Editorials and Opinions

Joseph Park •

Principals in two of Georgetown’s public schools will be stepping down at the end of the school year.

Dana Nerenberg, the principal of Hyde-Addison Elementary school, announced that she will be stepping down as principal after eight years of service to the school at 3219 O St., NW.

In a recent letter sent out to Hyde-Addison families and community, Nerenberg expressed her gratitude for the time she spent at Hyde-Addison.

“During this time, I have had the opportunity to form relationships with your children and families, work with amazing teachers and staff, and lead the development of a learning community for children and adults,” Nerenberg said.

Nerenberg also applauded Hyde-Addison Elementary School staff for the consistent effort that they put to work every day.

“We have a truly exceptional staff,” Nerenberg said. “A living and rigorous curriculum, a clear vision, mission and charge, and plenty of work to do in service of our amazing students.”

Nerenberg said that she will be leaving the city to join her fiancé in Portland, Oreg.

Rory Pullens, 56, principal of Duke Ellington School of the Arts, has announced his departure to Los Angeles, where he will be the head of a performing arts school for the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second largest school system.

Pullens has served as head of Ellington since late 2006, when he came to D.C. from the Denver School of the Arts where he first designed the elementary-level arts school for the public school system. Ellington is located at 3500 R St., NW.

It has been revealed to the L.A. Times that Pullens will receive a salary of $147,086 on a one-year contract plus $10,000 moving allowance.

Previously, Pullens had accepted the job in Los Angeles twice, but backed out later. One time due to a family crisis, and the second time Ellington managed to retain him to stay.

According to the job description, Pullens will direct the entire arts program for the school “to ensure increased arts … opportunities” and to integrate arts into instruction.”

Georgetowner • June 27, 2014

After moving our offices to the east side of Georgetown, we are happy to have the opportunity to get closer to another part of town. Besides checking out different businesses and meeting other nearby neighbors, this new perspective brings up some questions about east side traffic. Before, we watched cars leaving Georgetown. Now, we see cars entering from downtown.

As we all know, Georgetown can be a mix of obstructions, whether a quick motorcade to the Four Seasons or construction vehicles and tour buses going down the wrong street. There are the multiplying dumpsters for those renovating homes (yet again), meaning more parking spaces lost (yet again). These hulking metal boxes are scattered east to west in town.
Streets are routinely blocked by D.C. Water or Pepco crews redigging, retooling, rewiring thing beneath them. It seemed a crew was renting a place on Olive Street for awhile. Now, they are also at 30th and R Streets and elsewhere.

And those dump trucks: expect to see more of those as Georgetown University, Holy Trinity School and Duke Ellington School rev up their construction projects for the summer. Prospect Street is never short of any kind of vehicle. It seems there’s nothing else to do.

Yet traffic patterns or arrangements are always subject to change. Sometimes, things are turned back to the way they were. Witness the return of the set-up for Wisconsin Avenue in Glover Park. Newly installed traffic lights are trying to rustle vehicles around Washington Circle, while New Hampshire Avenue between M Street and the circle is now a two-way street. A new traffic light at 35th Street and Wisconsin Avenue will slow down traffic and help pedestrians cross the street. It’s a sensible idea, long overdue.

Here is one suggestion from your newcomers to tight 28th Street. As most drivers turn right coming from downtown, make it one-way north. How many more car mirrors must be maimed? Then make 29th Street one-way south, from R Street to M Street. We are looking at 30th and 31st Streets, too. Which one-way should they be? (Remember 30th is already one-way south, from M Street to K Street.)

It is time to rethink some of our streets’ direction. It could be a question of safety, too. Let us know what you think.

Georgetowner • May 9, 2014

Here in the oldest neighborhood of Washington, D.C., we have the oldest Catholic institution of higher learning in the United States. Georgetown University is a presence for us beyond our own benefits of wisdom.

To reach its place today, its early leaders had to move past religious persecution in the American colonies, and the school grew along with the new American Republic.
The university’s first student, William Gaston of North Carolina, went on to represent his state in Congress and also assured that the bill to give his college the power to grant degrees was signed by President James Madison.

In 1861, students left the college for the Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln visited the campus, which housed Federal troops. The school colors become blue and gray in 1876 to symbolize the reunion of North and South.

It was in the late 1870s that Georgetown University’s iconic Healy Hall was constructed (it took a while to finish and put a stronger footing, ready for the 20th century).
Its 48th president, John DeGioia, the first layman to lead it, will be its longest-serving one by August. Beginning as a student here, he has 39 years of an “enduring connection.”
“The characteristic spirit of Georgetown is that it’s a place that expects you bring out the best of those around you” — and thus in yourself as well, he told us during an interview for the cover story. We know he meant the university. We also think he was talking about our neighborhood.

Georgetowner •

In a recent Georgetowner article concerning liquor licenses (“Applicants Camp Out for 4 Liquor Licenses in Georgetown,” April 23 – May 6, 2014), facts were cited which, if not explained further, leave a distorted impression of the ABC-license situation in Georgetown. It is true that the Georgetown Moratorium limits the number of restaurant licenses to 68. What is not made clear is that this restriction applies only to the Moratorium Zone, which does not encompass all of Georgetown. The boundaries of the affected area are roughly Q, 27th/28th, and 36th Streets, and the river. Areas outside this designated zone are not governed by the moratorium. Nor are Washington Harbour, Georgetown Park, Georgetown Court and the hotels. These exempted locales account for at least 25 additional restaurant licenses. There are also six tavern licenses throughout Georgetown. Thus, at this time, Georgetown has almost 100 ABC licenses with the potential, and expectation, of more.

Karen Cruse, Citizens Association of Georgetown,

co-chair, ABC Committee

Georgetowner • April 23, 2014

I wrote in my last column about the mayor’s budget proposal and several of my ongoing priorities, such as public safety, affordable housing, tax policy and funding for the arts. I am also very interested in supporting our transition to a new chief financial officer this year.

Before the budget proposal was released, we undertook the performance oversight process. In an effort to inform the initial budget proposal, I sent a number of questions to the agencies under my purview to determine what is working and what is not. With the proposal in hand, I recently sent another round of questions to all the agencies. These were specific questions arising from the proposal itself.

The largest agency falling within the oversight framework of my committee is the Office of the Chief Financial Officer. This agency includes a number of component offices: Tax and Revenue, Finance and Treasury and Revenue Analysis, to name a few. Some of the questions I will ask of this agency are higher profile, such as how the Office of Tax and Revenue will administer a real property tax lien sale this year, given that the initial budget proposal would not fund my reform legislation until the fall.

Since the tax sale is typically held in July, I will be working closely with the CFO and my colleagues to implement as much reform as possible prior to any sale held this year. I will also closely oversee the sale itself to make sure that our residents in need are not treated unfairly.

Some of the questions are more technical in nature, such as whether the budget is in fact structurally balanced. As you may know, the District is required to prepare a four-year balanced budget annually. For those of you who review our budget online, you can see on pages 2-8 and 2-9 of the introduction that $100 million of the 2014 surplus is being shifted to 2015 to make that year’s budget balance. Further, fiscal year 2016 is balanced on the assumption that certain efficiency savings will be realized.

I am all for efficiency, but after witnessing our government pass the largest budget in the city’s history each successive year – despite the financial downturn – it is hard for me to believe that these savings will come to pass. Thanks for your engagement in this process, and please don’t forget to reach out to me and my colleagues with any feedback you have on the budget.

Georgetowner •

People in Washington – but probably in every city in the world – are always talking about change.

Hop into a cab and you get into a lively conversation with a cab driver from Ethiopia about change: the city landscape, the lack of parking, the difficulty of getting around, too much traffic, bicycles and bicycle riders, how expensive it is.

All of us do it, not just cab drivers. And besides, when you hop into a cab now, you get talk-show snippets and credit payments and the cabs are uniformly identified on top. Not so, even a few years back.

But it’s true, the city’s changing. In the last political campaign nobody talked much about that. We heard about affordable housing, but real estate has shot ahead so fast – the bursts of gentrification, the rise of so-called pop-ups and the tornado of condo building – that whatever might have been affordable is no longer affordable by the people who were meant to afford it.

Whole neighborhoods have changed. Look at the area around the ballpark in southwest, a fairly recent change, and what’s about to
happen along the harbor.

Most of us would agree that a lot of this change isn’t catastrophic or bad. (Remember the 14th Street Corridor from P Street to U Street and the entire downtown area?) Ailing neighborhoods have gotten better, but in the process the city has lost longtime residents.

But people weren’t prepared for this much change, seemingly overnight. So when you go downtown or closer by and find long-standing fixtures – a restaurant, a gas station, a car wash, a deli or a mom and pop restaurant – simply gone, it’s unsettling.
It’s not that we don’t have city planners, or life planners or day planners. Change is now fast, and some people get furious. The landscape is changing, the weather is changing, the politics are changing.

Still, it’s the same blue sky, the same face of your neighbors, the same good mornings and howyoudoins. Washington will always be the city of trees, the city of statues and – who knows? – maybe even the city of free museums and zoos.
It’s still our town and our neighborhoods and our neighbors. After all, we live here together in our neighborhoods, even as they are changing daily.

Jack Evans •

It is now time to consider the fiscal year 2015 budget, which will be the District’s 18th consecutive balanced budget. As I write this, I am still reviewing the mayor’s proposal, but I will discuss a few key items I have already seen.

First, the mayor’s budget proposal includes much that I agree is important. For example, the mayor is committed to fully funding 4,000 sworn police officers, a critical item on which I introduced legislation several years ago. I also support many of the mayor’s transportation initiatives and full funding of the Housing Production Trust Fund at $100 million. Overshadowing many of these good ideas, however, is the list of things that are not in the budget. In each year of the economic recovery, the mayor and the Council have created a contingency list – known as the “wish list” – of items we want to fund but have not been able to put in the budget. Then, as revised revenue projections show more income, we have moved some of them from the list to the budget.

Relating to tax policy, our Tax Revision Commission identified several areas of potential reform that are on the wish list rather than in the budget. My top priority is to recouple the District’s estate-tax level to the federal level, which adjusts with inflation every year. This change is particularly important for our seniors, many of whom cross the District’s threshold simply by owning a home here. Several other items of particular importance to me are additions to the Earned Income Tax Credit, which helps working families, and business tax relief, which helps encourage businesses to locate in our city, expanding our tax base. I also hoped the mayor would fund expansions to the personal exemption and standard deduction.

On the positive side, the mayor has funded a new tax bracket of 7.5 percent for individual income between $40,000 and $60,000. Though the change targets middle-income earners, it actually will reduce taxes for anyone making over $40,000 (because of the incremental way that state income taxes are calculated). The budget also includes a proposal to lower the business franchise tax rate from 9.975 percent to 9.4 percent.

Finally, the budget includes allocations for projects of importance to Ward 2, such as $38 million for Garrison Elementary School.

Also in need of our attention is enhanced funding for the arts. Last year, I established a dedicated funding mechanism for the arts, tied to the sales tax. Due to our balanced budget requirements, it will not become fully effective until fiscal year 2018. This year, the mayor has proposed an operating budget of $16 million for the arts, along with $10 million on the wish list. I support this funding level, but believe the extra $10 million should be included in the fully funded budget to ensure that our arts community continues to benefit the District both educationally and economically.

This is a crucial time in the financial life of our city, particularly in light of the recent transition to a new chief financial officer. I will continue to review the budget proposal in the coming weeks. Please share your views with me and with my colleagues.