Posts Tagged ‘College Park’

College Park Joins State Geocaching Trail

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008

College Park is the latest stop on a statewide high-tech treasure hunt.

The City Council approved support in September for the Maryland Municipal League Geocache Trail Project, meant to promote awareness of and visits to Maryland’s cities and towns.

College Park was the 14th addition to the trail that also includes geocaching spots in Centreville, Charlestown, Cottage City, Denton, Greenbelt, Leonardtown, Luke, Middletown, Millington, Mountain Lake Park, Somerset, Sykesville and Thurmont.

Geocachers use a hand-held GPS  (Global Positioning System) to plot map coordinates and locate the spot where the “treasure” is buried. Participants are encouraged to leave something in the cache container in exchange for anything they take, and there is frequently a logbook to leave notes.

Anyone can find the coordinates through the Official Global GPS Cache Hunt site, geocaching.com, by accessing the Maryland Municipal League’s account and downloading or manually entering the map coordinates for each cache on the trail. The site gives directions for getting started on trails at several levels of difficulty, including safety tips and how to record discoveries online.  

Geocaching.com lists 661,996 active geocaching sites around the world, with 3,814 Maryland sites now listed on its rolls.  The Maryland Geocaching Society Web site has more information about geocaching in the state, including message boards and forums and a blog with member spotlights and regular event updates.

Cities have until Oct. 30 to be listed on the current trail. 

The next round of additions will begin in July 2009.

–By Maryland Newsline’s Laurie White

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English: College Park’s Official Language?

Friday, September 19th, 2008

The College Park City Council is debating whether to formally make English the city’s official language. Council member Jack Perry, who introduced the proposal, says the change would benefit immigrants and “promote efficiency” in the city. Others say it’s an unnecessary measure that would make some residents feel unwelcome.

What do you think of the proposal? Would making English the official language help or hurt College Park?

–From Maryland Newsline’s Avital Medoff

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College Park Is Looking for Some New Neighbors

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

The city of College Park is looking for a silver lining in the real estate slump with renewed promotion of its New Neighbors program.

The program provides grants of $7,500 for the purchase of any home in the city, if you’re a full-time city employee or a full-time certified officer with one of the following agencies: the Maryland State Police, Prince George’s County Police, Maryland-National Capital Park & Planning Police, Metro Transit Police or University of Maryland Police.

Others can apply for the grant if it’s for the purchase of a property in the city that’s been rented for at least two previous years.

Dorothy Friedman, a city planner, said the program is designed to stabilize and strengthen the community and to ease traffic congestion by making it easier for people to live close to where they work.

Although the program is meant to increase the number of owner-occupied houses in the city, it doesn’t prohibit homeowners from taking on renters, “if you want to have someone help you pay your mortgage,” Friedman said.

The only requirement is that buyers agree that the house will remain owner-occupied for at least five years. Otherwise, a pro-rated repayment of the grant is required.

About half of the $100,000 originally allotted for the program remains to be used, Friedman said.

Kathy Zentek and her husband Darren Zentek received the grant last year. They moved in November to a previous rental property on Clemson Road with their 10-month-old son because they wanted more space.

The grant allowed them to afford more home than they otherwise could have, said Kathy Zentek, who works for Prince George’s County schools as an English as a second language project coordinator.

“In the scheme of things,” she said, “it doesn’t sound like a lot of money. But it was the portion of the closing cost we couldn’t have afforded. It’s those closing costs that kill you sometimes.”

“It’s been amazing. Everyone’s super-friendly,” she said of her new neighbors.

Grant applications are available online or at College Park City Hall.

–By Maryland Newsline’s Tamra Tomlinson

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