Schools near metro will get more housing without overcrowding relief
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Anonymous
Todd Watkins walked free and american truck and bus was never even charged with a crime. Easy money for years and years. Ripping off children is acceptable. |
Anonymous
Seems like either he wasn't charged because there was a lack of evidence or he was cleared. |
Anonymous
| All the schools near metros already kind of suck. What’s one more nail in their coffin. |
Anonymous
Thankfully, the amendments to the House bill struck the language that would have prohibited local jurisdictions from denying permits on adequate public facility grounds, the portion that would have kept MoCo from limiting the additional development in areas where schools would be overcrowded. Now what matters is keeping the Senate from re-introducing that kind of language this week...and making sure MoCo does the appropriate thing, either solving the school overcrowding issue or denying permits in areas with overcrowded schools. One could call one's state senators to weigh in on it -- SB0484. |
Anonymous
Neither are true. He admitted to setting up the embezzlement scheme. He plead guilty and was sent home. No worries. On to his next scam. |
Anonymous
I read he was doing 5 years of prison time. |
Anonymous
| Until parents in the affected clusters make their voices heard, little will be done to address the overcrowding. Just more portable classrooms. |
Anonymous
They've been asking for relief for decades. MCPS simply doesn't make addressing that a priority. It's worst for the close-in schools that don't have the property for the portables without sacrificing playgrounds, fields, etc. Highland View...smh. The thing is that there's not a clear majority directly affected by severe overcrowding, and the needs of the minority get trampled. |
Anonymous
And getting it. It's not like MCPS is building nothing. MCPS is building a lot. https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/facilities/construction/projects/ |
Anonymous
There are a number of projects, sure. They are expensive, yes. That doesn't mean they are doing an adequate job. They are behind. They have been behind for decades. They have not been nearly frequent enough to keep up with either the age of buildings (renovation) or the increase in student population (expansion/additional schools). They are regularly downscoped (notable exception: Potomac ES, with both building upscoping during planning in reaponse to extensive interaction with the community and additional earthwork added better to ensure water management -- go figure). Once begun, they have been regularly delayed vs. the original timeline -- a semester, a year, more -- with change orders that reset the clock so that the report to the BOE show them as "on schedule." When "finished" for occupancy, the punch list denoted by the last 1-3% on the report can, itself, last a long time beyond. How many years should large numbers of portables be an adequate stop-gap, especially those that take playground/field space on smaller properties? I'd say two to three, maybe five at the absolute most if there was a clear catchment population bulge that equally clearly would be going away. How many has it been at HVES? A dozen? More? Rolling Terrace? Elsewhere? How long is it OK for a facility to close half its bathrooms (in a full building) due to plumbing failure? One or two months to get the emergency fixes together? Three months? How about something like a decade, as seems to have happened at Eastern MS? These school communities have been continually told to wait as they are "next" for a renovation. HVES was supposed to get funding a few years back, not independently, but carved out of funding for next-door SSIMS/SCES that decimated already-insufficient plans for that old building. Then that money was repurposed -- yet another delay in being "next." Those may be on the list, now, but far too late, and now there are others that are falling behind just the same. It's not that the projects that are out there shouldn't be happening. It's that the county should be keeping up with the county-wide need, and not doing it on a beyond-last-minute emergency basis or only for a fortunate few who might be on the list during a "sweet spot" time of budgetary leniency (again, looking at you, PES). "It's their turn" should happen when and where the need is, not just where it's greatest at the moment, expedient or on an it's-been-a-while/we're-getting-pressure-from-a-vocal-community mental calendar. There are always things that will get in the way -- unexpected conditions (e.g., the pandemic), inflation, etc. Adequate funding with proper risk management should be able to handle this. I'm not sure if we've had the latter, but we certainly haven't had the former (and that makes the latter somewhat impossible). School bonds used to afford more timely addressing of this need. When was the last time we saw that on a ballot? |
Anonymous
But was it "allowed and encouraged"? |
Anonymous
By allowed they mean they went to jail for it. |
Anonymous
No they. Only one of the three went to prison. The others moved on with their lives and are fine. |
Anonymous
The "highest tax revenue per sq. foot of land" argument is somewhat misleading. It makes more sense to look at whether a development is net tax negative or positive. The county needs to do a better job estimating how much property tax revenue MOCO collects from the development in comparison to how much the development will cost MOCO for county services (mainly from schools) before approving rezoning request. There are definitely of high density residential developments that are tax negative and low density developments that are tax positive. It really depends of the specifics of individual development projects (eg. location, housing unit types, unit sizes). |
Anonymous
Or how about when the county approves a housing project it includes a plan for addressing the new influx of students attending these schools. Seems like that is an afterthought that just gets dumped on MCPS to handle. |