Burleith Newsletter September, 2001

This year will be bringing a great deal of change to our community, and how we handle this change will have a profound impact. Georgetown University will have a new President, who will bring in a new administration. MedStar Health now owns the Georgetown University Hospital. A new traffic study by MedStar will be presented to a community task force in the next few weeks. Our community will have an opportunity to comment on this study and make recommendations. Our Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) is going through a redistricting process that began this past summer. Any changes that will affect Burleith will be discussed in future BCA meetings.

It is important to have a broad representation from our community at our monthly meetings. We all should be concerned about the quality of life issues that effect Burleith. Every voice in our community should have an opportunity to be heard. For those current and new residents and students to our community, please come and meet your neighbors at our first monthly BCA meeting on September 12. All meetings are held on the second Wednesday of each month at 7 pm at the Washington International School, on the corner of R and 36th Street.

A special thanks, for a job WELL DONE, goes to our past President Pat Scolaro. Pat will be a member of our new Board along with many new members.

The principal tone I would like to set for the BCA in the coming year is one of communication. We have a wonderful opportunity to establish relationships that will only get stronger in the years to come. There are issues where we will have a consensus. I also understand that there are issues where we will have disagreement. Honest dialogue and communication, I believe, is the most prudent course for Burleith and the institutions surrounding it to follow.

Ed Solomon

The Tot Lot at the Corcoran School has proven to be a great success, with babies sprouting up there like cabbages and the Corcoran doing a good job of maintaining it (including clearing the side lots, mending the fence, filling the sandbox and renewing the wood chips). Informational signs recently went up, and more minor improvements are planned.

Some parents are hoping to organize regular, small-scale activities for young kids at the tot lot. We're also looking for suggestions for improving the appearance or operation of the Tot Lot. For anyone interested in cooperating on these things, there will be an opportunity to meet at the start of the BCA meeting on September 12, and we can also talk at the Burleith Flea Market. For more information, call Peter Pulsifer at 337-3065.

The Stoddert Fun Fair (rained out last spring) will be this Saturday, September 8 from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. There will be rides, booths, prizes and much more for the kids. For grownups, there will be food, a bake sale, used book sale and raffles for great neighborhood gift certificates! (Grand prize is a weekend at the Savoy Suites). For more information, call Cathy Fiorillo at 342-0225.

After many years of dispute and an effective stalemate, representatives of Burleith and Hillandale are seeking to come to an agreement on what to do with the intersection of 39th St and S St, just north of the Hillandale entrance.

The approval of the Hillandale development in 1979 was contingent on an agreement between the developer and the BCA that included the requirement that 39th St be one-way northbound between the Hillandale entrance and S Street. In fact, the road was built to be one-way and marked that way for some 16 years; however, the DC government never formally designated it as a one-way street, and in 1996, the road was opened up for two-way traffic. City officials have refused to take further action without support from the ANC. With Hillandale and Burleith being in the same ANC district next year, the situation could become a hot issue.

More details on the history can be found at http://www.burleith.org/hillandale and in the March, 2001 Newsletter.

A group of Burleith and Hillandale residents, including ANC Commissioners Peter Pulsifer (Burleith) and Len Levine (Hillandale), will be meeting this month to see if a compromise can be worked out. For more information, contact Ed Solomon at 333-5762.

The City Council moved forward over the summer on the redistricting process required by the 2000 census. The new Ward boundaries were set in July (though changes don't take effect far a while). Ward 2, which started with the highest population of any ward, shrank significantly, mostly in the southeast. Locally, areas west of Glover Archbold Park, including Foxhall Village, moved into Ward 3. Burleith remained in Ward 2, as we'd requested.

The next step will be to redraw ANC boundaries. This process is already well underway, although it will not be finalized until the end of the year. Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans formed a redistricting task force (Burleith was well represented), which has already received recommendations and is preparing a final report. The citywide ANC redistricting bill should be introduced on October 16, there will be hearings on November 8 and 10, and the first Council vote will be on January 8, 2002.

ANC 2E, which includes Burleith, Hillandale, and Georgetown, has well-defined natural borders and won't change in area, so the questions are how many commissioners there will be and how to draw the district boundaries. By law, each district should have approximately 2000 residents (including adults, children, and foreigners). The new ANC 2E will have 15,019 people, and all proposals have been for seven districts.

The most controversial question has been how to place University dormitories. The present system cuts the campus into five slices and distributes dorms between five districts. This looks like gerrymandering to dilute student voting power; the 1991 redistricting report justified it by claiming that only 5% of students were registered to vote, and so a mostly-student district would suffer from low turnout and lack of candidates.

Times have changed! Since 1996, a large proportion of Georgetown University students have been registered to vote, and they have had a significant impact, both by electing student candidates to the ANC and by eliminating ANC candidates viewed as "anti-student".

Today, student activists favor mixing dorms and neighborhoods, and they proposed something similar to the present system. Some neighborhood-backed plans put all dorms into two on-campus districts. Seeking a consensus, the local task force recommended a "compromise" plan with one on-campus district and with dorms mixed into three other districts.

The recommended plan combines Burleith with Hillandale and part of Georgetown east of 35th St and north of R St; our district also includes the University Medical Center. Councilman Evans will decide next week whether to endorse this plan, and his decision will be open for comment at public hearings on September 20, at 7 pm, in DC Council chambers.

Detailed and up-to-date information is available at the ANC web site, http://users.erols.com/anc2e/redistricting.

This Newsletter is published by your citizens association, largely with your membership dues. Our goal is to be a source of useful information and news as well as to provide a forum for citizen discussion. If you learn of something that your neighbors ought to know, please tell us about it. If something's on your mind, consider writing a letter. We will get the word out to the neighborhood.

We accept almost all submissions, although we may have to edit to fit the available space. We are also usually happy to follow up on suggestions for articles, if you'd rather not write it up yourself. Send material to Peter Pulsifer via email (pulsifer@telocity.com), via mail slot at 3803 T St, or call 337-3065. Submission deadlines for each issue are listed on the BCA calendar insert.

We are also happy to accept advertising, either for a single issue or for the full year. If you know of a local business that you think your neighbors should hear of, why not suggest to them (or to us) that they advertise in the newsletter. Please support our advertisers-they are our partners in bringing you this community resource!

At the September 4 ANC 2E meeting, the two student commissioners requested passage of a motion they called the "Student Bill of Rights." After some debate, the ANC deferred consideration of te motion until October. In the meantime, it will be discussed at community meetings, including the September 12 BCA meeting.

According to ANC Commissioner Justin Wagner, the initiative reflects considerable student dissatisfaction with how they have been treated by many community members and the DC government. Students feel that their rights are being violated and that actions may be under consideration to restrict them still further.

In his remarks introducing the motion, Commissioner Wagner cited the following "egregious examples of discrimination" recently faced by students:

• Lawsuits challenging students' right to vote (in connection with the 1996 elections);
• A proposal by the DC Office of Planning to limit the number of students living in Zip code 20007 and a suggestion to amend the DC Human Rights Act;
• Conditions by the BZA on the campus plan that require the University to notify parents and otherwise disclose private information.

He cited an article in the New Republic last December 18 that said that local homeowners were "using every legal weapon at their disposal to drive students out."

Students resent BZA language that says off-campus housing is "a privilege, not a right", and they object to requirements that the University record license numbers of student cars and monitor compliance of off-campus student housing with sanitation and housing laws.

The student-rights motion notes that students have special protections under the DC Human Rights Act (DCHRA); they have been called a "protected class" because the DCHRA prohibits discrimination on the basis of "matriculation status." (This means, at a minimum, that someone cannot be denied housing, a job, admission to the movies, or automobile insurance just because they are or are not a student.) Students say they want to be considered "full citizens" of the community, with no special treatment of any kind based on their student status or school-related activities.

Others at the ANC meeting argued that student allegations of discrimination are misguided. They said that the "egregious" examples cited above represent public policy questions about voting residency or the appropriate size of the University, not targeting of students. Also, the government has a legal obligation to protect its citizens from University impacts related, among other things, to student behavior, numbers of students in the community, and student automobiles.

In any event, questions of rights are complicated and different rights often conflict with each other. The student grievances indicate a breakdown in student-neighborhood relations that ought to be resolved. Hopefully, both sides will make a sincere effort to listen and respond to each other before the ANC vote on October 2.

On September 4, the blue buses of the Georgetown Metro Connection began their service to Georgetown's business district. The buses connect Wisconsin Avenue and M Street with Metrorail stations at Rosslyn, Foggy Bottom, and Dupont Circle. They stop at all regular bus stops in the Georgetown Business Improvement District (BID).

Fare is 50 cents, or 25 cents with a Metrorail transfer (no Metrobus transfers). The service is fast (a bus every 10 minutes) and operates a full schedule: Buses run from 7 am to midnight Monday(Thursday, 7 am to 2 am Friday, 8 am to 2 am Saturday, and 8 am to midnight Sunday.

The buses drive up as far as Whitehaven Parkway to turn around, but the northernmost stop on Wisconsin Avenue is at R Street. For Burleith residents, it could be not just a good way to get into Georgetown, but a reliable way to get to the Foggy Bottom and Rosslyn Metro stations.

The new service was instituted by the Georgetown Partnership (which administers the BID) with help from Federal transportation funding. The goal is to improve access for residents, employees and visitors, reduce demand for parking, and reduce traffic. Give it a try!

The wrangling over the Georgetown University campus plan continues, first with a University request to stay enforcement (denied) and a now court filing requesting rejection of some requirements. The Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA) order approving the plan (posted at http://www.burleith.org/gu/BZA2000GU.html) was issued on August 6. The University subsequently asked the Board to delay enforcement of several requirements because they would allegedly violate student rights to privacy. The complaints concern requirements that it:

• report to the authorities any violations it discovers of sanitation or housing regulations affecting off-campus students, and keep records of such problems (condition #7);
• maintain a record of license plates of student cars, require students to register their cars in DC, and "coordinate" with the DC government to ensure compliance (condition #14); and
• "report a violation of the Code of Conduct to the parents or guardians of the violator to the extent permitted by law" (condition #10).

The community parties to the campus plan process (including Burleith) filed a detailed response objecting to any delay in applying the conditions. On September 4, the BZA agreed, with members arguing that no irreparable harm would be done to the University by making them go ahead with the requirements, but harm would be done to the community by delay.

On September 5, the University filed a petition with the DC Court of Appeals alleging that the BZA requirements "interfere with Georgetown's ability to fulfill its educational mission"; "regulate Georgetown's 'business' rather than the use of the land"; are "in violation of the rights of Georgetown and its students", including student privacy and DC Human Rights Act rights; violate the DC "statutory mandate that the BZA act to further the availability of educational opportunities"; and were "arbitrary, irrational, capricious, an abuse of discretion", and "plainly erroneous".

So the campus plan order remains in force-subject to any future legal challenge. While University lawyers have made dark hints of their intentions to sue, so far been no actions have been taken.

Wednesday, September 12, 7 p.m., Washington International School

Get-acquainted meeting
Help us set the year's agenda!

"Student Bill of Rights" will be discussed

Special Guests: Lt. Brian Bray, Metropolitan Police; Jeanne Lord & Julie Fultz, Georgetown University

Meet your neighbors, share your opinions! All are Welcome!

Everyone is invited to come see the Wilson High School Junior Varsity girls soccer team play its home games the stadium at 38th and R Streets in Burleith. The team had 9 wins, 3 losses and 5 ties last year.

The Senior Exercise Class (for adults at any age level) will resume sessions at St. Patrick's Church, 4700 Whitehaven Parkway in Palisades on September 12th. Classes are held Wednesdays and Fridays, 10 to 11 a.m.

The class format includes a 15-minute low-impact aerobic routine to warm up muscles. On Wednesdays we use dumbbells to strengthen and tone the back, chest, arms, and shoulder muscles. On Fridays we use ankle weights to strengthen and tone hips, thighs, buttocks and calf muscles). We do abdominal and back strengthening exercises on both days. The last 15 minutes we cool down by stretching all our muscles.

Susan Nash, who leads the class, has been teaching all levels of fitness at all ages for 27 years. She is certified in both personal fitness training and classroom instruction, and also teaches at IONA Senior Center as well as training private clients.

For further information, call Susan at 966-9591, or call Mary Meyer at 965-3952.

Last year's Citizen Summit was so successful that Mayor Williams is holding another one: All citizens are invited to "Citizen Summit II" on October 6, from 8:30 am to 4:00 pm, at the Washington Convention Center. There will also be a pre-summit "reception and celebration" on Thursday, October 4, from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm at the Marriott Wardman Park.

The goal of the summit is to get citizen input for what the city's priorities should be for the future.

Registration is required for both events. To register, and to obtain more information, call 727-0882 or visit http://www.neighborhoodaction.dc.gov.

In recent months, there have been several assaults and robberies on 38th St. The most recent attack was in August, around 10 pm, when a long-time resident was violently shoved to the ground and her purse was snatched. The two young male assailants had just assured her, "don't worry, we're college students". Neighbors responded immediately to her calls for help, and police came in about 5 minutes, but it was too late.

Previous attacks have been similar: young men loitering, or driving slowly, until they spot a victim. Police urge all residents to be alert and to report any suspicious behavior by dialing 311-or even 911, if you think it appropriate.

This and other public safety issues (including ANC requests for increased street lighting) will be discussed at the September 12 BCA meeting.