On the Agenda: Eastgate Pavilion, 2012 Budget, MVFit

The Montgomery Village Foundation's board of directors will have crucial budget moves to make and potentially groundbreaking decisions re: basketball backboards to weigh Thursday night at its monthly meeting. But one agenda item is sure to set off the biggest fireworks: the Eastgate pavilion.

The 24-foot-by-40-foot pavilion proposed for Martin P. Roy Park—off East Village Avenue between the neighborhoods of Ridgefield, The Mews, Rosewood Manor and King’s Point—has touched off a wave of uproar as would-be neighbors fear that the pavilion will make the park more of a magnet for crime than they and police say it already is.

The proposal dates back nearly two years, when the Eastgate Homes Corp.’s board of directors asked the Montgomery Village Foundation—which owns the park—and state Sen. Nancy J. King to pursue state grant funding to bring the park its first covered structure. The state legislature’s 2010 bond bill included $30,000 for the pavilion, and the Montgomery Village Foundation set aside its $30,000 in this year’s budget. An architect presented plans early last month for building the pavilion east of the baseball field, near King’s Point and Rosewood Manor.

Over the last few months, a vocal group of neighbors has demanded that the project be scuttled and the money put back. Their outcry convinced the Eastgate board to withdraw its support for the pavilion.

The project’s fate falls squarely on the Montgomery Village Foundation’s board of directors tonight. MVF staff has recommended that a location at the west side of the park—between the parking lot and the outfield—be given a closer look.

Money Matters

The board will then decide whether to adopt a $7.2 million budget for 2012, which keeps resident fees flat and eliminates the MVF maintenance department, one of the nonprofit’s most recognized but problematic services.

The department has been hemorrhaging revenue for years as HOAs in the Village pulled out from under the MVF umbrella. The negative cash flow reached its nadir of $639,000 in 2007 before edging up to a $344,000 loss last year.

Resident assessment fees stay flat in the 2012 budget proposal, which would take effect Jan. 1. The MVF Fund fee—paid by all homeowners—stays at $20.54 per month. The Designated Users Fund fee—paid by homeowners who have access to MVF pools and other amenities—holds at $24.61.

A Fitter Future

The latest of Executive Vice President Dave Humpton's many initiatives and reforms is "MVFit," a fitness and nutrition program set to launch in 2012.

The board of directors is being asked to authorize MVF staff to recruit residents to join an ad hoc committee that will help plan the program and oversee the first year of its development. Those recruits will go for approval at the board’s December meeting.