A regular summary of irregular news and notes from neighborhood blogs and email lists around the District.

It Was Only 10 Miles! “Is there a movement to rid of the speed radar at 1900 block Independence Ave SE? What can be done to protest this radar? I just received a ticket for going 35mph in that 25mph zone in the right lane out of the three lanes there on Christmas Eve. This incentivizes me to move out of this city. I’m tired of getting tickets at every turn in spite of trying to obey the law,” complains a member of the New Hill East e-mail list. Other members don’t seem to think the complainer is trying all that hard. “Not to be a complete jerk, but not going 10mph over is probably a good start,” responds one. Another writes, “Personally I’d like to see about five speed camera’s the whole way down Independence ave, ticketing anyone doing more than 30 miles an hour about a thousand bucks.”

Brookland Dog Days: A member of the Brookland email list is looking to get rid of some things under sad circumstances: “Our dog passed away and we have things to give away or donate. For now, I have half of an opened, large bag (about 20 lbs) of Iams Large Breed Proactive Health (green bag) dry food and 7 months worth of Sentinel flavor tabs for dogs 51-100 lbs.”

Ouch: Members of the Petworth email list are annoyed that their Yes! Organic Market got caught selling to a minor: “This is really stupid on Yes’ part, and potentially really bad for those of us in the neighborhood who value being able to pick up a bottle of wine in the neighborhood without buying it from behind bullet proof glass. I would imagine a significant part of the revenue at that store comes from wine and beer sales.”

The Dark Side Of Affordable Housing: In Shaw notes that government programs only go so far. “If these sorts of programs are to fight gentrification by ‘helping’ lower income folks get into homes, these programs should try to figure out how are participants supposed to deal with stuff down the road such as rising condo fees (when do they not rise?), expensive maintenance problems like roofs, furnaces, CAC systems, busted underground pipes, and other things that usually cost several thousand dollars to fix. I guess they think participants will build up a huge savings somewhere, but if they were able to do that, they might not need the government’s help to get a house in the first place.”