Save Rock Creek Hills Park? Well, we sure tried!: "This is not a formal committee. ... we really can't vote on anything."

Thursday, July 28, 2011

"This is not a formal committee. ... we really can't vote on anything."

Everyone makes mistakes. But not everyone responds well to requests that mistakes be corrected.

The first meeting of the B-CC middle school #2 "feasibility study" took place on June 8th. When the draft minutes of that meeting were posted, we noticed four errors and omissions that we thought were important and worthy of correction. We wrote at 1:50 PM on Tuesday, July 12th, to MCPS's Mr. Dennis Cross, requesting corrections. At today's "feasibility study" meeting, in response to our email request for corrections, we were told by Mr. Cross that none of our requests would be addressed. And we were told this:

"This is not a formal committee. We call it a committee but it's really nothing more than a work session. ... So we really can't vote on anything. We can't even vote on the minutes, to approve them, because we don't know whether we have a quorum or not, because we don't have a committee."

Got that? A committee (that has voted at prior meetings) has suddenly become a non-committee that cannot vote. So, we ask: Are they just making this stuff up as they go along?

1 comment:

Cathy said...: I am honestly disgusted at this as part of the "official" process for engaging the community.
Cathy Fink; July 29, 2011 at 9:59 AM

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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..."