Education task force member: School board won't tell its real intent

Trying to give the Montgomery County school board a face-saving way out of the Kendale mess has proved near-impossible for the County Council aide who tried to broker a compromise.

"It’s almost like we’re playing some game of poker," according to Ken Hartman, an aide to County Councilman Howard Denis and a member of the County Council-Board of Education task force set up to find a solution.

"We’re trying to read the tea leaves because they don’t want to talk to us," Hartman says in the Almanac.

"It sounded to me like the Board was signaling that we won't take up Seven Locks until sometime in the future and in the interim we should use some money for an accelerated Bells Mill project and Potomac would get some improvements. . . .

"It’s so vague. It’s hard for us to comment unless we know what their intent was."

Hartman warned that if the school board remained stubborn by trying to push through the unpopular Kendale project, "we're on for a train wreck."