In anticipation of Wednesday night’s public hearing related to the Purple Line, I want to be sure residents understand the focus of the hearing: whether or not the Town should allocate additional funds to engage a law firm or firms to assist the Town in addressing concerns about the Purple Line. Specific strategies have not yet been decided upon. If the Council decides to move forward, it will work to establish these strategies with any firm or firms we retain.
As background, the Town Council is unanimously opposed to the Purple Line as it is currently conceived. We are opposed for a variety of reasons, not the least of which are the actual impacts to the Town and the Capital Crescent Trail, the impacts to the entire region through increased development with no reduction of traffic, and the overall rising costs of the project to the residents in the county and state. We have specific concerns about noise, visual impacts and safety issues for communities such as ours that are adjacent to the line, the impact of construction on the environment with respect to trees and a potentially endangered species, and the proposed Public Private Partnership (P3) funding mechanism and its potential for adding financial burden to counties throughout the entire state.
We believe all of these issues are important. As a council, we will be discussing specific strategies for moving forward, and, as I said above, if we decide to retain assistance, we will work with any firm or firms we retain to establish these strategies. Our goal is to be sure that our concerns are dealt with both at the state and federal level. As part of any strategy, however, we will continue to reach out to other communities as well as environmental groups, which share these concerns.
I have heard from several of you already about the need to leave the public record open longer. Therefore, I will request from the Council that we keep it open through the end of January and then vote publicly at the February Council meeting.
For full disclosure, I would like to let the community know that the Council voted at the December executive session to obtain advise from a firm for a period of one month, with a 4-1 vote (Al Lang making the motion, John Bickerman seconding the motion, and David Lublin abstaining) with the understanding that long term continuance of that firm or any firm would be subject to a public hearing and Council decision.
We look forward to hearing from you on Wednesday night or through email at townoffice@townofchevychase.org [mailto:townoffice@townofchevychase.org] .
Sincerely,
Pat Burda
Mayor