GOCA: The Greater Olney Civic Association

Monday, August 23rd at 7:30PM in the Community Room of the Buffington RE/MAX Building, 3300 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney is meet the Republican Candidates Night. This starts at 7:30PM with a meet and greet followed by a question and answer session. The candidates are Eric Cary for State Senate. State Delegates are Patricia Fenati, Henry Kahwaty and Maria Pena-Faustino.

Wednesday, August 25th is the Democratic Candidate Forum (Republican candidates are unopposed) at Sandy Spring Friends School, Performing Arts Center, 16923 Norwood Road in Sandy Spring. This event will start with a meet and greet at 6PM, the Senate forum at 7PM, and the Delegate forum at 7:55PM. The State Senate candidates are Senator Rona Kramer and Delegate Karen Montgomery. The State Delegate candidates are Vanessa Ali, Neeta Datt, Jodi Finkelstein, Delegate Anne R. Kaiser, Eric Luedtke, Robert Bo Newsome, Gerald Roper, and Craig Zucker.

These will be  great opportunities to meet all these candidates and learn about how they will address the  important issues facing Olney.

Monday, July 26, 2010 at 7pm is the date set for the Montgomery County Council District 2 Democratic Debate event being conducted by the Olney Chamber of Commerce and GOCA. This debate will feature candidates  Sharon Dooley , Royce Hanson, Charles Kirchman, Eddie Kuhlman, and Craig L. Rice. The Republican candidate, Robin Ficker, is running unopposed in the September 14, 2010 Primary.

In the event you cannot attend, please feel free to send your issues and questions to any of the GOCA Officers or Olney Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Virginia Mauk at olneycoc@aol.com. The GOCA Officers may be contacted through the GOCA website, www.goca.org, by clicking on the contacts tab on the home page.

This event will be held in the Community Room of the Buffington RE/MAX Building at 3300 Olney-Sandy Spring Road in Olney. Everyone is welcome and we look forward to seeing you at this spirited debate on July 26th!

Matt Zaborsky read the new rules for public comments while Ron Berger showed us the table for political and other non-GOCA information. Chuck Graefe shared the testimony votes for ZTA 10-07, and Barbara Falcigno and Ellen Bogage stressed the importance of contacting council members and getting the issue into a PHED meeting. Melinda Peters, ICC Director, gave us an update on the ICC progress. Kate Mazzora and SHA staff members read and responded to GOCA’s improvement and mitigation ideas for safety, the environment, and traffic Mr. Zaborsky had sent them. During committee reports Arnie Gordon described a deer control report, and Ron Berger suggested GOCA have a coordinating group of three or four people to monitor the state and county construction in Olney.  Later Mr. Berger gave information about the two debates described below, and Mr. Zaborsky shared and sought ideas for future meetings. Arnie Gordon would like the agenda to include resolutions that will be voted on. After discussing the conflict with the primary election, we voted to hold the meeting on 9/14/10, but the meeting will start at 8:00 and not have any special presentations.

Upcoming Events and Information:

07/26/10 – Debate between District 2 County Council candidates, Buffington REMAX Bldg Community Meeting Room, 7:00 p.m.

08/25/10 – Debate between District 14 Maryland House and Maryland Senate Democratic candidates, Sandy Spring Friends School

Sept. 3 – Close date of the hearing for ZTA 10-07

The special presentation for July 13 is:  State of the Roads in and around Olney

by Brian Young of Maryland State Highway Administration.

All GOCA meetings are open to the public and take place at the Community Room of the Buffington RE/MAX Building, 3300 Olney-Laytonsville Road. The meetings begin at 7:30 p.m. and end at approximately 9:35 p.m.

Agenda for the July 13, 2010 Meeting

Minutes from the June 8, 2010 Meeting

In order to help us serve the Olney community better, please rate the importance of the following issues.