Month: September 2005

I was just noticing who the mayoral (and still possible ’cause Tony ain’t said nothin’) candidates were. It’s just too early. I know they’ve got to put themselves out there, ‘cept Tony because he’s damned if he does run and damned if he doesn’t run.
But still too early. Partially because the Orange’s signs have already started to fall apart and I don’t know about the sign quality of the other candidates. There was a sign touting the Orange on the median on Rhode Island that, after a few weeks, began to fall apart. The color section separated from the sign base and phppht! No more sign. Just a blank board and some sticks. It’s a good year before the mayoral elections and I don’t know if I want to look at a bunch of weathered signs for a year.

I blantently stole this idea from my neighbor IT. We both grow the same things peppermint (the peppermint that used to grow in my yard, jumped the fence and now grows in their yard), basil, tomatoes, thyme, etc. Well I noticed that IT or B had put some of the flowering peppermint and green basil in a vase.
Well my house got a little musty so I figured I’d take the idea to slightly change the smell by taking a lot of the basil, flowering peppermint and thyme and setting it in the living room. I think it looks nice, and I can smell mint without having to go outside.

From Jim, our great leader.

Neighbors,

Below please find a facsimile of the public notice that is being circulated
in the community in connection with the 9/20/2005 meeting of ANC 5C. Please
make your best effort to attend this meeting and bring your neighbors along
with you.

Hope to see you there!

Best,

Jim Berry
ANC 5C

GOVERNMENT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
ADVISORY NEIGHBORHOOD COMMISSION 5C
POST OFFICE BOX 77761
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20013
TELEPHONE: (202) 832-1965/1966
www.anc5c.org

PUBLIC NOTICE

Monthly Meeting

Invited guests include representatives from the following:

Metropolitan Police Department
Community Preservation and Development Corporation
DC Emergency Management Agency

Where: Edgewood Terrace Senior Buildin
635 Edgewood Street, NE, 9th Floor
(Crawford Hall)
When: Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Time: 7:00 P.M. until 9:00 P.M.

Just a quick pointer to the Post article about how much it costs to live in the DC metro region at “subsistance” levels. The source of the study is by Wider Opportunities for Women and you can read the full report there. All 97 pages of it. Read page 5 to see what all they calculated.
The amount given for the District of Columbia for a family consisting of one adult, assume single mom, an infant and a pre-schooler is $53,634. Kids are at their most expensive before they’re shoved off to school. Daycare for an infant, way more expensive than an out of diapers pre-schooler. But there are other factors that make being self-sufficent AND at the subsistance level in DC expensive.
People can and do live on less because of various programs that cut down on the price of living here. We pretty much know about various housing programs, such as section 8, but in an earlier article in the Post, the number of affordable housing units is dwindling. In my neighborhood alone several homes that were affordable rentals got fixed up and sold, at some point. Before I bought, the crumbly pile of bricks I call home used to be home to a woman and her mentally disabled son. It was affordable when I bought it. But not all houses fixed up were taken off the affordable housing roster. One house, because it was overpriced wound up becoming a rental. A vacant house was “fixed up” and must be affordable because the jobs the residents have are fast food jobs. The house where the resident crackhead stays gets a new paint job everyso often but never gets sold. There are houses on the block that remain in the affordable housing scene, but not as many as when I moved here.

If I didn’t put my notes about the BACA meeting somewhere under a pile of something I would write about that, but alas, no. Instead I write about watching TV.
Nora Bombay called me up and told me to turn the TV to Fox, which was showing the new CSI-Crossing Jordan clone, Bones. Which takes place in DC. Vancouver, DC. One should make bad fake DC shows a drinking game. I suggest diet coke. The fake location shots were bad, laughably bad. We decided that the following show, House, looked more like DC. House had more minorities. DC is sixty-some odd percent black, gives one to reason that there’d be black people in the scene somewhere, speaking or in the background. I’m not even going to go into the fake Arlington, or bad National Mall. I apparently missed the imaginary bridge that goes directly from National Airport in Arlington, VA to SW DC.
Please cheap TV producers if you want to give a DC feel, shoot in DC. Short of that come to the city, get some stock footage, a good editor, and do a lot of close ups. I like NCIS, they seem to do NoVA ok and I have no clue where they shoot.

I’m only covering 2 things here Flower Power & Joe Mamo.
Awards for the BACA Flower Power were passed out at the meeting yesterday night by Mary Ann Wilmner and a DC official (parks or public works, I don’t remember) anyways the winners are as follows:

Front yard
1603 New Jersey Avenue 1st place
1517 First Street 2nd place/tie
210 R Street 2nd place/tie
144 Bates Street 2nd place/tie
Back Yard
408 Richardson Place 1st place
1616 4th Street 2nd place
1722 4th Street 3rd place
Entire Block
Richardson Place 1st place
1500 Block First Street 2nd place/tie
1600 Block 4th Street 2nd place/tie

Second thing, Joe Mamo, whose name makes me want to go into a slew of ‘yo mama’ jokes. A while back Mr. Mamo went to various civic meetings and the 5C ANC meetings all to get community support so he could get variances to get a condo built on the corner of North Cap and Florida. Well Art Slater went to a community meeting over in the Ft. Lincoln neighborhood and found out that Mr. Mamo had a gas station there. The Ft. Lincoln community asked that he not put a check cashing place where the gas station once stood. But lo and behold. There is a Check and Go there. So it makes one wonder if Mr. Mamo is a man of his word.

(Hat tip to Frozen Tropics for pointing out the National Housing institute Shelter Force piece.)

I think part of the problem is everyone. Well the word “everyone”. Last year USA Today published an article Studies: Gentrification a Boost for Everyone by Rick Hampson. Recently in the NHI’s online Shelter Force Dr. Kathe Newman and Elvin Wyly wrote Gentrification and Resistance in New York City disputing the USA Today article.
Not everyone gets a boost from various things and the report that the USA Today article was based on didn’t claim that gentrification helped every single person in a gentrifing neighborhood. It was USA Today that made the error.
The USA article does not ignore that gentrification is a hardship. It just doesn’t harp on it. As with the case of Maria Marquez, who sleeps on her couch so that other family members can have the bedrooms. She stays despite the rising rents. The way I read the article is that there are more determined poor who hold on and stay on in gentrifying neighborhoods despite rising taxes and rents by doubling up, making deals with landlords, or a variety of other things. And the poor stay on because the neighborhood is improving.
I think it should be said, even though it should be obvious, the poor, like any other group don’t like living in crappy ass neighborhoods any more than anyone else. No working mother says, “hey move me somewhere with bad schools and gang bangers.” People in poor neighborhoods may be resigned to the high crime, lousy retail choices, and what not, but they don’t desire high crime, lousy retail, poor police response, pitiful city services any more than anyone else. So when it looks like better schools and safer streets come to the poor, that seems like a pretty good incentive to stick around. I felt that needed to be addressed.
And yes, I do realize that when gentrification comes to the hood the poor don’t all start going “yipee”. It is another burden, but depending if you are willing to pay the price, a burden with benefits.

Back in March of this year I went on the open house for 1536 New Jersey Avenue, now it has been renovated and is up for sale. I wish I could be at the open house tomorrow (noon till 3pm), but I have another appointment. I would love to see what the investors did with it and if they actually did truly improve the property.
Back when I reviewed it the house was up for sale for $429K. After renovations, it is about $870K. As the house was huge and the amount of work needed to make the house habitable, I’m going to hold off from saying the price is crack fueled. It may be well worth it.

Dear Second Rate Construction Crew,
Last night was the last straw. Shoveling glass on concrete at 2am in the morning, there is no excuse for that. And no, I wasn’t the one who yelled out the window that hey, it’s 2 o’clock in the morning, but I do applaud whomever did.
Sincerely,
InShaw

For about a year now the house at 1617 New Jersey Avenue, NW has been under some level of crackhead construction. The house had been gutted and at one point they completely knocked out the rear wall, yes, the whole back wall. The back wall was rebuilt with concrete blocks and covered up with stucco. Then for a while nothing.
Later, construction began again with a loud and annoying crew. Sadly the loudness didn’t make them work faster. Because other projects in the neighborhood progressed at a quicker rate and went up for sale as these guys were still fooling around. Cause really, yakking on the phone to your girlfriend does not get the drywall up any faster.
As Spring turned to Summer it got worse. The loud and slow construction crew started working more and more outside the 7 to 7 rules. 7 to 7 means construction is not to start before 7AM and is supposed to end after 7PM. In the past month, the fat shirtless guy doing the ‘work’ would try his hand at hammering or sawing something at 10PM. Really, when it is dark and all you are going by is the alley light, building a deck is not the smartest thing. In the past month or more there have been signs that this is not this guy’s primary job. Apparently there is a more important job somewhere else and he get to this house afterwards, after 7 or on the weekends. That does not bode well for whomever will live in it.
I have called the DCRA’s (202) 442-STOP or 7867 number to report the illegal construction for about 2 weeks now and nothing. I’ve also called the cops, citing it as a noise complaint and that it is illegal construction. Once I got an operator questioning me wondering if the hammering at 10pm was actually ok. It’s crap like that that makes me so unhappy with the city government.
But now I’m pissed. So looking up all the information I can on the property I find that the owner,(you can find all this at the DC Govt’s website) is receiving a homestead deduction. Oh hell no. No one has been living in that house for well over a year and I suspect the folks in it before were renters. Tax fraud, nothing brings a smile to a girl’s face like discovering tax fraud. Ah!
And to any poor schmuck who decides to buy this property, go over it with a fine tooth comb and a damned good inspector because it looks like corners were cut. Or if you have a choice of another house, choose the other house.

This is totally an Eckington thing but reported in the District section of today’s Post in the “Animal Watch” section is the strange case of a little red hen attempting to cross the road at North Capitol and S Street, NE.
The blurb does not even attempt to answer the age old question of WHY? Why did the chicken cross the road, or attempt to cross the road? I suspect a coverup because she was captured by an animal control officer, holed up in the District’s animal shelter then later whisked away to an unnamed poultry rescue group.
Then there is another question, why are there chickens in the District? It is against the law to have chickens. It’s also against the law to have handguns but apparently that doesn’t stop some people.
Well I guess we’ll never know what over at S & North Cap made the chicken want to cross the road. Or even how many roads did she cross before her final capture.