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Three more stories in the Town Courier. Again, they’re not available online at this point.

• Officials Under Fire on Day Laborer Issue
  This story recounts the fireworks at the September 5th meeting of the Mayor and Council. Among the insights this article adds to what has been previously reported is the comment by Kentlands resident Richard Koch, who added his voice to those who encouraged the City to widen their search for a labor center site to encompass more of the City. Transcribing from the Courier,

  “GE Tech Park is I-3 Zoned. It would be a perfect place. Don’t simply force [a day laborer center] in the CBD zone of Olde Towne,” he said.

  I think that the City should be listening carefully to this statement, given that Mr. Koch is a development consultant for the GE Tech Park property. I have not heard any other developer argue that this use was appropriate for his or her project, and I commend Mr. Koch, who also served on the City’s Day Laborer Task Force, for making a rare positive effort toward finding a solution. You can watch the video of this meeting online.

• Market Square’s Problems Continue to Multiply
  This story recounts the continued problems with vandalism and burglaries in the Market Square area of Kentlands. Some are placing partial blame on the fence surrounding the plaza during the reconstruction.
• Kentlands Plans to Hire Police for Security
  This article tells about the Kentlands Citizen’s Assembly’s plans to hire off-duty Gaithersburg Police Officers to provide additional security in Kentlands. Apparently Lakelands has a similar arrangement with a security firm which can provide off-duty County police, but KCA Chair Dick Arkin believes that the City police have “more familiarity with the community”.

I do wish the Town Courier had its articles up on the web sooner in their cycle, but they don’t so you’ll have to go checking store entrances on the West side of town if you want to read the full text of these. Anyway, the September “mid-month” edition has some fascinating stories, and this will be the first of a couple of blog entries about them.

Update: This article is now up on their website.

The biggest story in that paper this week regards the changes to the structure of the Kentlands Citizens Assembly. Where previously all members of the Board of Trustees had been elected at large from the entire community, the KCA, at their September 6th meeting, passed a general resolution, the effect of which was to divide Kentlands into five voting districts. (The following image was made by exporting KCA’s official PDF to an image, cropping and resizing it):

Interestingly, the two trustees who are up for re-election — Chair Dick Arkin and Vice Chair Sigrid McCutcheon — are in separate districts and have each effectively eliminated four fifths of their potential competition in the November race. The implications of — and complications resulting from — this change are many. For example, following the November election, one of the districts will have no representative. It is also interesting to note that while Board members will have to be distributed among the districts, all eligible Kentlands voters will vote on the candidates for all districts.

Concerns about this change include that it was:

• Unveiled at 10:00 pm at a special Board meeting following a budget work session, and the budget work session was advertised as being on the wrong date
• Not mentioned in the published agenda except as “new business”
• Introduced and voted into force in the same session

I’m pretty certain that if the KCA were a real municipal government along the lines of Gaithersburg’s Mayor and Council, this sort of ambush legislation would never — could never — happen.

The current edition of the Courier has a bunch of coverage: Two articles, a map, a sidebar, an editorial and three letters. If you live in Kentlands and are a title holder or citizen, this issue affects you directly and I’d highly recommend that you pick up a copy of this paper and read it through [and BTW I’m not affiliated with them, I’m just a reader] I’d also suggest you talk to your neighbors and get involved in the process if you aren’t already.