"The district doesn’t have requirements for athletic spaces at middle school sites, [James Song, Director of Facilities Management] said."

"Under a Montgomery County Public Schools plan, a new Kensington middle school would be squeezed on a site with inadequate space that will make the school inferior, some opponents of the plan say...

A group of residents said they are concerned that the site plan, as it stands, would limit athletic and academic spaces and pose safety hazards for drivers and pedestrians. The result, they said, is a school that would fall below the district’s project guidelines and would be unequal to other county schools, particularly Westland Middle School in the same cluster."

– From the article "Community members seek changes to Kensington school plan" by Lindsay A. Powers in this week's Gazette newspaper.

"The Montgomery County Planning Board recently told the school system to revise its plan for the Kensington site to save more forest area overall and specifically some larger trees..."

Please, read the Gazette article by Lindsay A. Powers.

“... we have what amounts to law enforcement authority over the forest conservation statute,” Anderson said. “... I don’t understand why you’re here at the eleventh hour saying [the Planning Board is] going to cause a major delay if [it] insists on a position which was advanced by our staff for the first time nine months ago.”

“You seem to be saying we were working collaboratively, but the problem is that we have what amounts to law enforcement authority over the forest conservation statute,” Anderson said. “I understand you have a disagreement with our staff but I don’t understand why you’re here at the eleventh hour saying [the Planning Board is] going to cause a major delay if [it] insists on a position which was advanced by our staff for the first time nine months ago.”

- from the article "MCPS And Planners Sparring Over Design Of New Bethesda-Chevy Chase School" by Aaron Kraut on BethesdaNow.

"The Bethesda-Chevy Chase middle school site selection process was rushed and did not allow for a complete cost and impact analysis, according to recently released minority reports."

The Gazette, March 21, 2012.

The article "Bethesda-Chevy Chase middle school site selection rushed, critics say" by Jessica Ablamsky appears in today's Gazette newspaper.

Double Feature!

Today's Gazette newspaper includes two articles by Alex Ruoff:

• "Residents, officials debate parks in Kensington, Silver Spring: Neighborhood groups say use of federal funds prohibits building school"
• "School search could pit could pit parks against schools: Neighborhood groups, high prices present daunting tasks for school system"

For more on the latest site selection advisory committee meeting, see:

• "The Battle Continues" in Julie Rasicot's "Education Matters" blog at BethesdaMagazine.com
• "Middle School Siting Could Pit MCPS Against Parks: The Two Departments Disagree on the Use of Open Space" by Damian Garde at Patch.com

"...what is actually at stake is the total loss of Rock Creek Hills Park."

"While phrases such as '...construction of a middle school in a park...' may conjure images of a tidy schoolhouse set back in a bucolic green space, what is actually at stake is the total loss of Rock Creek Hills Park."

- from our letter in today's Gazette newspaper.

"Time to reopen middle school site selection process."

"... there is overwhelming factual evidence that a school on this site cannot be created with full parity to Westland. There simply is not the space to build a full academic facility and the complete athletic program of Westland. Should we build a school that will disappoint parents on the day it opens because it can not offer all of the programs that Westland offers?"

- from a letter by Ms. Cathy Fink in today's Gazette.

"The rules have suddenly changed mid-way through and we have to ask why."

An article by Sarah Gantz in today's Gazette quotes Bruce Crispell of Montgomery County Public Schools as stating that it is "impossible" for a feasibility study committee to vote, but then points out that MCPS's Dennis Cross presided over such votes at two meetings of the feasibility study for B-CC middle school #2 on the site of Rock Creek Hills Park:

"Because anyone can attend each meeting without obligation to attend every meeting, the group cannot have an official membership; without an official membership, it is impossible to vote, [Crispell] said.

...

However, Cross has called for a vote at two meetings. ...at the third meeting, July 13, the group voted to eliminate four of seven designs..."

"The rush to build an inadequate middle school."

"I feel badly for MCPS, that it must go forward with the current feasibility study to try to design a school for such an inadequate site. It already sees from the third out of six feasibility study meetings that this proposed middle school does not meet, under any of the design options presented to date, all of the educational requirements."

- from a letter by Ms. Shannon R. Hamm in today's Gazette.

Front page news!

Council: School site, overcrowding are big problems

School board, planning board to consider joint management of land

The article by Andrew Ujifusa appears in today's Gazette.

"It would obliterate the park ... We want to work to find a better way."

From an article by Damian Garde in Kensington Patch, featuring comments by Montgomery County Parks Director Mary Bradford on Rock Creek Hills Park:

"Bradford said the Parks Department has long been amenable to sharing the use of sites with MCPS, but that the proposed middle school would leave no room for that.

'This is not a matter of finding a space where it works together with the park,' she said. 'It would obliterate the park, and that's different from sharing the site. We want to work to find a better way.' "

"... inadequate from day one ..."

From a report by Matt Bush this morning on WAMU-FM, on yesterday's joint meeting of the Montgomery County Council’s Education (ED) & Planning, Housing and Economic Development (PHED) Committees:

"Some, including Shannon Hamm, believe [Rock Creek Hills Park] is too small to build a school that will give students the same education provided at the middle school that currently serves the area: Westland Middle School.

'If a school was opened at that site in 2015, it would be inadequate from day one,' Hamm says."

"... second- or third-hand ..."

From an article by Lisa Gartner in the Washington Examiner, on yesterday's joint meeting of the Montgomery County Council’s Education (ED) & Planning, Housing and Economic Development (PHED) Committees:

"Planning board Chairwoman Françoise Carrier said she was 'very distressed to learn second- or third-hand that the school system had identified one of our parks as a new school site.' "

"Can you fit a square peg in a round hole?"

"Can you fit a square peg in a round hole? If you pound hard enough," said Cathy Fink, a Rock Creek Hills resident. "You can smack a building anywhere, but in this case, not without having a severe impact on the community."

- from today's article by Sarah Gantz in the Gazette.

Front page news!

"Residents closest to the park selected by the Montgomery County school board as the preferred site for a middle school are ramping up efforts to halt the process they have described as an abuse of authority, a betrayal of parents who support schools and a blatant disregard for the community most affected by the decision."

Please, read the article by Sarah Gantz in the Gazette.

Sunday Feature: Media Visitors.

Rock Creek Hills Park has recently been visited by:

Max Smith of WTOP (FM 103.5):

Chris Gordon of NBC4 TV:

Elizabeth Jia of WUSA TV9:

[Click on a journalist's name to see their story on the park!]

"The greater good."

On Thursday, NBC4's Chris Gordon visited Rock Creek Hills Park, and aired an excellent report on that evening's 6:00 o'clock news, letting viewers know that our park has "... two soccer fields, tennis courts, a playground, and now a controversy that has brought neighbors together."

In the piece, Board of Ed spokesman Brian Edwards said: “The greater good must be another middle school in the Bethesda-Chevy Chase area and there is just not a lot of vacant land in the Bethesda area.”

[Note to Mr. Brian Edwards: Parks are not "vacant land".]

Now, what most people mean by "greater good" is the, um, greater good. You gotta compare the goods.

So, in our case, you'd take the good our park does as the heart of Rock Creek Hills; the good our park does as the green setting for the Kensington Park retirement community (built on much of the site of the former Kensington Junior High); the good our park does by providing a pair of regulation soccer fields, used county-wide by youth and adult soccer and lacrosse teams, (including the Bethesda Chevy Chase High School girls soccer team); the good our park does by providing facilities for tennis, basketball, and roller hockey; the good our park does as a green buffer to protect water quality from Rock Creek to the Potomac to Chesapeake Bay; the good our park's treed areas do, featuring century-old oak and poplars that provide refuge for wild life and purify our air – anyway, you'd have to take all that good, and weigh it against the "good" of a frantic scheme to cram a 20 acre middle school complex onto 8 acres of soccer park and steep creekside hills requiring prison-like retaining walls on a site with poor road access and no community sidewalks, all costing taxpayers millions of dollars. You'd have to choose which of those would be the "greater good".

But, the Board of Ed didn't do that. They didn't weigh any of the good the park now does. They just didn't. They let us know Tuesday that none of that makes any difference to them, or was considered by them in any way. So, perhaps, what they mean by "greater good" is different than what most people mean by "greater good".

More fundamentally, though, there's another set of goods to be weighed. On the one hand, you'd have to take the "good" of a government agency seizing a cherished community park on four hours notice, with no transparency or community involvement, without having notified any of the park's neighbors, including the hundreds of elderly residents of Kensington Park. Then, you'd balance that against the good of responsive and transparent government, making wise land use decisions following community consultation and involvement. You'd have to choose which one of those would be the "greater good".

We are for the "greater good". Government transparency, community involvement, and communication are for the greater good. But again, what the Board of Ed means by "greater good" may be different than what most people mean by "greater good".

"Eleven-foot school wall incenses community."

An interesting article by Susan Belford appeared in the Potomac Almanac almost exactly one year ago:

"We, the parents and the community have been duped," said Steve Weitz, representing the feeling of frustration in the standing-room-only community meeting of Cabin John parents and Fox Hills residents on Monday, May 17 at Bells Mill Elementary.

They met with James Song, director of the Division of Construction for Montgomery County Public Schools, and his team of architects, engineers, and project managers. The community’s concern is that the MCPS team had known for well over a year that the 11-foot retaining wall would be constructed along Gainsborough Road in front of the school — but had never communicated this architectural change to parents or to community members.

Residents only discovered this discrepancy when they observed a huge wall being built in front of the school....

Please, read the article.

Channel 9's Elizabeth Jia reports on Rock Creek Hills Park.

"They appeared to me to have even less time to react and respond..."

According to an article by Sarah Gantz and Andrew Ujifusa in today's Gazette, Board of Education member Michael A. Durso, who cast the lone vote against Thursday's motion to seize Rock Creek Hills Park, said afterwards:

"I didn't see a lot of difference between the shift from Rosemary Hills to Rock Creek Hills. They appeared to me to have even less time to react and respond than the Rosemary Hills people."