ANC Round-Up: Summer’s Here Edition

Last night the ANC met for its June session. It retreaded on some familiar ground,  but there was enough new stuff to keep it from “Groundhog Day” territory.

Crime:

Sgt. Hedgecock gave his ordinary presentation on the state of MPD activity in Georgetown. It contained the normal reminders to keep your eyes open and to make sure not to keep your doors unlocked. But then he reported on a rather alarming crime. Apparently on May 22nd, a woman was picked up by a cab from the corner of Prospect and Wisconsin. But the cab driver drove the cab to somewhere other than where the woman wanted, and then proceeded to sexually assault her. This may be related to an earlier assault that originated in Dupont. Police have a lookout for a 30-40 year old middle eastern man driver a dark colored taxicab, not that that’s particularly helpful, but you ought to keep your eyes out for suspicious acting taxicab drivers.

O & P Streets:

The ANC gave a quick update on the O & P Streets construction. Apparently Washington Gas has had to extend its construction footprint due to the nature of their conversion to a high-pressure system. Also worth noting is that the project has its own PR firm and a website. So you don’t need to come to interminable community meetings to keep up to date. Finally, if you live along the construction and want the water pipe replaced between your house and the street, you need to reach out now.

Capital Bikeshare:

Chris Holben, DDOT’s CaBi director, spoke before the ANC about the two new proposed Georgetown stations: on P north of Rose Park and in the Long and Foster parking lot. The ANC is opposed to the north Rose Park location (they prefer the south end of Rose Park along M St.) and don’t necessarily oppose the Long & Foster location, but would prefer a station at Hyde-Addison. Holben said he’d take another look at those two locations, but made no promises.

Better news: Holben announced that on top of the 25 more stations that DC is adding soon, Tommy Wells has added $2 million to the budget for station expansion, which will result in 40 addition stations beyond the 25. This will mean a total of over 160 stations in the District (plus dozens more in Virginia). So even if Georgetown isn’t 100% happy with this next expansion, there will be more bites at the apple.

Again With the Triathlons:

So the ANC once again considered an application from Charles Brodsky’s triathlon company. As you may remember, the ANC raked his company over the coals several times since last fall in an attempt to evaluate the charitable nature of the events. The idea is to hold for-profit events to a higher degree of review than charitable ones. Well since last fall when the ANC first went down this path, Brodsky has had some bad months. Mayor Gray said he wouldn’t be renominated to the ABC Board, he was pressed to resign, he came under an ethics investigation, he finally resigned (last Friday), and he was arrested for impersonating a cop (last Saturday). So it was to the ANC’s credit that they didn’t bring up this distraction at all when evaluating the Nations Triathlon, scheduled for September 11th.

But they did hit hard on the charitable aspect again. And it was finally made clear that the triathlon organizers don’t actually commit any of the racers’ fees to charity. The charity comes when the racers independently seek sponsors, which is organized by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. So the event is charitable in effect, if not necessarily in design. Like the DC Triathlon, which the ANC ultimately decided to back, the Nations Triathlon was in the opinion of the ANC charitable enough to balance off the relatively small traffic effect the event would have. So the ANC approved this one too.

Small Bites:

• The ANC rejected a request for a special exception to allow an accessory dwelling unit in a house across from the Duke Ellington School. This will become a bigger issue in the coming months as the Office of Planning considers a zoning rewrite to facilitate more dwellings like this. The ANC rejected the request partially in recognition of the flux in this area.
• Dumbarton Oaks bought the building at the northwest corner of R and Wisconsin. They plan to turn it into a 25 unit residence for their visiting fellows.
• Kids Gap/Baby Gap are closing to merge into the normal Gap Store across the street.