REPORT FROM THE NEIGHBORHOOD ACTION FORUM

March, 2000 -- On Saturday, January 28, over 1,500 DC residents gathered at the University of the District of Columbia gymnasium for the Mayor’s Neighborhood Action Forum, a follow-up to the November 20, 1999 Citizen Summit. The Forum had been postponed from January 27 due to a snowstorm.
The high turnout was very encouraging because the new location of the Forum in far Northwest made it more difficult for residents of Wards 5, 6,7, and 8 to attend.
Palisades participants included Ellen Lewis (Chair, ANC 3D), Penny Pagano, (immediate past president, PCA), Doug Ormerod (Chair, PCA Planning Coordination Committee), Alice Stewart, (Chair, PCA Historic Preservation Committee) plus Mary Ann Floto, Joy Solomon and Harvey Sloan.
The Forum had two purposes. One, to hear the Mayor’s report on how he and his cabinet and senior staff integrated the input from the Citizen Summit into the city’s draft strategic plan. And, two, to provide additional information on city-wide programs and priorities.
Also, input was sought for the next planning initiative—the neighborhood strategic plans.
Mayor Williams announced two important new initiatives that impact neighborhoods.
He introduced his plan for neighborhood service managers—“one-stop” regional coordinators responsible for solving neighborhood problems including potholes, trees, abandoned cars, trash, and street lights and signs. These service managers should bring more efficient government closer to each neighborhood and its residents.
The present plan, soon to be implemented, will divide the city into seven service areas. Palisades’ participants felt that these districts would be too large and that there needed to be more, but smaller, service areas related to individual wards.
The other neighborhood initiative stemming from the Summit will be the designation of “neighborhood planning specialists” charged with assisting the some 115 city neighborhoods in developing their own strategic plans.
The neighborhood strategic planning effort is scheduled to start in the second quarter of this calendar year.
Other innovations proposed include:
-- Demolishing 1,000 uninhabitable houses;
-- rehabilitating 1,000 houses, and building 1,000 new houses in public-private partnerships;
-- adding 150 new police to the streets, after replacement of those police officers retiring or resigning;
-- developing 30 new after-school youth programs;
-- adding 1,000 treatment slots to existing drug rehabilitation programs;
-- opening two supermarkets east of the Anacostia River;
-- opening a Department of Motor Vehicles Service Center at the old Hechinger Mall in Northeast; and
-- cutting the average waiting time at the DMV from one hour to 30 minutes.
The goal is to complete all initiatives by the end of the year.
The mayor invited citizens “to hold his feet to the fire” in achieving them.
Finally, there was a survey taken about the development of the neighborhood strategic planning process.
Our group believed that the ANC and the community associations should take the lead in developing these plans—with input from neighborhood charitable, religious institutions and businesses, and, most importantly, neighborhood residents.
In making an assessment of our neighborhood, Ellen Lewis, Cary Ridder and Doug Ormerod will be the primary points of contact.
—Excerpts from Doug Ormerod’s report to the PCA Board