[Mintwood-place] Ward One Demo Debate Kalorama Park scorecard

[John Cloud]

KCA hosted a very interesting and largely useful debate last night at Good Will Baptist Church.  Somebody or other did ask a question about what "leadership" the candidates has done/would do to resolve the Kalorama Park Anti-Erosion Project morass.  A brief synopsis:

Jeff Smith: clueless.  he started talking about landscaping on 18th St., etc. He had some useful things to say about other issues, but I don't think he is aware there is a park on Kalorama Road.

Bryan Weaver: he noted the question was relevant, and acknowledged the root problem(s) were about DC agencies and contracting, but then changed the subject to the contracting problems on Mintwood a few years back.  Hence, his performance last night pretty much characterized his "leadership" on this this morass, now in its second year.  As far as the Anti-Erosion Project goes-- Weaver is really good about at-risk youth and basketball.

Jim Graham: he's sticking with his new line, that everything is fine with all those compacted Mitchell Park construction spoils upon which DPR plans to put the water-percolating "playing field".  Of course, that's a complete reversal from his own position and DPR's very public position last December.  DPR is on-record from its very public statement:

KALORAMA Q&A
December 11, 2009
...
Community Question #2: Why don’t the plans require that the heavily compacted surface area of
the new playing field be removed to a depth necessary to reach un-compacted soil? This area was
heavily compacted by the contractor’s equipment (bobcats, backhoes, trucks, etc. Since then, two
piles of construction spoils (not soil) have been dumped there and have been steadily eroding
onto the basketball court with each rain.

DPR Response: DPR has committed to removing the soil that was brought to the Kalorama site from
another project site.

...

Now DPR and Graham have changed their tune-- but the construction spoils are still there, even more compacted now than they were then. So, final score card: NOT ONE of the three Democratic candidates gave any reasonable signal that they would exert any 'leadership" to resolve matters.  

Hmmm... what's that I hear?  Could it be the sound of scurrying tiny rodent paws? The squeak of little paws with pens forging signatures on voter registration forms?  Could it be that the Rats of Kalo-ratma Park, paralleled by their 501-3C exempt non-profit The Fund for Kalo-ratma Park (guess where they got the idea), cruelly disappointed that they gave Graham a bribe like every body else but didn't get nothin' for it, are considering running their own independent candidate for Council-Rat of Ward One? With a campaign that DC politics is so sleazy that the other virtually hairless candidates just aren't Rodent enough to do the job? 

Stay tuned...stock up on cheese... lots of cheese...



      
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