after Governor Martin O'Malley's former rock band in the hopes that this would encourage him to cancel the project. An op-ed in The Diamondback was printed which raised objections to the ICC. In June 2004, protests against the ICC were held at Dr. Charles R. Drew Elementary School in Silver Spring, where the State Highway Administration was simultaneously holding a public ICC workshop. This event was more heavily attended than the Derwood event and featured multiple speeches by people opposing the highway, which included Phil Andrews, a Montgomery County Council member. The participants claimed that ICC construction should be halted because of air pollution impacts on pupils at the school; however, it was clear that Governor O'Malley had no plans to do so. In August 2008, The Baltimore Sun published a letter to the editor from the executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth calling on the Maryland Department of Transportation to "cancel the ICC." In September 2008, The Sun's columnist Dan Rodricks wrote an anti-ICC opinion piece asserting that the ICC was the "Intercounty Anachronism". Rodricks' column was first rebutted by a letter to the editor by Montgomery County Councilmember Nancy Floreen (D-At Large) and then in a longer op-ed by SHA Administrator Neil Pedersen. Also in September 2008, The Gazette published an op-ed by state delegate Heather R. Mizeur (D-District 20) suggesting that the ICC be canceled. The Mizeur op-ed was rebutted in a response (also published by The Gazette) by Neil Pedersen in October 2008. In November 2008, it was announced that Environmental Defense had dropped its appeal with the Fourth Circuit of the decision handed down by Judge Williams of the U.S. District Court for Maryland about a year earlier. In exchange for dropping the suit, the State Highway Administration agreed to fund new emissions-reduction technology used by public school buses in Montgomery County; and the SHA will also "sponsor a three-year study that involves installing air quality monitors along a major highway selected for its similar characteristics to the ICC and I-95." Press releases were issued by the State Highway Administration and Environmental Defense discussing the details of the legal settlement. Environmental mitigation A major component of the ICC is environmental mitigation and aesthetics. In addition to work taking place near and in the right-of-way of the ICC, there are over 50 "off-site environmental and community improvement projects" that will be funded as part