Reply to BCC Middle School Site Selction number 2

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]Anyway, you can dump on the Kensingtonians all you want, but if you're honest with yourself, I think you'd have to admit that, under the same circumstances, you would be fighting just as hard as they are fighting. [/quote]

Wrong. I live within walking distance to an MCPS school. Lots of the families who will go to the new middle school already do: the feeder elementaries are all located in residential neighborhoods. We love our schools - our kids go there, after all, and if there were an option in my neighborhood, I'd be thrilled - much better than having them sit in cross-Bethesda traffic for 45 minutes every AM and PM.

This is why l don't understand why many RCH residents, even parents of kids who would go to the new school, are so desperately opposed. PP - can you explain? You obviously think that it's self-evident. It's not, and the scorched-earth approach of Kensington is really repellant. I can't imagine that it's actually helping your case either. Certainly not with other parents (even some who live in Kensington) and probably not with the people who are ultimately going to make this decision.[/quote]

Look, you can't ask me to answer for the goofiness of some of the people on this side of this issue any more than I can ask you to answer for the vicious comments of some of the people on the other side of this issue.  Yes, they act like their hair is on fire, but until you face the lying and the incompetence they have faced from the MCPS Politburo over matters directly affecting where you live, you might want to cut them a little slack (although, some are just shy of running around in leopard skin thongs and face paint, and sadly, middle-aged parenting was not designed for leopard skin thongs and face paint).

I can do no more then lay out the history of the site from a planning and local legislative perspective.  Either you agree with it, or you don't.  As for the legal issue, I think MCPS is wrong, but that issue isn't going to be fought out in the site selection committee.  They will go through the whole process on the county level, and then, wind up in court, where I think they will open the mother of all fecal storms.

Specifically, the Natural Resources people have been using a "practice" they came up with to deal with the decay of facilities (swings, toilets) for land improvements (soccer fields, trails).  There is no basis in the law for this "practice."  Putting aside the fact that their own Program Open Space Manual doesn't support their interpretation here, they're going to have to answer for why they're treating land development differently from land acquisition when the statute expressly states otherwise.  Then, someone is going to ask how many other parks were treated like this and whether the Natural Resources people are liable for them, as well.  What a mess.

You assume that people in the neighborhood hate the thought of a school.  I think they hate the thought of a school that won't work and otherwise will disrupt their neighborhood.  We're not talking about a 400 student elementary school.  We're talking about a middle school, which will carry three times the number of students and associated support.  It is noteworthy that no feasibility study option could be developed for RCH to provide the requisite parking for the school.  They couldn't make it fit.  When you consider that the one street feeding the site (MCPS says two or three streets feed the site, but look at a map; physically, it's one cusp of a street that changes names three times) has restricted parking on one side, you just can't see how this site works.

Now, if we look at the _entire_ KJH site, the analysis is different.  There is a flat portion of land where an enormous middle school could be built; where the park could be preserved; and where parking could exceed that of a normal middle school.  Unfortunately, it's where these brilliant social engineers built the elder care facility after transferring over 1/3 the land and the separate access road to the site.  Unless you're willing to toss grandma out the window, that site is unavailable.

This whole experience is just sad.

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