Montgomery County’s Nighttime Economy Task Force has six months to come up with solutions to problems that could require seismic changes in the county’s suburban culture to fix.

County Executive Isiah Leggett said there are many complex issues at play when he addressed the 20-plus member group during its first ever meeting on Monday in Silver Spring.

Leggett, who assembled the Task Force to deliver recommendations for improving the county’s nightlife, offered a sobering political reality he said must be considered when talking looser alcohol laws, later bar closing times or higher density development around Metro stations.

“Most people in this county, when you ask them the question about, ‘Should we improve the nighttime economy,’ intellectually, on-paper they’ll probably say, ‘Yes, that’s a good idea,’” Leggett said. “But their view of what that means is we can generate the economic benefits of that all in isolation, that it’s totally removed from their lives. People say, ‘I like the benefits of that, but I don’t want to deal with the practical effects of that.’”

In suburban Montgomery, long associated with wealthy single-family home neighborhoods, a prized school system and an older population, that’s a tough line to cross. But county leaders, seeing young tax-paying professionals flock to the District and Arlington, want in on the action.

“People say, ‘Oh my gosh, well now we’re going to have 23-year-olds driving down the streets of Bethesda at 70 miles an hour and screaming out their windows and kicking over trash cans,’” Task Force Chair and Bethesda land use attorney Heather Dlholopolsky told the group. “That’s not what it means. The key thing to remember is that nighttime economy is so many things and don’t be too exclusive in terms of the things that you’re looking for.”

That means activities for empty-nesters, middle-aged residents and the young urban professionals Leggett said he’s tired of seeing get away.

“We pay a huge investment in our school system, one of the best in the entire country. Many of them go off to college and once they’ve completed college and they are now thinking about settling down, they’re more likely to go to Adams Morgan, other locations in the District, Arlington or, god forbid, Fairfax,” Leggett said. “They’ve taken that investment that we made, that education that we started and they are utilizing that in some other location. We’re not going to capture 100 percent of the people, but there’s a reason as to why they’re not thinking of us as a first choice.”

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