Shreve Clarifies Overcrowded Comments
County Council Member Billy Shreve got a bit of pushback following comments characterizing Urbana parents as unconcerned about school overcrowding.
“Parents are fine with kids being in overcrowded schools … parents are ok with it because the schools are well managed and blue ribbon schools. I saw hardly anyone who actually lived in the Villages saying ‘schools are overcrowded, don’t do this,’” Shreve said at the county council’s Mar. 7 meeting.
The seven council members were debating a rezoning request from Urbana Investment Properties II and Monocacy Land Co., LLC that would combine three parcels of land, 603 acres, into one. One of the outcomes of the rezoning is additional residential development. The plan does include a new school.
The Board of Education had officially come out against the zoning change, according to BOE Vice President Elizabeth Barrett. Urbana schools are among the top four overcrowded county schools, including Hillcrest and Waverley Elmentary Schools, according to the FCPS September 2016 enrollment figures. In Urbana, Centerville Elementary is 148 percent over capacity; Urbana Elementary is 137 percent over capacity; Urbana High School is the most crowded of county high schools at 107 percent capacity. Urbana Middle is at 96 percent capacity.
County staff and the county’s planning commission recommended approval of the rezoning request, but council members voted 4-3 to deny the plan. Read the staff and planning commission documents here.
Shreve, who once sold houses in Urbana for Main Street homes, said developer Tom Natelli and Natelli Communities could “sue the county” for the decision, but added that the instead, they could simply wait for the 2018 gubernatorial election. “It’s only a year and a half away,” he said. His ally and colleague Council Member Kirby Delauter (R) is throwing his first fundraiser for what friends and supporter say is a run for county executive in 2018.
Urbana parents were strongly opposed to Shreve’s remarks on their community’s private Facebook page, according to those with access, but few would go on record.
Father of two, Jeff Allanach recalls his daughter at school in a portable that attracted so many stink bugs, they’d regularly drop on his her head. “I can assure you,there are plenty of people who are not happy with overcrowded schools,” Allanach said. He’s not averse to development he said, but not at the cost of more overcrowding.
In an email to Shreve and other county officials, Urbana parent Linda Plaister told the council member:
As a resident of Urbana and a parent of students at Urbana Elementary and Urbana Middle School, and as a taxpaying resident of Frederick County and thus, your constituent, please take note that for the record I DO care that both of my children are attending overcrowded schools, driving and walking to school on overcrowded, unsafe roads, and are competing for overcrowded recreational facilities, due to the rampant overdevelopment of the Urbana area over the past decades.
You mentioned in this week's council meeting that Urbana parents are "just fine" with our kids being crowded into tiny classrooms in old broken-down trailers. No, sir we are not fine with it and we are not fine with your attitude about it. You yourself were quoted in a 2016 interview as stating- “I think anytime you assume anything without getting all the facts first, you’re a moron.”
We, the parents and citizens of Urbana will be emailing and calling you until you have all the facts.
Shreve said he received about six emails from parents who said, ‘we are concerned,’ and he wanted to clarify his comments. He didn’t mean to imply that overcrowded schools were acceptable, he said was that parents in Urbana would choose to stay in high quality schools and be overcrowded than be redistricted, he said.
