RedGate, Portables and a Business Summit Top City Council Agenda

A discussion of a consultant’s report on RedGate Golf Course, of permitting school construction and of a councilman’s proposal to improve communication between businesses and the larger community highlight the agenda for Monday’s meeting of the Rockville City Council.

The council will discuss a National Golf Foundation report on the management and future outlook for RedGate Golf Course.

Last month, Richard Singer, a consultant with the National Golf Foundation, recommended to the City Council that Rockville improve conditions at RedGate and turn over the day-to-day management of the 18-hole championship golf course to an outside management company.

An advisory committee  that recommended against outsourcing the course’s management.

The council will also discuss the city's process for approving portable classrooms at county schools.

The discussion comes after the city Planning Commission in September rejected the school system’s plans to add two portables at College Gardens Elementary.

The decision sparked months of acrimony between the city and the school system and to give the county government the exclusive authority to issue permits and enforce regulations and codes related to new school construction, including portables.

The city is working with the county school system to develop a review process for future portable classrooms. City staff is also seeking the council’s endorsement of efforts to develop a review process for new school construction, additions and renovations.

An issue for the council is whether to allow an exemption from a provision of the city's Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance that requires three fire stations within a 10-minute response time of any new school construction. There are only two fire stations within the 10-minute response time of College Gardens. The council could also decide to allow a waiver from other provisions of the ordinance.

The council also will discuss a proposal by Councilman John Britton to convene a business summit organized by the Rockville Chamber of Commerce and Rockville Economic Development Inc.

The summit would provide a forum for elected officials, city staff, business and nonprofit leaders and residents to discuss how to improve communication and how best to vet business proposals before they go before the City Council.

“Too often, business issues and concerns come before the Mayor and Council in reaction to a crisis or problem, usually a conflict with a non-business interest or need, and we fail to address them with a long-term and community and business inclusive approach,” Britton wrote in a proposal distributed to council colleagues last month.

A summit could lead to the development of other ideas for improving communication, including convening annual summits or town hall meetings and improving business-to-community communication through REDI and the chamber, through expanded business presentations to city and elected officials or through "some other mechanism to ensure a consistent exchange and discussion of information,” Britton wrote.

“At a minimum, a summit could be an incubator of ideas to improve the relationships among businesses, nonprofits, official Rockville and residents, or a vetting process for business proposals—e.g., signage, streamlined city processes, new business development and code enforcement—before they are presented to the Mayor and Council,” he wrote.