B-ball, Music, Food, Fun- Park at 1st/Florida Ave – Saturday

Dear Neighbors,

Rev. Miles Holloman, Chairperson of the BACA’s Youth Services Committee, asked me to share the information below with you. Miles and other neighbors have been organizing this event for the past several months and it deserves our support. Please stop by the park tomorrow to volunteer some time, if possible, or to just hang out for a while. Miles tells me that he is still in need of donations of hamburgers and rolls, so this may be another way in which to contribute to the success of the day.

Hope to see you tomorrow!

Best,

Jim Berry

LovePsalm Productions

The weather looks fine for a cook-out and some basketball. Let’s it make a neighborhood affair. Bring the children; bring your games but don’t bring the bad attitude and we will bring the food!!

Saturday, September 5th, 2009
12:00 noon – 6:00 pm

Florida AvenuePark

1st and Florida Ave., N.W.

Washington, DC 20001

OUR SUPPORTERS ARE:

ANC-5C01- Anita Bonds; ANC5C02-Silvia Pinkney

Councilman Harry (Tommy) Thomas

Ebenezer BaptistChurch; PerrySchoolCommunity Center
RN Horton Company Morticians Inc.; BACA; NWC
Howard University Chemistry Department; and CPNAHS

Dave Butler from: Butler’s Basketball Camp will be there.

Also we have presentations from: Raimon Nelson, World Vision; Dr. Charles Hoston, PhD. Chemistry, Howard University; Victoria A Suarez, National Message Therapy Inst.

Music by: DJ Tango

“We’re giving children back to school supplies while they last”

But you are our biggest supporters. You as a community are stepping up in your support of keeping this event community affair.

…MEN – WOMEN – BOYS – GIRLS Come On Get Game On…

For More Information on: Scheduling; Registering; Participation; and Support Please Contact: Minister Miles Holloman @
(202) 640-0071 milessh@hotmail.com

BACA Agenda for Aug 3 Monthly Meeting

This is written to provide you with a friendly reminder of the upcoming meeting of the Bates Area Civic Association, Inc. as well as to give you a sense of the issues that will be addressed in this forum. Please help us to spread the word to others about this monthly meeting and do make your best effort to attend.  If you are willing to help with the circulation of flyers about this meeting, please let me know and I will get them to you.
Where: Mt. Sinai Baptist Church at 3rd and Q St NW

When: Monday Aug 3, 7pm

Speakers:

(a)    As  follow-up from last month’s discussion about our economic development concerns, I have asked the Ward Five Planner from the DC Office of Planning, Deborah Crain, to come out to talk about the elements of a small area plan for our commercial corridors and about other development projects that are being contemplated by the city that impact our area.

(b)     In addition, I have asked Aakash Thakkar, First Vice President of EYA, and Clint Jackson, Project Manager, DC Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, to appear to give us an update on EYA’s development proposal for the McMillan Reservoir site.

(c)    Martin Moulton, President of the Convention Center Community Association, and ANC 2C Commissioner Kevin Chappelle, have asked for time of the agenda to talk about the proposal to locate a “dog park” in the 400 block of P Street, N.W. – the site of the former Bundy School.  Specifically, they would like for the BACA to take a formal position in support of this effort.

(d)    Time will also be given to Mamuka Tsereteli, owner of the former Bates Market at the corner of Third and P Streets, N.W., to talk about his plans to renovate that site for an alternative use.

Committee Reports:

(a)     Pete Balas, Chairperson of the Environmental Services Committee, and his Co-Chair, Anita Bonds, will update us on the work of their committee. Specifically, they are developing goals for clean-up as well as beautification initiatives for our community.  If you are interested in becoming a member of this committee, please contact Pete at pbalas312@gmail.com or Anita at dcbonsa@yahoo.com.

(b)  Geovani Bonilla, Chairperson of the Public Safety Committee, and his Vice Chair, Jon Hasse, will provide us with their thinking about public safety initiatives that they will encourage us to support.   As you may know, National Night Out 2009 (NNO) will take place on Tuesday, August 4, 2009 and those of us who live in the service area covered by the Fifth District Police have been asked to join Council Member Harry Thomas at Langdon Park, 2109 20th Street, N.E., from 5:30 p.m. until 7:30 p.m., for a kickoff celebration of NNO. This celebration will include health screenings for diabetes, high blood pressure, and prostate cancer, as well as refreshments and activities for children. Closer to home, a Community Walk will be held in PSA 501, from 5:30 p.m. until 6:30 p.m., at the Harry Thomas Recreation Center.  If you have an interest in working on this committee, please contact Geovani at MrGeovani@aol.com or Jon at jwh.east@yahoo.com.

(c)   Caryn Nesmith, Jon Hasse, and Peter Katel will give the Public Relations Committee report.  The Committee continues to be interested in receiving feedback from residents about the content and user friendliness of the BACA Blog. In addition, they would like to have your help in promoting its existence within your circle of family members, neighbors and friends.  Finally, it is important for you to subscribe to the Blog via email.  If you do, one email per day will be sent to the address of your choice in which summaries of the messages that have been posted on the Blog will be contained.  To sign up, please go to www.dcbaca.wordpress.com.

Announcements:

Rev. Miles Holloman asked me to inform you about a youth initiative that Ebenezer Baptist Church, Mount Sinai Baptist Church, and others are co-sponsoring at the triangle park at First and Florida Avenue, N.W. this summer.  Specifically, they are sponsoring a basketball tournament for area boys and girls that will culminate in a Community Day activity in the park on Saturday, September 5, 2009.  The young people are holding a raffle to help to defray the costs associated with this initiative.  I am certain that Miles will have flyers and raffle tickets available at our meeting on Monday.  If you would like to purchase tickets in support of this project or would like to work with Miles in the production of it, he may be reached at milessh@hotmail.com.

Closing Comments:  In addition to my own comments, ANC Commissioners Anita Bonds (SMD 5C01) and Sylvia Pinkney (SMD 5C02), respectively, have standing invitations to make remarks and give announcements at our monthly meetings, as does Alice Thompson, the Ward Five Coordinator of the Mayor’s Office of Community Relations and Services. It must be noted that Alice will be on vacation at the time of this month’s meeting.

BACA Monthly Meeting Agenda, July 13

This is subject to revision.

Agenda for Monday July 13, 2009

1.    Meeting Called to Order                        7:00 p.m.
2.    Opening Comments
3.    Flower Awards Program:   MaryAnn Wilmer, Chairperson of Flower Power 2009 Planning Committee and William Howland, Director of DC Department of Public Works
4.    Discussion: Denise Prichard, Alternative Uses for the Billboard Site at 4th & P Streets, NW
5.    Community Updates:

(a)    Status of Latin American Youth Center’s Proposed Use of the former
John F. Cook Elementary School building.
(b)    Resident interest in gaining reasonable access to the track and field at Dunbar Senior High School.
(c)    Mount Sinai Baptist Church Outreach Initiative.

6.    Committee Reports:

(a)    Environmental Services Committee
(b)    Public Relations Committee –  BACA Blog

7.          Closing Comments

(a)    ANC Commissioner Anita Bonds, SMD 5C01
(b)    Commissioner Sylvia Pinkney, SMD 5C02
(c)    Alice Thompson, Ward Five Coordinator, Mayor’s Office of Community Relations and Services.

8.         Announcements:

(a)    Next BACA Meeting – Monday, August 3, 2009.
(b)  ANC 5C, Tuesday, August 18, 2009, from 7:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m.

9.        Adjournment                                9:00 p.m.

Reminder: Mayor’s walk-through this Friday

This is a reminder that Mayor Fenty, along with a host of other local government agency personnel, will be conducting a walk-through of our area on this coming Friday, July 10, 2009, commencing at 1:00 p.m. As you will note below, the starting point for this work session will be the Unit Block of O Street, N.W.

To the extent possible, please make your best effort to participate in this event (if only for a portion of it).  Indeed, Mayor Fenty and his agency personnel will have a chance to see, first hand, many of the problem areas about which we have repeatedly spoken of late (like those unsightly billboards at the corner of Fourth and P Street, N.W.), in the light of day.

We thank Alice Thompson for coordinating the arrangements for the walk-through and we thank you in advance for doing your best to make this session.

Best,

Jim Berry
BACA

BACA Meeting Reminder: Monday, June 1, 2009

Committee Reports:

(a) Caryn Nesmith, Jon Hasse and Peter Katel will give the Public Relations Committee report. The Committee continues to be interested in receiving feedback from residents about the content and user friendliness of the BACA Blog. In addition, they would like to have your help in promoting its existence within your circle of family members, neighbors and friends.

(b) MaryAnn Wilmer is going to give the Flower Power 2009 Committee report. MaryAnn’s report will involve the current state of plans for the implementation of our “Flower Power 2009 Beautification Campaign.” As you know, the Flower Power 2009 Garden Walk is scheduled to take place on Saturday, June 13, 2009 from 3:00 p.m. until 5:00 p.m. Tickets for this event are $10.00 each or five for $40.00. Be assured, MaryAnn will provide more details concerning this project in her comments on Monday.

Closing Comments: In addition to my own comments, ANC Commissioners Anita Bonds (SMD 5C01) and Sylvia Pinkney (SMD 5C02), respectively, have standing invitations to make remarks and give announcements at our monthly meetings, as does Alice Thompson, the Ward Five Coordinator of the Mayor’s Office of Community Relations and Services.

Best, Jim Berry

May 4 BACA Meeting Notice

Where: Mt. Sinai Church at 3rd and Q St NW
When: 7-9 pm

Neighbors,

This is written to provide you with a friendly reminder of the upcoming meeting of the Bates Area Civic Association, Inc. as well as to give you a sense of the issues that will be addressed in this forum. Please help us to spread the word to others about this monthly forum and do make your best effort to attend.

Speaker:

First, Raymond Nix, AICP, from UrbanMatters Development Partners L.L.C. is scheduled to be our guest speaker for the evening.  Specifically, Mr. Nix is going to talk about a proposal that his company has submitted to the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development to develop senior citizen housing opportunities at the former Margaret Murray Washington Career High School building, located at 27 O Street, N.W.

Second, MaryAnn Wilmer and Derek Vollmer will provide us with details regarding the plans that are currently underway for the implementation of “Flower Power 2009.”  As you may know, last week their committee made arrangements for a load of compost to be dumped at the corner of First and P Streets, N.W. to assist residents in amending their respective yards and tree boxes.  And, I know that their presentation on Monday will be chock full of additional information about next steps.

Community Updates: Will be given concerning (1) the interest of residents in gaining reasonable access to the track and field at Dunbar High School; (2) the current efforts of area resident Denise Prichard and city officials to remove the billboards from the corner of 4th and P Street, N.W.; (3) the interest of neighboring residents of LeDroit Park and Bloomingdale in locating a dog park in their respective communities; and (4) consideration of a resolution to create a State for the people of the District of Columbia.

Committee Reports:
Caryn Nesmith, Jon Hasse and Peter Katel will give the Public Relations Committee report.  Specifically, the group is interested in receiving feedback from residents about the content and user friendliness of the BACA Blog. In addition, they would like to have your help in promoting its existence within your circle of family members, neighbors and friends.

Closing Comments: In addition to my own comments, ANC Commissioners Anita Bonds (SMD 5C01) and Sylvia Pinkney (SMD 5C02), respectively, have standing invitations to make remarks and give announcements at our monthly meetings, as does Alice Thompson, the Ward Five Coordinator of the Mayor’s Office of Community Relations and Services.  As usual, we expect all three to be present on Monday.

Best,
Jim Berry

Background on recalled BACA grant

In response to BACA Grant Recalled:

Perhaps needless to say, I am aware of the article that recently appeared in the North Capitol Heartbeat regarding the BACA’s decision not to use the grant that we received from ANC 5C in 2007.  Hence, I take this opportunity to provide some additional background information on the grant and why it was ultimately decided not to move forward on the project.  In addition, I want to respond to the questions that have been raised about the current condition of the BACA’s treasury.

Please note that a number of updates were given at our monthly meetings regarding the status of this grant since the time that we received it from ANC 5C.

ANC 5C Grant:

In late 2006, the BACA’s Land Use, Planning and Economic Development Committee spearheaded an effort to apply for a grant of $7,000 from ANC 5C to amend the soil as well as to place wrought iron railings around all of the trees on Bates Street, N.W., between North Capitol and Third Street; and on Q Street, N.W., between North Capitol and Third Street.

Importantly, the ANC 5C grant was sought in order to complement a beautification proposal that had been previously developed and submitted to the DC Department of Transportation.  That is, the BACA applied for and received grant allocations in two consecutive years (.i.e., in Fiscal Years 2006 and 2007) from the DC Department of Transportation to amend the soil and place railings around all of the trees (a) along P Street, N.W., from North Capitol to New Jersey Avenue; (b) along New Jersey Avenue, N.W., from P Street to Florida Avenue; (c) along Florida Avenue, N.W. from New Jersey Avenue to North Capitol Street; and (d) along North Capitol Street, N.W., from Florida Avenue back to P Street.  In addition, the grant monies that were allocated for use in our area by the DDOT involved performing the same work around all of the trees (a) on First Street, N.W., from P Street to Florida Avenue, N.W. and (b) on Fourth Street, N.W., from P Street to Florida Avenue, N.W.

It is significant to point out that the DDOT grant allocations that were awarded to the BACA never involved the actual transfer of funds to the BACA, nor the deposit of any monies into our bank account. Rather, their “grant process” for neighborhood enhancements at the time, essentially, meant that they would work with a community organization (like the BACA) to implement the goals of its beautification initiative, but in all cases the actual identification, hiring, and payment of contractors to perform the work is all done by DDOT personnel.

As was reported at the time the ANC grant was applied for, the improvements that we were going to use the ANC money to complete were intended to supplement the work that the DDOT had committed to do in our area in the context of the grant we had earlier received from them.  We did this because we wanted to use the same contractors that the DDOT would be using, for consistency of design and quality of the work throughout our area.  So, the plan was to do the tree boxes on  Bates and Q Streets after the DDOT had finished their work on the perimeter of the community (i.e., along P Street, New Jersey Avenue, Florida Avenue, North Capitol Street and  along First and Fourth Streets, N.W., respectively).

When the original project was conceived, it was the Committee’s estimation that all of the above work could be completed in phases over the course of three years.  In year four, it was the Committee’s vision to return to ANC 5C to seek another grant to amend the soil and place wrought iron railings around the trees (1) along Third Street, N.W., from P Street to Florida Avenue; and (2) along R Street, N.W., from North Capitol to New Jersey Avenue, N.W.  So, by the fourth year of this admittedly ambitious plan (if the DDOT had follow-through on their commitment to us and if we were successful in getting a second grant from ANC 5C) by 2009 every single tree within the aforementioned boundaries would have been adorned with the same design of wrought iron railing; the soil in each of these tree boxes would have been amended so that flowers could be placed in them with an increased chance of survival; and, of equal importance, we could have celebrated the completion of a project of which we would have all been extremely proud.

Unfortunately, we waited for nearly three years (or consecutive planting seasons) for DDOT to (in sporadic spurts) complete the work that had been scheduled for our area and, sadly, we were not consulted on any of the work as it was being performed.  If we had been, the Committee would have executed its original plan to do advanced promotions about the project in order to make residents aware of what was going on as well as to encourage them to invest in the upkeep and enhancement of the tree boxes.

At this point, a good number of the tree boxes with which the DDOT lined our area in connection with the two grants that we received from them are overgrown, completely unkempt, and some of them have been dismantled already. Why?  Because the project didn’t involve the collaboration with our community organization as had been promised and expected. Indeed, our applications for the grants from the DDOT were based on a reasonable expectation that they would active consult with us on every phase of the project’s implementation.

Over the course of time, the Chairperson of our Land Use, Planning and Economic Development Committee became completely frustrated by the effort and eventually became inactive in the organization. It was at that time that we made a decision to return the grant funds to ANC 5C, to go back to the drawing board, and at some point return to the Commission with a request for funds when we came up with a new and more viable idea for a beautification project that we would not require anyone else’s cooperation to complete.

It is significant to note that the BACA continued to implement its annual Flower Power Beautification Campaign and other such projects during the above time-frame.  But, we were precluded from using the ANC 5C grant money on these projects because they did not involve the specific work for which the ANC 5C grant had been awarded.

The BACA Treasury:

With regard to questions about the amount of money in the BACA bank account, the organization’s current balance is $1,920.  As you know, the BACA is a membership organization. As a rule, the monies in our treasury come from two funding sources – one that involves the payment of annual membership dues of $20.00 per household and the other pertains to proceeds of modest fundraising projects, like our annual Flower Power Tour and Competition.  Less than a dozen residents a year pay membership dues, but we have never made this a requirement of one’s participation in the work of the organization.  That is, our practice has been that anyone who lives or works within the “service area” that we claim – i.e., the area between North Capitol Street, N.W.; New Jersey Avenue, N.W.; New York Avenue, N.W.; and Florida Avenue — is invited and encouraged to participate in the life the organization.

At this time, there is no grant money in the BACA treasury.  In fact the money that we returned to ANC 5C was the only grant money that we have received from them in recent memory.  For the most part, a relatively small cadre of neighbors have “carried the financial weight” of the BACA over the years through their generous donations in support of its projects.

Jim Berry
BACA President

BACA Meeting Cancelled Tonight

After careful consideration of the circumstances, I think it is best that we cancel tonight’s meeting of the Bates Area Civic Association, Inc.  I know that the storm has passed, but I just received an alert from the DC Government indicating that “temperatures are expected to dip into the teens tonight with 20-35 mph wind gusts possibly bringing temperatures to near zero.”  A number of folks have already contacted me to say that they won’t be able to attend tonight and my hunch is that the inclement weather will have a major impact upon attendance. So, it is probably best that folks remain in the warmth and comfort of their homes.

Because some of the issues that we were to discuss tonight are time-sensitive, I will see if I can make arrangements for us to meet on them, possibly, next week.  In any event,  I will provide you with electronic updates on most of these items within the next several days.