ANC Report: Safeway Hassles

The ANC met for its October session Monday night (recording here). As GM previewed last week, there were plenty of community updates. Here are the highlights:

Crime:

Two law enforcement representatives spoke to the commission this week. The first was Lt. Murzig from MPD. His job was somewhat easy this month as he was able to report that crime was low throughout Georgetown over the past month. For instance there were only 3 reported thefts from auto, which is quite low for Georgetown. There were 5 burglaries, all of which were from retail stores over the nighttime. He also suggested that anyone who captures a crime on their security cameras (such as someone jumping you garden fence) should send it along to MPD. While they will probably not open an investigation into it, they can document it and possibly use it in the future with other investigations.

Later Cpt. Jon Hofflinger from United States Park Police spoke. With all the national parks around Georgetown (including the waterfront park and Rock Creek) the USPP is the primary law enforcement agency for these areas. He didn’t have any particular reports to offer, but wanted a chance to explain USPP’s role and how they may end up handling crimes occurring in the neighborhood. Peggy Sands from the Georgetowner asked whether the migrant situation has manifested in tent encampments in parkland in Georgetown. Hofflinger answered no, suggesting that that issue primarily centers in the downtown parks.

Emails:

DC council’s email addresses have changed! The end of the emails are no longer @dccouncil.us. If you want to email the council, the address now ends @dccouncil.gov. Keep that in mind!

Parking:

A representative from Councilmember Pinto’s office spoke. Notably she discussed how the councilmember has backed a bill that would shrink parking zones from the ward to the ANC. This is an issue GM has discussed a bunch in the past. In short, under the proposal you would get exempted from the two hour parking limit only in your ANC (i.e. Georgetown). What that would mean is that Georgetown residents couldn’t park unlimited in, say, Shaw or Dupont anymore. But it also would mean that Shaw and Dupont residents can’t park unlimited in Georgetown anymore. Seeing as the point of residential parking permits are to let you park near your home, this would seem to make sense. But people who use their parking permits to park in other people’s neighborhoods have strong feelings about that! Chair Rick Murphy suggested that Pinto was potentially poking a bear with this proposal. And later, former ANC commissioner Ed Solomon called in to complain that changing parking rules is pointless without enforcement, which can seem lacking in Georgetown. GM has heard these proposals discussed for many years, and suggests that status quo bias is extremely strong.

Safeway:

If you’ve used the Safeway over the last couple months you’ve surely been very frustrated by not being able to find what you’re looking for. That’s because the store is undergoing a significant renovation, which is hard to do while staying open. Phase one involved installing all new shelves. That phase is apparently done. But the next phase involves moving around some of the sections, including moving the wine and beer section over to where the natural foods used to be. Dairy and frozen will be moved to take over the old beer and wine section. Moreover the butcher shop will be expanded and the cafe will be renovated.

So, in short, it’s been frustrating not knowing where things are and unfortunately things won’t go back to where they were before. But the sooner the changes are done, the sooner we can relearn where everything is. The changes should be done early next year.

Art All Night:

It was a huge success! Over 8,000 people came, well over double the amount that attended last year’s event. This will likely be an annual event going forward. Speaking of events, Georgetown Main Street is hosting a Fall Festival October 15 and 16th. (It will be essentially the French Market, but in the fall.)

Pickleball:

If you thought parking was contentious, ask tennis players about pickleball! Well, Commissioner Miller wants to poke that bear. She proposed a resolution to request the city to explore installing pickleball courts in tennis and basketball courts and gyms. She also revealed that pickleball players are literally called “picklers” and a large pickleball center can be called a “pickleplex”.

But in all seriousness, the sport is hugely popular and there are few places to do it around here, at least officially. Surely there will be conflicts between tennis players and pickleball players (sorry, “picklers”) for court time, but there are conflicts between tennis players and other tennis players for the same court time. Some new lines on the courts won’t really change that much (and adding court lines to basketball courts could “make the pie bigger” as they say).