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Mayor Bowser Visits Park View, Announces Main Street, & Walks Community

October 17, 2017

Yesterday, Mayor Bowser visited the Park View neighborhood with two goals. The first was to announce that Georgia Avenue Thrive and their partner District Bridges have been selected to lead the Lower Georgia Avenue Main Street program. DC Main Streets is a comprehensive program that promotes the revitalization of traditional business districts in the District of Columbia. The announcement was held at Walls of Books.

(Pablo Sierra, Brianne Dornbush, and Jennifer Kuiper with Mayor Bowser.)

Following the Main Street announcement, Mayor Bowser toured the neighborhood with community leaders and agency representatives. The route went north of Walls of Books along Georgia Avenue to Princeton Place, where it headed east to the Park View Recreation Center, wound past the school and then east on Newton Place ending at the Ward 1 Senior Wellness Center. The Mayor was especially interested in talking to small businesses owners along Georgia Avenue, checking out vacant properties, getting details on the damaged playground at the Bruce Monroe at Park View school, and everything in between. Following the neighborhood walk, Mayor Bowser held office hours at the Senior Wellness Center.

Below are a few photos from the community walk.

Categories: Community Involvement, Government, Small Businesses
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ANC1A Votes to Oppose DC Council’s Small Business Parking Bill

March 13, 2017

Enhanced parking sign limiting parking to area residents only.

On March 8, 2017, the Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) that represents Park View and northern Columbia Heights voted unanimously to oppose Council Bill 22-0125 that would expand access to the residential parking permit program (RPP) for small businesses having 10 employees or fewer that abut residential RPP blocks. Small business would pay the same annual $35 per pass rate that residents currently pay. The bill was introduced by Councilmembers Robert White (at-large), Brianne Nadeau (Ward 1), and Brandon Todd (Ward 4) on February 21, 2017. The bill had no co-sponsors and has been referred to the Committee on Transportation and the Environment.

The resolution passed by ANC1A identified the following areas that the legislation does not address:

  • the high demand for parking on public residential streets that currently exists in Ward 1;
  • how small business parking permits would be managed within the context of Ward 1’s enhanced RPP program; and,
  • if small businesses would be permitted to participate in the RPP program if they are located in new buildings where residents have been denied participating in the RPP program through restrictive covenants.

More broadly, the bill raises questions of equity and fairness. Currently, large developments that are unable to provide off-street parking are restricting their future residents from participating in the RPP program, suggesting that local streets are already at capacity with no space remaining for new residents. If participation in the RPP program is extended to out-of-District employees of business, does this set a precedent to other out-of-District employees such as teachers, police officers, firemen, etc.. Lastly, there is not indication that there any consideration was given for limited use of metered parking space on commercial corridors for employees. In any case, there certainly was no outreach from the Council to ANC1A prior to the introduction of the bill.

ANC1A will continue to be engaged on this issue as it is reviewed by the Council. On Wednesday, the ANC voted to oppose the Small Business Parking Permit Act of 2017 as it found the bill as introduced to be lacking an equitable balance for both businesses and residents. The approved ANC resolution identified a number of areas of concern, some being that it:

  • promotes a greater overall reliance on automobiles;
  • offers no rational for extending parking benefits to non-District residents;
  • does not audit the current availability of on-street parking or require DDOT to perform a transportation impact study on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis throughout the District of Columbia; and,
  • does not take into account the deeply subsidized fee currently extended to District residents when setting the fee for small business parking.

The full resolution is below:

Categories: Government, parking
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Columbia Heights Budget Engagement Forum Well Attended

February 28, 2017
Full house at the Feb. 27th Budget Engagement Forum.

Full house at the Feb. 27th Budget Engagement Forum.

The third and final budget engagement forum was held last night (2/27) at the Columbia Heights Education Campus and was very well attended. The meeting was organized as a series of round tables, each with a facilitator. The goal of the discussions were to come to some consensus on how much of the Districts operating dollars should be allocated to six key areas — Housing; Public Safety; Government Operations; Retirement Costs & Other; Jobs & Economic Opportunity; Education; and Health & Human Services (chart below shows current allocations).

Each participant was given a form with the budget areas and asked to allocate $100 to each of the six areas to show their priorities. After this exercise, the same information was discussed in each group with the highest allocation documented on a separate sheet. In my group adding these number up came up with a total of $140 ($40 over budget). This followed with the group then discussing how to reduce allocations in some areas to balance the total to $100.

Overall, to me, the most value in the exercise was listening to each participant explain why there were giving some categories higher allocations than others. I advocated for money for Education because teachers have not had raises or even cost of living increases in a while and because parks and recreation improvements also fall under the education umbrella. One member of my group was advocating for decreasing the public safety allocation as they see the police as reacting to crime rather than addressing causes of crime (which may be addressed through other budget areas).

While the forums can help the Mayor decide how much of the budget needs to go to these priorities, the real opportunities to advocate for specific needs will be at the coming DC Council budget oversight hearings.

budget engagement chart(Chart from budget engagement forum presentation showing current allocations to budget priority areas.)

Categories: Community Involvement, District Budget, Government
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Third DC Budget Engagement Forum to be in Columbia Heights, February 27th!

February 24, 2017

The third and final District Budget Engagement Forum is Monday, February 27th, at the Columbia heights Educational Campus [RSVP here]. The forum is scheduled to fun from 6:30-8:30 pm. Mayor Bowser’s budget engagement forums are where residents can share some of their ideas, suggestions, and budget priorities for 2018! As the forum on Monday is the one most convenient for Ward 1 residents, it is the one I’ve signed up to attend.

budget-engagement-forums-2017

Categories: District Budget, Government
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Boese, Holmes, and Brown Continue as ANC Representatives for Park View

November 9, 2016

While the national election results were a huge surprise this morning, at the hyper-local level Park View will continue to be represented on Advisory Neighborhood Commission 1A by Commissioners Kent Boese, Bobby Holmes, and Rashida Brown (full election results here). Because Single Member District 1A11 had no candidate on the ballot, it is too early to know which of the two write-in candidates won.

Below are the results for the Park View area.

park-view-anc-results

Categories: Elections, Government
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November ANC1A Election Will Have Three Competitive Races.

August 11, 2016

Yesterday was the deadline to turn in nominating petitions for those wanting to be on the ballot in the November Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner races. Based on information from the Board of Elections posted this morning, the following are the candidates that will be on the ballot (presuming there are no successful challenges to qualifying signatures).

ANC race 2016

Based on the chart above, eight Single Member Districts have uncontested races. These are listed below:

  • 1A02 — Vickey A. Wright-Smith (former 1A Commissioner)
  • 1A03 — Zach Rybarczyk
  • 1A04 — Sadaf Megan Mortezavi
  • 1A05 — Christine Miller (incumbent)
  • 1A06 — Richard Dubeshter (incumbent)
  • 1A08 — Kent Boese (incumbent)
  • 1A09 — Bobby Holmes (incumbent)
  • 1A12 — Margaret Hundley (incumbent)

Three Single Member Districts have two candidates that will be on the ballot. These are:

  • 1A01 — Valarie Baron & Ernest Johnson
  • 1A07 — Sharon Farmer & Darwain Frost (incumbent)
  • 1A10 — Amanda Frost & Rashida Brown (incumbent)

One Single Member District is open, with no candidates on the November ballot. This seat could easily be won by any interested write-in candidate.

  • 1A11 — open

The map below shows where the Single Member Districts are located.

1Amap

Categories: Elections, Government
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How Are Things Shaping Up in the ANC1A Election

July 28, 2016

Nominating petitions for those interested in running to serve on an Advisory Neighborhood Commission became available on July 11th and must be turned in at the Board of Elections by close of business on August 10th. As of July 27th, there were still four Single Member Districts within ANC1A where no one had picked up petitions yet. The SMDs in question are 1A02, 1A03, 1A11, and 1A12 (see map below). All of these SMDs are in Columbia Heights.

ANC1A map election 2016

In five of the SMDs (1A01, 1A05, 1A06, 1A08, and 1A10), only one candidate is currently circulating petitions. Interestingly, three SMDs show potential for having a competitive race this November — 1A04, 1A07, and 1A09.

Below is the current list of potential candidates as of yesterday.

ANC candidate list 7-27-2016

Categories: Elections
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ANC1A to Have Special Election for SMD1A05 at July 13th Meeting

June 22, 2016

ANC1A logo 2Following the May meeting of ANC1A, Commissioner Thu Nguyen (1A05) stepped down to move to Philadelphia. This vacated her seat on the Commission and two candidates have stepped up with hopes to fill that vacancy — Christine Miller and Oliver Barham (Borderstan has a nice profile of them here).

Miller and Barham will face off in a special election scheduled for July 13 at Harriet Tubman Elementary School’s gymnasium (3101 13th St. NW) during ANC 1A’s regular monthly meeting. Polls will open  at 7 p.m. and close at 8:30 p.m. Voting is open to all registered voters who live within the ANC 1A05 district.

Coinciding with the Special Election, Commissioners (and anyone) interested in serving on the ANC during the next term will need to pick up nominating petitions.

The Board of Elections (BOE) will make petitions available beginning Monday, July 11th.  The petitions, with the usual 25 or more signatures of registered voters in a Single Member District, will be due at the BOE office by the close of business on Wednesday, August 10th.

I’m including a map of ANC 1A below that shows the Single Member Districts including the location of the vacant 1A05 area.

ANC special election map(Single Member District 1A05 is on the western side of ANC1A along 16th Street).

Categories: Elections, Government
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At-Large Candidates Forum Scheduled for May 9th

May 6, 2016

DC Council logoThe Georgia Avenue Community Development Task Force and Park View UNC are hosting a candidates forum for the Democratic At-Large primary race on Monday, May 9th.

If you want to know some more about the candidates who will be participating in the forum, the Petworth News blog posted a conversation with Robert White, and you can check out the campaign Website of David Garber. I wasn’t able to find a current campaign site for Vincent Orange, but you can check out his At-Large Council site here.

Details from email below:

The Georgia Avenue Community Development Task Force and the Park View United Neighborhood Coalition will host an At-Large Candidates Forum on Monday May 9th at 6:30pm at the Bruce Monroe @ Park View School – 3560 Warder St. NW.  The following candidates will be present:

  •  David Garber
  • CM Vincent Orange
  • Robert White

We are in the process of selecting the questions for the forum.  If you have issues pertaining to Lower Georgia Avenue that you would like to see addressed at this forum, please send an email to Sylvia Robinson at sylvia (at) ecacollective (dot) org or call her at (202) 462-2285.

We are really looking forward to hearing from the candidates on a range of topics important to our community. Hope to see you there

Categories: Elections, Politics
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Commissioner Boese Testifies Before Council for Improved DCRA

March 8, 2016

Boese DCRA Feb 29 2016

On February 29, 2016, Commissioner Boese testified before the Committee on Business, Consumer, and Regulatory Affairs, focusing his testimony on the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA) and its need for improvement. While he acknowledged some positive changes within the department over the past year, there is still much room for improvement. Through his engagement with DCRA over the past year, he has discovered wrongly issued building permits and construction that does not match the plans reviewed in the permitting process among other problems.

Chief among the improvements he requested are:

  • The ability to accurately review building plans, issued building permits, and measure building heights;
  • To have all relevant building permits and documents publicly and freely available online, as the D.C. Code has required for more than 10 years;
  • The ability to maintain a history of Stop Work Orders and the corrective actions taken to remove the Stop Work Orders; and,
  • The strict adherence of zoning regulations.

During the hearing, Councilmember Orange asserted that while DCRA can still improve, he didn’t believe that DCRA was as broken or failing to function as some testifying had stated. He referenced the strong development of the District and the fact that DCRA issues over 35,000 building permits a year — using this as an indicator that DCRA is doing something right. Boese countered that a strong real estate market and the resulting increase in development are the cause of the increase in the number of building permits issued — but that this has no relationship to how well DCRA is operating. During the hearing Councilmember Orange often intertwined the issue of DCRA operations and the District’s revitalization and population growth — along with what he felt was his role in it — ultimately clouding the discussion.

You can watch the entire hearing here. Commissioner Boese’s testimony can be found between 03:11:48 and 03:52:42.

Categories: City services, DCRA, Government
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