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?

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.

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.

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.