Subscribe free to our daily email newsletterWe Have Deleted Court House Poll
Feb 7, 2008 21:35 - 10 Comments
Dear Readers:>
As many of you know, we recently put up a “poll” asking what people thought about the State’s idea to build a new district court house where the old public library building is. This building is next to a school, a church, and an historic district, and has no parking available neither now nor in any plans. It is a testament to the power of this particular issue that our traffic more than doubled over the norm.
But, I have deleted the poll. It was ill-advised.
Why? Three reasons:
- People appeared to be gaming the poll. Near the end of the day today, there were sudden floods of visitors from the same Internet addresses, corresponding with a sudden flood of votes. They came one after the other, all from the same place. The system doesn’t allow the same computer to vote twice, but it looked as if whole offices were all voting at once — from Bethesda, Frederick, Silver Spring and other places outside of Rockville. It’s one thing to motivate your network, another to try to stuff the ballot box. That is what it looked like was happening.
- People were clearly positioning to use the “results” as political ammo. No Internet poll like this even comes close to being “valid” for anything other than a lark, which is what this was intended to be. But from the emails I was getting, people were pinning a lot on the results, as if they might actually mean more than they do. I did not want to see anyone claiming a “Rockville Central poll shows” that they were right, or the other side was wrong.
- There were problems with the wording of the questions. This was less of an issue for me than the first two, but it is valid. Some people thought the questions were biased against the “move the court house” position (this even though I have been very clearly on the move the court house side and have a “move” sign on my lawn). The main beef was that I did not include the idea that the Giant option might still be on the table. In any event, one side felt hard done by because of the poll and that was not the point — and it damaged the overall credibility of this space.
In retrospect, I should have anticipated all of the above.
It added up to a clear decision. It would be painful, and involve admitting a mistake, but that’s what grown-ups do. My main purpose in starting this site was for it to be useful in people’s lives and for it to be a space for civil dialog about issues that matter. This was just too big a lightning rod and was clearly going to do more harm than good.
So, there you have it. I can take my lumps. I am sorry if my experiment raised the anxiety level. If you were really looking forward to voting later, you will have to look elsewhere.
In the future, if I try another poll, it will be about something benign, like Hard Times vs. Giuseppe’s. Hmm, maybe not that, either.
Thanks for bearing with me. This is as new to me as it is to you.
–Brad Rourke
As a lawyer, courthouse employee, and 20 year Rockville resident, I can assure you that your poll was not being “gamed”, at least not from our internet address. The hundreds of us that work at the District and Circuit Courts need access to one another on a daily basis to do the public’s business, as do many, many members of the public. >
As a Rockville homeowner, I am more astonished every year by the density of traffic here, and how miserable it is making our lives. I cannot believe that those who endorse the landswap have accounted for the tremendous increase in traffic that would result from the need for travel between buildings. Even if we employees were barred from using vehicles to make the trip, the public would thoroughly clog N. Washington every business day to do so, you can be assured. That begs the question of how employees would accomplish their tasks, many laden with armloads of files, on foot. Further, the numerous approvals (including state funds) for the present location were hard won. If we delay construction in order to relocate, you can bet that the funds will be redirected to another county, lickety-split. And to what end? Do you believe that the undesireable people you want to keep from the Library site can’t cross E. Jefferson now? It really does seem that, in order to preserve or improve the status quo for those West of the current District Court site, you are willing to throw the public’s work and convenience from the train.
So, to reiterate, we weren’t “gaming” your poll. We have strong feelings and well-reasoned postitions, and we intend to share them, in a civil fashion, in any and all available fora.
Thanks for the comments. Many of your points are well taken and deserve answers. I hope folks on the other side will continue to raise their good arguments too.>
This actually further confirms to me the unusefulness of a poll, which people cannot help but end up seeing as somehow definitive, even if it is not.
I hope you keep reading, and I encourage all with views on this subject to share them in comments or submit short contributor opinions for consideration.
Thanks again.
Giuseppe’s!
In response to el:>
1. So having to walk two and a half blocks in one direction, instead of one block in the other, would prevent “hundreds of [you] that work at the District and Circuit Courts” from having “access to one another on a daily basis”? Hmmm… Seems to me that having a nice big parking lot at a new courthouse, strategically located between the new one and the existing one maybe even, would provide something you don’t now have – a place to park. Now that would enhance access.
2. You fear that if you were “barred from using vehicles to make the trip” (that two and a half block trip), “the public would thoroughly clog N. Washington every business day”. People walking along a downtown street and patronizing the local businesses might be considered a good thing. Many of us would love to “have to walk” through the nice new Town Square, and be able to gaze into all the new shops, and stop for a meal or snack, as part of their work day. That’s how our new downtown was designed to function. And isn’t that what people who work in downtowns all over the world do?
3. If this conjectured hoard of pedestrians would clog N. Washington St.going to and from a new courthouse at another site, what would it do to traffic on Route 28 — as that hoard crosses the street all day long going to and from a new courthouse at the library site? Want to talk about making gridlock worse? Trust us local residents when we tell you that crossing Route 28 in town is something you want to avoid.
4. Some say as if it were an Executive Order from the President that “if the courthouse is not built at the library site, then no courthouse will be built for ten years.” Is this reasonable, or just rhetoric? The Governor has put enough money into the budget to design and build a courthouse at an alternate site. He saw building at the library site as a bad case of urban planning malfeasance. He pledged to do everything in his power to ensure the priority and funding for a courthouse at an alternate location. Our delegation is supposed to weild considerable power – if they would just get on board, a new courthouse could be sited and built elsewhere probably with only a year’s delay.
Finally, all your concerns seem to be from the courthouse worker’s perspective and ignore impacts on local residents, who pay State, MoCo and Rockville taxes. We will feel the real impacts from a new courthouse — whatever they may be and wherever the courhouse is built. With no parking being provided for a new courthouse at the library site, we will also be subsidizing your parking in the new Town Square garages that our taxes are paying for. Are these impacts truly justified, for your convenience?
It is really sad that this situation could have been averted if the serious flaws in siting a courthouse at the library site, which have been raised by City leaders and local residents at least as far back as 2001, had not been ignored for all this time. A better site could have been found. One where we could build a showcase courthouse, with all the facilities the courts need, not a scaled down one, shoe-horned into a too-small lot in definace of the zoning code. Then we all could have been spared all this trauma and drama.
Where can I find drawings and schematics of the new courthouse. I have tried numerous Google searches but have not found anything yet.
Barry Miller, the Maryland GSA project manager for the project, should be able to help you. He is at 410 767-4446, barry.miller@dgs.state.md.us
Frank Anastasi said;>
“Some say as if it were an Executive Order from the President that “if the courthouse is not built at the library site, then no courthouse will be built for ten years.” Is this reasonable, or just rhetoric? The Governor has put enough money into the budget to design and build a courthouse at an alternate site. He saw building at the library site as a bad case of urban planning malfeasance. He pledged to do everything in his power to ensure the priority and funding for a courthouse at an alternate location. Our delegation is supposed to wield considerable power – if they would just get on board, a new courthouse could be sited and built elsewhere probably with only a year’s delay.”
Your post reflects a convenient or regretable lack of fluency re this county’s “influence”. We are considered the Rich Uncle of this state, and any request for funding for any facility for MoCo is a veritable punching bag for other jurisidictions. Go ahead–block what is about to be appropriated for a new courthouse…and then Heaven help us all. Believe me, the delegations for Washington, Calvert, Hartford , and virtually every other county in this state will not hold our coats while we fight this out. We get our appropriations now, while we can, or we should settle in for a decade or more of inaction, until our renewed request MAY get the nod from the General Assembly. And as for your observation that my post only seemed to take the perspective of courthouse employees into account, I would say that we do the work of the PUBLIC–nearly a million strong–and that I also clearly advocated for them and their (publicly and privately) paid advocates, their lawyers–whose time is not FREE, no matter how fervently you wish that it should be.
You, by contrast, seem to be promoting the interests of a score or more of adjoining proerty owners….Hmmm. Who has the interests of the BROADER consituency at heart, I wonder?
Btw, since the construction of the Red Brick Courthouse took place about a century ago, I doubt that even one of your beneficiaries (i.e, adjacent property owners) could truthfully say that they had bought their parcels before the location of the Courthouse was known to them. It appears that they now wish to alter the “status quo ante”–although this proxemienty to a popular public facility is one of the primary drivers of the value of their properties. Still,now, many years after the issue was settled, you want to reopen it, for the benfit of the very (highly affluent) few, at the expense and risk of the many. So be it.
The body politic will be heard, I imagine….There are many more who stand to benefit from co-location of the courthouses than there are adjacent property owners, so let democracy do its thing, yet again.
By the way, those of you who are opposed to the original siting of the relocated District Court and who are adjacent or nearly adjacent property owners (as is one of the commentors), might do us the favor of mentioning that fact, by way of transparency. It seems a little unfair to do otherwise.
Careful there, el. You are geting kind of personal. We should sit down and have a smoothie and talk about this. I am concerned about your blood pressure.>
I am sorry, but nothing you have said here acknowledges the basic faults of the library site – too small to build the courthouse you need so badly; no room for parking; zoning for the lot that does not allow the proposed building.
And you act like we advocate putting the courthouse in Pennsylvania — for gosh sakes, we are saying put it two blocks in the other direction!
You said:
“Still,now, many years after the issue was settled, you want to reopen it, for the benfit of the very (highly affluent) few, at the expense and risk of the many.”
But can’t you see that the issue was never settled? Some people outside Rockville made some kind of deal. The city and its residents have been objecting to that back-room deal for maybe ten years. But all along the way, they were ignored, and told “there’s nothing you can do.” Never a public hearing. Never a serious attempt to find a better site. Until mid-2007 when we prevailed on the Governor, who ordered a fresh look at potential alternative sites. And then guess what? The Giant site comes up as a superior site!
You say no one “will hold our coats while we fight it out”? Why fight? Why not agree to work together to find a solution, like the Governor reportedly pleaded with you guys to do? Don’t you think the Governor is thinking about all the people in MD, and not just a few people?
Again, we don’t understand why the MoCo delegation and the court leaders refuse to get involved and work out a solution as the Governor asked them to do. So, if this thing does spiral out of control like it looks is happening, and things get delayed brcause your side wont sit down and work out a reasonable solution, then if you don’t get that new courthouse any time soon, whose fault will it really be?
Oh, and by the way, el, about transparency? You know my name, even seem to know where I live. I’m cool with that, unless you are an arsonist (which I am sure you aren’t). But we only know you as ‘el’?????????