Dear WECA Neighbors – Happy spring! A
reminder that our next WECA monthly meeting is this Thursday, April 21 at 7pm
at the Rockville Presbyterian Church. (215 W. Montgomery Avenue), with parking
available in the lot off of Harrison Street. Earlier this month, we sent some information
about the Montgomery County Public Schools school bus lot being proposed in our
neighborhood area. An update is below, and we encourage you to take action if
you are concerned about this issue. We hope to see you this Thursday at 7pm at
the WECA meeting!
PROPOSED MCPS
SCHOOL BUS LOT AT THE CARVER LOT (RT 355 AND MANNAKEE STREET INTERSECTION)
Here is information of interest
regarding the proposed bus depot on the Carver Lot. A group of neighbors from Woodley Gardens,
College Gardens and the West End are working diligently to make their concerns
known and keep the buses off the Carver Lot.
Recently Philip Kauffman, a member of the Montgomery County School
Board, has written a letter, recognizing that citizens have legitimate concerns
and recommending that the existing site on Crabbs Branch Way not be released
for redevelopment until both interim and final solutions for parking the buses
is approved. In response, Kevin Karton, one of our neighbors, has shared the
message below asking for your help. IF
YOU OPPOSE THE BUS DEPOT AT THE CORVER LOT, PLEASE READ IT AND SEND A MESSAGE
TO SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER KAUFFMAN BEFORE THE APRIL 19 BOARD OF EDUCATION MEETING.
----Original
Message-----
From: Kevin Karton
Sent: Wed, Apr 13, 2016
Subject: [wgwca] School Board Phil Kauffman is Listening. We need your help.
From: Kevin Karton
Sent: Wed, Apr 13, 2016
Subject: [wgwca] School Board Phil Kauffman is Listening. We need your help.
To
All:
We
would like to send School Board Member Kauffman a note of appreciation and urge
him on. To date, he has given us the best chance we have of stopping the
Carver depot plan. He has written a memo to his fellow School Board
members and to the County Council and County Executive Leggett asking them to
delay the sale of the current school bus depot site until a real and good
solution is found for the relocation issue. We want him to urge them to
exclude Carver once and for all from any further consideration.
Your
help is needed.
We
are including a sample of the letter we are recommending. Feel free to
copy and paste it, edit it and otherwise add your own thoughts and reactions
and your name. His e-mail address is: Phil_Kauffman@mcpsmd.org
SAMPLE
LETTER
Dear
Board Member Kauffman:
We
applaud your recent memo indicating that at the April 19 Board meeting, you will ask your fellow members to
vote on a motion to urge the County Council to delay the "Declaration of
No Further Need” (DNFN) for the Jeremiah Park (Shady Grove Depot) land parcel.
We ask that you also urge the Board to exclude the Carver site as part of
the eventual solution for all the reasons that residents have shared with you.
This
must be done until a good solution is found that does not so negatively affect
residents living within the neighborhood (some within 50 feet of the site).
As you know, the Carver site abuts a residential community and the
pre-dawn to late afternoon activity of 100+ buses, their operators, and site
administrators, would have significant adverse effects on our residents. Our
community is still baffled that planning for this site has gotten this far
despite, by the admission of MCPS COO Andrew Zuckerman, there being no studies
conducted on the impact of traffic, noise, bus fume emissions, storm water
historic site implications, and overall safety.
We
have collected more than 800 signatures of Montgomery County citizens who
oppose any plans for a bus depot at Carver and will support you and fight
against this detrimental plan at every step. Members of our coalition will be
attending and speaking at the BOE meeting on Tuesday, April 19 against the plan.
The
developers at Shady Grove are pushing hard, no doubt, to develop the land upon
which the current depot sits. A bad solution done for their expedience
and gain at the extraordinary expense of so many in our neighborhood should not
be tolerated.
Our
online petition is: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/No-100-School-Bus-Depot-In-Our-Neighborhood.
We have hundreds of additional signatures on paper petitions that will be
presented on April
19.
Thank
you very much for all you are doing to help us. It does not go unnoticed.
Sincerely,
