Town Topics

Georgetowner •

Eugene Quinn, 70, a longtime Georgetown resident, died suddenly Friday, December 3, 2010 at the George Washington University Hospital in Washington, DC.

He was the loving husband of Marguerite Slocum Quinn, to whom he was married 23 years. In addition to his wife, he is survived by his daughter, Tara, and her husband, Andrew Reilly, of Middletown, RI, his grandchildren, Andrew and Fiona, his brothers, Paul of McLean, VA, Thomas of Washington, DC, and Francis of New York City and their families. He is also survived by his step-children John Trevor, Phyllis Higgerson, Evelyn Holm, Sophia Girard, and Irene Brooke, their spouses and 13 step-grandchildren. They, along with seven nieces and nephews, several cousins and countless friends join in mourning his untimely passing.

Joseph Eugene Quinn was born in Pawtucket, RI on March 1, 1940, the third of four sons. He had been living in Falls Church the last few years to be closer to his family, but Quinn was a Georgetown local, having lived here from 1984 through the next twenty-five years.

Since the early 1980s, Quinn held a series of increasingly important positions with the federal government, initially with the Reagan Administration. “He was the ultimate compassionate conservative,” said his brother Tom Quinn, himself a Georgetown resident and community notable. “He was a man of great principal and a true believer in conservative causes, but a very gentle and kindly fellow.”

He worked for the 1984 reelection of Ronald Reagan and delighted in telling friends that he worked in the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington.

A veteran of the United States Army Gene travelled extensively and had an uncommon ability to befriend a wide spectrum of people and delighted in sharing with them his views on religion, politics and sports. “He was really one of the most delightful people one would meet,” said Tom. “He was low key by nature and a wonderful guy to speak with.”

While in Georgetown, Quinn lived by the Cloisters and was active in the Citizens Association of Georgetown. “He loved jogging on the waterfront, and he would go to the Yates field house all the time,” said Tom.

He was a regular at Café Milano and 1789 Restaurant and a patron of Nathan’s from the day he came to town. Quinn was also an avid reader of the Georgetowner, according to his brother. “He always commented on it.”

Along with his wife Margy, Quinn was a founding member of the Anacostia Gracious Arts Program, an urban after school arts program for underprivileged youth in Washington.

Although Quinn lived in the Washington area for three decades, he considered Rhode Island his home and enjoyed spending summers there. He and Tom both own summer homes in Newport, where the funerary services were held Saturday, December 11. He will be greatly missed by his family, friends, and the Georgetown community at large. We wish his family all our best wishes and deepest apologies for the loss of this wonderful man.

Georgetowner •

Georgetown University’s 10-year campus plan, long negotiated and disputed among the Georgetown neighborhood, was unveiled on December 31 to criticism and disapproval.

The official filing did omit particular issues taken up by Citizen’s Association of Georgetown in recent months: the University eliminated plans to create student housing on the 1789 block, which CAG opposed citing that it falls outside the defined campus area. It also as dropped the proposed extension of the University’s heating and cooling chimney.

The biggest issue facing the plan is its lack of initiative in creating sufficient student housing within the University campus, which would have in turn bled less students into the surrounding Georgetown neighborhood. The University plans to increase enrollment by about 3,200 students from its 2009 level without providing much in the way of additional on-campus housing. Furthermore, there is distrust of the legitimacy of Georgetown’s proposed enrollment increase, citing that in 2000 GU told the community that they would enroll about 3,800 graduate students by 2010; their current count is 6,275.

“It is clear that GU will continue to rely on existing homes in the surrounding neighborhoods to house a substantial portion of its ever expanding student population,” wrote CAG in a December newsletter. “GU can not continue to use the neighborhood for its residence halls…In Georgetown, over 113 houses have been turned from single family houses to group rentals and it is difficult and expensive to convert them back. Many of these residences are poorly maintained and house more people than legally allowed, often bringing both excessive trash and noise. This result has prompted residents to move out of the area.”

CAG proposed that the University reinstate its goal from 1990 to house 100% of its undergraduates on campus and agree to reasonable caps on enrollment for graduate and undergraduate students.

“The plan is disappointing in that it proposes no new student housing,” wrote CAG president Jennifer Altemus in a statement. “While the omission of [other] initiatives is recognized, no progress has been made on the community’s principal demand that the University move a substantial number of students back on campus or house them in a satellite campus.”

CAG will continue appealing to the D.C. Zoning Board with their suggestions for the plan.

Councilmember Jack Evans has also criticized the plan. “I was disappointed to learn that the University’s proposed campus plan does not include any significant action to move more undergraduate students onto the main campus,” Evans stated in a press release.

“While I do appreciate the University compromising on the 1789 block and the smokestack, clearly the most important issue to the neighborhood and the single issue not addressed by the plan, is relocating undergraduate students back to campus.”

However, states Evans, “I will continue to work with the community to ensure that the University comes forth with a viable plan for moving the majority of undergraduates back to the main campus.”

Gary Tischler •

If you made it to the inauguration ceremonies for Mayor Vincent Gray at the Walter Washington Convention Center on a bitter cold Sunday, you might be forgiven if you got caught up in a strong, surface sense of Déjà vu.

Four years isn’t all that long of a time after all; a lot of these same people were there for the inauguration of a triumphant new mayor named Adrian Fenty four years ago, especially on the dais. Up there, it was practically an instant, but slow-mo replay, except that somebody had subtly re-arranged the seats at the captain’s table. In fact, there was a new captain, and a new exec officer, which made all the difference.

Fenty sat a little off to the side, along with other dignitaries like former mayor Anthony Williams, newly elected Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the Catholic Archbishop of Washington DC, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, U.S. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, incoming Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker, III and other civic and political dignitaries.

All the council members who were up for re-election had returned, except that At Large Councilman Kwame Brown was now the new Chairman of the City Council, which temporarily left an empty seat, at least at the ceremonies. So the swearing in ceremonies, complete with an array of judges and council family members, very much resembled the same ceremonies four years ago, except that Ward 3 Council member Mary Cheh did not bring Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsberg to swear her in. Instead, District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle did the honors. Cheh, exuberant, wearing an arm cast and accompanied by her family, gave the shortest speech of all those being sworn in, which perhaps allowed Gray to be sworn in as Mayor just under the noon deadline.

The apparently ageless WUSA 9 reporter and anchor Bruce Johnson did the emcee honors again, contributing to the déjà vu all over again. So did the presence of many Gray supporters, ex-council members, ex-mayors and public officials who had not so far found themselves without a jobs as happens with a change in administrations.

We ran into former council member Harold Brazil, an attorney who said he was glad for the new Mayor and keeping busy, “Trying to make a little money.”

Williams, who served two successful if sometimes difficult terms as mayor, told us, “I’m optimistic. I think Vincent Gray has the opportunity and the ability to be a great mayor, a terrific leader.”

Williams supported, if not outright endorsed, Fenty during the campaign because, as he explained on Mark Plotkin’s political hour on WTOP, where he appeared with former Mayors Sharon Kelly and Marion Barry, “I believe in supporting sitting mayors.” He acknowledged on the show that his support did not go unnoticed in his family, with his mother Virginia Williams being an ardent Gray supporter.

“These are going to be tough times,” he told us. “But I think Vincent has the gifts to bring the city together to face the budget challenges that are already here. “ Williams looked fit and comfortable, as if private sector life agrees with him.

We ran into new City Administrator Allan Lew, who was appointed to the city’s number two position after what was generally seen as a very successful stint as Operations Officer for the DC School District. Robert Bobb, one of the former city administrators under Williams and once school board president (until the board was basically shunted into obscurity by Fenty’s mayoral takeover of the schools) was here. Bobb is currently heading the Detroit school system, but rumors haves been floating around about him being a possibility for the next chancellor. Bobb, it should be noted, still lives in Washington. Kaya Henderson, Michelle Rhee’s No. 2 person, remains the interim chancellor where by all accounts she has done a yeoman job. Still, Gray has remained mum about his choice.

The inauguration was centered around the same theme that Gray used for a campaign slogan: “One City.” It is an ironic theme in some ways. The 2010 campaign, which resulted in a convincing victory for Gray, exposed deep fissures of race, class and economics that continue to exist. Gray swept the poorer and mostly black wards of the city where unemployment is abnormally high and development and jobs lag, while Fenty swept the city’s affluent and white wards.

Gray struck the “One City” theme early and loudly, and with tremendous passion and conviction. If there is a man who could bring the city together in any sort of effective, lasting, and emotional way, it may be Gray. He rattled off the names of the city’s great neighborhoods as they are mirrored in the city’s divided whole, giving them the quality of unique and special places. “The next chapter in the city of the District of Columbia won’t be written by a single author, but with the pens of 600,000 residents from all eight wards and all walks of life committed to a vision of One City. Our City.”

He spoke vehemently about statehood and how he would continue to fight for it on this day – at least before the usual realities about such an endeavor set in, he sounded like he was the man for the job.

Gray, with his children and grandchildren in the audience, talked often about going to Dunbar High School, about attending George Washington University, about growing up in the struggling parts of this city. More than anyone, he has the kind of roots to the city and its neighborhoods that make him a resident-citizen-neighbor kind of mayor, and one who is instantly recognizable in his passions and concerns.

Still, many of the residents of the wards where he lost don’t really know him (made clear in a misguided, but solidly effective write-in attempt for Fenty in the general election). It’s not clear whether a series of town hall meetings in every ward of the city made a dent into the perception of Gray as a mystery man.

At the inauguration, he presented himself and showed himself to be the man of decency, grace and class that his supporters and his record have always indicated. At 68, he is the oldest mayor this city has ever had, and perhaps one of the more cautious. But he doesn’t lack passion or empathy for the city where we all live. Case in point: while all the re-elected candidates as well as the new chairman offered praise to various degrees of intensity, often in perfunctory fashion, Gray did a little more. He walked up to the man with whom he had engaged in an often-bitter campaign and embraced him in a bear hug after praising him profusely.

From the dais, you could hear the noise of heart-felt rhetoric and the confetti of home grown relationships—Brown, Yvette Alexander of Ward 7, and Harry Thomas Jr. of Ward 5 are all Wilson High School Graduates, a fact which they all duly noted. Gray laughed and said, “That just shows you it takes only one Dunbar graduate to deal with three Wilson grads.” This is home grown stuff, warm and affectionate, like PTA talk and town meeting bragging rights.

For now, Gray has the bragging rights. He’s the man. He’s the man who’s got to tackle an ever-growing budget crisis and a deficit that will be swelling to $400 million over the next three years. He’s the man who has to deal with the passionately high expectations—for jobs, for attention, for development—from the wards that elected him, without alienating the residents of the wards that didn’t. He’s the man who has to deal with a congress that is historically hostile to District needs and will be only more so under the new GOP stalwarts. He’s the man who will have to lead tough decisions on budget cuts and, as he indicated, possible tax increases.

To quote Mayor Vincent Gray, it’s time to “get to work.”
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Ari Post •

The heavily disputed Georgetown University Campus Plan came to something of a climax on Thursday, January 20, when a joint meeting was held between the Georgetown, Burleith, and Foxhall Citizens Associations, the ANC 2E Commission, and GU officials. The assembly, which drew a large number of community residents and even a good handful of University students, was held in the auditorium of Duke Ellington School of the Arts.
James O’Donnell, Executive Provost of GU, along with Dean of Students Todd Olson and University Vice President Spiro Dimolitsas represented the University.

According to ANC Commissioner Ed Solomon, the intent of the meeting was to field information from the at-large community to help reach a resolution in the near future.

“We are proud of and cherish the community of which we are a part,” said O’Donnell, expressing the University’s hope to find a business plan that strikes a balance between it’s needs and the community’s.

He called the campus plan modest (to the sound of bitter chuckles in the audience), with no new large buildings and a modest target growth in graduate school enrollment.

“We are focused on sustainable design and transportation solutions,” continued Olson, who cited significant concerns with potential sites for student campus additions—notably for student housing, the major issue in this debate.

Lenore Rubino, President of the Burleith Citizen’s Association, on behalf of the joint Citizen’s Associations, said that the 2010-2020 campus plan does not address the “egregious problems of the expansion of students.” She cited GU’s campus plan from 2000, wherein the University planned to increase enrollment to 3,800 graduate students by 2010; their current count is 6,275, or a 62% increase in student body population, with almost no new on-campus housing.

“Georgetown University Students disturb and disrupt the community on a regular basis,” Rubino said. She feared openly that the Burleith neighborhood was depreciating irreparably, largely due to nearly 50% of the homes converting to group housing for student rentals.

Between the city blocks of “only rental houses” and concerns with students’ regular public drunkenness and general debauchery, people are considering moving out of the neighborhood. However, even those who try to leave are having trouble selling their homes because of the declining quality of the neighborhood, with dilapidated student houses neglected by the property owners and abused by the student residents.

The joint Citizen’s Association again proposed that the University reinstate its goal from 1990 to house 100% of its undergraduates on campus and agree to reasonable caps on enrollment for graduate and undergraduate students.

For what the meeting commendably intended to do, it became muddled; it attempted to answer the questions of every community member and student that came to the microphone, many of who just wanted a platform to express their inherent disapproval of the other and the campus plan’s effect on their respective communities. Good points were made by many, and laundry lists of complaints and criticisms and questions were raised.

As is the case with many public meetings in this fashion, it became hasty toward the end while the organizers tried to make sure everyone was heard, and it then seemed more gratuitous than constructive. Still, at least for the night, Georgetown residents and some of the more frustrated students were allowed to release their anxieties in a legitimate, recognized venue. Hopefully the University and the joint Citizen’s Associations were able to walk away with useful information for the ensuing negotiations.