Showing posts with label College Gardens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label College Gardens. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 18, 2023

Rockville burglar tries to kick their way into home


Rockville City police are investigating an attempted burglary in the College Gardens neighborhood of the city, which was reported to have occurred on Monday, October 16, 2023. The break-in attempt was reported in the 1600 block of Yale Place at 5:47 PM Monday. According to police, the suspect tried to kick the door to a residence in, but was unsuccessful, and fled the scene. If you have any information about this incident or suspect, call Rockville City police at 240-314-8900.

Monday, September 4, 2023

Rock thrown through window of Rockville home


Rockville City police responded to a report of a rock having been thrown through the window of a home in the College Gardens neighborhood on August 22, 2023. An unknown suspect tossed the rock through the window of a home in the 1600 block of Yale Place at 8:45 PM that evening. If you have any information about this incident or suspect, call Rockville police at 240-314-8900.

Tuesday, April 18, 2023

Rockville elementary school students sickened by methamphetamine "candy"


Rockville City and Montgomery County police detectives were called to College Gardens Elementary School at 1700 Yale Place in Rockville yesterday, after three students fell ill after sampling what they said they thought was candy. Inital toxicology reports on the 7-year-old children suggest the blue "candy" may have instead been methamphetamine-related drugs, such as Adderall or Molly. All three students have been discharged from the hospital. It appears the students were wise enough to spit out the items before swallowing them, minimizing their ingestion of whatever the controlled substance was.

"I am relieved that the students will ultimately be fine, but in many ways, what happened today is frightening,” Montgomery County Police Chief Marcus Jones said in a statement.  “I hope that it serves as a powerful motivator for parents to keep having the difficult conversations with their children about the dangers of taking or eating unknown substances." Detectives are continuing to investigate the source of the controlled substance the students said they found.

Wednesday, September 7, 2022

Indecent exposure in Rockville


Rockville City police responded to a report of indecent exposure in the College Gardens neighborhood yesterday morning, September 6, 2022. The incident was reported in the 1600 block of Auburn Avenue.

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

MoCo school board thumbs nose at Rockville parents in Richard Montgomery ES #5 boundary decision

Option B was approved in a split
vote by the school board Monday night
The Montgomery County Board of Education will bus some kids out of their home neighborhoods to the new Richard Montgomery Elementary School #5, after choosing Option B out of five redistricting proposals Monday night. While it was far from the worst of the options to parents' minds, it still will result in longer travel times for a good number of Rockville elementary school students. Those students would have originally attended Beall ES and Ritchie Park ES in their own neighborhoods; now they will be bused to RMES#5.

The board's decision maintains a high number of FARMS students at Twinbrook ES, students who qualify for free and reduced-price meals, meaning they will be able to continue going to their neighborhood elementary school.


Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Residents protest proposed school bus parking lot at Carver Center in Rockville

Outraged residents spoke out last night about a Montgomery County Government blunder that has resulted in a school bus parking lot being proposed at the Carver Educational Services Center in Rockville. Even more troubling - some residents, as well as City Councilman Mark Pierzchala, see evidence the lot may not just be a short-term plan.

A resident of College Square called the bus plan "malpractice" at Monday's Mayor and Council meeting. He said the smart growth plan "went off the rails" after the County failed to enforce the agreement that the developer purchasing the current Crabbs Branch Way bus depot would have to find a new bus parking site. The private developer plans to build housing on the depot site.

Another resident who lives near the Carver Center said she is concerned for the health and safety of her two young children. But in addition to her fears about noise, pollution and neighborhood traffic congestion, she suspects a potentially more-sinister County plot. Montgomery County Public Schools currently plans to merge the adjacent Rock Terrace School with Tilden in Bethesda. That move, she said, "would create a very large area for bus parking." Several other speakers concurred, and the potential for maintenance and fuel facilities on such a larger site were predicted.

Pierzchala shares those concerns. He noted that MCPS is bonding over a million dollars for the bus site plan at Carver. "You don't bond something if you're just going to use it for a few years," Pierzchala noted.

Other concerns expressed by residents include the plan for an ugly high fence at the historic school site, and questions over not only how buses would get in and out of the site, but the traffic generated by their drivers taking their personal vehicles to and from work twice a day. Many mentioned the dirty tactics by the County Council in giving virtually no advance notice, and holding the only public hearing on the matter during workday hours when residents would be unable to attend to testify.

Mayor Bridget Donnell Newton sought to not only assure residents that she would "do everything in my power" to stop the plan, but also to dispel "an unfortunate statement" by an unnamed County Councilmember that Newton supports the plan. County Councilmember Craig Rice (D-Upcounty) was quoted in The Sentinel as saying, "“The mayor was supportive of the plan." "I just want to set the record straight," Newton said in making clear her opposition to the current proposal.

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Osdoby, Feinberg take on critics; candidates tackle crime, purchasing report, EZ Storage in debate

Rockville mayoral challenger Sima Osdoby and Council incumbent Beryl Feinberg fired back at their political detractors at last night's College Gardens/Woodley Gardens-sponsored debate. A standing-room-only crowd packed into the Carnation Room at the Rockville Senior Center to hear what candidates'  plans were for their neighborhoods and the city at-large. And they sat through to the end, earning praise from moderator Sen. Cheryl Kagan (D-District 17), herself a past resident of both communities.

Osdoby cut right to the chase in her opening statement, addressing "the rumor going around" that she and her slatemates on Team Rockville are beholden to developers. "There is no room in Rockville for this kind of nasty campaign shenanigans," she declared. Feinberg was dealing with the second broadside against her campaign in as many weeks. But the primary target of her remarks was neither on stage nor on the ballot. Councilmember Tom Moore, who is not seeking reelection, took his once-ally Feinberg to task in a blistering critique on his blog. He chronicled Feinberg's evolution on the Adequate Public Facilities Standards controversy, frankly expressing his sense of betrayal at her shift.

Feinberg was equally frank in her response, acknowledging her views on the APFS have evolved. "I've never said my view on the APFS did not change," she said. "I learned. I read. I listened to the neighborhoods. There have been several [online] postings lately that have been full of lies." Promising not to engage in attacks during the campaign, she said, "I have been above the fray."

To the debate planners' credit, those weren't the only notable moments last evening. The format was decidedly more antagonistic than previous candidate forums this fall, including a segment where candidates were told to ask one of their opponents a question.

It not only made the debate more interesting, but also helped voters learn more about the candidates. For example, Feinberg asked (or attempted to ask, as her question exceeded the 15-second time limit) incumbent councilmember Julie Palakovich Carr about Gaithersburg's current flirtation with allowing its schools to operate at 150% of student capacity. The new overcrowding limit was slammed by a PTA representative at Monday night's Gaithersburg Mayor and Council meeting. Palakovich Carr, who voted to raise the limit from 110% in Rockville to 120%, expressed disapproval of Gaithersburg's 150%, saying, "I think that's ridiculous."

Council candidate Mark Pierzchala pointedly asked fellow challenger Patrick Schoof about his active role in stopping construction of the proposed EZ Storage facility adjacent to Maryvale Elementary School in East Rockville. Pierzchala attempted to cast Schoof's role as a negative, asking "Why should voters trust you when your past actions have been so extreme?"

Schoof defended himself, noting that there were 120 pages of health and safety-related evidence against the applicant for the facility. He recalled the Planning Commission had narrowly allowed the project to proceed on a 4-3 vote, "not 7-0." Schoof also echoed earlier comments by Mayor Bridget Donnell Newton, arguing that, had the city performed the Southlawn Industrial Area study requested years ago by East Rockville residents, "this easily would not have gone this way." The City ended up banning self-storage facilities within 250 feet of schools, rendering the approved EZ Storage application moot, a decision that could be addressed in the courts. All of this could have been avoided, had the city acted on the Maryvale community's request for the Southlawn study earlier, Newton said. "Had that been done," she said, the project would never have been an issue.

Monday night's 3-2 vote to postpone action on a report that found serious flaws in the City's purchasing practices has already become a major campaign issue. Councilmember Virginia Onley, who voted for the 90-day delay along with Moore and Palakovich Carr, asked council candidate Brigitta Mullican how she could pay for her property tax cut proposal. Mullican seized on the purchasing report, noting the potential savings to the city's budget if it were successfully implemented. Other cities of similar size have far smaller budgets than Rockville, Mullican noted. She said she wants "a complete review of how our money is being spent."

Similarly, Osdoby asked Newton how she proposed to find the savings to eliminate the Cost Allocation Program, which Newton has said puts an unfair burden on taxpayers. Newton said that if Osdoby had watched Monday night's meeting, the report had shown a potential savings of $5-7 million, enough to allow the City to end the CAP program. "It is imperative that we show our taxpayers where that money is going," Newton said, noting that spending in some departments is "hidden from view in the CAP."

Turning the tables, Newton asked Osdoby if she would have voted to "kick the can down the road" on the purchasing report. "When I have the same opportunity to look at it as you do, that's when I'll make my deliberations," Osdoby responded. The purchasing report has been publicly available online, not just to elected officials, however.

Candidates were asked how they propose to increase Rockville's notoriously-low voter turnout. Council candidate Richard Gottfried said that in the course of knocking on over 5000 doors across the City, many of those who answered don't match the names on the voter rolls. He suggested not overlooking the value of old-fashioned ways of getting potential voters involved, such as U.S. Mail and doorknocking. "Not everyone is high-tech," Gottfried noted. Schoof said voters would be more engaged if the Council was more responsive to residents' stated preferences, rather than voting contrary to the majority's wishes. Palakovich Carr said the City should have a conversation on the question of allowing non-citizens to vote. She said 1-in-3 Rockville residents was born outside of the United States, meaning many have "no say" in government decisions. Palakovich Carr also suggested the City consider again the question of moving its elections to gubernatorial or presidential voting years. "The depressing thing is," she noted, that innovations like early voting have only increased overall turnout by about 5%. Council candidate David Hill opposed such a change, worrying that presidential year voters wouldn't pay close attention to City issues. "The quality of the voters is more important than the quantity of the voters," was his conclusion as a member of the City's 2002 Charter Review Commission, Hill recalled. Pierzchala saluted the host neighborhoods of the debate for having the highest turnout in the City. Mullican said she feared partisanship would creep into the City's non-partisan elections, if they moved to a crowded and highly partisan Presidential ballot. The change could make already-difficult fundraising even harder for City candidates, she said. Feinberg suggested better informing voters of what city funds provide versus County and state funds, and providing seed money to create more civic associations where they don't exist.

Crime was another topic covered last night that hasn't been discussed much during the campaign. Newton was out ahead of the topic in her September announcement speech, when she called for the hire of more police officers. She reiterated her concern that the City currently has only 59 sworn officers, while its daytime population swells to about 100,000 people. Newton also pointed out that more than 70% of calls are responded to by City, rather than Montgomery County, officers. The city should be recouping that $4 million in tax duplication funds, she argued.

Osdoby urged the City to ensure there was adequate street lighting, a problem Pierzchala concurred with from his own experience as past president of the College Gardens Civic Association. "It's very hard to get Pepco to get them all going," he lamented. Pierzchala also suggested a data-driven Special Operational Unit that could target upticks in crime in specific neighborhoods. He also recommended "revising Neighborhood Watch in a big way," recalling seeing Watch signs with peeling paint when he walked every street in the City as a warmup to his campaign.

"Rockville probably has the best police department I've ever seen," Gottfried said. He advised other communities have officers come out to pinpoint problem areas, as he has in Twinbrook, where he is President of the citizens association. Officers showed where bushes should be trimmed to eliminate hiding places, Gottfried said, and the neighborhood is seeking additional street lighting.
Hill said the insularity of neighborhoods can sometimes increase their vulnerability to crime. "Visibility and awareness" are important, Hill said, and he shared Newton's concern over the size of the police force in the growing city.

"We are the best defense against crime," Onley said, also suggesting police increase their visibility in neighborhoods.

Council candidate Clark Reed said he thought community policing was working well in the City. He said police notify civic associations to crime spikes in a timely fashion.
Jerry Callistein, President of
the College Gardens Civic Association
confers with moderator
Cheryl Kagan moments before
the debate begins
 
Mayor Bridget Donnell Newton
makes an opening statement;
L-R: Council candidate
Beryl Feinberg, mayoral
candidate Sima Osdoby,
council candidate
Richard Gottfried

Sima Osdoby




Monday, July 14, 2014

NIGHTSWATCH: ROCKVILLE CRIME UPDATE

Here's a roundup of crimes reported across Rockville on July 11, according to crime data:

Theft. 800 block Rockville Pike.

Drug arrest. Falls Road Park vicinity.

Theft. 300 block Crabb Avenue.

Drug arrest. Unit block of N. Washington Street.

Theft from vehicle. 800 block College Parkway.

Theft. 400 block Redland Boulevard.

Theft. Safeway, 403 Redland Boulevard.

Vehicle burglary. 15900 block Frederick Road.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

PEERLESS ROCKVILLE SERIES TO HIGHLIGHT ROCKCREST, HUNGERFORD AND COLLEGE GARDENS

The post-World War II and modern architecture of three Rockville neighborhoods will be the focus of Peerless Rockville's spring "Modern Living for a Modern City" series. Rockcrest, Hungerford and College Gardens will each take a turn in the spotlight as warmer weather finally begins to reach Rockville.

On March 29, Rockville Historic District Commissioner Jessica Reynolds will discuss the Rockcrest neighborhood at the Twinbrook Recreation Center, beginning at 10:00 AM.

Hungerford will be the subject on April 12, as historian Teresa Lachin makes a presentation at the Elwood Smith Community Center, also at 10:00 AM.

Finally, Nancy Pickard of Peerless Rockville will host an examination of architecture in College Gardens on April 26 at the Rockville Senior Center, again at 10:00 AM.

Peerless Rockville is a non-profit concerned with historic preservation and preserving Rockville's heritage.