An informational meeting on the proposed development at the 36-acre Cafritz property will take place Tuesday, November 1 at the College Park City Hall (4500 Knox Road). As most readers are aware, the Cafritz property is located adjacent to Route 1, immediately south of College Park and east of University Park. The meeting will include a presentation on the latest development plans from the Cafritz developers and provide an opportunity for a public Q&A.

The updated site plan (above), including a commitment from Whole Foods, has sparked discussion and debate throughout the region and in surrounding areas including the Calvert Hills neighborhood of College Park as well as the cities of University Park and Riverdale Park. While the prospect of a Whole Foods has garnered lots of positive attention, the most recent site plan resembles something similar to a 1970s suburban strip mall and leaves lots of questions about what “Future Development” will look like. This meeting will provide an excellent opportunity for residents to hear directly from the development team and weigh in on the conversation. Hope to see you there!

College Park’s Committee for a Better Environment is sponsoring a workshop on purchasing clean energy this Saturday, September 10. See more details below.

What: Free Workshop on “Purchasing Clean Energy” sponsored by College Park’s Committee for a Better Environment (CBE)

Date: Saturday, September 10, 10 am to Noon

Place: College Park City Hall Council Chambers

In this second of CBE’s energy-efficiency workshops, Dr. Ross Salawitch, a professor from the University of MD, and Michael Heintz, a planning manager for the Energy Assurance division of the Maryland Energy Administration, will answer questions like the following:

· What is “clean” (or renewable) energy, who sells it, and how much does it cost?

· How can we get clean energy into our homes?

· Is it dependable?

Several renewable energy vendors also will be present.

Free but registration is required. To register, please email evitale@collegeparkmd.gov.

Tomorrow is College Park Day. For the first time in its history, the residents of College Park will descend upon one place to celebrate the richness of this city that they call home.

Nearly a year ago, when my fellow North College Park blogger Joe Smith and I started writing about the challenges our city was facing, we had no idea where our blog posts would lead to a year later. The very few readers, who kindly made trips to our blogs, probably ignored those posts  as typical “rants” that they see as so common in our digital blogosphere.

Fast forward, a few months later, after a busy work day, Joe and I found ourselves at our first organizing committee meeting with a small group of City officials. The five of us that attended that meeting had one goal in our minds – let our city residents explore and celebrate the richness of our city’s diversity and heritage.

Since then, dozens of committee meetings have taken place, hundreds of emails have made their ways to committee members’ inboxes, yet we managed to stay focused on our original goal and vision. Tomorrow, we’ll be witnessing the hard work of these committee members coming to fruition. The last six months truly seemed so short.

Are we going to achieve the goals that we started working towards several months ago? For the most part, yes.

On the diversity front, we managed to reach out to each and every community group in the city, including civic associations, faith groups, local businesses, schools, scouting groups – you name them. The list of these groups rapidly started growing, so much so that their numbers made our our logistics subcommittee members nervous – they could only have so many!

The support and active participation of UMD’s so many diverse groups were also significant. The sheer experience to witness so many UMD groups working together with the various residents’ groups has simply been astounding. This may be the first time that I’ve ever seen these two distinct yet so close groups come together and work on a city matter for so long and with so much passion.

The City’s effort to promote this community relations is also praiseworthy. Not only has the City made the largest contribution to the event, but also various City officials have spent countless hours to bring the event’s work to the finish line. Along with that, the contributions from various sponsors were also significant. Without them, it would have been impossible to support so many projects we took on as part of the event.

Because of this event, we were also able to energize many of our City’s very young residents. Some 70 students at our 6 schools, many as young as 5 years old, have taken part in an exciting poster contest, called ‘This is My Culture’. The organizing committee has treasured these art works so much so that they have decided to put each one of them on display at the event. This really could not have been possible without the active support of our school principals and teachers; I can already feel a strong sense of excitement emerging from the work that they’ve conducted over the past few weeks. One principal wrote to me: “I have not seen such an organized City event ever before.”

Though the TOCP (Taste of College Park) has now gone into “defunct” status, our organizers will be presenting a number of ethnic foods for residents to enjoy. What greater way to experience city’s diversity other than tasting the delicious delicacies that our disperate cultures offer? The most important part is –  you don’t need to spend a single cent to taste them.

Though the diversity is an important strength of our town, we should also be proud of the long and rich history and heritage that our city offers. Known as the cradle of American aviation, our city is also the home of several local and national museums. All of them – The National Museum of Languages, The College Park Aviation Museum and the National Archives will all be there. We’ll also be showing you two documentaries and posters on the rich history of our city.

College Park Day was created for you, and only for you. It was designed to explore the richness of the city that you call home.

Please be there, explore and enjoy!

*Please comment within this post if you plan to attend.

To Rethink College Park readers and contributors,

As you’ve likely noticed, there have been some changes around RTCP. As our leaders have moved in new directions, so too has this blog.

In order to keep RTCP as a valuable community resource, we’ll need your help. If you’re interested in getting involved in any capacity, please join us in a meeting to discuss how we can maintain RTCP and move it forward. This is an excellent way to get involved in the community and learn more about the unique challenges and opportunities that face it. RTCP is a nationally recognized smart growth project that has become extremely influential in agitating for smart growth in College Park. More than 1,000 unique visitors read our content each week.

We’ll meet this Wednesday, October 6 in the lower-level conference room of College Park City Hall. The meeting will run from 7:30 to 8:30PM.

Bring your questions, criticisms, and ideas for Rethink College Park. We’ll see you then!

The next “Experience College Park Tour” event will be Wednesday June 23rd at 7pm at Plato’s Diner.  Our featured guest this time will be the State Senator  for the 21st District Jim Rosapepe. This event is open for anyone who lives, works, or plays in College Park and would like to get together to discuss local issues or just enjoy the great desserts offered up at Plato’s.

RSVP via Facebook HERE