Public Opinion and Gaithersburg West

I don't usually cross post from other blogs, but this poll from Maryland Politics Watch hits home - really, honestly, truly, impacting the neighborhood where I live and the quality of life in Gaithersburg and Rockville.

Read the companion piece from Donna Baron, and then cast your vote.

Does the plan make sense?  You decide.

Blair HS Lessons on Deficit Spending

Below is the text from the Blair PTSA of their Senior Class Graduation Package.

Note - this package includes a MANDATORY fee of $35 for commencement speakers, flowers, senior bags, and floral arrangements.

Mandatory fees?  Isn't that against the Maryland Constitution?

Read further and you will see that approximately 100 of Blair's 625 graduating class need full or partial assistance or otherwise cannot pay the fees.  The rest of the community is asked to to contribute to "support these students."

Does this mean that only students who are sponsored attend the ceremonies?  That's not legal either.

Note to Blair Administration:  Instead of seeking handouts, how about skipping the flowers and the graduation bags.  The buses too - why have everyone drive to Silver Spring when the families will be going down to DC anyway?  Plan a ceremony within the means of the student body.

I guess another item missing from the MCPS curriculum is economics.   Logic too - its common sense to only spend what you know you can afford.

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Senior Package Information
Montgomery Blair High School
Class of 2010




PLEASE SELECT FROM THE ITEMS BELOW. TURN IN THIS SHEET, ALONG WITH YOUR TOTAL PAYMENT TO Ms. Fus in the attendance office during 5A and 5B. All money orders and checks should be made out to Montgomery Blair High School. Please print your name and ID number on all checks and money orders. No checks will be accepted after 4/29.


Your Name ______________________________ ID Number ____________




CAP & GOWN + TASSEL - $35.00
TASSEL ONLY (required for graduation) - $10.00
SILVER QUILL - $6.00
PANORAMIC CLASS PICTURE $25.00
SENIOR DUES (MANDATORY) - $35.00

Dues cover the expenses of:
The venue balance of DAR, Honorarium for Commencement Speaker, Programs, Senior
bags, and Floral arrangements

I WOULD LIKE TO SPONSOR A STUDENT:


CAP & GOWN +TASSEL - $35.00
SENIOR DUES $35.00
CAP & GOWN +TASSEL and SENIOR DUES - $70.00


TOTAL



*Please note that Blair's senior class has approximately 60 ESOL students and around 40 non-ESOL students who will need full or partial financial assistance to pay for graduation. If you or you know a community member who is willing to sponsor a student with dues or fees, please let Ms. Smith know. It is absolutely paramount to support these students and their families in reaching this important milestone.


If you have any questions please see Ms. Claudette Smith, senior class sponsor, in room 120.

Parents' Coalition Prize, Innovation in Education: The 11th Annual National History Day Competition

The Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland is proud to sponsor a prize for the 11th Annual National History Day competition to be held March 10th at Richard Montgomery High School.

National History Day is organized here by the wonderful Montgomery County Historical Society, especially the remarkable Emily Correll.

This year the theme is: Innovation in History: Impact and Change. Find more information here, or go to http://www.nationalhistoryday.org/AnnualTheme.htm and for local information, here, or go to http://www.montgomeryhistory.org/education_county_history.


The Parents' Coalition Prize will be awarded for an entry with the theme of Innovation in Education.

Most of the high schools and middle schools in the county participate in this event. Your child's teachers will be able to work with them and advise them for this competition.

White Flint Sector Plan: Congestion Pricing?

Get ready for it folks! The Montgomery County, Maryland Planning, Housing, and Economic Development (PHED) Committee is now taking up ‘Transportation Issues’ for the proposed White Flint Sector Plan. And what are the recommendations of the PHED staff, in the staff report by Glenn Orlin, the Deputy Council Staff director?


Well, let’s see how our great ‘vision’ for a lowered carbon footprint, ‘sustainable’ urban’ ‘pedestrian-friendly’ development fares. First Mr. Orlin makes clear, “Incorporating a new or expanded transportation project in a master plan does not even guarantee it will be built in the long term.”

Yep, there you have it in black-and-white on the first page of the staff report. We may never get any new public transportation. 20,000 new jobs, with people needing to go to and from work sites? We’ll get those. 9800 new residential units on 400 acres? We’ll get those. 7.49 million new square feet of commercial/residential space? We’ll get that. But the public transportation needed to support the tens of thousands of new residents and job holders? Well, not so fast…

Instead, Mr. Orlin states that ‘A plan in balance does not mean the traffic conditions at build-out will be deemed ‘good’ or even ‘fair’ more likely the traffic congestion will be at the borderline between ‘tolerable’ and ‘intolerable.’ Finally, an honest public employee. The traffic will be at the borderline between tolerable and intolerable.

How does the ‘Plan’ envision achieving even the most pitiful ‘tolerable’ traffic? Well, the non-auto-driver mode share for employees in White Flint would have to increase to 50 percent. Or, as Mr. Orlin posits it, “…so this would mean the proportion of commuters to White Flint not driving would have to nearly double.”

How could it reach 50%? How about congestion pricing? How about removing the median on Montrose Road between I-270 and Montrose Parkway and replacing it with a reversible lane, as is done on Colesville Road or Georgia Avenue? How about widening Rockville Pike from 6 to 8 lanes between Edson Lane and the Beltway? That is what the Planning Board and Mr. Orlin envision for our community. The roads should look more like the roads that represent some of the worst traffic nightmares in the region.

If you can’t wait for this traffic disaster to come your way, just sit tight and it will. IF you don’t quite see this ‘vision’ for your neighborhood, or for our county, please email the County Council immediately. Tell them you don’t want the ‘intolerable’ traffic that the Council staff says will happen. Tell them you don’t think the FAR is in balance with the infrastructure. Tell them you want the density decreased so our infrastructure can support it and tell them not to approve unachievable density plans. This is not sustainable.

Who is on the PHED Committee? Councilmembers Mike Knapp, Nancy Floreen, and Marc Elrich.

To contact the council email county.council@montgomerycountymd.gov; to read Mr. Orlin’s report, go to  http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/content/council/pdf/agenda/cm/2009/091130/20091130_PHED2.pdf

The Arrogance of Planning

Roger Lewis, in today's Washington Post, writes about master planning. Using the language of the developers, so familiar now to those of us in Montgomery County, Maryland, he admonishes us for being so selfish as to only care about traffic and ease of getting from point A to point B. Mr. Lewis testified at the Gaithersburg West Master Plan Public Hearing last Thursday night, September 17. After his testimony as he walked up the aisle, developers crowded around him to shake his hand. Having never met Mr. Lewis before I have no idea if he has spent much time in the county. Does he take the red line? Who knows. Did he take a bus or metro to get to the hearing? Who knows. Those of us concerned about inappropriate unsustainable density, however, have many more concerns than increasing congestion. We are concerned about overcrowded schools. Mr. Lewis never mentions our schools. We are concerned about the quality of our infrastructure, having seen watermains burst along River Road and most recently in Dundalk, Maryland. He never mentions our failing infrastructure. Mr. Lewis is not concerned about restoring the natural environment. He has no concerns about the increase in particulates that our children will be breathing in as the traffic increases to such a degree that the planners themselves, in order to shoehorn in the developments they want, adjust the amount of congestion allowed in the proposed high-density developments.

Mr. Lewis is another example of how Montgomery County is being ‘governed,’ from the top down, by supposed experts who know more than we about our quality of life. The arrogance is unbelievable.

ScienceCity - More Research Needed

From our friends at Scale-it-Back concerning upcoming events relating to the Science City development at Belward Farm.

Scale It Back