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The Gazette SILVER SPRING | TAKOMA PARK | BURTONSVILLE
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Wednesday, April 23, 2014
25 cents
Battle goes on over plans for gas at Costco n
County zoning hearings scheduled for April 29 BY
KEVIN JAMES SHAY STAFF WRITER
The years-long battle between Costco and a coalition of residents, civic associations and environmental groups over whether the retail giant can open a 16-pump gas station at Westfield Wheaton mall rages on. More hearings on the case are scheduled for April 29 and in May before the Office of Zoning and Administrative Hearings. The 151,000-square-foot Costco, which is more spacious
BILL RYAN/THE GAZETTE
Claudia Avila tells how her husband, Army Capt. Luis Avila, who was severely injured in Afghanistan, finally woke up after being in a coma for more than a month. Luis Avila has improved his breathing and speaking by working with music therapist Julie Garrison at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda.
music heals
with wider aisles than the Gaithersburg store, opened at the mall about a year ago. Even people living close to its parking lot say the retailer has helped improve the center, which was plagued by security concerns after a series of brazen daylight robberies within a week in late 2011. “Costco has done a lot to revitalize the mall,” said Paige Ervin, a nearby resident who walks there to shop. “It’s very convenient.” At the same time, she opposes plans for Costco to operate the gas station in a section that is now part of the parking lot.
See COSTCO, Page A-11
At Walter Reed,
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Therapeutic program gives war veterans a new beginning BY
ALINE BARROS STAFF WRITER
The phone call Claudia Avila got on Dec. 27, 2011, was from Army officials telling her that her husband was in critical condition and might not survive. Claudia’s husband, Army Capt. Luis Avila, lost a leg and suffered a brain injury from a makeshift bomb in Afghanistan during his fifth wartime deployment. “He is a miracle. My husband is really a
miracle,” Claudia Avila said. For 18 months, Luis Avila could not eat anything orally. He had a feeding tube to provide the nutrition he needed. He could not speak. He could not see. Avila’s miracle recovery did not happen overnight. It was a two-year road of rehabilitation. After the accident, he was transferred to Landhaus, Germany, then Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. On July 20, 2012, he was moved to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda. According to doctors, Avila’s case was complex.
“Fixing my husband has been from the head to the toe,” Claudia Avila said. With his wife’s help, Luis Avila explained what happened to him and his team. “I got blown off in a mountain. ... (A) few of our guys died, and I survived. ... Before I passed out, I took one of the guys out,” he said. Claudia said music therapy reinforces her husband’s speech and breathing rehabilitation. Through music and repeating words that his therapist sings along on the piano,
GREG DOHLER/THE GAZETTE
Danila Sheveiko is concerned about an increase in noise from vehicle traffic if plans move ahead for contruction of a gas station at the Costco near his Kensington home.
Former assistant chief broke county Twitter use rules
See MUSIC, Page A-11
Saying goodbye to a labor institution Silver Spring labor college holds final commencement Saturday after four decades
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BY
KEVIN JAMES SHAY STAFF WRITER
Four decades after a labor studies center formed on 47 sprawling acres near the Beltway, the National Labor College will conduct its final commencement ceremony Saturday at the Silver Spring campus. The institution, affiliated with the AFLCIO, fell on hard financial times in the past few years. Officials thought they had a buyer for the campus last year in a partnership with Reid Temple African Method-
ist Episcopal Church, which has facilities in Silver Spring and Glenn Dale, and the Housing Opportunities Commission of Montgomery County. That would have let administrators move to a smaller space and conduct most courses online. But that plan fell through after the housing commission pulled out. Last December, officials announced the closing and a tentative agreement to sell the campus to Washington, D.C., real estate development firm Monument Realty. “It was with heavy hearts and great emotion that [college board members] took the action that they did based on some hard facts about the financial instability of the college,” college President Paula E. Peinovich wrote on the institution’s blog. Peinovich could not be reached
for comment. Officials have a teach-out plan with some other colleges, including Penn State, to let students who will not graduate this semester transfer to those institutions. The Middle States Commission on Higher Education approved the plan to let the labor college award accredited degrees through Dec. 31, 2015, the college’s website says. Pam Zandy, marketing manager for Monument Realty, said this week that the firm has not completed the deal to purchase the Silver Spring campus. “We are still in negotiations,” she said. Monument Realty’s commercial and residential projects include the 255-unit Chase at Bethesda; Executive Plaza, a twobuilding office complex in Rockville; and
SPORTS
Nancy Floreen presented her Golden Shovel awards to people who helped their neighbors.
County athletes work to earn qualifying spots at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia.
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FACING THE PENN DILEMMA
Automotive Calendar Celebrations Classified Entertainment Opinion School News Sports Please
‘I wasn’t proselytizing on the MCFRS feed’ BY
TIFFANY ARNOLD STAFF WRITER
A former Montgomery County Fire & Rescue Service spokesman violated the county policy by tweeting Bible verses and continuing to use his Twitter account in a way that appeared to be on the county’s behalf after he left the county in January. As a result, former Assistant Chief Scott Graham has been asked to change his Twit-
See LABOR, Page A-11
NEWS
SNOW CLEARING SAVIORS
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ter name, @MCFirePIO, so that people won’t think he’s acting in an official county capacity, according to county government spokesman Patrick Lacefield. “The things he was tweeting were in violation of the county’s social media policy,” Lacefield said. When Graham was serving as a public information officer for the county’s fire and rescue association, he routinely used the @MCFirePIO Twitter handle to interact with reporters, posting photos and public safetyrelated updates in 140-character
See POLICY, Page A-11
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