Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Vol. XLIV, No. 7
Serving Communities in Northwest Washington Since 1967
THE NORTHWEST CURRENT Pepco, PSC take heat for outages
Cheh flags school growth, boundaries
PICTURE PERFECT
■ Enrollment: Crowding at
By BRADY HOLT
Janney, Mann and Key at issue
Current Staff Writer
After a storm leaves large sections of the District without electricity, it is routine for Pepco to come before the D.C. Public Service Commission to explain how it will prevent the problem from recurring. It is also routine, Ward 3 D.C. Council member Mary Cheh said, for the utility to make the same promises while failing to improve the reliability of its system. “The recommendations that they’re offering and the promises that they made, they’re the same, and the problems recur,” Cheh said at a Friday evening roundtable held by the council’s Committee on Public Services and Consumer Affairs. The hearing was called to discuss Pepco’s performance during the Jan. 26 “thundersnow,” which left about 32,000 District customers without power, some for more than three days. During the roughly six-hour hearing, Cheh called on the Public Service Commission to set tough standards for Pepco’s service reliability and to fine the company for poor performance — and sharply criticized the commission for not See Pepco/Page 23
By JESSICA GOULD Current Staff Writer
Ward 3 D.C. Council member Mary Cheh worries that with growing enrollment and limited space, some Northwest schools could soon become victims of their own success. “Going forward, we’re going to have to figure this out,” she said in an interview last week. So on Feb. 8, Cheh sent a letter to
Residents seek changes to AU law school plans ■ Development: Tenleytown
residents ask for more parking Bill Petros/The Current
Four-year-old Helene Hendrix adds a finishing touch to a mural that she and her fellow students created at the Aidan Montessori School. The Woodley Park school installed the murals Saturday afternoon on a playground wall.
3265 S St. The switch also comes after a move by the city’s contracting office late last year to yank the Boys & The city’s lead attorney has sigGirls Clubs’ contract for a Columbia naled that D.C. will cancel the final Heights site and award it instead to four years of a five-year contract the Latin American Youth Center. that would have paid the Boys & The contracting office declined Girls Clubs of Greater Washington to comment because the matter is in more than $2 million total to run litigation. Georgetown’s Jelleff Recreation Bill Petros/The Current The regional Boys & Girls Clubs Center. The decision, termed “corrective Officials say they plan to toss out will be able to compete for the new contract, which will cover operaaction” in a letter from the D.C. the Boys & Girls Club deal. tions from September forward. The Office of the Attorney General, comes amid ongoing legal action stemming from a current contract will remain in effect through August to protest by the Friends of Jelleff, a group that was among avoid disruption of services, according to the letter. See Jelleff/Page 36 last year’s bidders to operate the recreation center at By CAROL BUCKLEY Current Staff Writer
■ Council funds Janney parking garage, Takoma rebuilding. Page 3. ■ Four projects aim for Connecticut Avenue improvements. Page 5.
SPORTS ■ Gonzaga beats DeMatha to move into first place. Page 13. ■ Coolidge downs Roosevelt to snap Riders’ streak. Page 13.
By CAROL BUCKLEY Current Staff Writer
City to seek new bids for Jelleff contract
NEWS
interim Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson outlining her concerns. Specifically, she said, the number of students at Janney, Mann and Key elementary schools is beginning to overwhelm the space — and enrollment appears to be rising. Take Janney. According to D.C. Public Schools records, the school was already serving 489 students in 2008. Now, Janney serves 500, with nearly all of them coming from inboundary homes. And while Janney will have a capacity of 550 students once its $25 million modernization is complete, Cheh said it will not be See Schools/Page 12
While their neighbors south of Ward Circle press American University to alter plans to build dormitories on the site of a parking lot, residents around the school’s Tenley campus are girding for a different battle altogether. The university is proposing to relocate its law school from a commercially zoned building on Massachusetts Avenue to the peaceful expanse off Tenley Circle now home to the school’s Washington Semester program and a handful of administrative uses. The move, say university officials, is necessary so the law school can grow to 2,000 students from the current level of 1,770 — a number that has left the current building overcrowded, they say. The relocated law school would spread over about 300,000 square feet and four stories. Underground parking with 400 to 500 spaces
PA S S A G E S ■ NHL All-Star helps out elementary school’s garden project. Page 15. ■ Local film festival spotlights ‘Our City.’ Page 15 .
Bill Petros/The Current
School officials say moving the law school will allow growth. would serve the faculty and students who drive to the campus, which is much closer to a Metrorail stop than the current law school. But residents at a recent Tenleytown advisory neighborhood commission meeting challenged university representatives Jorge Abud and David Taylor to maximize underground parking to keep more students — about half of whom drive to the law school now — off the residential streets. Planners “will try to get as close to 500 [spaces] as possible,” Abud See Tenley/Page 23
INDEX Business/9 Calendar/27 Classifieds/37 District Digest/4 Exhibits/29 In Your Neighborhood/22 Opinion/10
Passages/15 Police Report/6 School Dispatches/16 Real Estate/21 Service Directory/33 Sports/13 Theater/29