July 24th, 2025

Rockville Renters United is incredibly proud of the many dozens of our neighbors who showed up at the July 21st Mayor and Council meeting to demonstrate their strong support of rent stabilization. We are deeply grateful for the community that has formed around this topic over the past year and for coming together to advocate for the needs of the nearly 50% of Rockville residents who are renters.

We also commend Councilmembers Zola Shaw and Dr. David Myles for their continued fight for rent stabilization and for continuing to stand on the side of strong, community-centric housing policy in Rockville. The supporters of rent stabilization who turned out and shared their perspectives were a true, diverse reflection of our city.

This community came out yet again to the Mayor and Council meeting on July 21st with a simple hope: that our elected leaders would allow a good-faith and fully informed discussion of how rent stabilization and protections against predatory rent increases fit as a complementary part of the city’s overall housing strategy. We were again rebuffed. Mayor Monique Ashton and Councilmembers Adam Van Grack, Barry Jackson, Kate Fulton, and Marissa Valeri voted once more against protecting Rockville renters with rent stabilization; a protection that is enjoyed in most of the county and neighboring jurisdictions. Further, they voted to indefinitely ban an informed discussion of rent stabilization.

We are dismayed with their vote, but we found the way in which certain council members choose to address their constituents outright disturbing. In a combative voice, Councilmember Van Grack presented misleading information as an excuse to ignore the community members assembled in front of him. The most distressing part for us, as a Rockville community organization, was watching Councilmembers Jackson and Valeri dismiss our advocacy as merely the political machinations of some shadowy external group they could not convincingly pinpoint or define.

It is beyond troubling that our elected leaders are so disconnected from their community that this is how they choose to interpret the unprecedented levels of true community organizing among Rockville residents. The drivers of this movement are not in the shadows. We are here, in the light of the council chamber. We have repeatedly stood before our elected leaders over the past year, asking them to protect the renters of Rockville from the predatory actions of the handful of bad actors who we’ve watched seek excessive profits at the expense of our neighbors and ourselves.

The council was most certainly correct in one thing: there is room here for a good-faith, nuanced discussion about how rent stabilization fits as part of Rockville’s housing strategy. We have requested that for over a year. While we still hope for that discussion, the Council’s actions make it clear that we will continue to wait.  But we will not wait quietly, nor idly. We will make known across our community what has happened. We will continue to creatively and energetically advocate for ourselves and our neighbors. And we will continue to make ourselves into the leaders our community deserves.