ANC 3E Meeting

MEETING STORY
By STEFANIE DAZIO
Construction to Chevy Chase Park will begin Monday after two years of debate and deliberation, D.C. officials announced at Thursday’s Advisory Neighborhood Commission 3E meeting.
ANC 3E Chair Matt Frumin said this project has been fraught with problems since the beginning, including contract controversies and neighbor opposition.
“It’s been a political hot potato for years,” he said.
The park, bordered by Western Avenue, Livingston Street and 41st Street, includes a baseball field, playground, tennis and basketball courts, a dog park and a recreation center.
Department of Parks and Recreation officials said construction should finish around March.
Avon Wilson, senior project manager for the Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization, said the construction budget is currently $3.1 million, cut down from $3.5 million. City records, however, say $3.3 million.
Work to the baseball field – used primarily by the Capitol City Little League – will include underground drainage and the installation of sod. The budget allocation for the field itself is just over $1 million, Wilson said.
The park will also see new playground equipment and a modernized recreation center. The basketball and tennis courts, however, will not be resurfaced.
The dog park’s application is still pending in a thirty-day public comment period, because the Chevy Chase Field Dog Park Group is asking for use of the official dog park, as well as use of the baseball field during certain hours of the morning.
Frumin said the group, which collects membership dues and has about 150 members, has always used the field as an unofficial off-leash park in the mornings. Now, however, they are looking to formalize their status with the government.
“It’s innovative,” he said.
Residents and commissioners argued with the agency authorities over the lack of a timely government response.
ANC 3E Secretary Jonathan Bender called the dog park, parking issues and field light concerns the “holy trinity” of construction problems.
Residents have complained about the field lights, saying the lights shine into their homes during night games. Neighbors also have problems with parking during games, where visitors cause a lot of traffic.
Frumin said that these issues are all solvable, but they are taking too long to resolve.
“It’s not rocket science,” he said.
ANC 3E Vice Chair Beverly Sklover said she was very frustrated with the long timetable, as well as the changes that keep happening – a track around the baseball field was dropped from the plans along the way.
“We have been told so many different things by this agency,” she said.
John Stokes, chief of staff for the Department of Parks and Recreation, said solving these questions take time to answer and some of the additions to the park are revolutionary for the department – particularly the dog park application.
“This is government, things do take awhile to get through the system,” he said.
The meeting also included a presentation by the Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization about the Fessenden Street side of Alice Deal Middle School, where residents have complained about noise and light issues.
OPEFM representatives said they recently put mufflers on boilers, which reduced the sound emitted by the boilers by 10 decibels.
Neighbors have said the school emanates a lot of light, but there have been several break-ins over the past few months. OPEFM officials said the installation motion detectors might be possible, but they are reluctant to reduce the amount of light after these break-ins.
OPEFM also presented a plan to reforest a Deal field, where trees and undergrowth were recently torn down. For the neighbors on Fessenden Street, the trees provided a “green screen” to block their view of the field. But now, the residents can see straight into the field.
The National Park Service owns land surrounding the field and said they would plant 50-70 trees on the property later this fall.
In other meeting news, ANC 3E give just under $10,000 in grants to local organizations. The Lisner-Louise-Dickson-Hurt Home received $800, the Alice Deal Middle School Parent-Teacher Association got $4,000 and the Northwest Neighbors Village was awarded $5,000, Frumin said.
In a report to the community, the Second District Police officers said crime is down in the area. Officers reported a robbery holdup, a domestic situation, two assaults with a deadly weapon and several burglaries.
Several bikes, and their locks, were stolen on Albermarle Street, the officers also said.
Residents were worried about the recent burglaries, but Lt. Alan Hill said most of the crimes were nomadic, and not neighborhood-based.
A sex offender, prosecuted for the rape of a child, recently moved to the area and the officers passed around a picture and the address of James Foley, who now lives on the 4400 block of Windem Place.
“You’re not going to have an absence of crime, unfortunately,” Hill said. “Overall, this is still a very, very safe neighborhood.”