Hopping Mad About the Extra Foot

Is this going to be Trail-gate? Is there a smoking jackhammer? What did the arborist know, and when did he know it?

More residents made their displeasure known to the council about this - the extra foot added to the width of a 366 foot long section of the Metropolitan Bicycle Trail. It was supposed to be 7 feet wide to accommodate tree roots along that section, That was the width agreed to after years of study, discussion, and compromise. Allegedly, as the section was being completed two weeks ago, the city arborist gave the contractor permission to make it 8 feet wide.

Some former members of the committee are hopping mad about the extra foot. Last week, you may recall, two of them spoke, one anti-foot, one pro-foot. This time two more anti-foots showed up and expressed outrage.

Mayor Porter assured them that she has asked staff to look into the incident, and City Manager Barbara Matthews said in her first City Manager Report, now a regular feature of council meetings, that she recommends a council work session on the issue. So, watch for this one, readers!

The Washington Adventist Hospital president Jere (pronounced “Jerry”) Stocks himself turned out for what was scheduled to be a discussion of a proposed WAH site committee. However, more significant news came out of the discussion.

Erwin Mack, who serves on the Adventist Community Action Council, a group made up of leaders of local Seven Day Adventist institutions reported that the council was unanimous in its 1) desire to keep the hospital, and 2) concern with the impact of the sale on Columbia College, the Adventist campus adjoining the hospital grounds. There is a movement, Mack said, to find a way to keep it in Adventist hands, and a search has begun to find a funding source. This is not to say that the hospital would remain there, only that the Adventist council hopes the property will remain in Adventist hands.

Though President Stocks is presumably a member of the council which unanimously wants the hospital to remain, he made it very clear that nevertheless the hospital was on the path to relocation.

Stocks, in the opinion of activist/resident Rino Aldrighetti in remarks a few weeks ago to the city council, was hired to head the transition as smoothly and uncontentiously as possible from Takoma Park to roomier, more profitable pastures. Certainly, Stocks chose his words carefully, both staying on message, and keeping the council as reassured as possible.

When questioned, he claimed to have paid little attention to such issues as when the hospital will be sold or what the hospital board’s Plan B is if the state does not approve their proposal to move. In fact, he says they put no thought into these subjects at all. There is not one grain of doubt in their minds that Plan A is all they need to think about and they are SO FOCUSED on their vision of a new hospital, they haven’t spend one second musing about any other aspect of this proposed move.

Right.

Mayor Porter was at pains to get Stock’s public commitment to working with the city on the issue, and he readily gave it. She was also anxious to get on record his approval of the committee makeup. He said it was fine with him. The proposal, prepared by Suzanne Ludlow, the city’s Community & Government Liaison, called for a committee made up of “14 persons: 2 persons appointed from each Ward, and 2 persons appointed by the Mayor; ex-officio representation from Washington Adventist Hospital, Maryland National Park and Planning Commission, and Montgomery County Health Department. City Manager to appoint staff. “

The group’s makeup was not so fine with others, particularly Council Member Marc Elrich, whose ward the WAH site is in. He wanted more residents from the immediate neighborhoods, and he questioned why people were requesting representation from other wards and institutions - for example, representatives from Victory Towers, the Ward 1 retirement home.

The reason for having such a wide community spectrum, he was told, is that the concerns go beyond the immediate community due to the healthcare implications for the entire city if (more likely when) the hospital leaves. Elrich pointed out that since it seems inevitable that the hospital is leaving, it would be pointless to combine the two concerns, health care and development, on one committee. Subsequently, the council decided to create TWO committees, one to focus on the WAH site development, the other on healthcare provision.

In a presentation that was as bald-faced as it was pathetic, a representative from Maisel Development Company tried to make the case that the self-storage facility the company plans to build fits the criteria of the city Master Plan. It was like listening to a small child make the case that a trip to Disneyland would be so educational it would justify missing a year of school. The Maisel presentation was about that convincing - and that transparent. Nobody was buying.

The location in question is the Takoma Park’s very southeastern tip at the corner of New Hampshire and Eastern Avenues. These two major traffic arteries mark the boundaries of Prince George’s County and the District of Columbia.

The prominence and visibility of this location makes it what, readers? All together now, . . . “THE GATEWAY!!!”

Yep, that’s right, readers! Rest assured that your council knows that this is THE GATEWAY, too! Boy, howdy, do they! They told the developer’s representative that though technically self-storage is a retail business, which the Master Plan calls for, this is definitely not the sort of retail that helps create a thriving community economic center, which is the goal, especially for such a high-visibility, important location as THE GATEWAY.

All told, hey must have repeated this message fifty times. Maybe they felt the need to drive the point home like a stake into Maisel Development’s vampire heart, but for those of us watching the already late-running meeting it was one of those pleeeeze-make-it-STOPPP-athons that deliberative governing bodies are so expert at creating.

Maybe I’m missing the point - maybe it’s like a jazz jam session. The Mayor plays a riff, repeats it a number of times with slight variations, then the council members pick it up and do their own variations with different cadences and counter-themes.

However one looks at it, it was LATE, and even the council was complaining about it as they dragged the proceedings on. It is a rule of human nature that, though one is fed up to the teeth with a meeting and all one wants to do is go home, one will still perk up to add “one more thing,” even if it is only to reiterate what the last five speakers have just said.

Last week I reported on testy words exchanged between the Mayor and Council Member Joy Austin-Lane. This was sparked when Austin-Lane rebuked a speaker who had just verbally attacked another speaker in the council meeting’s public comment segment. The mayor and Austin-Lane were more cordial with one another this meeting.

However, at the beginning of the meeting Mayor Porter took a moment of the “council comment” time to remark that she has become disturbed over the last few years with what she called the degradation of respect given by the council to citizens and their viewpoints. She said council members can have discussions that express strong disagreements, but they should remain respectful.

Austin-Lane made no remark on the subject.

Readers, you might want to note that the Council will take up rent stabilization at the Monday, Jan 23 meeting. This is the perennial hot potato issue. The city web site says, “The following aspects of rent stabilization will be considered during the months of January and February 2006: annual rent increase allowance (January 23), Rent increases upon vacancy and exemptions from rent stabilization (February 6), and the Capital Improvement Rent Increase Petition (February 21)”

It also says, “You may submit your comments in writing to the City Clerk at 7500 Maple Avenue, Takoma Park MD 20912 or by e-mail at Clerk@takomagov.org. You are also welcome to attend the Council meetings. . . .
For more information, please contact Linda Walker (301.891.7222) or Sara Anne Daines (301.891.7224).”

Gosh, I feel so public service-y, now!

- Gilbert