Rock Creek Hills Citizens' Association

Hello All,

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

Hello,

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