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Comsat building can unite new, old Clarksburg

Wednesday, April 5, 2006

For more of your opinions, see Gazette.Net/Letters.

Kay Boughan, Damascus

Several months ago, I read a very thought-provoking letter to the editor in The Gazette in which the writer suggested that the Comsat building be converted into a community center. I have been reflecting on that letter ever since.

There are many reasons to save the Comsat building, which sits so regally and peacefully on its surrounding beautiful grassy knoll. First of all, this unique building has been an important symbol of the Clarksburg community for many years.

As well, Clarksburg has been breathlessly growing and gaining families by leaps and bounds. With this tremendous influx of people, as a group the new and old residents will need to find the best ways to knit together into an effective community.

The Comsat building provides a way to unite both new and old Clarksburg by taking a historic building and using it in a new way. To bring this community together you will need a public place to meet and hold meetings and events. Community members, including senior citizens, preschoolers and their parent or caregivers could benefit from the building during the day, while all other community members could utilize it after school and on weekends. A community center would also give a place for recreation and after-school programs. As we know activities for youth from 2 to 6 p.m. is so important.

With the rapidly expanding community of Clarksburg, you will also need your own community library. There will be such a concentration of people that the libraries in Germantown, Damascus and Clarksburg will all be needed to serve this large area. Part of the Comsat building could be used to house a library.

Comsat also includes a small auditorium where movies and lecture presentations could be shown. All of these things are already built into the Comsat building. Plus, think of all the social services and other county programs. Surely, with a community as large as Clarksburg, there will be a tremendous need to have county offices as close as the Comsat building. It could also include a police substation.

Not only does the Comsat building provide many services that Clarksburg will need, but the grounds can as well. For example, Comsat already includes a baseball field with room to build more. Think of the huge number of sports teams Clarksburg will eventually have and the fields they will require. Field space was very hard to find in the up-county even before the new growth started.

Plus, the property is a stunningly beautiful, lot of gorgeous grass. Perhaps around it we can include a playground and walking paths for families. Comsat could easily be incorporated as a part of Black Hill Regional Park, which is located across the street from Comsat’s back entrance. All this, already built and set aside.

Thus, using the Comsat building is a simple and wonderful solution to the need for a space for a community, library and services center for Clarksburg.

Now think of the process of achieving this same goal if this opportunity passes by the County Council and government administrators.

First, finding a good piece of usable land may be a very real problem. It has been in previous projects in the up-county and the growth of Clarksburg has made land there even more scarce. Based on our experiences in Damascus and other communities, think of how long and how much of a continuous effort it would take to get a community center through the whole county process if Comsat is not made into a community and services center now. In Damascus, a core group of people lead by Peggy Stone and John Miller spent a decade of their lives going to many meetings a month, many times in Rockville. They spent countless hours more on the phone each week calling county officials and other community members and groups.

And in the meantime, if you do not have a community and⁄or services center, we found the area will receive very limited recreation or other services from the county. To fill this void, many volunteers will be needed to run and work programs for youth and other members of the community.

Also, remember that even when an area is promised a community center that does not mean it will get its center then. Constantly other priorities come up in the county and the project will have many setbacks. Clarksburg would have to fight to get back on the top of the priority list several times over. And for those who work on these efforts, these are not short-term efforts and solutions. In our case when we started our effort for a teen⁄community center our youngest child was in kindergarten. The doors opened in the community center his freshman year in college. The same could be said of other parents who worked on getting a community center. You have to realize as you work on it, that your children may be grown and gone by the time your vision is realized. It is work that mostly benefits the next group of youth. And meanwhile, by necessity, volunteers take time from their children and families to keep volunteer programs for youth and community members going in the meantime.

And just think, you could bypass much of this whole process by converting the Comsat building into a community and services center and a library while keeping the long time symbol of Clarksburg proudly standing.