Fighting to Win

At the gateway to Riverdale Park is the venerable Calvert House Inn, a local treasure and the best restaurant in Prince Georges County. Guinness Stout, on tap, is an obvious mark of its excellence; the food itself is even better - stellar, in fact.

Next to it is an animal hospital, but next to that is a now-vacant lot, in a sad state of rubble-strewn disuse. Our previous mayor, whom we drove from office in a landslide this spring, had sold it to a developer whose objectionable plans for it were rejected by the state. This is a mixed blessing. The plan called for gross exceptions to our vision of pedestrian-friendly and attractive development, and it's good that they were stymied.

However, since that time the lot has remained an eyesore: an ugly tumbledown chainlink fence encloses a wasteland of weedy rubble - the remains of what was a gorgeous, century-old building - giving the appearance that there could be nothing of value or interest nearby. The Calvert House has languished under this burden. Today when I picked up my kebabs the atmosphere had the dreary slowness of lethargic despair.

I decided to write a letter to the new mayor, who we elected on basis of his successful history as a fighter, to urge him to fight hard, right now, before we lose this gem. Before I had done so, however, I received the following message:

Public Works has been directed to start weeding, fixing the fence, etc at the corner of 410 and Rt 1. The developer has been informed that the town will bill him for any labor and costs.

The developer has also promised to replace the fence with one that we can't see through.

This is not perfect, but it is quite timely and certainly displays the minerals I had hoped to galvanize, already in action. I am impressed and grateful.