North Four Corners News ♦ February 2025

President’s Message

By Sharon Canavan

Happy New Year!

Our Second Annual Winter Wonderland Holiday Social was a lot of fun and we collected a very generous amount of food donations for Manna Food Center.  A big thanks to everyone who came through!

We’ve had a good start to the NFCCA 2024–2025 dues cycle:  NFCCA has collected dues from 242 households.  Membership dues mainly pay for the newsletter you are reading.  Other expenses include the cost of events NFCCA hosts for the neighborhood, our website, our listserv, and Zoom.  The box on page 3 explains how to pay your dues.

The Montgomery County Planning Board has scheduled a 27 February hearing on the University Boulevard Corridor Plan (UBCP).  NFCCA’s next General Meeting — on Wednesday, 12 February, at 7:30 p.m. at the Forest Knolls Elementary School — will be devoted to a listening session to gather your thoughts about the UBCP and how it will shape the future of our neighborhood.  Resolution(s) on the UBCP itself or the policy development process may also be considered at this meeting.  The NFCCA bylaws restrict voting on resolutions to dues-paying members.  I want to emphasize that we are very aware that there are differing views on the UBCP.  All neighborhood residents are welcome to share their views and the Officers and Board encourage you to come and participate in this important community listening session.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has volunteered their time to participate in a working group to discuss our community response to the UBCP.  The group distributed flyers to more than 200 homes in the areas proposed for upzoning to alert residents to the Planning Board’s online Spanish language session.  Currently, we are working on a survey to gather your thoughts on the recommendations in the UBCP.

Wazzup

There are several upcoming neighborhood events, so Mark Your Calendars!

• Montgomery Parks is hosting Acoustics and Ales in the North Four Corners Local Park on Saturday, 8 March, from 11 a.m. til 2 p.m., featuring the Irish band Barleyjuice.  There will be food trucks and local breweries. NFCCA will have a booth there so come and chat with us.  For details, see link at bottom.
• A team is also planning another vine cutting cleanup on Saturday, 15 March, at 1:00 p.m. along the creek on Lockridge Drive.  Last year, 45 volunteers worked together to cut windows in nonnative, invasive vines and picked up a lot of trash as well.  We hope a group of neighbors can participate again this year; it takes persistence to keep the weedy overgrowth in check.
• Last but not least, the Third Annual Chili Cook Off will start at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, 23 March, at Forest Knolls Elementary School.  To add an international wrinkle to this annual event, we are calling for Curry Master volunteers as well as Chili Masters.  Last year this event netted $938 for NFCCA, so it’s an important component of our association’s fiscal health.  Come on out and support NFCCA!

For further details on these events check nfcca.org or upcoming posts on the NFCCA listserv.

Reminders

We’ve already had what counts in our area as a major snowstorm.  I’d like to remind everyone that unshoveled sidewalks are much more than a simple inconvenience.  Children need to get to school safely and cleared sidewalks allow us to enjoy our walkable community.  Anyone interested in shoveling snow for extra money — or just out of the goodness of your heart to help our elderly or physically challenged neighbors — can post a message on the NFCCA listserv.   ■

Acoustics & Ale