Rockville

The city is developing its first Pedestrian Master Plan and wants community members to help make Rockville a safer place for walking and rolling. The plan will guide the development, construction and maintenance of safe, convenient and equitable walking and rolling facilities across the city. “Walking and rolling” describes forms of mobility that do not include motor vehicles or bicycles. This includes walking; running; walking with the use of a white cane, audio-assistance device or walker; or using a wheelchair, knee-walker, mobility scooter or stroller.

Learn more about development of Rockville’s Pedestrian Master Plan and find a draft for review at engagerockville.com/pedestrian-master-plan. The city wants to hear from the community about the plan. What in the plan works well to advance walking and rolling in Rockville? What changes are still needed? What is missing?

Rockville welcomed Joyce Tian, pictured in the Mayor and Council chambers, winner of the “If I Were Mayor…” essay contest, to City Hall on May 25 (video below).

Tian, a fourth-grader at Beall Elementary School, earned the right to serve as Rockville’s Mayor for a Day, doing an on-camera interview with Rockville 11, visiting the Rockville City Police Department, the Department of Public Works Equipment Show and Croydon Creek Nature Center, and having lunch with Mayor Bridget Donnell Newton. She was also recognized at the May 22 Mayor and Council meeting, where she read her winning essay.

The Mayor and Council and the Environment Commission honored two community members in June with Environmental Excellence Awards recognizing contributions to Rockville’s environmental health and sustainability.

Rishi Iyer, a student at Thomas Wootton High School, received the Environmental Excel-lence Award for Outstanding Education and Academic Achievement for developing an online carbon footprint tool for Montgomery County Public Schools in Rockville and beyond. (“Rockville Reports” readers might remember Iyer as Rockville’s “Mayor for a Day” in 2016.)

Per the City of Rockville: An ordinance that will require specific rental properties in the city to be tested for the presence of radon will go into effect Sept. 27. Radon is an invisible, odorless, tasteless, radioactive gas found in soil and rock, formed by the natural decay of uranium. While no immediate symptoms signal its presence, exposure at high levels can cause cancer. Testing is the only way to know a home’s radon levels.

The testing requirement will apply to all units in a rental facility in contact with the ground, including basement apartments and any dwelling unit with a basement, crawl spaces or units built on a slab in contact with the ground. Landlords will be required to conduct a radon test before leasing a qualifying dwelling unit.