Below you will find three notes:
1) A letter of 9/19/06 to the NRCA Board and NRCA Activists concerning upcoming School Board study on Wilson School
2) Draft NRCA testimony for presentation to the School Board on 9/21/06 concerning the upcoming study
3) Report on the outcome of the School Board meeting. We did pretty well. The School Board over-rode staff recommendations and will consider community impact in their study of long-term disposition of Wilson School. Also, staff is directed to consider whether the trailers should be removed now.
Mark Antell

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1) Letter of 9/19 to Activists
Hi NRCA Board, and Wilson School activists,
At their next meeting (this Thursday) the School Board will be asked to approve the "Charge for a Multi Site Study" which includes Wilson School. Yes, it will be expensive ($250K). And the study "goals" are just dreadful. I've signed up to speak. Here's my draft testimony.
Kindly get back to me ASAP if you have any thoughts on this. I'd like to send this out to the Schoolboard before the meeting. I've included the proposed "Charge for a Multi Site Study" as an attachment.
Mark
PS. Feel free to forward this. Note though it is just a draft at this point..
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2) Testimony of 9/21
Madame Chair, Board Members, and Superintendent,

I address you this evening as President and representative of the North Rosslyn Civic Association.
The Wilson School and Playfield are within the boundaries of NRCA. The residents are very interested. It's a location where we may need a school someday, and where today we need a playfield. I wish to speak about the "charge" to the proposed "Multi-Site Study Committee" which will provide recommendations on the Wilson School and Playfield. We are directly affected and we believe that the current "charge" is deficient in terms of its non-inclusion of our directly-affected community.

We suggest the following remediative addition to the "Goals" section:

"¢ "Consider and evaluate the effect on the neighborhood of each option for long-term use of the Wilson School property and facility."

The "Role of the Committee" section call for identifying stakeholders, but we think that the document should explicitly identify the affected community as a key stakeholder. Therefore we recommend the following remediative addition to the "Role of the Committee":

"¢ "The Multi-Site Committee shall consult and involve the neighborhoods (including the Civic Associations) around the Wilson School for developing long-term options, and for evaluating the effect of all options on the neighborhoods."

Absent this revision the "charge" is terribly deficient in the following respects:

1. Total focus on Dollar Values to the exclusion of Human Values.
I call on you to read the current "goals" section. It's all about dollars and efficiency. There's an important place for such concerns, but not to the exclusion of community concerns. All Arlington residents, regardless whether we have school age children, contribute to the Arlington school system because good schools are good for the community. The school system must reciprocate and consider the effect of its decisions on the community.

2. A big waste of money.
The current "goals" of the Multi-Site Study are all about bucks. If the only consideration is bucks, you don't have to spend a lot to figure out how to make the most out of the Wilson School and Playfield. Just stuff as much commercial space and condominiums on the site as the county will allow.

3. The study is not useful.
Even if the School Board retains the Multi-Site Study "goals" which ignore human needs in a chase for dollars, Arlington County probably cannot. Arlington county will have to agree with any decision you raise. If your study doesn't consider human needs it will be discounted as useless for Arlington County decision making.

To sum up, NRCA asks that the Arlington County SchoolBoard amend the "Charge to the Multi-Site Committee" as recommended above.

Also, I repeat a request we made in August. Your first priority for Wilson School right now should be to move the trailers and replace the playfield. Rosslyn needs a playfield now (and likely a school someday)! A neighborhood lacking play area is not child friendly. Rosslyn is not child friendly. The trailers are just parked on the Wilson School playfield. They are not being used. All they do is prevent people from playing on the Wilson School playfield.
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3) Results (Sent 9/22/06)

Hi All,

Here's a quick report on the School Board meeting last night:

First of all I was fortunate to have a very steady partner, Jim
Chow,President of the Atrium Homeowners Association, along with me.

The discussion on the "Charge" to the Multi-Site Study Committee
wasmuch later than I had hoped. The open meeting started late because
theboard met in closed session for about a half an hour. Secondly, I
hadmisinterpreted the agenda. I thought that the "charge" would
bediscussed as item two of the action items. Instead it was discussed
asan information item, the very last item on the entire agenda. So
anexpected 8:00 PM presentation didn't happen till about 10:00 PM!
Mr.Chow pulled out some personal study materials and sat with me.

Maybe it was the lateness of the hour, but I initially didn't think
Igot anywhere with my presentation. The board discussion seemed to
showsome sensitivity to including human/community-impact concerns in
thestudy goals. But I thought that the Superintendent's position
(thatthe school system isn't in the business of providing parks and
that thegoal of the study should be completely focused on providing
classroomsfor kids) carried the day. After the meeting, though, I
talked to bothMr. Fendley and from Mr. Foster, and they said that it
was theirimpression that the study goals will be modified to include
acommunity-impact concern in the goals.

After the discussion of goals, the School Board discussed the
committeestructure. Mr. Chow pointed out to me that the board did
agree (withus) that the study committee should include representatives
from theaffected communities for all of the study sites. This was in
conflictwith the school superintendent's position which called for a
smallcommittee dominated by school staff from each of the study sites.

Finally, during discussion, Ms. Hynes (chair) and Mr. Foster pointedout
that school staff has been directed to report on whether thetrailers
should be moved immediately.

Interesting, and maybe some cause for optimism (or at least hope).

Feel free to share these observations. I'll post this note on
theNorthRosslyn website shortly.

Mark Antell