The Georgetown Metropolitan

Ward 2 needs new leadership, and the candidate best positioned and qualified to provide it is Patrick Kennedy.

Kennedy can unite the ward around a powerful and inclusive agenda of ethics reform, crucial housing growth, stronger schools, and better transportation options. He has served as a successful commissioner on the Foggy Bottom ANC since 2012, and has been selected chair of the commission five times, including this year. He has won plaudits and endorsements from commissioners across the ward. This includes three of the four Georgetown commissioners who have made endorsements. And earlier today, Phil Mendelson, Chair of the the DC Council–a person with whom the next Ward 2 councilmember absolutely must have a good relationship–endorsed Patrick.

Patrick has wide support, ranging from the business community to progressive organizations like Greater Greater Washington and the Sierra Club. This reflects Patrick’s success in building bridges between multiple parties to leverage the limited power of an ANC to achieve meaningful success, such as saving Francis-Stevens school from closure and brokering an agreement for a new and vital helipad at GW Hospital.

And if you hear Patrick speak, you are immediately impressed with the depth of knowledge he brings to the task of governing. He would immediately enter the job with a strong background in just about every topic a councilmember will encounter. And his track record demonstrates how quickly he’d get up to speed with those issues he isn’t already well versed in.

But, let’s face it, the primary concern GM has heard from his neighbors about this election is who can beat Jack Evans? And on that front, the answer is clear: Patrick Kennedy is best positioned to defeat Evans and spare our ward from the embarrassment of allowing the ethically addled Evans to steal back the seat he just quit in disgrace. Don’t take GM’s word for it, look at the polling. In a crowded election, Kennedy would draw almost twice the votes of the closest rival, Evans.:

• Poll results:
  • Kennedy 18%
  • Evans 9%
  • Grossman 8%
  • Fanning 6%
  • Putta 5%
  • Zhang 4%
  • Pinto 2%
  • Hernandez 2%
  • Undecided 44%

The biggest takeaway is this: Kennedy has the best shot at defeating Evans, but Evans can still win this, especially with so many undecided voters, a long ballot, and a likely low-turnout voting day. So it’s all the more important to get behind the candidate who is best positioned to prevent that, and that’s Kennedy. It would be a tough choice if the best positioned candidate to beat Evans were one with little experience or a questionable grasp of the challenges facing our ward (which describes several of the other candidates), but luckily that’s not a dilemma we face.

Patrick is the best candidate to bring a new day to Ward 2. Vote Kennedy.

Voting Information

As GM has mentioned before, there will be two elections for the Ward 2 seat. The first is the Democratic primary, which is the de facto general election for the seat. The winner of this election will almost certainly win the general election in the fall and take the seat starting next January. Two weeks after the Democratic primary is a special election to fill the seat until January. Kennedy is running in both, and you should vote for him in both.

The city is strongly urging people to vote by mail. You need to request a ballot to do so. Annoyingly, you need to print the request, sign it, and mail (or email) it to the Board of Elections. However, you can download an app (either for Apple or Android) and submit your request and signature via your phone or tablet. It’s still somewhat cumbersome, and frankly the city ought to just mail every registered voter a ballot. But it’s what we’ve got to do, for now.

C & O Canal

This week for Georgetown Time Machine, GM is visiting a stout looking horse. This particular horse was a fire horse from Engine Co. No. 5, which was once housed at 3212 M St.

The photo comes again from the Henry Wagner collection at the Historical Society of Washington, DC. The info lists the photo as being from between 1900 and 1910. Engine Co. No. 5 occupied that address from 1883 to 1940. The building (which now hosts Aritzia) has quite a history. Prior to being a firehouse, it was the city hall for Georgetown, when the neighborhood was its own city. Continue reading →

Photo by Bill Starrels.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• The French Market will go virtual this year.
• The Christ’s Church minister may not have been DC’s patient zero after all.

Tudor Place

Yesterday, GM suited up and went shopping at Safeway. He noticed that Safeway has now added “one-way” aisles.

These measures are designed to avoid the crowding that takes places as two shopping carts pass in different directions. It obviously doesn’t eliminate crowding entirely, because people still often need to pass as other people stop and browse the shelves. But it’s still an improvement. Continue reading →

Photo by John Weiss.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Don’t throw out candidates’ campaign signs! Even when the candidate has no business being in the race.
• Send in your street safari pics!

3300 block of O St.

If you’re a parent of a young child and looking for an idea to entertain them while also getting them out of the house, consider modifying an idea GM tried over the weekend: make your own treasure map.

Here’s what GM did. You can take some or all of the ideas for your quest. First he decided where the treasure would be. Then came up with a final hint that would lead there. The final hint was converted into a series of numbers using a basic cypher key (a=1, b=2, c=3, etc.). Then GM came up with clues that would guide his daughter towards filling in the numbers by guiding her to addresses around the neighborhood. Then she could decode it back into words and get the final hint.

The first clue was “Go to where our neighborhood is written in lights”, i.e. the Georgetown theater:

(She didn’t quite figure this one out right away, so GM suggested they walk down Wisconsin Ave. and see if they found it. It was all a bit like Easter, since GM was pretending that the map was delivered by a mysterious figure and that he had no idea where it came from or where the clues led. Of course she is way too old to believe this, but it made it a bit more fun.)

From here the map said to walk a block west and then walk north until you see a flag and a ring of roses. (Thus the adventure doubles as a wayfinding lesson!)

The map then said to plug the address into the first two spots. So the street address, 1415, became 14 and 15, or N and O.

The next clue was to walk a block north and look for a horse: Continue reading →

Photo by Ehpien.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Should the city be doing more to provide more space in Ward 2 for pedestrians to practice social distancing?
• How COVID has forced able bodied professors at GU to empathize more with their students with disabilities.