primary by just 32 votes, he’s optimistic if elected about his future working relationship with the County Council — especially if all of the Democratic candidates prevail in the Nov. 8 general election.

Speaking via Zoom to more than two dozen members of the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Breakfast Club, Elrich talked about affordable housing, economic development, climate change and other issues before fielding questions from members.

He also analyzed the results of the primary election while looking ahead to November. Elrich noted that while his 32-vote victory was wafer-thin, it was enough to beat David Blair, a businessman from Potomac who had lost to Elrich by 77 votes in their first matchup in 2018.

“Someone asked what my magic number was, and I said one more vote than him,” Elrich said.

One participant asked Elrich how he would try to serve voters who did not vote for him in the Democratic primary and work with County Council members who didn’t endorse him. 

Multiple County Council Members did not publicly say who they backed for county executive. Hans Riemer, who served alongside Elrich for eight years on the County Council, finished third in the county executive race. Nancy Navarro backed Blair. 

Elrich said he’s optimistic about the relationships he could forge on the new council, given there will be at least six new members elected in November — and he’s hopeful they all will be Democrats. 

He added he believed there are two kinds of voters who didn’t vote for him — those who completely opposed his administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, including the closure and restrictions on businesses, and those that disagree with his stance on housing.

Concerning the coronavirus, Elrich said it was a simple choice. He could have kept businesses open, but he believed that means more people would have died because of the virus. And when given the choice between keeping a business open versus keeping someone alive, Elrich said he chose to focus on saving lives.

As for his stance on housing, he said his record frequently has been misrepresented and that he’s never blocked an affordable housing complex from being built in the county. Elrich also noted Blair outspent him during the primary campaign by millions of dollars and that he was unable to respond to the businessman’s ad blitz criticizing his record on housing, economic development on policing  in the weeks before the July 19 primary. 

Blair spent more than $6 million during the primary, much of that from his own pocket. Elrich spent roughly $1 million, using the county’s public financing system.

Elrich said the county’s public financing law needs to be amended to prevent situations in which privately financed candidates like Blair can significantly outspend publicly financed candidates such as himself. But he added that his administration could do a better job of broadcasting their accomplishments, given that he wins the general election.

“I’ve never done self-promotion. When I was a County Council member, I don’t know if I did five press releases in 12 years because it’s just not my style,” Elrich said.

Looking ahead to the general election, Elrich said he believes Democrats should sweep the statewide offices of governor, comptroller and attorney general, given the quality of the Democrats running and their Republican opponents. Democrats Wes Moore and Aruna Miller are running against Republicans Dan Cox and Gordana Schifanelli for governor and lieutenant governor respectively, while Democrat Brooke Lierman faces Republican Barry Glassman in the comptroller’s race. Democratic U.S. Rep. Anthony Brown, who represents the 4^th Congressional District, faces Michael Peroutka, a Republican, in the attorney general’s race. 

Elrich said Cox and Peroutka are so far to the right politically that Marylanders would most likely not elect them into office. He added that even though Glassman is more moderate, Lierman still has a good chance of winning her election.

Elrich said he would be using some of his resources to help campaign for Chao Wu and Natalie Ziegler, two Democrats running for two seats against Republicans Trent Kittleman and Jianning Jenny Zeng for District 9A in the House of Delegates. The district includes much of Howard County and the northeastern part of Montgomery County — including Clarksburg and Damascus, seen by some political observers as the more conservative parts of the county.

The post Elrich says he’s optimistic about working with new County Council after November election appeared first on MoCo360.

7704 Radnor Road, Bethesda
Six-bedroom, six-bathroom single-family home
List price: $3,550,000
Sold price: $3,550,000

8600 Rapley Gate Terrace, Potomac
Four-bedroom, eight-bathroom single-family home
List price: #3,150,000
Sold price: $3,050,000

8 Melrose St. East, Chevy Chase
Five-bedroom, 4.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $2,800,000
Sold price: $2,783,505

5313 Blackstone Road, Bethesda
Six-bedroom, 5.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $2,950,000
Sold price: $2,700,000

9212 Cedar Way, Bethesda
Four-bedroom, three-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,250,000
Sold price: $1,335,000

5903 Osceola Road, Bethesda
Five-bedroom, three-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,285,000
Sold price: $1,250,000

14 Infield Court North, Potomac
Five-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,250,000
Sold price: $1,150,000

9601 Page Ave., Bethesda
Four-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,035,000
Sold price: $1,035,000

The post Sold in Bethesda, Chevy Chase and Potomac: Sept. 6-13 appeared first on MoCo360.

7704 Radnor Road, Bethesda
Six-bedroom, six-bathroom single-family home
List price: $3,550,000
Sold price: $3,550,000

8600 Rapley Gate Terrace, Potomac
Four-bedroom, eight-bathroom single-family home
List price: #3,150,000
Sold price: $3,050,000

8 Melrose St. East, Chevy Chase
Five-bedroom, 4.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $2,800,000
Sold price: $2,783,505

5313 Blackstone Road, Bethesda
Six-bedroom, 5.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $2,950,000
Sold price: $2,700,000

9212 Cedar Way, Bethesda
Four-bedroom, three-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,250,000
Sold price: $1,335,000

5903 Osceola Road, Bethesda
Five-bedroom, three-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,285,000
Sold price: $1,250,000

14 Infield Court North, Potomac
Five-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,250,000
Sold price: $1,150,000

9601 Page Ave., Bethesda
Four-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,035,000
Sold price: $1,035,000

The post Sold in Bethesda, Chevy Chase and Potomac: Sept. 6-13 appeared first on MoCo360.

6104 Landon Lane, Bethesda
Seven-bedroom, eight-bathroom single-family home
List price: $3,295,000
Sold price: $3,000,000

5425 Moorland Lane, Bethesda
Three-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $2,500,000
Sold price: $2,500,000

7911 Rocton Ave., Chevy Chase
Five-bedroom, 6.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $2,495,000
Sold price: $2,300,000

3709 Underwood St., Chevy Chase
Four-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,900,000
Sold price: $1,900,000

5109 River Hill Road, Bethesda
Five-bedroom, three-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,625,000
Sold price: $1,600,000

5129 Willet Bridge Road, Bethesda
Three-bedroom, three-bathroom townhouse
List price: $1,575,000
Sold price: $1,575,000

8209 Stone Trail Drive, Bethesda
Six-bedroom, 5.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,595,000
Sold price: $1,550,000

8101 Buckspark Lane, Potomac
Five-bedroom, 4.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,495,000
Sold price: $1,510,000

4600 Overbrook Road, Bethesda
Five-bedroom, 4.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,389,000
Sold price: $1,510,000

The post Sold in Bethesda, Chevy Chase and Potomac: Aug. 23-30 appeared first on MoCo360.

6104 Landon Lane, Bethesda
Seven-bedroom, eight-bathroom single-family home
List price: $3,295,000
Sold price: $3,000,000

5425 Moorland Lane, Bethesda
Three-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $2,500,000
Sold price: $2,500,000

7911 Rocton Ave., Chevy Chase
Five-bedroom, 6.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $2,495,000
Sold price: $2,300,000

3709 Underwood St., Chevy Chase
Four-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,900,000
Sold price: $1,900,000

5109 River Hill Road, Bethesda
Five-bedroom, three-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,625,000
Sold price: $1,600,000

5129 Willet Bridge Road, Bethesda
Three-bedroom, three-bathroom townhouse
List price: $1,575,000
Sold price: $1,575,000

8209 Stone Trail Drive, Bethesda
Six-bedroom, 5.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,595,000
Sold price: $1,550,000

8101 Buckspark Lane, Potomac
Five-bedroom, 4.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,495,000
Sold price: $1,510,000

4600 Overbrook Road, Bethesda
Five-bedroom, 4.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,389,000
Sold price: $1,510,000

The post Sold in Bethesda, Chevy Chase and Potomac: Aug. 23-30 appeared first on MoCo360.

7121 Fairfax Road, Bethesda
Six-bedroom, 5.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $3,000,000
Sold price: $3,040,950

9115 Paytley Bridge Lane, Potomac
Four-bedroom, six-bathroom single-family home
List price: $2,000,000
Sold price: $1,950,000

8401 River Rock Terrace, Bethesda
Six-bedroom, 5.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,700,000
Sold price: $1,925,838

8307 Whittier Blvd., Bethesda
Five-bedroom, four-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,875,000
Sold price: $1,900,000

8213 Kerry Road, Chevy Chase
Four-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,750,000
Sold price: $1,725,000

4421 Chalfont Place, Bethesda
Four-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,749,000
Sold price: $1,716,000

7919 Greentree Road, Bethesda
Six-bedroom, 4.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,499,500
Sold price: $1,580,300

5600 Overlea Road, Bethesda
Five-bedroom, five-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,600,000
Sold price: $1,515,000

8320 Snug Hill Lane, Potomac
Five-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom single-family home
List price: $1,599,000
Sold price: $1,500,000

The post Sold in Bethesda, Chevy Chase and Potomac: Aug. 17-24 appeared first on MoCo360.