DC Government

Bloomingdale/Ledroit Park Flooding Task Force Report Delivered To Mayor Gray

By Prince Of Petworth

From a press release:

The Mayor’s Task Force on the Prevention of Flooding in Bloomingdale and LeDroit Park has issued its final report, announced City Administrator Allen Y. Lew, who co-chaired the task force with DC Water General Manager George Hawkins. The report is available online at www.oca.dc.gov.

“Completion of this vitally important analysis of the causes and possible solutions to the flooding in the Bloomingdale and LeDroit Park neighborhoods is yet another indication of how seriously my administration took this problem,” said Mayor Vincent C. Gray. “Flooding has been a problem here for several decades. City Administrator Lew, Mr. Hawkins and the community worked together brilliantly to identify solutions – many  of which have already been implemented – and after only a few months, we are on our way to resolving one of our most pressing infrastructure needs.”

Mayor Gray established the task force in late August and in December announced that the District and DC Water would immediately proceed with the most significant Task Force infrastructure recommendation. The $600 million Northeast Boundary Neighborhood Protection Project will be completed in three phases, with the first portion being the construction of two new water storage tanks at the McMillan site to hold a total of up to 6 million gallons of stormwater. Flow will be diverted from feeder sewers adjacent to the McMillan site, capturing stormwater before it arrives in Bloomingdale and LeDroit Park and reaches the sewer system. This will help reduce the excessive pressure that currently causes sewer backups and overland flooding during heavy rainstorms.

“The Flooding Task Force Report is a shining example of how citizens and government working together can solve long-standing problems,” said Lew. “While the Task Force has completed its work, the District and DC Water are just beginning. We will continue to work with the community as we implement the various recommendations.”

Fourth Question Posted for DC At-Large Council Candidates – Development

By Prince Of Petworth

It’s Tuesday, and that means another Let’s Choose DC question is ready for you to vote on! This week, Let’s Choose DC (a partnership of PoPville, Greater Greater Washington, and DCist) asked the candidates their views on the District’s growth:

Mayor Gray has set a goal of growing by 250,000 residents in 20 years. Previous mayors had similar goals. GMU studies suggest we need over 122,000 new housing units (each of which might hold multiple people) by 2030. How can and should the District accommodate this growth?

Paul Zukerberg, Matthew Frumin, Elissa Silverman, and John Settles provided responses, and Perry Redd this morning promised to get one to us tonight. We did not receive responses from Anita Bonds, Michael Brown, or Patrick Mara. All of the other candidates have withdrawn from the race or did not file their petitions with the requisite number of signatures.

Check out the answers here.

Gray Administration Year Two Report Released

By Prince Of Petworth


Photo by PoPville flickr user afagen

From the Mayor:

Earlier today I was pleased to announce that the District ended Fiscal Year 2012 with a healthy budget surplus of $417 million. This news is compelling evidence that the District’s finances are among the strongest of any jurisdiction in the nation. The District’s increasingly strong financial outlook, coupled with impressive job growth and a falling unemployment rate, is affirmation that our economic development strategies are working. With 55 construction cranes dotting our skyline, I can truly say that the amount of development in the District right now is unprecedented.

As we start the new year, I also wanted to take a moment to share with you the results of my administration at the end of 2012, my second year in office. As you will note, we’ve made tremendous progress in a short amount of time. On our watch:

· The District’s economy is booming, with more than 28,000 private sector jobs created over the past two years and the unemployment rate falling by nearly three percentage points;

· The District has hit a 50-year low in homicides – with the numbers dropping dramatically each of the last two years and nearly twenty times faster than the national average;

· The District is growing rapidly – adding more than 1,100 people a month – and is now more populous than both Vermont and Wyoming. The District has not had this mean residents since the 1970s;

· Public education enrollment is now at nearly 81,000 students and is growing at a rate not seen in 45 years as families return to the city and to public education; and

· Fiscal responsibility has been restored – the District now spends only what it takes in and the practice of raiding the District’s reserves to balance the budget has been eliminated. In addition, the city’s long-term fiscal health has again been protected by growing our critical rainy-day fund back to $1.5 billion.

I’ve attached a copy of my administration’s Report on Year Two and you can also read it online here.

The District’s increasing economic strength is strong evidence that our city has fully emerged from the country’s worst economic crisis in our lifetime more vibrant and stronger than before. It also means we have an opportunity to make several key strategic investments in affordable housing, our workforce, and public safety for which previously we did not have the necessary funds. I invite you to join me at my 2013 State of the District Address next Tuesday, February 5th at 7:00 PM at the Historic Sixth and I Synagogue where I will outline my plan to make these critical investments.

Oregon Avenue Reconstruction – Update and Next Steps

By Prince Of Petworth

From Council Member Bowser’s Office:

Councilmember Bowser announced that after over three years of work, and many delays, on January 24th, the Department of Transportation (DDOT) released its Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) report for the reconstruction of Oregon Avenue from Military Road to Western Avenue, NW. The report determines that Alternative (#3) submitted by DDOT will have no significant impact on the environment.

Residents along Oregon Avenue had expressed major concerns about the reconstruction and its impact on their neighborhood. Councilmember Bowser held a number of meetings with the community and DDOT to ensure the DDOT proposals would include options that incorporated their comments. Because of the strong recommendations from the residents along and near Oregon Avenue and the Councilmember, the final plan includes:

Sidewalks, which are required by law, will not necessarily be made with concrete, may have alternative materials such as asphalt or landscaping pavers

Where possible and working with the property owners, retaining walls will be eliminated and the slopes will be laid back and landscaped

There will be no designated bike lanes

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Results are in for the second question on Let’s Choose DC – Crime

By Prince Of Petworth

It’s a photo finish for the at-large DC Council candidates’ visions for how to address crime. The voting at Let’s Choose DC ended in a near-tie between Matt Frumin and John Settles, with Elissa Silverman a very close third.

DC voters rated the responses of nine candidates to this question:

Chief Lanier and Mayor Gray have made a lot of the drop in homicides, but other crimes—assaults, robberies—remain stubbornly high. How should DC police deal with those challenges, and do you have an opinion on how many officers MPD needs?

Let’s Choose DC is presented by PoPville, Greater Greater Washington, and DCist and is open to all DC residents. Nine candidates provided responses. Five are still eligible for the April 23 ballot, while four have either dropped out of the race or did not file petitions by the deadline yesterday.

Mr. Frumin, Mr. Settles, and Ms. Silverman all had over 60% of participating voters rate their responses as persuasive or very persuasive. Mr. Frumin and Mr. Settles were almost perfectly tied; 65.43% of voters gave Mr. Frumin’s response a positive rating, while 65.38% did so for Mr. Settles (62.63% did for Ms. Silverman).

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Dear PoPville – DC Homestead Deduction Question and Rant

By Prince Of Petworth


Photo by PoPville flickr user thisisbossi

Dear PoPville,

File this under DC Dysfunctional Government –

Since I’ve moved into my DC condo over 3 years ago (back in 2009), I’ve been trying to get the Homestead deduction. It’s pretty significant amounts to several hundred dollars a year.

The first few times I applied, my application was not accepted because there was a apparently a mistake in how my deed was recorded. It had to something to do with the square and lot numbers not matching up with the unit numbers. (i.e. the original unit numbers in my 4-unit building were 1,2,3,4 but they ended up changing it to B, 1,2,3 so there was a mix-up).

I called my title company, and they went about correcting it. Apparently, they re-recorded the deed back in summer 2010 or 2011, so that my square and lot numbers would correspond to the correct unit number in all the paperwork (deed, Condo Declaration, etc).

I re-applied for the deduction soon thereafter, and received no response. I’ve called a few times, and I had been told that it takes time for DC to make the change.

I called again recently to see what’s going on, and I had then found out that your ownership of your home shows up in two databses: The Recorder of Deeds and the Property Tax Assessment database. Apparently, the DC Recorder of Deeds made the appropriate change in their database when my title company re-recorded the deed back in 2010 or 2011, but the Assessment database is not necessarily updated.

Of course, this is a little ridiculous. I’ve been paying my property taxes, and the DC government has been happily accepting my payments. You would think that the DC government would change their database to reflect who’s actually paying the taxes and to reflect the actual owner per the Recorder of Deeds.

I’ve been trying to call and email the Supervisor and Auditor at the Office of Tax and Revenue, per instructions I’ve received from the DC Customer Service line. I have not gotten any responses to my phone calls or emails.

Has anyone else experienced the same issue? And how did they fix it?

Third Question Posted for DC At-Large Council Candidates – Education

By Prince Of Petworth

In light of the debates swirling around the District around education this week in particular, Let’s Choose DC (a partnership of PoPville, Greater Greater Washington and DCist) asked the at-large candidates about their vision for education:

DC’s education system has improved in recent years for many kids, but many schools remain inadequate to our children’s needs. If you could design a better school system for DC, what would it look like? Would we have more teacher evaluations or fewer? More charter schools, fewer, or different ones? More or fewer kids going to local schools? How else would your school system differ structurally from the one we have today?

Seven candidates responded: Diallo Brooks, Matthew Frumin, Patrick Mara, Perry Redd, Pedro Rubio, John Settles, and Elissa Silverman. Since last week, AJ Cooper has dropped out. Anita Bonds and Michael Brown did not respond for the third week in a row.

Check out the responses at Let’s Choose DC.

Dear PoPville – Broken non-working fire hydrant, down for over a week

By Prince Of Petworth

Dear PoPville,

Once again someone has run over and destroyed the mid-block fire hydrant in the 1800 block of Wyoming Avenue, NW. Once again no water gushed or even dribbled out, which means the hydrant was not working (for how long, one wonders) and would have been of no use at all had there been a fire in that block. It’s been that way for over a week now, though the City did pick up all the discarded Christmas trees piled next to, but not obscuring it.

The last time this happened, about 18 months ago, I posted a photo and note about it on PoP. Someone from the City posted a response saying I should have sent the information to the City’s 311 website rather than posting it.

So this time I did go to the City website and tried to submit the info. No luck.

I went the City’s website, then to the City “Services” home page, clicked on “Request Center Online.” Then clicked on the “Select Service” tab, the “Submit a New Service Request.” But then I had to select from a drop-down menu a “Service Type” before it would let me try to go forward. I can choose from list of a pretty thorough 87 subjects, ranging from “dead animal pickup” to “potholes” to “sign missing stop investigation” even “parking meter,” but nothing referring to “fire hydrant.”

If I choose the other option of “keyword search, under keyword
fire” and under “F,” I find three choices (all available on the original drop-down):

FEMS: Community Events
FEMS: Fire Safety Education
FEMS: Smoke Alarm Application

Keyword: “hydrant” produces no results.

But I cannot continue without choosing one of the 87 original choices. And that is after spending a good 10 minutes just trying.

So unless a dead fire hydrant qualifies for dead animal pickup, I’m back to PoP, now Popville. Is there a simpler way to report this problem? I just want it taken care of, but not with just a new fire hydrant, but with one that works. THANKS!

Results are in for the first question on Let’s Choose DC

By Prince Of Petworth

 

Click to see the full infographic of results.

The results are in for the first question on Let’s Choose DC, and with over 2,500 votes cast, DC voters rated Elissa Silverman tops for her vision for DC, followed by Matthew Frumin and Diallo Brooks.

Nine candidates provided answers to our question, while interim Councilmember Anita Bonds and former Councilmember Michael Brown did not participate. The question was:

The District has changed a lot since 1993, and will likely change much more by 2033. What are 2-3 changes you hope to see by 2033, and how will electing you to the DC Council help bring them about?

In addition to rating how persuasive you found each of the candidates’ answers, we asked you whether they seemed to answer the question or not. Silverman, Frumin, Brooks, John Settles, and Pedro Rubio all scored well here. Patrick Mara and Jon Gann got more “neutral” ratings, while Paul Zukerberg and AJ Cooper got lower marks.

Cooper also dropped out of the race yesterday and endorsed Silverman.

You can still vote on Question 2, where the candidates talk about their ideas for fighting crime. Voting on that question closes Monday, and we’ll post the results later next week. On Tuesday, we will have the candidates’ responses to question 3, about education.

 

“The District of Columbia now joins 37 other states that permit liquor stores to be open on Sundays”

By Prince Of Petworth

From an ABRA press release:

District of Columbia Mayor, Vincent C. Gray, signed yesterday the comprehensive “Omnibus Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Emergency Amendment Act” (Bill), which is now in effect on an emergency basis. The Bill was authored by Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham based on the recommendations of an ABC Working Group, which was formed in December 2011. The Council adopted the Bill on December 18, 2012.

Of significance, the Bill allows Sunday alcoholic beverage sales by liquor stores. The District of Columbia now joins 37 other states that permit liquor stores to be open on Sundays. Liquor stores are currently permitted to remain open on Sundays in Virginia and Montgomery County, Maryland. ABRA Director Fred Moosally stated, “ABRA will begin accepting applications from liquor stores to sell and deliver alcoholic beverages on Sundays starting on Wednesday, January 16, 2013.”

Growlers, which are reusable containers holding up to 64 fluid ounces of beer, may now be sold for off-premise consumption at brew pubs, liquor stores, and full service grocery stores. The sale of growlers of beer for off-premise consumption was previously limited to the District’s three licensed breweries.

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