Skip to main content

APFO 101 Makes Its Debut

Add this to your calendar if you'd like to understand more about how Howard County ticks:

"APFO 101" at Savage Library 3/22/17, 7:00 pm.   

APFO means Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance. Schools, roads, sewer, water, police, fire dept, hospitals, recreation--the kind of things we often take for granted. If you are curious as to how decisions for new housing construction are made, or have concerns about school overcrowding, this would be a good place to start.

This event is described as a meeting put on by community members for community members. Hosted by North Laurel resident Judy Fisher George, the goal is to present APFO information for those who have an interest but haven't known where to get started in getting the basics.

People who served on the APFO task force will present information  and answer your questions. Seating at the library is extremely limited. Depending on interest, they may have another session.

This informational session is being held in preparation of the APFO report being brought to the County Council.  New APFO legislation is coming up in May. It's an opportunity to learn the various county entities and regulatory components, and how they work (or maybe don't work) together. The goal is to help ordinary people understand the necessary connections that make for better schools, roads, infrastructure.

Shedding some light on the process will contribute to creating better-informed citizens who can be more successfully engaged in the process. And if you are a frequent reader of this blog, you know I'm a big fan of that.

This is clearly not my area of expertise, so maybe I should turn up 
to get a better grounding, too.

Comments are welcome here:

https://www.facebook.com/VillageGreenTownSquared/?ref=bookmarks








Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...

F ³: We Are Not Entitled

  A college student went missing. His family and friends were distraught. The community was encouraged to be on the lookout and spread the word.  Days passed.  They must have been agonizing days for those who cared about the missing student. Thoughts that foul play had been involved cannot have been far from their thoughts.  Then, at last, the student was found. Alive. The news was shared with the public.  So. Much. Relief. A family had been reunited with their child. Even though we know that life is complicated, I think it is okay to accept this as a happy ending and leave it at that.  But the world of social media says no. For every expression of joy at the news came questions and even judgement. It became clear to me that some folks felt entitled to an explanation. They wanted the backstory. It’s as though they felt that, by enlisting the help of the public on social media, the authorities now owed them all the details. Television dramas often weave curr...

Separate and Unequal

  Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in  broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not.  It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...