Extras Round Up
Following up on stories in the news
Downtown Hotel Conference Center - The $84 million public-private downtown hotel and conference center hit a snag in recent months when grants and funding were yanked, putting the project in a $16 million hole. The money was reinstated in the state's capital budget this year, but not without plenty of noise along the way. [Rendering pictured above, courtesy of City of Frederick]
The next step is the Board of Public Works for final approval. No one is celebrating -- or mourning -- just yet, given the history of the beleaguered proposal.
"[Sen. Michael] Hough claimed it is not over," said Del. Karen Lewis Young (D-Dist. 3A.) "I am sure that he will work to get the Public Works final approval denied. This has become personal with him."
Hough (R-Dist. 4) tried to guilt the Senate into taking the money from the downtown hotel, he said, but it didn't work. "I offered two amendments on the capitol budget to take money from the downtown hotel and give it to Waverley Elementary. It's at 157 percent capacity. I also had an amendment to give the money to the Frederick Rescue Mission. Both were rejected," Hough said. "So we put giving $16 million to wealthy special interests over helping kids and the homeless."
Sen. Ron Young (D-Dist. 3) said he wasn't buying it. "All that was a stunt. In the next campaign, he'll say I would rather give money to millionaires instead of building schools and homeless shelters. Ironically they [Republicans] don't give to either of those programs," he said.
Moving the funding through the process has been "grueling" because Frederick County's state delegation is so divided, Sen. Young said.
Frederick County's delegation has been in a tug of war over using public money for the project, and splitting along party lines, with Republicans (5) opposed to public funding of the center, and Democrats (3) in favor. A Frederick-based journalist and hotel opponent Peter Samuel devotes a website, Frederick Hotel Boondoggle, to unearthing information and documenting missteps and more. Most recently, a brouhaha is brewing over possible code violations at a historic building on the Frederick News-Post property on East Patrick Street, the proposed site of the planned hotel. County officials are debating the county's contribution to a lobbyist to advocate for state funding. Read more about that here, too.
Despite the sustained controversy and uneven support of the project, the downtown hotel will be built, according to Frederick city's director of economic development. Richard Griffin said the project has no "plan B," regardless of the level of public money attached. "It's always been 'plan A.' It's just a matter of how much the state is going to contribute," he said.
Without public funding, the project would simply shrink to accommodate its budget, he said. As for the ongoing opposition to the project, Griffin said "the hotel would be functionally supporting a new niche that hasn't been supported prior," and "a rising tide lifts all boats."
Bus Dilemma - WHAG reported a few weeks ago that Frederick County Public Schools, starting next school year, was going to stop returning young children to school if parents or guardians weren't at the bus stop to get them. A hue and cry ensued. The idea of defenseless little ones set loose on the mean streets raised a lot of hackles. FCPS was taken to task and questioned on why it would initiate such a heartless policy.
As it turned out, FCPS didn't change its policy. FCPS spokesman Michael Doerrer said in an email that board policy has always been that parents are responsible for the safety of their children, from the time they leave home until they board the bus or enter school property, and from the time they leave the school bus or exit school property at the end of the day.
Doerrer said FCPS encountered problems in returning children, such as substitute bus drivers unfamiliar with parents or guardians; parents who want children to walk home alone; and parents waiting for the children out of sight of the bus driver. Doerrer could not say how many children were returned to school in a given school year, the cost of those returns, or if the number of returns had increased over the past few years.
He did say that children "in distress" would be returned to school. "We will return students to school if they’re distressed, if they don’t want to get off the bus, or if the student or driver feels that getting off the bus is unsafe for any reason," Doerrer said.
