Recent Articles from BRMC Newsletters

Silver Lake Update

As of our last printed Silver Lake correspondence, the Prince William Board of County Supervisors (BOCS) had just approved a process to decide who should own and operate the portion of the Silver Lake parcel proffered by Toll Brothers for parks and recreation. Since then, BRMC has participated in the county staff led public meeting and proposal evaluations. The staff recommended that the Prince William County Park Authority (PWCPA) should own and operate the facility. In the staff report there was a draft resolution to "AUTHORIZE LEGAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE ACTIONS NECESSARY TO CONVEY SILVER LAKE RECREATIONAL AREA TO PWCPA".

At a September 18, 2007 2 p.m. meeting of the Board of County Supervisors, the County staff presented their report and recommendations to the BOCS. Many citizens emailed the supervisors and/or spoke at the meeting in favor of BRMC's proposal. This public input led to the BOCS decision to defer its Silver Lake property decision until after they'd had a chance to hear more input from citizens. The BOCS did not pass the resolution recommending transfer of the property to the PWCPA. We were really gratified by that tremendous support and looked forward to the next public meeting to hear further citizen comment. That meeting was scheduled to be held on Nov. 20, at 7:30 p.m. in the McCoart building in Woodbridge.

Leading up to November 20, we attempted to work once again on a possible partnership with PWCPA. We had done due diligence and tried in the past and once again we did due diligence and tried in November. The end result, the PWCPA staff stated they would not work on a partnership without being directed by their board. The PWCPA board appears to have had almost no interest in pursuing a “partnership” approach with BRMC.

November 20th has come and gone. Days before the meeting we received this email from county staff:

“I want to let you know that we are working on a date for the Silver Lake public input meeting. We thought it made sense for the public input meeting to follow the Board's consideration of the pending Parks and Open Space Chapter of the Comprehensive; however, on October 16th, the Board deferred its consideration of the Park and Open Space Plan to a later date. We are now reviewing possible dates for both items and will let you know as soon as we have one set for Silver Lake.”

“We hope that these two items do not remain linked because Silver Lake needs to be decided sooner rather than later. The continued vandalism and trespass over time will increase the cost for whoever is selected.”

Once again we ask for your vital support; the decision could still go either way. BRMC's proposal will double the size of the natural recreation area, focus on passive recreational uses, and provide citizen access to the natural recreation area by next summer. The alternative will not have the additional 268 acres of land that BRMC can provide, it will have more intense commercial recreation type activity (to provide operating funds), and its availability date is up in the air. Please let your supervisors know that they need to make a decision; that you prefer the benefits of BRMC's proposal; and, that you are confident in BRMC's ability to be good stewards of this beautiful property.

Silver Lake with the Bull Run Mountains in the Background.