The Georgetown Metropolitan

Georgetowners, particularly on the west side, have some work left to do in order to satisfy their legal obligation to respond to the decennial census.

Data released by the Census Bureau states that 51% of east Georgetowners have responded to the survey so far. That lags behind the citywide response rate of 56%, which itself lags behind the national rate of 60%. Ten years ago east Georgetowners self responded at a rate of 72% when it was all said and done. (The other 18% were manually counted door-to-door, which is expensive and time consuming! And this year it’s dangerous to boot! And that’s all the more reason you should go online and submit your response.)

West Georgetowners are doing even worse. Only 51% have responded so far. In 2010, they self responded ultimately at a rate of 70%.

We can do better people! We have done better, in fact. Let’s top those 2010 response rate this year!

Photo by John Weiss.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Georgetown Cupcake makes the news for the stupidest goddam reason. (They don’t actually even let you line up right now! You can, however, order them by mail! Like voting!)\
• Brooke Pinto conducted a ham-handed push poll and still lost to Patrick Kennedy in it.

1500 block of 35th St.

Have you always wanted to live next to an obscure neighborhood blogger? Of course not! But here’s your chance anyway: GM’s neighbor’s house is for sale.

The house is the red one above. (GM’s is the blindingly blue house next door.) It’s a lovely little two bedroom rowhouse with a pleasant garden:

Continue reading →

Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• GU student files class action against school for return of tuition due to COVID-19.
• Jack Evans fined $35,000 for more ethics violations.

Dumbarton Oaks

Photo by Jacquesofalltrades.

GM has been encouraging you to vote by mail. But with the election just next week, you have to request your ballot no later than today. If you can’t get your request out today, you can always just vote in person. In fact you can do that right now if you’d like. Early in-person voting has already started and if you want to avoid your ballot getting lost in the mail, this is the best approach.

For Georgetowners, the easiest polling location is Hardy Middle School, across from the Safeway. It is open for early voting every day this week from 7 am to 8 pm. Obviously you will be expected to follow social distancing guidelines to vote, but with adequate precautions, it should be a safe experience.

Remember, the election next Tuesday is for part primaries. For the contested Ward 2 councilmember seat, the Democratic primary is tantamount to the general election. If you want to have a voice in who will represent you next January, you’ve basically got to vote in this election. You can do same-day registration in DC but sadly you cannot do same-day party switching. If you’re not a registered Democrat by now, you’re out of luck for this vote.

There will be yet another election two weeks after this vote. This will be the special election to fill the Ward 2 seat until next January. Each Democratic candidate, minus Jack Evans and Daniel Hernandez, will be on that ballot, as well as Republican Katherine Venice.

GM thinks you should vote in both elections for Patrick Kennedy, but most of all he wants you to vote period. So go vote (safely)!

Photo by Bill Starrels.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Nice run-down on the Ward Two election.
• Madeleine Albright’s Georgetown.

Georgetown University

DC is missing the boat. Big time. During a time when COVID-19 demands social distancing, and cities around the world are rapidly shutting down streets to automobile traffic to provide space to distance, DC is doing next to nothing. It must finally break with its pro-car bias and act now to take back the streetspace from cars and give it back to people.

Look at the other cities that are doing just that. New York is opening up 40 miles of streets to pedestrians and cyclists. Oakland’s opening 74 miles. Barcelona is opening 44 streets. Bogota, Colombia opened 47 miles of new bike lanes. Hell, even Baltimore is getting into the game ahead of DC.

All that DC is done is to take the weekend Beach Drive closures and made them full time. That’s it. This closure is fine, as far as things go, but it’s chopped up and is not remotely targeted at crowded streets that could use the space.

Take a trip downtown in the middle of the day sometime. It is still a ghost town. We don’t need to maintain the same street capacity we supposedly needed before the crisis. Where we can’t shut down a street to car traffic entirely, we need to reclaim several lanes for pedestrian and bike use only. Continue reading →