Volume XXXII, Issue 8

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Message from the Chairman

Just a couple quick notes for you this month

First, I have not heard from anyone regarding interest in running for office for the SCA. April will be the final month to let me know as your intent needs to be published in the May Sentinel before the May SCA meeting. The deadline to let me know, along with a short bio, is April 30.

In case you were wondering what happened to the big slide at Stoneybrooke Park, Stoneybrooke resident Jennifer Smallidge sent this along from a member of her mom's group...

The slide at Stoneybrooke Park built into the hillside was removed earlier this winter when our inspector found rusting and separation of the metal slide components at the bottom of the slide. This could have rapidly become worse and further deterioration could have seriously cut slide users.

This slide was a stand along unit installed many years ago and presently considered obsolete by Safety and Consumer Product Commission guidelines for playground equipment. It was allowed to remain place in “grandfathered" status as long as it was structurally sound.

A possible replacement of this play unit will need to meet present Safety guidelines. I will be checking with representatives from several Playground Equipment Manufacturers soon asking if they can recommend a play event or slide that could be utilized in this location.

I’m aware that many people in the community considered this slide a landmark of the park and are disappointed we finally had to remove it. Hopefully we will be able to install another play event that will meet today’s safety standards in this area.

Please give me a call at 703-765-6020 if you have any questions.

Joe Nilson
Area 3 Manager, FCPA

Sorry to see it go, Joe. With a little wax paper, that was one heck of a slide!

Mike

Message from Supervisor Dana Kauffman

If you attended my “It’s Your Turn" town meeting on March 24, you heard an overflow crowd tell senior county officials and elected representatives that they are fed up with deteriorating conditions in their neighborhoods. I share those concerns and I intend to use the remaining months of my term to improve our County’s track record in serving our neighborhoods. If you missed the town meeting, it will be rebroadcast on Channel 16 from 8-10 pm on Thursday, April 12 and Saturday, April 21.

On January 22, I presented a board matter to my colleagues concerning neighborhood stability and the need for faster, stricter enforcement of our zoning ordinance. No neighborhood should be held hostage by overcrowding, commercial boarding houses, trash, and fleets of junk cars. (If you would like a copy of that board matter, please call my office at 703-971-6262.)

On March 26, I continued my fight to clean up our neighborhoods, with a board matter addressing blighted properties in general and the Chi Chis on Old Keene Mill Road in particular. That board matter is too long to repeat in this article so if you are interested in the excerpts that follow, please let me know and I’ll get you a copy of the complete document.

Our neighborhood enforcement programs are broken. They are slow. They are bureaucratic. They willfully ignore the enforcement tools that we have—for once—managed to get from the General Assembly. The County’s over emphasis on voluntary compliance gets us nowhere. They take the worst aspects of our approach to zoning violations—coddle the violators—and institutionalize an ‘Oh you poor dear’ approach to violators.

My tenure on this board comes to a close at the end of this year. If I do nothing else in my last year here, I want to beat the drum for common sense and reality in how we keep our neighborhoods from decline. My board matters in the coming months will highlight the County’s overall lack of enforcement. Today, I continue this campaign with a focus on property maintenance and blight….

I have yet to find a Lee District resident who favors weak property maintenance and blight enforcement. Citizens who contact my office and the legion who came to my town meeting this past weekend are frankly fed up. They want to know why the County is turning a blind eye to such glaring problems.

Our efforts, especially blight enforcement, would be better served by adding a citizen component to any blight review task force. Our citizens know their neighborhoods and have a vested interest in keeping their communities healthy.

Spring Yard Sale