Save Rock Creek Hills Park? Well, we sure tried!: "... members of the County Board recognized that Rock Creek Hills had no effective notice that its local park would be selected ..."

Saturday, August 6, 2011

"... members of the County Board recognized that Rock Creek Hills had no effective notice that its local park would be selected ..."

“The County Board does not dispute ... that [their] resolution to select the Rock Creek Hills Local Park site ... was not available until 2:00 p.m. on the day of the meeting and was not available to the public as a whole before then. For this reason several members of the County Board recognized that Rock Creek Hills had no effective notice that its local park would be selected as the site of new middle school. The County Executive, therefore, wisely urged the County Board not to act until the Rock Creek Hills community had a chance to express its views on the site selection issues, advice which the County Board ignored.”

- from the July 27th letter from John M. Robinson, President, Rock Creek Hills Citizens' Association, to the Maryland State Board of Education, being the "Response of the Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association, et al. to the Montgomery County Board of Education Motion to Dismiss, or in the Alternative, Motion for Summary Affirmance" (emphasis in original).

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Who Said That?

"When the [Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission] developed [Rock Creek Hills Park] in the early 1990s they accepted funds from the Program Open Space. This is a program managed by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to distribute funds from the Federal Land and Water Conservation Fund to preserve open space. The use of Program Open Space funds was inconsistent with the reclamation terms of the transfer agreement under which the M-NCPPC took title to the property. This was the case since use of these funds places restrictions on future public use of parks, in contradiction with the terms of the original transfer agreement..."
– Dr. Joshua Starr, Superintendent, Montgomery County Public Schools.

From the MCPS Site Selection Advisory Committee Minority Reports:

The B-CC High School NAACP Parents' Council wrote that they "... cannot support the recommendation to build the new middle school in a potentially racially divisive and socially isolating location. ... We, therefore, ask the Superintendent and the Board of Education to decline to adopt Rock Creek Hills Local Park as the site for the new middle school."

The Lyttonsville Civic Association wrote that "...MCPS staff set inappropriate boundaries for discussion... ...MCPS staff cut off discussion to insist that a vote be taken before the committee had finished considering all their options. Staff ... made procedural rulings that affected the ability of some representatives to speak freely. Some representatives voiced concerns that they were being led to a predetermined conclusion."

Ms. Brooke Farquhar (Parks Department) wrote: "Costs were not thoroughly evaluated in the process and misinformation may have prejudiced the votes of committee members.... The process lacked a robust analysis. The potential sites should have been analyzed more thoroughly, based on detailed information that would allow consistent comparison across the sites."

Mr. Frederick V. Boyd (Planning Board) wrote: "[T]he rating process used for selecting sites did not provide a real opportunity to consider the community character and quality of life consequences of choosing a candidate site. ... [D]escriptions appear to have been written to enable easier consideration of some public sites..."