Friday, 13 June 2014

[WardFive] Yesterday's InTheMail: Noyes Park/McMillian Piece

As ANC commissioner wherein Noyes Park is located (5B04) - and on behalf of our city's and community's great youth & young adults - I would be remiss not to note observations to the author of yesterday's InTheMail piece -- "Unruly Pre-Teens at Noyes Park and the Corporate Giveaway of McMillan Park" - Daniel Goldon Wolkoff, amglassart@yahoo.com
Very kind regards,
 
Commissioner Carolyn C. Steptoe
 

From: Steptoe, Carolyn C.(ANC 5B04)
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2014 7:01 AM
To: Daniel Wolkoff
Subject: RE: Noyes Park/McMillan Piece published in today's InTheMail

Hi Mr. Wolkoff.  Thank you so much for your reply and this information.  I will say, unfortunately, my read of the thread is that a grown man [Troy] felt afraid of/intimidated by after-school pre-teens kids while at Noyes park.  (What is the age of pre-teens anyway... 10?  11? 12?)  His fear was so strong that he went home and, feeling compelled to justify his fear of these pre-teens, then posting what he did.
 
Then, one person wrote about their own fear & objection to teens at Noyes park - under the auspices they "could be potentially armed."  
 
This is actually bigger than your piece - and I greatly thank you for it.  However, a more formal reply to this incredulous & public listserv racial/youth profiling by those irrationally fearful of neighborhood (black) youth is in order. 
 
What I have seen & know as consistent on the Bkland listserv is Brian Kerr and others on that listserv have made a sport of attacking neighborhood (black) youth recently.  (After 15 years of membership on the Bland listserv, I unsubscribed; too much idle foolishness - but folks still forward me posts.)  Of course, we have issues with some youth & some college students which our community must contend: let's join/create volunteer community substantive enrichments similar to what you mention which support and help our neighborhood youth.
 
However, what is unacceptable and inappropriate is this ongoing, wholesale, public listserv malignment and denigrating negative profiling of black youth in this neighborhood by those fearful of their very existence and mere presence.  
 
p.s. I agree with you one thousand percent about McMillian.  Thanks again.  Have a pleasant day.
 
/cs
 
 
 
On Jun 7, 2014, at 9:18 AM, "radioclash99@yahoo.com [Brookland]" <Brookland@yahoogroups.com> wrote: 
Have any of you encountered a group of primarily unruly pre teen girls at the park after school hours. They curse, sing horrible songs that have inappropriate lyrics, and are generally a terror? What can we do about it? And they liter the park like I have never seen before. And of course no parents are anywhere to be found.
-Troy
On Jun 7, 2014, at 9:32 AM, "Yolaine Siko yolasiko@yahoo.fr [Brookland]" <Brookland@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 
Last time I went there with my kids, some teens were also playing dice and betting money, spitting everywhere and throwing trash right at the park. 
I could have said something but what do you do by yourself with your two kiddos and a bunch of rude teens (who could potentially be armed too??)
Noyes is a no no from now on for us:(
 

From: Daniel Wolkoff [amglassart@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2014 1:42 AM
To: Steptoe, Carolyn C.(ANC 5B04)
Subject: Re: Noyes Park/McMillan Piece published in today's InTheMail

Carolyn, I think this is the thread I originally responded to. I think we have examples of problems with young people reported consistently on the list serve and called in to the police. I believe it gets us nowhere if we think the police can reduce the incidents. When does the DC govt. provide to our families and young people, the same kind of healthy, educational, arts and performance facility like Glen Echo Park in Bethesda. ...
 

From: "Njideka White jaugust7729@yahoo.com [Brookland]" <Brookland@yahoogroups.com>
To: VANELLA Crawford <PRAISETVG@aol.com>
Cc: Yolaine Siko <yolasiko@yahoo.fr>; "radioclash99@yahoo.com" <radioclash99@yahoo.com>; "<Brookland@yahoogroups.com>" <Brookland@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, June 7, 2014 8:56 PM
Subject: Re: [Brookland] Unruly pre teens at Noyes Park

 
Hello, 
I have forwarded your concerns to our Principal and Assistant Principal

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 7, 2014, at 8:52 PM, "VANELLA Crawford PRAISETVG@aol.com [Brookland]" <Brookland@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 
Dice is illegal. Cal the police. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 7, 2014, at 9:32 AM, "Yolaine Siko yolasiko@yahoo.fr [Brookland]" <Brookland@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 
Last time I went there with my kids, some teens were also playing dice and betting money, spitting everywhere and throwing trash right at the park. 
I could have said something but what do you do by yourself with your two kiddos and a bunch of rude teens (who could potentially be armed too??)
Noyes is a no no from now on for us:(
Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 7, 2014, at 9:18 AM, "radioclash99@yahoo.com [Brookland]" <Brookland@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 
Have any of you encountered a group of primarily unruly pre teen girls at the park after school hours. They curse, sing horrible songs that have inappropriate lyrics, and are generally a terror? What can we do about it? And they liter the park like I have never seen before. And of course no parents are anywhere to be found.
-Troy
 

From: Daniel Wolkoff [amglassart@yahoo.com]
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2014 1:42 AM
To: Steptoe, Carolyn C.(ANC 5B04)
Subject: Re: Noyes Park/McMillan Piece published in today's InTheMail

Carolyn, thanks for your your question. There was a string of posts last week on Brookland Listserve about people being intimidated by group of "unruly pre-teens at Noyes". The post discussed litter, loud music, and being concerned about not going back to the park. I'll try to find it. I responded to the listserve with this basic point of Dc govt. "give away" of McMillan to Trammel Crow, EYA, Jair Lynch. ...
...

From: "Steptoe, Carolyn C.(ANC 5B04)" <5B04@anc.dc.gov>
To: "amglassart@yahoo.com" <amglassart@yahoo.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2014 2:06 PM
Subject: FW: Noyes Park/McMillan Piece published in today's InTheMail

Hello Mr. Wolkoff - I saw your piece in today's inthemail.

Would you please provide me examples of what you describe as the "unruly [pre-teens] young people ... the youth problem of vandalism, crime, and loitering in our parks ...  acting criminally..."  in Noyes Park? 

I wish to have examples/know exactly what you are citing to follow-up.  Thank you kindly.

Very kind regards,

Commissioner Carolyn C. Steptoe
Single Member District 5B04
Vice Chairperson, Advisory Neighborhood Commission 5B
GOVERNMENT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
5B04@anc.dc.gov
(202) 321-3860/ANC cell
(202) 636-8191/home
(pardon typos, etc.)

________________________________________
From: Steptoe, Carolyn C.(ANC 5B04)
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2014 1:35 PM
To: Steptoe, Carolyn C.(ANC 5B04)
Subject: Noyes Park/McMillan Piece published in today's InTheMail

Unruly Pre-Teens at Noyes Park and the Corporate Giveaway of McMillan Park

Daniel Goldon Wolkoff, amglassart@yahoo.com

Brookland residents are concerned about unruly young people in a new neighborhood park while McMillan Park is “surplussed” to developers? Where and how does the youth problem of vandalism, crime, and loitering in our parks and streets start to improve? The police? Or the community taking responsibility? The problem of young people hanging around, vandalizing or acting criminally in our neighborhoods has a simple solution. Healthy, educational art, music, and vocational programs are not being offered enough, engaging the young population in community building. This is an issue of how the young of DC are raised, and how the community is not taking responsibility. Engaging young people in programs where integrity is learned and community responsibility integrated will make the difference.

The city government refuses to offer them the resources because it is busy making deals with developers, “giving” private corporations the land we need for these services, and divesting our parks for corporate profit. Kim Williams from our own Office of Historic Preservation wrote this nomination of McMillan Park to the National Register of Historic Places, http://www.nps.gov/nr/feature/places/13000022.htm. You will quickly understand that McMillan is a resource of national significance, and its preservation is not a Ward 5 issue, but a national issue. Who will benefit is from McMillan Park is being decided by a handful of DC officials in an anti-democrat, institutionally corrupt process. Mega-urbanization of our last large open green space is a cynical anti-environmental boondoggle, another poorly planned, huge real estate investment speculation. Will all of the city, our young people and families, and the nation benefit, or will our park become a hideous, private, ultra-brutalist “mixed-use” office park and condo mall?

The city government is pushing to put $700 million in development at McMillan Park at N. Capitol and Michigan Park, that this government has kept fenced off since 1986. They plan to demolish the “protected historic” site for years of construction, on our last 25 acres of open space, and turn it into mass density, traffic and carbon emissions from construction, paving, and urbanization. Good urban planning, social and environmental justice would preserve McMillan Park, as the community is demanding in great numbers. Over four hundred letters of opposition, 6800 petition signatures, and four days of zoning testimony demonstrated massive community opposition. DC wants our park, which provides breezy outdoor space and carbon sink. McMillan was famous, providing outdoor recreation, the central cities only integrated park with sunset vistas of the DC skyline, one of our “great places” envisioned over one hundred years ago, but is has been wasted by the corrupt DC government since 1986.

If you ever want the youth problem to improve, demand our public land be used for our environment, our recreation, and to offer our young people healthy services like the young have in Montgomery County at Glen Echo. Ward 5 Councilmember McDuffie supports the demolition of the Registered Historic Site, many years of construction, an instant pre-fab neighborhood, a humongous fifty-building, National-Harbor-like construction in the historic Bloomingdale neighborhood, the traffic, congestion, pollution that super-urbanization will condemn us all. The discredited DC Council will defer to McDuffie, putting the destruction of our central park in very few hands. Instead, Glen Echo, the local example of historic restoration and community-building public campus, should be guiding a responsible government to serve the people.

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