Pittman and Friends Podcast
Welcome to Pittman and Friends, the curiously probing, sometimes awkward, but always revealing conversations between your host, Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman - that’s me - and whatever brave and willing public servant, community leader, or elected official I can find who has something to say that you should hear.
This podcast is provided as a public service of Anne Arundel County Government, so don’t expect me to get all partisan here. This is about the age-old art of government - of, by, and for the people.
Pittman and Friends Podcast
Cecily Bedwell on the Future of Crownsville Hospital Memorial Park
Curious about how design can honor history and inspire the future? Listen this week as Cecily Bedwell from Design Collective shares the vision behind the Crownsville Hospital Memorial Park Draft Master Plan. We dive into the site's complex legacy, the role of Antonia Hylton's book Madness, and how community input is guiding this innovative idea and shaping this transformative project.
From plans for a museum and racial healing spaces to a contemplative "Path of Reverence" and a potential university satellite campus, this episode explores how history, community, and design come together to reimagine Crownsville as a place of nature and healing at the center of Anne Arundel County.
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Welcome to Pittman and Friends. The curiously probing, sometimes awkward but always revealing conversations between your host, nne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman that's me and whatever brave and willing public servant, community leader, or elected official I can find who has something to say that you should hear. This podcast is provided as a public service of Anne Arundel County, so don't expect me to get all partisan here. This is about the age-old art of government of, by and for the people. Welcome, I have with me today Cecily Bedwell. Cecily is I won't say the author, because I know it's a team but the lead from Design Collective who put together the Crownsville Hospital Memorial Park Draft Master Plan that was released on September 26th and is out for public comment right now. So I'm really excited about this. Welcome, Cecily.
Cecily Bedwell:Thank you, Steuart. It's a pleasure to be here.
Steuart Pittman:So you've been at this a while. You've been at Design Collective, I understand, for 27 years. You've got a whole lot of letters after your name. It says Cecily Bedwell, AICP, L-E-E-D, A-P-B-D plus C. What the heck does that mean?
Cecily Bedwell:That's a great question. So AICP is Certified Planners, American Institute of Certified Planners, and LEED is the Green Building Institute. And all the other letters just means that I focus on building design and construction.
Steuart Pittman:Okay, okay, so we hired you. We hired your firm. You were the lead on this project it sounds like you've been the lead on a lot of projects over the years and then you brought together a team and had a couple of subcontractors that are involved, I understand and of course, we had a structure already for community engagement. What was it like, coming in to this project, I assume, from scratch, not knowing much about it, compared to the other projects that you do?
Cecily Bedwell:Yeah. So we approached this project knowing it was a once-in-a-lifetime, that this would be a real privilege to work on with the community, building on the work that your office has already started, bringing in a team, RK+R R to look at utilities and traffic analysis and EHT traceries to take a look at the historic buildings and structures on site. So, knowing that we would be looking at this with fresh eyes, so to speak, we knew that we had to ramp up and have a good long listening period as we started this project. So that was key and paramount to this project is to really understand the background, not only the immediate background, but the history going back to the founding of the hospital.
Steuart Pittman:Awesome, yeah, and I know that you and your team were pretty excited and passionate. I saw you at some of the town halls that we did. This document that you produced it's everybody you can go and find this, the digital version of it, at AACounty. Org/CrownsvillePark and it's I've got a print copy in front of me.
Steuart Pittman:Not many of those 168 pages, or actually more than that with some of the stuff that's going to be coming later, but the draft is about 168. It's got a whole section on existing conditions, a whole section on public outreach. It goes from page 70 to page 94 just on public outreach, and then the recommendations that go from page 94 to 174. It's pretty extraordinary in my mind. I think you really captured what we were trying to do, which was take the dreams, the history, the vision of the people of Anne Arundel County and the people who had family as staff, patients at Crownsville. Crownsville is the geographic center of our county and I like to think of it as the heart at the center of the county and if we can heal the heart, we can really do some healing here. So I guess maybe first could you talk a little about what you heard before you tell us what you created and how you turned it into something on paper? What were the themes?
Cecily Bedwell:Sure, and I think, just to let you know a little bit more about the schedule, we came into this project in October of last year, 2023. We started by listening and learning, doing the research at Maryland State Archives, reading Antonia Hylton's book.
Steuart Pittman:We'll get into that, I'm sure, later, I hope you've eventually got copies for everybody, because I know you got an advanced copy and everybody had to read the same copy.
Cecily Bedwell:It's very well referenced, tabbed and earmarked, but it was great to have that advanced copy.
Steuart Pittman:Extraordinary book Anybody out there who has not read it, and the timing was really magical of it coming out during this process. Antonia Hylton is the author. It's Madness. You can look it up about the history of Crownsville in a way that it's never been told before, talking to so many people who had family or who were there, who worked there, and telling the history from the very beginning. It's a, it's a history of, I think, a case study in institutional racism on steroids. What happens when you do something like that, and I won't say more about it, but so you had the book as part of your listening.
Cecily Bedwell:That's right. So we started with that. We started with doing our research, but also interviewing stakeholders like Faye Belt and, and others who, Paul Lures, who worked at Crownsville for over 30 years. We talked to people who are currently working at Crownsville, still with the non-profits, such as Chrysalis House, Gaudenzia, and Hope House all who are, have been, providing incredible services and much needed.
Steuart Pittman:Existing tenants, also the Food Bank.
Cecily Bedwell:And really understanding, from their perspective, going back many years but also currently, their thoughts and dreams and aspirations, but also some of the stories that make up the rich history and sometimes very difficult history of Crownsville. We learned very early on that there's not one storyline, that there are several interwoven and sometimes disparate storylines at Crownsville. So it's important to hear that from many voices, not just one voice or not just from a history of Crownsville, but really understand from the human perspective what some of the struggles but also some of the healing that happened at Crownsville, particularly after the first black nurses and staff came to Crownsville. That was a transition point that Antonia Hylton talks about very nicely in her book.
Steuart Pittman:A lot of people think of Crownsville as this terrible, terrible, and spooky place because it's been abandoned for 20 years and part of what the book did and I think a lot of people in this community knew it that there was some wonderful work that got done there too and some healing, particularly after they integrated the staff and they had black staff serving black patients and treating them like human beings for a change.
Cecily Bedwell:Yeah. Right, and they really went above and beyond. Faye Belt's family is a good case in point, where she grew up on Crownsville, because her mom was one of the first, I believe, nurses or staff at the hospital, but they'd invite patients to dinner. They would sit outside in the Grove. We learned so many rich stories that really informed the Master Plan. So that's really where we began with that. In fact, we spent over four months just learning the background of Crownsville and holding those stakeholder interviews prior to even starting, and then we really wanted to before we drew anything.
Cecily Bedwell:And that's what's important to understand is that in our, from our standpoint, in our the way we do, planning our principles, we listen first and draw later. We knew that we needed to be, I don't want to say tool, but the implement, if you will, for the Master Plan, that the community could feed us lots of information. We would listen to it, and draw the ideas and then come back to the community to ask, "this is what we think we heard. Did we get it right? Is there anything else that we still need to know?
Steuart Pittman:You used the term sketch sessions when we were talking earlier, which I thought was fascinating.
Cecily Bedwell:Yeah, so sketch sessions we did in a number of places. One that I'll just talk about is in the Infrastructure Subcommittee. We had several subcommittees. They were populated by people who worked at Crownsville, people who worked at the County, neighbors, and staff.
Steuart Pittman:These are subcommittees, that we created a Crownsville Committee, really an overarching planning committee, to advise me and the County Council and everybody, but within it there were four subcommittees - C ultural History, Infrastructure, the Park Planning, and Health and Wellness, and that, to us, encapsulated a lot of it.
Steuart Pittman:You then went and met with other stakeholders.
Steuart Pittman:You got online comments, you did town halls. You did even more.
Cecily Bedwell:Right. I remember Michael Stroud at the beginning, before we even started, saying to us whatever community engagement you have for this project, it's probably going to be double. And even during the process we expanded our community outreach, added an affected communities workshop, added the town hall in addition to the public open house. So this has really been a process of giving it time, giving people time to react and respond and inform the process. It's definitely an iterative process.
Steuart Pittman:And I remember at one point there was, I think it was maybe the second town hall, it overlapped with a meeting, a large meeting of the Caucus of African American Leaders, and the folks who showed up were mostly neighbors, and the community around Crownsville now is primarily white and middle- upper, middle class and some people say we didn't get the people we wanted there, so let's do another one in Annapolis. That is targeted to people who had family who worked there or were patients, and for the black community in Annapolis, Crownsville, was this ever- present thing that little kids were told if they were bad they would go to Crownsville. Um, lots of stories and so it was really important to have that second meeting, I think too. It was, and that really, um, it did extend our deadline but it definitely needed to happen.
Cecily Bedwell:If we didn't see people showing up, we would make sure who was coming to the meeting and we did pause in the middle of summer to add that other meeting and I think we heard so many stories again from the community and then from other people broadly that were affected in the community and how this type of institution had an impact on people's lives and continues to.
Steuart Pittman:You know I should have said this at the beginning for people who are listening. Crownsville, when it opened in was it 1911? Yeah, was called the hospital the Maryland Hospital for the or Crownsville Hospital for the Negro Insane. And all of the patients were African American up until the early 60s is when it desegregated.
Cecily Bedwell:That's correct.
Steuart Pittman:But still primarily African American. And in the cemetery which I know was not even part of the master planning process, separate piece of land but well aware of it Janice Hayes-W illiams and Friends of the Crownsville Hospital Cemetery, found the names of over 1,700 patients. All but one were black, one white woman.
Cecily Bedwell:That's correct, right, and that really informs some of the planning going forward is to make sure that the route to the cemetery, even though it's not within-you're right- it's not within our project boundary, but it certainly has a tremendous impact and needs to be acknowledged. They've done incredible work with volunteers. We're trying to build upon that to allow a nice proper sequence to that cemetery, something that has some reverence, something that has that feeling of honor to those patients who passed away. And so that became an important element of our plan, was how to get to the cemetery and how to do that in a nice, respectful way.
Steuart Pittman:So you had all this input, visioning, and I remember thinking that from the town halls that it was pretty extraordinary how everybody seemed to be aligned. There were very different ideas about what could happen there, but very in alignment about healing, telling history and nature, big themes that were there, some neighbors concerned about traffic, of course, and the everyday things that you get when you're doing a big project like this. So let's jump in because I just think it's it's so cool the way you you sort of divided the land, over 500 acres, into sections, knowing that some of these visions and goals would go into some sections and some into others.
Cecily Bedwell:Right, there were a lot of ideas and we knew that to give them place, there was no shortage of ideas that came to the table but we needed to understand what was best. Next to what, what made sense, what about circulation and access and how to also capture some of the ideas that really about nature and the healing power of nature. The Crownsville site, as you mentioned, is over 500 acres. Not all of that is built land. A lot of that is forested, pristine streams, and we heard a lot about the healing power of nature and how to connect people back to that. So you're right. So the plan really broke into pieces that looked at the core of the campus as an area that had the most significant historic structures, the ones that we knew we needed to preserve, that are already in a historic easement and the Maryland Historic Trust is looking for us to restore and renovate those buildings.
Steuart Pittman:They have to be. They can't be torn down and you can't change the outside other than taking some of the ivy off the walls.
Cecily Bedwell:And let's be clear, those buildings are going to need a lot of work. They were abandoned for 20 to 30 years or more and have a lot of deterioration, both on the exterior of what people can see as they drive by, but if you walk through the buildings you would know that somebody came in and tore out all the copper, wiring and plumbing. There's been graffiti and spray paint and broken windows. So there's going to be a lot of work to restore those buildings. But those core buildings need to be present and need to have new uses that occupy them. We heard a lot of ideas about what those new uses could be.
Steuart Pittman:Yeah, and those buildings that you're talking about, the central campus, the Administrative Building is probably the one people really notice as they drive by, with the big pillars out front, big white wooden pillars with peeling paint coming off of them, and then the buildings, buildings are brick and then they have these beautiful slate roofs I actually went over on a helicopter and really extraordinary roof lines, the campuses, but it's that central campus that that is historic. Everything has to stay. So I know that's one area. In fact, it's listed as that on the well you have north campus and then campus core and east campus.
Cecily Bedwell:Yes, so I'll talk a little bit about that. So the core is really the area that we need to put new uses into, so a museum, a space for racial healing. We also wanted to couple that with spaces that would feed off of that and benefit those, such as artist studios and a shared workspace. We also heard from Bowie State University. They would like to have a campus. That was another one.
Steuart Pittman:To me it was almost magical, like the book. We were approached by leadership of Bowie State University. In fact they invited me to a meeting and all of their top people were there. It was like a state dinner, it was lunch, but they had done so much thinking about the opportunity to do a satellite campus at Crownsville. They're looking to expand their historically black college. They have done a lot on health issues and library issues and history, and their students actually testified the Maryland General Assembly. Well, first of all, they were founded the same year as Crownsville, 1911, and then their students testified at the Maryland General Assembly after having observed some of the abuse that was taking place there, about that abuse, and so they have a long history aligned with Crownsville and so I believe you got them in that central campus right.
Cecily Bedwell:That's right. We tested a few programs meaning space options for them in the buildings. They responded to that and we don't know definitively what programs they'll bring to that space, but we knew they had to be in that core area because they will be a big draw, they will also benefit and to be co-located with the hospital and I think they've done a lot of research, as you mentioned, on the racial inequalities that happen and I think, can inform a lot of the classes and exhibits that happen at the museum. So there was a nice synergy, if you will, between those different users in the core area. That being said, those buildings are massive.
Cecily Bedwell:They're all also interconnected and there are a lot of uses that still could go in there.
Steuart Pittman:The other area that you know, one of the coolest drawings in here that I think is the, it's almost like a quads at a university when you look at the center between those buildings and what you've done is you've created pathways and just made it look beautiful when none of us thought of it quite like that.
Cecily Bedwell:Right. That's where our eyes, as the visual implement, can help is to take the ideas we're hearing and give a vision towards it. So we're not really creating the ideas so much as taking the ideas and giving them form. Those buildings that you mentioned do form a nice cluster, but what's really in the quad area that we envision right now is just surface parking. It's just all asphalt, but we looked at that as a great opportunity to have a sheltered space.
Cecily Bedwell:As you come outside from the museum, people are really quite deliberate about saying that the museum is not just a space within a building. It should occupy the whole campus. People should come here, and I envision middle schoolers coming to the campus on a field trip, learning about the buildings, learning about nature, learning about health and wellness, but also, maybe, when they get a little bit older, coming back and really understanding about how this was a segregated asylum for black patients and some of the horrendous experiments that happened to patients, and you know some of the things that we need to be aware of and never forget. Yeah, it tells us where we've been on mental health issues in this country and, hopefully, a sense of where we're going.
Steuart Pittman:So you go in there, you go to the museum, you experience some things I'm sure there'd be interactive and this and that and the other and then you go outside and you've got an amphitheater planned on some natural amphitheater- like land just below the big campus, which I think is beautiful. I love that area so much that I got inaugurated there. We threw a tent out and our second inauguration was at Crownsville because I felt like it was such an important part of what we were going to be doing in those four years. And so you've got that and I mean you've just beautified it all and we haven't even gotten to the Path of Reverence yet.
Cecily Bedwell:Yeah, so there's so many things to talk about. That area, that natural bowl, was actually used by the patients. It was the end or the terminus of a parade route through the campus. We only learned of that by talking to people who used to work there and patients who used to be there, but we learned about that. We learned about a grove of trees called The Grove, where patients would come outside. There was a long time where patients were just kept inside. Then patients were kept medicated and drugged really, and didn't get to go outside. And then, after you know, around the 1950s and that transition and desegregation in the 1960s, life did improve there. There was time outside for the patients. There were performing arts and visual arts that came to campus. A lot of therapy, art therapy.
Steuart Pittman:Antonia's book talks about that transition and tells specific stories that she got from one guy who literally had not seen the sun in many years in Crownsville and then he was brought outside and they started doing outdoor activities.
Cecily Bedwell:Right, you know some of those stories, they're hard, they sit heavy with you, but we can't forget. I mean, I think that would be the worst thing possible to come out of this. So you know, as we heard early on I think this was Janice Hayes- Williams said, you know, tell the past, the present, and the truth. So we need to remember the past, we need to create a better future, and we always need to remind people of what happened there along the many stories, so that we can do better in the future.
Steuart Pittman:So as you head from up on the main campus and down the hill and past the amphitheater area, you've got a few things. One is an agricultural area for community gardens. I know a lot of people have requested that. There are old agricultural buildings that are mostly gone, but there's still some silos there that might be. And then there's a recreation area with the Campanella building. Tell us about all that.
Cecily Bedwell:Yeah, so those are sort of at the center of the overall property. The farm was literally that the patients did have to farm the fields and take care of the livestock, which helped to feed the patients as well as the staff, as well as others in Maryland.
Steuart Pittman:They sold produce. And in fact, I learned in the book, they also basically rented out patients to work on neighboring farms.
Cecily Bedwell:Right, and I can assure you that did not happen at white asylums of the time of the same period. So it is important to understand that. But it's also important to look to the future and how we can take something negative from the past and benefit the community in the future. So the community gardens are that, while we can't save all the buildings, we did hear very strongly that we should preserve some of those or stabilize some of those elements of the agricultural structures so people can really have a sense of place and remembrance. So we hope to stabilize a silo and then create a new garden center that can be an area where people can learn about how to grow their own produce and have healthy food, something we don't all have access to. So how can we take something negative and create something positive? The rec center.
Cecily Bedwell:There was a pretty for the subcommittee that dealt with parks and recreation and looked at that. One of their first mandates to themselves, one of their aspirations they had, was to keep the rec footprint small, so not to overwhelm the site with recreation but to right-size it, try to keep it within the area that was already built. So we do have areas for a new track and field. People came to the workshops with ideas about that. Track needs to be for therapy as well as for, you know, athletic practice, that people can walk the track and have become more physically well, mentally well, by using those facilities. There are ball fields on Crownsville. Those have been in fairly consistent use, as I understand it, for soccer practice and others and certainly when patients were there they were playing softball on those fields. So we are keeping some of those fields and that creates a real core around the Campanella building, which was the center of recreation. It was the building that really turned the page to have better facilities for the patients and have art and performances there.
Steuart Pittman:So it's like a big gym. It's a pretty large building and I remember a conversation about whether to tear it down or not and you clearly heard no, and so it becomes sort of the focus of the active recreation area, part of the site, which I agree is really important. Okay, we're going to run out of time here. God there's so many things we have to talk about. Really quickly, let's do the Meyer Building, because that's right next to that. It's a large building and I know there was a conversation about whether that should be torn down and made into a larger recreation area or it was really perfect, set up to do some transitional housing to serve the existing organizations that are there and possibly others, a health clinic, and I know you've talked about veterans and family health and possibly some apartments that would be, you know, longer term.
Cecily Bedwell:Right. I mean that building is the largest footprint building on one level, so it does have a lot of good possibilities with separate entries. There was an idea of a veterans and family clinic that you mentioned. That can have its own separate entrance and be fairly easily accessible off of Crownsville Road, so that has a presence there. We also did talk with a number of the nonprofits that need transitional housing as their patients move from inpatient back into society. They need a transition to make sure that they can be on their own but still have guidance and support through their systems.
Steuart Pittman:And then affordable housing. We need all of that, that's right.
Cecily Bedwell:And affordable housing. We all know is a crisis not just in Maryland but throughout the country, so having some units in those buildings would be wonderful.
Steuart Pittman:Right.
Cecily Bedwell:I know we want to talk about the Path of Reverence. Yeah, because that's the other direction I'm visualizing the land actually.
Steuart Pittman:And so the road. Some people who have been there know that there's a road Dairy Farm Road they call it and it goes through where the wastewater treatment is and all of that. You can tell us that that's going to disappear and we'll all applaud. And then it crosses the bridge to the cemetery and then the Bacon Ridge land that is beautiful, preserved trails. The mountain bikers are out there all the time. They've built trails. But you have on your map a Path of Reverence between the main campus and the cemetery, that sort of zigzags, and has all kinds of cool stuff on it, right?
Cecily Bedwell:Yes, so we were very purposeful to make sure that that path, which was called Farm Road and I want to back people up, the people who have not been there what you would experience right now after you pass by some of the old barns and silos, is wastewater treatment ponds and spray fields that occupy over 60 acres of the site that cannot be used for anything other than that treatment of wastewater.
Steuart Pittman:And it's wastewater just from the Crownsville campus. It is. That's what it was built for.
Cecily Bedwell:This operated, like you said, like a campus. So all of the utilities are there on campus, from water treatment to wastewater treatment, to water distribution, all those things people don't think about but that really have to happen to make a place operational. We knew that through analysis, that the utilities and infrastructure wasn't doing well, that the wastewater treatment plan and ponds aren't performing well. That gives us an opportunity to look at that in a different way and connect those facilities up differently in the future better service for the nonprofit center and the other nonprofits and tenants on site. But then to think about okay, that area should be used for something else.
Cecily Bedwell:The Path of Reverence was an idea. Dennis Carmichael joined us for the visioning of this. He is a world-renowned landscape architect and thought about a way to get to the cemetery that had just that a sense of reverence. So we also wanted to weave that idea in, with the knowledge that a path to mental health and wellness is not a linear process, that people take their own paths, and hence the meandering trails that zigzag across what used to be Farm Road so that people can take moments of reflection and go on their own journey. For students that may visit or other visitors that may come to campus, they can learn about things through signage that we envision, talking about the native plantings. They can learn about the history of Crownsville and some of the stories. They can also just take a peaceful walk to the cemetery.
Steuart Pittman:And that's a pretty flat piece of ground and it'll be accessible to everybody, I assume, then I know that you and I'll just say quickly that when you get to the cemetery, you will not only see these unmarked graves and the beautiful trees and this really amazing place, but there's a memorial under construction right now as we speak. That will be done by next spring, and the Say My Name Ceremony will be incredible. But in addition to the path there, you've got paths everywhere, right?
Cecily Bedwell:That's right. So there are paths through the northern woods which we think will be a little bit more separated and be able to go down to the streams and let people access the sense of nature that can be peaceful. So that might be a place where you think about having relaxing time, meditative time, whereas the South Forest is completely different. That is where the active trails we knew those needed to be separate. So they are, and they can provide for both types of users those that are seeking very active recreation and those that want to come to the place and have a sense of well-being.
Steuart Pittman:Awesome, Awesome. And then, of course, it's connected to Bacon Ridge. So as you enter Crownsville, if you come off of General's Highway, there's a lot of traffic. There's actually two ways in which creates even more traffic. And then that first building that you see behind the sign is a newer building one story and I shouldn't use the word ugly, but I know that it's in rough shape, it's not historic and you have a plan for that spot, right? That solves the traffic issue or at least helps?
Cecily Bedwell:Right, so that was critical to understand is there is a conflict point. As you mentioned, there's a lot of congestion, as we know, on Crownsville Road, General's Highway, but also there are two traffic lights within 200 feet or so of one another that exacerbate that. So we also wanted to create a new gateway and entry into the hospital and that building, the Med-Surg building. New is maybe a relative term, it's not very new, but in the overall history of Crownsville.
Cecily Bedwell:It's on the newer side but it is a one-story building. It's in bad shape and by replacing that building with a new roundabout we are able to create a new gateway, lessen the conflicts at those two intersections, and create a better flow. So as you arrive, you really get the sense and presence since you see the historic core buildings much more readily as you come up from General's Highway, it'll just make a much nicer approach coming to Crownsville Hospital and help with the traffic.
Steuart Pittman:Good, good, I know that'll be appreciated by folks who sit in that traffic. And then off to the right as you come in, of course, are a couple of buildings that the county already owned before we got it transferred from the state recently and we're under construction right now have a thing called the Nonprofit Center. It's already operating online and you can go to the website for the Anne Arundel County Nonprofit Center @ 41 Community Place is the actual address. So we're excited about that, and that is also a launching pad, I think, for emerging nonprofits, some of whom might end up doing work at Crownsville. All right, well, exciting, exciting stuff. There's one gap in this Draft Master Plan at the end there are a bunch of blank pages, and that's for cost estimates, right?
Cecily Bedwell:There are a couple of things that we're working on. The cost estimates is one. Of course, we have CostCon, who's done a lot of cost estimating, working on extensive lists right now, from everything from new pathways to the new track and field, to building renovations and building demo, and giving us an understanding what these items each might cost. And so, as we go through in the next steps, after we finish this process, there will be a lengthy period of time where we're trying to find funding and trying to implement those priority projects.
Cecily Bedwell:So the costing will really help inform those choices and really give a reality check to some of the things that will cost money to implement and how and when we will do that and in what sequence. The other piece is the traffic. Well, and on the cost piece.
Steuart Pittman:I just want to say that, yes, this is going to be very expensive, and when we got, when we got the state to transfer the land to us, the Maryland General Assembly generously, with a bit of lobbying, gave us $30.5 million to get started. Our congressional delegation both of our senators have been out there as well as our congressmen and the new people coming in have been out there. We've made sure of that. They are so inspired by the prospect of what can happen there, a center for healing, a place where the history and the future of treatment of mental health is that this thing attracts money. We've got federal earmarks and private sector as well.
Steuart Pittman:So a really good project brings national attention and it will bring money. It will be a park for our residents, so it will be in our park's budget as well, but it's and there will be some things there that will be revenue generating as well. So that is all there to be figured out. It's not in the draft part because we don't need people to comment on how much things cost, but we have a lot of work ahead of us and it won't happen quickly.
Cecily Bedwell:That's right. These projects are generational. We need to, I think, critically create a Master Plan that creates that framework, so that people will be inspired, that they can visualize what might happen there, that they can get behind it and know that there is a lot of input from the community and support from the community behind it. As well as a true vision of what we want to accomplish and how it's necessary, for I think everybody needs to focus on mental health and going forward. This can be a real place of learning and healing, so I think all of that will hopefully bring attention to this place.
Steuart Pittman:Excellent, excellent this it's so exciting and I know that it's got a real broad and deep following in the county and people are starting to notice from around the country. So thank you so much for the extraordinary work that you did, and I really encourage everybody to go to AACounty. Org/CrownsvillePark and look at the draft Master Plan. Even if you just look at a few of the pictures that is inspiring in itself, and so we have our work cut out for us. The comment period runs through November 24th, so you can comment online. There's some meetings coming up. We're not sure exactly. We're actually doing this on October 28th, but it won't run for a couple of weeks, so who knows what the timing is on those, but you can find out all about it at the website and thank you everybody for joining us. Thank you, Cecily, for your work and thank your team for us, please.
Cecily Bedwell:Thank you. It's been our honor to work on this project.
Steuart Pittman:Great, great. So if you're listening, hit subscribe so you'll know who our next guest is. We'll let you know and we'll see you next Tuesday. Thanks!
