Golf Course
Kari
http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/uniini/release.cfm?ArticleID=1267
http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/uniini/release.cfm?ArticleID=1996
http://newsdesk.umd.edu/scitech/release.cfm?ArticleID=2482
http://www.isc-audubon.org/audubonnetwork/items/view/university-of-maryland-golf-course
Hi,
I thought I read somewhere that UMD did something to its golf course a while ago as part of a deal for something else, like this would be a breach of some kind if it now developed the golf course? Is there any merit to that? Does anyone have the scoop? I can’t find what I thought I read.
I know there are others much more knowledgeable than me on hitting this hard from a green space, audubon designation (8 in MD only), birds homes, UMD classes on the couse, fundraising events on the course, the only 18-hole public course in the area, etc.
1) Given how green UMD is and strives to be, why are UMD students and professors up in arms yet? Do they not know the loss of their golf course is practically imminent?
2) Given on how being green and creating, maintaining and fostering “sustainability” is so important to UMD, I would think someone would have called for Dr. Loh’s impeachment or removal or is thinking about it as not fit? If he is coming to College Park and disrepecting what he was hired to do, disrespects the values of UMD and the State of Maryland, and is making detrimental, permanent/irreversible decisions, costing UMD huge currently and down the road, especially with regards to its new Big 10 alliance, harming the City and local communities, and businesses, isn’t he creating liability? Would the Board of Regents want him gone? Are there skeletons from the Iowa University?
3) Does everyone remember this article from the Post? Maybe it isn’t relevant. But it seems nobody believes this proposal was “unsolicited” – it seems pretty obvious that O’Malley, Miller, and Baker are strange fellows again on this. If it really was a staged development plan, and the lawmakers all knew the only way they had a shot at this was to keep it out of local authorities jurisdiction, and it had to be “unsolicited” to make that happen, to bypass public scrutiny, and what point is that collusion, etc.? A willful attempt to skirt the law? At what point is it corruption? At what point does the attorney general get notified and asked to investigate? I personally would love to see them answer under oath about how this came to be, including the developer. It is really hard to believe that this was “unsolicited.” Wish the Post would probe that more. When does it become an FBI matter? Like when Hendershot was questioned regarding the Greenbelt development? Why did the FBI get involved there?
4) At what point is a letter written to the Big 10 asking them to investigate Maryland’s activities regarding its sports program, the recent cancellation of many sports, and now the golf course. The Post article says all the Big 10 schools have their own courses, except for Northwestern, which is understandable since it is in Chicago and a private school, the only private school in the Big 10? Which means it is even less acceptable; it is not acceptable; for UMD not to have a golf course. At some point, wouldn’t the Big 10 want an injunction for UMD or question what UMD can bring to the table with its cancellation of its sports programs? Where is UMD going to compete at golf? I think if I were in charge of the Big 10 sports association, and got wind of UMD’s recent sports cancellations and now plans to kill the golf course, I would be rethinking UMD. I would want to get some assurances, legally binding, of UMD’s intentions to financially support its sports programs in earnest. Ohio State’s stadium is 110,000, Michigan’s is 105,000, Penn State’s is 100,000, going off memory; my mom told me Wisconsin’s is 83,000. And UMD’s Byrd Stadium, 53,000 right? UMD seems to be the odd man out already. Please check out the Ellen Linson pool/hockey rink to see where the terps play hockey. That’s a winner. [haven’t been there in over a year though.] UMD rents its tennis space from the private tennis center in College Park.
5) Who is brokering the deal for UMD to buy the Paint Branch Golf Course from Parks? Can folks write to Parks and ask them not to sell it to UMD? Is there enough room there (or surrounding it to buy) to make an 18-hole golf course, even if they acquire the driving range? Is it possible they could make a connector road out of that driving range?
6) Why wouldn’t folks want to FOIA/MPIA their communications, O’Malley, Loh, Miller, Baker involving anything and everything related to Greenberg Gibbons (the developer?) and this road, including communications to Hoyer and Edwards?
7) Can someone explain to me what the rush is? I know they have couched this in terms of an emergency because they say it takes too long to get to UMD football games (what is the rush these days I ask?), but why the big emergency all of a sudden? Doesn’t it seem like the politicians are misusing their powers for private gain? That UMD officials are misusing their State entrusted positions for private gain? 100-year lease? That they are misusing State assets for private purposes? Doesn’t that seem to be unfair competition for the other developers? Isn’t the biggest winner here the developer?
8) I would love to know, actually read a recently commissioned traffic study down Wisconsin Avenue, Georgia, and Connecticut heading south/north in the morning inside the beltway? Wouldn’t you imagine that the traffic congestion on these roads on a daily basis are far more heavy and compelling for a federal connector road to gut their bellies to ease congestion? Where is all the love for Bethesda, Chevy Chase, and Silver Spring? Why don’t they need their state legislators and Governor O’Malley to rescue them? Oh, they haven’t asked to be rescued? Well, neither has College Park.
Maybe I have this wrong, but I think students would rather have a green campus and would fight harder for a green campus, with a golf course, that serves the community at large as well as UMD, and holds 80 fundraisers a year to benefit in large part UMD programs including sports than yet another road coming into College Park, especially with the purple line on its way.
Did O’Malley, Baker, and Miller think they saw a sucker coming when President Loh was hired? What folly??????????????????????????????? Does anyone else think he has been successfully snowed on this? I just can’t believe that a President of the University of Maryland could think a proposal of getting rid of the golf course is a good idea.
http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/uniini/release.cfm?ArticleID=1267 “O’Malley scales back environmental initiative”
Kari
Is this all for a Walmart? Does anyone know what the big box stores will be? Walmart is first entering DC. DC pulled a last minute move on Walmart and said, we want minimum wages, etc. Walmart said, “hey, DC, we really don’t need you; you need us. We can go elsewhere.” And then almost immediately, Miller says, “there is an urgent traffic crisis on Route 1.”
Isn’t the premise of why Loh apparently wants this is because he wants College Park to be a Top 20 college town to live? Does his vision include a Nordstrom’s or Walmart?
He comes from the University of Iowa and Iowa, next to my family’s states of MN/WI, and I spend quite a bit of time in Iowa. Walmart is part of the landscape there in Iowa, which is largely farms. I don’t think you would be considered a nice place to live in Iowa unless your town had a Walmart nearby.
I really want to know what stores are worth gutting among some of the nicest residential neighborhoods in the College Park area for?
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-09-12/walmart-wins-in-d-dot-c
I just want to know what stores are being planned; doesn’t it seem like Loh, Miller, Baker, and O’Malley know the stores planned; thus, the seeming moving of mountains (let’s get an emergency Route 1 traffic study to save the commuters from having to spend time getting to UMD)? How come we don’t know what stores? Greenberg Gilbert knows the stores.
Also, UMD used to sit just outside 50 in the US News and World report. This year, it moved back to 57… seems to be going backwards under new leadership…. I watched Maryland for years be at 51, and 52. Then, last year it fell back to 57th, now 62nd…. “The University of Maryland at College Park, which ranked 58th last year, fell to 62nd” I wonder if the methodology includes sports programs, sustainability initiatives, and making efforts to be a nice case to live, in which case I can see why UMD is falling.
Sports may be a component of the ranking methodology. But I am almost certain that gutting a neighborhood with a federal highway is part of the methodology because it goes to perception of whether it is a nice school (in a nicer neighborhood – think Georgetown, UMiami, Stanford, Harvard, etc.).
_____________________________________________
From: Kari [mailto:karif...@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, September 15, 2013 12:38 AM
To: 'umd-golf-cour...@googlegroups.com'
Subject: Golf Course
Kari
Is there another 18-hole golf course that UMD could be looking to buy nearby? In Montgomery County?
As to the Iowa/Walmart comment, I have spent a lot of time in the MN, WI, and Iowa, having many friends there. My mom’s family is from a town of 1500 in Wisconsin, and my dad from a town of 2000 in Minnesota. I was just in both in July. I asked my 78 year old aunt in MN if she ever used Redbox, and she said, what was that? I googled it and the nearest Redbox was 20 miles away because the town just happens to be on the MN/WI border and there is a UWisconsin campus 20 miles away. Their town doesn’t have a post office, it is several towns away. Their mail carrier uses a jeep 4 by 4 to deliver the mail to the farms, and it puts a little light on top so one knows the vehicle might be used for official purposes.
There is nothing but farms for miles in some of these states; we have that in MD. I drove through an area that had 1 gas station for miles, and it had a portapotty outside. Not even a bathroom inside. Or the best grocery store in an area might be a little gas station/store, which is miles away from the nearest farm/home. Often the gas stations are owned by coops out in rural X state because a franchise couldn’t survive in that location. This could be true for just about any state, Florida, Georgia, and so on, but it is very prevalent in farm and swampland areas.
So, when I say that if there is a Walmart nearby and that can be considered a nice place to live; I wasn’t being facetious or making a joke; I meant it. For areas where there are no big box stores/department stores or any stores, etc., let alone restaurants, having a Walmart nearby can be considered a luxury.