"Kensington Citizens Appeal Board of Ed’s Park Grab"

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 31, 2011

Contact: David Kaplan

Email: SaveRCHP@gmail.com

Kensington Citizens Appeal Board of Ed’s Park Grab

Community cites violation of rules, lack of community input, arbitrary and irrational selection process in choosing park as site for Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster middle school

Kensington, Md. – The citizens of Kensington’s Rock Creek Hills community filed an appeal with the Maryland State Board of Education, to overturn the Montgomery County school board’s April 28 decision to build a middle school complex on the site of the neighborhood’s small park. The Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association (RCHCA) cited the County Board’s “abuse of discretion” and “imprudent” actions when the Board confiscated Rock Creek Hills Park as the site of a future middle school, without any community input, notice, or adequate factual support for doing so.

In its appeal, RCHCA emphasized concerns over “the potential impact on the retirement community that was funded in part by the Housing Opportunities Commission on public land, and particularly on its residents,” referring to the Kensington Park retirement community, which stands on much of the site of the former Kensington Junior High School, adjacent to Rock Creek Hills Park.

The appeal criticized the lack of transparency in the secretive selection process, and the absence of any Rock Creek Hills residents on the Site Selection Advisory Committee (SSAC). “From the outset, the site selection process was arbitrary and unfair. There was not a single community represented from the area north of East-West Highway or east of Connecticut Avenue, where the two sites that were ultimately given first and second ranking are located.” Board of Ed member Mike Durso noted the absence of community representation when he cast the lone vote against the site selection.

The SSAC’s March 8 report on which the recommendation of Rock Creek Hills Park is based contains numerous factual errors. Most sites were mischaracterized, and evaluation criteria were not clearly defined or consistently applied. Ms. Francoise Carrier, Chair of the Maryland National Park and Planning Commission, noted in an April 27 letter to the County Board: “Our representative has stated that he did not have the opportunity to present the cost and other data that would have made for a fairer comparison among all the sites under consideration, and that his objections to conversion of parkland were ignored.” The Parks Department also noted the use of Federal Land and Water Conservation Funds (LWCF), via Maryland’s Program Open Space (POS), to renovate and improve the site for use as a park. The State of Maryland would “have to be made whole” for the use of these funds, and a replacement park of equivalent size and amenities created in the vicinity of the existing park, per POS.

The County Board’s standard for a middle-school site is 20 acres, while the flat terrain at Rock Creek Hills Park is less than half of that. Rock Creek Hills Park has two regulation soccer fields; Board of Ed testimony states that a middle school built on the site of the park would have room for none.

Though the County Board described Rock Creek Hills Park as “vacant”, it is a thriving center of the Rock Creek Hills community and the BCC cluster. Its soccer fields host hundreds of athletes weekly, including the State champion B-CC High School girls soccer team.

Just hours prior to the site selection vote on April 28, the County Board changed its meeting agenda to include Rock Creek Hills Park. The County Board staff’s original recommendation of another park, the Rosemary Hills/Lyttonsville Park, was dated March 8, 2011. From March 8 until the afternoon of April 28, 2011, the only site scheduled for County Board action was the Rosemary Hills/Lyttonsville Park site.

Also on April 28, Montgomery County Executive Isaiah Leggett wrote to the Local Board, requesting that “parcels used for park and recreation purposes be avoided,” and urging the Board “… to undertake an aggressive community and public input process to ensure that resident concerns are discussed and addressed before action is taken”. However, the Board disregarded Mr. Leggett’s prudent guidance when it voted only hours later to take Rock Creek Hills Park.

“The County Board’s one-day rush-to-judgment ignored many facts, was deficient in its reasoning, and failed to engage the residents who will be most impacted by its decision,” stated Mr. Sam Statland, RCHCA Vice President. “The RCHCA is requesting that the site selection decision at issue be halted immediately and be brought back to the County Board for further consideration and involvement of local communities and the Parks Department.”

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FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Contact: David Kaplan

Email: SaveRCHP@gmail.com

ON THE WEB:

Friends of Rock Creek Hills Park: http://SaveRockCreekHillsPark.org

Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association: http://rchca.org

Kensington Park retirement community: http://KensingtonRetirement.com

Respect for the elderly?

[Photo: Soccer in Rock Creek Hills Park,

and the Kensington Park retirement community.]

Thanks to good land-use decisions and wise stewardship, Rock Creek Hills Park is a success story of multi-purpose outdoor recreational space, a small park that serves three distinct purposes:

• The heart of Rock Creek Hills: Neighborhood park, with playgrounds.
• A small soccer park: Two regulation fields, used by youth and adult teams county-wide, including the champion B-CC High School girls' soccer team.
• Park setting for the Kensington Park retirement community (which was built on much of the site of the old Kensington Junior High).

Beyond serving each of these communities separately, the park also brings them together, as Rock Creek Hills families, Montgomery County soccer (and lacrosse) moms and dads, and Kensington Park residents mingle & meet in the green kid-friendly space. We love our park!

On October 15, 1992, the Kensington Park retirement community (then "Sunrise at Kensington Park") sent a letter (below) to Miss Edith Ray Saul, describing their Rock Creek Hills Park setting: "... Sunrise is adjacent to a public park with tennis courts, playground, field, and walking paths."

On May 23, 2011, following a meeting of our County Board of Ed, MCPS Real Estate Director Janice Turpin (who, the week before, had called our beloved park "residue"), answered this question from a citizen: "Do you think that an Alzheimer's, Independent Living, and Assisted Living facility could stay in business long, once you replace its park setting with a middle school complex?" Ms. Turpin's answer was: "I don't know." Though this answer might seem shocking, it is perhaps not surprising, as there is no indication that anyone from MCPS has given any thought to Kensington Park or its residents.

Indeed, during Monday's meeting, Board member Patricia O'Neill said that her in-laws recently turned down a long-awaited opportunity to move into Kensington Park. Wonder why that would be? Did she warn them about a planned middle school complex that would be far too large for the site, with inadequate land and infrastructure for peaceful and appropriate co-existence with its neighbors?

Precisely! (MCMLXXIX)

A May 15, 1979 M-NCPPC memo:

"Because this site was acquired with public funds, and the outdoor recreational facilities (especially the ballfields) serve acute and irreplaceable needs in the area, the public should be permitted uninterrupted and perpetual use of the outdoor recreational facilities."

You just can't make this stuff up.

Samaha Associates, the Virginia firm responsible for the Great Wall of Cabin John, that so infuriated a community, is the architect hired by the Board to develop a site plan to replace our beloved Rock Creek Hills Park with an inadequate middle school.

Here is the text of the email announcement of the "Facility Advisory Committee":

To: Owner Or Current Resident

From: Dennis F. Cross, AIA, , Project Manager

Subject: Bethesda Chevy Chase Middle School # 2 - New School

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) is about to conduct a Feasibility Study for a new middle school to be located at Rock Creek Hills Local Park, 3701 Saul Road, Kensington, MD 20895, a former school site.

The design is being conducted by a Facility Advisory Committee (FAC) that is chaired by the Westland Middle School Principal; Mr. Daniel J. Vogelman. The FAC will include representatives of the schools, PTA, neighbors, government agencies, the design architects, Samaha Architects, and staff from MCPS Division of Construction.

The purpose of these meetings is to develop a preliminary design for the school project. It is an evolving process whereby input from the previous meeting is incorporated into the ongoing proposed design. These meetings are to determine spatial relationships within the school's interior, the pedestrian and traffic flow of the site and how the school will fit into the community at large.

As shown below, the FAC meeting/work sessions are scheduled in the afternoons and evenings to allow maximum community involvement.

FAC Work Session Meeting #1 Wednesday, June 8, 2011 7:00 pm BCC HS Choral Room

FAC Work Session Meeting #2 Wednesday, June 22 2011 2:00 pm BCC HS Choral Room

FAC Work Session Meeting #3 Wednesday, July 13, 2011 7:00 pm BCC HS Choral Room

FAC Work Session Meeting #4 Thursday, July 28, 2011 2:00 pm BCC HS Choral Room

FAC Work Session Meeting #5 Wednesday, August, 10, 2011 7:00 pm BCC HS Choral Room

FAC Work Session Meeting #6 Wednesday, August, 17, 2011 2:00 pm BCC HS Choral Room

FAC PTA/Community Presentation Thursday, September, 8, 2011 7:00 pm Westland MS

This letter is to inform you of the schedule for the design process and to encourage you to participate. While all are invited, the community is encouraged to send representatives from their respective streets, areas, and community associations. Everyone present will hear about the design process, its timetable, and the plans for keeping people informed about the project.

If you would like to participate, please contact me at 240-876-4586 or send an email to dennis_cross@mcpsmd.org.

Respectfully,

Dennis F. Cross, AIA

Project Manager

There are a lot of gems there, including the myth of the former school site, but if we had to choose, our favorite would be the proposition that scheduling meetings weekdays at 2 PM, which conflicts both with normal working hours and with obligations to pick up kids after school, is done "... to allow maximum community involvement."

We encourage people to attend. But don't forget, no matter what happens at these meetings, you just can't predict what might happen later, "... after the community involvement portion." Oh, wait, maybe you can...

"We haven't notified anyone."

Last night, the County Board of Ed heard from supporters of Rock Creek Hills Park; later, they heard from MCPS's Bruce Crispell, Joyce Jessell, & Janice Turpin, who had briefed the Rock Creek Hills Citizen's Association emergency meeting one week ago (prelude to the overwhelming RCHCA vote to oppose the grab for Rock Creek Hills Park by all reasonable means, including appeal to the State of Maryland).

After last night's meeting, the trio spoke briefly with citizens. Here MCPS Construction Director Joyce Jessell addresses concerns about the effect of the loss of their park setting on the residents of the Kensington Park retirement community (which stands on much of the site of the former Kensington Junior High School):

There's good government, and then there's this.

During last night's Board of Ed meeting, Board Member Berthiaume said:

“... we are substantially overcrowded and while it’s certainly possible to look back and say where was the long-range planning, it doesn’t do anything to change the fact that we are where we are now in terms of being in this area, as well as many other areas, very, very badly overcrowded, and not just in need of a school soon, but yesterday, in this area. Whatever flaws the report may have had are more or less irrelevant at this point because the parks are off limits, that’s been made clear to us. As we’ve discussed, Ms. Carrier’s letter indicated that they’re not handing us any parks. But we’ve got to put a school somewhere. And this is a school that was surplussed*, to which the board kept a right of reclaim. So when we talk about due process, that was written into the deed and therefore we are exercising a legal right under a deed that we reserved. Now I will say for myself that I’m happy to take you up on your offer. If you can show me another site in this cluster that will cost us less and be of equivalent size and not delay our CIP [Capital Improvement Program], show it to me.”

_____

*Of course, the Kensington Park retirement community was built on much of the site of the former Kensington Junior High School; as a result, Rock Creek Hills Park is much smaller than the old KJH site, and has greatly reduced road accessibility.

Last night.

Friends of Rock Creek Hills Park filled the Board's big meeting room:

Too bad the Board wasn't there.

No, they were behind closed & guarded doors,

... in their small hearing room, which holds only 50...

... leaving everyone else in the "overflow room" watching the meeting on TV.

While most folks couldn't get in, some, who had signed up earlier in the day, got to talk:

Everyone deserves a voice. Thanks for turning out last night!

[And please see testimony: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ]

"No wonder you don't want to talk about this." [Testimony at tonight's Board of Ed meeting]

Good evening President Barclay and Board members,

My name is James Pekar. I am a resident of Rock Creek Hills, and a neighbor of Rock Creek Hills Park. Like other park neighbors, I had no notice from you that you were considering taking our park.

On April 28th I got four hours notice, via neighborhood email, that our park was under threat. The Kensington Park retirement community, built on much of the site of the former Kensington Junior High School, had three hours notice.

Although he had been told that speaking slots were full, and that no one from Rock Creek Hills would be permitted to speak, the Vice President of our Citizens' Association came and pleaded. Eventually, he, another neighbor, and the Manager of Kensington Park, were allowed to speak. We watched on TV, as they told you we had just hours’ notice of your proposal, and pleaded with you to table your motion, to allow time for community input.

We have since learned that County Executive Leggett wrote to you earlier that day, urging you "to undertake an aggressive community and public input process to ensure that resident concerns are discussed and addressed before action is taken."

We watched you on TV. Deaf to the pleas of our community, and in disregard of the recommendation of the County Executive, you voted that night to take our park. How shocking, and how foolish! Our park fails all your site standards. No wonder you don't want to talk about this. It just doesn't make sense. It's a deeply flawed process, a mistaken decision, a deficient site, and it would be an inadequate school.

But let's not talk about acreage, roads, sidewalks, retaining walls, or parking garages. Let's talk about American values: The right of citizens not to be deprived of liberty without due process; the right of children to schools that are good, safe, and equitable; the right of communities to have input into local decisions, rather than having them made by people from other communities; our right to have government decisions made with integrity, not via a secretive, arbitrary, and inaccurate process; taxpayers’ right to have investments wisely stewarded.

Take a deep breath. Table this motion. Re-open the middle school site selection process. Conduct a proper evaluation of legitimate sites with public consultation – none of that has yet been done. Now is the time to start.

"Our eyes are on you." [Testimony at tonight's Board of Ed meeting]

My name is David Kaplan and I am here tonight to ask you to table your vote on the selection of an Architect and Master Planner for a new middle school in the BCC Cluster. I would also like for you to re-open the site selection process. I hope you will honor my request to demonstrate that you believe that your constituents should have a voice – a chance for input – in the major decisions that affect our communities and children. Our eyes are on you. Since April 28, when with four hours notice you made a major change and declared that Rock Creek Hills Park would be the site of a middle school, you have made our community feel invisible.

We have so many stakeholders who want you to see us – to hear our voice. Our community includes the residents of Rock Creek Hills, the elderly who live in Kensington Park, and environmentalists. Our community includes the “early morning exercise group”, the sports teams that use the park every day after school, the soccer teams that utilize the two regulation size soccer fields from morning to night each weekend, the hockey players, and those who use the park to meet friends and to walk. It includes the “soccer moms”…who bring their families and friends to the park, who use the playground, the pavilion and the picnic tables. Our community is pro-education.

Our community includes the 350 friends of Rock Creek Hills Park facebook page, those who follow our blog (5000 reads over two weeks), those who believe in transparency and accountability. What do we all have in common?

The sense that we are invisible to you, that for some reason we do not deserve a voice in the middle school site selection.

Let me say that we appreciate the vote of Board Member Durso, the one board member who understood that residents deserve a voice. And we appreciate the 3 brave MCPS staff members who faced a community meeting of over 300 community members who met last week to try to understand what happened to us and our park. The lack of any board member attendance at the meeting just added to the general sense that we are invisible to you.

So I ask that you look at us – all of us– and let us know that we count – that we deserve a voice. That the process whereby a site selection committee included numerous representatives from Chevy Chase but none from Kensington or Silver Spring is, at its heart, flawed and non-representative. That most of the sites you looked at were not even viable. I was amazed to learn that there was no consideration of the impact on the senior citizens living in the assisted living facility that is co-located with the park. That there was no investigation performed on the limitations associated with use of federal Land and Water Conservation Funds prior to moving forward, no preliminary environmental and infrastructure assessment, nor a quick cut assessment of the challenges posed by nearly 1/3 of the site being significantly sloped and populated by 100+ year old trees that cannot be removed.

After tonight, after raising all these points, I have one question: Are we still invisible to you? Please show your constituents that we are not. Please postpone selection of the Architect/Master Planner this evening AND re-open the entire process. It is the right and democratic thing to do.

Thank you.

"In this park 50 languages say hi to each other." [Testimony at tonight's Board of Ed meeting]

Mr. Barclay and members of the School Board.

My name is Cathy Fink. I am a multi-GRAMMY Award winner in the field of children's music and have spent much of my career merging the arts and education. I am here to urge you to re- open the site selection process for a new middle school in the BCC Cluster and keep Rock Creek Hills Park intact as a fabulous community park.

In this park 50 languages say hi to each other.

In this park children learn to bike ride, roller blade, swing and play.

In this park, several hundreds of people converge every weekend for soccer and there are daily after school games.

In this park people leave the internet and create community while walking their dogs, playing with their children, and enjoying the green space.

In this park people of all ages and all demographics get exercise of the body and heart.

In this neighborhood, we have ½ block of sidewalk.

In this neighborhood we have small streets that will not easily manage 50 school buses and hundreds of parents' cars a day.

Most importantly, in this neighborhood, we are united in our belief that we were not given adequate participation in a process that should not be about schools vs. parks, but is about finding the truly BEST location for a much needed school.

You have ignored the recommendation of County Executive Leggett when he said, "I urge the Board of Education to undertake an aggressive community and public input process". He could not possibly have meant, "after you've announced your decisions", for then, what would be the point of input?

County Executive Leggett wrote me on May 20 and said, "I understand the concerns of the community. You indicate that your community is working to look at other potential school site locations. I encourage you to discuss any locations identified with MCPS, and I hope that MCPS will work with the community to consider any viable site..." Of course that can only be accomplished by MCPS involving me and my community in the process.

I will actively participate in the formal appeal regarding the lack of notice and communication regarding this decision, but encourage you to save time and the county's money, which does not come easy these days, by simply doing what's right and re-opening that process now. If you do that, and engage our community with representation on the site selection committee, we will be proactive in helping you to look more thoroughly at a broader range of possible locations.

You plan to award a contract for a feasibility study tonight. Again, even this process is supposed to involve the community. Why is all of this done behind closed doors and the community notified after the fact?

This is not a discussion of schools vs. parks. We need them both. This is a discussion of community engagement, which is part of your mandate and you have failed.

It is time for you to earn the T Shirt that our school children are encouraged to earn. It says, "Plays Well With Others".

"I invite you to reflect for a moment on our sense of betrayal." [Testimony at tonight's Board of Ed meeting]

Good evening. My name is Paul Beck. My wife, Sarah, and I live at 9809 Haverhill Drive, directly across the street from Rock Creek Hills Park. Sarah is an active PTA participant and has held PTA positions in 5 different MCPS schools. She has served as Grade Representative, PTA Board Community Liaison, as a member of the MCPS Parent Advisory Council as well as in other positions. She has often been a member of two PTA boards at once.

Despite this extraordinary level of engagement with MCPS, like the rest of our community, Sarah and I were unaware that Rock Creek Hills Park was being considered as a potential middle school site. We were certainly unaware that at the last hour, the Board, without meaningful public notice, elevated Rock Creek Hills Park to the preferred site, and within hours decided to move forward with that site without feeling the need for input from our community. I invite you to reflect for a moment on our sense of betrayal.

We attended the meeting held last week at North Chevy Chase Elementary School and listened carefully to the Board staff’s presentation. We heard nothing to suggest that the site selection study included an actual comparison of costs between the various sites considered, or that a consistent, accurate evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of each site was performed.

Sarah and I are strong advocates of excellent public schools. We acknowledge the need for a solution to middle school congestion in the BCC cluster. We believe, however, that final selection of the RCH Park site was made in haste and without meaningful evaluation of the deficient street access, traffic and sidewalk concerns, and site acquisition constraints.

The decision to move forward with the RCH Park site has been made without consultation with the community most affected and without any adequate examination of costs and options regarding other locations. I ask that the Board defer moving forward with the proposed feasibility study, and instead re-open the site selection study in order to conduct an accurate, meaningful, and consultative decision making process.

"... open and representative government demands more than four hours of notice ..." [Testimony at tonight's Board of Ed meeting]

My name is Fern Shepard and I have 3 children in Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster schools. Two of them have been through Westland Middle School, so I understand the need for a new middle school in our cluster. I have supported your efforts to get this new school, and I was actively following the site selection process. Yet I did not learn until the day of your vote that our neighborhood park had been named the “alternate” site for the new middle school, and that you would be voting that evening to select this small park in the heart of our neighborhood for this new school.

Some of you have recognized that the process could use some reform, in particular Mr. Durso. We do need a new middle school, but an open and representative government demands more than four hours of notice for a decision that will affect one neighborhood for decades to come.

But the problem here goes beyond a closed process. Last month, you made a decision based on a site selection report that is inaccurate, incomplete, and inconsistent in significant and substantive ways. Some examples of the significant errors in the site selection report include:

SSAC Report at page 4: “Sidewalks are in place for the [sic] all of the candidate sites.” This is wrong; indeed, the number of sidewalks in our entire neighborhood can be counted on one hand. This is a significant omission where pedestrian access is a selection criterion, and where the safety of our children is at stake. And while perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered if the report were wrong on this for a site you didn’t select, in this case, the report is wrong on the site you did select. Couple this error with the fact that our park does not meet the selection criteria for size or vehicle access, and the very basis for the report’s recommendation of this site as an alternate – and for your reliance on that report – is called into question.

SSAC Report at pages 15 & 16: Another selection criterion is access roads, and again, the report contains some significant errors. One site was eliminated from consideration because it only has one access road where it has at least five. The Rock Creek Hills Park has only one access road, not the two stated in the report, and it is a narrow residential street.

SSAC Report at page 16: Another site was eliminated in part because the BCC high school softball team uses its field for practice. But the report completely fails to note that the BCC girls’ soccer team—Maryland State champions three consecutive years in a row—practices on the fields at Rock Creek Hills Park because there are no closer regulation-sized fields available for them to use.

Take those soccer fields away to build this new middle school, which your staff has admitted will happen because there isn’t even room for one regulation-size field, and our girls will have to be driven by parents every day to a field outside our cluster just to practice. And even our middle school teams won’t have an adequate field. How can you rely on a report with this type of omission? How can you rely on a report with this kind of inconsistency?

SSAC Report at page 16: Another site was eliminated from consideration because of “existing and future” traffic concerns, but the report fails to mention that millions of dollars are being spent to improve traffic in this area. This same site—which is 31 acres compared to Rock Creek Hill Park’s 13 acres—also is eliminated because it is “heavily wooded.” Yet no mention is made of the 100 inch-plus diameter trees interspersed throughout the wooded portion of Rock Creek Hills Park—trees which similarly would limit construction options.

No mention is made of the Land & Water Conservation Funds used to pay for improvements to the Rock Creek Hills Park, which may limit your ability to exercise your “recall rights.”

Finally, the report failed to consider alternative uses for existing elementary school sites, options that would allow retooling and reusing existing school sites in ways that may be more cost-effective and less controversial.

You don’t need to take my word for it that you were stuck relying on a flawed report. The Montgomery County Department of Parks criticized the closed site selection process: “where public property is at issue, secrecy does not serve the community well.” But it goes on and raises concerns about the adequacy of the information that underlies the site selection report. It criticized this very same report for its “misunderstanding” of highly popular and important park amenities as “vacant land.” It calls “mistaken” the report’s conclusion that parks are “free” lands that can be transferred without costs. It criticizes the process where “our representative did not have the opportunity to present the cost and other data that would have made a fairer comparison among all the sites under consideration, and that his objections to conversion of parkland were ignored.”

In the end, I can say it no better than your own sister agency did: “[T]here should be more “due diligence” in researching the real costs of all sites… before MCPS undertakes an expensive feasibility study” and “[t]here are certainly other candidate sites that the Board of Education could consider that do no place the County’s valued park system at risk.”

As a BCC cluster parent and a taxpayer, I ask that tonight you pause this process long enough for a revised report that is accurate and complete. This need not take long. But we need a serious, accurate, and thorough look at the pros and cons of these sites, and we need that process to be open so that the best decision is made for the students, the county, and the taxpayers.

"In their own words." [Testimony at tonight's Board of Ed meeting.]

[Testimony by Shannon Hamm at the May 23rd meeting of the Montgomery County Board of Education]

As a resident of Rock Creek Hills, I am here tonight to share my concerns about the lack of due process that the Board of Education undertook in voting to choose Rock Creek Hills Park (RCHP) as the preferred site.

What was the basis for this decision?

It could not have been the letter received on April 28th from the County Executive. Mr. Leggett in this April 28 letter to the Board clearly urged the Board to "...undertake an aggressive community and public input process to ensure residents concerns are discussed and addressed before action is taken." I cannot understand how you are disregarding these very clear words.

It could not have been the letter received on April 27th from Chairwoman Carrier, Montgomery County Planning Board of the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission, where she is explicit about the Commission’s serious concerns about the overall site selection process as it relates to use of parkland for school sites. She goes on to say "...M-NPPC has the fiduciary responsibility to the public to preserve parkland. We recognize there may be rare occasions; a higher public interest [exists] to which we must defer. However, we are not inclined to accept a routine school site

selection as such an exception."

I am left searching for a reasonable explanation, I have written to Mr. Barclay and Ms. O’Neill for such an answer.

I do know that you have key county officials that are publicly upset and that do not support your inability to adequately plan for your school needs.

I now recognize that your inability to plan is trying to constitute an emergency for choosing Rock Creek Hills Park as a school. I will not stand for that as a taxpayer.

I ask that you re-open the site selection process to include the appropriate residents to participate in an open, informative process.

Join us tonight! Be heard!

Join friends of Rock Creek Hills Park tonight, at the Board of Ed meeting, where the Board is scheduled to vote to spend $$$ on a site plan to destroy our park. Everyone should have a voice. Let them hear ours!

That's TODAY, Monday, May 23rd, at 6:30 PM, in the Carver Educational Services Center, 850 Hungerford Drive, Rockville, MD 20850 (across the street from Montgomery College). Let's go!

Would you like to speak at the meeting? You may sign up this morning. Public comments begin at 6:45 p.m. Call the Board at 301-279-3617 this morning, if you want to speak. Call between 10:00 and 10:30 a.m. if you wish to speak to address issues relating to the day’s agenda; call between 11:00 and 11:30 a.m. if you wish to speak to address other issues. [The Board's agenda this evening includes this for 7:30 PM: "3.2.2 Architectural Appointment — New Bethesda-Chevy Chase MS #2 Feasibility Study".]

We expect to see all sorts of signs:

GOOD GOVERNMENT = GOOD SCHOOLS

BUILD SMART, NOT STUPID

ROCK CREEK HILLS PARK = THE GREATER GOOD

RESPECT THE ELDERLY

KIDS NEED PARKS

PARKS ARE BLESSED NOT VACANT

We plan to request permission to speak to address an agenda item, as we wish to ask the Board to table the motion to fund the site plan. If we receive permission to speak, then, in the two minutes alloted, we would not talk about creekside slopes, retaining walls, or parking garages; about acreage, street access, or pedestrian safety; or about playgrounds, trees, or soccer. What we want to talk about are values, or as we Americans call them, rights:

• The right of children to good, safe, equitable schools.
• The right of citizens not to be deprived of liberty without due process.
• The right of communities to have input into local decisions, rather than having them made by people from other communities.
• The right of citizens to have government decisions made with integrity, rather than via an arbitrary, secretive, and inaccurate process.
• The right of taxpayers to have past investments (in parkland) stewarded wisely.
• The right of taxpayers to have new investments (in schools) made wisely.

The Board should table the motion to hire an architect. They should re-open the middle school site selection process, by conducting a proper evaluation of legitimate sites with public consultation.

Join us tonight!

Everyone deserves a voice. We want the Board of Education to hear ours!

Join friends of Rock Creek Hills Park at tomorrow's Board of Education meeting!

That's Monday, May 23, at 6:30 p.m.

Most of us had only hours notice before the Board's arbitrary and unreasonable April 28th proclamation that they would seize our small park. Tomorrow the Board is scheduled to vote to approve a contract with an architectural firm to develop a site plan to replace Rock Creek Hills Park with a middle school complex. The meeting will be at the Carver Educational Services Center, 850 Hungerford Drive, Rockville, MD 20850 (that's across the street from Montgomery College). Let's go!

Everyone deserves a voice. We want the Board to hear ours. We need as many people as possible to show up to make our voices heard!

Also, you may sign up to testify at the meeting. Public comments begin at 6:45 p.m. Call 301-279-3617 tomorrow morning, if you want to speak at tomorrow evening's meeting. Call between 10:00 and 10:30 a.m. if you wish to speak to address issues relating to the day’s agenda; call between 11:00 and 11:30 a.m. if you wish to speak to address other issues. [Again, the Board is scheduled to vote tomorrow to fund the site plan to replace our park with a middle school complex; their agenda includes this for 7:30 PM: "3.2.2 Architectural Appointment — New Bethesda-Chevy Chase MS #2 Feasibility Study".]

Bring friends; bring family; bring signs!

Everyone Deserves a Voice… Let’s Talk.

Re-open the Middle School Site Selection Process

Build Good Schools

Talk with neighbors; carpool; try to arrive by 6:30 PM. Look for updates on our park’s Facebook page.

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".

"There is a far more constructive approach to this matter. "

[A May 18th letter from John M. Robinson, President, Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association, to Christopher S. Barclay, President, Montgomery County Board of Education, has been posted on the Rock Creek Hills Citizens' Association website; the text is reproduced here:]

Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association

9616 Old Spring Road

Kensington, MD 20895

May 18, 2011

Mr. Christopher S. Barclay

President, Board of Education

Montgomery Public Schools

850 Hungerford Drive, Room 123

Rockville, Maryland 20850

Dear Mr. Barclay:

On May 17, 2011, the Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association held a special evening meeting to discuss the Board of Education's (the Board) proposal to build a new middle school in Rock Creek Local Park. Some 250 people attended the meeting, of whom 175 ultimately voted on this matter. The meeting began a 7:45 with a 15 minute presentation by Bruce Crispell, Joyce Jessell, and Janice Turpin, which focused on the site selection process and the feasibility study procedures that the Board staff would pursue regarding the proposed middle school. There followed a one hour question period regarding both the site selection process and feasibility study. The latter questions addressed possible participation by a community and specific concerns regarding the size and mass of the proposed school, the amount of recreational space involved, and possible traffic, noise, and environmental impacts. Your staff was unable to provide details on these particulars stating that they are issues that will be addressed by the feasibility study.

The meeting then debated two motions, one to oppose the proposed project and the second to accept it subject to a satisfactory feasibility study and design. Only some 20 votes supported the motion to support the proposed project out of 175 eligible voters. The balance, or approximately 150, voted to oppose the project. The Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association board was directed to request the Board to reopen the proceeding to re-examine other possible sites and to provide a reasonable opportunity for residents of Rock Creek Hills to address the Board on any site selection. The residents also directed their board to pursue two probable violations of the Maryland Open Meetings Act. These are (1) failing to provide adequate notice of the action taken at the Board of Education's April 28, 2011 meeting, and (2) holding a discussion of the proposed merits of the proposed middle school sites without the presence of the public during the Board's dinner of the same evening. The residents and the Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association will be filing a complaint with the Maryland State Board of Education shortly regarding the Board's actions. In addition, at this juncture we must also oppose the transfer of the Rock Creek Local Park land to the Montgomery County School System and any appropriations to support the proposed middle school's design and construction.

There is a far more constructive approach to this matter. The Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association respectfully requests the Board to defer further action on its feasibility study and hold another hearing on this matter. This will provide us an adequate opportunity to explain to the Board our concerns about the use of Rock Creek Hills Local Park of the proposed new middle school, particularly traffic, environmental matters and the loss of the park space for this community and the numerous individuals from outside our community who also use it. This is the issue for us and not whether any potential middle school should be located in the Rosemary Hills community.

The membership continues to object strongly to the Board's failure to give them any reasonable opportunity to comment on proposed action that only became public early on the afternoon of April 28, 2011. This arbitrary action is in substantial measure the basis for the opposition the Board will encounter as it seeks to move the project forward.

Sincerely yours,

/s/

John M. Robinson

President, Rock Creek Hills Citizens Association

cc: Ms. Shirley Brandman - Vice-President

Mr. Phillip Kauffman - Board Member

Ms. Judith Docca - Board Member

Ms. Laura Berthiaume - Board Member

Ms. Patricia O'Neill - Board Member

Mr. Michael Durso - Board Member

Ms. Valerie Ervin, President, Montgomery County Council