City Council Punts on Red Gate When It Should Have Tackled
On Monday, September 20, the Mayor and Council concluded (for now) the situation with Red Gate Golf Course, an issue that’s been vexing them for the last year (and longer). Unfortunately, they didn’t resolve the issue, they just kicked the can further down the road to let the next city council deal with this tar baby. By eliminating past debt and next year’s anticipated deficit, they were able to put off the hard decision about the golf course until 2012.
Rosy predictions about the golf course’s future (“we’re giving them a clean slate,” “I just know they’ll succeed as soon as the economy improves”) are either condescending or naïve. The golf course has run deficits for years and has had declining participation for nearly two decades–this isn’t related to the economic downturn. Without a serious change in management or increased investment, Continue reading →
Just Crazy About My New Concrete Walkway
I may sound crazy, but I’m sooooooo happy about my new concrete walkway at my house. For years we’ve been dragging our trashcans from the back door to the curb over an increasingly worn gravel walkway, which became a struggle in rain and snow with the new big city trashcans. It took several years for me to decide what I wanted because of existing fences and trees as well as other more pressing projects around the house, but now that it’s done, it’s a beauty. The slideshow includes lots of shots before, during, and after so you can see the work in progress as well as the quality of the work. Look at those control joints! They’re clean, neat, and straight from end to end, especially where they meet another joint (for comparison, look at the ones in a typical sidewalk and you’ll see right away how much more masterful these are).
From excavation to forming to finishing to clean up (yes, clean up!), the work was entirely performed by Jose Guzman of Strictly Concrete who is right in my neighborhood of Twinbrook. The business end of things was handled professionally as well, with a clearly written contract in advance, payment receipts, and maintenance and care instructions. I’m so happy to give work to someone in my town, but when it’s such outstanding quality, it’s a home run.
Finding Fungus Can be Fun in Fall
Okay, this is going to sound a bit strange, but this fall, explore the forests around Rockville hunting for fungus. August and September’s warmth and humidity encourage lots of mushrooms to burst out of the forest floor and dead trees, and because they’re so short-lived, it’s a great time to see this and wonderful world at our feet. If you don’t remember this from biology class in high school, fungi are one of the six Kingdoms (others include Plantae and Animalia), so if you haven’t taken a close look at them, you’re missing a major part of the life.
In Rockville, you’ll find fungus in your yard and nearby parks, but the best location I’ve found with the largest diversity is the John G. Hayes Forest Preserve which is part of the Civic Center Park. The entrance is next to the Croydon Creek Nature Center. You’ll want to explore the forest above as well as the slopes below near the creek, so wear sturdy shoes. The big white mushrooms are easy to spot standing up from the ground or clinging to the bark of a tree, but usually you have to look more carefully and gently brush away leaves to find ones that are brown, small, or hidden underneath. In a couple hours, you should be able to find at least a dozen different types of mushrooms, many of which you’ll never have seen before. I’ve shared just a few in the slide show.
And now that I’ve shared my secret with you, I have a couple requests:
- please don’t pick up or remove the mushrooms you find. Kids love to kick them for some reason, but remind them to leave them for others to find and enjoy.
- don’t eat the mushrooms you find, unless you’re a mycologist. If you don’t know what that means, don’t even touch them. Many mushrooms are toxic and there’s no easy way to distinguish between edible and poisonous ones. You may not die but you could experience headaches, drowsiness, nausea, lowered blood pressure, diarrhea, urgent urination, profuse vomiting, extreme pain, blurred vision, asthma, muscle spasms, liver damage, and hallucinations. I didn’t list all the possible symptoms, just the ones that caught my attention.
If you’d like to learn more, pick up the Field Guide to the Mid-Atlantic States by Peter Alden and Brian Cassie (National Audubon Society) or the in-depth North American Mushrooms by Orson Miller and Hope Miller (Falcon Guide). I bought my copies at REI.
Great Day for a Wine Festival
Today Rockville Town Square was a wonderful place to explore Maryland’s wineries and Rockville’s fine wine stores. It was the fourth annual “Uncorked,” a music and wine festival downtown featuring nine wineries and four wine retailers, along with cooking demonstrations, several bands, and a couple food and plant vendors. The beautiful weather attracted a large, diverse, and happy crowd. All the booths were crowded with tasters pushing forth their wine glasses to sample a broad selection of wines. Usually you were able to get a taste within a few minutes of waiting, however, some visitors treated the booths like bars and just hung out asking for drink after drink (come on, everyone, there are thousands of people at this event–“pour, drink, leave”). Usually, the servers would notice the crowd, ignore the slugs, and reach out to offer tastes to others who were waiting but I was absolutely miffed at the dazed servers at Jackie’s Wine Club, who just kept serving the same few people at the front. Fortunately, I could easily move on to the next booth.
There was something for everyone at this festival. Maryland has a reputation for producing sweet fruit-flavored wines and you could find some unusual ones, including mango, watermelon, green apple, and kiwi pear at Solomon Island. They’re too sweet for me, so I was focused on the traditional varietals such as reislings and chardonnays offered by Boordy, Frederick Cellars, Running Hare, and Elk Run. All the wineries also sold wine so you could pick up something that you’d have to drive out of the county to find and Terrapin Station Winery was the only one offered boxed wines–in an attractive modernist 1.5-liter square box. Although Montgomery County is the dominant wine dealer in the area (why is the government involved in selling liquor?), they weren’t present but other specialized stores were, including Gilly’s and the Bottle Shop (both are on the fringes of Rockville but I’m glad to have them in town).
Thanks to the City of Rockville for producing this fun event for adults!
Free Parking in Town Square: A New York Perspective
Town Square parking garage
In case you didn’t catch the August 14 edition of the New York Times, it includes an economic evaluation on parking which might bring a different perspective on our perennial debate on Town Center parking. In “Free Parking Comes at a Price,” Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University, suggests that while many people see a free parking space as an entitlement, it’s actually a subsidy that wastes space and money:
Many suburbanites take free parking for granted, whether it’s in the lot of a big-box store or at home in the driveway. Yet the presence of so many parking spaces is an artifact of regulation and serves as a powerful subsidy to cars and car trips. Legally mandated parking lowers the market price of parking spaces, often to zero. Zoning and development restrictions often require a large number of parking spaces attached to a store or a smaller number of spaces attached to a house or apartment block.
If developers were allowed to face directly the high land costs of providing so much parking, the number of spaces would be a result of a careful economic calculation rather than a matter of satisfying a legal requirement. Parking would be scarcer, and more likely to have a price — or a higher one than it does now — and people would be more careful about when and where they drove.
He goes on to note that a parking space may cost more than the vehicle that’s parked in it, especially when you consider a car’s rapid depreciation. So I decided to do some quick calculations based on our situation for the three city parking garages in the Town Center based on the City’s FY2011 budget: Continue reading →
Is Rockville’s Mayor the Chief Executive?
At Mayor and Council meeting of June 7, 2010, the Gazette claimed that Mayor Phyllis Marcuccio stated she was “the city leader and de facto chief executive” of the City of Rockville. I didn’t hear that on the broadcast, but confusion over the roles of board and staff isn’t unusual. I’ve served on boards, for boards, and with boards and one of the most common areas of friction and frustration is the role of the board and staff in an organization. It’s made even more confusing because of the various interchangeable titles used by those at the top (e.g., president, chair, chief executive, mayor). Rockville’s Mayor was initially called a President.
Firstly, every organization is different so it’s crucial to understand the rules under which they operate. For the City of Rockville, it’s the City Charter and the City Code. You can’t assume that what happens in New York or Baltimore or Kensington is the same as Rockville. In Rockville, the primary powers of the Council are to Continue reading →
Farmers Markets: Recommendations Wanted
For the next issue of Rockville Living, the online magazine, I’ll be writing about farmers markets since it’s the beginning of the season. Of course I’ll talk about the market in Rockville, but I may also mention the relatively new market in Olney (since it’s close by and very different) and the Farm Women’s Cooperative Market in Bethesda (because it’s the oldest and has an interesting history). I’ve already begun interviewing some of the vendors to get their perspectives and I’ll be making some recommendations on what to buy from whom (e.g., grass-fed beef from the Kaufmann family at Garden Path Farm at the Rockville market on Saturday), but if you have recommendations, suggestions, or ideas, post them here for consideration. I need to file my story soon, so let me know by June 16 (but of course, you can post comments here or at Rockville Living afterwards).
Historic Preservation in Rockville: Myths and Misconceptions
"Is Your Home Historic?", TCA Newsletter, June 2010.
In yesterday’s mail I received the Twinbrook Citizens Association newsletter and noted that President Christina Ginsberg devoted a portion to historic preservation in Rockville in her article, “Is Your Home ‘Historic’?” As a member of the Historic District Commission (HDC) living in Twinbrook, I appreciate the attention to this long-standing effort in the City of Rockville, but I also want to correct some factual errors and misunderstandings, particularly because they can result in unnecessary conflicts and spread misinformation. Here are the common myths regarding preservation in Rockville:
1. If my house is designated, it’ll prevent improvements. False. In Rockville, owners of historic properties can complete routine repairs and maintenance without review or approval, as long as they replace in kind. So fix your roof with the same material, it’s okay. Change from asphalt to slate, it’ll need to be approved by the HDC. Paint colors are never subject to approval, so if you like yellow and purple stripes, go ahead. Work on the inside of your house isn’t reviewed by the HDC, so remodel your kitchen and bathroom. It’s permanent changes to the outside of your house that matter, and even then, if they are thoughtfully designed Continue reading →
A Great Day at the Homes and Hospitality Tour
City Council Now Accepts Comments Online
Long overdue but much appreciated is the City of Rockville’s recent introduction of eComment, an online comment system in which the public can support, question, or object to items on the Mayor and Council agenda prior to a meeting.
According to the City, “the pilot program began with the Monday, April 12, Mayor and Council meeting. Agendas are typically published on the Thursday prior to the Monday meeting. The comment page can be found on the City’s Web site, www.rockvillemd.gov, and will close at 4 p.m. each Monday that there is a Mayor and Council meeting. Comments will be delivered directly to the Mayor and Council through the City Clerk’s Office. All comments are considered public information.”
The City launched eComment as “an opportunity for citizens to make their voices heard; help focus citizen comments to items already on the agenda; let citizens give input when they are unable to attend meetings; and provide the Mayor and Council with an organized report of comments prior to meetings.” I applaud their efforts to increase the ways that citizens can speak to the City (usually it’s the other way round), especially in Continue reading →
