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 the very same District she will serve, if elected State Senator.

After eight years in the House, Cheryl chose not to seek reelection.  She continued advancing important issues by serving as the first-ever Executive Director of the Carl M. Freeman Foundation.   Under Cheryl’s guidance, the Foundation distributed over $1,000,000 each year to deserving nonprofit organizations primarily in Montgomery County (MD) and Sussex County (DE).  Grants, capacity-building programs, and leadership institutes provided support for worthy organizations working on behalf of the underprivileged, the environment, education, the elderly, and the arts.  Following the untimely death of the Foundation’s Chair, Cheryl coordinated the creation of the Joshua M. Freeman Foundation as well.

Over the years, Cheryl has committed her time and talents as a political and strategic consultant and spokesperson.  Her candidates and causes have been at both the federal and local levels and have included electing progressive Democrats; reducing drug and alcohol dependence; and creating affordable housing for working people.  Most recently, she earned the title of “Professor Kagan” for the course she teaches on State & Local Government at Montgomery College.  For many years, she has been a regular Democratic commentator on CBS TV’s Washington D.C. affiliate and other media outlets.

An active volunteer, Cheryl served eight years on the Maryland State Arts Council and just completed six years as Vice President of the Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County.  She was appointed by the County Executive to the Charter Review Commission and by the Chancellor to the Board of Advisors of the Universities at Shady Grove.  She currently serves on the boards of the American Jewish Committee and Americans for Democratic Action.  She is a graduate of Leadership Montgomery (Class of 2002) and continues to volunteer with the organization.  Along with her husband, David Spitzer (a career Montgomery County public school teacher), Cheryl is the founder and co-host of “Folk ‘N Great Music,” which brings nationally known acoustic singer-songwriters into an intimate performance setting.  Cheryl’s commitment to supporting the artists has resulted in their series becoming the first unionized house concert venue in the country!

Twice recognized as one of Maryland’s “Top 100 Women,” Cheryl was also selected by Montgomery County’s Business and Professional Women as a “Woman of Achievement” and as both a Blaustein and Comay Fellow by the American Jewish Committee.  The Greater Washington Board of Trade twice recognized her for leadership on behalf of the Intercounty Connector, and The Baltimore Sun named her as one of their “Rising Stars.”

Cheryl has been endorsed by several organizations, including NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland to the Sierra Club, Firefighters, Service Employees, and others  They believe, as I do, that Cheryl will be a more effective champion for the environment, working families, or women’s reproductive choices.

We need a leader, in Annapolis, representing us; Cheryl Kagan is a leader.  These are hard times, for Montgomery County, and the rest of Maryland.  Cheryl will be a champion, for the causes that are important to us, as citizens of Rockville, Gaithersburg, and Garrett Park.  Cheryl’s legislative priorities include: focusing on our fiscal priorities, supporting public education, improving transportation options, promoting public safety, providing affordable housing, protecting our environment, defending reproductive choice, delivering on health care issues, disclosing and limiting campaign finances, and celebrating diversity. These are some of the reasons why so many organizations and people have endorsed Cheryl.  For all of these reasons, and many more, I urge you to vote, for Cheryl Kagan, Democrat for State Senate, representing District 17, which is Rockville, Gaithersburg, and Garrett Park, in the Primary Election, September 14th.  Also, you can learn more about Cheryl, including how to support her to win this election on her website: www.CherylKagan.org.

John Cooper-Martin

This is a Contributor Opinion. Rockville Central encourages readers to submit such pieces for consideration — the more voices the better. Simply send them to rockvillecentral@gmail.com. We ask that all such contributions be civil and we reserve the right to edit (in consultation with the author) or reject. Contributor opinions should not be seen as reflecting opinions held by Rockville Central editors, as they are just as frequently at odds with our own views. That’s the whole point!

Please also note that Rockville Central does not endorse candidates in election campaigns. Supporters of all candidates are encouraged to submit opinion pieces for consideration.

Image from RedGate Golf Course

[UPDATE: Art has provided backup for his assertions in this piece; they are here.]

Next week the RedGate Advisory Committee will present its recommendations for improving the financial condition of the golf course. In anticipation of the meeting, I have 10 questions that I would like to ask the Advisory Committee. I believe they are hard, but fair, questions that should be asked of the Committee, which after all, serves primarily as the golfers’s advocacy group. I won’t be able to ask all of them tonight, but I will start tonight and finish up next week. I have already emailed them to the Chairman of the Advisory Committee and to the Mayor and Council.

1. When Rockville agreed to establish the golf course in 1974, golfers promised to pay all of the expenses of the golf course and not saddle taxpayers with any of the cost. In exchange, RedGate would be run like a business that focused on meeting the needs of golfers, without a lot of meddling by taxpayers. Setting RedGate up as a separate Enterprise Fund was essential to carrying out this deal. Through 1999, golfers lived up to their bargain with taxpayers. However, Redgate has run deficits in each of the past 10 years, and taxpayers have been forced to fill the gap. Are today’s golfers willing to live by the original deal struck with taxpayers, and if not, why should taxpayers feel obligated to subsidize golf?
2. RedGate is expected to run a deficit of $674,000 this year, and taxpayers are once again going to have to fill the hole. If you do the math, that works out to a taxpayer subsidy of about $19 for every round of golf played at RedGate. Does the Advisory Committee agree that this is incredibly excessive? How would you define the appropriate level?
3. Redgate is expected to end the current year with a negative balance of about $2.4 million. This figure is more than double the revenue that we expect to collect from golfers for the entire year. The cumulative losses are expected to grow to $5.9 million by the end of FY 2015, which by then will be more than 5 times RedGate’s annual income. My question is this. How and when do you propose to repay taxpayers for this debt?
4. Rockville has operated for several years with a requirement to run a General Fund reserve equal to 15 percent of revenue. At the June 21^st meeting of Mayor and Council, staff testified that incorporating RedGate into the General Fund would immediately reduce the General Fund reserve to 13.6 percent in FY 2011 and reduce it further each year, leaving it at just 2.7 percent in FY 2015. This is a recipe for financial suicide. It would result in the loss of Rockville’s Triple A rating, make it extremely expensive to issue debt, and it would make it very difficult to operate the City budget. In light of this testimony, do you agree with the staff recommendation to keep RedGate as an Enterprise Fund, separate from the General Fund? If not, how do you suggest that Rockville deal with the dangerous drop in the General Fund reserve that would be caused by folding RedGate into the General Fund?
5. When RedGate was created in 1974, it provided Rockville’s middle income golfers with their first opportunity to play quality golf at an affordable price in the local region. Today, there are numerous public golf courses within easy driving distance, including several that are owned by the County. In light of RedGate’s declining customer base and large and growing deficits, wouldn’t Rockville taxpayers be justified, indeed, be smart, to say “let’s end this wasteful duplication of services, close RedGate, and direct golfers to any of the other public course in the area?”
6. The biggest flaw in the 2006 business plan was the assumption that fees would rise by about 5 percent per year. If fees had, in fact, risen by those amounts, RedGate’s revenues would be about $400,000 higher in FY 2011, and we wouldn’t be discussing the need for a new business plan. Instead, fees have stayed flat for five years, and they are likely to remain flat, given the over-saturation of the local golf market. But if fees stay flat, then the only way to eliminate the $924,000 deficit that is projected for FY 2015 is to double the number of rounds of golf played to more than 70,000. However, the number of rounds has not exceeded 50,000 since 2002, and the highest number in the past five years was 41,116 in FY 2008. Doesn’t this mean that under any realistic scenario, the only way that Rockville can continue to operate the golf course is through large and growing taxpayer subsidies?
7. Last year, you vigorously opposed consideration of an option to turn RedGate over to the Revenue Authority without a long list of preconditions. Now, several large golf course operators have expressed interest in operating RedGate. Given the sharp deterioration of RedGates finances, are you now willing to support turning RedGate over to some other management company without strings, or do you continue to insist on preconditions, even if it means that taxpayers would have to continue to pay large subsidies for golfers?
8. The 2006 business plan specified various measures of success, including that RedGate’s budget would return to surplus by 2009. However, it was totally silent about what would happen if these measures were not met and losses continued to rise. When I began in 2008 to point out that RedGate was off-track and the business plan would not succeed, the Chairman of the Advisory Committee advised me that I just needed to give it time to work. Now the flaws are abundantly clear, and we are considering yet another rescue plan for RedGate that, by necessity, would depend on large taxpayer subsidies for several years. My question is this. In exchange for continuation of taxpayer subsidies for a defined period of time, would the Advisory Committee agree to a business plan with hard targets that, if not met, would require closing the golf course?
9. RedGate has been operated by the same manager for many years. Despite his best efforts, deficits have risen, and they are projected to grow as far as the eye can see. Given the results, would the Advisory Committee agree to a new business plan that includes replacing the current manager?
10. Finally, from FY 2011 through FY 2015, taxpayers are going to have to spend about $4.2 million to cover RedGate’s deficits. That’s a lot of money, and there are many other ways to spend that money for the benefit of taxpayers. For example, we could put another 6-7 police officers on the street with that money. We could double our support of caregiver agencies, which certainly would make sense in this recession. We could use it to pay for replacing about 2.5 miles of water lines, instead of borrowing the money, or we could pay for about a third of the cost of converting the old Post Office to a police headquarters. We could actually fund the Mayor’s dream of creating a Rockville Science Center for our kids, which I have to say as a proud father whose daughter left Einstein High School a year early because she was bored, and who just graduated at age 20 with her Masters in Engineering, the Science Center would be the best new investment in kids that Rockville could start. Or, we could just cut the property tax rate and let taxpayers keep the money. My list could go on for an hour. My question is this. Could you tell us why golf should have priority over so many other public services that obviously would provide greater public benefits, and why the golf subsidy shouldn’t be the first thing on the chopping block in the FY 2012 budget?

Art Stigile

This is a Contributor Opinion. Rockville Central encourages readers to submit such pieces for consideration — the more voices the better. Simply send them to rockvillecentral@gmail.com. We ask that all such contributions be civil and we reserve the right to edit (in consultation with the author) or reject. Contributor opinions should not be seen as reflecting opinions held by Rockville Central editors, as they are just as frequently at odds with our own views. That’s the whole point!

I wanted to take this opportunity to respond to your Opinion piece on the Rockville Central website. My name is Dan D’Agostino and along with my wife, Jenny, are the owners of the Go Ape treetop adventure course at Lake Needwood Park. While working on temporary assignments in London, UK, my wife and I came across the Go Ape experience. Go Ape has been in business since 2002 in the UK and is known for providing a safe and enjoyable outdoors experience for park visitors across the country there. My wife and I thought that their mission in getting more people into the outdoors and away from their computer screens was a good one and we developed a partnership with the founders of the company to bring the concept back home to Montgomery County where I was raised.

I began working with Montgomery County Parks Officials in March of 2009 to bring the Go Ape experience to an appropriate location within the county. After a comprehensive search for an appropriate location that fit with the Park’s recreational goals and an area that was not environmentally sensitive, the location that we now occupy at Lake Needwood was selected. From there, multiple community meetings were held, surrounding neighbors were informed and the Mid County Recreational Advisory Board was briefed. None of these groups or officials had serious concerns regarding the proposal and Montgomery County Parks allowed me to brief the Montgomery County Planning Board in December of 2009. The Planning Board agreed with Montgomery County Parks that Go Ape would encourage kids and adults alike to get into the outdoors and visit Lake Needwood, provide well rewarding jobs for local residents (9 of our 12 employees live in Montgomery County) and provide a new revenue stream for the Parks in these difficult economic times. Thus, a Public Private Partnership was formed with the County receiving a revenue share from Go Ape and a new activity for its park users.

The course was built during March and April and was opened to the public on May 8th, 2010. In working with Montgomery County Parks, they wanted to ensure that the forest was not inappropriately damaged in any way. In keeping with Go Ape’s high environmental standards, the course was built without bringing any machinery into the forest. No full grown canopy trees were felled in the process and Go Ape spent several tens of thousands of dollars to deadwood the forest (remove dead limbs and dead trees) to make the woods safe for any Go Ape or non-Go Ape visit to the trails. Furthermore, the course was built in a manner that we do not harm the growth of the trees and independent arborists have inspected these trees to ensure their health and will do so annually. Our company goal is to increase the bio-diversity of the area of the forest that we occupy and we will be working with Montgomery County Parks to remove non-native invasive species within our area of the park. The maple tree that you have photographed is a gorgeous tree and we have taken care not to impact the roots around the tree or affect it’s drip line. It is our hope that you and others will be encouraged to visit the park and take photos of this tree and others at Lake Needwood for many many years to come.

Since our opening, almost 2,500 visitors have enjoyed Go Ape at Rock Creek, Lake Needwood. This is roughly 56 daily visitors to the park and is in line with our projections to the Montgomery County Planning Board. Our visitors are usually families or groups of friends occupying on average of 3 people to a car. Thus, our parking and traffic impact is approximately 19 additional cars traveling through the park per day. Furthermore, we only allow 14 people to enter the course (at most) every 30 minutes to an hour, keeping additional parking and traffic to a minimum.

My wife and I think it is extremely important to run a business that is in touch with the local community, (especially since we live 2 miles away from Lake Needwood) and I would encourage you and any other Rockville Central readers to contact me at dan@goape.com and/or visit us at www.goape.com. I would be happy to show you around the course and provide further insight as to how the activity came to fruition at Lake Needwood. I am confident that you will see an operation that provides minimal impact on the park and you will see that our visitors do make noise. However, the noise that our visitors make is usually the sounds of families laughing together or friends sharing in on the excitement of a new and adventurous outdoor activity, sounds very similar to those heard at the picnic areas, boat house or volleyball court.

Once again, please feel free to email me at dan@goape.com with any questions or comments that you may have. I will respond as quickly as I can. Enjoy your summer and I hope to see all Rockville Central readers in the trees soon.

by Dan D’Agostino
Go Ape

This is a Contributor Opinion. Rockville Central encourages readers to submit such pieces for consideration — the more voices the better. Simply send them to rockvillecentral@gmail.com. We ask that all such contributions be civil and we reserve the right to edit (in consultation with the author) or reject. Contributor opinions should not be seen as reflecting opinions held by Rockville Central editors, as they are just as frequently at odds with our own views. That’s the whole point!

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 field. A giant wood platform 10 feet off the ground is being constructed right next to this tree. It looks like the platform is going to be the end of a “Zip Line” that people will ride down from the forest.

I wonder who decided that Lake Needwood should be an amusement park? There will now be tons of cars, tons of screaming kids and adults as they climb and zip all over this course. I bet you’ll even be able to hear the noise while down at the lake.

Doing a web search I see that the course is called “Go Ape”.

Now … to be honest … my family and I did something like this north of Quebec a few years ago. Yes it was fun. But it was at a ski resort. A place paved with hotels and restaurants. An already loud and crowded place. Not a scenic slice of suburbia by any stretch of the imagination.

I just think it’s too bad that they’ve decided to construct this amusement park kind of “ride” in our park.

JB Haber

This is a Contributor Opinion. Rockville Central encourages readers to submit such pieces for consideration — the more voices the better. Simply send them to rockvillecentral@gmail.com. We ask that all such contributions be civil and we reserve the right to edit (in consultation with the author) or reject. Contributor opinions should not be seen as reflecting opinions held by Rockville Central editors, as they are just as frequently at odds with our own views. That’s the whole point!

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 assisting the City Council as it adopts policies that reach for the articulated city vision.

In recent weeks the Council has been contentious on a number of issues. Mayor Marcuccio and Councilmember Newton have staked out minority positions, voting against the budgeting principles on which the FY 11 budget is based and against the renewal of the contract of the City Manager Scott Ullery. For her part, the Mayor also recently cast the sole vote against renewing the City’s contract with Rockville Economic Development, Inc. (REDI). But just when only a week earlier it seemed that the Council was heading for another 3-2 split, after much discussion and many edits, consensus on the city vision was achieved.

The following is the last paragraph of the preamble:

“The vision builds on the following seven themes: Strong and Distinctive Neighborhoods; Urban Sensitivity; Engaged Governance; Business Friendly; Multimodal Transportation; Exceptional City Services and Amenities; and Quality Environment. These themes have equal importance and Mayor and Council view them as mutually compatible. Budget priorities are explicitly not part of the vision; these are best addressed in the normal budget process.”

Many will find fault with one or another aspect of this vision, but it is my sincere hope that many will also find in the vision a direction that they can embrace. The city vision document is a must-read for all who engage in Rockville civic affairs. It can be found here: http://www.rockvillemd.gov/government/mc/vision.htm.

Piotr Gajewski

This is a Contributor Opinion. Rockville Central encourages readers to submit such pieces for consideration — the more voices the better. Simply send them to rockvillecentral@gmail.com. We ask that all such contributions be civil and we reserve the right to edit (in consultation with the author) or reject. Contributor opinions should not be seen as reflecting opinions held by Rockville Central editors, as they are just as frequently at odds with our own views. That’s the whole point!

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” of the City of Rockville. I didn’t hear that on the broadcast, but confusion over the roles of board and staff isn’t unusual. I’ve served on boards, for boards, and with boards and one of the most common areas of friction and frustration is the role of the board and staff in an organization. It’s made even more confusing because of the various interchangeable titles used by those at the top (e.g., president, chair, chief executive, mayor). Rockville’s Mayor was initially called a President.

Firstly, every organization is different so it’s crucial to understand the rules under which they operate. For the City of Rockville, it’s the City Charter and the City Code. You can’t assume that what happens in New York or Baltimore or Kensington is the same as Rockville. In Rockville, the primary powers of the Council are to pass and enforce ordinances; appoint the City Manager, City Clerk, and City Attorney; and adopt a budget, levy taxes, and borrow money. The primary powers of the City Manager are to hire staff; prepare and manage the budget; purchase equipment and supplies; and lead the administrative branch of the City. Indeed, Chapter 2, Article 2 of the City Code states that, “The City Manager shall be the executive officer and head of the administrative branch of the City.”

Secondly, don’t make assumptions about titles. Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Elizabeth II share the same titles and names, but boy, they have very different powers. QE I could raise an army and declare war on Spain. QE II must leave that decision to Parliament. Likewise, the Mayor of New York and the Mayor of Rockville have vastly different powers and responsibilities. Although the Mayor is elected separately in Rockville, he or she has exactly the same powers as other members of Council. The only distinctions provided by law is that the Mayor presides over the Council meeting, receives more pay than the Council, and appoints board and commission members—that’s it. Over the years, the City has provided a reserved parking spot, an office, and other benefits for the Mayor, but they’re optional. The Rockville Mayor doesn’t have his or her own budget, can’t hire and fire staff, can’t purchase equipment and supplies, and can’t veto Council decisions.

So, Rockville’s Mayor is not the chief executive and she’s not the city leader. The current Charter identifies every member of Council as a city leader and that the City Manager is the chief executive.

Max van Balgooy

This is a Contributor Opinion. Rockville Central encourages readers to submit such pieces for consideration — the more voices the better. Simply send them to rockvillecentral@gmail.com. We ask that all such contributions be civil and we reserve the right to edit (in consultation with the author) or reject. Contributor opinions should not be seen as reflecting opinions held by Rockville Central editors, as they are just as frequently at odds with our own views. That’s the whole point!

For awhile I’ve contemplated buying or borrowing a video camera, and then just standing at any given intersection and recording the red-light runners, for my own sense of futile revenge if for nothing else. And I admit that I have harbored fantasies about uploading some of the more egregious cases to YouTube, particularly the ones where it’s law enforcement that’s breaking the law.

So, imagine my horror when I ran across an article on Gizmodo, and then started Googling further on it and discovered that is now apparently ILLEGAL to record law enforcement in public in the state of Maryland. Now, I always knew that it was illegal in this state to surreptitiously record a second party without disclosure, but I didn’t realize the broad application to that law meant that it is also illegal to record a second party with full disclosure of the act of recording. In an era where 99 percent of citizens carry a cell phone with an attached digital camera, where most phone interactions are preceded with “this call is being monitored for quality purposes”, where the average person is recorded dozens of times a day with implied consent out in public, and where municipalities rely on red light cameras for both traffic enforcement and revenue generation, the lines have become too blurred to define “consent” in these archaic laws.

It’s time for citizens to start demanding a lot more of our government, including re-defining the current laws about recording citizen/law-enforcement interactions. We should demand of political candidates that they disclose how they intend to legislate on these matters, and we should demand much more transparency of law enforcement, so that citizens do not feel that their only recourse against potential police corruption is to record the interactions. The police are already recording us via web dash cams, and the public should have equal rights to do the same.

Are Cameras the New Guns?

Debate Sparks Over Video Recording Of Arrests

Maryland Wiretapping Law Needs an Update

By Temperance Blalock

This is a Contributor Opinion. Rockville Central encourages readers to submit such pieces for consideration — the more voices the better. Simply send them to rockvillecentral@gmail.com. We ask that all such contributions be civil and we reserve the right to edit (in consultation with the author) or reject. Contributor opinions should not be seen as reflecting opinions held by Rockville Central editors, as they are just as frequently at odds with our own views. That’s the whole point!

Madam Mayor and Council Members,

Last week, it was brought to my attention that changes were made to the fees and hours for parking in Town Center. Specifically, I understand that the Mayor and Council implemented a charge of $1 for unlimitted parking in the garages on Saturday and increased the fine for all parking violation to $40. It appears that these changes were done as part of the budgeting process without any public input.

As you are well aware the merchants and last Mayor/Council spent a considerable amount of time discussing and coming up with a plan that we all felt would increase revenue for the City without putting undue burden on or hampering the still fragile businesses in Town Center. We have seen parking usage continually rise since these changes were implemented.

The changes to the parking policy were discussed at the TCAT meeting held on May 18. While the members of TCAT did not object to implementation of $1 parking fee and would in fact support such a nominal fee, we believe the Mayor and Council must stop changing the parking fees so that visitors to town center can get used whatever fee is being charged. Otherwise visitors will start to become frustrated and avoid Town Center.

The members of TCAT did object the $40 penalty for parking violations. People who have received $40 tickets have sworn that they would not return to Town Center. There have been multiple stories this year about other jurisdictions raising parking ticket prices yet seeing a decline in actual revenue from this as people increasingly contest or just don’t pay their parking tickets. Therefore, TCAT voted last week to urge the Mayor and Council to reduce the parking fees throughout the City to $25.

Please continue to know that all the support that the City can provide to this area while it is still in its infancy is greatly appreciated.

Trapper Martin, TCAT President

This is a Contributor Opinion. Rockville Central encourages readers to submit such pieces for consideration — the more voices the better. Simply send them to rockvillecentral@gmail.com. We ask that all such contributions be civil and we reserve the right to edit (in consultation with the author) or reject. Contributor opinions should not be seen as reflecting opinions held by Rockville Central editors, as they are just as frequently at odds with our own views. That’s the whole point!

The City’s “invitation to other potentially interested parties” regarding Redgate closed this morning. It will be interesting to see what comes in. I tried to talk Butler’s Orchard into submitting a proposal to run a pick-your-own orchard on the site, but they chose not to. I thought that the idea, as well as a few related ideas, was worth consideration so submitted a proposal in response to the City’s announcement. It isn’t an offer in the sense that they perhaps meant to request, but I hope it will cause our Mayor and Council to consider these options.

3 Redgate Proposals

Redgate Orchard: Rezone Redgate for agriculture and sell or lease it for operation as an orchard. If operated as a pick-your-own similar to Butler’s Orchard, it wouldn’t be lost as open space to Rockville residents. It would provide good, clean family fun, healthy food and exercise. It would end the $600,000 plus subsidy we now provide to golfing on the property, and either provide an upfront block of money if sold or an income stream if leased.

Redgate is losing money. Rockville’s budget is tight. Our budget is likely to get tighter over the long run. We face continuing cutbacks in State and County support.

The big picture isn’t reassuring. We are now at or near the peak of global oil production. American oil production peaked 40 years ago. Global discoveries peaked in the mid 1960s. We have been burning more than we discover since 1980. Global oil production stopped growing in 2005. . . . Declining oil will mean a declining economy. That will put continued pressure on local government budgets and it will render it likely that Redgate will lose more money as time passes. In addition we face debt challenges and the aging of the baby boomers, which will also burden local finances.

Cities have traditionally been fed by the farms that are adjacent to them. While grain shipments over substantial distances have long historic precedent, it is only quite recently that we’ve replaced local fruits, vegetables and dairy with 1,000 mile supply chains. Long distance sourcing of food is made possible by cheap oil, which will soon disappear. . . . If we sell or lease Redgate for operation as a farm/orchard, we can redirect the money that is currently used to subsidize golfing, as well as using the proceeds from the sale or lease. We need to transition Rockville into a community that uses far less energy. Having additional money will make that transition easier.

Full disclosure: I contacted Butler’s Orchard and encouraged them to respond to this request for information. They considered the idea but chose not to propose such a venture at this time.

Redgate Community Garden: Another possible use of Redgate would be for community gardens. Many towns in Britain have large community gardens at the outskirts. This would provide benefits similar to a Redgate Orchard in recreation, exercise and food, but would likely serve a smaller number of citizens, since it’s easier to drop by to buy produce or do some pick-your-owning than to manage a plot from planting to harvest. This option would also leave the management of the facility in city hands, for better and worse. Establishing the gardens would have initial costs that may rival the subsidy we are providing to golfing. I suspect the long term cost would be lower, and believe the benefits would be greater given my concern about the sustainability of our food production system. Those who golf are a subset of those who eat. This property is a rare opportunity for a very large community garden. Keeping Redgate for individual plots instead of a privately operated orchard would allow the produce to go to families without them needing the cash to buy the produce. This could be a significant benefit to families in a potential future with high unemployment.

It is likely that we don’t have enough demand right now to have community gardens on the whole golf course. One option for the remaining land is to plant it with nut trees. Hardy pecans would take 10 years to begin harvesting, by which point we may be quite happy to have a source of protein and fat that doesn’t need refrigerating. And if worst case scenarios don’t play out, then we can enjoy pecan pies while congratulating ourselves for managing the many challenges that faced us a decade or two ago so well.

Rockville Farm: A different twist on the idea of converting Redgate to a farm or orchard is to put the focus on cultivating kids as well as crops. Some cities have used urban farms as developmental opportunities for children. Here the focus is more on providing rich experiences for our children and less on creating a profitable farm. The City could use the land to create a facility that teaches kids where food comes from, gives them healthy outdoor fun and help them to grow up as well rounded citizens. This model of course doesn’t preclude growing food, but the purpose is recreation and personal development. As such you would expect that it would either mean the City would run it or have a non profit organization run it. We would expect that it would still cost the City money, perhaps even more than what the golf course costs. But it would be a substantially different use than a golf course, perhaps better suited for Rockville’s needs. To get the maximum out of this approach, the City may want to allow farm animals in this facility, which would require a modification of current policy. Keeping Redgate as a City operated facility would allow us to use the land as we see fit, perhaps reserving a portion for a driving range and a few putting greens, devoting part to community gardens and using the rest for a farm to “cultivate kids, crops and animals” to quote the tagline for The Urban Farm in Denver.

A few thoughts about the unsolicited proposals – These would require a sea of parking, paving over an area about the size of Richard Montgomery’s campus. They would have set start and stop times for the events held there, releasing great bursts of traffic out onto already overburdened roads. An orchard, farm or community garden, with an opening and closing time rather than tip off or start time would have a traffic pattern more like the golf course – evenly spread through the day.

So the arena or ball park would create big traffic problems until declining oil undermines their profit model. Then they will fail, leaving us with a sea of pavement surrounded by a golf course that once again needs subsidy to survive.

Redgate golf course needs continuing subsidy to continue to operate. It will likely need an increasingly large subsidy. We should explore other options such as those outlined here.

More broadly, we should rezone the other golf courses in Rockville to allow both their current use and agriculture. Some agricultural uses can coexist with golfing, so that this zoning would provide options to the current managers that may not currently exist. But more importantly it would make it clear what their usage would be if the golf course goes out of business. The current zoning would have the land developed as sprawl housing. This would be a tragic mistake.

We face extraordinary challenges in regards to global warming and peak oil. Local food production will help address both these problems and saving the thousands currently spent to support the golf course could allow us to get through these troubled economic times.

Carl Henn

This is a Contributor Opinion. Rockville Central encourages readers to submit such pieces for consideration — the more voices the better. Simply send them to rockvillecentral@gmail.com. We ask that all such contributions be civil and we reserve the right to edit (in consultation with the author) or reject. Contributor opinions should not be seen as reflecting opinions held by Rockville Central editors, as they are just as frequently at odds with our own views. That’s the whole point!

In the meantime, let’s plan a strategy. The Rockville Bicycle Advisory Committee wants to promote safe cycling. The issue is that many of our roads aren’t safe enough to ride on. The Millenium Trail is nice for recreation, but many destinations aren’t on there, so people resort to using their cars to traverse the Pike. Stores naturally want to be on high traffic areas, but that doesn’t make for a safe bike trip. Let’s develop a parallel path a block west of the Pike that links Town Center with the existing path behind Richard Montgomery HS, and continues south through Woodmont’s front lawn and links to the Bethesda Trolley Trail. The old Indian trail that once was is now clogged with hazards, which won’t go away unless we take action. The present plan is to route bikes to the east of 355 on Lewis Avenue, but that requires our cyclists to cross at very busy intersections.

These obstacle were previously tackled with fiscally and environmentally costly overpasses on 270 and 586 (Veirs Mill). Let’s instead keep people on ground level, and west of the pike, and continue up through the college and into King Farm. Then Gaithersburg can do the same, and we can finally get out of our cars and still get to where we need to go. This will finally be a nice gift to our descendants, as opposed to the debt and carbon we’ve been known to accumulate.

Another idea is to lobby for some climate friendly actions, like turning off the TC escalator at night, and dimming some lights. If you have to squander, make sure you use renewables. I don’t take kindly to killing polar bears just because you’re too lazy to turn off an appliance. I did notice the CFLs there in the stairwell, but the energy savings is negated by the fact that there are 28 of them. There is an elevator for those who can’t use the stairs. Must the escalator run 24/7? No wonder we can get a grocer to move in if the rent has to cover avoidable expenses like that. This is our town, and we have to make it livable. The sooner we get stated, the easier it will be. The present prediction is that the reefs and everything that depends on them won’t survive the century.

Herb Winkler

This is a Contributor Opinion. Rockville Central encourages readers to submit such pieces for consideration — the more voices the better. Simply send them to rockvillecentral@gmail.com. We ask that all such contributions be civil and we reserve the right to edit (in consultation with the author) or reject. Contributor opinions should not be seen as reflecting opinions held by Rockville Central editors, as they are just as frequently at odds with our own views. That’s the whole point!