This Blog was created because I lost faith in my Goverment and its leaders. I experience what I thought was only in the movies or books of the watergate coverup. If I do not tell my story, many of you will continue to think that Montgomery County Government is the Liberal Oasis that outsiders perceive it to be. I have learned that this is far from the the truth!!
I find myself close to being out in the street with my now 14 year old daughter because of the corrupt politics in the Montgomery County Government and their Department of Real Estate and their department of Public works. I am a Single Mother Resident in Montgomery County since 1992.Up until 2006 I had faith in my government and like and idiot trusted that they would act in the best interest of its citizens, I being one of them. What a foolish naive idiot I was. When we here of Government Corruption we are quick to thing of the Chicago or the city of Washington D.C., but the corruption and the mafia style governance is also happening in Montgomery County, Maryland.
This story starts out around July 2006, Steve Hayes, a Montgomery County Department of Public Works employee out of the Department of Real Estate left message at my office at 8413 Ramsey Avenue, Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 now called the Trips Building, communicating that they were looking for temporary space house the Ride on, MTA ticketing office, Information center, as well as a Lounge for Metro employees while the Paul Sarbanes Regional Transportation Center was undergoing construction.
As a result of the contact by Steve Hayes,a meeting was set up for Hayes to look at the space. According to Mr. Hayes he communicated that the space and location of the building would meet their needs. He further infomed me that they were considering the building at 1110 Bonifant Street, Silver Spring, Maryland 20910. On about August 13, 2006, Steve Hayes accompanied by another Montgomery County Department of Public Works employee by the name of Shri Gondhalekar made the first of many visits to my office.
After several other visits over the course of a month by the authorities representing the Washington Metropolitan Metropolitan Transportation Authority(WMATA), Maryland Transportation Authority(MTA/MARC), The Ride on Bus Service, on September 14, 2006, Steve Hayes called me and informed me that my space at 8413 Ramsey Avenue, Silver Spring, Maryland had been selected from the competition because of the visibility from the street and the ability to be able to construct a handicap ramp access for the pubic accomodation portion of their requirements, and that the lease would be forthcoming no later than October 1, 2006.
Relying on Steve Hayes who was representing the Montgomery County office of Real Estate, I gave notice to my tenant who I had been leasing space to as well as taking any advertisement I had for the lease of the property off the market. In addition, relying on Montgomery County promise through Steve Hayes to provide me with a lease by October 1, 2006, I informed my landlord of the impending sublease agreement with the Montgomery County. A week after the I was informed of the agreement to sublease my space, Mr. Hayes informed that the County Attorney Office needed a copy of my lease to assure themselves that I was able to sublease to per my lease agreement with my landlord.
During the visit to get my lease, I ask Mr. Hayes about the status of the lease, in which he answered that it was with the Montgomery County Legal Department. After a month of not receiving the lease, I called Steve Hayes to ask him about the Lease on October 15, 2006 to which he assured me that it was forthcoming. October 31, 2006 came and passed without incident and no doubt to say without a lease from Montgomery County.
I continued of course to follow up with Mr. Hayes and asked him for a name in the legal department to which he informed me that everything was being handled through the department of Real Estate. Around November 15, 2006 I again called Steve Hayes, to which he informed me that it would be ready in about 2 weeks as Shri Gondhalekar was anxious to start working on the space to meet code. In addition in November 2006, Shri Gondhalekar and the Staff Designer for CDCI, Inc. Wilmar Hernandez(a third party contractor) visited my office to take measurements and drawings of the space in order to facilitate the renovation that Montgomery County had planned for the space. During the visit, Mr. Gondhalekar informed me that the bathroom space upstairs was going to be converted into a handicap accessible bathroom and that an additional bathroom was going to be installed in the downstaris ares which was going to be transformed into a lounge for WMATA bus drivers. In November, 2006 When I pressed further, I was informed by Mr. Hayes that his Boss Cynthia Brenneman, the Director of the Department of Real Estate had taken him off all other projects so that he would be able to get the lease to me immediately. Mr. Gondhalekar also assured me that Ms. Brenneman had instructed Mr. Hayes to make sure I was given a copy of the lease immediately. As you can guess November and December came and went and I was still given the same run around. In January 2007, Shri Gondhalekar called me to request a copy of the plat for 8413 Ramsey Avenue, Silver Spring, Maryland 20910. Mr. Gondhalekar informed me that he needed the plat to be able to submit with the drawing that had been done by their contractor CDCI, Inc. for the space they were leasing from me. I of course went to the courthouse and secured and paid for a copy of the plat and gave it to him. In February 2007, I had still not received a lease from Montgomery County even after many unsuccessful attempts to find out the status. Keep in mind that due to their promises I had let go of all my tenants that had been subleasing from me which resulted in 5 months of loss of income which helped me to pay rent for the space in the building that they wanted.
The first week in March after no response from Montgomery County Department of Real Estate, I wrote to County Executive Ike Leggett to inform of the destruction of my business by the Promises of the Department of Real Estate, The Department of Public Works and and the County Attorneys Office. Below is the correspondence for your information.
As you can see the address line of the email will inform you of who I ran to for help in my time of need. Little did I know that they were all in it to make sure that the County took possession of the building by all means necessary.
From: Renee Okon [mailto:renee@okonrealty.com]
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 3:25 PM
To: 'valerie.ervin@montgomerycountymd.gov'; 'ike.leggett@montgomerycountymd.gov'; 'Arthur.Holmes@montgomerycountymd.gov'
Subject: Potential litigation/DPWT/Mr. Steve Hayes
March 8, 2007
Dear Mr. Leggett,
I need your help to find out who my company needs to communicate with to talk about the economic remedy for the incompetent handling of a lease that was suppose to be executed for my office Building at 8413 Ramsey Avenue, in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland by a Mr. Steve Hayes, a Montgomery County Department of Public Works and Transportation employee working out of the Real Estate Division. The purpose and use of the building was for an interim site for the commuter store and information center, and also a resting place for the bus drivers. After numerous visits by county and state officials, I was informed By Mr. Hayes that our site was selected because of its strategic location. Strategic because it can be easily accessed by commuters and it would also contain some offices for some of the construction staff working at the Silver Spring Transit Center.
Mr. Hayes was responsible for writing the lease on the property and because of his delay in executing the lease my business had to file for bankruptcy protection because of his mishandling and/or decision to play dirty politics with the writing of the sublease agreement for the county to use said property for their interim operations. Mr. Hayes called me sometime in July 2006 and left a message on our voice mail inquiring as to if we had any space the county could rent temporarily for their project for the Silver Spring Regional Center. I told him sure and he came out about a week after the first contact with Mr. Gondhalekar to view the property. Our company received at least 3 visits from the team that were responsible for making the final decision before I received a call on/or about September 15, 2006 from Mr. Hayes that our building was selected to house the temporary bus lounge for the Metro/Ride on bus drivers in addition to the ticketing office for MTA. During my conversation with Mr. Hayes I ask him when the lease would be ready at which, he indicated that the lease would be ready by the end of October as it had to go to legal after he finished writing it. We met in my office, a week after in order for him to pick up a copy of my lease to make sure that there was a provision to be able to sublease my space. At that time we discussed the timeline for when I would be in receipt of a lease from his department that we could execute, to which he answered that by the end of October we would be in business. At the end of October, when I still had not received a lease I called Mr. Hayes and asked him when the lease would be ready, again as he always did he indicated that it would be ready in two weeks. Needless to say that Mr. Hayes missed many a two weeks deadlines on delivering on his promise. I came to the conclusion that perhaps Mr. Hayes was waiting for Groundbreaking for the New Regional Transit center. When the groundbreaking had taken place, I called him again, to which he replied that He was working on it and that the lease would be ready by the end of November as Mr. Gondhalekar, the project manager was anxious to start working in the building. The end of November came and still no lease. Keep in mind that I have taken my property off the rental market since September 15 after he notified me that my building had been selected for this project.
Mr. Leggett, in early December 2006, I again called Steve Hayes for the Status of the lease to which he promised me that a lease would be in my hand no later than January 15, 2007 for the lease term to begin February 1, 2007. Meanwhile as the process has been going on with Mr. Hayes, I gave access to our Building to Mr. Gondhalekar, and CDCI the contractors Mr. Gondhalekar used to take measurement of the space needed for the permitting process. In addition, we provided him with the plat for the building which he indicated was requested so that it could be sent together with the drawings. I called Mr. Hayes and asked him if he had gotten the measurement for the space as Mr. Gondhalekar had communicated to me that the drawings were done and everything was a go except that we had to wait for Mr. Hayes to provide the lease as he could not proceed further until then. I called Mr. Hayes and indicated to him that I was still waiting for the lease which he indicated to me that his supervisor had taken him off other projects in order for him to concentrate on writing the lease and that it would ready in couple of days. A couple of days went by and nothing and several other couple of days passed by and still nothing. Finally, the last week in January, I called Mr. Hayes and indicated to him that my deadline was February 1, 2007 to get a lease from the county because as a small business, I did not have the luxury of waiting for a long period of time for when he felt like providing a lease for the space and that I would have to put the space back on the open market to which he replied okay. I called Mr. Gondhalekar and indicated the same message to him to which he indicated that he was ready and that unfortunately there was nothing he could do until Mr. Hayes provided him with an executed lease.
Mr. Leggett, as a member of this community Mr. Hayes actions has caused my company to file for bankruptcy protection because of the financial difficulties resulting from Mr. Hayes actions due to the length of time we had to leave this property off the rental market. As you know the Real Estate Market is going thru a period of correction, and as a small broker, the smallest thing can financially bankrupt a company such as ours which was the case from Mr. Hayes actions. We left our property off the market due to Mr. Hayes reassurance that a lease was forthcoming from his department in a timely fashion. I wonder how many people Mr. Hayes has done this to in the past. I am an African American women owned business, who is a single mother with an aging parent to support, I live in Montgomery County, I work in Montgomery County, I pay taxes in Montgomery County, and I volunteer in Montgomery County. Mr. LeggettI am flabbergasted that Montgomery County Government would condone an employee being paid by my tax dollars to drive one of their residents who has a small business in the County into bankruptcy
.
I cannot allow Mr. Hayes to trample on other small business owners as he did with me without letting other people know about it. I am presently consulting with an attorney to see if there is any economic remedy that we can ask the Montgomery County Department of Public Works and Transportation to extend to my company due to Mr. Hayes actions.
Any help you can give me with this matter would be duly appreciated.
Sincerely
Renee Okon
Broker/Owner
Okon Realty LLC, and Silver Spring Resident
After 30 days in which I received no response from the County Executive, I again wrote to the Executive, demanding a response before starting litigation, to which I finally got a response on April, 19, 2007 from Al Rosdieh per the instrucion of the County Executve Ike Leggett. Again, a copy of the email I sent and the final reply is included below for your information:
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Follow up to Potential Litigation/DPWT/Mr. Steve Hayes
From: "Roshdieh, Al"
Date: Thu, April 19, 2007 9:40 am
To:
Dear Ms. Okon:
Thank you for your e-mail of March 8, 2007, to County Executive Isiah Leggett. Mr. Leggett has asked that I respond to you directly.
Your message alleges that a leasing agent for the County practiced “dirty politics” which caused you to file for bankruptcy in the United States Bankruptcy Court. Your message states that you kept “your” property off of the rental market because you understood that the County was interested in leasing it.
Let me clarify that the property you lease at 8413 Ramsey Avenue is actually owned by Joseph E. and J. L. Godbout and leased to you. It was your intention to sublease the space to the County. During the course of inspecting the space and meeting with you, the actual owner of the property communicated to the County that you had lost your right to be in the space, and, in fact, would not be in possession of it much longer.
In verifying these statements, the County learned that there has been a history of landlord tenant disputes between you and the property owner; that you have filed previous bankruptcy petitions while state court landlord/tenant actions were pending; that you filed a bankruptcy action in September 2006 which you voluntarily dismissed in December 2006; and that your February 2007 bankruptcy filing coincided with the imminent entry of judgments for past due rent and for possession of the Property in Montgomery County landlord/tenant court. Given the very real doubt about your ability to control the property and the improbability that your landlord would continue to do business with you through a sublease, the County opted to wait to see the outcome of motions to lift the stay and for other relief that the owner filed in the bankruptcy action and the pending landlord/tenant court actions before entering into any agreements for the use of the space.
Until those matters are resolved, it would be imprudent for anyone to enter into any agreement concerning the use of the space.
I regret that the determination to wait and see the outcome of the pending actions was not communicated to you earlier. However, it appears that regardless of when the information was passed on to you, it would not have impacted the property owner’s actions with respect to regaining possession of the Property.
Sincerely,
Al R. Roshdieh
Follow up to Potential litigation/DPWT/Mr. Steve Hayes
From: Renee Okon
To:
Date: Apr 13 2007 - 5:20pm
April 13, 2007
Dear Mr. Legget and Mr. Holmes
In reference to the my email written on March 9, 2007 which is referenced below, I have yet to receive an answer from your office or Mr. Holmes Office concerning my complaints and request for assistance. It has been over 30 days since the communication with your office. If there is no response to this additional inquiry in the next 10 working days, then I will look into what other options such as litigation may be available to me and my family.
Looking forward to hearing from you or a representative.
Sincerely
Renee Okon
Mr. Roshdieh, then Acting Director of Montgomery County Department of Public Works and Transportation, wrote me to say that a lease was not forthcoming because I had gotten in trouble with my lease. Mr. Rosdieh apologized for not informing me earlier on their decison to go back on their promise and intent. You are just now finding out after string me on since September that you all of a sudden discover that you will not be leasing from me? or did you find out that you could interfere with a business relationship and contract for the space and force me out. Everyone with even the smallest level of intelligence knew their intent and the game that was being played. I blame myself for not knowing that my goverment could be this distructive to another human being. It might have been more humane for them to just put a bullet in my head and take the space. I think about the pain, humiliation, and financial distruction that I have endured for the past four years at the hands of my government; the Montgomery County Government, The office of the County Executive, and the Office of the County Attorney, and the Montgomery County Circuit Court.
If I took the cowards way out like they did, I would be teaching my child that when a bully meets you in the play ground, you should not fight back. When someone pulls a gun on you, you are suppose to give up and let them take your life without fighting back. I would be teaching my child that at the first sign of failure, you are suppose to give up without trying.
You may ask the question why were they going through all these if they had no intention of renting from me? Well the answer is that they wanted the space but they did not want to rent the space from me. They wanted to rent the space from the two white men who were my landlord. They had no intention of trusting this African American Woman, who happens to be a single mother, who had mortgage her house in 2005 to be able to get acquire the space in order to start her real estate brokerage firm which was in infancy at the time that I ran into the Montgomery County Government. I had been in the space since 2005 and paid my rent without any problems, until they came in and informed me that they needed the space in which at that time I was sure they were going to sublease, so I let my tenants that had been in the building go.
They had been saying all along that they were not going to rent the space, but time has made a liar out of them. They are now leasing the space from the same two gentlemen that I mentioned above. The question a thinking person would ask would be to find out when they signed the lease and who they used for the drawings of the plan for the space. This would further proof that we dealing with a very dishonest goverment. I would even venture that the MAFIA organizaiton is more humane to people whose business they are interested in robbing and destroying.
If they wanted to do the right thing, they could have bought out my lease and taken over the entire space, they could have shared the space with me which was the original intent through Mr. Hayes and Mr. Gondhalekar. Their sole intent was to get me in trouble financially so that I would be thrown out and they would take over the space free and clear without any obligations to me. They forget that eventhough they are the government, it does not give them license to bankrupt and operate in a deceptive fashion to destroy and business and discriminate against the business owner. I thought these are things that happen in dictatorships, not in the United States of America, not in psuedo liberal Montgomery County.
As of today, I have not heard from any one on the Montgomery County Council, or the County Executive's office despite the numerous communications to their office. I have not even heard from those who supposedly represent me on the Montgomery County Council. None of my correspondence has been answered by Mrs. Floreen, the Council President who indicates in her political mailers that she is represents the people of this county, Nor Ms. Ervin, the County Vice President who represents my District,or the Mr. Leggett who is the Executive; no expresssion of sympathy extended. But this year, this same shameless people are back on the campaign trail hunting for votes so that they can come back into office and continue to abuse the citizens of this County. They act as though we have no choices. They behave as though a tag of being a Democrat is a given that they will act in your best interest. Wow, I would venture to say that most of you are very intelligent and can discern the fact that having a label of Democrat or Republican does not mean that someone who you vote in will come to your aid when you are in need. It does not mean that they will take your best interest to heart when they are making life and death decisions that have to do with your life. Many of the politicians have express they do not have a chance in Montgomery County to win an office. I say take heart, there are more of me who do not know how to fight big government or how to express the wrong that their government has done to them. These are the people that will give you the margin you need to win be you Democrat, Repulican, Independent or other party affiliation. The vote of the invisible constituent that have no voice and feel that their needs are not represented will be the one that will give you the edge in getting your message out to the mass. The Washington Post does not annoint candidates as evidenced by the Primary Results on September 14, 2010, We the People do. Some of the Democratic candidates escaped competition because they had no opponents running against them. I doubt that will be true during the General election in November.
My next Post will show you to what extent the Montgomery County Government has gone to make sure that the Montgomery County Circuit Court through my case out. It will show how they tried to shop for a Judge whose husband is employed by the Montgomery County Attorney Office, but because of conflict of interest, they did not succeed......I will detail the intimidation that has taken place since I started sending out emails on the actions of the Montgomery Council government. Thank God for Appellate Review.......and elections of public officials.
The Saga Continues........Stay tuned............
