North Potomac Residents Urge Completion Of Rec Center

The proposed North Potomac Recreational Center has been put on hold again and North Potomac Citizens Association President Dan Drazen has had enough.

Lacking funding from the County's budget, Drazen started an email petition urging County Executive Ike Leggett to "reaffirm Montgomery County's commitment to the center and its residents by including construction funding in the [Fiscal Years] 2013-18 proposed Capital Improvement Program ("CIP") budget."

According to the petition letter, planning for the project originated in 1998.

"The promise of a 33,000-square-foot center with a gymnasium, exercise room, social hall, kitchen, community lounge, and spaces for games, crafts, meetings and storage has remained at a standstill since 2001, Drazen said," according to a report in The Gazette.

Currently the petition has over 150 signatures, well short of its goal of 5,000.

"'Anytime you get a few hundred signatures in this community we think it is representative of a much larger base of support,” Drazen told the Gazette. “'There are many people who don’t want to sign on to a public petition. We know that thousands of people support the rec center.'”

The last action was taken in the fall of 2010 when the design was approved, Drazen told the Gazette.

Patrick Lacefield, director of public relations for Montgomery County, told the Gazette that Leggett wants to reduce the current budget. Lacefield could not comment specifically on the North Potomac rec center, according to the report.