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| Ewing Center School |
On January 29, 2015, the Montgomery County Council's Education Committee will vote on whether or not to strip the Ewing Center school building of its renovation funding.
If the Education Committee votes to strip this 600 seat building of funding, that will pave the way for the full Council's approval of this plan.
When the full Montgomery County Council votes to strip the Ewing Center School of its renovation funding they will be condemning this school building to death. The Board of Education will then demolish the building and 600 seats of indoor classrooms will be lost to Montgomery County students forever.
Yet, when Councilmember Sidney Katz spoke to citizens at this community meeting he gave the impression that the Council was powerless.
Let your Councilmembers know that they are not powerless. The Montgomery County Council has a vote in determining if the Ewing Center School will be demolished.
10,000 MCPS students sitting in classroom trailers will be watching how the Montgomery County Councilmembers vote on the resolution before the Council to strip the Ewing Center School of $16.6 million in renovation funds.
So, and correct me if I'm wrong, the County Council is responsible for approving lots of new housing at Shady Grove (just across the train tracks and downwind from the Waste Transfer Station, no less LOL) and for relocating County services to a shiny new building and for kicking out the bus depot with no real plan as to where to put it? The County Council just dropped this into MCPS's lap for MCPS to deal with? Why is it OK the County Council find a new home for the displaced County services but not for the bus depot? I get that the County and MCPS are two different entities, but pushing a 30-plus-acre site out into the larger community without a plan is pretty crass of the County Council. MCPS's idea that they can squeeze this much use out of a site that's too small and is also very suboptimally located is ridiculous enough on its own, but if the County can relocate County services, the County can do its Eminent Domain thing to find the bus depot a more appropriate site. I'd be surprised if there's not a site along the Gude Drive corridor that would not work better, or perhaps two smaller sites, one near or off Gude and another located in another community, along roads that could better handle that kind of traffic.
ReplyDeleteOther potential parcels of land;
ReplyDelete1. Behind the gigantic new Animal Shelter they built at Shady Grove & Muncaster Mill
2 The Airpark (close the airfield?)
3. Under the Power Lines (all over the county)
4. Near empty Lake Forest Mall parking lot
5. MoCo Fair Grounds
Let's not forget the Silver Spring Transit Center.
DeleteTerrible answers. Sidney Katz is proving just as useless in County Council as he was as Mayor. He took 7 minutes to say he wasn't going to do anything about the problem. But... the County Council is the one who is claiming the old bus depot and they DO control the money. Just because he doesn't want to do anything, doesn't mean he can't do anything (or at least give some other suggestions).
ReplyDelete