Thursday, July 19, 2007

Share this evening...

Hey, OMers, did you go to the meeting tonight? Want to share any interesting ideas you heard?

Also, for all county residents, County Executive Ken Ulman will be hosting a somewhat open-ended public forum next Wednesday night at Oakland Mills High School beginning at 6 pm. All of his department heads will be there (his executive assistants, too), and you'll have a chance to talk about pretty much whatever you want.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The meeting at Oakland Mills was really pretty exciting. The county has money (about $100,000) to make improvements, but they can only apply it to county space or right-of-way. Thus the choice of the street that connects the courtyard to the Interfaith Center.

Lots of interesting ideas were generated. Some of the ideas that were talked about include a special paving on the road so that it could be closed to traffic for special occasions like the farmers' market or the International Festival. There was also talk of widening the pedestrian walkway, and making it more attractive, perhaps with public art or a community art project of some kind.

The idea was suggested to move the driveway to the bank, so that it came off the CA parking lot (next to the police station) so that part of the current driveway could become a town square-type space. This would require agreements with CA and Cedar Shopping Centers, who owns most of the center.

Issues were raised that will have to be considered during the process. These include possibly moving the bus stop and making sure people can access the bank.

I thought it was a good first meeting. I hope more people get involved in the process as it proceeds. With all the creative people in OM, we should be able to take this from a simple capital project to something really special.

I personally would love to see some kind of project that would allow lots of people (especially schoolkids) to become involved.