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Moving Forward: Rockville’s 2017 Year in Review

Rockville had a busy 2017, with a new city manager, talks on diversity, a perfect score for LGBTQ support and so much more. Here, we run down a few of the major events that made the pages of “Rockville Reports” this year.

In January, Rob DiSpirito joined the City of Rockville as its new city manager. DiSpirito, who has more than three decades of local government leadership experience, served as the city manager of Dunedin, Florida, for nearly 10 years. He previously served as city manager of Oberlin, Ohio, for 11 years.

In February, the Mayor and Council hosted a packed audience at the Rockville Senior Center for a town hall discussion on diversity, with more than 150 attendees split among seven “conversation circles,” each addressing a different set of questions on topics that included hate crime, enhancing community policing, barriers to government, communicating with young people and promoting inclusion.

In March, 92 percent of Rockville residents who responded to the city’s ninth biennial community survey once again described the city’s overall quality of life as excellent or good. Eighty-six percent of respondents rated the city’s overall quality of services as excellent or good.

In April, Rockville was ranked 13th in the nation on Livability.com’s list of the Top 100 Best Places to Live. It was the fourth straight year Rockville placed in the top 20.

In May, the city won another accolade, being named a Playful City for the fourth time. This month, Rockville celebrated with the 29th annual Hometown Holidays Music Fest. “Rockville Reports” reported that overall crime statistics in the city had gone up 9.1 percent due to a spike in auto thefts and Part II crimes, such as simple assault, loitering, disorderly conduct and driving under the influence. However, that was contrasted by a 35.5 percent decrease in crimes against people and property — so-called Part I crimes — between 2005 and 2016.

In June, the Mayor and Council unanimously adopted a resolution supporting the Paris climate accord, and reinforced the city’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing Rockville’s resilience to climate change.

In July, Mayor Bridget Donnell Newton was elected Maryland Municipal League’s (MML) president-elect. For the seventh year in a row, Rockville was named a Banner City by the MML, which recognizes elected and appointed municipal officials as the league’s most engaged members.

In August, neighborhoods around the city and the Rockville City Police Department celebrated their communities at the 33rd annual National Night Out, and Welsh Park opened overnight for amateur astronomers to see the yearly celestial wonder of the Perseid meteor shower.

In September, Mayor Newton and City Manager DiSpirito took to the F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre stage for a state of the city conversation hosted by the Rockville Chamber of Commerce. Also, all things German were celebrated in Rockville Town Center with Rocktobierfest, which marked the 60th anniversary of the city’s sister city relationship with Pinneberg, Germany.

In October, for the first time, Rockville scored a perfect 100 for its commitment to the health, welfare, safety and equality of its lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community, on the Human Rights Campaign’s 2017 Municipal Equality Index scorecard. Town Square Plaza celebrated its 10th anniversary and won an award for design excellence from the Montgomery County Planning Department.

In November, Rockville’s Community Planning and Development Services department and city manager were all ears at a listening session on what does and doesn’t work in Rockville’s development review process. The Mayor and Council this month also hosted Montgomery County Public Schools officials to hear about several education initiatives, including an update on Richard Montgomery Elementary School No. 5, which is scheduled to open in August. Rockville also kicked off its 2017 Holiday Drive.

Find full coverage of many of these stories on RockvilleReports.com and youtube.com/cityofrockville.
Read about December’s events in this edition of “Rockville Reports.”

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Rockville Reports is the official publication of the City of Rockville, published at City Hall, 111 Maryland Ave., Rockville, MD 20850-2364.