Indoor Rec, Toll Road Hikes, and a New HQ: RA Board Goes for Hat Trick

So, the Reston Association Board decided to hold a "special" meeting during the doldrums of August, when nothing ever happens. Right? Well, on Friday evening, a time when everyone's really paying attention to the news, the RA released the "action" from the meeting. Long story short: Get ready to pay higher tolls on your way home from work before picking up your pool passes at some generic Class A office space near the Toll Road and then heading off to some unknown location for an indoor rec center:

* Parks and Recreation: A plan to give the Parks and Planning Advisory Committee direction to review all the studies and reports on recreation and set up a timeline on indoor tennis, indoor aquatics and recreation enhancements to Brown’s Chapel Park. This will be presented to the board in February 2010.

* Dulles Toll Road: Approved a resolution in support of increased tolls.

* RA headquarters: Following an executive session, the Board approved a measure to give CEO Milton W. Matthews the go-ahead to send letters of intent to prospective landlords.

In other words, say hello to those child labor cubbies real soon.

Here's an account that provides more detail on the indoor rec part of the meeting, during which the idea of a Very Special Committee to focus on indoor rec was shelved in favor of, you know, using the one they've already got:

Board member Richard Chew presented a draft resolution to create a new special committee to plan for recreation. The group would analyze data RA has previously collected, supplement the information with two public meetings and an online survey and take other steps to create a master plan for recreation in Reston.

Chew's resolution also provided the new committee up to $50,000 to spend on additional surveys and studies. Many members of the board felt that there is no need for additional studies. Reston resident Frank Filemeyer said he thinks RA should understand what the community is looking for after the summer's series of district meetings.

"We should move forward aggressively with indoor recreation," Filemeyer said. He said looking at the original resolution it seems that it will add unnecessary time and cost to the process. "We already know pretty much what the members want," he said. "Let's just move forward with it."

During discussions the majority of the board said they agree with Filemeyer that creating another committee and completing more surveys would be unnecessary but wanted to be able to include more members of the community in the discussions. Chew said the intent of the resolution is not to recreate the previous studies, but to supplement them by speaking directly with the users of recreational facilities.

RA President Robin Smyers said she does not believe additional data and studies are needed. She said RA has years of previous studies and surveys as well as information from the recent district meetings. She said she also is not in favor of prolonging the process or adding to its cost.

A new motion was made to use the current Parks and Planning Advisory Committee. According to Monroe the current committee has a number of inactive members as well as a number of vacancies.

The committee has been directed to rededicate its efforts, reorganize and re-establish the committee's membership and fill vacancies and undertake the task of developing a timeline for recreation to present to the board in February 2010. The top priorities of the committee will include an evaluation of recreation plans for Brown's Chapel Park, as well as indoor tennis and swimming.

Use common sense rather than spend up to $50,000 on new studies? What's gotten into the RA Board? If this keeps up, they might start making sense.