February, 2006
Smashing the ceiling to pieces
Photos: Julie Wiatt
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Daryl Braithwaite |
Daryl Braithwaite was promoted in January to run the public works department. This completed a full changeover of our city government. For the first time, women hold every important position – mayor, city manager, police chief, head librarian, recreation director, housing director and public works director.
A woman serves as our business-day emissary to other governments. A woman is in charge of our cable TV station and the city website. A woman is our liaison to Old Takoma’s merchants and their Main Street program, whose leaders are women.
A woman greets visitors at the municipal complex. A woman sets up appointments to see the bosses.
Daryl, a city employee who is also a town resident and therefore rare, started at public works as recycling coordinator in 1989 and worked her way up. The former director, Al Lott, departed for a city manager’s job in Georgia.
How do you say "Community"?
A banner of 44 thick hand-cut cloth flags on which Jane Hurst printed with a black marking pen the word “community” in Amharic (“Mahber-seb”), Cherokee (“Tsidanalu”), Vietnamese (“Cˆng Doˆn”), Lithuanian (“Bendruomen”) and 40 other languages was an immediate hit at the ceremonial opening of the community center in December. Jane knew European languages, and she knew sign language. She is a Gallaudet professor when she is not writing and singing folk songs (“Now or Never” is her CD). Other translations came from books or friends. A few more arrived by e-mail from people who didn’t know her but had gotten wind of her idea.
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For the occasion Jane sewed her arrangement of separate, brightly colored cloths to a clothesline, and she and her husband Joe Murphy strung the line along a railing above the front entrance. The gaiety of the colors was deliberate. The community center, seven years in the making, has set off discord she wished to exorcise. She hoped “people would see the flags flying in the breeze and catch a good spirit.” After several weeks Jane took down the flags to wash and iron them. They are likely to go on display again, this time indoors in the atrium.
A museum for Takoma Park?
Last September, the present and past presidents of Historic Takoma, Sabrina Baron and Lorraine Pearsall, asked several friends to help find a home for the historical-preservationist society. It stood to reason that, of those who took on the hunt, the bearded, sporty Hank Prensky would be the one to lead it. He is keen for a challenge and has the verve for his chosen way of life, handling real estate exchanges.
Still, Hank would welcome a bit of serendipity. The building must be big and modern enough to accommodate a well-lit museum, dehumidified archival space and internet-linked offices. The price must be as old-fashioned as possible. Historic Takoma has $50,000 in the bank, a $50,000 grant from the state, and a six-figure grant is hoped for in the current legislative session, but the society’s regular income, from annual dues and from a house and garden tour the first Sunday every May, is not lofty. The smaller the mortgage the better.
After several false leads – a condo near Maple & Carroll on which someone else took dibs, the out-of-town Davis Warner Inn, the unfinished carriage house on Tulip Ave., and a boarded-up mechanic’s shop attractive mainly to the wayward men who crawl through holes for a night out of the wind – Hank and his fellow property-chasers have their attention on a storefront at Takoma Junction. They are talking to the owner. Fingers are crossed.
Food Market on Hold
In January the plan to locate a Harris Teeter grocery on the vacant lot behind the CVS was pulled from official consideration.
Harris Teeter sells sushi, lean cuts, various other special eats and its own brand of “natural foods.” The company has a reputation for small-town philanthropy. It is possible to imagine the store, on the District side of the line, as a fancier, franchised version of the Food Co-op at Takoma Junction.
However, the inventory for the Harris Teeter store would arrive on semi-trailers, a chugalug of smoke-stacked hulks. The noise and aggravation would be much bigger than from the square-box trucks that now pull up to the Co-op, Mark’s Kitchen and Savory. And what about prospects for the Co-op in a duel over customers?
For the next several months any controversy is muted. The plan is no longer proceeding. The developers have withdrawn it and will reveal it in revised form later this year.
Scholar, Coach, Politician
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At the Times, Post, PBS and NPR Jamie Raskin is a go-to guy for the perilous times of the Bill of Rights. In Takoma Park he is a husband-dad, a soccer coach and a legal brain, with guts, for such causes as school censorship and the unlawful evicting of tenants. As of January, he is also a Democratic candidate for the State Senate seat held by Ida Ruben. |
Sarah and Jamin Raskin |
The atmosphere for Jamie’s kickoff – mid-morning, mid-week, on his front porch and lawn on Holly Ave., with homemade cookies – was less political gala and more neighborhood party. Nonetheless he drew several members of the gang that pulled off Chris Van Hollen’s surprise victory over Mark Shriver in the 2002 congressional primary, notably campaign chair Marlana Valdez and the legendary Dorothy Davidson, as well as Blair Ewing, a 20-year veteran of the school board and County Council.
Jamie’s speech was a rouser imbued with the ideals of the reform wing of the Democratic Party. He mentioned Ida only to give her credit for past deeds. You can read Jamie Raskin's speech from the event here.
Ins & Outs
Seth Grimes took a couple weeks off, tired from walking much of the town for his spirited but unsuccessful mayor’s campaign last fall. Now, ready to be active again, he is sticking closer to home as the new president of his neighborhood association, encompassing Willow, Maple, Tulip and adjacent streets. He replaces Wolfgang Mergner. The usually cheerful Franca Brilliant, employed in the usually cheerless job of fundraiser (for New American Dream, the Takoma group with a global agenda — live simpler, be happier), was voted onto the board of the Takoma Foundation in December. Franca is married to Seth.
The Democrats who cast ballots at Takoma Park Middle have lost their precinct captain, Buddy Daniels. For Buddy to quit his convivial, long-running, old-style role as the most familiar presence outside the polls seemed unthinkable, but “it was time.” John Conger, a Hill staffer, is the new captain.
Bruce Sidwell was elected president of Friends of Sligo Creek in January, taking over for Jim Baird, the Audubon Society guy who made a popular spring ritual out of a creek cleanup.
What future for Hospital grounds?
A debate has begun over what becomes of the 13 acres on either side of Flower Ave., corner of Carroll Ave., if Washington Adventist Hospital follows through on intentions to vacate the site. Erwin Mack, an Adventist church elder and Mr. Takoma-Langley Crossroads, would like the church to acquire control, perhaps to operate a smaller medical facility or a new elementary school, merging John Nevins Andrews and Sligo Elementary. Jere Stocks, the hospital president, says neutrally that his board would like an outcome “friendly to Takoma Park” but also would like “market value” for the land. Although both the church and hospital are entities of the Adventist denomination that settled here in the early 1900’s, they are not connected financially.
Other Moves
VFW Post 350’s smoky-bar headquarters in Pinecrest is up for sale as part of Post 350’s departure to a larger property in Prince George’s County. Takoma Lettershop on Carroll Ave., in C. P. Cook’s family for multiple generations but not, for several years, in business, is expected to go on sale in spring.
A Catholic Vo-Tech School. Our Lady of Sorrows Elementary on Larch Ave. will close this spring and be replaced, after a year of retrofitting, by a Catholic high school. The 137 younger students will have the option of transferring to other Catholic schools, but may end up in public schools. Having to pay tuition was killing the enthusiasm of their parents, many struggling to balance accounts. The older students, anticipated to number 120 in the first freshmen class, will be able to work their way through high school. The new school will use the jobs-&-studies curriculum of the Cristo Rey Network.
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