Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Fact Check: Board got fact or fiction from MCPS staff?

At the September 13, 2011, Montgomery County Board of Education meeting Agenda Item 7.0 was the Superintendent's Recommendation for the Modernization of Farquhar Middle School in Olney.  Superintendent Joshua Starr's first choice for this project was that the new middle school would be built on the land next door to the current school in a "land swap" with M-NCPPC.

The natural question that flows from that recommendation is, who owns the land next door? In this video clip from the September 13th Board meeting, Board of Education President Christopher Barclay asks that question. Listen to the answer he gets from MCPS Director of Facilities James Song:



And in today's Gazette, a completely different answer to the same question:
...Park and Planning does not yet have the deed to the property on which the school would be built...
We look forward to the Fact Check Press Release from the MCPS Public Relations Department explaining the discrepancy in information.

Did the Board of Education make their September 13th decision based on Fact or Fiction?

11 comments:

  1. Well there you have it.. The Superintendent and Dr. Song lied, on record, repeatedly about the ownership of the parcel. Dr. Song's assertion that that property could be acquired quickly (The end of the year??) was predicated on Parks already owning the property. And, in no small part, the BOE's action was predicated on a truncated timeline for the swap. There is an old saying about garbage in and the resulting by-product..

    Basing these decisions on false information is ultimately going to result in the the county spending money working towards an unachievable goal..

    Maybe it is time to start looking at an on-site modernization before county, state and possibly federal funds are lost.

    Keep in mind that the fall back option is busing the kids to Tilden and no one wants that.

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  2. At what point does this put the school in jeopardy of not receiving funding? I was under the impression that there was a point in time where the funds were just allocated elsewhere.

    Way back in May, Dr. Song suggested that he needed a commitment from the Parks Dept. no later than the end of August. It doesn't sound like the MNCPPC process has even started and I know it requires a bunch of public meetings.

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  3. Anonymous@4:33pm, "A bunch of public meetings?" ha ha you are kidding right? Here in progressive, liberal Montgomery County, no need for pesky meetings that use up precious funds. secret deals behind closed doors are so much cheaper for everyone!

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  4. perfect example of a canned question and answer
    set up before meeting starts
    but board member fooled

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  5. You should watch the whole Modernization segment.. Assumption sas to timing and process all originated with Song's, and Starr's in the intro, statement that this property had already been transferred..

    Somebody must want the BOE lead down this road...

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  6. "board member fooled" really? this is the board member that is up for re-election. Lies from BOE employees at MCPS are nothing new and have been reported before. If a board member is this foolish with your $2.1Billion annual spending, do you really want this person to be on the BOE? At what point will the voters and taxpayers of MoCo start asking where their moeny is going.

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  7. I really appreciate the matching up of REAL facts here-thanks for your work!

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  8. Has anyone seen an explanation by MCPS staff as to why they misled the Board? I haven't seen a press release explaining this.

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  9. Might be time to ask this question again?

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  10. If MCPS Administrator James Song had been telling the truth, this costly litigation would have been avoided.

    http://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2012/12/circuit-court-smacks-planning-board-for.html

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