As those who have been following this issue know, there was a meeting last night at City Hall called by the Town Center Action Committee to discuss the siting of the new District Court building.
The background in a nutshell is this: The state is poised to begin work placing a new -- and needed -- District Court building on the site of the old public library. The City is on record as having asked the state repeatedly not to place the District Court there, due to its proximity to an historic district and to a school, and due to a lack of adequate parking for the proposed structure. The state has ignored the City's requests and continued to move forward with the property. The site is insufficient to support the Court's needs and the proposed structure even as envisioned is a scaled-back version of what was hoped for by the state. In January, Mayor Larry Giammo sent a letter to the newly-inaugurated Governor Martin O'Malley (and County Executive Ike Leggett) asking that he look again at the issue. Governor O'Malley has made it known in a letter to the legislative delegation that, if they and local leaders can find an alternate site, he would support it. In recent weeks, a new site has become available: the old Giant building (next to the Bank of America). The City is proposing that it purchase the Giant building, and swap it with the state for the old library site, which the state owns. The state could then build a larger District Court building on the old Giant site, and there would still be room left over for some green space.
Notwithstanding the City's protestations that date back at least to 2001, the Rockville legislative delegation (Sen. Jennie Forehand, and Dels. Kumar Barve, Luiz Simmons, and Jim Gilchrist) say that the recent objections to the "old library" site are the first they have heard of any problem with the District Court. That doesn't mean they haven't been listening; it may mean the state apparatus just didn't bother to tell them.
In any event, they say, moving the building would be difficult because: a) there would be costs (estimated approximately $2 million) associated with redesigning the building to sit on a different site; b) the current "old library" plan is ready to go and at the top of the list funding list for capital funding projects and delay would (it is feared) cause it to lose its place in line and have to wait some number of years to get back to the top of the heap; c) there would be delays associated with re-working the plans (on the order of between 6 and 14 months, depending on various factors, according to the state); and d) Chief Judge Ben Clyburn evidently finds the Giant site unsuitable operationally.
The 90-minute meeting last night was meant to figure out where we were, and what needed to happen in order to achieve the City's goal of getting the District Court to rest at the old Giant site.
There was firepower aplenty in the room. Of more than 20 attendees (people kept filtering in to the Red Maple Room so it was hard to keep count), five were current elected officials with a direct stake in this issue: Mayor Susan Hoffmann, Council Members John Britton and Phyllis Marcuccio, Delegates Simmons and Barve. City Manager Scott Ullery was also part of the official weight, giving background on the current state of play and answering key questions when needed. The two absent council members were Piotr Gajewski (who is in Poland) and Anne Robbins (who had a long-scheduled engagement but who let it be known ahead of time that she is complete agreement with the City's desire to have the building at the Giant site).
In addition to the official folks, there were other notables: both losing candidates for mayor (Mark Pierzchala and, later, Drew Powell); and city council candidate Brigitta Mullican. Numerous other active citizens were present including a number of Rockville Central contributors and friends. Bridget Newton, former president of the West End Civic Association and current chair of the Town Center Action Committee, convened and opened the meeting.
Once the necessary pleasantries were out of the way, the meeting became a discussion between Mayor Hoffmann and Delegate Barve. Delegate Barve was asked a few times what citizens can do to help make this happen in the way they would like it to, and he repeated that it is really a negotiation between the City and the State. Here is where that negotiation, at the end of the evening, appeared to stand:
If the City can get a guarantee from the Governor that the District Court project will not lose its place in the funding queue, and that additional design costs would not have to be borne by the State, Barve and Simmons will not stand in the way of moving the Court building to the Giant site -- and Barve would ask the Governor to do that.
It is up to the City, though, to make sure that the delegation is in a position to be able to make changes that won't rile the rest of the Montgomery County legislators -- after all, the District Court building is to be for the benefit of all Montgomery County residents.
Key question marks at the end of the evening were:
- Where does Senator Jennie Forehand, who did not attend the meeting, stand on this?
- Ditto Delegate Jim Gilchrist, who also could not attend (though some in the room had talked to him and he was described as "open" to the idea)
- Will the City really need to pay all of the (estimated) $2m redesign fees, when part of that redesing involves the State actually getting out of the building what it originally wanted but could not have?
- Where does Chief Judge Clyburn come down on this? (There's a meeting scheduled between him and Mayor Hoffmann on the 29th, and presumably we will know more then).
Stay tuned for more on this issue as it moves forward. At the moment, if you are in support of this, there is one chief thing you can do: write a letter to the Governor explaining that you are in favor of the Giant site and are delighted that your legislative delegation is working toward a reasonable solution to this issue. While this is a negotiation going on in the "official" world, word from the "unofficial" world on where people stand is helpful -- because, in the end, this will be a political decision and not a bureaucratic decision.
Other meeting attendees, if I got something wrong, please go ahead and make corrections in the
comments section of this article.
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Rockville Central friend Ruth Hanessian is organizing a celebration to honor former city council member Bob Dorsey's 14 years of service to the City. Immediately prior to the Mayor and Council meeting on Monday, November 26, there will be a pot luck reception. Ruth writes:
