Ibi Sofillas

The Clarksburg Civic Association is set to meet at the Ombudsmans Office at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, April 27.

Topics will include a discussion with board members of the Corridor Cities Transitway Coalition, Inc. regarding plans for rapid transit along the I-270 corridor.

There will also be nominations for the Clarksburg Civic Association 2009-2010 officers, with the election to be held on June 1, 2009.

There will be a meeting on April 21 at 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. to discuss the possible site for a permanent Clarksburg fire station.

The meeting will be hosted by Montgomery County's Upcounty Regional Service Center, the Fire and Rescue Service, and the Department of General Services, and will be held at the Clarksburg Recreational Center adjacent to Clarksburg High School. Residents are encouraged to stop by to offer comments and ask questions about the proposal.

For additional information you can call the Upcounty Regional Services Center on 240-777-8000 or email upcounty.citizen@montgomerycountymd.gov

In March 2009, $8,300,074 worth of homes sold in Clarksburg, Maryland, compared to $3,425,000 in March of 2008. This represents a 142.34 percent increase in the dollar volume of sales.

The average sold price last month was $518,755, which is a 6.02 percent increase compared to March 2008. ... And the number of homes sold was up 128.57 percent during the same timeframe.

So we're moving in the right direction!

Adventist HealthCare has taken the next step in the long approval process toward its hoped-for Clarksburg Community Hospital and medical campus. On Friday, Adventist filed a Certificate of Need with the State of Maryland.

Adventist has already received major land-use approvals from Montgomery County, with a final site plan to be filed later this year. If approved by the state, the hospital could open as early as 2013.

The site is located at I-270 and Rte. 121 and would include a 100-bed hospital, nursing care center, physicians' offices, outpatient facilities, and a day-care center.

Obviously, hurdles remain, not the least of which is the new plan by Holy Cross Hospital to build a competing facility on the Germantown campus of Montgomery College.

...So its up to the Clarksburg community to rally support for the Adventist plan if it wants to see the benefits of having this new facility. For more information, you can visit www.AdventistHealthCare.com

The Clarksburg Maryland ombudsman position could be eliminated, if contemplated county budget cuts come to fruition.

Owing to a $500+ million budget shortfall in the Montgomery County budget, the county executive is looking for areas to cut, and the ombudsman job is one such item under the ax.

The buzz in the community is that the ombudsman is still needed in order to look out for the interests of Clarksburg residents. The current ombudsman's contract runs until January 31, 2010, at which time the position would disappear, unless there is a change in the budget.