Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2008
Planning for much-needed renovations at Plum Gar Community Center in Germantown, road improvements, the completion of two new Germantown fire stations and a new county police station to serve the Gaithersburg area are all featured in County Executive Isiah Leggett’s recommended fiscal 2009 Capital Budget and six-year Capital Improvement Program budget.
‘‘I continue to be pleased with the progress we’re making in the upcounty,” County Council President Michael J. Knapp (D-Dist. 2) of Germantown said Monday, adding that the council will focus on keeping the construction of CIP projects on track this year. ‘‘...I think in the last four or five years we’ve begun making noise, and communities are doing a good job at advocating for themselves. People know we’re here and what we need, and I don’t think that was the case a few years ago.”
The council is expected to approve the final version of the $3.2 billion 2009-14 CIP budget by June 1.
The budget, released Jan. 15, represents an overall spending increase of 1.1 percent, a reflection of the projected $401 million deficit facing the county, according to a county statement. Recommended CIP spending increases the past two years were 24.3 percent and 26.2 percent.
One of the upcounty’s successes is the inclusion of $1.55 million over four years for designing upgrades to the aging Plum Gar Community Center in Germantown beginning in fiscal 2010. Plum Gar, which opened 24 years ago and consists of a 68,000-square-foot building and a temporary trailer just off Frederick Road in Germantown, provides recreation and educational activities to 72,000 people a year, including youths and seniors. An addition with a kitchen, bathrooms, an exercise room and a social hall, more parking and an expanded lobby and administrative areas are planned.
‘‘The kids have excelled and want to try different sports,” said director Hercules Twine Sr. ‘‘Now they’ll have enough room to enhance all that.”
Public safety projects also figure prominently in Leggett‘s proposal. Highlights include $20 million through 2011 for a new 6th District police station on Watkins Mill Road to serve the Gaithersburg⁄Montgomery Village area.
The current facility, just off North Frederick Avenue in Gaithersburg, operates from a strip mall storefront. Leggett’s budget proposal also includes $2.9 million through 2014 for renovations and an addition to the 5th District police station off Crystal Rock Drive in Germantown.
‘‘We were, overall, pleased, and we understand that it is a miserable financial situation,” said Tobi Printz-Platnick, chairwoman of the Upcounty Citizens Advisory Board. She added that the board’s primary concern is public safety, especially a recommendation in the county executive’s fiscal 2008 operating budget spending plan that proposes reducing overtime by shifting nighttime EMS resources at the Laytonsville and Glen Echo fire stations elsewhere in the county and removing career rescue squad staff from the Germantown station, both of which could result in longer response times, according to the recommendation.
In better news for fire rescue services in the upcounty, the CIP includes money to complete the construction of two fire stations planned for Germantown, the $17 million East Germantown station at the intersection of Boland Farm Road and Route 355 and the $11 million West Germantown station at the corner of Germantown and Clopper roads. One fire station currently serves Germantown.
Montgomery College’s three campuses received $326.4 million in the recommended CIP, a 10 percent decrease from the amended FY2007-12 budget. The Germantown campus’ planned Bioscience Education Center, which is funded through the design phase, was hit hard by the reduction.
Proposed funding for the Germantown campus includes $1 million in design costs over the next two years to reconstruct the school’s main entrance road, the deteriorating Observation Drive, from Germantown Road to the campus. Leggett’s budget also includes $15.4 million over the next six years for its capital renewal project to fund facility upgrades, which includes alterations to Germantown’s Sciences and Applied Studies Building.
However, the planned $87.6 million Bioscience Education Center received $952,000 for fiscal 2009, much less than the $6.7 million requested by the college.
The center, which is planned to feature modern biotechnology and science laboratories, received $6.4 million of the $28.8 million requested from the county for 2010 and none of the $48.7 million requested for 2011.
‘‘This particular building will house all of our science programs, and that’s one of our highest demand areas,” said Hercules Pinkney, vice president and provost for the Germantown campus. The school consistently turns students away from its science classes because of space constraints, he said, and the facility is critical to providing workers for the region’s biotechnology industry.
other cip highlights
Dickerson — $1.5 million in improvements to the county’s Public Safety Outdoor Firearms Training Center.
Gaithersburg — $100,000 toward the $2.2 million replacement of Brink Road Bridge; $2.5 million toward the $6 million Gaithersburg Aquatic Center; $4.2 million in design costs to improve Goshen Road between Girard Street and Warfield Road; $6 million toward a $8.5 million contribution to the state for Watkins Mill Road extension; $10.2 million toward $13 million in Gaithersburg Library renovations; $10.7 million toward a $13.1 million animal shelter at Muncaster Mill and Airpark roads; $24.5 million toward $42.2 million in improvements to the Montgomery County Airpark.
Germantown — $2.9 million toward $4.2 million in trail renovations at Black Hill Regional Park; $18.6 million toward the $21.5 million extension of Father Hurley Boulevard between Wisteria Drive and Germantown Road.
Poolesville — $1.4 million toward $1.7 million in improvements to the Poolesville Golf Course.
