Like Taking Candy

A bit of light reading last night: the minutes from a recent Oakland Mills Board Meeting.
I've been trying to keep up with the progress of the feasibility study. Remember that?

I wasn't really keen on having the County Executive throw money at this request by the Oakland Mills Village Board, largely because Board leadership had spearheaded a plan to displace Oakland Mills residents in order to build a multi-million dollar sports complex. You remember that, don't you?

When this legislation was coming up for a vote, I wrote about this here, in "No Rewards for Bad Behavior". I expressed serious misgivings about the leadership of the OMVB, their goals, and their lack of transparency.

My view was not the majority view, shall we say. The money was awarded, the study moved forward. Meetings have been held and reports have been written. And here is some follow-up discussion from the Oakland Mills Board about the results of that study. (11/29/16)

Here we see Board member Paul Verchinski complaining that the athletic fields belonging to our Village schools should have been considered for redevelopment in the study. Is this his idea of reinventing Oakland Mills? Take away our children's playing fields and sell the land to developers? "The kids can just walk to Blandair Park, no big deal."

But those fields, man--prime real estate.

I didn't think I could be more disgusted than I was when Board leadership suggested taking away the homes of our most vulnerable residents. But this is right up there. Mr. Verchinski is the same man who lobbied hard to get Senior Citizen discounts from CA, rather than ones based on need alone. He also asked me at a candidate night what my "Senior Citizen agenda" was.

I guess we can see what his Senior Citizen agenda is. Kids--who needs 'em? Families--who cares?

Three cheers to the other board members we see pushing back against his proposal.

Hey, if you live in Oakland Mills and have kids in school, you might want to consider running for the Village Board. Your perspective would be quite valuable indeed.

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