For George Leventhal, Food is the Future of MoCo

Part two of the second stop on Just Up The Pike's "County Government Head-to-Head Tour." (Read part one here.)

"I ran for office for a lot of reasons . . . I did not get elected to office to make developers rich." - George Leventhal

Montgomery County Councilman George Leventhal [D-At Large] didn't have a boring childhood in Bethesda, but he certainly was hungry. As a child, he says, "the most exotic meal you could get in Bethesda was a plate of French fries at the Hot Shoppes."

And if there's one way for him to mark the changes in Montgomery County since then, it would have to be food. "I like to link demographic change with food," he says. In forty years, Montgomery County went from French fries to French brasseries. With its newfound ethnic and culinary variety, the County is "just a more interesting place to live."

Not everyone would agree. There are some in Montgomery County who might want an end to immigration, but the real threat to our county's growth - and, of course, the good food - would have to be a few activists collectively known as the Neighbors for a Better Montgomery. Last week, he was still smarting from a spat with the head Neighbors, Drew Powell and Jim Humphreys. Nancy Floreen patiently refers to them as the "advocates," and they're quickly becoming the public face of citizen activism in Montgomery County.

CONTINUED at Just Up The Pike.