Dear all,

Thank you so much for signing this petition and for voicing your support of our park! I want to provide an update for those of you who were unable to attend the May 17 City Council hearing and have not heard the results regarding the George Mason Modernization Project. If you are interested, you can watch the hearing in its entirety. The portion concerning George Mason goes from 6:18-7:56 (Docket Item 17). 

Going into this meeting, we understood that there was no chance of City Council fully rejecting the blueprint of the school as presented in DSUP #2025-10001. Doing so at this point would have delayed construction and likely ended up with GM kids in the swing space for an additional year, which was a non-starter for many of our community members. We therefore aimed to persuade Council to add community-friendly conditions to the DSUP regarding the placement of the fence line and tree preservation around the pathway. Thanks to you and the efforts of our community, we achieved these goals. 

Council voted 7-0 to approve DSUP #2025-10001, with the following new conditions: 
1) "Moves the fenceline to between the border of the playground and the field" (this will leave the back half of the field fully open to the community once construction is complete).
 2) "Provides direction for staff to go back with the applicant to explore an alternative solution for the walking path" (with the intention of preserving healthy non-invasive trees wherever possible)

Thank you all again for writing and speaking on behalf of our park! It won't be the same as it is today, but we have certainly avoided the worst case scenario.