Last night’s Park View United Neighborhood Coalition meeting was held at the Park View Rec Center from 7 to 8 pm. President Chris Waldmann called the meeting to order and opened the meeting by speaking about how a goal for 2016 will be to collaborate with other neighborhood groups in the area on similar issues. It was also announced that its membership renewal time, and members can renew both at one of the meetings on online at the UNC Web site.
Vice president Marcus Hedrick provided a brief overview on both the redevelopment of Park Morton and the status of the Bruce Monroe park. After attending many of the meetings on the redevelopment of Park Morton, he reported that there are still a number of issues that haven’t been fully decided with the plan, but that he has seen that the development team has been responsive to community feedback in the meetings and have incorporated some of what they’ve heard from early meeting in subsequent meetings.
Sarah Sorscher provided an overview of the streets working group efforts and noted that another meeting will be scheduled for later in January … and Sherita Alexander gave a brief introduction to her efforts with the Friends of Park View Playground organization.
Much of the evening was spent discussing issues and the types of activities or guest speakers that people would like to see in 2016.
There was an early discussion about crime and stability in police officers assigned to the area. One of the points made was that officers tend to get assigned to our area, and then a year or so later they are promoted and moved out of the neighborhood, requiring residents to start from scratch and build new relationships with new officers. This happened (again) recently with the promotion of Lt. David Augustine who was a strong force in PSA 409 (north of Park Road). Gabriel Rojo from the Mayor’s office was in attendance and was requested to report back to the Mayor that the community should have the same stability in MPD deployments that other neighborhoods have.
Other topics that were discussed as topics for future meetings or events included:
- Neighborhood clean up activities;
- DCRA and how to report unpermitted activity;
- Beautifying & planting tree boxes in the area, specifically on Georgia Avenue (which could be a good multi-organization collaborative effort);
- Addressing illegal dumping of household trash in public little cans;
- A summer movie program;
- A meeting on the school lottery process; and,
- How to assist seniors and those with disabilities in shoveling walks this winter.
After discussing these topics, time expired and the meeting came to a close.
"The territory comprising Park View extends from Gresham Street north to Rock Creek Church Road, and from Georgia Avenue to the Soldiers' Home grounds, including the triangle bounded by Park Road, Georgia Avenue, and New Hampshire Avenue" (from Directory and History of Park View, 1921.)
Park View, D.C. 