Monthly Archives: February 2010

Passions ran high last night at the February ANC meeting as the commission addressed the deal between the city and the Maret School concerning the Jelleff fields. Constituencies from across the board were represented by speakers throughout the entire two hours spent talking about it. Huge kudos go to Chairman Ron Lewis for managing the contentious and difficult discussion. While it was the most dramatic ANC meeting GM has ever attended, the tenor of the discussions was civil and (for the most part) orderly.

Here’s an audio recording of the Jelleff discussion:

The Case for the Deal

The discussion started off with a brief statement from acting Director of Parks and Recreation, Jesús Aguirre. Aguirre began describing how great it was that the city purchased the land from the Boys and Girls club. He then casually transitioned into a discussion of the deal with Maret. But cutting to the chase: Aguirre has only been acting Director for two months. He had little to do with this process and, frankly, added little to the proceedings last night other than to acknowledge that the process was not ideal.

The responsibility to defend the deal fell primarily to Maret School Head Marjo Talbott. Talbott rested her defense on three main points: Continue reading →