Brian Flahaven

Hope you had a great Memorial Day weekend! The fight to keep our neighborhood together continues this week. Here are ways that you can help:

• Attend Community Meeting Tonight (Tues., May 31) with Councilmember Phil Mendelson, 6:30 pm, St. Coletta’s School – This is our last chance for a community discussion with re-districting subcommittee member Phil Mendelson before the hearing and Council vote. Make sure your voice is heard! St. Coletta’s School is located at 1901 Independence Avenue SE, Metro: Stadium-Armory.
• Attend the Rally Before Public Hearing, Wed., June 1, 5:30 pm in front of the John A. Wilson Building (1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW) – Join the Capitol Hill community for a pre-hearing rally.  Bring signs, friends, neighbors — and your fighting spirit! Let’s tell the Council that Capitol Hill means business! Metro: Federal Triangle.
• Attend and Testify at the Public Hearing on Redistricting, Wed., June 1, 6:00 pm, Room 500, John A. Wilson Building – If you wish to testify, contact Carol Sadler at 202-724-8198 or csadler@dccouncil.us by 5 p.m. on May 31. Bring 20 copies of your written testimony to the hearing.
• Call DC Councilmembers – Keep calling DC Councilmembers with your concerns. You can find contact information for all 13 DC Councilmembers here. Tell them:
• Capitol Hill is a diverse, yet cohesive community that has worked as one to improve every aspect of local life — schools, public safety, economic development — and succeeded. Splitting Capitol Hill would diminish such efforts, divide neighbors, and also remove the most diverse part of the community and place it in another Ward.
• Many of Capitol Hill’s most vital community assets — including the Southeast Waterfront and Rosedale Community Center — would become part of another ward.  No one disputes the need for economic development in Ward 7.  But it should not happen at the expense of citizens who have invested considerable time, labor and equity into these projects over the years, and would be separated from them by an arbitrary political boundary.
• The integrity and objectivity of the process is in question, particularly since re-districting subcommittee co-chair Jack Evans’ ward will become more affluent and less diverse under the proposed map.

Let’s tell the DC Council that dividing our neighborhood is unacceptable. Thanks, in advance, for your help!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 31st, 2011 at 8:12 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.