On January 24, 2018, ANC 5A held its monthly public meeting.

Commissioners present: Frank Wilds (5A01); Keisha Cofield-Lynch (5A03); Ronnie Edwards (5A05); A. Jamaal Lampkin (5A06); Sandi Washington (5A07); Gordon-Andrew Fletcher (5A08).

The commissioners approved participating in the ANC security fund and tabled discussion of the budget and financial report.

ANC 5A Calendar

ANC 5A Chair Ronnie Edwards prepared a calendar of the remaining ANC 5A meetings and their locations. The ANC will hold its meetings in different locations based on the focus of each meeting. The next meeting will be on February 28 at Trinity University. The meeting will focus on the Brookland post office, the Marriott hotel proposal for Michigan Avenue and Irving Street NE, and Providence’s health village concept.

See ANC 5A 2017-2018 Meeting Schedule and Location (pdf)

MPD PSA 405 Report by MPD Sector II Captain Brian Bray

Captain Brian Bray is fairly new to the PSA. Violent crimes are down 23% from 2016 to 2017. Thefts from autos and stolen autos continue to be the big problems in PSA 405. Repeated advice: Do not leave items visible in cars and do not warm up cars unattended. Note that many of the thefts from cars take place at Providence Hospital, which is in PSA 405. Cpt. Bray is requesting more patrol officers because officers get tied up with calls for Providence Hospital and Washington Hospital Center. Not sure if there is any correlation between the closure of the psychiatric ward at Providence last year and the increase in police calls for individuals that appear to be having mental health episodes, but the captain did note that officers are being called to Providence more frequently for assistance with these types of cases.

Commissioner Gordon Fletcher (5A08) noted that more patrols are needed around the Fort Totten metro area and that additional lighting is needed for the path by the Mamie D. Lee garden and the complex with Briya Bridges and Mary’s Center. Apparently there was more lighting on the path before, but the lighting was removed because the path is in a park, which technically closes at dark.

Providence Health Village

The ANC meeting was held at Carroll Manor, part of the Providence Hospital campus, to give residents close to the hospital the chance to come to a closer location to discuss Providence’s new health village concept. Much of the information presented by Providence VP and Chief Strategy Officer Ruth Pollard at last night’s meeting was presented at community conversations the hospital held last year, but this is the first time ANC 5A has held a full ANC meeting on the topic. Providence sits in ANC 5A.

Providence is part of Ascension Health, a Catholic health system. According to Ms. Pollard, Providence is the longest continuing operating hospital in DC and the Ascension health network. All that to say it has a long history in DC and in the neighborhood where it is located, so Ms. Pollard stressed that Providence is not closing and it is not looking to completely change the look of the campus. The hospital has stopped offering certain services and will probably wind down others, but there will still be a hospital and the hospital will continue to anchor whatever comes of the health village concept.

Ms. Pollard said the way health care is delivered is changing and therefore Providence is making operational and facility improvements to adjust to those changes. Hence the health village concept–shifting from a focus on sick care to creating a community to keep people out of the hospital with a focus on outpatient, preventing care, and health-related services. Ms. Pollard said the hospital does not have any pre-formed ideas of what the health village will include, but ideas include a fitness center and a healthy food grocery store. One idea raised at previous community meetings was affordable assisted living housing, which apparently is lacking in DC. As of right now, they do not plan development of condos, townhomes, and such.

Providence plans to issue an RFP for a local contractor to help flesh out the health village concept likely some time in February. Around the same time, the hospital plans to develop a dedicated webpage for this project. They anticipate a year of planning during which time they will seek community input. They believe it will be about three to five years before anything actually starts being constructed.

Ms. Pollard said the Providence team (or maybe more accurately Ascension team, which seems to be the one driving decisions) visited Union Village in Henderson, Nevada for ideas. So check out the website for an idea of what one health village concept looks like, but keep in mind that the 150-acre Union Village is massive compared to Providence’s 30-35 acre campus. And Union Village contains market-rate housing, which Ms. Pollard said is not being planned for Providence.

There was some discussion about how the ANC needs to get information to their constituents about this project. The ANC still does not have a fully developed website (more on that later) and there does seem to be a little disagreement about how proactive the commissioners should be in informing constituents about matters. But it would be a good idea for the commissioners to visit the civic associations in their SMDs to provide updates. Commissioner Gordon Fletcher (5A08) is usually pretty good about doing this for Riggs Park.

Councilmember McDuffie’s short-term rental and affordable housing bill

Marie Johns, managing member of the firm Leftwich LLC, encouraged residents to support McDuffie’s bill regulating short-term rentals in the city. The firm was retained by the hotel industry to lobby on the bill.

Ward 5 Warriors grant

The ANC gave $5,000 to the Ward 5 Warriors to support their trip to Walt Disney for the Pop Warner championship. The team lost in the first round but won a consolation game. Turns out grant money for trips outside of DC might not be authorized under law. The ANC is waiting for a ruling from the ANC Office. If it turns out the money was spent on an unauthorized purpose, then that money could be deducted from the ANC’s next allotment.

ANC 5A website

Commissioners Gordon Fletcher (5A08) and Isaiah Burroughs (5A04) will submit the final edits for ANC 5A’s website to the web designer. The ANC agreed to pay $375, half of the payment, now and tender the balance when the edits are done. If you have any recommended changes, let Commissioners Fletcher and Burroughs know. One that they should already be aware of is putting up the correct ANC 5A map. The map on the old website at anc5a.org is correct, but the map on the new site at dcanc5a.org is incorrect. Commissioner Fletcher said the site will be ready by the next ANC meeting on February 28.

Council Report by Chanell Autrey

Agency performance oversight hearings will take place February 7 through March 9. See DC Agency Performance Oversight Hearing Schedule FY 2017-2018 (pdf)

Budget hearings will take place at the end of March.

Mayor’s Office Report by Ward 5 MOCR Lionell Gaines

• Home for the Holidays campaign: 242 residents moved into new homes
• Vacant to Vibrant initiative: 35 sites bid on for development of workforce and affordable housing
• ANC resolution on green space at South Dakota Avenue & Riggs Road NE: Green space will be preserved and will not be developed, but it will not be transferred to DPR for a park.

Wells Fargo Divestment Campaign

The ANC continued to table taking up a resolution in support of a campaign to encourage District government to divest from Wells Fargo because of ties to the Dakota Access and Keystone pipelines, fossil fuels, predatory lending, and the prison industrial complex. We previously wrote about the campaign in this recap. Mr. Gaines noted that Councilmember Jack Evans said District officials take the issue seriously and will evaluate the contract at the appropriate time. It is the council (Committee on Finance & Revenue) that would have to take action.

Miscellaneous

David Krucoff spoke for a few minutes about his Douglass County, Maryland campaign, which advocates for retrocession of Washington, DC to Maryland.

Jeremiah Lowery is a Democratic candidate for At-large Council. He is running on a campaign of high quality affordable childcare, lower utility bills by switching to clean energy, and affordable housing.