Forest Hills Connection || News and Life in Our DC Neighborhood
Covering Forest Hills, Van Ness, North Cleveland Park and Wakefield
by Pilar Holder On August 17, 2017 my siblings and I, as children living on Upton Street, wrote a letter to Council Member Mary Cheh outlining our concerns about traffic on our block. Pat Jakopchek, Chair of ANC 3F, responded to us and invited us to come to the next meeting of the ANC. We […]
by David Jonas Bardin We often hear complaints about Congressional meddling in local, District of Columbia issues. But almost nobody knows that our ninth President, William Henry Harrison, deemed such meddling unconstitutional. It turns on what “We the People” means. Take abortion as one example. Every year a deluded Congress passes legislation prohibiting use of […]
by Marlene Berlin (Writing as 2018 President of Van Ness Main Street) DC’s Comprehensive Plan, adopted in 2006 and updated in 2011, is going through another round of updates. The plan will guide future land use in the District, setting standards for such things as the density of our commercial areas and neighborhoods. Why is […]
by Julia Kampelman Stevenson The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) is in the process of finalizing details of a years’ long effort to modernize more than 75,000 streetlights – a daunting task. The lights will all be converted to LED technology, the most energy efficient artificial light commercially available, having bulbs that last much longer […]
Ruth Wattenberg represents Ward 3 on the DC State Board of Education. This is adapted from her March 3rd newsletter. Subscribe here. by Ruth Wattenberg DC education news is moving as quickly as national news. Only two weeks ago our DCPS Chancellor Antwan Wilson resigned and Interim Chancellor Amanda Alexander was named. Just a few […]
by Andrew K. Stevenson and Julia Kampelman Stevenson In her opinion piece “In DC, historic landmarks are a vital preservation tool” (FHC 3/21/17), Jane Solomon, president of the Forest Hills Neighborhood Alliance, starts with developing the premise that the current DC Historic Preservation law, as it applies to private homes, is a justifiable and settled […]
by Ann Hoffman and Daniel Solomon Congressman Trey Gowdy of South Carolina is actively lining up the votes to replace Jason Chaffetz as the chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee when Chaffetz leaves Congress on June 30. If Gowdy reviewed the history of members of Congress who messed with residents of DC, […]
by David Jonas Bardin Outright bigotry and minority voter suppression have undermined efforts to restore precious political rights of Americans in Washington, DC. At a recent symposium hosted by the University of the District of Columbia Law Review, Wade Henderson, the president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, strongly linked […]
by Jane Solomon In an Opinion piece published by the Connection on February 21, Julia and Andrew Stevenson assert that historic preservation (both individual landmarks as well as historic districts) is too often used as a tool to fight change, stifling both growth and innovation and trampling the rights of property owners along the way. […]
(Due to the webmaster’s error, the piece that published at 9 a.m. was not the version approved by the authors. We take full responsibility and apologize.) by Andrew K. Stevenson and Julia Kampelman Stevenson When the current National Historic Preservation Act was enacted in the mid-1960’s, its clear and noble intent was to protect and […]
