[RP TownTalk] The mayor's proposal for a community center as part of the redevelopment of Dumm's Corner

[Gerard Kiernan]

Dear Town Talkers,

I have not formulated my thoughts on municipal financial investment in a
privately owned development, so I will not address that issue today.

I want to provide information on the concept of a Community Center for the
exclusive use of Riverdale Park.  In the Fall of 1999, then Councilmembers
Davis and Herman proposed that the Town purchase the NOAA/Erco building for
uses as a community center.  Part of the rationale was that Riverdale Park
was the only municipality in this area without its own MNCPPC operated
community center.

The Council decided to set up a committee to study the issue.   I was not on
the Council at the time, but was chosen to chair the committee because of my
engineering and finance background.  The first thing that the committee did
was to decide that we needed the inputs of residents.  We developed a
survey/questionnaire that was mailed out in The Town Crier.  To avoid any
ballot box stuffing, the survey was printed on colored paper and each one
was individually serialized.

We printed the survey results in the February 2000 issue of the Crier. That
article can be read at:
http://www.ci.riverdale-park.md.us/News/CrierIssues/i0002/commCtrRes.html

Links to the entire report, and a raw version of the data, can be found at:

http://www.ci.riverdale-park.md.us/AboutRiverdalePark/TownGroups/CommCtrStud
yComm.html

The up-shot was that we had an almost 6% response to the survey and of the
responses, 5 out of 6 had no interest in a Town community center.

I urge you to not only read the Crier summary but the entire report.  At the
end of the report, after the individual answers to questions, are all of the
comments written by the respondents.   Many of them are quite interesting.

Because of the survey results, the Council cancelled any further study of a
community center.

Gerry Kiernan