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The Gazette
A&E: One-man “Christmas Carol” returns to Olney Theatre Center. B-7
ROCKVILLE | ASPEN HILL | POTOMAC | OLNEY DA I LY U P DAT E S AT G A Z E T T E . N E T
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Eatery provides more than good food
Business committee OKs new name for marketing purposes
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New owner uses Olney restaurant as platform for charity
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ELIZABETH WAIBEL STAFF WRITER
TERRI HOGAN STAFF WRITER
Taste Gastropub, a tiny restaurant in an Olney strip center, is doing big things. The restaurant is apparently succeeding in its mission to offer high-quality, freshly prepared food at reasonable prices, along with a unique selection of beer, wine and cocktails, as it is currently ranked as Olney’s top restaurant on TripAdvisor.com. The bigger story has nothing to do with its food, however. It’s about owner Vic Seested, who is driven by heart and determination to help those less fortunate. Seested, 41, grew up the Olney area, attending St. John’s Episcopal School, Farquhar Middle School and Sherwood High School. Although he now lives in Potomac, his parents still live in Ashton. In his day job, he is a fourthgeneration financial adviser, working as a private wealth adviser for UBS Private Wealth Management in Washington, D.C. In February 2013, he purchased Taste Gastropub to develop a hub for local charity work and produce profits to give back to the local community. The restaurant supports local nonprofits in the form of donations and fundraisers. Seested said that the desire to serve others came from his late grandmother, Avis Birely, the first female president of the Montgomery County Council, where she was instrumental in providing the county’s first grant to a local nonprofit, Hearts & Homes for Youth. Today, Seested carries on this legacy as an active board member of the organization. He also serves on the board of the Jubilee Association of Maryland, which supports adults with intellectual and other developmental disabilities, as well as the Jewish Social Service Agency. He is an active donor and volunteer at the Lombardi Cancer Center of Georgetown, and supports several local schools. These are not just random charities: Seested has a special connection to each one, whether it was his grandmother’s work with Hearts & Home, a man with Down syndrome whom he befriended while attending Farquhar, or the hospice care his best friend’s mother received through the Jewish nonprofit.
See TASTE, Page A-15
TOM FEDOR/THE GAZETTE
Rockville hosted its holiday tree lighting Thursday in Rockville Town Square. The festival also included photos with Santa Claus, live music and ice-skating performances. The city will host a menorah lighting festival Dec. 17 in Town Center.
Hip-hop route to literacy Rockville youngsters parse popular music to spark reading
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STAFF WRITER
BY
RYAN MARSHALL STAFF WRITER
DAN GROSS/THE GAZETTE
Fifth-grader Kayo Temesgen (left) and fourth-grader Cheyenne Blake-Frazier sing along with a Katy Perry song at Maryvale Elementary School in Rockville during an after-school program called Hip Hop Literacy. and the students had already discussed the use of similes and metaphors in the lyrics and read a biography of Perry. And of course most of the 50 third- fourth- and fifth-graders knew all the words. They sang it as a warm-up. “I love dancing and singing,” said fourth-grader
Giselle Rodriguez, 10. “Since I’m really shy this could be an opportunity to express myself.” Giselle said she loves Perry because she inspires children to do things they are afraid to do.
See LITERACY, Page A-15
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HISTORY BUFF TAKES OVER Matthew Logan is the new director of the Montgomery County Historical Society.
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When it’s completed, one prong of Montgomery County’s proposed bus rapid transit system will stretch from Clarksburg down Md. 355 to Bethesda, linking the upcounty suburbs with communities just outside Washington. But there’s still much work to do before riders can hop on one of the new buses. Officials from Montgomery County, Gaithersburg and Rockville met Dec. 3 in Rockville to talk about the developing plans for the system, which would en-
Volume 27, No. 29, Two sections, 36 Pages Copyright © 2014 The Gazette Please
RECYCLE
December 18, 2014 1932812
businesses and residences. The new name reflects the dominating presence of Rockville Pike in the area. Ken Hartman, director of the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Regional Services Center and a nonvoting committee member, said he likes the name and thinks it reflects how people already describe the area. “I go up to the Pike,” he said. “That’s where I go ... to shop or come to a meeting.” Paul Meyer, a committee member and area resident, said he thinks Pike District is an excellent name and will draw the most positive responses. He said he also appreciated the process Streetsense went through to get to this point. Representatives from the White Flint Partnership, a group of property owners in the area, said they also support calling the area Pike District. The committee’s vote and the partnership’s backing don’t change names on addresses, the White Flint Sector Plan, the White Flint Metro station or even the committee’s own name, but Evan Goldman, vice president for development at Federal Realty Investment Trust in Rockville, said a new name will help draw attention and tenants to the area. “The intent here is not to change anybody’s address or neighborhood association,” he said. Goldman said the next step is to work on logo concepts that can be incorporated into marketing efforts. ewaibel@gazette.net
Cities, county focus on bus rapid transit Cooperation with Rockville and Gaithersburg seen as key to system
PEGGY MCEWAN
It’s a meeting of the minds, hip-hop and literacy, a way to get elementary students to improve language skills by studying something they already know. The Hip Hop Literacy Club at Maryvale Elementary School in Rockville meets Tuesday afternoons for an hour to discuss the lyrics of popular music. “The focus is on literacy,” said Kristen Grundmayer, the club’s sponsor and a firstgrade English teacher. “We focus on reading skills, vocabulary development and figurative language.” Katy Perry’s “Firework” was the Dec. 2 topic. It was the second session on that song
Two key groups have endorsed Pike District as a new name for the White Flint area. People have been debating for years whether the rapidly developing area in an unincorporated part of the county needs a new name. Now an advisory committee and a property owners group agree that calling the area Pike District will help market the area. At a meeting Tuesday of the White Flint Downtown Advisory Committee, Streetsense, a marketing and branding firm hired by several major area property owners, presented the results of its research and a public meeting held in September. Sarah Wright, creative strategist for Streetsense, said more than 65 people participated in the meeting and picked Pike District as the favorite name by far. “People overall felt it was clear [and] straightforward,” Wright said. After the presentation, the committee unanimously voted to support Pike District as a new name for the area and to incorporate that name into its work. The committee’s long-term goal is to form an urban district similar to the one managed by the Bethesda Urban Partnership. Kensington, North Bethesda and Rockville are the postal addresses used by White Flint
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It’s Pike District, aka White Flint
Looking a lot like Christmas
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SPORTS: A look at this winter’s high school indoor track season. B-1
tail buses traveling in dedicated lanes in some areas. Of the 10 BRT routes planned by the county — not including the proposed Corridor Cities Transitway — the route along Md. 355 from Clarksburg to Bethesda has the most traffic projected, said Glenn Orlin, deputy administrator for the County Council. From Clarksburg to Germantown, the buses would move in mixed traffic without dedicated lanes, but with fewer stops than a normal bus route has, he said. From Germantown to Bethesda, at least one and sometimes two reserved lanes are planned for these buses, he said.
See TRANSIT, Page A-15