 | ||
| Mark Twain Athletic Park at Ewing Center |
The City of Rockville constructed this park and maintains the facilities on Board of Education land.
The Board of Education and Superintendent Joshua Starr now have other plans for this Program Open Space land. They are going to park over 400 MCPS buses on these fields.
The Mark Twain Athletic Park is at the Blair Ewing Center school that the Superintendent and Board of Education want for bus parking because Montgomery County wants to put 2,200 housing units on the property that houses the current MCPS bus lot at Shady Grove.
- County wants public land for developer, kicks MCPS bus depot off leased County land.
- BOE and Superintendent move bus depot to athletic fields, kick kids off athletic fields.
Tell the kids this is called "Smart Growth."
The Gude Drive corridor would make much more sense for a bus depot; is there no site there that could house that many buses? Has it been investigated? That many buses pulling in and out of that location onto Route 28, where there is already plenty of morning rush traffic, is going to create other nightmares.
ReplyDeleteThere was no investigation, no Site Selection Committee, no compliance with Maryland Law on School Closings. The new MCPS in house counsel told the Board of Education they could skip the law and the Policy.
DeleteMCPS violated Maryland law and BOE Policy. No wonder neighbors are surprised! They are just finding out that Maryland law doesn't apply in Montgomery County!
Silly Janis. Of course they had meetings for the public! It was called 'informal staff work group' consisting of MCPS and County Council Exec Branch staff, convened under the watchful eye of Valerie Ervin in 2012. What? Not public? My bad.
Deletehttp://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/boe/meetings/agenda/2013/021213/04.0%20Transportation%20Depots%20Update.pdf
What! We love that park! Why?
ReplyDeleteKiss it good-bye. Too bad this isn't happening in Maryland where there is actually a law that would govern this action. Oh, what? This is in Maryland? Since when does the Montgomery County BOE have to follow Maryland law?
DeleteAnd what about the other road that ends at the Ewing Center, Avery Rd. We want a couple of hundred school buses going over that? And what about the already difficult intersection of Avery & Southlawn? Buses will be trying to navigate that very steep uphill turn off of Southlawn onto Avery? I am not sure a full sized school bus could do that?
ReplyDeleteHas Samuel Clemens given his expressed consent to park 400 MCPS school buses in the Mark Twain field?
ReplyDeletePerhaps now those that ridiculed the plaintiffs seeking to defend Rock Creek Hills Park from being converted into a site for an insufficient middle school will understand what was at stake in that failed litigation. The case was not about NIMBYism or whatever other invectives the minions of county apparatchiks asserted. It was about holding the state and local governments accountable to the law that promoted the responsible stewardship of natural resources.
ReplyDeleteProgram Open Space (POS) is governed by Natural Resources Article 5-906. It states, in part, that land acquired or developed under a POS grant may not be converted to non-park use without written approval of the Departments of Natural Resources (DNR), Budget and Management, and Planning. Further, conversions of land use can be approved only after the land is replaced with land of at least equivalent area, equal recreation or open space value, and equal or greater appraised value.
It will be interesting to see what happens in this bus depot matter, in particular, whether, citizens again will be found to lack the standing to defend their parks.
The former Mark Twain School is a fine building that could be revamped and used as an alternative school. Better yet, make it a special arts school like Duke Ellington. But a bus depot? That is appalling.
ReplyDeleteThe Ewing building is already an alternative school for MCPS (Alternative Programs). Last year, it was under redesign - new admin first, new staff second (heavily recruited), updated school facility. Now it's being moved to a former elementary school in the Aspen Hill area that's currently housing - I believe - the School for Tomorrow, with an enrollment (according to a search) of about 30 students in grades 4-12. Even if the enrollment for School for Tomorrow is inaccurate, it's definitely nowhere close to the projected enrollment of Alternative Programs, which was given a cap of about 300 students during the three-year redesign phase. Can that facility house about 300 students in grades 6-12 who faced obstacles a traditional setting?
DeleteUnfortunately, since it makes a lot of sense it is considered illegal.
ReplyDeleteExcuse me, but what's the "it," the bus depot? If so, "it" can't make sense if "it" is illegal, unless one has been living so long under the control of one party that the rule of law has become malleable to the whim of the party. All that's left, then, is a foot stomping on a human face.
Delete"it" referred to the "alternative school" suggestion above. And it is an eloquent discourse of course.
Delete