ANC Meeting Tonight

Well, this meeting was certainly unusual. I'm sure there will be video soon, but here's my quick summary.

Things were a little late getting started because Barbara Curtis wasn't there, but Chair Brooks and the Parliamentarian finally started the meeting anyway. The treasurer's report was approved, then Brooks make a motion to approve the September minutes. Padro amended to approve them with corrections; he and Chapple voted aye and Brooks initially voted nay, then with a little nudging from the Parliamentarian, changed her vote. Then, about 6:45, she bolted from the room, hands to mouth, appearing to be sick. A few minutes later, she returned briefly, closed the meeting, and left the building with the Parliamentarian.

This left all the would-be presenters high and dry, so Padro offered to chair a continued unofficial meeting. First to speak was Carole Mumin (I believe the name is right), the president of OFT/ON (Organization for Training Others in Need), who was there to respond to the citation by the DC Auditor of failure to provide proper receipts for an ANC grant to her organization. (That aspect of the report had escaped my notice, I must admit.) She said she had mistakenly submitted the wrong receipts to the auditor and was prepared to present a package of the correct ones to the ANC (which she couldn't officially do because the meeting had been adjourned). She expressed hurt and indignation over the charge, citing the good work the organization had done, and had several graduates of the program there to speak about how they had benefitted from it.
(I was unaware of the organization previously, but it sounds like they do some worthy things.) She chided Chapple for making unproven allegations in his newsletter, and he responded that he had merely quoted the Auditor's report. Then there was some discussion about the ECCA computers not being in public locations. One suggestion (a good one, I think) was to place the computers in the Scott Montgomery School. Some of this got a little emotional, but nothing like the degree we've seen in other meetings, and it was all on a pretty civil level--at least for our benighted ANC.

Then there was a presentation on the proposed high rise rental apartment building in the 400 block of NY Avenue, just west of the Yale Laundry building. The project has concept approval from Historic Review, but will need some zoning variations. There were concerns expressed about height and shadows and whether there would be any "affordable housing" included (answer: none planned), and then it got sort of dragged into the weeds about aesthetic issues. More to come on this.

Mark Bjorge (pronounced Bee-Your_Gee) introduced himself as the new Ward 2 Neighborhood Services Coordinator (replacing Sean Howard). He can be reached at mark.bjorge@dc.gov or at 202-442-8151.

Louella Johnson who works with supervising people out of jail on probation, made a plea for mentors. I believe she said that mentors should be "members of a church"--not sure why that should be a requirement. I'm afraid I missed the contact information.

Then there was a presentation by one of the proposals for Parcel 42. This proposal would be a building that could be built "by right" (i.e., not requiring any zoning variance), and would consist of retail on the ground floor and all "affordable housing" for the rental units, whose maximum rents would range from around $900 to $1200 (if I heard that right). Hmm, I wonder if that's such a great idea; I think a mixed affordable/market project would be preferable.

That was pretty much it. A visitor from the other side of NJ Avenue remarked that we're "mean" over here (compared to the apparent lovefest ANC meetings over there). I just laughed and said, "honey, this was nothing."