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Monday, June 20, 2022

Tipping Points

Posted by on Monday, July 18, 2011 · 3 Comments 

So far, this is what I’ve learned.

Lexington Park is at a tipping point.

To grasp what that means, last April I took a planner on a tour of Great Mills Road including the carefully landscaped and tended Lore Laundromat and adjacent apartments. A tipping point is how the bankrupt and closed Lore Laundromat looks today, when it can easily be imagined boarded shut, crumbling and dragging everything in sight down with it.

Patuxent River Naval Air Station is at a tipping point too.

Its bread and butter programs are in an odd way like those tidy apartments, a bit too gentlemanly for the style of world conflict in the 21st century. This tipping point arrives when time runs out, the time needed to rethink, retool and remain ahead of the curve of contemporary warfare solutions. According to industry experts we missed the curve recently for terrorist program funding.

The U.S. Navy itself is at a tipping point simply because newly appointed U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was hired to carve the entire military complex into a leaner, meaner machine.

I have also learned it doesn’t matter all that much to a military station where it is located. It isn’t all that imperative to large government contracting firms either. What matters are what missions remain integral to federally funded programs.

Conversely, it matters tremendously to thousands of us that Pax River fit prominently into the leaner, meaner complex.

It could matter even more than that if the health, safety and property value of Lexington Park is not soon redeemed.

The good news is that redeeming Lexington Park helps Pax River stay ahead of the curve, albeit indirectly. The bad news is, success for Pax River does not necessarily work the same way for Lexington Park.

That challenge, I have learned, belongs to us all.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys3rymiItkk]

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Filed under Business, Choose Local, Leader Features, Lexi Leader, Pax River News · Tagged with , ,

Comments
3 Responses to “Tipping Points”
  1. Julie King says:
    July 20, 2011 at 2:24 pm

    Many years ago (in the 70s, I think), the late Kay Daugherty video-taped somewhat similar scenes of Lexington Park in an effort to draw attention to the challenges then faced by LP. This video still exists — it was shown at the Flat Tops reunion at the LP Library in 2007 and may be found there. Mrs. Daugherty’s purpose was to use visual stuff, including the video and also art (i.e., Creative Arts Forum), to attract an interest in Lexington Park. Some of the art was shown at the late great MB&T and I think is still up at the branch on Willows / Shangri-La. These investments were not just dollars — although I think the county commissioners supported the Creative Arts Forum with $$$ — but individual investments of time, space, art, story, etc. and a sense that underneath the Navy boom town exterior was a place that spoke volumes about “who we are” at that time. Artist Sue Jones created the most amazing image of the old Savon Station on Great Mills Road — she made it beautiful and beloved — and Lynn Erwin wrote an amazing essay about it in the most recent issue of SlackWater.

    The Lexington Park Leader offers that opportunity again. “Past ain’t dead, it ain’t even past” with apologies to Faulkner.

  2. Jenny B says:
    July 21, 2011 at 9:53 am

    Awesome article & insight

  3. Jenny B says:
    July 21, 2011 at 10:06 am

    Have you sent the video to the bank that owns the property. Maybe if they actually see what the citizens have been complaining about, instead of just hearing the complaints, they will be moved to do something.

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