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Sunday, July 25, 2021

The Swan Creek Forest Is a Bad Place to Build the K-8 School

(Click on the above image for a short video)

We want to show you this existing kindergarten to grade 5 school on Fort Washington Road in Fort Washington, Maryland. This school is underutilized and was not maintained for lack of funds and no interest by the Prince George’s County School Board. The County does not want to utilize this land and existing facilities, but wants to build a bigger and better “state of the art” school building on the adjacent 29 acres of land.

We want you to look closely at this land which has 100-200 year old trees like this. There maybe 30,000 trees here. Look how these trees help in purifying the air, managing the ground water and, during storms, preventing the flow of water with excessive speed, preventing flooding

Look at these trees. They provide shelter and home to wildlife consisting of several species of big and small animals, including turtles and snakes.

This land has wetlands, providing habitat for birds, amphibians, etc. The County wants to cut down the trees, destroy wetlands to make a new school on this land. The County is adamant on destroying this natural habitat.

The irony is to fully utilize the new school, Prince George’s County will bus kindergarten to grade 8 school students from neighboring town, where we are told the schools are over crowded.

Look at this Asbury Drive which will be on the other side of the school. Here developers have already cut thousands of trees and the wetlands have disappeared. We want to stop cutting the trees and preserve wetlands.

Look at this East Swan Creek Road which has a creek which gets flooded and the road is closed. Prince George’s County claims it has plans and resources to drain the water which will be there as a result of removing the trees. No one is paying attention to global warming which is happening because of removal of trees.

Saturday, July 17, 2021

Don't Make Tantallon Flooding Worse!

(Click on the above image for the video)
As bad as flooding in Tantallon is now, it could get even worse!

Thursday, July 15, 2021

A Gem Hidden in Plain Sight - Fort Washington Park

(Click on the above image for Megan McGrath's News4 report)

Friday, July 9, 2021

Some Prince George's School Board Members Want Chair Removed

(Click on the image above for Tracee Wilkins News4 report)
Some members of the Prince George's County Board of Education want the state to remove the board's chair as the board is split over basic policy and procedure, leaving some major issues unresolved for the school system.
The last Prince George's County Board of Education meeting capped a contentious year. Six Board members want to remove Chair Juanita Miller, who was appointed by County Executive Angela Alsobrooks. 
“Since her appointment, her tenure has been nothing less than chaotic,” Board member Shayla Adams-Stafford said.
The Board hasn't had an attorney for months. It approved hiring a lawyer, but the chair selected someone else, surprising some Board members.
“I quite frankly don't need this,” the attorney, Kevin Karpinski said at a Board meeting in June. “I'm not interested in being appointed attorney because I don't have time to do it.”
After a discussion with members, it was revealed the attorney did not have a contract with the board.
“It’s readily apparent to me that this board is entirely dysfunctional, and I would suggest to work very hard on getting a fulltime lawyer in here,” Karpinski said.
“There are a countless number of appeals that are currently before our board,” Board member Joshua M. Thomas said. “Some of these are employee appeals, some of these are student appeals, and without a Board attorney, we have no one that is in place to be able to process and set up a system where we actually as a board we can hear those appeals.”
Miller released a statement to News4 saying six elected board members have shown contempt and disregard since her appointment.
“It's unfortunate the board as a whole must suffer this dysfunction publicly, and it is unfair to our community,” she said.
Miller said the Board's leadership team will continue to operate professionally.
The Prince George's School Board members who want Miller out have 30 days to make their case. If the state moves forward, it could end up in the hands of an administrative law judge.
The Board is in recess. It's not clear when it will resume as members could not agree on a date.

Sunday, July 4, 2021

Happy 4th of July!


 Stay Safe! - Be Happy!