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Towson residents might appeal county committee’s decision on school expansion
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TOWSON (Map, News) - Towson residents in staunch opposition to a $17 million, 400-student expansion at Loch Raven High school met Monday with the Baltimore County Development Review Committee only to walk away wondering if they have legal grounds to appeal the decision to forego further public input in the matter. Instead, the committee decided to allow input from various county departments as plans move forward to add on to the 36-year-old school in order to alleviate overcrowding at three other high schools in the northeast section of the county.
“The public has 30 days to appeal the decision but right now we’re not certain if we’ll do anything,” said Loch Raven community resident George Ward. “I don’t think we have can argue legally that the county’s made a mistake but it’s still possible we’ll fight the committee’s decision.”
School Board President JoAnn Murphy acknowledged receiving complaints regarding the add-on. But she countered that, in general, overcrowding in Towson has been an ongoing problem.
“None of the board members enjoys putting up portable classrooms or learning cottages to relieve overcrowding, yet we’ve had no choice,” said Murphy, who added that plans for Loch Raven’s expansion are included in the county’s capital projects to be undertaken from 2009-2014.
Residents have been up in arms since they recently confirmed the existence of a county-launched feasibility study dated October 2007 that details plans for the school’s expansion. They expressed concern that the study did not consider public input.
“The other thing we’re looking at is that only a portion of the $17 million is county money,” Ward said of the funds earmarked for the expansion. “Another chunk is state money. The Department of Public Works is meeting next week and we’d like to see them not fund the state [part of the] project.”
County government spokeswoman Ellen Kobler said that in light of the DRC decision, there’s not much the public can do to turn things around.
“Schools are exempt from the county development and review process,” Kobler said. “Public meetings were held last year when the expansion project was in the planning stages,” she said, “and at that time some parents were concerned about parking issues [surrounding] the expansion. But the expansion will allow parking for the additional students on the school grounds.”
