Gray "Healing Tour" announced for Ward 3

The Gray Campaign has announced a series of Ward-wide town hall meetings.

Ward 3 is scheduled for October 7th at St. Columba's Church at 4201 Albemarle Street.

New Tenleytown Development

DC Metro Urban Diary provides and update on the infill development on 41st Street in Tenleytown.

Tenleytown Transit Oriented Development Meeting

From an announcement on the Chevy Chase Listserv:

The Tenleytown Neighbors Association will hold a public meeting on Thursday, September 30, at 7:30 pm, in Saint Columba's Episcopal Church, Room 220. The guest speaker will be Mr. Nat Bottigheimer, WMATA Assistant General Manager for Planning and Joint Development. The main topic will be Metrorail's Red Line and transit-oriented development. A question and answer session will follow. The public is invited.

Cheh Pushes for Rhee

According to Bill Turque, Councilmembers Cheh and Wells are pushing for DC School Chancellor Michelle Rhee to continue on in the Gray Administration.

This could be an interested development which would satisfy the urgings of the Northwest Current endorsement of Mayor-Elect Gray.

Ward 3 Resident Challenges Fenty

In an interesting 11th hour switch, Ward 3 resident Bill Slover is clearing the air with respect to his term as Chair of the DC Housing Authority. Slover, and avid Fenty supporter in 2006, was named Chair of the DC Housing Authority by Adrian Fenty. In November 2009, he was abruptly removed. Things were relatively quiet on this issue until the September 1 Washington Post Mayoral debate, when Chairman Gray asked the Mayor:

"Why did you the fire man who raised issues about contracts given to people with ties to you?"

In a follow-up, the Mayor told Washington Post reporter Mike DeBonis:

If you look at the full record, and we've got letters to prove this, the attorney general for the city repeatedly raised to the Housing Authority that the contracts should have been sent to the council very early on in the process, and it was that failure to send the contracts to the council by the housing authority that was the chief recommendation by the attorney general to our director of boards and commissions as the reason why the chair was removed.

Now, Slover has penned a letter clearing his good name.

Loose Lips at the City Paper has additional coverage.

This is potentially the "September Surprise" that the Mayor wants to avoid. It certainly seems like it is a problem for his administration.

If you are a Fenty supporter, does this give you pause before you vote?

Giant Kick Off Party

Both DC MUD and All Life is Local have announced that there will be a Giant Kick-Off Party.

However, the event previously announced for this Thursday is postponed:

Giant Food wants to give all members of the community an opportunity to join us to launch the new project to redevelop the Wisconsin Avenue Giant and Friendship Shopping Center, which will be known as Cathedral Commons. To honor the High Holy Day, Rosh Hashanah, we will postpone the previously announced launch event.

Janney Elementary will have Underground Parking

This was shared on the Tenleytown Listserv:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Lew, Allen (OPEFM)
Date: Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 5:47 PM
Subject: RE: please reiterate support for Janney's underground parking facility


Please accept this as a response to your e-mail of earlier today. Rest assured that OPEFM fully intends to construct an underground parking facility on the south west portion of the Janney site in time for the beginning of the 2011/12 school year.

This issue appears to have come up based on a misunderstanding of the guaranteed maximum price ("GMP") that we submitted to the Council in July. On July 12th, we submitted the GMP for the renovation and expansion of Janney Elementary School to the Council of the District of Columbia. The GMP fully funds the renovation of the existing Janney building as well as construction of approximately 43,000 in new space. The GMP also contemplated that OPEFM would construct a new underground parking facility on the south west portion of the site and that an artificial turf soccer field will be placed on top of the parking facility. The Fiscal Year 2010 budget lacked sufficient funding to support the underground parking facility. The rest of the project is fully funded.

The GMP includes an option to fully construct the parking facility and the related soccer field. As long as that option is exercised prior to February 1, 2011, the underground parking facility will be completed at the same time as the rest of the project. We plan to identify the funding source for this work in the near future and to exercise the option well in advance of the February 1st deadline. The designs for the underground parking facility have already been completed and submitted to the District's Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs for permitting. We expect to proceed with the excavation work on the underground parking facility sometime in January/February depending on the weather conditions.

Allen Y. Lew

ANC 3 Candidates

Here is the list of residents who have submitted petitions for ANC seats. *indicates incumbent.

3B01 Benjamin Thielen
3B02 Alev Akbulut
3B02 Jackie Blumenthal*
3B03 Mark Stevens
3B04 Horace (Howie) Kreitzman*
3B05 Brian A. Cohen*

3C01 Lee Brian Reba*
3C02 William Kummings*
3C03 Anne-Marie Bairstow*
3C03 Matthew James Kozik
3C04 Roger Burns*
3C05 Leila J. Afzal*
3C06 Trudy Reeves*
3C07 Victor Silveira*
3C08 Catherine S. May*
3C09 Nancy J. MacWood*

3D01 Kent Slowinski*
3D01 Elizabeth (Betsy) Sandza
3D02 Tom Smith*
3D03 Nan Wells*
3D04 Stu Ross*
3D05 William Phillip Thomas*
3D06 Ann F. Heuer*
3D06 John Curran
3D07
3D08 Lee P. Minichiello*
3D09 Petar A. Dimtchev
3D09 Ann Haas*

3E01 Beverly Sklover*
3E01 Jonathan McHugh
3E02 Matthew Frumin*
3E03 Jonathan Bender*
3E04 Sally J. Greenberg
3E04 Tom Quinn
3E05 Sam Serebin*

3F01 Adam Tope
3F01 Michael Siegel
3F02 Karen Lee Perry*
3F03 Karen Beiley
3F04 Tom Whitely*
3F05 Roman Jankowski
3F06 Cathy Wiss*
3F07 Bob Summersgill

3G01 Carolyn "Callie" Cook*
3G01 Bayard Brewin
3G02 Gary Thompson*
3G03 Margaret (Peggy) Sewell*
3G04 Allen E. Beach*
3G05 David Engel*
3G06 Jim McCarthy*
3G07 Henry Griffin*
3G07 Jack Burriesci

Cheh Endorses Gray

The DC Wire Blog of the Washington Post has announced that Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh has endorsed Council Chairman Vince Gray in the Mayoral Primary race.

And more from the City Paper.