Dear Members –
Attached below is the text of a letter the RCHCA sent to the County Council
on Friday April 6 urging them to retain to the Council in this year’s budget
Council authority to make the final decision on the site selection for new
B-CC Middle School. I urge you to send the same message to the Council if
you are opposed to placing the proposed school in Rock Creek Hills Local
Park. The issue should be addressed in the near future because it is now
under consideration by the Council. You should be advised that the Council
President, Roger Berliner, does not favor the concept even though he is our
district council member.
Regards,
John M. Robinson
Text of the April 6 RCHCA Message to County Council on Retention of Site
Decision Authority by the Council
Dear Council President Berliner and Council Members Andrews, Elrich, Ervin,
Floreen, Leventhal, Navarro, Rice, and Riemer:
I am sure you have all received numerous e-mails and letters
regarding Superintendent Starr’s recommendation to the Board of Education
that the Rock Creek Hills Local Park be the site for the proposed B-CC
Middle School # 2. However the site selection process is moving forward
rapidly with the mandatory referral before the Montgomery County Planning
Board on Monday, April 9, and a hearing before the Board of Education on
Tuesday, April 17, 2012. While you have been provided the Minority Report
of the Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association regarding that recommendation
and several of your offices have discussed it with our members, at this
juncture there are two fundamental policy issues involved.
The first policy issue is whether the Board of Education may ultimately rely
on an expedient reclaim right to Rock Creek Hills Local Park in making its
final site selection decision, or should engage in a more thorough analysis
of whether two or three other sites might be preferable for educational
purposes. While this might require making the necessary arrangements with
the Planning Board, at this point the Board of Education staff has made no
meaningful analysis of whether any such alternative sites might result in
lower cost to the taxpayer and would in some cases provide more land to meet
the Board of Educational program requirements. It is clear that the Board
staff does not intend to do so.
The second policy issue is whether the Board of Education should
have sole discretion in determining the structure of important recreation
and social assets in the lower County. While this issue is particularly
acute with regard to the two regulation soccer fields in Rock Creek Hills
Local Park, it is also true with regard to the recreation facilities in some
of the alternative sites considered in the latest site selection process,
including those in North Chevy Chase and Norwood Local Parks. I
respectfully suggest that reliance by the Board of Education on its reclaim
right may foreclose an adequate evaluation of the social and fiscal
implications of its site selection decision absent further review and
consideration by the Council. This is true even though the scarcity of open
land in the lower County raises broader issues that are of great
significance to the County’s long term well being. The Board of Education
staff’s priorities in this regard are clear, and while the position of the
Board of Education itself is unknown at this point, its pending decision is
obviously a matter of concern to a wide range of interested parties.
Given the needs of the broader community that uses the Rock
Creek Hills Local Park and the taxpayers in general, I urge that the
budgetary language for the next fiscal year reserve to the Council the
authority to make the final site selection decision for the proposed B-CC
Middle School #2.
Sincerely yours,
/s/
John M. Robinson
President
Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association.