Chapple's SMD Meeting Tonight

I'm sure ANC Commissioner Kevin Chapple's website will soon have a recap and video of the meeting for his single member district earlier tonight at the Kennedy Rec Center, so I won't attempt one here. But I do want to commend and thank him for taking this initiative and arranging for an informative and useful public forum. Let's hope this will be a continuing new tradition. Oh, and no one yelled at anyone.

A couple of observations:

Safe Shores, the organization that will be running the Childrens' Advocacy Center at Bundy School, seems to be a well-run and effective group and certainly seems unlikely to have any negative impact on the neighborhood. Demolition (all internal--no outside construction is planned) on the school could start within a couple of weeks but won't be finished until late summer 2008. The center will operate only during normal business hours, but will probably have a round-the-clock police presence in the building, since the detectives and other related agencies will be co-located there. Only the school site proper will be included in the project. I.e., this will not affect the Bundy playing field or the big parking lot in the rear of the school (on the P Street side), which belong the the US Government, not DC.

Here's a question: If the DC Parks and Recreation doesn't own Bundy playing field and the parking lot, why is that agency posting "no dogs allowed" signs there? Who actually administers the field? I guess my idea about using a slice of the parking lot area for a dog park (see earlier post) will have to be re-thunk.

The presentation on pedestrian safety got a lot of interest from folks at the meeting. DDOT official George Branyan explained that the Pedestrian Master Plan now being formulated is focusing mainly on improving safety and access (e.g., around construction sites). Questions about speed humps and other "traffic calming" measures should be directed to Chris Ziemann, the Ward 2 Traffic Planner (didn't get an e-mail address).

DC Greenworks is planning a community garden on 7th Street (next to Bread for the City) and is looking for volunteers and other community participation. A chance for frustrated apartment dwellers to get their hands dirty.

MPD Sgt. Penn talked about the increased presence in PSA 308 in response to the recent shootings. Apparently this increase is open-ended at this point, not just a short term thing. Much of this has been noted elsewhere, so I won't repeat it here. However, let me say that I think all of us appreciate the fact that we're getting a good response from the 3rd District, and some of it seems to be working. Sometimes criticism of the police may be justified, but sometimes we also see some genuine improvement and that deserved to be recognized. I get the impression that there is considerably more openness on the part of the police regarding interfacing with the public, and we should seize this opportunity. I think we'll get a lot better effect from working positively with our police officers than from constant bitching and confrontation. I'm hopeful that the Adopt-a-Block program will help with that, but still haven't seen anything tangible from that yet.

Also, check out the really interesting posts on the tour of the police command center at Mt. Vernon Sq. and the ANC2C02 sites. Cool stuff--wish I could have been there.

Again, you go, Kevin! Keep up the good work.