My friend Nathan of DC Education Blog is back and blogging and reports here and here, that DCPS spends about $28,000 a student. Not that each student gets $28,000 worth of school, books, facilities, teachers, as there is the court ordered Special Education which costs more.
I took a look at the numbers, which is almost pointless because I don’t do math. The libertarian Cato Institute’s look at the numbers are in this Excel spreadsheet. Which somehow led me to the audited enrollment for DC Schools because I wanted to know the number of students behind those numbers which I don’t really comprehend. Something else I wanted to understand but didn’t see numbers were comparisons of how much per student was spent in NoVa or PG or Montgomery counties.
Marion Barry
Marion has mojo, a particular political mojo that allows him to get away with anything. If you could bottle his mojo it would be as valuable as that unobtainium stuff in the movie Avatar. It would make any politician invincible, so they can sleep with anyone, not bother with federal taxes, be sloppy with city funds and be a shoo in around election time. If you could bottle his power, you can rule the world, or Ward 8.
1900 Block 3rd St NW
I’ve got almost nothing today. So I decided to look back and find this house which is either in Bloomingdale or Le Droit. In this house resided once, the famous Duke Ellington. There is no marker because he moved around, so it’s almost like a “Hemingway drank here” sign for a bar in Key West.
A few things revisited
a grocery store in ne
On the Eckington listserv there is all this back and forth about the old Safeway and hoped for replacement. Please take the Harris Teeter off the list. According to an old press release HT is scheduled to open Winter 2010/2011. According to a recent DCMUD post (hat tip eckington blog), that date could be November 2010.
Honestly Eckington/Edgewood area, I don’t see what that area has to attract the kind of store y’all think you deserve. The two favorites according to Debbie Smith’s poll were Trader Joe’s (which tends to like small spaces with hidden parking) and Wegmans. What no Balducci’s? I left the Logan Circle are a few months after the Whole Foods opened, and from what I remember the civic authorities of that area showed how the population of Logan/Shaw (and Dupont) could support a Whole Foods. The Soviet Safeway, the O Street Giant, and the no-name grocery in the area were no competition for the kind of shopper that would support WF. If y’all can prove that a national or regional grocery chain can thrive there despite a Giant nearby that happens to be very convenient to a metro station with many buses, go for it.
and regarding sidewalks and the problems for those in wheelchairs (from Scott Roberts list)
See this 2/17/2010 message from ANC 5C04 Commissioner John Salatti:
Bloomingdale does it again: another resident is helped!
Once again, Bloomingdale residents have shown their concern for their neighbors and done it with more than just words. This past weekend I heard from Angela xxxxxxx who uses a motorized wheelchair to get to and from college in Rockville, MD. She makes that daily trip using Metro. That trip is long and difficult on the best of days (Angela has some hairy stories of having to drive her wheelchair down Michigan Avenue from the Brookland Metro Station when the buses have not run), her trip became impossible after the snow storm because she could travel barely 20 feet from her property before the sidewalk became impassable for her wheelchair.
After meeting with Angela and hearing her situation and what she needs to go back to school, I called on a number of residents for a major operation: get Angela from her home in the xxxx block of Flagler Place to the bus stop at North Capitol and W Street, about a third of mile. And once again Bloomingdale responded. Many, many thanks to Sara Kaufman and Mike McNeil of the Unit block of W Street, and Dodd Naiser, Alastair Pakiam, and Brandon Skall of Flagler Place for joining me to widen the path on the sidewalk and for chopping out a lot of ice so that Angela could make her way safely to the bus stop and back. We went with her on a test drive back and forth. She couldn’t believe that people would do so much to help her.
Thanks everyone!
Please clear the sidewalks.
Owner of 304 Q Seeks Zoning Variance
Anyone know what this is about?
I just noticed “Zoning Variance for Renovation of 304 Q Street, NW ……Jason Bonnet, owner (5c01)” as an agenda item on the ANC 5C agenda. If there is a zoning application it isn’t on the BZA schedule as far as I can tell. Good lord knows I don’t want to go to the ANC meeting just to find out. But on the other hand, if there is a plan to squeeze a bunch of people into a smaller space than is suitable for the neighborhood, then that needs to quashed asap.
Timor, Timor, How We Love Timor
There is an article (PDF) out on the greatness that is Timor Bodega. Don’t let the closed gate fool you, he’s open. The article mentions Timor owner Kim Wee’s winter veggie box program and the Union Street soaps. Last I looked he was out of Black Tea and Sage which is an awesome soap. The tea embedded in the soap give you some scrubby action in the shower, and bonus is you get to rub yourself with caffine in the morning. I also have the oatmeal, which is more nubbly than scrubby, not as great as the black tea. There is a Cinnamon Orange bar that smells wonderful and keeps my bathroom smelling great hours after I’ve showered.
The yogurt is the best. I’ve been spoiled by the yogurt there, as I got some yogurt at Giant and found it watery in comparision.
When my cousin returns to eat me out of house and home, she will get the sourdough bread hiding in one of Kim’s freezers. She raves about it. Sometimes she won’t wait till the loaf is completely defrosted that she starts picking at it and eating it. It makes for a good ingredient for my french toast, too.
Timor is very unique not because of what it has (or doesn’t have, which at times can be frustrating) but because of the atmosphere created. Remember back two years ago when Kim opened Timor, he had the dairy case and just one low aisle of shelf stable items. Now as he’s past his second year anniversary with us, he seems to have found some sort of system, balance, method (whatever) that works, and the shelves are taller and there is more stuff, but you still have to ask him if he has X, because it might be in season and it is in the back, in a hidden freezer, or something. In that back and forth in figuring out what works, and what doesn’t something wonderful was created. And in that two years we have pointed to Timor as a neighborhood asset. Yes, it’s in Bloomingdale, but close enough to the border to be enjoyed by Shaw people.
Safeway at RI and 4th NE
Really I should stay of this. But the store that was closed for a short period due to a rat infestation. It is a store at the top of the hill and about 1/4 of a mile from the Giant near the Rhode Island metro station. I’ve been in the Giant a few times. I know people hate it. I’ve been okay with it, but haven’t been in enough times to say if it’s any worse than the O Street Giant. I’ve been in that Safeway once and haven’t felt any deep need to return.
So on the listservs there is this clamoring to keep the Safeway from closing. Harry Thomas has gotten involved. There is some sort of petition for a Harris Teeter.
Okay, someone enlighten me. Someone ‘splain to me how the politicos are supposed to convince a private business to land on top the same old unprofitable rat’s nest? As Safeway said they aren’t making enough money in that spot, how is a Teet supposed to make it work?
Anyway good luck with that, but since a Harris Teeter is slated to open near the NY Ave metro, I don’t see one popping up anytime soon 1 mile away.
From- Subject: [MPD-5D] Neighbors Who Are Unable to Get Around
Because me knocking on some strangers door while I’m angry is not a good idea. My neighbors and I have shoveled our street, but the routes to the Giant, the Metro and most bus stops are ice covered danger zones for the elderly who walk with canes and have basically shut in the wheelchair bound.
Haven’t you noticed fewer or almost no motorized wheelchairs around lately? So my sympathy is for the people who have been trapped in their homes because others are too lazy or too cheap (there are 10 yr olds w/ shovels looking to make money) to shovel their sidewalks.
Look around at who is getting around and notice who is missing.
This morning mothers are having to lead their small children through small icy trails of yellow lined paths to get to school.
The wrongness of it angers me because pedestrians deserve better and they deserve justice.
The preceeding was in response to this regarding ticketing for lack of snow removal on the MPD 5th District listserv:
Yes, businesses should be ticketed, but have you knocked on the door of your neighbors and asked why they have not shoveled?
>
> Maybe there is a sick and shut in person or someone not physically able to move the amount of snow that is out there. I have lived in my neighborhood for eight years and my husband and son are very vigilant about keeping our space shoveled. However, during this last storm, our shovel broke and although our area was shoveled for the first storm, he could not shovel with his hands and he could not even get out of the parking space to look for one. My neighbor came to the rescue and let us borrow one until we were able to purchase a new one.
>
> I am tired of the snow more than the next person, but be neighborly and see what the circumstance is before begging to give someone a ticket. This is an unusual storm and unless you are young and very able, the ice is very difficult to move even for the strongest man right now.
>
> Calm down people and have a little patience.
Parking Gets Ugly
Well I just called 911 to tell them not to bother as the fight broke up.
I was just about to shut down for the night when I heard yelling. Yelling beyond the usual drunken guy walking down the street or crazed teen yelling. Looked out the window and saw loudmouth buppie lawyer in his usual loudmouth form yelling at someone. It took me a while to figure out what the heck he was screaming about. A parking space. Another neighbor, let’s call her ‘skinny Jewish gal’ or “SJG’ (she has a name but so does Loudmouth Buppie Lawyer) in the car behind his SUV, being yelled at. This goes on a bit too long when another neighbor comes out and tells him to cool it. Then Loudmouth Buppie Lawyer dude turned his verbal abuse to the neighbor dude who I can’t think of a good name for, and then they are in the middle of the street yelling at each other. Sometime in this I call the cops. Neighbor dude’s wife come out and says something, then more neighbors appear in their doorways. Next thing I see neighbor dude and loudmouth buppie lawyer are yelling and are chest to chest.
All over a friggin parking space.
Clear Path
Okay I guess the credit would go to DC Rec and KIPP and a ‘few’ homeowners along the way. But if you are going east to west along P Street the path along the Kennedy Playground on P is nice and big and clear. It continues along the church on P and 6th, and then it get’s icy. You have to cross over to the KIPP school where it is also big and clear and at NJ it is a icy walk. NJ is when I turn and it’s okay enough, not clear of ice but walkable.