The community is starting to organize a campaign against the proposed building a new recreation center and destroying one of Reston's largest open spaces and playing fields. There is a new website at www.savebrownschapel.com and an iPetition you can sign to get your name on the list of supporters against the proposal.
Additionally, I have received the following email from Peter Greenberg:
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Subject: Planned Health Club at Browns Chapel - RA Selects Site Without Planning and Zoning or Design Review Board Opinion of Appropriateness Robin, This is to follow up on our meeting in your offices last Wednesday at RA Headquarters with legal counsel present. George will be delivering you a letter next week, as was discussed with Ken. I don’t believe things are headed in the right direction. Since your offer to the North Shores Cluster to hold a special meeting with the Task Force solely for them was not actually an offer solely for them but rather for all RA members, please be sure to get that meeting on the RA Calendar which appears on web site. You were very clear that our so-called ‘special’ meeting was open to all RA members; therefore please help us make sure that all members have the opportunity to be aware of it. Having had a chance to reflect upon our meeting, I’m less encouraged than ever that you will make the community outreach process open, fair and transparent. To the contrary, you appeared steadfast in your strong denial of my requests to: 1. include the input of many more affected parties in the Assessment being done by Brailsford and Dunleavy, and 2. to add to your timeline a period of community discussion about alternative uses for Browns Chapel Park. RA inexplicably has this project on a fast track that will necessarily limit community input. As we pointed out, the only people interviewed for the study were groups favorable to the concept, each being small in size. The two specific sports groups mentioned were tennis and aquatics. Further, as I point out below, the questions of whether the health club should be built, and what is best for Brown’s Chapel are separate questions. I left our meeting with no doubt in my mind that you have strong preconceived feelings in favor of getting the health club built. Milton Matthew’s posture was even more obvious. How is that leadership? It is not, it is the pressing of a personal agenda, the reasons for which are still unclear to me. You desire to commit $150,000,000.00 of your neighbors’ money, without appropriate community input, possibly for some personal reason I can not quite put my finger on. It is the most fundamental habit in land development to check in advance with local Design Review Boards and Planning and Zoning officials, PRIOR to undertaking preliminary site plans, to see if the subject piece of land will be suitable for the proposed development. In fact your Design Review Guidelines encourages people to come in for an ‘informational only’ meeting to be sure that any problems with an idea can be aired out up front. Question: Since this will be the largest single capital project of its time in RA, why didn’t you use best practices in your planning and get preliminary written opinions from DRB and P&Z of the viability of using Brown’s Chapel for the planned health club? Was it inexperience, incompetence, or was it a desire to obscure the process? In my view those are the only possible reasons. I think it was the latter. You have been led down a path of opacity by RCC and have acted, at least at early stages, to keep secret your plans to build this $150,000,000.00 health club using your neighbors’ bank accounts. Since this secret has been made open, before this plan goes any further, and more money gets wasted, you MUST seek a preliminary written opinion from both RA Planning and Zoning and Reston DRB on: “the concept of constructing a significantly sized full-service commercial health club facility with hours from 5:30 AM to 10:00 PM 7 days per week of a similar size and nature to the attached Alt E”. Please take that professional step-back in the process and find out if what you wish to do is remotely feasible before committing any more RA dollars to the project. For gosh sakes, the existing Assessment does not even support the building of the health club, even though all the people in the focus group were apparently hand-selected to be favorable: 1. It will reduce the wealth of RA members by $150,000,000 over 20 years with no asset to replace the one given away. You are gifting Fairfax County $150,000,000! Outrageous! + 2. It will never cover its own operating expenses BEFORE DEBT SERVICE. 3. 70% of users will not be from Reston, but Reston will pay 100% of the money. Therefore it is not for use PRIMARILY by RA members and does not fulfill the mission of RCC or RA. 4. It will destroy the largest green space in Reston at a time when density is increasing and there is a requirement to have appropriate ratios of green space to residents. I hope you are giving consideration to my offer to help bring the various groups lined up against this into the process of discovery of what is best for Brown’s Chapel Park. That is clearly a separate issue from the question of ‘should the health club be built?’. The question of whether such a facility should be built is strictly a financial question. Need is an inappropriate word. This will not feed, shelter, or cloth anyone. This is a desire. Sound financial management of our collective resources would only include paying for a desire such as this if the money were already saved. The money will be borrowed with a promise to repay it with interest; there is absolutely no return on that investment for the people paying for it; and there will be a permanent financial burden upon all of Reston that does not currently exist. That is bad policy, bad business analysis, and bad leadership. You have already apparently caused over $100,000 to be spent or committed by RA/RCC on the study of this project - without widespread community input. Just like the office building, this will never pass a referendum. How much of our RA and RCC funds are you willing to commit to spending to support an already bad financial decision? Why compound the problem? Even after you leave the Presidency of the Board next year, and this fight rages on, you will we be responsible for the decisions you make now. You will own them and all the consequences. The groups forming will have the financial resources to take the fight on at every turn. You are going to tear this community apart during this battle. I discovered just this morning by reading the minutes of the March 9, 2009 RCC board meeting that both the RA board and RCC board have agreed on a name for the health club. That is an unbelievable fact considering that you told us no decisions had been made on the project; that is except for the size, configuration, location, name, funding, and strategy to get it pushed past your various constituencies. Is that how you will lead? This is a time in the country where green thinking is front and center. Building a money-losing fitness center is bad policy in its own right. Tearing down a park to build a money-losing, perpetual tax-burdening, fitness center with a large carbon footprint is bad policy AND out of touch with the times we live in. With homeless people living on the streets of Reston, with environmental concerns putting a premium on open space, I’m sure we can find better use of RA/RCC resources. The expenditures, throwing good money after bad, to continue the study of something that will never exist will bring shame to this community. Is that where you will lead? As for RCC, the tax created in the late 1960’s has mushroomed into something never envisioned by its originators and is far in excess of what is needed to fulfill RCC’s mission. Is that the driver here? Is the money just burning a hole in the RCC’s pocket? The RCC’s money has outgrown their mission. WE ARE OVERTAXED. Increasing the RCC mission to fit the money is bad policy. I encourage RA to work on behalf of all RA members with County officials to resize the tax to fit the existing RCC mission. Only McLean and Reston are subject to such a tax, why is that? The tax should be eliminated since RCC is not PRIMARILY used by STD5 folks. The tax should be eliminated and Reston Community Center should fall under the County’s budget. At a minimum we should demand Fairfax County right size the tax to fit the existing mission of RCC and let them continue to do the excellent work they do. With RCC’s giant windfall it is a money party over there. Leila Gordon in my view has no financial acumen. Like you, Mr. Bouie and Ms. Bradley have done no outreach EVEN THOUGH THE BUILDING ALREADY HAS A NAME to the most affected parties, and scheme to have $40,000,000 of RA land gifted to RCC so that the money party can continue. Ms Hudgins has her knuckles wrapped so tightly around our tax money that she is cutting off blood to her fingers. She has committed to me to make the RCC’s participation in the process much more transparent, time will tell. There is a huge surplus of funds at RCC that are piling up GET THE EXCESS CASH BACK FOR YOUR RA CONSTITUENTS. Lead in that direction and people will follow. This has the explicit sponsorship of Ms. Hudgins. She is responsible for all activities of the RCC through her absolute oversight role. There are 381,000 households in Fairfax County, there is plenty of County land, if the County feels that additional Community Center space is desired by and for County residents, then let the County get the buy-in of all County residents, including but not limited to, the 23,000 households of Reston. Get the approval of all Fairfax County citizens to pay for this since non-Reston residents will comprise 70% of the users, then the center can be built, operated, and paid for by all County residents. While I will still personally oppose the idea on its financial merits; Lead in that direction and people will follow. You must fight to preserve Browns Chapel Park because it is the largest remaining outdoor recreation facility in Reston. And, you should improve it in a cost effective and appropriate manner. A multi-use ‘field turf’ playing surface for both upper ball fields is one idea. Such a facility would be income producing to Reston (as opposed to giving away $150,000,000.00 of STD5’s cash and real estate to the county), bring much desired facilities to the baseball, football, soccer, lacrosse, and softball leagues, and preserve Reston’s largest outdoor recreation location. Lead in that direction and people will follow. Robin: 1. End the study of the 510,000 square foot, $150,000,000.00 health club before even more money is wasted and the community goes to war with itself. 2. Work to fit the RCC mission to the tax, not the tax to the mission. 3. Work closely, and up front, with North Point clusters to come up with a viable outdoor recreation redevelopment of Browns Chapel Park that is affordable. I promise you if you will lead in these directions minions will follow. Lead. Peter Greenberg
Ms. Smyers --
I concur with Peter's concerns. I am astounded that you are unwilling to have a real discussion about alternative uses for Brown's Chapel Park which might be more in line with what it was always intended to be -- recreational open space.
It would be one thing if there was a compelling public need which could only be satisfied at this site, but we all know that is not the case. The RA and RCC have not even attempted to find out if there in fact is a need -- other than by listening to a very small group of people who want all of us to pay so they can play subsidized indoor tennis. I'm not sure you could have identified a use which would be more inefficient in terms of space and capital than indoor tennis, even if you had tried.
I was a moderate on this issue when it first came to my attention, and was convinced that in a fair and open process the RA and RCC would come to the conclusion that this use made no sense on any level -- except to the small group which wants to play tennis and swim at below market rates (according to your own study). However, I am increasingly becoming a militant, and I am becoming so because of the arrogance of the posture being adopted by the leadership of the RA and the RCC.
Your process is an insult to the intelligence of the community you are supposed to serve, and your intended outcome would be an outrage. You have an opportunity to demonstrate real leadership and bring the community together behind an intelligent and forward-looking plan for this open space, but you are squandering it.
I am unable to attend the May 18th hearing, but will be submitting something in writing for the record. I would appreciate if you could forward me instructions on how to submit written testimony for the record.
Thank you.
Kevin Payne
Posted by: Kevin Payne | May 12, 2009 at 08:25 PM
Dear Kevin
All of this communication is being retained for our records of the public engagement part of this process. You may direct comments you want entered as a statement for RCC meetings to [email protected]. This email below or any other may be provided for the RCC Board of Governors Finance Committee meeting on May 18 at the above email address, as well as from my email address. Additionally, you may mail a written statement to the Board of Governors, Reston Community Center, 2310 Colts Neck Rd., Reston, Virginia, 20191 if you like or in the alternative to your email. It would be helpful to make it to the attention of myself, or our Executive Assistant, Denise Snyder.
Thank you as always for your input.
Leila Gordon
Executive Director
Reston Community Center
Posted by: Leila Gordon | May 13, 2009 at 11:42 AM