good morning everyone. welcome to "viewpoint." our guest this morning is the montgomery county executive, ike leggett. he's here to talk about his priorities as he bibegins his ninth year in office. welcome back to "viewpoint." always great to see you. >> thank you. i'm glad to be here. >> let's start off with something that's been in the news superintendent joshua starr, his contract was not renewed. your thoughts on that. >> somewhat disappointed because i thought he had done a pretty good job. there were some issues apparently with some of the members of the board who thought they wanted to go in a different direction. but i thought given the challenges the school system faced, i thought he was poised to continue in my view to resolve many of those

challenges. i was very disappointed that he was not renewed. we are now going through the search process to select the new superintendent. that's a decision made by the board. had i had to make it i probably would have gone in a different direction. >> what's the timeline on that? here we are in early march. >> i think they're trying to have someone on board by the be beginning of the next school year that's a pretty aggressive time frame. hopefully they'll be able to make that. you want to have the school transition and to start the school year off with a knew superintendent. we'll have to say whether or not they can meet that. they have a pretty aggressive schedule. they have a lot of people interested in the job. >> certainly one of the top school districts in not only our region but, in fact the country. what does it take, do you think to be a good strong leader of a school system like that? what would you be looking for? i know it's the board situation. you've got a lot of challenges,

particularly with growth and a lot of diversity. >> you need someone with a very strong educational background understanding the nuance of education from top to bottom. you need someone with top leadership skills because you have to carry a system with a myriad of leadership challenges i.e. working with the state, the local community, council council, county executives. unless you're able to weigh those things appropriately, it's a challenge. also financial management and creativity. many of the challenges we face today start at the state, federal and local governments. those are the kinds of things we need. but also someone who clearly understands education, i said before but the nuances, such as the achievement gap, making sure all students have an opportunity for success, recognize the great diversity we have in montgomery county. i think there are people here who could meet the challenge, but it's not going to be ease ski to find the right fit. hopefully we'll go through this

process and everyone will be satisfied with the main result. >> as you begin your third term what are the biggest challenges as you see them? >> twofold. one, of course the budget. the butt starts at the state, federal and national level. if we look at what's happened over the region over the last several years, we've had sequestration that has had an overall impact on the economy. we have to continue to manage our budgets. we're in a much better position today in montgomery county. we have budgets that vus stainable, but there are some challenges out there, on going challenges at the local and state level. with that the budget needs to reflect our ability to grow our tax base our ability to expand growth and development in a very very reasonable fashion. to do that we need transportation. so for us right now school

construction transportation managing our budget making sure they're sustainable are the challenges montgomery county is going for. >> you mention taxes. your ideas and thoughts on proposing a significant property tax increase do you see, in the future? >> i said when i was running for this office this time that i did not see it would be possible for us to get by. we've not had a major tax increase in the last seven years. we've been able to manage it. in fact last year the average tax dollars went down by $137 compared to our friends in fairfax where they went up by $350. to believe that we can get by the next two years without some property tax increase i think would be naive. the question is not whether or not you'll have one, but when and by how much. we'll try to avoid that reduce that and hopefully get by this year without doing that. i'll have to wait to see whether or not we can do that. the belief you can get by with the challenges we face i think is going to be very difficult without some tax increase at some point in time.

>> you've been up front about that. >> that's right. >> we've got a lot more to get to with ike leggett when we come right back on "viewpoint." stay with us.

we're back with montgomery county executive ike leggett here on "viewpoint." we have a new governor, a republican governor. you come from an overwhelmingly democratic district. what's he like? >> very charming guy. individually we've had good rapport. we have some differences, of course on issues in terms of finance and some of the decisions he's made regarding the school construction budget and the operation for schools throughout the state of maryland. i'm going to take him at his word. he wants to create jobs ex-pachbd the tax base. what i've said to him, the best way to do that is to make certain that those areas that are creating the jobs continue to do so. the primary area is montgomery county. we have one of the lowest

unemployment rates in the entire nation. we're producing jobs. for us to continue to do that we need transit, we need the ability to move people to the jobs that we've already plachbd. >> what are his thoughts on the purple line? >> that's a little uncertain at this point in time. he's indicated he's going to take a fresh look at that. he indicated he has an open mind about it. he understands the need for trance it and how that fits into his agenda in terms of job growth. so we made a pretty strong case to continue that project because it to me will en chance the ability for the state to move forward with jobs. this is not just for montgomery county this is for the state of maryland. to achieve the job growth we want we can't do it without transit. >> has he postponed taking a look at it? >> he's moved it back. he i understand kated the contractors who are looking for the contracts to build it will

have to move to have their bids in by late august. he indicated he's going to make a decision now in mid may. hopefully it's a positive decision for us. >> you said there's no plarn b. it's the purple line or really nothing. >> that's right. we have no backup plan that would allow us to achieve the level of connectivity we want unless we build this. we have other projects throughout the state of maryland. for this region and the sort of inner beltway component between bethesda silver spring all the way over to new carrollton there really is no plan b. >> talk about the economic impact. you touched on it a little bit, but what it means for business growth. >> if you look at montgomery county we have four major growth areas. germantown, gaithersburg looking at white flint that has already started, white oak, we have shady grove life science sectors, around the new shady

grove metro center there. all of those projects in my opinion will produce over the next 135 to 20 years, 100,000 jobs. the connectivity in this area is to connect everything from f dfrmthsa in white oak to bethesda connect some ends of the red line that would allow us to have greater connectivity all the way over to college park. that's a key part of that. hopefully if we have the right decision and i hope the government makes the right decision we're right at the goal line here, and i hope we have the ability, but i remember the super bowl. the seattle seahawks -- >> at the last minute they called 23the wrong play. >> we'll leave him out of this. when we talk about the different districts and we mentioned prince george's county and fairfax with schools and taxes and so forth, when it comes to jobs do you compete with other

jurisdictions in our reaming on? how do you do that? how do you put your best sell job forward? >> yes and no. we are part of the region. i believe as the washington region continues to grow we will all benefit from it. so yes are interconnected to some degree. washington is the hole in the doughnut. if washington and the entire region is prosperous and providing jobs we'll all benefit and get our share of that. but there's come tigs certainly. that's part of the game. the last time i checked, i'm the county executive of montgomery county i'm going to fight for montgomery koun tu but i'm will going to fight for this region. when i go around the entire world now seeking jobs and opportunities, it's for the region. people recognize washington. i made a lot of sale pitches around the world and i say to people montgomery county is this wonderful county excellent school system excellent workforce. sometimes they look at me with a blank stare until i san jose washington fda, nih, now you

see a connection. you can't get around it. it's the entire region that must benefit. >> all right. a lot more to get to with our county executive from montgomery county ike leggett. stay with us on "viewpoint." ury yourself in the flavor full of sweet icing and filling. call off the hounds! rescue is unnecessary. pillsbury toaster strudel, the snow day of breakfasts. (humming) oh yeah. (humming) they're magically delicious. ha! very funny, kyle.

welcome back to "viewpoint." again, our guest for the full half hour is montgomery county executive ike leggett. personal story. we've seen profiling being in the news for quite some time but of late too. you had your own personal incident. this was on election eve? >> yes. i have a ritual where i go out every year of every election and place my sign on 20 polling stations. as i was approaching the last polling station in good hope in the ville very spring area as i pulled up a car pulled up from behind me big 1309 lights. police jumps out. i thought did i run a red light or did i speed or something? i just pulled up.

it turned out to be park police huge guy about six feet. he started yelling and screaming and cursing at me about why am i there? it was 10:30, 11:00 at night. i'm standing there stunned. i was dressed jeans, sweater and baseball cap. he's going off on me. then i noticed there was another officer with him, a female officer. she started walking closer to the incident. as she's walking, you could see this look on her face and she's like oh my god, is this who i think that it is? i think she realized at that point who i was. she immediately walks up and says oh we made a mistake, we didn't know who you were. now, that should not matter in that situation. i was thinking in my mind if this is a young african-american teenager who may have panicked who may have done something precipitous to create more of a

dangerous situation, what could have happened? or if there is a teenage thaer leaves with that impression of the police. she went on explaining this was a new officer. at the end of it she said something which was quite remarkable, he didn't know you were ike leggett. in fact he's not from montgomery county, he's from howard county. >> oh my goodness. it gives you a sense, this is very praef lent? >> yes. one, i was surprised i was stopped. but also what was the rationale for that kind of conduct. hopefully we'll learn from this move on. i want to use this as a teaching experience and a positive experience to make something positive out of this. >> there's an article on it coming up in bethesda magazine. up in new york they're training officers. what do you think needs to be

done so that this type of thing doesn't -- well a lot of instances or many we've heard in the news of late horribly end tragically. what do you think needs to be done on a police level? >> first of all, the leadership in the community must hold people who act inconsistent with established procedures and doing things that are wrong, must hold them accountable. secondly a better job of training officers because we live in a very diverse community. there are sometimes language challenges cultural differences. you need to have the sensitivity and training in order to respond positive to those things in a way that does not escalate that. also we need to send a message out to some of our young people that you do need to in fact respect the police and you need to act accordingly and so forth, so that you're not doing things that would be perceived in a misguided fashion. so there's a two-way street. more importantly, i think the training of our officers holding them accountable and making certain that leadership

and the entire community is on top of those things. >> where is crime now? what are the stats showing in your county? >> crime overall is down. we've had a little tick up recently on the number of homicides. overall in the last few years, montgomery county crime is three times below the national average which is a very good sign for us. we've had a number of homicides that have occurred just recently that may change the figures temporarily. but i think overall our chief, the men and women on our police force are doing a wonderful job. >> what do you attribute that to the overall drop? >> one, i think to some degree it dropped everywhere. but it dropped significantly in montgomery county. i think the economy had something to do with it i think. i think secondly in our county leadership. we have an outstanding police force led by chief ranger. technology has helped. and i think the community has participated fairly well with the police department helping to

identify and to ensure which have true community policing in montgomery county. >> we'll take another quick break and we'll be right back to wrap things up with montgomery county executive ike leggett.

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welcome back this sunday morning to "viewpoint." our guest this morning, gn montgomery county executive ike leggett, in his ninth year now. you are launching this major economic overhaul. tell people a little bit about what goads into that. this is a six-point plan. >> one of the challenges we have in montgomery county there are perceptions about the county being not as business friendly as it should be. when perceptions linger them too long i treat them as though they're reality. one of the things we're doing is to highlight the things we've already done thus far in the county and how we are very strong in terms of job growth workforce development and creating jobs throughout the entire region based on what we do in montgomery county. in addition to that we're going to do a number of other things.

we have a plan that addresses vacant office space in montgomery county to assist businesses that are here as well as attract those to come in. we have a plan that looks very aggressively as how we can incorporate businesses much more involved in county government aspects of things streamline and development. we've done a wonderful job. i want to get it down to 30 days in terms of permitted processes. we're going to bring on development only buds men to as zift in that process. we're doing a great deal including start-up companies in something called mc squared, enhancing fiberoptics throughout the county in a way to serve many businesses much better. beyond that we are also looking aggressively at changing how we do economic development overall. there are several models out there. we've had for a long time the traditional model of economic development being part of county

government one of my departments. i want to move to push that out to make sernl it responds much more actively and closer with the business community, align them with it and maybe have a private corporation that the governments support, helping to make certain we do all we need to do for businesses in terms of marketing, growth development, looking at international aspects of development, making certain or smaller and minority business have a better shob at what we do in terms of the local economy. all of those things i think now should be moved in align with the business community so they're at the table, in fact leading the charge in terms of economic development in montgomery county. this is a model that is in place in many other jurisdictions. i think it's time now for us to go in that direction, and i think that we're going to have a different approach to it that would help us to not only deal with some challenges that we have in terms of perception but take advantage of opportunities that are still out there. >> you've had the resignation of your long-time economic chief

really. so this is allowing for new ideas to come in. >> yes. he did a wonderful job. he wants to go in a different direction. after he decided to leave, i said let's take a look not just at replacing steve, but how we look at economic development overall. this is an opportunity for us to do so. one of the tragedies we've seen in our region and around the country is human trafficking. you have formed a task force. tell us a little about how the task force will operate and how big the problem is. >> the problem is much larger than people realize. people assume quote, prostitution and human trafficking and all the things around that is a harmless crime. there are people brought from literally all around the country and come to places es special lie like montgomery county because you have people who are able to afford some of the services human trafficking provides. what we are trying to do bun v one, better educate people to

the problem. second come up with rules and regulations to address it. we've announced most recently a new approach. that is through what we call body works. many of the so-called massage parlors has already gone out of business in montgomery county and we were able to successfully do that. you have other kinds of body works in the county that come across as though they're legitimate and end up being nothing more than places for prostitution to occur. laws were not designed to align with those because they're not massage parlors. we'll outline those as well. we have a bill before the county council to address that. it's about changing the laws to the county it's about going after people in a very aggressive way so we will con fifth people when we find these crimes and get at those people profiting from it. all those things are designed to do what we have 20 do in montgomery county. we have people from our commission of women, states attorney's office my office and

others working on a final report and will probably be advancing an additional legislative effort to get at the problem as well. >> got about 30 seconds left. your most immediate and pressing priority or challenge right now, is it the purple line? >> it's transit overall. purple line is part of that. it's to make certain our budget and what we get in annapolis, they're in session in annapolis to make sure montgomery county gets its fair share. >> you have busy months ahead of you. always great to see you. mike leggett, montgomery county exec tichlt we thank you for having us in on this sunday morning. now back to "news 4 today." it's next.

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>> chuck bell is tracking the timing of it all. >> good sunday morning. a weather alert day here on your sunday. stay very weather aware as you make your plans to get out and about, winter