May 22nd Lothian Community Meeting w/ Senator Henson at Miracle Temple Church

In spite of torrential rains, about 30 Lothian Residents attended. Senator Henson noted that she had taken a driving trip through Lothian along with two of her staff before the meeting. 

Concerns raised by residents:

  • Too many trucks and too much speeding in the neighborhood (Commercial trucks ignore the rules of the road)
  • Bad/unpalatable and smelly drinking water in the parks 
  • Illegal and selective evictions inside the parks
  • Vindictive Park management 
  • Inadequate youth activities or opportunities in the community 
  • Limited amenities in the barely or under developed in the local Sands Road Park 
  • Concerns about legacy asbestos inside the community park 
  • Lack of enforcement for local drug dealing & crime
  • Rogue kids on ATV’s antagonizing residents
  • Spraying of toxic chemistry within the mobile home parks
  • Waste water contaminated local fishing holes
  • Local roadside dumping
  • Complaints about the “non-qualified resident” status arbitrarily conferred by mobile home park management
  • While a new Boys and Girls Club facility is being constructed nearby, there appears to be no public transportation for kids to use in order to get to the facility
  • Lack of rent caps or rent control
  • Local schools are not accessible for after hours or after school activities 
  • People want to know the status and availability of the purple air monitors

We also had four people who signed up to meet separately and start organizing a Lothian neighborhood Association, and three other people who signed up to become trained as community water monitors via a program endorsed and funded by Maryland Department of the Environment.  

Two staffers from MDE were present from the Air/Radiation monitoring division. One was Noble Smith who is the Environmental Justice Coordinator for that Division. Both MDE staffers have offered to help in any way they can. 

Senator Henson’s Chief of staff informed me that her office received a duplicate data dump to the one we received in response to the recent MD/PIA request. 

Local County police community policing folks showed up and made a plea to the community for various partnerships and local collaborations with law enforcement

There was a broad resolution within the group to meet at least quarterly as a community, to review progress toward various neighborhood aims.