Incompetant Land Search

[BlueOx77]

According to page 50-8 of the zoning ordinance, use type 26, "public or private facility for primary or secondary education, including elementary, middle and high schools..." is only a conditional use in the RPD, downtown mixed use zone, industrial zone and community commercial district. The use is prohibited in rural service centers, residential neighborhood conservation district, commercial mixed use, office business park and marine zones. Schools are a permitted use in all other zones.
Myrtle Point Park was purchased with program open space funds, which limits any intensive use of the property by state law.

[Stirituprebel]

Originally Posted by BlueOx77

According to page 50-8 of the zoning ordinance, use type 26, "public or private facility for primary or secondary education, including elementary, middle and high schools..." is only a conditional use in the RPD, downtown mixed use zone, industrial zone and community commercial district. The use is prohibited in rural service centers, residential neighborhood conservation district, commercial mixed use, office business park and marine zones. Schools are a permitted use in all other zones.
Myrtle Point Park was purchased with program open space funds, which limits any intensive use of the property by state law.

I don't remember a change in the zoning law that requires schools to be on public water and sewer and does not allow septic fields as Oz refers to in a past e-mail regarding this thread. Looks like you have the zoning ordinance in front of you. Can you give confirmation. Seeing how the school system is looking at buying property(Buchanan Property) that is several miles from public sewer, something does not make sense. I know that perc tests were done last year on the Buchanan property, and the Indian Bridge Property.

[BlueOx77]

Schools aren't required to hook into central sewer unless they are in the development district or an existing system has failed. However, in the RPD, that would require an amendment to the water and sewer plan to extend any sewer line to the property.

[Stirituprebel]

Originally Posted by BlueOx77

Schools aren't required to hook into central sewer unless they are in the development district or an existing system has failed. However, in the RPD, that would require an amendment to the water and sewer plan to extend any sewer line to the property.

Thats what I thought, Thanks for the info.

[tlatchaw]

Originally Posted by tlatchaw

Stirituprebel: I support you position entirely and wish you the best of luck in your pursuit of justice with the board of education in St. Mary's county.

BUT

The irony of misspelling the word "incompetent" in a thread that complains about education is too much for me to pass up.

(no hard feelings, I know you probably just missed it because you're passionate about your argument here)

I got red for being a spell "natzi" even funnier!

[Cletus_Vandam]

Originally Posted by BS Gal

I have to say, I have never been to a meeting and, since my kids are out of school, I'm not interested; however, I am interested on how they can afford to build these huge "administrative" buildings with the brass and best furniture, yet can't seem to fund the schools. Compare their buildings and salaries to the County Government salaries and the County Government buildings and you will see what I am talking about. The $ is not going to the kids in the percentage it should be. It is going to administration and fancy buildings for administration. JMHO.

What County building[s] are you referring to?

Sorry, but I have to take you up on comparing County funded buildings with those of the County Schools. Have you taken a look at the Library that was built a few years back in Lexington Park? That building outranks by far any building the County School has on their books. You need to keep in mind the Library that you see today is a scaled down version of the original design that came in way over budget.

County Public Works and the State both operate on a very different fiscal scale when it comes to funding building construction. If you did the research on this you will find that County school system funding is far less than what the County and State are getting for similar building construction. One good example is St. Mary's College.

On the issue of public school administrative buildings, I doubt you have traveled to Charles County or Anne Arundel Counties to look at their School Administration buildings. But if you did you would see large one and two story buildings, not much different in scale or value to what SMC has. The major difference here is that SM Public Schools built their administration building within the limits of the incorporated Town of Leonardtown. They [being the Town], have very specific requirements on what they will accept when it comes to a building. The building on Moakley kept in kind with the elements surrounding it. If the school system were to propose to build a cheap sh!t box, then every home owner of the adjacent $500,000 homes wouldn't stand for it...

Another thing to consider is the fact that half of the Moakley Building existed long before the school system took occupancy as a tenant there. The addition they placed on the building was similar to the original building and those neighboring it.

So, who's really to blame???

[Oz (Premo)]

Originally Posted by Cletus_Vandam

The major difference here is that SM Public Schools built their administration building within the limits of the incorporated Town of Leonardtown. They [being the Town], have very specific requirements on what they will accept when it comes to a building. The building on Moakley kept in kind with the elements surrounding it. If the school system were to propose to build a cheap sh!t box, then every home owner of the adjacent $500,000 homes wouldn't stand for it...

Another thing to consider is the fact that half of the Moakley Building existed long before the school system took occupancy as a tenant there. The addition they placed on the building was similar to the original building and those neighboring it.

So, who's really to blame???

You must be kidding me? Leonardtown is far friendlier to builders than the unincorporated parts of St. Mary's County. Dealing with Leonardtown's planning/staff is a picnic compared to what you must go through with St. Mary's County. It's good for the school administrative building to be in Leonardtown. But to imply that the standards are greater within town limits is a very uninformed assertion to make, and just not true. And that's a good thing. Because for Leonardtown to continue to grow, they need to work with the people willing to invest there.

As for comparing the Lex Park library to the school offices -- well -- I'm not sure about that either. I mean, the Library is nice. But in many cases, the school system offices are nearly luxurious and well furnished.

[bcp (Premo)]

Originally Posted by Stirituprebel

Anyone catch the Friday Emptyprise on School Site Land Aquisition? No new schools till 2009. What have these people been doing. Cathy Allen says not to panic. Well there are no classroom trailers coming for relief anytime soon, Thanks to hurricane Katrina ,Fema confiscated all available trailers to be shipped south. The land search has been going on forever. The two people responsible(Howe and Clements) have come up with nothing. These two folks have no experience other than their whole careers in the public sector. No business sense, no real estate experience. They are the same two that are responsible for enrollment projections. These projections have been horrible and are inaccurate and were done by uneducated and incompetant people. Anyone living in St. Mary's county over the past 10 years knows that we would need more schools. The need for new schools did not occur to this Brain Trust until two years ago, when they woke up and the kids were here already. That's when you see the great change in the capital requests from their office. To get back on the topic, the process for site selection has no procedure in place by the BOE. There is no selection committee, and no direction, just two people that do not have a clue about market value, escalation of realestate values or land aquisition. These two folks could be in cohoots with developers for all we know. They have been blowing smoke up the hind parts of county commissioners, BOE and taxpayers for two years with excuses and false leads. Dr. Martirano should get ahold of these two and kick them out the door, and then hire someone with some practical experience to direct the effort. These two have pissed away several hundred thousand taxpayers dollars on studies and engineering reports and despite the advice of their consultants have continued to pursue dead ends. This whole process and the two folks mentioned should be investigated before we waste more time and money. Before this is over, our children will be redistricted and possibly the schools may be run in shifts with some children attending school morning to afternoon and others from afternoon to evening. I am sure this last idea would go over swell with my fellow St. Mary's Countians. I urge you to contact the BOE and your county commissioners and prod them to look into the situation. It appears that Mattingly and Raley are aware but are unwilling to do anything about it. The other three commissioners are developer happy and are probably playing the county zoning board against the BOE for theirs and the developers gain.

some good points but, hard to read.



Hi boys and girls, today we are going to talk about writing, Can you say "paragraph"?

I knew you could..


sorry. Im an ass, Ive accepted it, I hope you can too.

[Cletus_Vandam]

Originally Posted by Oz

You must be kidding me? Leonardtown is far friendlier to builders than the unincorporated parts of St. Mary's County. Dealing with Leonardtown's planning/staff is a picnic compared to what you must go through with St. Mary's County. It's good for the school administrative building to be in Leonardtown. But to imply that the standards are greater within town limits is a very uninformed assertion to make, and just not true. And that's a good thing. Because for Leonardtown to continue to grow, they need to work with the people willing to invest there.

As for comparing the Lex Park library to the school offices -- well -- I'm not sure about that either. I mean, the Library is nice. But in many cases, the school system offices are nearly luxurious and well furnished.

Here's my take: If you are talking about getting a building permit or building in the city limits; I agree with you. Working with the planning staff of the Town of Leonardtown is a ton easier than dealing with the folks at LUGM.

But your kidding yourself if you think that the Town of Leonardtown isn't concerned about what the architectural features (trim, columns, roof slope, type of glazing, etc.) of what you want to build. They definitely what buildings to be in keeping with the older architecture found throughout the city limits.

You mention in your post that the Town is "far more friendly to Builders than the the unincorporated parts of St. Mary's County". I agree with that also. Problem is just that, they are too builder friendly. IMO the Town needs to step up and really take a look at where they are going and what it's going to take to get there. The current development along the Route 235 corridor through the heart of the Town is a CF. Developers aren't being forced to improve Route 235 as part of the proposed development. Seems like a bad move to me. Sure you can be cooperative and a breeze to deal with, but doing so at the cost of the future isn't good planning or management. If the builders desire to develop property along the corridor than improvements to the traffic pattern short be made part of their approval. If all of the proposed development in the heart of Leonardtown moves forward w/o required road widening, signals and turn lanes, you can forget about a decent traffic flow and count on a major accident a couple of times a day. Think about it, it isn't a picnic now....

My post was meant to point out that the design of the BoE building on Moakley was driven by the adjacent buildings, the Town of Leonardtown and adjacent Owners. None of them would have stood still for a second with a building addition that delivered anything less than what's there.

During the construction of the Library in Lexington Park, the State's school funding was about half of what the construction budget was (per SF) for the Library construction.

[Oz (Premo)]

Originally Posted by Cletus_Vandam

The current development along the Route 5 corridor through the heart of the Town is a CF. Developers aren't being forced to improve Route 5 as part of the proposed development. Seems like a bad move to me. Sure you can be cooperative and a breeze to deal with, but doing so at the cost of the future isn't good planning or management. If the builders desire to develop property along the corridor than improvements to the traffic pattern short be made part of their approval. If all of the proposed development in the heart of Leonardtown moves forward w/o required road widening, signals and turn lanes, you can forget about a decent traffic flow and count on a major accident a couple of times a day. Think about it, it isn't a picnic now....

I presume you mean the Route 5 corridor that goes around town, and not downtown/heart of Leonardtown. (?) Because I believe the plan is to streetscape Washington Street to a single lane with State funds.

However, Route 5 from Leonardtown Centre to Burchmart is a CF. I think you may see some money for that in the State's next budget since it is/was the first priority on our unfunded roads list. Last year, Great Mills Road and Chancellors Run were at the top of the list, and they were recently funded.

There will be some road/shoulder/turning improvements as sites are developed. Hopefully, the state funds will provide a desperately needed center turning lane on that highway.

I'd also like to see more traffic enforcement of the 40mph speed limit.