Rockville VFD to host first annual Flag Day at the Park on June 14

The Rockville Volunteer Fire Department announced yesterday that it will host its first annual Flag Day at the Park on June 14, 2023 from 5:00 to 8:00 PM. In addition to a ceremony and other activities, a Flag Day Walk will be held at Redgate Park at 14500 Avery Road at 6:00 PM. Tickets to participate in the walk will be $10 for adults and $5 for children. All proceeds from walk tickets will benefit the Rockville VFD. 

All of the evening's events besides the walk will take place at the Elks Lodge at 5 Taft Court in Rockville, which is adjacent to Redgate Park. Activities will include Queen of Heart and 50/50 drawings, a Flag Day ceremony, and a Flag retirement ceremony.  There will be an educational presentation on the history of the U.S. flag, including a visit by an American Revolutionary War soldier. For children, there will be some VFD fire and rescue equipment on hand.

Hot dogs, hamburgers and sausages - as well as beverages - will be available for sale at the Elks Lodge before and after the 6:00 PM walk. Walk participants can walk, jog, run or crawl along the route as they wish, the VFD said. Public parking for the event will be available at the Elks Lodge, and in lots nearby the lodge on Taft Court.

Rockville Mayor & Council to consider adopting plan to "reimagine" RedGate Park

Rockville's Mayor and Council will consider adopting an updated Master Plan to "reimagine" RedGate Park, a former City-owned golf course at 14500 Avery Road at their Monday, October 17, 2022 meeting. Formulated with input from the public, city staff and elected officials, the latest version of the plan envisions the park as an arboretum. It would include community gardens, an amphitheatre with a deck overlook and a visitor center.

Following a July 18 discussion of the plan by the Mayor and Council, several updates were made. Picnic pavilions were added, as was a dog exercise area for small and large breeds. The layout of pathways was refined, identifying existing ones that will be retained or removed, and the specific routes of new ones. Finally, a more specific location for the visitor center was determined.

With the new changes, the estimated cost of the reimagined park will be somewhere between $16,301,533 and $24,452,299. City staff are recommending adoption of the plan.

Rockville seeks public input on future of RedGate Park

The City of Rockville is seeking public feedback on the future use of RedGate Park, which was designated as parkland by the Mayor and Council when the golf course on the site at 14500 Avery Road closed. An online survey has been set up for this purpose. Respondents are being asked to weigh in on what features and amenities the park should have. You do not have to be a City resident to participate, but you do have to register to take the survey.

Rockville to consider redeveloping RedGate golf course

City will also 

examine if it can

terminate contract

with Billy Casper Golf

The controversial issue of whether to retain Rockville's public RedGate golf course, or redevelop the site, has come to the surface again. A discussion of the topic initiated by Councilmember Mark Pierzchala late Monday night ended with the Council voting 4-1 to direct City Manager Rob DiSpirito to assess the golf course property's potential for redevelopment, and conduct a fiscal impact study of the different options. Mayor Bridget Donnell Newton cast the lone vote of opposition.

Pierzchala also made a motion to have the City examine its contract with course operator Billy Casper Golf, to see if it can be terminated, citing inadequate maintenance as a potential legal justification to do so. Mayor Newton said she has observed substandard maintenance of the property while playing golf at the course in recent years, and joined in the unanimous vote approving Pierzchala's motion.

In bringing up the matter of RedGate, Pierzchala said he was approached by an unnamed developer, who asked if the golf course was for sale. Pierzchala said he replied that it was not, but that the developer was clearly eager to build residential housing on the land.

Pierzchala initially proposed studying a plan that would redevelop RedGate as City-operated athletic fields (soccer fields in particular), and residential housing consisting of townhomes and single-family homes. An unspecified portion of the parcel would be "returned to nature." After Newton and Councilmember Beryl Feinberg questioned why the study would only look at that specific mix of land-use options, Councilmember Virginia Onley proposed a successful amendment - adding the phrase "including, but not limited to," to Pierzchala's initial language. Newton supported that wording, but still voted against the study.

While - again - the developer was not identified, the "win-win"-style PR talking points, land acquisition choice, and housing types certainly sound like EYA. That developer has just recently offered a similar plan for the Montgomery Women's Cooperative Farm Market in downtown Bethesda, and successfully received approval of a comparable non-Metro-oriented development with the same housing types near Tower Oaks. Of course, EYA is not the only townhome developer in the region, so we'll have to wait and see. But the Spider-Sense is tingling.

The National Golf Foundation is expected to release a report on RedGate in January, which will tell city officials what it will take financially to bring the course up to standards. But Pierzchala said he didn't want that to end up being the sole discussion, and would prefer to have parallel discussion of other uses of the site, as well as Billy Casper's alleged default on its contract with the City.

Feinberg pressed for hard numbers on what the expense and potential revenues of every option would be. Pierzchala said he didn't need completely accurate numbers to move forward, and that ballpark estimates by staff would be sufficient for the decisions that need to be made.

"We will do our best," DiSpirito told the Mayor and Council. He estimated that an in-house analysis, without hiring outside consultants, could be completed by early January. That would be in time for the NGF report on RedGate, which is located at 14500 Avery Road, off of Norbeck Road.

ROCKVILLE COUNCILMEMBER WANTS REPORT ON REDGATE GOLF COURSE

Rockville Councilmember Bridget Newton asked city staff to put Redgate Golf Course on an upcoming agenda at last night's Mayor & Council meeting.

Newton said Billy Casper Golf, the course's manager, had promised to deliver an annual report to the council. BCG has had control of the course for about a year and a half, Newton noted, and she asked why there has been no report. Expect this to come up at some point before the August recess.

All has been quiet on the Redgate front for some time, but it remains one of the biggest "hot button" issues in Rockville. Is the course a worthwhile investment as a unique amenity open to all? Or is it just money down the 18th hole, and should be sold for development purposes? There are citizens on each side of that argument, making for contentious debates at public meetings. Given that BCG's takeover of the course has been considered a last resort measure, there will obviously be great interest in a status report.

Few words portend nasty debate in Rockville more than "Redgate," which ranks right up there with "once-a-week trash," and "Saul Ewing report" in civil discourse.

In other Redgate news, the course has launched a new program where players can buy a membership that gives them access to 7 other area golf courses, in addition to Redgate.