ANC Preview: Co-op Edition

Next week, the ANC will meet for its May session. Here are some interesting items on the agenda:

Volta Park Co-op

The DC Department of Parks and Recreation runs a popular cooperative play program at Volta Park during the school year for 2 1/2 – 5 year old children. It’s based in the recreation center next to the pool.

The program has become so popular that some have asked DPR to create a second class for even younger children (some other co-ops in the city start at 18 months). An informal request for interest from Georgetown parents resulted in dozens of positive responses. However, DPR’s initial response was not terribly encouraging, so the ANC is putting its great weight behind things to get the ball rolling.

Marathons

What is starting to become a monthly event, another set of marathons is before the ANC asking to shut down a couple streets for their respective races. Last year the ANC started to put its put down and trying to come up with some reason to limit the number of races through Georgetown, established that any such race ought to have a significant charitable aspect. This isn’t a problem for events like the Marine Corp Marathon (which is scheduled to present its case again this month) but there are other events like the Nations Triathlon which is at heart a commercial endeavor. So these events hire hard-nosed PR people who play up the charitable aspects of the race and refuse to discuss the enterprises finances. It’s all a bit tiresome, and it’s coming around for another go next week. The race isn’t until September so GM expects it will not satisfy the ANC on the first go and will be back in June, if not July.

Gant

In the space formerly occupied by the recently shuttered Saloun, the Connecticut-founded Gant shirt company is setting up shop. GM has a special place in his heart for Gant since his father used to wear their shirts and GM used the left over shirt boxes to store such treasures as his He-Man and Man-at-Arms action figures.

Gant was the Vinyard Vines of the original preppy generation. So it’s somewhat fitting that it’s placing a stake down among its latter-day followers.