DC Government

Dear PoPville – Council Proposing Restrictions on Pesticides

By Prince Of Petworth


Photo by PoPville flickr user DC@rt

Dear PoPville,

I work in agricultural policy and this was forwarded to me today. The DC Council is proposing some serious restrictions on pesticides that could really limit their use for the treatment of roaches, bed bugs, and other urban pests.

“DC City Council member Mary Cheh (D), chair of the Committee on Environment, Public Works and Transportation, introduced the “Pesticide Education and Control Amendment of 2012.” This measure would require the District Department of Environment to classify all US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) registered pesticides as either “minimum risk” or “restricted use” pesticides. Under this measure, any conventional pesticide may be classified as a restricted use pesticide, even if such a designation is not given by the U.S. EPA. The bill would forbid any pesticide designated as restricted use from being applied to public property, schools, child-occupied facilities or water-way contingent property. In addition, the legislation contains a definition of integrated pest management that would only allow the use of pesticides only as a last resort. Passage of this ordinance would affect the availability and use of pesticides in the District of Columbia. This legislation could limit the pesticides that could be used in the district to control rodents, bed bugs, cockroaches and other pests often found in DC apartment buildings.”

PoP-Ed: Food Truck Regulations by Kristi Whitfield of Curbside Cupcakes

By Prince Of Petworth

Ed. Note: If you have a PoP-Ed you’d like published, send an email to princeofpetworth(at)gmail with a quick note about the topic you’d like to write about.

Mayor Gray: No Time for Delays. Send New Food Truck Regs to City Council!

By Kristi Whitfield
Co-Owner, Curbside Cupcakes

Curbside Cupcakes is Washington DC’s first mobile cupcake truck. When my husband and I maxed out our credit cards and refinanced our house to open Curbside Cupcakes in 2009, there were only a few food trucks serving the District. Since then our numbers have grown substantially because consumers appreciate and support the influx of new and innovative dining options that many food trucks offer. In light of our popular and growing industry of small business owner/operators, Mayor Vincent Gray has proposed new vending regulations that, while not perfect, are a major upgrade from what’s on the books now. If special interest groups succeed in pressuring the Mayor to send these regulations “back to the drawing board”, then fellow “truckers” like Curbside Cupcakes are in danger of not only losing our businesses but our houses and every nickel and dime we scraped together to make our dreams a reality. And all this over what? Competition. Our detractors say that food trucks are “stealing away” customers from storefronts. This attitude reflects a shocking sense of entitlement. Businesses don’t own customers. Businesses earn customers.

In 2010 the District of Columbia Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA) collected over 2,500 comments on a previous version of proposed regulations. Food truck opponents were more honest then about their concerns, which boiled down to not wanting to compete with food trucks; given the expenses that storefronts incur for brick and mortar shops they figure why should they have to compete with “outsiders” for customers. This position turned out to be very unpopular, so this time around opponents of the legislation say they have “concerns” about crowded sidewalks, limited parking and increased trash.

In our battle for survival, the food trucks are the little guy. Many food truck owners would have liked to start as storefronts, but most of us don’t have the personal or corporate wealth that would allow us access to hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest in restaurant real estate. Lack of wealth should not limit my husband and me from spreading Cupcake Bliss to all areas of the District.

Continues after the jump. (more…)

Swampy Georgia Ave – This Can’t Be Good, Right?

By Prince Of Petworth

I think someone may have brought this up once in a rant/revel post but I finally saw what they were talking about. This is on Georgia Ave just south of Taylor. I imagine this is gonna breed millions of mosquitos. If this is indeed a flaw – anyone know which DC government agency should fix it?

DC Food Trucks Association Says “Sales Tax Act Jeopardizes Food Trucks”

By Prince Of Petworth


Photo by PoPville flickr user Mr. T in DC

From a DC Food Trucks Association press release:

Under current regulations, a proposal for mobile vendors to collect sales tax opens the door for double taxing food trucks and could even make individual employees responsible for the business’s taxes.

“If the Sales Tax Act passed today it would create a scenario on par with requiring each server in a restaurant to collect and submit sales tax for the entire business,” said Che Ruddell-Tabisola, Executive Director of the Washington, DC Food Trucks Association.

“The Sales Tax Act shines a spotlight on how badly we need Mayor Vincent Gray’s proposed new food truck regulations, which update decades-old vending rules and make it possible for food trucks to collect sales tax,” Ruddell-Tabisola said.

Under current food truck regulations, a vending license holder, typically the owner, must be present on the truck for it to operate. For the food truck to operate without the owner, he or she must obtain additional vending licenses for employees. As a result, a single food truck has multiple licenses holders, each of which pays fees as if it were the business owner.

The Sales Tax Act would make each license holder responsible for the business’ sales tax and could possibly require each employee to pay the business’ full amount of tax collected, resulting in a food truck paying double, triple or even more the amount of tax actually collected and threatening the ability of the food truck to remain in business. Moreover, it would unfairly subject individual employees to personal liability for the business’s tax obligations.

Mayor Gray’s proposed new food truck rules would update regulations to require just one vending license per food truck and make it possible for food trucks to collect tax as intended by the Sales Tax Act.

“We don’t believe the Sales Tax Act’s intent is to threaten the viability of food trucks, but obviously it cannot be passed with the current food truck regulations still in place,” Ruddell-Tabisola said. “It only makes sense for the tax act to be adopted in tandem with passage of the Mayor’s proposed new food truck rules.

“The Sales Tax Act is a step in having food trucks treated like real businesses,” Ruddell-Tabisola added. “Our members welcome the recognition that we are real businesses and look forward to serving as a means to provide additional revenue to the District. It’s what we’ve always said – food trucks are good for the District.”

Library Releases Final Report on MLK Building Study

By Prince Of Petworth


Photo courtesy of DC Library

From a press release:

The Urban Land Institute (ULI) released its final report today after conducting a week-long review of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library building last November. Based on the results of the ULI report, the DC Public Library will begin an in-depth analysis next month to determine the feasibility and cost of implementing the scenarios.

“The analysis is the next step in a long process that will help us figure out how to make the District’s central library a spectacular place for residents,” said Ginnie Cooper, chief librarian of the District of Columbia.

The ULI report outlined three scenarios for consideration without necessarily recommending one over the other. All scenarios will require significant investment by District government for major improvements to the building, according to the report.

Keep the existing building as a library and lease excess space in the building to another commercial, nonprofit or municipal entity.
Maintain the existing building for complete use by the library.
Sell the building and identify another downtown location for the central library.

The Library will work with nationally recognized architectural firm and architect-of-record for the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, The Freelon Group, to examine how the MLK Library can be reconfigured for co-tenancy, complete an analysis of how two more floors can be added to the building, and identify, prioritize and provide cost estimates for needed major improvements. The work will follow the historic design guidelines developed by EHT Traceries.

Additionally, the Library will work with the D.C. Office of Planning to explore whether there are viable alternate locations downtown that can accommodate a 225,000 square foot central library. And finally, nationally recognized library experts will be consulted to test the assumption that 225,000 square feet is sufficient space to house a state-of-the-art, cutting edge central library. The analysis is expected to be complete by the fall. The results of the analysis will be used to continue the conversation on the future of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library with residents, city leaders and other stakeholders.

Continues after the jump. (more…)

Explanation about 911 Service Interruption Saturday Afternoon

By Prince Of Petworth


Photo by PoPville flickr user Mr. T in DC

From a message sent to the neighborhood listservs:

911 Service Interruption

This afternoon at 1:53 p.m. 911 service was interrupted. Service was restored at 2:16 p.m. It appears there was a PEPCO feeder problem that resulted in multiple electrical surges that knocked out power to the Unified Communications Center (UCC) on Martin Luther King Ave., SE., and the surrounding area. The multiple electric surges in a concentrated time period also affected UCC’s ability to switch to its on site backup generator. Staff from UCC were dispatched to the off site emergency operations center where 911 services were restored. From 1:53 to 2:16 UCC implemented it’s emergency protocols and switched to receiving and dispatching emergency calls from the Metropolitan Police Department Command Information Center (CIC). During this time period we were able to communicate with Police and Fire units to respond to emergencies.

UCC staff members will remain at the emergency operations center where they have full access to the 911 and 311 systems until we are confident that all power issues have been resolved. We apologize for the disruption in service to this critical emergency service. We will continue working with PEPCO to ensure uninterrupted service to our residents and visitors.

Residential Street Sweeping Season Starts March 1st

By Prince Of Petworth


Photo by PoPville flickr user bajidc

From DDOT:

The 2012 residential street sweeping season begins Thursday, March 1, announced the DC Department of Public Works today. Signs are posted that identify the days of the week and hours of the day when parking restrictions will be in effect so the sweepers can clean the streets effectively. Parking enforcement of residential sweeping violations will begin Monday, March 12.

Mr. Howland noted that the sweeping program runs from March 1 through October 31 and some signs have been changed since last year’s sweeping season. “This year, we are revising signs in residential neighborhoods with commercial interests to support their customers’ access to curbside parking spaces during the day. For example, DPW posted new times in the 1400 block of P Street, NW where Whole Foods and several restaurants form a commercial island within a residential neighborhood.”

He cautioned motorists to avoid parking along sweeping routes before that day’s restriction ends. “A supervisor follows behind the sweeper and may require the block to be swept again, so no one should park until the end of the posted sweeping period,” he said.

For more information about street sweeping, go to http://1.usa.gov/DPWstreetalley.


Photo by PoPville flickr user djdc in petworth

MPD Chief Cathy Lanier, “There’s no trick to DC’s homicide closure rate”

By Prince Of Petworth


Chief Cathy Lanier

Chief Lanier sent out via the listservs:

On Feb. 19, The Washington Post published a front-page article headlined “The trick to D.C.’s homicide closure rate,” suggesting that the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) was somehow tricking the public by announcing that it had a 94 percent homicide closure rate. To support its slanted claims, the article used misleading and inflammatory quotes from ill-informed sources. Furthermore, the writer left out information supplied by my department that would have invalidated the assertions contained in the story.

As chief of police, it is my duty to respond, to explain the truth and to defend the tireless work of the members of the MPD.

My Editorial in response to the article can be found at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/theres-no-trick-to-dcs-homicide-closure-rate/2012/02/24/gIQAgtFYYR_story.html

She writes:

“The fact is, last year the District realized the lowest number of homicides and highest clearance rate in almost 50 years.

Oh, and by the way, in 2011 we closed 103 homicides, for a UCR closure rate of 95 percent. Regardless of how The Post would like us to record the rate, this is still approximately 40 percent over the national average for comparably sized cities.”

Dear PoPville – Stolen Car Gathers Parking Tickets

By Prince Of Petworth


Photo by PoPville flickr user Wayan Vota

Dear PoPville,

My car was stolen during the Super Bowl this past Sunday. I immediately contacted the police to notify them that it was stolen. The police performed a canvass of the area where it was stolen and checked their database to make sure that it wasn’t towed away. The police told me that the car would be entered into a national database of stolen vehicles and that I would be notified as soon as they knew anything. The police also informed me that they didn’t have any leads and there wasn’t much hope for the Creedence. I contacted my insurance company shortly thereafter and they informed me that the car was entered into the database as well and that 90% of the time stolen cars are recovered. .

I received a call Thursday night notifying me that my car had been located. I went to assess the damage at the lot it was towed to today (Friday) and to my surprise there were parking tickets from Tuesday and Thursday on my windshield citing the location where the police found my car.

If my car was ticketed Tuesday morning why did it take until Thursday night to get in contact with me?

I asked the guy at the tow lot about the tickets and he told me that pretty much every single stolen car he gets comes in with multiple tickets on it. Why isn’t the system parking enforcement inputs their ticket info into synced up with the stolen vehicle database? That’s ridiculous.

I only had to wait a couple of days and I applaud the police department for finding my vehicle but some people have to wait even longer and gather even more tickets when their vehicle is stolen. I came across a story from August 11, 2011 in which the same thing occurred and the car racked up $300 worth of parking tickets. According to the story my tickets will be expunged if I provide proper documentation but that requires me to go get a police report and then to have to go dispute the claim in person. If the police and parking enforcement were synced up properly I would have never received a ticket and my car would have been located earlier.

In short, this seems like an easy fix. However, if the police and parking enforcement don’t fix this problem then I suggest that victims of car theft in DC go online to see if their car has any outstanding tickets while it is missing if they want to find their car faster.

The 5pm Post – One City Summit Feb. 11th

By Prince Of Petworth


Photo by PoPville flickr user philliefan99

From an email:

On February 11, 2012, hundreds of DC residents will gather at the Convention Center to provide Mayor Gray and other public officials with feedback on what can be done to help unify our city and make sure that our government works as effectively as possible to meet the needs of all the residents.

Topics to be discussed will include jobs, housing, public safety, and education. The Summit will be a highly interactive meeting where citizens do most of the talking and the elected officials will listen. Everyone who attends will participate in table discussions, recording their ideas on networked computers and voting on priorities through the use of keypad polling. Those who have lived in DC a while might recall similar citizen summits held by Mayor Williams.
It is essential that the views of all parts of the city be represented at the One City Summit so please spread the word and sign up today at www.onecitysummit.dc.gov or call 202 709-5132 for more information. Get involved and have your voice be heard!

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