I have reprinted this article from the Friday, April 6th issue of the Montgomery VIllage News.

Great News Bob!
~MV Football - It's a Movement!!!"

Looking forward, there are many questions that call for answers:

1. Why was the Montgomery Village Sports Association (MVSA) the recipient of the $125,000 not MVF?
2. Who will pay the additional $125,000, MVSA or MVF?
3. Who has final approval of the facility design, MVSA or MVF?
4. Who will issue the procure and manage the construction, MVSA or MVF?
5. Who will own the facility, MVSA or MVF?
6. Who will pay for operations including electrical, water, and consumables, MVSA or MVF?
7. Who will pay for maintenance, MVSA or MVF?
8. Why isn’t there a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in place between MVSA and MVF?
9. Who will represent Montgomery Village in coordinating with the State Board of Public Works- Nancy King, MVF, or MVSA?

This is the best post on Patch today. Finally after all the years South Valley will be updated into the recreation area that it was originally built to be. This addition has only taken 13 years to get approved. Congratulations to a strong MVF Board of Directors that knew how to stand up and support the majority. Who pays for the operation of the restroom facility should be the owners, the residents of Montgomery Village.

"Who pays for the operation of the restroom facility should be the owners, the residents of Montgomery Village." I beg your pardon??!!!!!

I believe that is who owns South Valley Park, hat is who should pay for it. Do we all not pay for the swimming pools, Whetstone dock, tennis courts etc.?

Amazing Don. With your overanalysis of EVERYTHING it is a good thing that you weren't elected to the MVF board. Board members would like to go home before 2:00 a.m., and not go point by point on each and every issue to satisfy you.
The people have spoken in the last election BTW.

No one appears willing or able to answer the questions I asked earlier. Perhaps Nancy King, Bob Hydorn, and Coach G are waiting for someone to take the lead. Let me ask the questions again and this time suggest a respondent:

1. Why was the Montgomery Village Sports Association (MVSA) the recipient of the $125,000 not MVF? [Nancy King]
2. Who will pay the additional $125,000, MVSA or MVF? [Bob Hydorn, Coach G]
3. Who has final approval of the facility design, MVSA or MVF? [Bob Hydorn, Coach G]
4. Who will procure and manage the construction, MVSA or MVF? [Bob Hydorn, Coach G]
5. Who will own the facility, MVSA or MVF? [Bob Hydorn, Coach G]
6. Who will pay for operations including electrical, water, and consumables, MVSA or MVF? [Bob Hydorn, Coach G]
7. Who will pay for maintenance, MVSA or MVF? [Bob Hydorn, Coach G]
8. Why isn’t there a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in place between MVSA and MVF? [Bob Hydorn]
9. Who will represent Montgomery Village in coordinating with the State Board of Public Works- Nancy King, MVF, or MVSA? [Nancy King, Bob Hydorn, Coach G]

MD, as Derek Hale says above you should watch the process. May I suggest that you volunteer to be on the election committee and actually assist in the process.
Please contact the MVF office at 301-948-0110 x2313

Legislators in Annapolis just completed a failed session, adjourning before their work was done and before approving a budget. Undeterred, the same legislators earlier saw fit to pass a $125,000 Bond Bill grant for an unwanted restroom and concession stand in South Valley Park. In their defense, they may have thought that they were voting for the design and construction of South Valley itself. Despite the fact that the grant application had been prepared and submitted by the Montgomery Village Foundation (MVF), the $125,000 grant was awarded to the Montgomery Village Sports Association (MVSA). How did this happen?
• Senate Bill SB 0151 item AU: Montgomery Village Sports Association. Provide a grant equal to the lesser of (i) $125,000 or (ii) the amount of the matching fund provided, to the Board of Directors of the Montgomery Village Sports Association for the design and construction of the Montgomery Village South Valley Park, located in Montgomery Village (Montgomery County)

At a public meeting hosted by the Watkins Mill High School PTA on April 17, Senator Nancy King revealed the back-story when asked just how did the MVF Bond Bill result in a grant award to MVSA. She explained that the Bond Bill grant of $125,000 for the project had to go not to MVF but to MVSA in order to obtain passage of the measure in Annapolis since MVSA serves participants from across Montgomery County not just the Montgomery Village HOA. This is just the latest maneuver in a scheme to grab taxpayer money.
• In a jolting act of incivility, a Whetstone resident marred the meeting by accusing South Valley questioners of hijacking the meeting and this after asking at least five questions himself. Apparently this WMHS Booster Club President felt too much at home at the high school and thought he could boost his own stock by shielding Senator Nancy King from more questions despite the fact that this was a public meeting open to all citizens and all topics of concern.

Deception was evident at the very outset of the process when the MVF grant application was prepared with language that appeared designed to mislead legislators and a title and synopsis that failed to even mention the restroom and concession stand but instead stated the purpose as the “design and construction of South Valley Park”.

Asked whether MVSA has a financial obligation to the State to supply and expend the matching funds as a condition of being the grantee and accepting the Bond Bill grant of $125,000 from the State, Senator King stated that the South Valley Restroom and Concession stand would be the joint product of a partnership being formed between MVF and MVSA. This answer left the clear implication that MVF was expected to pay the $125,000. Not so clear is whether this irregularity will be allowed by the State, not to mention the question of co-mingled costs of ownership going forward.

The scope of the joint partnership must cover a wide range of issues including responsibility and handling of the facility design, utility hookup permits, procurement and contracts, project management, ongoing operation, facility maintenance, property ownership, and liability and insurance going forward. As an example, one question asked of Nancy King had to do with the sharing of sales proceeds from the concession stand. Senator King assured the questioner that the sharing of concession stand sales proceeds would be dealt with in the joint partnership agreement. One wonders where the MVF Board stands in all this since none of it has been discussed in open Board sessions, and all meetings of the MVF Board are supposed to be open. All this raises the question, “Who is running Montgomery Village?”

Asked when the details of the partnership would be made available to the public, Senator King responded, “In a couple of months”. Uncharacteristically silent up to this point, Bob Hydorn hastened to correct her when he stated, “August or September”. Bob Hydorn is the President of the Montgomery Village (MVF) Foundation Board of Directors and has been reluctant to be forthcoming on these events when given the opportunity in the April 6 MV News and when asked at the April 12 MVF Executive Committee meeting.

As a demonstration of democracy in action, the handling of the South Valley Restroom and Concession stand has failed from start to finish including:
1. Utter disregard for the objections of Village residents
2. Language in the Bond Bill grant application misleading to legislators
3. The switch of the grantee from MVF to MVSA
4. Private versus public information and reluctance to be forthcoming and open

Senator Nancy King plans to disclose the partnership details in two months; Bob Hydorn plans to wait 4-5 months. However, Village residents deserve answers this month, and they deserve a return to an open and transparent democratic process. Just who is running the Village, and where is the MVF Board in all this?

My condo faces South Valley Park and I will see this building. I am tired of hearing the same line of nothing from this Don O'Neill. Mr. O’Neill, why not just get the hint when people do not respond to you, that they don’t plan on telling you anything. I would encourage them all to ignore you. The only person I see on all these blogs and in the paper complaining is one person out of how many thousands of residents?

In April, Bob Hydorn stated that Senator Nancy King would coordinate with the State Board of Public Works to ensure the design and construction of the project moves forward in a timely manner.

Well it is now August and the project isn't scheduled to come before the State Board of Public Works until mid September 19. It seems as though the Maryland gambling issue and its Special Session in Annapolis has postponed everything else on the State's agenda.

Ten reasons South Valley Park funding will be withheld:
1. Misleading tile
2. Irregular tactics in naming grantee
3. Divergent constituents between MVF and MVSA
4. DGS ignored the will of the people
6. DGS propped up MVSA and patched up the grant agreement
7. MVSA shed the core responsibilities of responsible party
8. MOU commitment process incomplete: no MVF Board approval, no MVF President's signature
9. MOU indemnity clause violates MVF fiduciary responsibility
10. The state of Maryland is financially strapped

To learn the Top Ten Reasons for withholding funding for this South Valley project, view the YouTube post at: 
http://youtu.be/yftHnv5bxG0

Now for the rest of the story!

The state legislature action is only the start of the process. It concludes next week when the the Board of Public Works (BPW) will take up the issue of the $125,000 bond bill grant for the South Valley Restroom and Concession Stand at 10:00AM on December 19, 2012 in the Governor’s Reception Room in the Sate House.

On the agenda, I will be there urging the BPW composed of Governor Martin O’Malley, Comptroller Peter Franchot, and Treasurer Nancy Kopp to disapprove the South Valley Park bond bill project involving the Montgomery Village Sports Association and the Montgomery Village Foundation.

My testimony in opposition to this project can be heard on YouTube at “Board of Public Works Testimony in Opposition to the South Valley Park Project” http://youtu.be/1qumvqqkjDU