Casey Trees staff cycling over 500 miles for tree research

Photo by Christopher Horn of Casey Trees

Casey Trees is a local non-profit centered around planting trees and spreading awareness about how to take care of them here in the District. I've been volunteering with them since just after I moved into the city (it was either fall of 2004 or summer of 2005, I can't remember - when I started volunteering, not when I moved here!), and they've consistently been one of the most important voices for making this a better city, in my opinion.

Casey Trees staff members will be helping raise money again this year for the Tree Research and Education Endowment Fund (TREE Fund) through a 585 mile bike tour this coming August. The 2012 “Tour des Trees” will begin near Beaverton, Oregon, and cyclists will have to deal with elevation changes of over 4,300 ft as well as several days of 100+ mile riding.

In 2011, Casey Trees actually hosted the event, which began in Virginia Beach, VA and stopped at their headquarters before ending at American University’s campus.

In its 21 year history, the Tour has raised over $5 million to advance arboriculture education and research, which is directly used for, amongst other things, studying urban forestry. The TREE Fund’s work has a direct impact on such hot-button tree topics in D.C. as public safety and electric service reliability, disease and pest control, and economic concerns including real estate values, air pollution reduction, and the urban heat island effect.

Casey Trees is sending two staff members, Sara Turner, the Urban Forestry Manager, and Neil Irvin, an Urban Forestry Crew Member, who will attempt to raise $7,000 to contribute to the TREE Fund research while biking, planting trees, and generating conversation about the importance of D.C.’s and the nation’s tree canopy. Consider them stewards of the District’s green future. To help them reach their individual fundraising goals, donate here:

Sara Turner, Casey Trees Urban Forestry Manager

Neil Irvin, Casey Trees Urban Forestry Crew Member

They’ll be documenting each and every turn on the Tour via the Casey Trees blog, Tree Speak, and on Facebook and Twitter.

Be sure to follow their progress!

The (potential) coming electoral mess at the JAWB

The John A. Wilson Building, by WallyG

UPDATE: Thanks to input from a few friends, there are some additions made below in italics.

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The ongoing turmoil at the Wilson Building doesn't appear to be ending anytime soon. Voters in the District can likely expect more special elections in the coming year as the fallout from the investigations into the campaigns and other doings of Council Chairman Kwame Brown and Mayor Vince Gray continue to be revealed.

Speculation is rampant about how things would play out should one or both be removed from their current positions. I wanted to put together a really rough outline of what some think could happen soon. I'm certain this isn't 100% accurate, so please let me know in the comments if you can provide a correction.

• In the simplest scenario, Kwame Brown steps down or is removed from office.
• Mary Cheh becomes the temporary chairperson, due to her current position as Chair Pro Tempore. She calls a meeting to select an interim chairperson, who, by law, must come from the list of at-large members of the council. The chairperson is not allowed to have any other employment, and the story is that Michael Brown and David Catania would not want to resign from their non-council jobs, leaving Phil Mendelson and Vince Orange to compete for the chair's seat. (Since the interim chairperson would not actually be an elected chairperson, it's not clear whether they would have to give up outside employment).
• The at-large seat vacated by one of these two would remain temporarily vacant until a special election is held in conjunction with the general election this November.
• That special election would be to fill the chairperson's seat on a more permanent basis.
• If Mendelson were to run in and win that election, BOEE would hold another special election in the new year to fill his vacant at-large seat.
• If Orange were to run in that election, he would have to leave the race he's currently in for the at-large seat. You can't run for two council seats at the same time. (While you can't run for two seats in the same election, a special election held at the same time as the general election could be considered a different election, so it's possible, but unlikely, that someone could run in two races at once.) The DC Democratic State Committee would get to select someone to take his line as the Democrat on the ballot for the at-large seat (somewhat similar to the way they selected Sekou Biddle to take Kwame Brown's at-large seat temporarily when he became council chairman).

If Vince Gray follows Kwame Brown in stepping down or being removed from office, the situation on the council becomes even more muddled.

• The interim chairperson would become the interim mayor.
• Another interim chairperson would have to be selected to run the council. Let's assume that the council selects Mendelson as the interim chairperson after Kwame Brown leaves office. That would make him the interim mayor, and would leave Vince Orange as the selection for interim council chairperson.
• BOEE would call for fall special elections for a new mayor and a new chairperson.
• The above caveats about the seats currently held by Mendelson and Orange would continue to apply (temporarily vacant, would need to be filled in a special election should one of them run for and win a higher office).
• It's safe to assume that current officeholders like Evans, Bowser, Wells, and others may run for one or both of these seats. Should Evans, Bowser, or others currently up for re-election choose to run for either of these seats, the Democratic committee for their respective wards would name someone to take their line on the ballot, as they couldn't run for two offices at once. Wells would not have to worry about that, since he's not currently up for re-election.

The potential for a confusing ongoing election season is about to increase greatly. I never would have guessed that all of this mess was possible just two short years ago.

Open letter to Ward 5 residents - Vote Kenyan McDuffie May 15

 Photo by BurgersSociety on Twitter

I'm going to keep this brief. The Ward 5 special election is on Tuesday. Early voting has started, and according to Mike DeBonis, the precincts that are voting in the largest numbers are mostly in the northern part of Ward 5, which many consider to be Frank Wilds country.

Most think that the election is going to be a close one between Wilds, Delano Hunter, and Kenyan McDuffie. If it's not clear from the picture above, we are die-hard McDuffie supporters.

It's highly unlikely that anyone will emerge from the 12-candidate field with a majority of the votes. A few hundred votes could swing one candidate or another to victory, though. Turning out supporters is key, and we have been phone banking, going door-to-door, and will be working on election day at the polls for our preferred candidate.

The southern parts of the ward that border Ward 6 (Truxton Circle, Bloomingdale, Eckington, Ivy City, Trinidad, Arboretum, and Carver Langston) need to turn out and vote for someone who will have a good, strong working relationship with that ward and its councilmember, Tommy Wells. Cross-jurisdictional relationships are important, and Tommy knows that he and Kenyan will work together well on the council.

We strongly encourage you to vote, either today (Friday) or Saturday at the Turkey Thicket Recreation Center on Michigan Avenue in Brookland, or on Tuesday at your regular polling place throughout the ward. Please, get the neighbors who live on either side of you to vote as well. This is too important of an election to have our city's usual anemic 15% or less turnout.

Neighborhood clean-up and art show in Woodridge this Saturday

One of our favorite places in Ward 5 is Art Enables, an art studio and gallery on Rhode Island Avenue in Woodridge. We've written about it before, and want to draw your attention to an event they're hosting.

As you can see in the flyer below, the opening reception for their spring show will be this Saturday, May 12, from 2 to 4 p.m. at 2204 Rhode Island Avenue NE.

If you're up for spending even more time in Woodridge, check out the transformation beginning on that stretch of Rhode Island Avenue by meeting up earlier (at 10 a.m.) at the corner of 20th Street NE and Rhode Island Avenue NE for the Friends of Rhode Island Avenue's monthly clean-up. It's a easy way to do some good and meet some fun people!

Call these lawbreakers, tell them to stop harming DC's trees

There are people who live in DC and businesses that operate here who don't care to follow DC law. Some of these individuals have a special disrespect for the trees in our neighborhoods. It's time we tell them, en masse, that we are sick and tired of this disrepect and lawlessness.

Below are a series of signs that I came across this morning on my ride into work. I'm passing this information along to the Department of Public Works as well, in hopes that they will throw the books at these creeps and fine them to the fullest extent possible under the law. Unfortunately, that might just be a couple hundred dollars.

In the meantime, I strongly encourage anyone reading this to call the numbers on these signs and give them a piece of your mind. Maybe, if we can shame these people enough (or at least clog up their voicemail boxes), we can get them to stop dumping their garbage on our city.

DC is a beautiful place. Let's keep it that way.

Juicy J is performing at Ibiza nightclub in NoMa this Friday. There's an opportunity to tell four different groups of people that they need to respect city law and not nail signs to our street trees.

• Juicy J's twitter handle is @therealjuicyj. Send him a tweet and tell him the promoter he's hired is a hack.
• His sign was produced by a company called Gig Signs. Their phone number is (609) 420-4242. Call them and tell them their signs don't belong nailed to our city's trees
• The club where the show is happening is Ibiza. Call them at (888) 424-9232 and tell them you don't appreciate their shows being promoted in a way that harms trees.
• There's a number on the signs for "Social Architects," which appears to be the promoter. Call them at (202) 905-3131, and give them a piece of your mind about nailing signs to trees.

Here's another one of Juicy J's signs. These were nailed to trees on the 800 block of K Street NE.

DC House Max appears to be one of those shady companies that buys houses from people in economic distress, then does a shoddy job and flips the house, leaving the new owner with a mess that'll start falling apart after 8 months. They also like to screw their signs to trees. I didn't have a Phillips head screwdriver with me this morning to remove this sign, but it's still located on the 1100 block of K Street NE.

Here's a close-up of that screw and washer. Call DC House Max at (202) 288-3200 and tell them that you're sick and tired of their ilk and what they do to our trees.

Finally, this sign was one of two that wasn't nailed to a tree, but was tied to lampposts on Florida Avenue NE at the entrance to Gallaudet University. It's not legal to put advertising signs on posts without registering them with the city and affixing a date to the signs noting when they were put up. The latter wasn't done, and I'd bet a princely sum that the former wasn't done either. I took them down and threw them out. But go ahead and call (202) 800-2728 and leave a message. Fill up their inbox so they can't actually do business.

Pretty signage at Florida Avenue's 24-hour Tire Service Center

There is a beautiful, classically-designed neon sign in front of Mac's Tire Service at 423 Florida Avenue NE. It's been there for a couple months, but I thought it deserved a little special attention.

Last summer, the Washington Post ran a great story on Mac's Tire Service, which touts itself as the only 24-hour tire service center in the metropolitan region. The story included a video and photo gallery with Dennis Parker, a mechanic at the shop.

Consider this a reminder that there are people worth knowing, respecting, and appreciating in the gritty parts of DC that the world doesn't pay attention to every day.

Traffic bollards at 2nd Street and Florida Avenue NE need help

When DDOT completed the reconstruction of the intersection of New York Avenue, Florida Avenue, 1st Street, O Street, and Eckington Place NE (known by some as "Dave Thomas Circle"), they included plastic bollards in the part of the Florida Avenue roadway immediately east of the intersection to control traffic coming out of the somewhat blind corner with 2nd Street NE. Unfortunately, those bollards need maintenance and replacement, and DDOT needs to step up to keep this intersection safe.

On August 22, 2011, I sent a 311 request (number 11-00259888) for bollard replacement. Many had been run over or were missing, and I frequently observed dangerous and illegal turns. The request wasn't resolved for over 3 months. On December 2, 2011, I received the short reply "NO WORK NEEDS TO BE PERFORMED. PER VICTOR N."

As of this morning, it appears that a vehicle ran over many of the remaining bollards. Debris is scattered all over the roadway and adjoining sidewalk. Bollards are either missing, snapped in half, or have been pushed off their moorings and are certain to fall under the wheels of passing vehicles sooner or later. Someone has taken the time to collect a few bollards and place them behind the guardrail that keep traffic away from the nearby rail overpass.

This intersection will likely be reconfigured when the Washington Gateway development on the north side of the block is completed, but it's doubtful that will happen in this calendar year. In the meantime, I hope DDOT will go out and make the simple repairs necessary to keep this intersection safe for those driving, cycling, and walking through it. They've certainly shown to be responsive about simple things, like updating road paint, that make a big difference, before.