U Street Hotel Sparks Controversy
Developer JBG strives to allay objections on proposed height
by Mark F. Johnson

To call it a growing controversy would be to put it simply. A local development company’s proposed plan to build a boutique hotel on the southwest corner of 13th and U Streets NW, would take the economic development of Shaw’s main street, which started taking flight years ago, to even higher heights, many believe. Almost anyone you talk to is in favor of a project that boosts the neighborhood’s stature, especially when the term “high end” is attached to it.

But there are those who would clip the project’s wings, literally. They say the hotel, as proposed, at 110 feet in height, would be too tall and massive for the 1300 block of U Street, a block of historic, late 19th and early 20th century buildings. They have asked developer JBG to scale it back by dropping a floor or two from the proposed structure. Currently, a two-story Rite Aide drug store stands on the parcel.

10th Floor Going Down!
While JBG has agreed to limit the height of the proposed hotel to about 9 floors instead of the original 10, they say to make the building any smaller would render the project unfeasible. Instead of a boutique hotel of larger rooms with more amenities, “you would have a Holiday Inn”, said David Schwartz of DMS Architects, the local firm hired to design the proposed hotel. By that he means, smaller rooms with no particular frills.

Far from chain, economy lodging, JBG has a very different vision for the U Street project. “A one-off” is what we’re seeking to build there,” said Matt Valentini, a development associate with the company. “We want a hotel that doesn’t exist anywhere else. This would be a four-star hotel that would be managed by an outside company, he stated. JBG has been in discussions with companies that do hotel management. Currently they have a ground lease on the real estate and would end up investing about $80 million if the proposal is approved by the District government.

However, if they are not granted a variance to exceed the standard height limit, both Valentini and Schwartz say they would abort the idea to build. “We need at least a 9-story hotel,” Schwartz argued. The entire discussion recalls the debate a few years back regarding the height of the then-proposed Ellington apartment building. That building too, exceeded the 65 feet height limit and was opposed by some in the community. Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Peter Raia recently presented a proposal to the neighborhood ANC to cap the height of the hotel at 60 feet, about 20 feet short of the Ellington apartment complex across the street. Most of his fellow Ward 1 ANC commissioners supported Raia’s proposal citing criticism from constituents of a structure taller than the Ellington.

But, despite the grumbling from some, Valentini said the company is very hopeful that, after going before the District government’s Zoning Commissions as well as the Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB) in the Office of Planning, JBG’s plan for the space will prevail. “Our vision fits in squarely with the District government’s plan for growth and economic development. According to the Office of Planning’s Comprehensive Growth Plan, density around subway stops and existing infrastructure is the way to build the city. “We like the site because it is very close to a Metro stop,” he said. The hotel would be directly across the street from the 13th and U exit of the Green Line.

A Revolving Door of Development
Phil Spalding, former neighborhood ANC Commissioner, agrees that the site is primed for redevelopment. “What is there now, its time has come and gone,” he argued. “What amounts to a strip mall isn’t the most efficient use of that space.” In Spalding’s opinion, the several uniform buildings that occupy the structure are “ugly, ineffective and dated.” Currently, Spalding offered, “those businesses cater to a 9 hour economy.” A hotel would bring daytime as well as nighttime activity.

“It’s an area underserved by hotels,” Valentini added. Part of JBG’s strategy is to tap into the area’s nightlife and the fact that it is across the street from the Lincoln Theatre, and a few blocks away from Howard University and the Studio Theater. Actors in plays running at those theaters, especially headliners, could be hotel patrons, the company believes, as well as parents visiting their students at nearby colleges.

“These are venues that would utilize a hotel,” the JBG associate said. In addition, he speculated, hipster tourists who come to DC more and more these days, might be eager to stay in the U Street area as well as lobbyists and other business executives who seek a more urban experience when visiting the city. People who live in the neighborhood who favor the hotel also say they would put their guests there because of its proximity. Plans for the hotel include a spa, fitness center and upscale restaurant, all of which would be open to the public.

At one of several community meetings held recently to discuss the project, a number of people who live in the area as well as neighborhood business owners conjectured that the hotel would bring much needed daytime traffic to the neighborhood. That argument has gone over well with several nearby businesses, like Urban Essentials, which the hotel would abut. The Mid City Business Association has issued a letter in support of the project. And recently the Cardoza Shaw Neighborhood Association (CSNA) gave a thumbs up to the idea, but expressed concern about the design and stressed the need for the design to harmonize with the older structures on the block “especially in terms of scale, massing and transition,” said CSNA President, Bryan Martin. “The Historic Preservation Review Board is pretty clear about what it will and will not accept,” Martin commented. He believes that if the project is to go through at all, JBG would need to be in concert with the panel.

No Room at the Inn for Some?
Although there is more (tempered) raving than ranting about the project, not all Shaw area business owners agree that the hotel would be a boon to the street. Rick Lee, owner of Lee’s Flower Shop, one of the oldest businesses on U Street, said he is concerned about displacement of the small businesses that currently rent space on the parcel of land that the hotel would occupy. While the Rite Aide would be allowed to stay on the site because of a multi-year lease, the other businesses, including a manicure shop and an insurance agency, might have to find someplace else to go. A branch of Pizza Hut is there also, as well as a BBT bank office. However, Valentini said that, at this point, nothing is set in stone as to who stays and who goes. What is definite though, is that the Rite Aide would lose its prominent corner spot. “It would be moved inside the hotel” to a less high-rent space, Valentini said. “The corner spot would likely go to the restaurant.”

Those crying “foul” the loudest appear to be a few residents of Wallach Pl, NW, the street that would be at the hotel’s back. Some residents of that block have complained that the structure would tower over them and block out their sun. Others have pointed out that, as the sun comes in from the south, loss of sunlight would not be an issue since the hotel would be located to the north of Wallach Pl.

Next, JBG must go through the process of filing a Planned United Development (PUD) application for consideration by the DC Office of Zoning and the DC Zoning Commission. This means that the developer may be given some flexibility in terms of design of the structure in exchange for the greater dividends to the community that the hotel could offer, like jobs and a proposed art gallery to showcase the work of local artists.

In addition, said Valentini, in three to six months, JBG will again meet with the ANC. He estimates that it would be about 2014 before the hotel would open its doors, should it win all the approvals.

Determination and Speed at Dunbar
by Amanda Abrams

On a recent Saturday morning, the track behind Dunbar High School was a hive of activity. The day had dawned hot and bright, and parents were busy setting up sun shelters in the grass around the track, while young athletes in team uniforms wandered around eating snacks as they awaited their turn at the starting line. On the gleaming Astroturf inside the track, officials hastily worked out last-minute logistics under a white tent.

But the minute the starting gun went off, it was impossible to look anywhere but at the young runners bounding down the track. Legs pounding the pavement with an insistent rhythm, faces concentrated in determination, each runner appeared to be fiercely fighting a private battle to go just a little faster than the person next to them.

That’s exactly the focus and personal investment the organizers had been hoping for when they conceptualized the event, the first annual Tommie Smith Youth Track Meet. Hosted by DC Speed, the Department of Parks and Recreation’s track and field club, and sponsored by 100 Black Men of Greater Washington, the May 23 event brought more than a dozen youth running clubs from all over the region to compete against each other throughout the day.

Michael Melton, president of 100 Black Men of Greater Washington, surveyed the scene with satisfaction. “This is about the significance of getting our children away from computers, where they’re just exercising their thumbs, to exercising their whole body,” he said, adding that the event was established as part of the group’s health and wellness program.

Tommie Smith was there in the flesh, shaking hands, posing for photos, and waving the flag at the finish line. A former Olympic runner who earned notoriety for his “black power salute” in the 1968 Olympics, Smith now works around the country encouraging young people to get involved in athletics.

But the real focus of the event was the many milling kids, ages 7 to 18, who competed in standard track events like the 200 meter run, 400 meter relay, and long jump.

After one heat of the 100 meter dash, nine year old Taylor Simpson wandered back down the track, looking relaxed. The fourth grader—who lives near Howard University and attends Anthony Hyde School in Georgetown—had just won her race. She had run hard and fast, though she conceded that she’d been nervous. “I was thinking, I really need to breathe so I don’t faint,” she said. “But it felt good.”

Taylor is a member of DC Speed, which practices three or four times a week at Dunbar’s state-of-the-art track. Established last year as the city’s running club, it’s newer than many of the other clubs competing at the event. Nonetheless, the team’s black and red-clad runners fared well—though they might do even better next year, when the meet is held again.

Everybody Loves a Parade
by Amanda Abrams

In the weeks before the parade, residents circulated anxious posts on neighborhood listservs about potential traffic problems and the need for vigilant police. And when the day finally came, there were indeed lines of cars waiting to pass at many intersections. But by and large, the mood during the United House of Prayer’s annual Memorial Day weekend parade was upbeat, on the part of both participants and bystanders.

The day, May 23, was perfect: clear and sunny, if a trifle hot. By 11:30, the streets were free of cars and marchers had begun walking north from the United House of Prayer at 6th and M Street. It was a colorful and noisy parade, composed entirely of UHP members from around the country.

Scattered between marching bands and pompon girls walked older, somber groups: 500 Elders (as their sign proclaimed) in long black robes, deacons in dark suits, then a massive wave of women in white labeled ‘Nurses’ and ‘Queens’.

The parade, said Geraldine Marshall—a church member and neighbor who served as a parade marshal that day—is about honoring the church’s past leaders. Why Memorial Day? “We are memorializing them—they’re soldiers in the army of the Lord,” she said.

Sure enough, a gaggle of marchers soon passed bearing photos of the church’s four leaders, past and present: founder Daddy Grace, Bishop McCollough, Bishop Madison, and the current leader, Bishop Bailey. And then came the cars, long black vehicles from various eras that the bishops had owned. In the back seat of one, hidden by a big white hat, was Madam McCollough, the bishop’s widow. In the next, an old-model Cadillac, rode Lady D, Bishop Madison’s widow.

The parade has been occurring in Shaw for almost eighty years, and Marshall—who’s 78—remembers marching as a flower girl in the 1930’s. The church itself is only ninety years old; it was established by Daddy Grace in West Wareham, Mass.

Along the parade route—which went from 6th Street to U Street, west to 13th Street, down to Logan Circle and past Daddy Grace’s former home on the circle, and finally back to UHP—were observers of all types. Some were UHP members who’d made the trek to DC but didn’t want to march, like Dareyl Knox of Norfolk, who was watching intently and described himself as a devoted church member.

Others were neighborhood residents. Included among them was Kisha (she declined to give her last name), who had prepared for the event by bringing a lawn chair and her lunch. A 5th Street resident, she was hoping to learn a little more about her neighborhood and maybe even be entertained. “I saw the bands practicing, so I came out—I love music,” she said.

Gone are the days when the UHP parade was one of the most exciting events occurring in Shaw, but the crowds watching from the sidewalk seemed to enjoy taking in something unusual. And even the cars that had to wait hours before passing—as well as the policemen standing guard over them at intersections—seemed to appreciate it.

Finding Common Ground through Storytelling
by Amanda Abrams

Maria Firmino-Castillo was frustrated.

As the resident ethnographer and community organizer for ONE DC, a Ward Two-based organization focused on racial and economic justice, she had been hoping to mobilize low-income residents from a variety of backgrounds to change their neighborhoods for the better.

The problem? While it was obvious to ONE DC’s staff that the District—and their home turf, Shaw, in particular—was becoming increasingly unaffordable, not all residents were interested working collectively to address the situation.

“We were at an impasse about how to organize with other communities,” reflected Firmino-Castillo. So ONE DC elected to go out on a limb and try something experimental: helping people get to know each other a little better, in the hopes that it would facilitate future cooperation. “We decided to do digital storytelling—short films,” she said.

Thus was Weaving Shared Visions born. The project involved about a dozen DC residents hailing from all over the world who were interested in telling their stories. Over 6-8 weeks, the group’s members discussed their hopes, honed individual tales of collective action and personal transformation, and learned new software programs to combine audio and visual elements.

Fast forward to May 27, in the sanctuary of the New Community Church on S Street, NW. About twenty viewers watched photos pan across the screen as Michelle Banks’ voice narrated her story of growing up in Southeast DC.

“I didn’t think I’d ever leave DC,” Banks said in the video. “It was like my life had been decided for me.” But as the video continued, she described how she became drawn to the Latino immigrants who had moved into the city in the 1980’s, and wound up interested in political theater. Now she lives half the time in Guatemala, a country that “reminds me of where I was born—working people getting by.”

Banks wasn’t the only person who bared her soul in the project. Another woman described her father’s search for justice in her native Peru; a Kenyan, Omondi Akura, illustrated his lifelong quest for meaning and the meeting with a dedicated activist that set him on his current path; and a woman from Brazil compared her work organizing landless peasants in her home country to protesting a tuition hike at the University of the District of Columbia.

Firmino-Castillo isn’t sure what the next steps are for the videos—or the program. The stories highlight the struggles and hopes shared by almost everyone, but will that be enough to convince them to work together for the common good?

Maybe, maybe not. But as one of the program’s participants pointed out at the end of the screening, “There is not a single social movement that didn’t begin with individual social action.” If that’s true, then helping participants identify their own principles, priorities, and plans for a better life is undoubtedly a starting point.

For more information please contact Maria Firmino Castillo at mfirmino@onedconline.org or visit: www.onedconline.org.

Garden Tour Greens the Neighborhood
by Tanya Snyder

The fifth annual Shepherd Park Garden Tour was a big success. On May 17, neighbors had the chance to see “lovely, smaller, do-it-yourself gardens” as well as “stunning, professionally-designed gardens,” in the words of Allison Boisson.  Some gardeners even gave away herbs and flowering plants.

Despite unseasonably cold weather, nearly 70 people toured the most impressive gardens in their community. Tour organizer Gloria Owens describes the gardens as filled with “towering trees, meandering flagstone paths, waterfalls, ponds, fountains, seas of flowerings plants, tropical grasses and plants, shrubs, decks, patios, a bluestone pool and the smell of floral bouquets permeating the air.”

Emily Karen Gumpert commented that the “magnificent” gardens she saw on the tour inspired her with ideas “for my little plot of earth in my back yard.” She said she was moved by “how utterly beautiful and rich the earth is when someone knows how to bring forth that beauty.”

This year’s self-guided tour featured seven gardens of various sizes and styles in the Shepherd Park, Colonial Village, and North Portal Estates neighborhoods.

One highlight was the nationally-recognized garden on Plymouth Street, just outside the Rock Creek Park boundary. The garden offers various romantic seating areas, each with its own water feature and framed by luscious plantings. New to the tour was a historical English country garden on 16th Street with four fish ponds and rock and herb gardens on three levels.

The Shepherd Park Citizens’ Association says funds from the tour are used “to preserve and enhance selected green spaces within our community.” This year, the SPCA donated the proceeds to the Gateway Georgia Avenue Revitalization Corporation for the Georgia Avenue Flowers project and to a Beach Drive beautification project in Colonial Village. Gateway Executive Director Marc Loud says they plan to plant new guinea impatiens in 27 planters around the neighborhood. He says the impatiens “are an excellent plant for this time of year, and will withstand the DC summer heat.”

Owens says that in previous years, funds have supported projects at the Marvin Caplan Park, Shepherd Elementary, and the Lowell School Ecosystem.

To get involved with future garden tours, contact the Shepherd Park Citizens’ Association, http://www.shepherdpark.org/.

Affordable Housing in Ward 4
by Tanya Snyder

Work started on two major apartment building projects in May. Both of them will provide affordable housing, just as ward residents find they need affordable housing more than ever.

Mayor Adrian Fenty held a groundbreaking ceremony May 11 to begin reconstruction of an apartment building in Brightwood. Councilmember Muriel Bowser joined him in marking the beginning of the transformation of the long-abandoned building at 6425 14th Street. The vacant property suffered decades of neglect before the city bought it and contracted with Blue Skye Development to restore it. Landlord Vincent Abell was sued for numerous code violations for the building, which was built in the 1950s, but has been abandoned since the 1980s.

The renovated building will have 26 apartment units, 14 of which will be reserved as affordable housing. The project will cost $4.6 million and is schedule to be completed by March 2010.

Petworth’s Georgia Commons got underway in May too. Georgia Commons is a $35 million mixed-use project that will provide 119 new affordable housing units. Jair Lynch Development Partners is working on that project. It’s part of a housing renaissance happening right now in Petworth – just up the street the Residences at Georgia Avenue are going up, where, according to the Washington Business Journal, “all 72 units will be subsidized at affordable levels and $20 million of the project’s $28 million in financing came from the city.”

All this affordable rental housing is good news to Ward Four, whose homeowners have been hard hit by the housing crisis. A new report by the Urban Institute revealed that nowhere in the city have housing prices fallen as steeply as in Ward Four. Between the end of 2007 and the end of 2008, prices fell 26 percent in the ward.

“Unfortunately there are a number of people who probably bought high, with the thought that they could refinance and now they can’t,” Councilmember Bowser says.

And falling prices are just one side of the story. Bowser says ward residents also complain “that their taxes are going up and they can’t afford to live there.”

All the more reason affordable rental housing may be looking better and better to afflicted homeowners.

Battleground National Cemetery Gets a Facelift
by Tanya Snyder

James Garay Heelan, an observant neighbor to the Battleground National Cemetery at Fort Stevens (6625 Georgia Avenue, NW), noticed that a few items had gone missing. When he inquired about the removal of the ornamentation at the base of the cemetery’s flagpole, as well as the plaque containing the text of the Gettysburg Address, he was relieved to learn that not only had vandals not gotten to them, but that they are being restored by the National Park Service.

Comprising just one acre of land, Battleground National Cemetery is one of the nation’s smallest national cemeteries. In 2005 it was listed on the DC Preservation League’s list of most endangered places because poor maintenance and lack of funding had led to severe deterioration. Apparently the National Park Service is responding.

Simone Monteleone Moffett, Cultural Resources Specialist for the Park Service at Rock Creek Park, informed Heelan that the removal of the items was part of an ongoing conservation project. “The plaques are being cleaned,” wrote Moffett, “and the finishes restored for re-installation within the next couple of months.”

As for the ornamental details on the flagpole, they “are being treated and cleaned (and replicated where they are missing),” according to Moffett. “These features will also be returned within the next couple of months.”

In addition, interpretive ranger Ron Harvey has discovered through exhaustive research that five of the headstones were incorrectly labeled. New signs will convey this information. The Park also hopes to have more interpretive staff available at the cemetery.

Fort Stevens is the site of one of only two occasions when a sitting President has come under fire. On July 12, 1864, the fort came under Confederate attack. Lincoln, who had gone out to view the battle, was nearly hit. The cemetery is the resting place of 41 Union soldiers who perished while defending Washington during a Confederate attack on July 11th and 12th, 1864.

Neighborhood cultural gem marks fourth anniversary
Roxanne Carter’s gallery brings art—and the unusual—to Brookland
by Kelley Dupuis

Roxanne’s Artiques & Gallery marked its fourth year with a reception this spring, and Roxanne Carter, who runs the little art gallery at 3426 9th St. NE, near the Brookland/CUA Metro station, is already planning her next exhibitions.

The reception came as the gallery’s most recent show, Dinqnesh (Songs For Our Mothers) was preparing to wrap up. The show featured works by artists Julie Dickerson-Thompson, Claudia “Aziza” Gibson-Hunter and Francine Haskins.

Dinqnesh, which closed just before Mother’s Day, honored mothers by honoring “the first mother,” as Carter calls “Lucy,” the famous skeleton found in Ethiopia in 1974 by anthropologists who estimated its age at 3.2 million years.

“Dinqnesh”—first mother—is what Lucy is called in parts of east Africa.

Carter says her next projected show will center around “obtainable” art, e.g. works by artists with prices under $500 and therefore within the general public’s budget. Beyond that, she is also making plans for a show to be called Stitches, which will center around wall hangings, quilts, embroidery and similar handicrafts.

Carter herself is not an artist in any medium except the gallery itself, and she makes that a point of pride.

“The gallery is ‘virtual art,’” she said. “Putting together all these pieces, arranging them, putting up exhibits, that’s an art in itself.” The D.C. native attended the University of the District of Columbia, where it was her studies of sociology and anthropology that got her interested in art.

“I took a class from Professor George Smith at UDC,” she said. “part of the course included going to different museums and talking about various artists.” Carter says that one of the first artists whose work really caught her eye was the American Indian sculptor Edmonia Lewis 1845(?) – 1911.

The gallery features many works in paint, wood and other media, coming from Haiti and also from different African venues including Ethiopia and Morocco. Carter says she has friends in Africa and in the Caribbean who, when they come to visit, bring pieces of art with them.

“EVERYTHING in the gallery is for sale!” she laughed.

The gallery is open from Thursday to Sunday, and traffic varies.

“It’s a unique place,” she said. “But once people find it, they come back.”

Tax the bags or bag the tax?
Opinions differ on Anacostia cleanup
by Kelley Dupuis

The Anacostia river is a polluted mess, and a measure making its way through DC city council aims at doing something about it.

Two council committees have already approved the Anacostia River Cleanup and Protection Act of 2009, proposed last winter by Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells. At press time the act was headed for a first reading before the City Council on June 2.

But while few would argue against cleaning up the Anacostia, some don’t like everything about Wells’ proposal, including Ward 5 Councilmember Harry “Tommy” Thomas.

The feature of the cleanup act that has some fur flying is a proposed five-cent fee on all single-use plastic and paper carryout bags from retail food establishment license holders. That includes liquor stores, grocery stores, food vendors, convenience stores, drug stores and others.

In press releases, Wells has pointed to broad-based organizational support in the community, among a spectrum of groups ranging from the Sierra Club to the Anacostia Watershed Society to Bread for the City. He also pointed out that 20,000 tons of trash gets dumped into the Anacostia every year, and he cites a D.C. Department of the Environment report that says 50 percent of that trash is in fact plastic bags.

The five-cent fee aims at producing a clean-up-the-Anacostia fund, and has the dual purpose of trying to discourage people from using the environmentally-unfriendly plastic bags.

But skepticism exists about the desirability, or indeed the effectiveness, of yet another tax.

“I think this is kind of like the hitting-a-fly-with-a-hammer theory,” said Councilmember Thomas. “I would have worked with the industry to start a voluntary program.”

For one thing, Thomas doesn’t think it reasonable to slap D.C. residents with a tax on a problem that he says largely comes from Maryland.

“The majority of the waste from plastic bags is coming from Maryland,” Thomas said. “A tax on people who are shopping in the District isn’t going to solve the problem, especially if we know that Maryland is the chief contributor.”

Thomas has plenty of company in opposing “the bag tax,” as it’s come to be called. In fact opposition is bipartisan. Paul D. Craney, Executive Director of the D.C. Republican Party, also opposes it.

“This actually hurts the recycling industry,” Craney said. “Because you’re telling consumers not use goods that are made from recycled material. Some states like California have banned taxes on bags because it hurts the recycling industry.”

Craney also pointed out that government has found many ways to work with non-profits in the past to clean up, for example, the Chesapeake, and without imposing a tax on anything.

“You tax these bags, you’re still going to find them in the river, they’ll just cost more,” Craney said.

Craney cited figures that the D.C. City Council has increased its budget by 42 percent since 2004.

“They have plenty of money to clean up the Anacostia River with,” he said. “They don’t need another tax.”

Summer looms, and so does crime
Councilman wants city to match anti-crime funding for Ward 5
by Kelley Dupuis

Certain types of violent crime are down in the District of Columbia for 2009 as opposed to a year ago, and Ward 5 Councilmember Harry “Tommy” Thomas says he wants to repeat what was done last summer to try and keep crime down in some Ward 5 hot spots.

Thomas held a press conference May 21 to discuss initiatives aimed at addressing summer crime in such areas as North Capitol Street, Rhode Island Avenue, Bladensburg Road, Florida Avenue, Brentwood, the R Street corridor and in local areas with concentrations of businesses, such as 12th Street.

Homicide in the District is down about 23 percent this year over last—49 homicides have been reported, as compared with 64 at the same time in 2008. Last year’s homicide total was 186, up slightly from 2007 but continuing a trend toward lower homicide rates. Since 2004 the city’s annual murder rate has been under 200, after spiking at 262 in 2003.

But youth and gang-related violence are on the upswing, and Thomas says he wants to expand upon a 10-point program instituted last summer to cut the crime rate by increasing social services as well as vocational and workforce programs, and extending recreational hours.

Thomas said he wants to work with the mayor’s office to form “green teams” like those that do cleanup in the downtown business district.

“We want something like that in Ward 5,” he said. “We want to work with mainstream organizations to beautify some of the corridors, make them tractable and livable.”

“Violent crimes need to be addressed in a much more forceful way,” he went on. “I want to see where economic resources are coming from to support these initiatives.”

Thomas said Ward 5 has identified $1.7 million in its 2010 budget for emergency funding to support community-based groups which are working in the neighborhoods “for the cultural and lifestyle change that we need to do,” in his words. And he wants the city government to help out.

“I’m trying to make sure [the executive] matches those funds in Ward 5 for the summertime,” he said.

Although there are more police on the street these days than in some years past, Thomas said he wants to “get some more outside resources in action” to fight the crime rate rather than relying entirely on the police.