Anonymous wrote:Where is Mary Cheh on this? I get that Brandon Todd is opposed given his constituents are at Lafayette.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would UDC have any implications when Wilson used that space during their renovations?

I think Wilson was inside the UDC buildings. This proposal is to construct trailers on fields virtually adjacent to embassies.

Gotcha thanks. Is there an empty building you guys can use? That may raise other safety questions with grown adults within close proximity to kids, but isn't there a stand alone building not on the "main campus", but across the street from the old Pier One Imports?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would UDC have any implications when Wilson used that space during their renovations?

I think Wilson was inside the UDC buildings. This proposal is to construct trailers on fields virtually adjacent to embassies.

Gotcha thanks. Is there an empty building you guys can use? That may raise other safety questions with grown adults within close proximity to kids, but isn't there a stand alone building not on the "main campus", but across the street from the old Pier One Imports?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regardless of what option is chosen, I hope Mary Cheh and the ward 4 person whose name I can't remember holds DCPS's feet to the fire. It is unacceptable that after months and months of conversation, the decision is made in a hurried way without having appropriate data.

I agree, but...never going to happen. Cheh has always been milquetoast, and Brandon Todd struck me as not much better. Once the Lafayette option is eliminated, this all goes away.

If the UDC option turns out not to be viable merely because the secret service wasn't consulted until too late, the Murch community should be furious.

I think the Murch community at this point is already furious. Organizing a complex project like this involving the full remodeling/construction of a large school while finding space for 650 kids inside a big town is certainly difficult. But when you hear that an option like UDS was considered first only three weeks ago, that half the questions are answered with a "we don't know at this time" when construction is supposed to break ground in 6 months, that the traffic study is being done during winter break you start wondering who the heck is running this show.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would UDC have any implications when Wilson used that space during their renovations?

I think Wilson was inside the UDC buildings. This proposal is to construct trailers on fields virtually adjacent to embassies.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regardless of what option is chosen, I hope Mary Cheh and the ward 4 person whose name I can't remember holds DCPS's feet to the fire. It is unacceptable that after months and months of conversation, the decision is made in a hurried way without having appropriate data.

I agree, but...never going to happen. Cheh has always been milquetoast, and Brandon Todd struck me as not much better. Once the Lafayette option is eliminated, this all goes away.

If the UDC option turns out not to be viable merely because the secret service wasn't consulted until too late, the Murch community should be furious.

Anonymous wrote:Why would UDC have any implications when Wilson used that space during their renovations?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the breakdown by cost:

Swing Completely on site: 2.5 M. Pros, we are all together, cheap, close to XDay, Cons: very, very close to construction - lots of moving around over the 2.5 year timeline; very limited play space; they haven't even really started to talk to NPS about using vacant lot across Reno. Drop off would be Ellicot with construction entrances on Davenport and Reno.

Swing partly on site; Pre-K and K at Capitol Memorial Church: 3.5 M. Pros...not sure there are any! Okay - good place space. Cons: school is split - especially hard for resource teachers and specialists; classrooms would have to be packed up on weekends! This one seemed the least likely.

Swing at Lafayette: 4.5 M - I think. Pros - already setup, large enough, DCPS controls; Cons - traffic and all those kids at recess and Lafayette families have to wait two more years which we at Murch know is a huge pain, also lots of Murch families walk and/or don't have cars and then hop on metro - will complicate commutes. We also had Lafayette parents (two) not asking questions but taking their turn to ask questions and turning around to lecture the group on why this wouldn't work which really struct the wrong tone. The meeting ran very long and the Murch parents simply wanted their chance to ask questions and give input to DGS. We all understood why Lafayette didn't want this but hearing traffic as an argument was kind of laughable if you ever see Davenport during drop-off with all the folks dropping at Murch and then going on to Deal. We get a lot of cross park traffic headed simply to Deal/Wilson as well.

Swing at UDC: 6M. Pros: large enough for Murch, away from construction - close to Metro; playspace for PreK/K and for bigger. Set off from rest of UDC. Cons: might be secret service issues with all the embassies around - travel to XDay.

There was definite crowd approval for the UDC option. Which of course they presented last. Mary Cheh got up and spoke at the end and said that she thought we should be asking for UDC or relooking at doing 2 level trailers on the Forest Hills baseball field to fit us all there.

Also a fair amount of frustration was expressed that they didn't have the answers to 75% of the questions and they were planning to do a traffic study over winter break and give us an answer on January 12th! There should be a link up on the Murch website at some point today to the presentation and with info on how to comment.

Murch parent here, and I just don't think our traffic (as bad as it is) is comparable to what the Lafayette neighborhood would face with two schools on Lafayette's grounds. Similarly, the Lafayette folks don't understand why swinging on site would be worse for us than it has been for them (at the Tuesday meeting they laughed at the idea that Murch should be worried about construction noise, giving no thought to how much bigger their grounds are).

Let's respect/accept that our swinging on site in their trailers would be a disaster for them (and us) in terms of traffic and safety. And hope that they understand why swinging on site is not feasible for us. I don't see how a pissing match over whose traffic is worse gets us anywhere.

Anonymous wrote:What gave you the impression that DGS/Kenny reads these threads?

Anonymous wrote:Here's the breakdown by cost:

Swing Completely on site: 2.5 M. Pros, we are all together, cheap, close to XDay, Cons: very, very close to construction - lots of moving around over the 2.5 year timeline; very limited play space; they haven't even really started to talk to NPS about using vacant lot across Reno. Drop off would be Ellicot with construction entrances on Davenport and Reno.

Swing partly on site; Pre-K and K at Capitol Memorial Church: 3.5 M. Pros...not sure there are any! Okay - good place space. Cons: school is split - especially hard for resource teachers and specialists; classrooms would have to be packed up on weekends! This one seemed the least likely.

Swing at Lafayette: 4.5 M - I think. Pros - already setup, large enough, DCPS controls; Cons - traffic and all those kids at recess and Lafayette families have to wait two more years which we at Murch know is a huge pain, also lots of Murch families walk and/or don't have cars and then hop on metro - will complicate commutes. We also had Lafayette parents (two) not asking questions but taking their turn to ask questions and turning around to lecture the group on why this wouldn't work which really struct the wrong tone. The meeting ran very long and the Murch parents simply wanted their chance to ask questions and give input to DGS. We all understood why Lafayette didn't want this but hearing traffic as an argument was kind of laughable if you ever see Davenport during drop-off with all the folks dropping at Murch and then going on to Deal. We get a lot of cross park traffic headed simply to Deal/Wilson as well.

Swing at UDC: 6M. Pros: large enough for Murch, away from construction - close to Metro; playspace for PreK/K and for bigger. Set off from rest of UDC. Cons: might be secret service issues with all the embassies around - travel to XDay.

There was definite crowd approval for the UDC option. Which of course they presented last. Mary Cheh got up and spoke at the end and said that she thought we should be asking for UDC or relooking at doing 2 level trailers on the Forest Hills baseball field to fit us all there.

Also a fair amount of frustration was expressed that they didn't have the answers to 75% of the questions and they were planning to do a traffic study over winter break and give us an answer on January 12th! There should be a link up on the Murch website at some point today to the presentation and with info on how to comment.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Regardless of what option is chosen, I hope Mary Cheh and the ward 4 person whose name I can't remember holds DCPS's feet to the fire. It is unacceptable that after months and months of conversation, the decision is made in a hurried way without having appropriate data.

I agree, but...never going to happen. Cheh has always been milquetoast, and Brandon Todd struck me as not much better. Once the Lafayette option is eliminated, this all goes away.

If the UDC option turns out not to be viable merely because the secret service wasn't consulted until too late, the Murch community should be furious.