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The ICC is being built. Of course that is a given at this point. However, I am concerned that the State Highway Administration may not be fairly treating residents near its path.

The Redland Station neighborhood is bounded by Shady Grove Road, Interstate 370, and the ICC. The ICC rights-of-way are directly adjacent to many residents' properties. Redland Station residents have done everything they can to educate and inform themselves about the ICC, including attending public hearings, community meetings and town halls, telephoning, e-mailing, and writing letters to the State Highway Administration, and arranging one-on-one and small group meetings with SHA staff.

SHA had demarcated some Redland Station residents' properties with an orange plastic mesh fence. Residents were told several months ago by the SHA that this fence denoted the "limit of disturbance." This term is plainly obvious in its meaning: nothing past the limit should be disturbed by construction. In verbal communications, SHA confirmed this.

In the past few weeks, sound-wall posts have been erected at the point of the limit of disturbance. SHA is now telling the same residents that there will be up to 10-foot cleared access roads outside the limit (closer to their homes) for sound-wall repair vehicular access. Residents rightly complained about the seeming double-talk. SHA's excuse: [the limit] doesn't really mean what it sounds like. There may be construction outside the limit. These kinds of word games are unacceptable.

I am disturbed that the SHA has made statements that would give any reasonable person false expectations about the impact of the ICC on their properties. SHA must be more careful and precise in its use of language, and be especially sensitive to not falsely raise expectations of residents whose properties and lifestyles have been profoundly impacted by the construction of the ICC.

Saqib Ali, Gaithersburg

The writer is a state delegate representing northern Montgomery County.