Results tagged “parksandrecreation”

                     

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty presided over the opening of a fabulously-appointed new dog park at 17th and S Streets NW yesterday (along with a refurbished park for all living things at 17th and T, but the focus was clearly on the pooches' new playground). As theses photographs illustrate, the park features a hill-shaped, artificial grass surface and a water fountain designed specifically for dogs.

The pools are open! The pools are open! Thus declared D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty today (well, we're paraphrasing slightly). The outdoor municipal swimming pool season got its official start at a ceremony at the Anacostia Pool this morning, though minus any sort of mayoral or celebrity cannonball. Instead, members of the Bell Multicultural and Dunbar Senior High swim teams did the honors by being the first to dive in. It's nice to get the kids involved, but is too much to ask for something a little sillier, Mr. Mayor?

Word hit the street this morning that Mayor Adrian Fenty had fired D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation director Clark Ray yesterday, and he's already named a replacement. City Desk has the scene at today's presser announcing former D.C. public schools principal Ximena Hartsock as Ray's replacement. Hartsock had been running afterschool and summer school programs for Michelle Rhee/DCPS. Earlier this morning, D.C. Wire reported that at least a few people are befuddled as to the decision to let Ray go, and there's speculation that it could have been related to a lawsuit recently filed by former DPR employee Michael Williams. Williams alleges that he was improperly fired after raising questions about whether the mayor's sons were participating in a youth basketball league that they were too old for.

In the department of bad timing, at the end of last week the Department of Parks and Recreation sent around a press release notifying the community that the play courts, plaza, and playground at the Stead Recreation Center at 1625 P Street NW will temporarily close beginning April 30, 2008.