Neighbors,

Happy New Year! We wish all of you a very happy, healthy and prosperous 2015.

Last year was an especially successful year for the Park Hills Civic Association. In addition to our regular Back to School pedestrian safety program, our popular sweep-the-creek programs, the National Night Out Police Parade, the County’s Thanksgiving Parade, and our first-ever community yard sale, we hosted several very well attended civic association meetings at the Silver Spring International Middle School, including two with the neighboring Seven Oaks Evanswood Citizens Association (SOECA). We also participated in facilities planning for the new playground at Dale Drive Neighborhood Park, supported the renovation of the Parks property at Dale Drive & Hartford, and worked to engage the Montgomery County Police Department on public safety and traffic issues in the neighborhood. We also followed the wind-up of the Dale Drive Sidewalk Project and the renovation of the Mansfield right-of-way.

Our joint meetings on the findings and conclusions of the County’s Nightime Economy Task Force and our Candidate’s Forum featuring ALL of the candidates for the Montgomery County Council (District 5) and the candidates for Maryland State Delegate (District 20) were standing-room only. On October 1st, we had the pleasure of hosting Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett at our PHCA meeting.

In 2015, we hope to continue our Association’s success with more programs of general interest. Please feel free to make suggestions about topics and speakers that you would like to see this year at our regular meetings in February, May, October and December.

We can expect that this year’s agenda will be dominated with discussions about the Purple Line on Wayne Avenue. We encourage you to keep with the Purple Line issues to the best of your abilities, through the press, our listservs, email and the State’s Purple Line website at http://www.purplelinemd.com/en/ We’ll do our best to keep you informed as well.

As we noted at our December meeting, we are seeking volunteers to help with our work in the neighborhood. We need help with the following issues and would like neighbors to step up and take leadership roles for

• Parks & Recreation (including Sweep the Creek)
• Pedestrian Safety
• Special Events (Thanksgiving Parade, Annual Park Hills BBQ, Park Hills Community Yard Sale)
• Silver Spring & Montgomery County Civic Meetings (Silver Spring Citizens Advisory Board, Silver Spring Urban District, Montgomery County Civic Federation)
• PHCA website

We also need volunteers to help us distribute our quarterly meeting notices on their streets (particularly Dale Drive and the Fleetwoods).