The Mapleleaf Online

Carol L August 1st, 2007

The following officers of the Maplewood Citizens Association attended the Executive Committee Meeting, held April 18, 2007 at the home of Allen Myers:

Allen Myers, President

Bill Davis, Treasurer

Carol Linden, Secretary

Janet Maalouf (BRAC representative)

Linda Hubbard

Seth Maiman

Ralph Schoefer

John Lawall

1. The minutes of the April 18, 2007 meeting were read and accepted with minor corrections.

2. Bill Davis gave the Treasurer’s report, noting that not much has changed since the last report. Approximately same amount of money was collected as last year as a result of higher membership fee and even though there are fewer members than last year. Apparently the post office believes we have a positive balance of approximately $700 although no one can recall having paid this much into the MCA account. It will be used to pay for newsletter mailings. Bill provided books to Fred Rabel for audit. Audit is supposed to be due in May although we’ve missed this deadline. Rationale was to have audit for the annual meeting, but it is difficult to meet this timeline. Changing the month the audit is due would require a bylaws change. Bill says slack period is July/August, so this would be a good time to do audit when there’s little fiscal activity. Treasurer’s report was accepted unanimously.

3. Liaison reports were presented.

a. NIH CLC: Ralph. There are new large trees at Commercial Vehicle Inspection Station. NIH has a new machine to measure noise (and means to calibrate). They can monitor their noise. Complaints have been raised by Huntington Terrace about noise infiltration from other areas. County measured noise from NIH and found it to be in compliance. NIH is not in violation. Couple of other outstanding issues: groundwater on southern end of NIH property. Residents are fighting with county on stormwater jurisdiction. This does not affect us. Allen reported on traffic issue at CVIF with northbound trucks making lefts into NIH, making it difficult for southbound traffic to turn left into NNMC.

b. French school report: John – French School went through phase 2 construction and new traffic routing. There is a new traffic management plan – issue is getting it approved. There is confusion surrounding the plan. The older TMP was presented to the Board of Appeals and was supposed to be modified. However, there’s no documented modification of the plan. De facto, the modified plan is operating but there is no documented plan that has actually gone before the Board of Appeals. Allen recalls that the ca. 2000, original TMP was part of the original exception. Everyone thinks that this was filed with the Board of Appeals. Kate Walsh’s replacement attended last meeting. This whole thing is strictly a process issue; neighbors are satisfied with the way traffic is being managed now. Issue with BoA has to be resolved. Needs to be presented to MCA and then filed with BoA. The “as is” plan needs to be memorialized.

c. FASEB: Cindy has sold her house; she had kept a log on the number of cars that use back gate of FASEB. Allen needs to get it to transfer to next person. We have no one for this FASEB liaison. Allen asked for people to think about who could do this.

d. Citizen’s Advisory Board: Seth reported that last month’s meeting focused on county capital improvement program. Budget committee met Monday; they reviewed letters from associations on CIP. CIP report issues of interest to us: building at Maplewood/Alta Vista park. This got a good rating for its condition. Staff recommendation to planning board on these park buildings – our building – noted that it is in grouping of buildings that are underutilized. It fails to meet 30% utilization standard. This will put in group of buildings that need to be evaluated and marketed. It would help to have air conditioning if the county wants to market use of this building.

e. Bethesda Fire Board – no report.

f. BCDS – CCG has not met. Waiting on Beech Ave study. CCG 7/30 scheduled meeting to talk about their TMP and implementation of parking and traffic flow study.

g. BRAC – next meeting is next week. Focus will be on EIS. Janet will ask for chair to invite someone who knows about EIS process to get someone to come explain EIS process to the committee. EIS will be published in September. State is meeting with communities affected by BRAC actions but won’t get to Montgomery County for a while. The WRAMC/NNMC BRAC is not a “cost saving” BRAC but a rather a functional BRAC.

4. Old Business:

1. Heart House – Janet attended development review committee meeting. Different departments of Montgomery County commented on development plan. Number one issue was parking; county interested in opening up Camberley Ave. for traffic flow and integration with community. They were happy that Old Georgetown Rd access would be closed. Supposedly the master plan calls for this location to be maintained as a “park like setting”. But, this notion is probably linked to ACC occupancy of the property. Cathy Gates will get back to Allen on ACC’s response to the comments. Bottom line is that they will have to change the plan. Allen suggests that Heart House be proposed as student housing for FAES, which would be a win-win situation for both organizations (possibly).
2. Beech Ave traffic study – meeting will be on the 19^th with “Beech Ave group”. There were some other issues identified that are being forwarded to the CIP group.
3. Montgomery Mall development and covenants: they need funds for lawyer. Allen recommends that they focus on the covenants vs design issues. There is a June revised plan on the mall developer’s web site. Seth thinks that the revised plan shows many features that they’ve asked for. Allen – MCA issues are only covenants, not mall design issues. A question is how much of the plan is in violation of the covenants. Other issue is traffic.
4. Treasury audit and turnover – addressed.

5. New Business:

a. Environmental Projects

FORCE – can talk in August meeting if we want.

MCA energy project – Janet proposed an idea for a community focused project on energy savings. A neighbor is going to look into solar power. Allen proposed perhaps making compact fluorescent bulbs available to residents at reduced price. However, this might be an issue for our non-profit status.

b. Purple Line plans – task force being formed on routes if anyone is interested. (Neil Green is on action for transit committee.)

c. Next general membership meeting: September 19, 2007.

d. The next Executive Committee meeting is August 29, 2007.

Carol D. Linden

Secretary, Maplewood Citizens Association

• Executive Committee minutes
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