The Montgomery County school board backpedaled on its plan to build a middle school in a popular Silver Spring park following stern letters from county officials, who said the parkland wasn’t theirs to take.
But the Department of Parks also raised concerns about the school board’s selection process, charging that they met in secret, ignored input from parks officials, and wasted time considering Rosemary Hills-Lyttonsville Local Park.
“To include this park as a strong candidate for a school — let alone as the number one choice — when there is little likelihood of acquiring it seems at best unproductive, and at worst unfair or misleading to the members of the site selection committee,” wrote Francoise Carrier, chairwoman of the Montgomery County Planning Board, in a letter to school board President Christopher Barclay.
Instead, the school board approved a study of Kensington’s Rock Creek Hills Local Park, also in the cluster’s region, and the board’s second choice; it also falls under the Parks Department’s domain, but because it was a former school site conveyed to the county in 1991, the district can reclaim the land.
Barclay did not return phone calls seeking comment.
In a March 8 report, the site selection advisory committee named Rosemary Hills-Lyttonsville the best site for a new middle school for the Bethesda-Chevy Chase cluster, citing its “access, cost, availability, location, and consistency with [environmental] criteria.”
But the community called foul, unwilling to lose the popular park’s ball fields, basketball courts and community center.
“My neighbors and I are victims of negligence of due process, as we only recently discovered that our park was being considered for development, let alone having risen to the top of the candidate list for a new middle school,” Silver Spring resident Susan Buchanan told the school board. “The quick and secretive nature in which the site selection process was handled left us feeling panicked, disenfranchised, and some even sadly feel unempowered.”
The Department of Parks told the school board they too had “serious concerns about the overall MCPS site selection process,” which landed on park property.
While a parks agency representative served on the advisory committee, Carrier said that “his objections to conversion of parkland were ignored. This does not seem appropriate.”
She also scolded the school board for lacking openness in its dealings, noting, “Where public property is at issue, secrecy does not serve the community well.”
County Executive Ike Leggett weighed in just hours before the school board redrafted the document it was voting on. In a letter, he urged Barclay to “look more closely” at Rock Creek Hills, reminding him of the school board’s legal right to reclaim the land. “[H]owever, I also urge the Board of Education to undertake an aggressive community and public input process to ensure that resident concerns are discussed.”
