Today's Washington Post article on the new boathouse

[weirdtab]

Quarrel With College Bares Town's Chronic Resentment
In New St. Mary's Outcry, Talk of Reining In School

By Megan Greenwell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 25, 2007; Page B01

Around a 165-year-old college nestled in a 375-year-old city, discussing the latest town-gown squabble with neighbors leads fairly quickly to rehashing

Comments

[pipkin3]

I agree with the comment above me that SMCM under the UM board of regents would be bad for the school in general. I agree with the claim made in the article that SMCM's quality is high because the regents are focused on improving the school rather than a board more focused on College Park and considering other schools secondarily. I wish the article had provided more info on the supposed stakeholder sessions though. O'Brien says it's been in planning for 7 years and in addition to getting approval from the commissioners, they talked to several groups. Who were they? At the very least I would expect some student groups and the local environmental groups but as a former student in those 7 years, I never remember seeing announcements to discuss plans for a new boathouse (or the new science building for that matter). Makes you wonder if they shopped the idea around to groups they knew would be supportive . . . and brings up the issue that they could have done a better job "advertising" stakeholder meetings to get opinions from the whole community and possibly have avoided some of this mess. (jeez, talking about stakeholder meetings, you can tell I am an environmentalist . . . )

[trina]

It's entirely possible that I mis-remember, but I thought I did remember at least one notice of public meetings for the boathouse. However, I do agree with you that the article should have provided more information. (Haha! We're such scientists! Cite your sources! Give more detail!)

It's also interesting that the article also fails to mention the current talks that have been being mediated by an outside party. I believe silentrequiem could fill in that missing information, since she knows a bit more about it...

[weirdtab]

I toured the new science building (Goodpaster) and it's NICE and I'm jealous I don't get to use it and it's pretty incredible to have an actual building and trees and glass and sidewalks between the ARC and Schaefer instead of a giant hole surrounded by tattered blue tarps. Unrelated, but I felt it was relevant somehow.

[silentrequiem]

Maggie held public presentations that were advertised in local papers. They were attended. The building was also in construction for about a year after that -- if people were too dumb to realize that OMG they're building something RIGHT THERE where I see the river when I go to the post office, then tough shit. There's a very vocal minority in St. Mary's County that hates the College and Historic with a fiery passion. Some of it stems from "those liberal hippie freaks" mentalities from a predominantly conservative area. The other comes from long-held grudges from when Historic seized people's property back in the 70s/80s because of historic significance. Dyson HATES the College and has been after them for ages. I doubt much will come of him muttering how the school needs more state oversight. Our reputation speaks for itself.

As for the environmental aspect of the boathouse -- it is completely in compliance with all critical area zoning laws. Because it's purpose is to be a boathouse, it's allowed to be built right no the river. The building also mitigates stormwater runoff by 33%, when it was only required to by 10%.

Long story short -- there are some people who live near the school who need to get a life and take a chill pill.

And I do remember seeing concept maps and hearing about the plans from Joan, who is on all sorts of planning groups at the school. The info was there if people cared to pay attention.

[pipkin3]

I'm just going to reply to this comment, esp. as I didn't know I'd get so many replies while I was at a talk tonight. Anyway, it seems they did put out notices then. Though I am still curious what groups they talked to. Good to know about the environmental mitigation they did too (which, by the way, when I made the environmentalist comment it was in no way related to the environmental impact the building would have, it was more of the "bring in all the stakeholders!" thing which I feel has been pounded into my head :-).

[silentrequiem]

I hear ya. I'm in the ADR field right now and it's stakeholder stakeholder stakeholder.