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A friend of mine had a recent tragedy and I had to light out of town quickly. This was shortly after the snow we had and I didn’t have time to shovel my walk. I started feeling bad because I know I have been angry when I am forced to walk through unshoveled paths. So my flight was very early in the morning and I figured I’d have to shovel at night when the snow was frozen. But to my surprise and delight when I came home that evening my walkway was already shoveled. And not just the sidewalk but the path all the way up to my house. How beautiful is that? This is a perfect little example of the type of community we have in Petworth. People look out for one another. I have neighbors who watch my house just as I watch other people’s houses. And from what I’ve heard this is very common in Petworth. So I’d like to thank my neighbor for shoveling the walk. It meant so much to me given the situation I was in. Good neighbors and a good community is a beautiful thing.

Now, I don’t like to judge but I was going to the metro the other day when an unmistakable smell hit me in the face. It was the smell of a Grateful Dead concert, or a Phish show, and instantly associated with Bob Marley. The fact is some kids love getting high outside the Petworth metro station. Now, I wouldn’t write about it if I haven’t witnessed it on more than one occasion. I like to think that I am not too naive. Now, if it was Friday night or Saturday night I wouldn’t think twice about it but when it is Tuesday morning at 8 am and sub freezing weather, it makes me think our youth may have a problem. And they most certainly were young kids. I hope the candidates for Ward 4 address this issue. Am I just totally out of it or is this normal behavior for high school or maybe even junior high kids?

Wait, don’t answer that. I will be incommunicado for the next couple of days. Stay tuned for the next “Portrait of Petworthian” coming on Monday. And have a safe and festive President’s day.

When it snowed like one inch. If memory serves I believe every street including the little side streets had a good one inch of salt deployed by trucks. And I remember this distinctly because there was so much salt that when all the snow melted there was still a good half inch of salt layering the streets, and you could taste it every time the wind picked up. Anyway except for the big roads we don’t seem to be as lucky this time. Maybe they were a bit over ambitious a couple of weeks ago and used up the salt stockpile? I don’t know. As they say in Burma “It just don’t make no sense.”

But I thought for sure I was hallucinating on the metro this afternoon. So check it out, on the red line metro between Metro Center and Gallery Place the most bizarre thing happened. I was staring out the window to take in the views, all right there are no views, I was staring at the window to see if I was balding, anyway, that is not important…what is important is that as I was staring out the window, I saw a freaking television commercial. It was the weirdest thing. I know we’ve all seen some of the trains with advertisements but this was an actual video commerical of a television program. It was something like “Day Break” staring Taye Diggs. But that’s not important, what is important is that the masters of metro or at the very least their IT guys have figured out how to broadcast commercials in metro tunnels! Obviously there is no sound but the images pass you by as you look out the window. I really thought I was losing my mind. Has anyone else seen this? I wonder how much they got paid for it. Well, if it keeps our fares low, I’m all for it. Of course, it is possible that I had way too much fun in college…

Deal! Or so it seems. It always interesting to look at the home sales posted on Petworth News. The prices seem quite strong except for one instance of a house on Jefferson Street that appears to have sold for less than half the asking price. I guess they must have really wanted to sell.

Today’s Washington Express had one of those small snippets located at the top of the page in the print edition:

“Experts are examining diaries thought to have belonged to World War II era Italian leader
Benito Mussolini. However, a British historian familiar with the writings said they contained
‘nothing seriously new that the world needed to know’.”

A possible entry can be found below.

May 22, 1943

Dear Diary,

Gosh, Adolf can be such a jerk!!!! He keeps hounding me. Why can’t I beat the Americans? He keeps pushing and pushing me. He can be so mean. I told him I was trying as hard as I could. But no, that just isn’t good enough for him. I don’t know what he wants from me. I’m trying so hard. I tried growing a moustache like him but he just called me fat. And I’ve been dieting for three weeks. I can’t do anything right. Well I’m going to show him, at least my fellow Italians still respect me…

Love,
Benito

Yeah that’s right. No longer do you have to go to a quaint town in New England or some of the “posher” neighborhoods of DC. Now one resident in Petworth is advertising a Bed & Breakfast on Craig’s List. Only $65 a night. What’s next a wine and cheese shoppe?

One thing we should be happy about the special election for Ward 4 city council is that we don’t lack for candidates. It is my pleasure to continue the series with an exclusive interview with Ms. Lisa Bass. We sat down this afternoon at the well known Domku cafe.

Background

Ms. Bass is a native Washingtonian who has lived in Ward 4 for 16 years. She grew up around the corner from Domku and fondly recalled a great burrito shop she used to go to as a child. She attended Powell elementary school, Macfarlane junior high school, and Notre Dame academy in the district before graduating from Northwestern University. After graduating from Northwestern she worked for a few years at a public relations firm where a whole new world of “civil rights culture and black intelligencia” was opened up to her. After this experience she transitioned to radio journalism eventually becoming news director. Currently she runs her own public relations consultancy firm.

Politically, Ms. Bass consulted on the Marie Johns for Mayor campaign as a communications director. She consulted for Vincent Gray’s successful campaign for Chariman of DC City Council. Her experience working for Gray’s campaign inspired her to run for city council on her own. She explained that she had worked for many unsuccessful candidates and gives much credit to Mr. Gray because his was her first winning campaign. She explained “I knew how to lose, Vincent showed me how to win.”

Ward 4 Vision

Ms. Bass explained the four components of her vision for Ward 4. We discussed her cleaner and safer streets agenda. “What I mean is that it takes a much more holistic approach,” she continued “For me cleaner streets requires looking at social, economic and cultural forces in all of our communities.” She explained that certain communities in Ward 4 need to accomadate the needs of ex offenders coming back into the community. Further explaining the holistic approach she told me that the approach requires greater communication among the community, civic associations, the governement and the police department. She suggests that we build up the communities “block by block.” This method would join the strengths of the older residents with the passion of the newer residents to unite as one force. She believes that “we truly need to unify, that is the way to build a community.”

Crime continued

“Neighbors tend to know where the criminal activity is”, said Ms. Bass. The police need to work in tandem with social services to establish services for young people in order to give them productive activities to focus on instead of stealing. She supports the ideas of recreation centers to be placed throughout the communities so that the young people will have safe diversions to occupy their time. Furthermore, she explained that it is essential to target the needs of the ex offenders so that they will not revert to their criminal ways. Finally for the 22-32 year old generation she advocates the establishment of a community summit to look at the drug trade and consider ways to curb it. This summit would bring together social scientists, judges and other criminal justice practitioners to get at the root causes of the “dilemma”.

Schools

The problem with our public schools did not develop overnight and will take some time to correct them, according to Ms. Bass. She believes that some level of takeover is needed at this juncture. However, she does believe that the school board should remain the body that interfaces with parents and that the school board should be held accountable with the executive on resolving these issues. She believes that we have a real opportunity now to fix many of these problems because of the resources that now exist in the District. Finally, she believes that a project management approach should be taken so that the issues can be properly analyzed to determine where the weaknesses exist.

Georgia Avenue Development

Ms. Bass believes that local government has a role to play in this development. We should make sure that the developers address the needs of the community. If you are coming into the community then you need to be part of it and some developers do that but the government can ensure that it always happens, she explained.

When pressed what she personally would like to see she replied “I wish that we had more places like Domku across Georgia Avenue.”

Old Soldiers Home Development

We need to preserve green spaces, she said. The need to be very careful about the development in that respect was very important to Ms. Bass. She explained that green spaces give Washington its character and that we need to take a careful look at any changes to ensure that green space is preserved.

Proposed homles shelter move to Georgia Avenue

“I think that homeless shelters should not be concentrated in any one community,” said Ms. Bass. She returned to the holistic approach idea for this case. For example, she said that many homeless people have mental health issues and therefore it would make sense to have the shelters in close proximity to those facilities for it to make sense holistically. She believes this issue would need to be carefully analzyed before making a final recommendation.

For fun

Last great book read: “The Support Economy” by Shoshana Zuboff.

Last great movie seen: “It has been a while…something about an airplane and Jody Foster…”

Favorite music: “I like Jazz and R & B. My taste is pretty eclectic because my father was a musician, but music is one of my favorite things.”

In Sum

Ms. Bass was a very thoughtful candidate. She carefully thought out all of her responses before replying to my questions. I believe she would be an equally thoughtful councilwoman. She consistently advocated analysis before offering a solution to many questions. I liked the fact that she didn’t offer any “silver bullet” solutions but I’m also concerned that her knowledge of certain issues was not extensive. Just my personal feeling.

If you would like to learn more you can visit her Website at www.lisabassforward4.com