A regular summary of irregular news and notes from neighborhood blogs and email lists around the District.
Lauriol Plaza Mostly Has Amazing Margaritas: Borderstan’s latest in a series of profiles of the at-large council seat candidates is on Josh Lopez. Previous profiles include Bryan Weaver and Pat Mara; all three candidates have ties to the Borderstan coverage area, which includes Shaw, Dupont, and Adams Morgan, and the interviews have skewed toward “softer” topics of personal interests. Says Lopez of the advice that he’d give Mayor Vincent Gray, “I would ask Mayor Gray what he has learned from his mistakes. What would he do differently? I would take him to Lauriol Plaza because they have an amazing menu and I am sure that is something we can both agree on.”
Pho-bulous: New Columbia Heights notes that the Park Road streetscape reconstruction is finally done—and that it looks great. Commenters agree, but still have some criticisms. Says one, “I like how in both pictures the beautiful middle window of the arched windows is still boarded up. Why can’t they go fix their window for gosh sakes.” And for others, the thoughts quickly turn to food: One asks, “Looks great, now can Pho 14 finally expand?!?” while another says, “There’s also a dominican restaurant there, which I’m super excited about cause its the closet thing to puerto rican food here in DC. I haven’t tried it yet.”
Get Your Own: On the Petworth email list, a resident airs the grievances that his Advisory Neighborhood Commission typically turns over its audience comment period to non-residents, and that his single-member district representative doesn’t hold special meetings. An ANC commissioner snipes back, writing “Do you want a SMD meeting because it gives you the opportunity to pitch a product, service, event, etc? That’s the only time, I’ve been approached to have a meeting in my single member district. It’s usually when someone wants to advertise their website design business, Mary Kay Products, their one man/woman Non-Profit to solicit donations, travel agency, increase church membership etc. Sadly, no thought is given as to whether my constituents would be interested. The assumption is, they will be,” concluding, “Lastly, If you feel your commissioner is not holding meetings to address issues in your community. Then you take the lead and do it. I did this before I became a commissioner.
It’s Always Better in New York: Even though D.C. has finally secured a Shake Shack location or two, but for some, we’ll never be on par with New York City. In a continuation of yesterday’s debate on the Tenleytown email list regarding the redevelopment of Babe’s Billiards—and the always-contentious issue of parking—a list member writes, “I visited NYC last week, and was reminded how polite people can be to one another when they live cheek to cheek to one another. I rarely see that attitude on this listserv – the postings are most often a downer.”