KabirCares.org

CollegeParkMD.gov

Over the year, the City’s official website collegeparkmd.gov has grown big and may be  a bit bulky and cluttered.

Yet, it lacks quite a few essential features that can be seen on any modern public website.

One of these ‘lacking’ features is the absence of social networking integration. It has become a sort of embarrassment to the City staff that a simple static link to “Follow us on FaceBook / Tweeter”  cannot be found on our city’s website. Such a link is quite a common feature in almost all of the websites of  our neighboring cities, such as Greenbelt and Hyattsville.

Another feature the City is planning to add is the accessibility support for visually impaired / diabled people. There are fairly established standards in the cyberworld, such as Section 508 compatibility references that give ample guidelines on how to  make websites accessible to blind users.

The City staff has found that other neighboring cities have spent around $15,000 on consultants to make these features added to their websites.

City staff Steve Groh and Sarah Price will make a presentation on these issues during the council discussion tonight.

LEED Silver

As part of the its long term action plan, the City is considering a green building standard, that would require or encourage buildings built within the City or by the City to be built according to a specific Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standard. The LEED standard has been developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).

If adopted, College Park will follow other major cities, such as New York, that requires many capital projects that involve building construction and that receive city funds to be built in accordance wtih the rigorous standards of the LEED standards. It also requires that most of these projects, as well as larger HVAC, lighting, and plumbing upgrades, be designed to reduce the use of both energy and potable water well beyond that required by the current City building code.

LEED certifications, from lowest to highest, are LEED-certified, LEED silver, LEED gold, and LEED platinum.  Many jurisdictions in the area currently require at least LEED-silver rating for all public buildings, and at least LEED-certified standard for all private buildings. 

 The University of Maryland has shown real leadership in this area, and has one of the area’s few LEED-platinum certified buildings.

The University of Maryland advocacy group UMD for Clean Energy will be presenting research on how a LEED Silver certification requirement for new commercial, municipal and multi-family residential buildings would shape development in College Park. They are presenting in front of the City Council during their Mayor and Council work session on March 15 at 8:00 pm at the College Park City Hall, 4500 Knox Road. The meeting is open to the public.

According to UMD4CE, the group has been working closely with the Committee for a Better Environment (CBE) to get the standard passed. The CBE plans to present a letter of support for the standard at the work session.

Chad Williams, the Planner Coordinator for the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission will also come to speak about how the county will view the proposal. This is of particular importance because the county government has the final say on whether the proposition becomes law.

UMD for Clean Energy proposed a green building standard to the county council last year as well, but the proposal failed. One of the largest concerns was that these standards would drive away business.

To respond to these grievances, the group said it spoke with multiple developers in the region to gauge what the business community thinks of LEED standards. “None of the developers interviewed said they would not have built if they had been required to obtain LEED certifications.” – the group says. 

When interviewed, Terry Schum of College Park Planning Commission said “people choose a location because they like the location,” not because of whether there are requirements.

Spring forward

It’s that time of the year – it’s time to move your clock by one hour if you didn’t get the chance to do that last night – at 2am, I mean officially!

The time change will give you extra hour of daylight after our long day of work, but let’s not forget the risk of danger that comes with it!

Due to the lost hour of sleep, if you drive, please take extra care when getting behind the wheel tomorrow.

A 1996 study in the New England Journal of Medicine showed an eight per cent increase in the number of motor vehicle accidents on the Monday after the spring time change.

Many home safety experts say syncing other activities to the time change, such as replacing smoke-detector batteries and refreshing home emergency kits, makes those safety tasks easy to schedule and remember.

Also, please note, with the time change, days will be getting warmer. This means that we’re most likely to see an uptick in crime activities. In the past month, we’ve already seen a record number of crimes happening in our part of the city. This trend will likely to continue in the coming weeks.

Proposed relocated stream in Greenbelt development

Last night at the NCPCA’s March meeting, north College Park residents discussed the impact of the proposed relocation of the Greenbelt stream on the Narragansett Run water upstream in north College Park.

The details of the proposed stream design in the Greenbelt development is still sketchy, since it’s hard to get information about the engineering aspect of the design in public domain. The only detailed information on the design we found is on the City’s 25 February packet, which has a bunch of scanned images of the proposed stream design. Of those pages, the  sketch on page 193 is probably the most detailed one. Unfortunately none of these sketches has any narratives around them, so it’s hard to know the engineering motivation behind these sketches.

I have copied the design from that page and did a touch-up on the proposed stream on the sketch (please see above).

The new design shows that the stream will be some 633 feet longer and its course will be quite different from the current one.

The MDE (Maryland Department of Environment) may have designed the stream in the way to allow more water absorption, or it simply to simulate the natural flow of water. Some residents think the new course of its flow may aid to construction of new developments on top of the proposed stream.

Whatever is the reason for such a change, the NCPCA has asked the MDE to clarify the change in stream’s design. In a letter sent to MDE, it says:

It would be an act of faith on the part of the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) to accept that all the dredging will cancel out all the filling. Arithmetically, it does not appear possible for a 10-foot stream that is just 633 feet longer than the current stream to absorb the additional displacement of water. Perhaps the MDE staff will understand the Dewberry submission, a set of drawings that do not appear to have any narrative, but MDE cannot expect the general public to comprehend them.

Neighborhood Walk in summer 2010

Due to the recent rise in crime activities in the area and safety concerns around the north gate of Greenbelt Metro, there will be a neighborhood safety walk in north College Park, tomorrow.

The walk will start at 6 pm tomorrow at the Lackawanna and 53rd Ave intersection.

PGPD’s Community liaison officer POFC Black will be there to answer any safety related question and the recent criminal activities in the area.

I took a similar walk last summer. During the walk, we distributed public safety related pamphlets to the neighbors, placed them on the windshields of the vehicles parked on the streets. We talked to a few neighbors and told them about the recent spike in crime incidents, including a much publicized assault incident .

NCPCA – Your neighborhood association

Tomorrow is the second Thursday of the month and thus is the day of the monthly regular NCPCA meeting. Here is a quick summary of what will be on tomorrow’s meeting agenda.

Peggy Higgins, the newly elected school board representative of our area will be at our meeting. We’ve been trying to have her at our meetings for the past two months after her election win, however due to her busy schedule, she could not attend. As you probably know, the county school system is going through some painful cuts, that will definitely affect our local public schools in a very negative way – such as larger class sizes and closures of several popular programs. Let’s listen what Ms. Higgins has to discuss at the meeting.

Prince George’s Police Department’s new District 1 Commander Major Hector Velez will be at  the meeting. Maj Velez has recently assumed the job from his former boss Maj. Liberati who has recently left after spending 9 months as the Dist 1 commander. (Thanks and congratulations to Maj. Hector!.) With the spike of criminal activities in the area, we hope him to answer concerns from residents on public safety related matters. Btw, Maj Hector will be coming straight from another Neighborhood Watch meeting  at the City Hall around the same time. More on that meeting here.

At the February meeting members appointed a committee that was authorized to represent the concerns of the organization about a proposal to fill in and relocate the Narragansett Run, which drains most of North College Park’s water due to the proposed Greenbelt Metro development project. The committee member attended a community forum early this month and voiced their concern at that meeting. The Prince George’s planner Chad Williams will also be at the meeting.

In other businesses, members will also vote on a proposed By-laws amendment that will hopefully clarify a few issues in case the members decide to dissolve the association (hope it will never happen – but just in case!).

That’s all for now. See you all tomorrow night!

Strategy and planning

Like in the past year, the City staff will present this year’s action plan to the residents and seek their feedback in a special session tonight.

The FY2012 action plan is part of the five year long FY2010-2015 Strategic Plan, which the City published in 2009 after a series of community meetings with city residents.

This public forum will be held at the council chambers (2nd floor) at the City Hall tonight at 7pm.

The draft action plan is centered around 5 main objectives – public safety, public service, environment, transportation and economic development.

You can read the FY 2012 Action Plan DRAFT and other documents related to the City’s Strategic Plan under special reports section on City’s website.  For questions on the plan, please call the City Clerk’s office at 240-487-3501.

You can also send an email with your comments on the action plan to the City staff  or the Mayor and the Council.

Neighborhood Watch

As our area is getting hit with an extraordinary amount of crime incidents lately, so arises the need for engaging of city residents into crime fighting activities.

There will be an important training event for Neighborhood Watch participants from 7:30 to 9:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 10th, 2011 at City Hall.

The training will include development of observation skills and reporting suspicious activity and crime to the police.

Special training for Block Captains will be provided for those interested, using the College Park Woods’ Neighborhood Watch Program as a model/template.

Major Hector Velez, the new Commander for PGPD District 1, is planning to come and meet us there, now that Major Liberati has been transferred.

I know there is a scheduling conflict with the NCPCA’s monthly March meting on the same night, but in case you decide to attend, please be at the City Hall at this great training event!

After serving only 9 months as the District 1 Police Chief, Mr. Liberati is leaving his post.

Capt. Hector Velez, a 16-year veteran of the Prince George’s County Police Department will assume the rolw of District 1 Commander role.

Earlier, Mr. Velez was assigned to the District 1 substation, which includes Hyattsville, Langley Park and surrounding areas, for two years before he was transferred to Police Chief Roberto L. Hylton’s office in April to serve as the chief’s executive officer.

Mr. Velez has agreed to come to NCPCA’s March 2011 meeting (on March 10) and speak to North College Park residents.

Cleared stream near Greenbelt Metro

Right after the sexual assault incident last year near the Metro entrance, the Metro authority (WMATA) did a brush a cleanup around the pathway that connects the Metro to the nearby neighborhood. 

However the brush cleanup caused a major uproar among some residents.  To them, Metro’s cleanup was too aggressive and probably destroyed the small stream that runs near the brushes.

These residents and City’s Committee for a Better Environment (CBE) have now drafted a letter that asks the Metro to replant the stream area to restore the environment there without sacrificing public safety of nearby residents and Metro riders.

The letter cites that the brush cleanup caused impacts on habitat and sediments in the stream. It also says it decreased shading in the stream. The storm-water pollutant removal capability was reduced and the rain water flows/flooding was increased, the letter charges.

The letter asks the Metro to adopt Crime Prevention through Environmental Design [CPTED] principles to restore the damaged stream buffer. The CPTED principles are based on the creation of a natural distinction between the built environment and the natural environment, the letter says.