The meeting date for the Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association has been
changed to March 15 at 7:30 to accommodate any delays in the ongoing site
selection process for the BBC Cluster Middle School Number 2. Sandra van
Bochove has been keeping your apprised of these meetings, but I would
mention three specific matters here.

First, the Planning Board will be offered a chance to comment on the site selection before  the Superintendent makes his recommendation.

Second, the County Council has had a staff member who is familiar with the issues in  attendance at all of the Site Selection Advisory Committee meetings. We will advise the  County Council of our concerns immediately after the Site Selection Advisory Committee makes its recommendation because at that point we will have most of the relevant information available.

Third, MCPS has taken the position that there are no barriers to the conversion of RCHP to a site for the school. At this stage we continue to pursue public open spaces issues at the state level through various channels pending a response.

Finally, as previously announced, the March 15 meeting will address the school site selection issues and the election of officers. If you wish to make any nominations, contact Sam Statland or Joe Rosenberg. Please call me if you have any interim questions or concerns.

– John Robinson

On Wednesday, January 25, the second SSAC meeting was held. The meeting was split in two parts; the first part discussed items pending research that were “parked” by the committee members, for further information and/or clarification. It also allowed experts to share additional information regarding parked items and/or outstanding questions; the second part was a closed session for discussions of private sites.

Outstanding Issues-

• MCPS & Reclaim Right on RCHLP – There was an outstanding question relating to MCPS’ re-claim right and a possible encumbrance placed on that right due to federal and/or funds used to develop RCHLP. MCPS concluded that its reclaim right to the park was not hindered based on a policy outlined by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR). RCHCA indicated that the issue was still pending since there’s an updated communication from DNR demonstrating their intent to follow up our request for specific documentation, and to address our position that DNR’s policy is not based on statutory reliance.
• Montgomery County Department of Parks – Representative from the Park’s department reiterated the position taken early on by the department’s Chair Francois Carrier, firmly voicing the need to preserve green space in the area and expressing the point that “parks don’t come free.” He also provided information to the committee regarding the permitting process that MCPS will be subject, namely Forest Conservation Plan (FCP) and Mandatory Referral.
• Montgomery County Department of Planning- Representative went through an elaborate explanation of both permitting processes, FCP and Mandatory Referral. Although the Board’s decision during the Mandatory Referral is “advisory” it is binding through the Forest Conservation Plan process. RCHLP has estimated 5.1 acres of forestation requirements that would need to get approval from the Natural Resources Inventory/Forest Stand Delineation. Additionally any specimen trees impacted would require a variance from the County Arborist.
• Montgomery County Department of Transportation/Bethesda Depo – There was clarification on the road with requirement for bus routes – 36 feet total including with 2 travel lanes (10 feet ea), with parking lanes of 8 feet each; school bus is 10 feet wide, mirror to mirror.

Community Input – This Wednesday, February 8th will be the third SSAC meeting, at 7:00 p.m. at the BCC cafeteria. The first half will be opened to the public for participation. The second half will be closed for private site discussions.

Community Feedback- I have received some feed back from items posted on the SSAC web site (see bellow), primarily addressing the pros and cons listed for each site, and the limited access in the process to allow for true analysis of the 8 criteria for each site. Community feed back will be sent to the SSAC prior to next meeting for discussion.

If you have any comments and/or concerns please send them to me so that I can forward them to the committee BEFORE Wednesday, February 8th.

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/facilities/REM

Thanks

Sandra Van Bochove
Old Spring Road

The Watch has made substantial progress during the last half-year training
and activating street captains during the last few months, but we still need
a lot of help. As you may recall, street captains are asked to reach out to
ten households on their street to encourage residents to participate in the
Watch by signing up for the RCH list-serve, notifying the community about
criminal or suspicious activity, and reporting it to the police. If you are
interested in getting trained to be a captain or just learning more about the
Watch, please join us on the 31st.

Thank you,

Paul Tiao (paultiao@aol.com) & Eden Durbin
Co-Coordinators, RCH Neighborhood Watch

Last night was the first SSAC meeting to discuss all viable sites with committee members representing, municipalities, neighborhood associations, PTAs from all the elementary schools, County agencies (transportation, traffic, planning, parks, Council legislative analyst, and all the folks from Division Long Range Planning, and from the FAC) and observers.

The initial part of the meeting dealt with house rules and introduction of the outside volunteer facilitator, Ms. Della Stolsworth and her team. They were charged with moderating the discussion, setting the ground rules and asking ALL members of the committee, one at a time, for pros or cons of each site. They also indicated that last night’s discussions was solely for public property; private property will be discussed at the next meeting, which will be a closed meeting to the public, for the duration of private land discussions. (more on that later)

The MCPS staff introduced itself, followed by a presentation DLRP’s architect. He presented the enrollment trends and repeated Dr. Starr’s 8 site selection criteria: Location, Size, Topography, Access, Utilities, Cost, Physical Condition, Constrains, Availability, Costs. He also presented a new issue of “minimum allowable acreage” for construction of a middle school. The presentation circled around Lakeland MS, which is a 3-story building with a core of 1200, and built for capacity of 944. This was the base site used for setting the NET 10 acre bar minimum for building a new MS within MCPS. There was no advance public notification regarding this newly set minimum.

The committee was then presented with several new public sites (current operating schools or some closed schools), that had been nominated as new candidate sites from the community at large. In the heat of discussions, someone in the audience suggested knocking all sites 10 acres or less off the list, without following the intended analytical process of asking pros and cons for each site or given an opportunity to present ideas outside the box. This was a change in course mid-way through the process that diminished a list of 25 public sites to 8 (+/-). Then only committee members were allowed to vote, but by then it was suspect who was a member and who was not due to the volume and proximity of those allowed to vote vs. those not allowed to vote.

When the list of old candidates was posted, RCH was the first site up, I presented the biggest obstacle/con that contains the strongest legal substantive issue: the use of federal funds (LWCF) for development of RCH, managed by the State under POS. There was an immediate rebuttal from Bruce Crispbell, (Director of DLRP) indicating that MCPS has a reclaim right to the parcel, but failed to point out the current challenge facing MCPS with that right as a result of the use of fed. Funds.

Several issues were “parked” to give MCPS an opportunity to research and provide substantive data to complex matters (LWCF) and establish definitions of the criteria: what is centrally located? access? There was no distribution of supporting documentation to aide the committee members make informed decisions, when they are charged with making site selections.

The meeting ended with comments from the observing public. Jim Pekar took the opportunity to quote Dr. Starr’s recognition of the problem raised by LWCF/POS and the restrictions on parkland conversion. Tom Sisti followed by identifying the problem with conflicting descriptions of what is “central” to the cluster, and identifying gaps in access, as misrepresented in some sites, particularly RCH, NCC and Norwood Parks. THANK YOU GUYS!!!

You can see more of the presentation by going to:

www.montgomeryschosmd.org/departmens/facilities/REM/

Regards,

Sandra van Bochove
Old Spring Road

This e-mail contains several fairly important announcements about RCH
related matters that will over the next two months.

1. The first meeting of the new site selection advisory committee (SSAC)
for the new BCC cluster middle school is tomorrow, January 11, 2012 in the
cafeteria of BCC High School from 7 to 9 p.m. The other meetings are also
on Wednesday: January 25, February 8, and February 27. Our lead
representative is Sandra van Bochove, who will be providing you with
periodic updates as the SSAC process moves forward. John Robinson is the
SSAC alternate.

2. Election of Officers for 2012 – Sam Statland (samstatland@verizon.net)
and Joe Rosenberg (jrosenberg123@gmail.com) are serving as the nominating committee. The current officers have agreed to serve for 2012, but
additional suggestions are welcome and should be provided to either Sam or
Joe.

3. 2012 Annual Meeting - The annual meeting is normally held in late
January. However it has been postponed until a rescheduled date of March 8
to accommodate that new SSAC process. As noted, the last meeting of the new
SSAC is February 27. At that point we will know where things stand on the
selection of the site for a new middle school. The March 8 date provides
time for some slippage in the SSAC process and for a summary of the results
to be e-mailed to our members. There would also be a full presentation at
the meeting if the issue is still a matter of concern. There will be no
official report at that date, but we would be in a position to move forward
in response to any initial selection decision resulting from the February 27
SSAC meeting. If a further postponement is necessary I will advise you, but
at present we hope to avoid multiple meetings during the winter season. The
proposed slate of officers for 2012 will also be presented for action at the
meeting. At this point we do not contemplate any other substantive actions
at the annual meeting. However if the middle school matter is resolved to
our satisfaction, the agenda could be expanded.

In closing, my thanks again for all the time that a number of our residents
have committed to RCH matters over the last 12 months. I look forward to
seeing you at the annual meeting and at our several annual social events.

Regards,

John Robinson

I am pleased to tell you that Sandra van Bochove will the principal
representative for RCHCA on the new site selection advisory committee the
Board of Education to advise it on the site for a new BCC Middle School #2.

I will serve as the alternate. There will be four meetings over 2 months
beginning January 16.

In addition, the Board of Education has filed a motion to dismiss our
pending action before the State Board of Education regarding the Board’s
April 28 decision to select RCH Local Park as the site for the new middle
school. The motion is appropriate given the April 28 decision has been
rescinded and therefore there is no longer any legal basis for the action.
Our reply to the Board motion [is] posted  [here 2011 11 30 RCHCA Reply to County] (see below for text version).

We will keep you apprised.

Regards,

John Robinson

Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association
9616 Old Spring Road
Kensington, MD 20895
Local – 301-949-5452
Office – 202-502-6808
Cell – 240-997-4447
jmarkrobinson@verizon.net

November 30, 2011

Office of the Attorney General
Maryland State Department of Education
Attn: Jackie C. La Fiandra – State Board of Appeals
200 St. Paul Place, 19th Floor
Baltimore, Maryland 21202

 Re: Rock Creek Hills Citizens  

Association, et al., Appellants

   v.

   Montgomery County Board of

  Education, Respondents

 Appellants’ Response to the Montgomery      

 County Board of Education’s Motion to   

  to Dismiss dated November 24, 2011

Dear Ms. La Fiandra:

The Appellants in the captioned proceeding are in receipt of the Montgomery County Board of Education’s (County Board) November 23, 2011 Motion to Dismiss in the captioned proceeding.  Appellants concur in the facts as stated paragraphs one through three of the County Board’s motion, including that as of this date there are no official minutes or adopted resolutions supporting the County Board’s November 17, 2011 rescission of Resolution No. 221-11.  It was that resolution that selected the Rock Creek Hills Local Park as the site for a new middle school for the Bethesda Chevy-Chase Cluster.  The Appellants agree that rescission of the Resolution No. 221-11 will moot the instant proceeding.  While Appellants took immediate steps to inform your office of the County Board’s November 17 action, they were not prepared to withdraw their complaint until such time as Appellants could review the official minutes containing the adopted resolution.  This would have preserved an opportunity to comment on the County Board’s action if that should prove necessary.  However, given the draft minutes submitted with the County Board’s November 23 Motion to Dismiss, it appears at this point Appellants will not be required to comment further in this proceeding.

Of particular importance to the Appellants is the fact that the County Board’s resolution appears to incorporate Superintendent Starr’s November 8, 2011 memorandum into the County Board’s November 17, 2011 resolution.  Dr. Starr’s November 8, 2011 memorandum not only contains the procedures for a new site selection process, but equally important, the substantive standards for selecting a site in response to the County Board’s November 17 resolution.  Appellants also note that Appellant RCHCA was requested today to nominate a primary and alternative member to the new Site Selection Advisory Committee pursuant to Dr. Starr’s November 11 memorandum and has done so.  This resolved the remaining outstanding issue with which the Appellants were concerned regarding the County Board’s April 28 resolution. Therefore, assuming that the minutes of County Board’s November 17 are in form and substance similar to the draft minutes attached to the County Board’s November 23 Motion to Dismiss, the Appellants do not oppose that motion.  In closing, I wish to state my appreciation of the professionalism displayed by your office in handling this difficult proceeding.

John M. Robinson

/s/

Rock Creek Hills

Citizens Association

Counsel to the Named

Appellants

                                                CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

I HEREBY CERTIFY that on this 30th day of November, 2011, I mailed a copy of the forgoing, postage prepaid, to: Judith S. Bresler, Esq., Carney, Kelehan, Bresler, Bennet & Scherr, LLP, 10715 Charter Drive, Suite 200, Columbia, MD 21044.

______/s/______________                                                                                                                           John M. Robinson

My comments on Dr. Starr’s recommendation to reopen the site selection
process for the proposed BCC Middle School #2 will be brief given what has
been said to date. The first is my appreciation to Cathy Fink, Shannon
Hamm, and Sandra van Bochove for organizing and managing such an effective
lobbying campaign before the County Council and the County Executive. Sam
Statland worked behind the scenes on the lobbying effort in addition to his
successful appeal to the State Open Meetings Board. I am also indebted to
Tom Sisti and Sandra for their extensive work on the legal aspects of our
campaign and to David Brown, Esq. for his support. Jim Pekar’s persistent
testimony and blog were at the core of an extended public relations
campaign. The numerous letters by our residents were the essential support
to this effort.

As I understand it, the Rock Creek Hills Local Park site will remain in the
capital budget as a some $47 million place holder for the construction of a
new BBC cluster middle school. The funds would be shifted to any
alternative site that may be selected next spring. Dr. Staff has stated
that the Planning Board is to be fully engaged. As of this evening there
are no details on the structure of the new site selection process. For
this reason the testimony I am providing as your president on November 10
specifically requests that the Rock Creek Hills community have a seat on any
new site selection advisory committee. We will of course work to assure
that any such process is as transparent as possible and that all possible
alternatives are fairly considered.

In the meantime it might to wise to reduce the frequency of our appearances
before the School Board and accept that at this point they are not prepared
to drop the Rock Creek Hills Park site for good. We will continue to keep
this issue quietly but persistently before the County Council in order to
assure that the site ultimately selected meets the educational needs of our
community and of the other communities that share our concerns. I remain
personally convinced that the Rock Creek Hills Park site is not a good site
strictly on educational grounds. As such its selection would not merit the
recreational, environmental, and fiscal costs that would be involved. Best
wishes for the balance of your year and for the health and well being of
your families.

Sincerely yours,

John M. Robinson

for the

Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/construction/projects/bms2.shtm

Or See Links Below:

Links noted on the above page:
Important Docs

Education Specifications (PDF)
Feasibility Study – Final (PDF)
Traffic Study (PDF)

Thanks Jim Pekar for the picture above – and on this facebook link

And many, many thanks  to Marilyn Emery and her gang of volunteers for keeping the tradition alive (is this the 18th year?), and to Sam & Ann Statland for once again allowing the neighborhood to host this annual event in their front yard!

See many more pictures here….

Here is Superintendent Starr’s FY2013 recommended capital budget, which
includes the proposed construction of Bethesda-Chevy Middle School #2.

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/planning/CIPMaster_Current2.s
html

[Excerpts from email to John Robinson from Bruce Crispell, Director, Division of Long-range Planning, Montgomery County Public Schools]

[The] superintendent is releasing his Recommended
FY 2013 Capital Budget and FY 2013-2018 Capital Improvements Program (CIP)
today. The recommendation includes the construction of Bethesda-Chevy Chase
Middle School #2 at the Rock Creek Hills Local Park site. The link below
will take you to the document. If you go to Chapter 4, Bethesda-Chevy Chase
Cluster, you can read about the recommendation. Please advise your
association members of the recommendation.

The Board of Education review process now begins. Following are the dates
coming up:

November 2, 2011 – Board work session to review the CIP recommendation

November 10 & 14, 1011 – Board of Education public hearings – call
301-279-3617 to sign up to testify

November 17, 2011 – Board action on the CIP

As you probably know, after the Board acts the request goes over to the
county executive for his review. His recommendations go to the County
Council in mid-January 2012. The County Council then reviews, holds
hearings, and acts by the end of May.