Minutes from the WECA General Meeting – October 19th, 2006
Present: Twenty-four residents and Maria Broadbent from the City of Rockville.
President Patricia Woodward called the meeting to order at 7.04pm.
Treasurer’s Report: * reported the same balance for the WECA account.
Minutes: * proposed a motion that was seconded by * to approve the minutes of the September 21st WECA meeting. They were then approved unanimously.
Old Business:
Patricia Woodward distributed an agenda and substantial amount of documents pertaining to outstanding as well as new business.
1. The Old Post Office: * informed the group of the latest news concerning the Old Post Office closure. Apparently, Scott Ullery seemed inclined to favor a small percentage of the building being used for a limited postal service – packages etc. City officials have acquiesced with previous suggestions for the rest of the building to be used by the Police Dept as their current working quarters are very cramped.
2. Jerusalem-Mt Pleasant UM Church: Patricia Woodward had news that during the previous week workers had ‘broke ground’ in readiness for the elevator to be installed. * and * were attending the Historic Commission Meeting (that same evening), and would feed back any news at a later date.
3. New uses for the old library and potential sites for a new Rockville courthouse: * spoke of the Town Center Action Team (TCAT), and how many of their attendees, like WECA members, had voiced interest in examining the above issues in more depth. Further discussion will take place at the next TCAT meeting to be held at 7pm, Tuesday November 21st in The Conference Room at Rockville Chamber of Commerce, situated at 255, Hungerford Drive, (enter off of Monroe). Patricia relayed that in the interest of broadening communication on Town Center topics that a representative be present, where possible, at future TCAT meetings.
4. KSI and the Bank of America building: * indicated that Peerless Rockville had declared an interest in designating the Bank of America Building as historic and opposed its demolition. Opposing points of view were generally discussed and it was noticed that the majority of people were overwhelmingly in favor of not saving the building. This was primarily prompted by the fact that it would delay or negate completely, the KSI ‘upgrades’ within the West End. It was also noted that WECA had formally submitted a letter supporting the required upgrades and that KSI have a tentative Planning Commission date of the 15th November at City Hall.
5. The proposed T-Mobile monopole at Julius West Middle School: * elaborated upon the many people and situations she’d encountered over the past several months, whilst attempting to present the views of the people opposing the installation of the monopole at the school, (mostly residents of Rose Hill Falls). These have included City Staff, administrative representatives of the Montgomery County Public School system, the JW Middle School PE staff and PTA members etc. This generated much discussion as the area to serve is Potomac and the monopole is proposed for Rockville. It had been noted by the Mayor during a Council meeting that property prices/land could depreciate when in close proximity to a monopole. With this in mind, * made a suggestion that in order to please all parties that it be situated elsewhere, still near I-270 but in a non-residential setting and that the school still be paid its annual fee. Others noted that there had been no forthcoming information about other suggested locations ie; the jail. * relayed that T-Mobile had recently stated that they would reduce the monopole’s height from 70ft to 50ft. This meant that the Mayor & Council would no longer need to rule on this issue as there was no height ‘waiver’ concern. Instead, the Planning Commission will make a decision when it hears from both sides, this Wednesday, November 15th. The meeting starts at 7pm and is to be held at City Hall. When asked, Maria Broadbent agreed that whatever the Planning Commission rule there will still be a Board of Appeals meeting which is scheduled for early December.
6. WECA Newsletter: * presented information concerning the proposed newsletter and * agreed to give her guidance if required whilst she produced and designed it. * will also liase with *, concerning design, layout, size and a proposed date. It was shared that the organization is compelled to produce two copies per year.
New Business
7. A City Overview by Maria Broadbent: Maria distributed two leaflets one giving information about organized, walking tours of a) the new Town Center and the other, outlining a b) City Planning document pertaining to Rockville Pike. The latter would allow residents to have some input, which would in turn be noted by the City staff that will ultimately produce the document. The Mayor is to consider a moratorium on larger scale building and issues related to zoning ordinances. This will not affect some projects that already have attained a certain level of approval from the City. The City will also work with a consultant, members of the residents’ Neighborhood Associations and local business owners.
c) CIP Funding Program – This is reviewed annually and is for projects which would cost $25,000 or more and be for an area which is used by the public. Maria gave street lighting as an example, improvements to a park, benches etc.. The deadline for these applications was 27th October 2006. As this information had been given to WECA at such short notice it generated some general discussion about street lights in various locations, whether it was invasive, how one would reach consensus on design and so forth. These points were further refined. * made a motion to consider a lighting project near Beall Elementary as part of the request and * amended and expanded that statement to include an overview of the West End as many homes did not have enough lumination in some side streets. * had researched this subject in the past and submitted some creative ideas. Whilst Patricia suggested that Beall Avenue residents be canvassed concerning this issue as she felt the decision should come from the ‘people’. As some assessments had already been carried out at Nelson and West Montgomery, * suggested that perhaps this would be a wise way to fund it. * was able to tell * that the City had already promised to fund that particular project. * suggested advertising this information in a timely fashion in the newsletter. * made a motion that a general request for street lights should be explored and it was seconded by *. She added that if Beall Avenue did receive street lights that the installations should coincide with new sidewalk which has been promised for that street.
8. Our guest speaker for the evening – Councilman Phil Andrews, had been asked to address the subject of Montgomery County’s action plan regarding I-270 and the proposed Gude Interchange: * introduced Mr. Andrews who spoke for approximately one hour, covering subjects from a vast housing project (Shady Grove Sector Plan), proposed for the Shady Grove Metro area to the proposed Gude Interchange, the Council’s Public Safety Committee, speed camera and issues affecting the safety of pedestrians. All of these generated much discussion and many attendees’ diverse questions were answered in depth by Mr. Andrews. The County’s Priority List was especially interesting to many people and it transpired that the Gude Interchange project was 11th on their list and work to be carried out for upgrades on R 355 was 4th on their list. Mr Andrews feels he helped as he managed to have influence upon the Shady Grove Housing developer/s. He insisted that traffic improvements be ‘tied in’ to the new building project – this means that two thirds of the development cannot go ahead until the traffic improvement funds have been budgeted for and appropriated. Mr Andrews was understanding of many peoples’ views concerning the frustration re traffic problems but was approaching the groups requests’ in a realistic manner. He alluded to the upcoming elections saying that with a new County Executive there would be a total of 3 new people out of a total of five, so this may engender positive change. Mr. Andrews then suggested that to be realistic perhaps it would be more effective for people to regularly lobby for the 355 option in order to speed that particular project through and hopefully move it up the list even further. He said that if the Inter-County Connector was built it would put enormous pressure, ‘to put big projects elsewhere’. He urged anyone who had concerns to contact his office at anytime.
9. Gala Evening fundraiser at the new library: * informed the group of a gala including dinner, live music and performance which will benefit the new library. It will be held on Saturday November 11th please contact the Friends of the Library for more information.
* made a motion which was seconded by * to adjourn the meeting at 9pm. The motion was carried unanimously.
Respectfully submitted
Jan Balkam
Recording Secretary