Brentwood

Bunker Hill Fire Station lawsuit moves through motions

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A lawsuit challenging the consolidation of the volunteer fire departments operating out of the Bunker Hill Fire Station continues to move ahead. This week, lawyers for both sides will be in court for a hearing on pending pre-trail disputes and motions, set for Nov. 20, 2018, in Upper Marlboro. According to a scheduling order issued by presiding judge John Davey, the pre-trial phase of the suit is expected to end by Jan. 30, 2019.

Brentwood

Inside Studio 3807; A photo tour of Route 1’s newest mixed-use apartment complex

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Studio 3807, the new 147-unit mixed-use apartment complex that’s been under construction at – appropriately – 3807 Rhode Island Avenue,  is about to have its grand opening this coming Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018. Before this weekend’s grand-opening festivities, members of the Brentwood Area Business Association were privy to a meeting and tour of the nearly-complete facility. Route 1 Reporter got to tag along and explore the new apartment complex, a bright yellow, white and gray building. To put it briefly: this place is swanky.

Art
A photo, taken from the center lane of the Baltimore Avenue-slash-Route 1 corridor looking directly south from the intersection of Oglethorpe Street and Baltimore Avenue, shows an urban vista. The green hills of Bladensburg are in the far distance, set against a cloudy evening sky and above a ribbon of roadway. Nearer to the photographer, an urban streetscape reveals row-houses and mid-rise commercial buildings south of Madison Street set against tree-lined sidewalks. Light traffic is seen on the roadway.

Gateway Arts District impact on local artists hard to quantify

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Is the Gateway Arts District helping local artists? Anecdotally, the answer seems to be “yes.” Over the past 20 years, a number of arts organizations in the Gateway Arts District have sprung into life and created new visibility for the local arts industry along Prince George’s County’s southern Route 1 corridor. For instance, the Hyattsville Arts & Ales festival, formerly the Hyattsville Arts Festival, has grown dramatically, spanning multiple city blocks in downtown Hyattsville and attracting thousands of arts-oriented revelers to the corridor. But numbers to back up these anecdotes are hard to come by, or – worse – very fuzzy. The Gateway Arts District can informally refer to two things.

Berwyn Heights

The Route 1 corridor’s other trail gaps

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News that Maryland highway officials are indeed closing the gap separating the southern end of the Trolley Trail from the Anacostia Tributary Trails in Hyattsville was warmly welcomed by cyclists. But that’s not the only gap in the Route 1 corridor hiker-biker trail network. Others exist that, if closed, could make it even easier to move through and across northern Prince George’s County in something other than a car. North Brentwood-Mount Rainier trail stub

In fact, our first gap we’ll be reviewing today is but a stone’s throw from the eventual intersection of the Trolley Trail and the Anacostia Tributary Trail System. Located on the southern shore of the Northwest Branch of the Anacostia in Brentwood, this trail runs east to west from approximately (but not quite exactly) Rhode Island Avenue along the levee as it skirts North Brentwood.

Brentwood

A primer on the Bunker Hill Fire Station lawsuit

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The Bunker Hill Fire Station was built in 2004 to house three volunteer fire departments, consolidating the Brentwood, Mount Rainier and Cottage City volunteer squads under one roof and supplementing its services with professional county fire and rescue personnel from one centralized location. But today – through a mix of county volunteer fire department oversight policies and cliquish infighting between volunteer fire squads working in close quarters – only one volunteer fire department remains active at Bunker Hill: the Brentwood Volunteer Fire Department. To the casual observer, it may not seem like much has changed. Fire and emergency medical vehicles bearing the livery of Bunker Hill’s three founding volunteer fire associations still respond to calls as needed, but they are operated by either volunteers from Brentwood or county staff personnel. “We have basically been put out of business by the county,” said Mount Rainier Volunteer Fire Department president John Mutchler in a July 2018 interview.

Opinion

Letter: PGCPS responds to Thomas Stone first-day concerns; ‘Exception’ to ID policy exists

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Editor’s note: This letter is in response to an opinion article by Thomas Stone Elementary parent Sarah Christopherson alleging mismanagement and confusion of the school’s first-day of class activities. 

Prince George’s County Public Schools is aware of the experiences that Ms. Christopherson and other Thomas S. Stone Elementary parents had on the first day of school. The principal apologized to parents in a robocall Tuesday evening for not allowing them to enter the building with their child. Our Administrative Procedure requires school visitors to present government-issued identification with their name, date of birth and photo. However, there is an exception for large groups, such as visitors attending assemblies, performances or parents who wish to accompany their child to class on the first day of school. We are working closely with the school’s leadership team to maintain a welcoming and positive environment for all families in the Thomas Stone school community.

Opinion: Thomas Stone Elementary first-day confusion part of larger problem

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Editor’s note: Prince George’s County Public Schools has issued a response to the concerns raised in this article. 
For the students and parents of Thomas Stone Elementary in Mount Rainier, the first day of school turned into a hot, lengthy, and sometimes scary ordeal thanks to the same administrative dysfunction that has regularly plagued the school in recent years. 
This week I was part of a long line of angry parents forced to wait outside for more than 90 minutes in hot, humid weather just to drop off school supplies or meet our children’s teachers. Meanwhile, nervous children as young as four years old, many of whom do not speak English at home, were sent into the school to find their teachers without help from their parents. The results were predictably disastrous. While I was standing outside, school staff walked out several times with scared, unhappy children and called out to the crowd, hoping to find their parents. In some cases, I later learned, the children didn’t know their last names (or couldn’t communicate them well enough for staff to understand) and so couldn’t be sent to the right classroom.

Brentwood

Brentwood Council calls out Mount Rainier on fire funding

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Brentwood Volunteer Fire Department’s quest to replace two of its aging fire trucks is being hampered by a lack of funding from many municipalities served by the department. At its August 15, 2018, meeting, Brentwood Town Council had harsh words for surrounding municipalities, alleging their failure to fund the Brentwood Volunteer Fire Department puts their communities at risk. During that meeting, Council considered and approved a funding request submitted by William Broadus, chief and president of the Brentwood Volunteer Fire Department. “I don’t feel fair that we are the only ones that put money in there and you have to service all of them,” said Brentwood Mayor Rocio Treminio-Lopez during discussion of the funding request. In all, it was a small measure.