Poolesville. -- Fittingly, the highway into Poolesville is named for a long-time town commissioner. These days it seems that the five-member town commission is about all people talk about here. It is the vortex of a classic growth vs. slow growth controversy fueled by the deep pockets of the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington.
The issue, which has embittered activists on both sides, demonstrates the severe pangs that can convulse small communities in Maryland as the urban world the residents sought to escape inexorably catches up.
Incorporated in 1867, Poolesville was a crossroads in the farmland of northwestern Montgomery County until around 1970. Since then its population, still only 4,300, has multiplied tenfold. Most of the residents want the town to stay small.
Why, then, should the town commission seek to abet the development of a 525-acre tract several miles outside of town, until recently a polo club, and absorb it into Poolesville? Along with another tract that also would have to be absorbed to meet legal requirements, the annexation would increase the town's land area by 50 percent. Especially after sharp debate, nasty name-calling, ugly innuendo and an election won by two maverick, slow-growth commissioners.
There are as many answers as there are factions in this deeply divided town. One is concern over the town's long-range water supply, now dependent on a half-dozen municipal wells. Another is fear that the county government, highly mistrusted by some town officials here, will place something obnoxious like a new county jail on the open land outside town. Poolesville is only six miles downwind from the hated new county incinerator at Dickerson, which initially was to have been built down county, in more densely populated Shady Grove. So why not the jail?
Opponents see the proposal to annex the Saudi property, plus a 479-acre tract that bridges the gap to the town border and four much smaller pieces of land that are less controversial, as threats to their exurban way of life. (A visitor from Baltimore was abashed at his reflexive locking of his car door even as he visited home after Poolesville home whose front doors were ajar after dark.)
Not that it would materially increase the town's population. The Saudis plan to construct an Islamic school for some 1,500 children of Muslim families in the Washington area, a mosque and a center for per- haps 200 visiting Muslim scholars. Only the scholars and about 10 faculty families would live there. The pupils would ride 85 buses back and forth each day.
The commission itself is an issue. Its longstanding reputation for secrecy and high-handed behavior leads some activists to read every action skeptically.
State and county planners are strongly opposed to the $40 million plan. Even though the land is zoned for agricultural preservation, the school and mosque are permitted uses. But county officials could hamstring the project, if not kill it, by tight control over water supply and sewage permits. The Saudis recognize that their chances of official approval are far better dealing with the town than the county government. And they are ready to pay a price for the town's embrace.
If the town successfully annexes the Saudi property, the embassy will put up $1.8 million to drill three wells and build a waste-treatment system larger than it needs, which the town would operate. It is also ready to put up $3.2 million for a pipeline from town through its property that would eventually be extended five miles to the Potomac River. Whether the town could get permission to draw water from the river is uncertain. For one thing, the pipeline would have to cut across the C&O; Canal, a national park, and a wildlife refuge.
Behind the public debate is the issue of the Saudis themselves. Supporters of the project accuse opponents of ethnic and religious bigotry. Opponents admit privately there are some bigots among them but insist the issue is growth, not the Arabs. They point out that their neighbors 20 miles down River Road in Potomac killed a plan for a French international school last summer for similar reasons. The Saudis haven't helped themselves by quietly buying the Poolesville Elementary School a computer lab just before the commissioners voted.
Two opponents of the project were elected to the town commission November 8, beating supporters by more than two to one. Still, the old commission, including two lame ducks, voted 4-1 four days later to approve the project. Within 48 hours, 1,000 of the town's 2,300 voters signed petitions for a referendum. The slow-growth residents know it's just one more round in a never-ending battle.
James S. Keat is editorial-page coordinator for The Baltimore Sun.