Tuesday Round Up: Choose my adventure...

I had hoped to write more today, but the best laid plans and all that. Instead, here's another lame Round Up.

Bobby Guv was in town today to announce plans for a major new development on the parking lots of the Savage MARC station. Details, from The Sun:

The project would put pedestrian-friendly, urban-style communities on the 15-acre parking lot and encourage train use in a corner of Howard County that has long been targeted for upscale redevelopment.

...If the Savage Towne Centre concept is accepted by state and county governments, the state-owned station parking lot would be the site of 260 apartments in two high-rise buildings, a hotel, two restaurants, 53,000 square feet of retail space, a 145,000-square-foot office building and a five-story parking garage for 1,000 vehicles, according to a state fact sheet.

Leaving aside the horrible name with its pretentious spelling and poor grasp of geography (the site is nowhere near the "centre" of Savage) the plan sounds interesting, if possibly overly ambitious. Although it is near Fort Meade, a highway and transit (good things), the site is currently surrounded by lots and lots of industrial buildings and the county wastewater treatment plan, making me question how appealing it will be to buyers.

Then again, with a development like this sprouting up, can we really expect the industrial character of the area to persist forever?

More info and maps here.

I don't want to pile on, but reading this story from yesterday's Sun made me realize (again) how silly the whole Lake Elkhorn tot lot fence process has been. For instance:

Almost immediately, parents called for a review of safety measures at the playground, and the CA board responded, allocating up to $20,000 for a study and $30,000 for a fence, if needed.

But the study - a six-page report from the National Program for Playground Safety - found "no compelling need to place a fence" around the playground at Lake Elkhorn.

Angry parents denounced that finding, and the CA board, convinced that some barrier was needed, agreed to build a fence or landscape buffer. As recently as March, CA officials were predicting that construction would be completed in time for summer.

In the intervening months, however, the board has:

• Reviewed seven design options, ranging from leaving the playground as it is to putting a fence around the entire perimeter.
• Made a motion to approve the perimeter fencing plan after two board meetings of discussion.
• Scrapped the fence plan entirely and voted unanimously to close the Lake Elkhorn tot lot and remove the play equipment.
• Reversed itself once again and agreed to leave the lot open - and unfenced - after a meeting at which members were berated by a standing-room-only crowd of more than 100 angry parents and concerned residents.

Got that?

Have you noticed the poll on the right? Republicans are far outnumbering Democrats. What, I get no love from my own party? Seriously. I'm feeling a little lonely. And what about the Libertarians? HoCo Exile, you out there?

Finally, choose my adventure. The way I see it, I have two options for tomorrow night and I'll let you decide what I do. The first is attending the first meeting of the BRAC task force at 7 pm in the county office building. The second is moutain biking.

Now, if I go to the meeting, I probably wouldn't write about it until Thursday or Friday. If I go mountain biking, I'll write about the BRAC meeting on Friday, assuming the Sun writes a story about it (I'm counting on you, Larry).

I think the meeting would be interesting, informative and worthwhile, but not as enjoyable as moutain biking, which I haven't done in a week (a week!). Since I'm bad at making decisions, I'll let you decide. If, however, there's an insufficient number of votes, I'll just do whatever feels right tomorrow evening (which, in case you didn't notice, is really just my ambiguous escape clause).

UPDATE: I was just reminded by a reader that our Gov also announced today that Route 108 will be dedicated to the late Senator James Clark, who passed away last Friday. He also formally announced the renaming of Route 175 to the Jim and Patty Rouse Parkway. I saw Patty today with a large street sign that had her name on it. So, I guess she was there for the press conference.