BCC Middle School Site Selction number 2 - 2012 version -

[Anonymous]

Let me guess 12:55, you think the solution is school vouchers.

[Anonymous]

I keep going back and forth btw Lynbrook, Norwood park (why did they exclude that?) and NCC Park as the best options. NCC park is NOT heavily used. It always seems empty the few times I've been there. They could put a pedestrian/biker bridge over Jones Bridge to allow kids to safely walk to school.

If NCC Park was heavily used, I'd understand it...and by the way, the issue with Lynbrook is what happens when BCC is overcrowded? This problem is not going away....Lynbrook could be a satellite campus for BCC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

We will not sit back and have more infrastructure foisted upon us while our neighbors only a few blocks away threaten lawsuits to preserve "open space" (aka property values.)

And you should not sit back and accept this! A novel idea: How about MCPS use property it already owns and already has infrastructure on and quit taking community parks from people.

I think MCPS is going to have to start singing a different song when it comes to their greedy "cheap" land grabs.

They are coming to the table with their hands out, and offering nothing of their own. In fact, it appears to me they are protecting their own interests while picking their sister agencies' pocket.

Excuse me. I'm a little new to this process. Who in MCPS exactly is responsible for this? The Board of Education? If not them then who? I want names.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. That's too bad. As a Chevy Chase resident, I think Norwood would be a great site. It is centrally located, allowing for creative drawing of the boundaries between the new middle school and Westland so that the new school could be more racially and socioeconomically balanaced, and could even take overflow students from Pyle (which the Super has indicated is possible). It either has or has the potential to have multiple transportation points, and it is right on the Crescent Trail, so it would really encourage walking and biking.

Lynbrook would also be a GREAT site, in the sense that one could create a lot of synergy between the middle and high school. Advanced students could more easily take classes at BCC. In terms of field use, Lynbrook and BCC could use NCC fields, rather than constructing the new school at NCC.

Funny how when East Bethesda wanted to get out of the RHPS partner pairing, they complained about how much time their kids spent on the bus and how they had lost their neighborhood elementary, but now that that same spot could be a middle school, they don't want it.

I'm from East Bethesda, and I think it's racist to force our children to go to the RHPS school busing experiment when there are 4 or 5 elementary schools that are literally ONE HALF the distance to us that RHPS is. However, it's just plain stupid to write off Lynbrook as the Middle School site. This is all common sense. Are you telling me that at this meeting it was East Bethesda that blocked Lynbrook? Possible, but I doubt it. I think there are some other forces at play. Do we have any power over these people (ie. are they elected)? As with RHPS, MCPS is proving once again that they have to zig when the appropriate course of action is to zag.

[Anonymous]

Your are right PP, it is just plain dumb to write off Lynnbrook as a possible and viable site. The man representing EBCA did in fact vote to eliminate it and he also objected to the use of the site as a school, citing among other things, the private day care center which leases space from mcps.

Largely, the entire mcps reps (Bruce Crispell, Janice Turpin et al) led the charge by voting to eliminate the site.

But it should not have been eliminated. It should have at least been scored. Janice Turpin insisted that the site was in full use by mcps. I suggest anyone who is willing go there and see for themselves how many (not) folks are rattling around in those decrepit buildings.

People should write the BoE and Starr and ask that Lynnbrook be reconsidered.

Common sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I keep going back and forth btw Lynbrook, Norwood park (why did they exclude that?) and NCC Park as the best options. NCC park is NOT heavily used. It always seems empty the few times I've been there. They could put a pedestrian/biker bridge over Jones Bridge to allow kids to safely walk to school.

If NCC Park was heavily used, I'd understand it...and by the way, the issue with Lynbrook is what happens when BCC is overcrowded? This problem is not going away....Lynbrook could be a satellite campus for BCC.

It depends how you judge heavily used. The fields are certainly heavily used and heavily supported by many private businesses that have their names on signs all around. The surrounding area which is heavily wooded has very difficult topography, not to mention heavily wooded and THIS could indeed pose a problem for a quick build.

Nobody is thinking real straight...Folks said Rock Creek Hills wasn't heavily used, and look what push back that has unleashed. I just think that MCPS's propensity to target parks is really misguided and headed for failure.

[Anonymous]

Everyone likes to give MCPS a hard time for "targeting parks," and for selling property, but no one seems to blame the Parks dept. for possibly encumbering RCH. Why is that? If MCPS gave RCH to the Parks Dept with a reclaim, then why are they getting so much argument over turning it back into a school site? Seems like either that site, or another Parks site in its place, should be used.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone likes to give MCPS a hard time for "targeting parks," and for selling property, but no one seems to blame the Parks dept. for possibly encumbering RCH. Why is that? If MCPS gave RCH to the Parks Dept with a reclaim, then why are they getting so much argument over turning it back into a school site? Seems like either that site, or another Parks site in its place, should be used.

You are wrong. Parks is not arguing that MCPS can't have Rock Creek Hills, it is the residents of Rock Creek Hills that are arguing.

Parks has only said that no park without a reclamation clause is available. And why would you say that another park (if not RCH) should be used in its place? Why does ANY park have to be used? Unless of course, it can be reclaimed by MCPS, then in that case Parks can't really object. But to say Parks Dept. should give up another park...why?

And BTW Parks did not encumber RCH, that was done by MCPS when they turned the property into a park. I don't think there is much that stands in the way of MCPS taking that property for a school...except the objections of the community.

And lastly, yeah, MCPS has blown it in terms of leasing out properties right and left.

[Anonymous]

Well, MCPS lent the county a perfectly good school site, and the county screwed it up!

First, the county split off a third of the land (the most buildable part of the site) and gave it to the Housing Opportunities Commission to build an elder care facility.

Then, the county used money from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund to develop Rock Creek Hills Park. Whenever those funds are used to acquire or develop a park, that land can then never be transformed to non-park use without providing land of equivalent recreational value to the community.

The County robbed MCPS of a school site! MCPS lent the County a perfectly good school site, and the County reduced it and encumbered it. MCPS should ask the County to provide a replacement!

[Anonymous]

Then, the county used money from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund to develop Rock Creek Hills Park. Whenever those funds are used to acquire or develop a park, that land can then never be transformed to non-park use without providing land of equivalent recreational value to the community.

Kensington, please stop spreading inaccurate info. The County has reclaim rights, over and done. The only party that disputes this at present is the neighborhood organization. This is getting tiresome.

[Anonymous]

Official public records show that federal LWCF funds were used to develop the park. The law is quite clear that this results in permanent severe restrictions against conversion of the land to non-park use.

No one has ever produced documents supporting the claim that this is not the case – that no federal LWCF funds were used.

Of course, people can say whatever they want – they can make claims unsupported by evidence; they can attack neighborhoods, rather than focusing on the truth – but the official public record says that LWCF funds were used.

[Anonymous]

What Parks Director Mary Bradford said to Patch.com about 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.' "

Read the whole thing at http://kensington.patch.com/articles/parks-department-hasnt-given-up-on-rock-creek-hills

[Anonymous]

Whenever those funds are used to acquire or develop a park, that land can then never be transformed to non-park use without providing land of equivalent recreational value to the community.

That is not what the letter from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources said. The letter stated that funds used to develop a park are treated differently than funds used to buy land for a park. The development funds restrict development for 20 years, the "life of the developments" which have as of this month, expired for RCH. Funds that were used to purchase land last in perpetuity. I know, I know, "one letter in a stream of correspondence" being misrepresented.

Tell you what JP, why don't you publish ALL, the whole stream of correspondence on your blog? Every single link in the chain. Maybe because you haven't gotten the answer you want?

[Anonymous]

Secretary Griffin's claim that no federal funds were used to develop Rock Creek Hills Park is contradicted by official records.

[Anonymous]

I don't think that that anyone is claiming that the reclaim right does not exist. It does exist. It's just that it cannot be exercised, because federal Land & Water Conservation Funds were used to develop Rock Creek Hills Park.