St. Mary's Board gives long-awaited nod to Wildewood elementary


St. Mary’s Commissioner
Dan Raley
ST. MARY’S TODAY photo

By Ahmar Khan
ST. MARY’S TODAY

LEONARDTOWN — St. Mary’s County educators were present to convey to the commissioners overcrowding in elementary classes have put the school system at its wits end. In Room 14 at the Governmental Center on Tuesday afternoon sat two doctorates of education, Michael Martirano, St. Mary’s school superintendent, and Sal Raspa, newly elected education board chairman, finger-crossed.
“The amendment is passed two to three,” said Commissioner President Tommy McKay (R. Hollywood), paving the way for of a much-debated new elementary school in the Wildewood area after impassioned speeches by the St. Mary’s County board of commissioners.
All ready nearly half of 24 schools in the county are in the rural preservation district, and Tuesday’s motion only sought to okay extension of a sewer to the proposed school.
“Everybody is happy now,” Raspa later told the ST. MARY’S TODAY. Had the amendment not passed it would have been a disaster, he said. “Everything would have gone down the tube.”
Based on housing density, the education board had identified way back in 1991 that a school situated within Wildewood would meet capacity needs within the Lexington Park Development District.
However, there was a slight glitch.
Both McKay’s office and staff in the public information office had said they noticed the gaffe when McKay misstated “motion is passed two to three,” instead of saying three to two.
“I had noticed it also,” John Norris, county attorney, told the ST.MARY’S TODAY. He added McKay stood corrected when he said the amendment is passed.
“There was no need for me to stop the meeting,” Norris said. “McKay correctly stated the essence.”
Dan Raley (D. Great Mills) and Kenny Dement (R. Piney Point) were the odd couple out, opposing the move on the principle of not letting sewer lines into rural preservation districts, at any costs.
But Tom Mattingly (D. Leonardtown ) stole the educators heart by becoming the devil’s advocate.
“We may not want it, but the children need it,” Mattingly said as he tabled the motion.
“Eventually this site will be in the development district.”
The site adjoins a development district, Mattingly argued and said, “It’s certainly the right place.” He warned delaying the go-ahead may cost the taxpayers more as school construction costs would escalate.
McKay backed Mattingly’s approach.
“Don’t bus them,” McKay said, pointing to the costs and problems of transporting children to far off schools.
He contended the issue of education should not be juxtaposed to environment or growth. “A site is selected because the students are already there,” McKay said. He said it would be wrong if the largest subdivision lacking in elementary school.
“We need to move this text amendment,” he said.
Billed as the single most important issue before the board of commissioners in 2005, Raley lauded efforts of Denis Canavan, director of land use and growth management, and John Norris for crafting the motion as tight and narrow as it could be.
Raley agreed education was the No. 1 priority, but argued the county had done a good job in managing mushroomed growth by not allowing sewer lines into rural preservation districts.
He said approving the motion would tantamount to “crack open the door to weakening this policy” of preservation..
Raley conceded the elected school board and land use and growth management staff alike support the idea and the public say, No big deal. Do it.” but asked if it was legal to ask for amendments in the county laws just for one school.
Larry Jarboe (R. Golden Beach) made it clear he was supportive of the school idea, but wanted some additional checks and balances and a better way to approach the subject. He called for a sunset clause to be included in the amendment motion and made it clear he would vote for it if that was incorporated.
But Mattingly thought a sunset clause would open a Pandora’s box and McKay argued it might put taxpayers monies into risk’s way.
Dement (R.) to a question from Raley made it clear he was “Not hot” either on the Mattingly’s original amendment or Jarboe’s sunset clause.
Jarboe’s motion was drowned in the nays of all other commissioners.
There was almost a stalemate on the issue, and McKays office said the commissioners went into recess for an executive meeting.
A compromise was apparently hammered out in the executive meeting. Jarboe supported okaying the sewer lines after Mattingly and McKay agreed to his proposal of expediting the process of including Wildewood Elementary School into the Lexington Park and transferring more than double the size of Myrtle Point land into the rural preservation district.
Passing of the amendment motion capped St Mary’s County Board of Education efforts spanning 30 months for getting the Wildewood site. In September 2004, the board okayed signing a memorandum of understanding with Wildewood Residential, LLC, for purchase of the 55-acre site.
At that time, Brad Clements, chief administrative officer of the education board, noted that the school system had completed a 15-month search for land within and around the Lexington Park Development District to relieve overcrowding at Greenview Knolls, Hollywood, Leonardtown, and Piney Point elementary schools.
That search had included analyzing 61 parcels within the Maryland Route 4 and Maryland Route 235 corridors.
Clements said had the motion been defeated, it would have cost the education board at least $40,000 and many thousand lost man hours and would delayed the school project by up to year. He said the education board is pushing for changes in zoning ordinance to allow mitigation to developers for school sites.
Asked why school sites could not be marked in a comprehensive 25-year-plan, Raspa said the St. Mary’s County board of commissioners and the planning commission were right people to answer that question.