ANC 2F Wrap-Up

Of course, I attended the ANC 2F meeting on Wednesday. Here are some of the more interesting items to come up:

• Chairman Charles Reed received a letter from MPD Chief Ramsey officially notifying the AND of the installation and use of closed-circuit cameras placed in portions of 2F. The cameras are for monitoring of large protests and ralleys, presumably for the sections of our ANC that stretch all the way down to the Mall. The possibility of cameras in high-crime areas is interesting, especially given the major work done on this in Chicago, but the civil libertarian in me cringes at the thought. This is sure to be a major issue in the coming years.
  
• There is a new Executive Director. The dervish Chris Kohatsu stepped down after the last meeting, and has been replaced by Renan Snowden, which I probably spelled wrong. Hopefully the ANC's ED page will be udpated soon so I can correct the spelling.
• Lt. Smith reported some arrests made in the area, one of which is at trial. A resident asked about the drug house problem on 9th Street, to which Lt. Smith suggested sending email to Cmdr. McCoy in order to raise the priority of the issue. He also stressed the importance of leaving your name and callback number when dialing 911 or 311. Since information sometimes gets garbled and lost when moving from dispatchers to the officers, it can be extremely helpful if the reporting citizen is available to provide more information to the responding officers. If the operators don't ask you for your information, give it to them anyway!
  
• The ANC's Crime & Public Saftey Committee has posted all of the correspondance and work done so far on their new web page. Michael Sheaffer has been doing a bang-up job as the chairman of the committee, including working with MPD to roust the drunks from the bus stop at 11th and M, as well as cataloging and requesting city service for various broken-window-type items throughout the neighborhood.
• The ANC adopted a resolution supporting most of the parking modifications proposed by DDOT, including some aimed directly at the church parking issue. The net result is to add some 77 new unrestricted parking spaces around the area, as well as 78 spaces restricted only to 8:00 - 15:00 on Sundays.
  

The next ANC 2F meeting is scheduled for April 5th.