Save Rock Creek Hills Park? Well, we sure tried!: Citizens Appeal to State, Seek to Protect Park.

Friday, June 1, 2012

Citizens Appeal to State, Seek to Protect Park.

Seeking to preserve an important county asset, citizens of Kensington’s Rock Creek Hills community have filed an appeal with the Maryland State Board of Education, asking the State board to overturn the Montgomery County school board’s recent decision to take the site of Rock Creek Hills Park to build a middle school.

In their appeal, the citizens, joined by the Rock Creek Hills Citizens' Association, write that the county board "... failed to fulfill its obligation to select a site that would most adequately meet the program needs of its students and assure that it was making the most fiscally prudent decision."

The citizens also intend to file litigation to compel the state of Maryland to enforce its Program Open Space law and protect Rock Creek Hills Park from being improperly converted from park use.

Rock Creek Hills Park, the heart of the Rock Creek Hills community, is an important recreational asset for Montgomery County, featuring two regulation soccer fields, which are in high demand and short supply in the dense "DownCounty" area. Last year, the county's Parks Department issued permits for over 1200 hours of use of the fields (such permitted use is the only use for which records are kept) by groups from around the county, including the state-champion B-CC High School girls' soccer team.

The appellants are hopeful that they will prevail, and that the park and all its recreational assets will be protected for future generations.

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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..."