Voice Mail
May 2005

The Takoma Voice welcomes all correspondence. We remind readers that the opinions expressed here are those of the writers. Letters may be edited for length or clarity. While we strive to print every letter, we reserve the right to refuse any which we deem inappropriate for a community forum. Name, address, and phone number must be included.

Send correspondence to:
The Takoma Voice
P.O. Box 11262 Takoma Park, MD 20913
fax: 301-891-6747
email-at-takoma-dot-com

Skating Silver Spring

I was quoted in your recent article "Fenton Gateway skatepark: welcome or worrisome?" [April 2005]. Unfortunately between the time the reporter verified my statements and the time of publication some things got jumbled. I hope that you will publish the correction and also my response to Silver Spring Voice columnist and self-identified youth advocate Richard Jaeggi's open letter to East Silver Spring Residents.

For the record, my position is that improvement of Fenton Park, the need for appropriate skateboarding facilities, and the problem of scofflaw skateboarders Downtown are three separate issues and need to be addressed separately. Using Fenton Park to construct a skateboarding facility might seem like a quick fix but quick fixes are usually not good solutions.

Mr. Jaeggi would have your readers believe that those of us who want Fenton Park improved in keeping with the Central Business District Sector Plan recommendations (for an urban green park) are a opposed to skateboarding. That is not true.   In support for skateboarding we have identified three sites within the CBD. Our proposed sites are more in keeping with the character of the previous temporary facility in that they are in built up areas that do not border residential streets.

Mr. Jaeggi would have your readers believe that those of us who are against a skateboard facility at Fenton Park are against skateboarders. That is not true. The detrimental stereotypes of skateboarders that Mr. Jaeggi attributes to us are actually conjured of his own imaginings. It appears that Mr. Jaeggi believes portraying our resourceful, accomplished, skillful young skateboarding athletes and activists as deprived, beleaguered, and despised outsiders will promote his agenda. I understand that this portrayal plays into common themes of both adolescence and the self-identity of skateboarding as an outsider extreme sport but it also undermines Mr. Jaeggi's arguments for skateboarding as a mainstream sport that can compete with baseball, basketball, football, and soccer for public funding. Using the counter culture argument in what is one of the nation's most liberal communities is also a bit silly.

The debate is not about skateboarding or skateboarders per se. It is about the use of public land on the borders of commercial and residential neighborhoods; defining what is meant by improvements; public process, public planning, and the role of public administrators; needs, costs, and benefits; consideration of the common good; and finally it is about prioritizing competing public demands for public funds.

In closing, I would suggest perhaps Mr. Jaeggi has immoderate pride and narrow vision concerning the young people he identifies with and cares most about. Skateboarders are not that different than the rest of our typically untypical teenagers who are learning to test limits and take personal risks for the common good. The contribution of playgrounds and playing fields for team sports to developing the ability to work and play well with others is well documented. Many of our youngsters seek more individual challenges. Many of our young daredevils are studying ballet for hours every day--practicing the self-discipline necessary to defy gravity; their choice of recreation is popular enough to attract private investment and parents and students travel all over the county, state, and further for the best opportunities.  

But when making demands on public funds we all have to be considerate of the greater public good. As we all, including Mr. Jaeggi, heard at a recent countywide meeting, many of our youngsters lack basic recreational opportunities of the sort some of us in Silver Spring may take for granted. In fact, it is not just the next generation that we must think of; our worthy current workforce and our respected elders also have recreational needs.

This is the context of the debate. And in this context: there are already accessible skateboarding facilities in the county; a new public skateboard facility is going to be built in Olney; and alternate sites have been identified in the Silver Spring CBD. In this context, Mr. Jaeggi's demand for Fenton Park is inexplicable at best.

-- Ann Grossman
Silver Spring, MD

Takoma Park well served by our attorney

My sense is that the taxpayers of the City of Takoma Park - of which I am one - are getting good and valuable services from our city counsel, Silber & Perlman, P.A., and I simply do not share the view of Mr. Jack Carlson as outlined in his letter "City is paying too much for legal counsel" published in the March 2005 issue of the Takoma Voice.  

Let's tease apart a few of the issues entangled in that article, and call them out as separate questions.   How much is the city paying for its counsel?   How much and from where in the budget is the city spending for legal counsel?   Should the city have in-house counsel?   When and how should evaluations of the city's counsel be performed? And is the city somehow paying twice for the same services, particularly as it refers to landlord tenant matters?

I am an attorney so I know that hourly fees charged by the city attorneys, Sue Silber and Linda Perlman, are quite reasonable in today's legal market plus we benefit greatly from the retained institutional legal memory of our attorneys.   What they have learned in representing our city (and several other localities) for 18 years is applied to each project.   The longevity of this attorney-client relationship is quite common, and generally having an experienced, knowledgeable lawyer makes good business sense.   The City could go shopping for new attorneys, but that doesn't necessarily mean it should.

As to the budgetary issues raised, we should be clear about how it works.   The budget is recommended and managed by the city manager.   It is set by the city council.   The city, usually the city manager but sometimes the city council, assigns work to the city's attorneys on a project-by-project basis.   Any implication that Silber & Perlman have overspent their allotted budget is incorrect; instead, they have billed for work assigned o them by the city.   Of the two "big ticket" items, there's a few things to note.   First, updating the City Code was a one-time project.   Second, the cost of the law firm handling the landlord-tenant matters was created by the resignation of a city staff member who happened to be a lawyer, but that could be fixed by hiring a replacement staffer with relevant expertise so we don't have to send that work to the law firm.   Here's where I do agree with Carlson: we should evaluate the City's ongoing legal needs using the amounts spent of over the past several years as a better predictor for the legal line in the budget.

Should the city have its own in-house attorney?   In-house counsel can be a way to save money in some circumstances but Carlson is suggesting that either our current attorneys don't have the right expertise, or that in-house counsel could be a better way to deal with the construction need.   I don't think either is true.   First, we benefit from the years of experience of our current counsel.   Second, certain areas of law are specialty areas where substantive expertise is needed and indeed, as most law students are taught, construction contracts is simply one of those areas.   On this point, it is worth noting that Sue Silber negotiated a reduced rate for the city with the construction lawyer, resulting in cost savings in this area.   However overly expensive one believes the city hall or road projects are, or however they are financed, its not the legal fees paid to Silber & Perlman that should worry us the most as taxpayers.

Formal evaluations of attorneys should be performed from time to time and as needed.   The fact is, attorneys are informally evaluated on a project-by-project basis and if the client is unhappy, the client can go looking for a new lawyer.   A formal evaluation was performed several years after Sue Silber started representing the City, and a second evaluation process is just underway.   The last evaluation was properly confidential to ensure frank and constructive feedback, and the upcoming one will be confidential, too.   This is not a cause for public outcry: its just the usual process for evaluations.   The key items we need to see are already public: the budget, the law firm's detailed bills, and payments for services rendered.   Questions about the use of legal services can be addressed to the city council and city manager at any time.

Finally, I'm not sure what Carlson is trying to get at with his last paragraph.   Somehow he manages to conflate the use of Takoma Park's counsel with the Montgomery County office of landlord-tenant affairs.   He suggests that we taxpayers are paying twice for landlord-tenant related issues by paying for the City to deal with it when we could simply turn these issues over to the County office to deal with the landlord-tenant issues in our City Code.   We can't.   The city is self-governing and we have some unique aspects to our City Code that reflect our City's values and decisions, and we have to deal with the realities of that.

There's no cheap, handy shortcut around the fact that it costs some to have decent, experienced legal counsel.   While we should always scrutinize the budget and hold our city officials accountable to make sure we good value for our money, the law firm of Silber & Perlman does a great job for us at reasonable prices.   That's the bottom line.

-- Liz Seaton
Takoma Park, MD

Caveat emptor

I am a student at Sherwood High School. As a student, I think it is awful that military recruiters use misleading tactics to recruit students, especially at a time when so many of our troops are in harm's way in Iraq.  

The promise of $70,000 for college is just a false advertisement. By studying the GI Bill, you will learn that very few veterans qualify for the amounts that recruiters and advertisements quote. The government should realize that students aren't as dumb as they think we are, but smart, and can read the fine print about how much money we will actually receive for our education in return for military service. The amount of money typically received does not even come close to the increasing costs of a college education.  

Students, parents, and everyone else in our community needs to push to end misleading ad campaigns that compel young people to enlist by offering false hope and empty promises. With an increasing number of students and parents being educated we can do more than that to stop these unjust practices.  

Volunteering when you know what you are doing and are not lied to is fine with me, but when you enlist after you are given misleading or false informaton is just plain wrong. Get together and fight against the wrongful way the public is misled.

-- Brian Sullivan
Olney, MD

Sexeduphobia

Regarding your article ["Debate continues over county schools' sex education video"], the controversy about Montgomery County's public school sex-education curriculum goes far beyond condom use instruction and homosexual references. Instead of presenting all of the facts on sexual orientation in a fair and balanced manner, the Montgomery County Board of Education voted for numerous pamphlets published by gay activist groups while censoring ex-gay materials and other points of view.

For example, one pamphlet approved by the board for inclusion in the new curriculum encourages confused and impressionable youth to immediately self-identify as gay. Students and teachers are instructed on how to facilitate this transition by changing the school environment to explicitly discuss sexual behaviors, use language such as "partner" instead of "spouse," post "safe zone" stickers for gay youth, invite gay speakers to address students, etc.

Another pamphlet recommends that schools establish unisex bathrooms for transgender students. And yet another pamphlet discusses certain religious groups in a negative manner, and recommends other religious groups that it perceives as gay-friendly.

The board refused to explain why it approved these and other gay advocacy materials as school "resources" for its new sex education curriculum and rejected ex-gay materials. Instead, it voted not to renew the term of a committee member, Retta Brown, who had objected to the board's use of materials published by gay activist organizations while censoring ex-gay materials.

We are still waiting for the board to explain its actions.

-- Jackie Rice
Montgomery County Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays

Bring back the Old Blair Auditorium!

As a 29-year Montgomery County resident and singer with the Carpe Diem! community choral arts project sponsored by Class Acts Arts and Coral Cantigas, I think it's a real shame that a county that so celebrates the richness of its cultural diversity has no venue to host the upcoming performance of our group with Andes Manta, the world-renowned artists playing music of the Andes. That such a community resource as the old Blair Auditorium could not be available for this is a major missed opportunity for the community at large.

Once a state-of-the-art, 1,200-seat auditorium for the former Montgomery Blair High School, and a key facility in Montgomery County for community and school events, the auditorium has been boarded-up and left to deteriorate for seven years. This vital resource should be used and not wasted.

Located within only five blocks of Silver Spring's Central Business District, the auditorium will provide a much-needed rental facility for the many Montgomery County-based artists and arts organizations who are currently taking their major productions to D.C. or Prince George's County for lack of appropriate space in their own county.

The auditorium can also be used to host major fundraising events in support of the many area non-profits serving vital causes in our community.

The Maryland General Assembly has designated $600,000 for the project. It is critical that we get the County's help in matching that amount, putting the project closer to the estimated $1.5 million to $2 million renovation costs. Under the business plan, the remainder will be obtained from private donations. More than $50,000 has already been raised and a major fundraising drive will be launched late this spring.

For a very modest outlay of funds, Montgomery County will gain a much-needed mid-sized performance space that will serve the needs of a broad-based constituency and enhance the ongoing economic revitalization of the area.

Please do your part to help restore this magnificent asset to the community, and persuade your colleagues on the council to do the same.

For more information, please visit OldBlairAuditorium.org.

We hope you will attend our May 21, 7 p.m. performance of Voces Andinas/Voices of the Andes with the Carpe Diem youth and adult choirs, Coral Cantigas, and guest artists Andes Manta, Alma Bolivian dancers, and award-winning tenor soloist Jose Sacin. For more information, visit cantigas.org or classactsarts.org.

-- Michael Mayer
Takoma Park, MD

Buy a brick!

I'm writing to urge all readers to support Takoma Foundation's Buy-a-Brick campaign.   Bricks will be on and near the walkway of the completed Takoma Park Community Center, and purchasers can have up to 28 characters inscribed on them, two lines of 14 characters each.   The $125 for an individual brick or $600 for a six-pack of bricks supports the Foundation's fund-raising drive to furnish the Community Center.   Items such as special reading lamps for seniors and equipment for the computer, dance, art, senior and teen rooms will be purchased with your donations.   The learning center will house one of the largest collections of computers for public use in the area.  

A donation of $1,000 means you will be mentioned on a plaque with other Threshold donors at the $1,000 level.   Donorship at the $10,000 level means you will receive mention on an individual plaque in the Community Center and will be feted at the Grand Opening on September 24.   Contact Mary Stover at marystover@starpower.net if you or your organization wants more information about donating at the $10,000 level.   If you want your brick to be ready for the grand opening please send the check for brick or other donations by June 1 to:   Takoma Foundation c/o Montgomery County Community Foundation, 8720 Georgia Ave., Suite 302, Silver Spring, MD   20910. Checks should be made payable to Takoma Foundation c/o Montgomery County Community Foundation.

You may also attend the second annual Silent Auction, "Making Dreams Come True" on Sunday, May 15, from 5 p.m to 8:30 p.m. at the Seeker's Church, 276 Carroll Ave., NW, Washington, D.C., or donate an item to the auction.   Half of the proceeds go to the Takoma Foundation's Community Center Fund and half go to Takoma Old Town Business Association.   The contact for the Silent Auction is Pam Larson (301) 589-0890 or at pjlarson@earthlink.com.

Another way of supporting the Takoma Foundation is to join at the cost of $25 for individual, $50 for family, or $250 for business membership.   Membership dues are used to give grants to local non-profit organizations such as the Friends of the Takoma Park Library, Historic Takoma, Takoma Park Folk Festival and the Takoma Park JazzFest.

More information is available at www.takomafoundation.org

-- Juanita Kus-Lorentz
Secretary, Takoma Foundation

Fan of Elrich

I am so happy to know that there is still a great champion of renters--[Takoma Park Councilmember] Marc Elrich.   I have been gone from Takoma Park for almost twelve years and it is really gratifying to know there still IS some continuity.   When I visit back there I can't help but note the lack of uniqueness of the area.   In the quest for uniqueness so many communities have become virtual clones.   Hang in there, Marc.

-- Rosemarie (Mrs. Brint) Dillingham
(former TP resident)
Wounded Knee, SD