This letter is in response to Aaron Stern’s article “Paths of Resistance” in the April 11, 2007 edition of the Potomac Almanac. I am a member of the Inverness Forest Association Board of Directors and a homeowner along Seven Locks Road. Many members of our neighborhood are very concerned about the Seven Locks Road Sidewalk and Bikeway Project and how it will affect our community.
I would like to respond to Callum Murray’s comment that the Department of Public Works and Transportation (DPWT) “has made tremendous efforts to make this inclusive and to consider all of the public comments.”
I could not disagree more strongly. One of the greatest concerns that I and my fellow Board and neighborhood residents have is that we are being shut out of this process. The DPWT has only held three public meetings for the project, none of which were well-publicized. The DPWT claims to have every affected property on a mailing list, but a number of affected homeowners have complained that they did not receive mailings about the public meetings. The March 6 meeting was not even publicized on the DPWT’s online calendar!
At the March 6 meeting, Aruna Miller of the DPWT informed attendees that the next step in the process was a public hearing before the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission Planning Board. The community has been waiting since then for the DPWT to share the date of this meeting, but once again the DPWT has waited until now, barely a week in advance, to announce that this meeting will be held at 7:00 p.m. on April 26th at M-NCPPC Auditorium, 8787 Georgia Avenue, Silver Spring. Naturally, we are once again concerned at the lack of public notice.
The Project Prospectus that the DPWT will present at the April 26 meeting contains the following line about the three public meetings on the project: “Staff characterizes the majority of responses at the meetings as supportive…” Having attended these meetings, I am at a loss as to how the DPWT can characterize the public feedback it has received about the project as supportive. I fear that this is one more piece of evidence that the DPWT is again turning a deaf ear to the community.
Nicole Fleisher
Potomac