Rockville Central is a community-produced information source with a healthy dose of opinion focused on the neighborhoods of Rockville, MD. Publisher: Brad Rourke. Editor: Cindy Cotte Griffiths.
We welcome submissions from readers! Especially ones who disagree with us! Contact: rockvillecentral@gmail.com

Perhaps because of my name, I’ve always loved the Cinderella story, especially her positive attitude when faced with constant adversity. She never stopped appreciating the wonders of life. Prince Charming was a side note, but I’m glad that worked out for her too. See a live performance of Cinderella by the Rockville Civic Ballet including [...]

According to the City, a memorial service for Carl Henn, who passed away in the recent storm, will be held at the F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre, (603 Edmonston Dr., Rockville, MD 20851) on Saturday morning, July 31 at 9:30 a.m. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you make donations to either the Chesapeake Bay [...]

Here’s a spot of good news. It’s National Chili Dog Day. Really. To celebrate, Hard Times Cafe is giving out a free chili dog to every customer. Just buy anything at Hard Times and get a free chili dog. Today only. Bet they are glad power was restored in time for this!

Update: News Channel 8 is reporting that Metro must delay the start of the peak surcharge until later in August due to the “memory limitations of fare gate technology”. Read the story here. You would think they would have known … This Sunday, August 1, 2010, Metrorail will change some fares and pricing. After checking [...]

Things are slowly getting back to normal here in Rockville, as Pepco works to bring power back to those who lost it, and businesses, community organizations, and others work to get things moving again. Here is the latest status, as of Wednesday afternoon about 4:30: Power: 23,710 Pepco customers still have no power in Montgomery [...]
Montgomery County Public Schools has announced that a handful of schools remain without power after Sunday’s storm. Rockville’s Julius West Middle School is on the list. This means: “Activities for Wednesday, July 28, are canceled at ten Montgomery County Public Schools facilities that remain without power. This includes summer schools, camps, recreation programs and summer [...]

[Updated; see end for description.] Rockville has lost a good friend, a tireless advocate, and an important voice. Carl Henn passed away today at the Washington Hospital Center after injuries sustained during Sunday’s extreme storm. Carl was apparently struck by lightning while participating in the King Farm Garden Club. According to one account, when the [...]

When the power line was knocked down by a tree last Sunday on West Argyle Street, the road surface burned 10 feet into the air. After the power went off, the line dangled in the middle of the road. Although yellow tape had been placed around the hazard, it was eventually removed. Cars were making [...]

Rockville recreation and parks director Burt Hall sent along the following update on the power outage: As far as we know Pepco is still concentrating primarily on major grid & system problems, trying to get the substations, transformers, etc. back on line, which as we understand it, is the quickest way to bring power back [...]
Pepco has announced that they plan to begin giving estimated restoration times as of 3pm today (Tuesday). Customers can call 1-877-PEPCO-62 (877-737-2662) to find out when they can expect power back. Pepco’s announcement: “We expect most customers to have service restored by Thursday but some outages will take longer to repair. More than 450 crews [...]
By John Cooper-Martin: A life-long Democrat, Cheryl Kagan won election to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1994. She proudly represented District 17 (Rockville, Gaithersburg, and Garrett Park) in Annapolis, for eight years. There, she earned a reputation as an independent-minded legislator and was particularly effective in her work on the Appropriations Committee. This is [...]

>In our recap of Monday’s Mayor and Council meeting, we promised a full list of Art Stigile’s questions about RedGate Golf Course from Citizen’s Forum. Thanks to Art’s courtesy, here they are: [UPDATE: Art has provided backup for his assertions in this piece; they are here.] Next week the RedGate Advisory Committee will present its [...]

Dskco dined at Spice Xing and everything was good. This is so true. I’ve found every bite to be absolutely delicious. Here’s the beginning of her review on Lunching In The DMV: Friday was date night with the bf, and before watching The Karate Kid (good flick BTW) we had Indian food at Spice Xing. [...]
>The following was submitted by Dan D’Agostino, the co-owner of Go Ape, in response to a Contributor Opinion by Jonathan Haber. Although I’ve added his reply in the comments, this is a explanation worth highlighting on its own. I wanted to take this opportunity to respond to your Opinion piece on the Rockville Central website. [...]

>I might have taken the last photographs of this tree: and Oh it’s still there. But it’s not in the middle of a beautiful field anymore. You see, I went to Lake Needwood yesterday and was surprised and disappointed to see that an “adventure ropes course” is being built in the woods adjacent to this [...]
>Citizens of Rockville! I command the Mayor and Council Vision 2020 to your attention!!! At its June 21, 2010 meeting, the Rockville City Council unanimously passed a vision of how the Council imagines Rockville in year 2020. The document is used to guide the City staff in its work of managing the City and in [...]
There has been some controversy recently over some statements that Mayor >Phyllis Marcuccio has made as they relate to the office of Mayor. It is true that the role of Mayor, as proscribed in the City Charter (Max van Balgooy has a useful discussion of this) is almost identical to that of the other Council [...]
>Our friend Max van Balgooy posted the following piece to his blog and agreed for us to run it as a contributor opinion piece here at Rockville Central: 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” [...]
>One recent morning, as I prepared to cross the street in downtown Rockville (in a marked crosswalk, on a WALK sign, so there’s no question about the legality of my actions), I watched a Rockville police car sail through a red light right in front of me. While I’ve grown wearily resigned to the apparent [...]
I founded >Rockville Central three years ago today. (Here is the first article.) When it began, I had very, very narrow expectations. I wanted to recreate some of the good feelings I describe in this article. And — more important — I wanted to try to provide a space for people to enter public life. [...]