Thursday, September 8, 2011

Did Weast alter Red Zone home values by putting cell towers in neighborhoods?

Yellow dots show location of public school sites with cell towers.
This is the Green Zone/Red Zone map used by Superintendent
 Weast.  The map shows elementary school boundaries,
 65 elementary schools are in the Green Zone,
 66 are in the Red Zone.
Remember all those leases for cell towers at public school sites that Superintendent Jerry Weast signed, leases for the construction of commercial structures on public school sites in neighborhoods, leases that weren't voted on by the Board of Education?

Take a look at this Order from the Property Tax Assessment Appeal Board for Montgomery County. What impact have all of those cell towers had on the property values in the neighborhoods where they were constructed?  Yellow dots on the map show the approximate location of the 13 public school sites in Montgomery County that have cell towers.

Red Zone = neighborhoods with high numbers of students needing free and reduced meals/ higher concentrations of poverty.




"Probability of neighboring cell tower
 also affects value negatively."
Probability of neighboring cell tower also affects value negatively

6 comments:

  1. Weast is responsible for all the ills of Montgomery County isn't he? Wow.

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  2. It's one thing to draw fake lines and label neighborhoods as the "red zone". Those lines can be erased. It's another to actually make permanent changes to the neighborhoods that change the look of the neighborhoods forever.

    The placement of cell phone towers on school sites in the "red zone" that Jerry Weast created has permanently changed the face of those schools and permanently changed the look of those neighborhoods, whether or not they are labeled "red zone" they are forever school sites with massive commercial structures on the playgrounds.

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  3. Jerry Weast sure is responsible for spending Montgomery County into the position where we were in danger of losing our AAA bond rating.
    I hope Joshua Starr understands fiscal responsibility.

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  4. Weast cannot possibly be responsible for "spending Montgomery County into the position where we were in danger of losing our AAA bond rating." The board of education can only REQUEST money from the county. The county is actually the party that approves the request. So the county is responsible for it. If they could say "no" then there would have been no bond rating problem.

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  5. Anonymous@3:57pm, agreed. Weast was a county employee and that is all. The scenario set by the BOE, that it was all evil Weast's fault, is ridiculous. No one should buy into that. It is the elected Board of Education that takes and spends your tax dollars, as well as state and federal tax dollars in the form of grants and other monies that come to the 'quasi-state agency' that is MCPS. Elections are coming up. Three board members who agreed to these cell towers, or could not manage their one employee, are up for re-election: Chris Barclay, Laura Berthiaume, and Phil Kauffman. Do you vote? Can you run? Weast was YOUR employee. If anyone is responsible, it is the voters of this county. And, it is not up to Josh Starr to understand fiscal responsibility. It is up to you. Step up and take some responsibility for this county government.

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  6. Time to vote with our brains and ignore the Rotten Apple Ballot. Many people find voting the Apple Ballot convenient. Time to change that.

    ReplyDelete

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