Morning Roundup: Goodbye, Abe Edition
Vegetate to Close at the End of the Month
D.C. Police Seek Suspect in Series of Bank Robberies
Suspect in 9-Year-Old's Murder Found Dead in D.C. Jail
Wizards Owner Abe Pollin Dies at 85
Good morning, Washington, and congratulations on not freezing to death or blowing away off the sidewalk as you made your way around town this weekend. The Capital Weather Gang is predicting huge temperature swings for the coming week, with the possibility of mid-60s followed by below 30 with a chance of snow accumulation. Could we be treated to our first snowpocalypse by Friday? Saturday's brief flurries didn't really cut it, but it's looking like this week's just might.
Debate Over Planned Mormon Church in 16th Street Heights: The Examiner reports on a development NIMBY battle we hadn't been following before: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints wants to build a new temple at 16th and Emerson Streets NW, but residents claiming they want to keep the neighborhood strictly residential oppose the plan, and have successfully lobbied the D.C. Zoning Commission to prevent the church from moving forward. The church now claims the reasons behind the neighborhood opposition are based in religious discrimination, but the National Capital Planning Commission has declined to get involved in the dispute.
Priest Chases Thief: First former mayor Anthony Williams chased a thief on K Street, and now the Post reports that Rev. Bill Hegedusich of St. Peter's on Capitol Hill chased after a man who had stolen the church's collection money. The priest managed to convince the suspect to drop one of the two bags he took, allowing the church to recover about half of the stolen money. Not that we want to see a sharp increase in crime, but if this recession means more mild mannered citizens turn into crime-fighting caped crusaders, consider us on the fence about whether it's ultimately a bad thing.
Briefly Noted: Fenty to dip into Eastern Market fund to pay for new levee ... Shooting in Southeast kills 1, injures 2, police arrest suspect ... Arlington police investigate fatal shooting ... Montgomery County Police searching for missing 16-year-old.
Photo by akkleis
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
semantic note: the proposed LDS thing up on 16th street wouldn't be a temple (a la the big old thing up there off the beltway in the forest glen area), but would be a meeting house. they only have a few of the huge temples around the country, and certainly wouldn't build a second one that close to an existing one.
"Alright, Devious! Nobody move!"
"THE BISHOP!"
Jeebus, stealing church collection money? That's colder than a gushot bitch wolfdog with nine sucking pups pulling a beartrap up the hill in the middle of winter with a mouthful of porcupine quills. What's next? Donkeypunching nuns in the taint? This is what happens when you elect a crypto-Kenyan president. IT'S IN THE BOOK OF REVELATIONS, PEOPLE!
"Strictly residential?" Isnt' that area of 16th heavily dotted with churches?
I think the zoning the nimbys are seeking prohibits NEW nonresidential construction, but I don't think that area is stricly residential.
Those Smithsonian ice skates reminds me - has anyone ever rented a pair of skates that were actually comfortable?
The Smithsonian rink's skates makes it 3/3 for terrible rental skates.
Note to Sommer and tothers who are like-minded: it's incredibly stupid to chase after or fight a robber, and chances are likely that you'd get hurt doing so. Best thing is to call the police if robbed, giving a good description; even though it may not seem as rewarding, at least you're not shot, assaulted, or killed after being robbed.
“[The Office of Property Management] has carefully controlled costs for the project and expects to complete the reconstruction on-time and on-budget without the $2M,” Bill Rice, OPM spokesman, said in an e-mail.
It's a real goddamn shame they can't do that with every DC Government program. So they're robbing the Eastern Market fund to pay for levees? What's next? Taking money from the libraries to pay for a meteor shield? You know where this is going? That's right: stealing EMS money to fund dildo sharpeners.
But a church is residential construction. Doesn't God live there?
No? Alright then.
Sommer, do we know any history of this 17th St. Levee? Seems a levee is a pretty important thing to be built given the floods a few years ago - however, why was this money not budgeted in advance? $2m taken from eastern market is not the way to carry ward 6 in ’10.
Since they're using Eastern Market money, they should make the levee a market. Something with a nice cheesemonger and a couple of butchers and a nice Market Lunch counter with really expensive crabcakes that give you violent diarrhea.
Excellent idea...a levee market! It'd at least make for some good overheard in DC quotes on dcist each friday.
Guy1: "Hey, brah, let's go to that levee market place for lunch"
Guy2: "No way, bro. I totally got cholera/lead poisoning/random-water-borne-illness from that stuff last time."
See, that's the beauty of the design: you just open up the levee to wash all the Market Lunch diarrhea out onto 17th Street. It's like a kindler, gentler version of the 18th Street Pizza Mart vomit smell.