April 2007 |
 |
Police: back on the street…Allison: back in the game…The gym: back to square one
Police come out in force; Peace returns to Old Takoma
Dave Eisner looked out onto Carroll Avenue from his storefront window at the House of Musical Traditions on the morning of March 28. "I can see one right now as we speak. Yeah, it's parked out front. It's beautiful," Dave said into the phone.
Takoma Park police cars, in the new blue-gray and the old white, were everywhere in Old Takoma during the month of March. More unusual, police officers got out of their cars and walked with intent along the sidewalks and into stores and eateries.
 | | One drawback to greater police presence: more tickets for meter scofflaws. Above, Sgt. Daniel Frishkorn at work in Old Takoma. | On the morning of March 10 an officer bought an iced cappuccino at Mark's, surveyed the brunch crowd, inspected the back door and went off to other rounds of scrutiny. At noon on March 15 an officer held up a line of right-turning cars to give two men with a stroller safe passage in the crosswalk. At suppertime on March 22 the new police chief, Ronald Ricucci, ate his meal at Mark's and exchanged handshakes with the late-afternoon crowd.
At any moment, it seemed, a cop might show up one place or another in Old Takoma. "That's the point," the chief said.
After nearly a dozen armed robberies of stores and pedestrians that since December had made crime routine along Carroll Avenue, peace returned, even without any arrests. For the last three weeks of the month no criminals with guns were reported in Old Takoma.
Kathy Brooks, owner of American Craft, had been keeping her store doors locked during business hours so she could give all comers a once-over, but with "all these guys in uniform walking and talking" she felt reassured and resumed open-door protocol. "It's nice to see the officers pop into the store. In fact, one was just here," she said on the afternoon of March 29.
As soon as Chief Ricucci assumed command on February 20 he ordered his officers to make themselves a more visible presence in the town's main commercial district. He then stepped up the urgency the morning of March 8.
The previous evening, about 9 o'clock, as the chief was finishing an explanation of his "Criminals, back off!" strategy at the Carroll Avenue home of Jen Wofford and Dan Seligman, with their neighbors and Ward Three Council member Bruce Williams in attendance, a ski-masked mugger (black male, about 30, thin build, armed with dark hand gun) tried in two separate attempts to take money from pedestrians along Maple Avenue. Ten minutes later, less than two blocks from the chief's meeting, a second mugger (black male, heavy build, thick prescription glasses) jumped out of an old-model blue car and robbed a woman on Carroll Avenue of her cell phone.
Trying to prevent further embarrassments, a few officers have begun to use minor traffic violations as a means to check out people passing through Old Takoma. A few residents have complained about the hassling but just as many have praised it.
Chris Austin-Lane, husband of Ward One Council member Joy Austin-Lane, was stopped for a broken tail light while driving on Carroll Avenue. The officer noticed a large tree limb in the back seat that the Austin-Lane kids had collected. It was broken off just above a fork. "What's that? A catapult?" the officer asked, not knowing what to make of it.
"That part was kind of funny," Chris reported afterward. "But, to tell the truth, I was pleased to get the ticket. Many crimes are solved because of traffic stops."
At the House of Musical Traditions, one of the first stores robbed last December, Dave Eisner said that Old Takoma was back to normal, except for the cops on the street. "That's what was missing. Before, the message was: 'No cops around, go ahead and rip us off.' But even the stupidest crackhead isn't stupid enough to come here into this situation.
"Now will the chief keep the cops here on a permanent basis? Will this become part of their usual schedule? I'd say I'm optimistic. This new guy impresses me."
Ward Four Council member Terry Seamens, who butted heads with previous chiefs over the lack of foot patrols, reported he was optimistic, too. "I strongly believe this is not a flash in the pan, but a renewed level of service directly related to hiring a new chief."
Allison glad to sell water and glad to be alive
Informed that her Sunday afternoon chores would henceforth involve huckstering bottles of water and homemade snacks at a soccer field to raise money dollar-by-dollar on behalf of kids afflicted with the rare disorder neurofibromatosis 11-year-old Allison Kempe let out a monster squeal of delight.
 |  | | Allison Kempe is back scoring goals after undergoing life-saving brain surgery. |
"I think my ear drums are permanently damaged from her squeal, and I think her feet cleared the floor by 12 inches," says her mother Julia.
Far from being foisted on Allison the idea was hers. She is one of the kids with neurofibromatosis.
Although now playing soccer again in the Takoma league, in November Allison had to take a suspenseful trip to Boston Children's Hospital for six hours of experimental touch-and-go brain surgery to ward off a stroke,
A routine MRI had revealed a blockage in Allison's right middle cerebral artery. Deep in the brain the artery is beyond the range of surgeons. "We were told to watch for symptoms, weakness, slurred speech, a shadow in her vision, but, as a mom, I wasn't willing to wait for Allison to have a stroke," says Julia. "So I went on the Internet."
She found a series of blogs written by parents of children with Moya Moya disease, a condition similar to Allison's. "It was heartbreaking because so many had suffered severe damage and were just learning to talk again. But then a miracle happened, a miracle for Allison. Several parents were talking about a wonderful doctor in Boston who had pioneered a procedure called pial synangiosis which takes a vein from the scalp and attaches it to the surface of the brain to return blood flow to the entire area."
Well past midnight on a Saturday night Julia located the web site of Dr. R. Michael Scott and sent him an e-mail. The first thing Monday morning he replied. "He agreed there was a time bomb inside Allison's head, and he scheduled her for surgery in the first opening he had."
Throughout this crisis Julia and her husband Brian had told Allison only that there was "something funny" on her MRI film, but on an evening walk with the family dog Allison abruptly asked, "So what is wrong in my head?" After a couple moments of hesitation - the surgery was still eight days away - they told her the truth. "She took it like a true champ."
As she was wheeled into the surgical suite Allison said, without tears, "Bye, see you guys in a little while." The surgery itself was "the longest six hours of our lives," her mom says. "Finally, around noon, Dr. Scott came out and said it had gone well. I must've let out some kind of whoop because when we came out of the room people were looking strangely at us. But I was too happy to care."
Allison's 17-year-old sister Melissa, who also lives with neurofibromatosis, has undergone surgery to reconstruct chest bones. Bone deformities and tumors on the tips of nerves are common symptoms for kids such as Allison and Melissa, although the course of the disorder is uncertain.
"Allison is basically in good health right now but, of course, we have no idea what the future will bring," says Julia.
Children who grow up with neurofibromatosis are often counseled to hang out with each other, and the Camp New Friends, established by the Neurofibromatosis Inc. and the Children's National Medical Center, serves that purpose every summer.
"Allison decided she wanted to donate money so kids who can't afford to go to this camp could get a scholarship, the same way Takoma Soccer gives out scholarships. Plus she wanted to donate to the hospital that saved her life."
Takoma Soccer officials, typically reluctant to sanction fundraising at the weekend games, voted in March to make an exception in Allison's case.
The gym: Back to square one—Do we really want it?
Ever since a professional designer told the City Council last November that the cost of a high-end gym could be as much as $6-to-9 million the political momentum in favor of adding it to the community center has slackened almost to a standstill.
Several homeowners opposed to higher taxes have spoken out against the gym, some with vehemence, but other skepticism has come from unexpected quarters. A citizens' committee that had been advising the Council to move forward with the gym rejected the high-end option and recommended scaling it back or giving it up. Ward Three Council member Bruce Williams, a steadfast gym champion, called the cost unaffordable. All seven Council members conceded the City needs to raise more money beyond the current total of $1.5 million in grants and donations.
Mayor Kathy Porter and Ward Two Council member Colleen Clay traveled to Annapolis on March 10 to appeal for more state funds, but the City was subsequently told to wait until next year. he City got the same message from Montgomery County.
Although the citizens' committee has since gone on record in support of a lower-end gym, with an estimated cost of $4.7 million, the Council wants a wider measure of public opinion. City staffers are preparing a survey that may take the debate back to the basics.
The survey is intended to find out: Do a majority of residents believe it's worth spending City money on a gym, and, if so, how much?
A poetry reading, a political dance, and a book on the death penalty
If political poet Etan Thomas, whose real job is to grab rebounds for the Washington Wizards, comes through with a reading for local author Rick Stack, and if Rick's storytelling about the wrongness of the death penalty becomes a feature of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, it can all be traced back to an evening in May of 2005 at the Presbyterian Church on Tulip Avenue.
Rick, then on sabbatical from his communications professorship at American University to write a book, went to the church with his son Gabriel to hear prominent activists make the case for abolishing the death penalty.
He couldn't help but notice one of the speakers - "275 pounds of muscle and dreadlocks."
He leaned over to Gabriel, "Is that...?"
"Yeah, Dad, that's Etan Thomas!"
Later in the evening Shujaa Graham strode to the podium. Rick knew that Shujaa had coached in the Takoma Park baseball league, as Rick had done, but he didn't know that Shujaa, before winning exoneration, had spent several years in the 1970's on San Quentin's Death Row.
Over the course of completing his book, Rick became friends with Shujaa. Rick also tried to get an introduction to Etan Thomas, but the PR shield of the Wizards was impenetrable.
But then publication of the book, Dead Wrong: Violence, Vengeance, and the Victims of Capital Punishment, elevated Rick in the abolitionist community, and he found himself a few months ago on the same speakers' program as Etan at the National Conference to Abolish the Death Penalty. Rick broke the ice with the 275-pound Wizard by recalling the evening at the church. They signed each other's books, and Etan offered to schedule a reading of his poetry to help Rick sell more copies.
Rick and Shujaa, in the meantime, have begun working on a sort of literary choreography, based on a true story from Death Row, that they hope will be performed through the medium of dance. The world-class professionals at Liz Lerman, who do political dances, are interested.
A couple devoted to Peace Corps nominated for Lillian Carter award
Each year the Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter family gives an award to a Peace Corps veteran. To be eligible you must be at least 50 years old. The award is named for the late Carter matriarch, Lillian, who served in the Corps when she herself was up in years.
In March, Kathy and Jim Mueller, who moved into one of the high-rise condos on Maple Avenue a few years ago after three tours of duty in the Peace Corps, were jointly nominated for the award. "It came totally out of the blue," Jim says.
 | | Katy and Jim Mueller vist with a family in ha Safuli, Lesotho during their third term in the Peace Corps. |
They met during their first tour in the middle 1960's when they were young volunteers in Bhubaneshwar, Orissa.
Marriage and careers in social work followed, but they promised each other they would someday go back to the Corps. In 1997, upon retiring from government jobs in California, they immediately signed up and were dispatched to Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Jim taught carpentry and math; Kathy taught business development.
After a brief period stateside with Habitat for Humanity, in Charles County, the couple volunteered again. In 2002 they were accepted for Lesotho. Kathy worked at a vocational school; Jim instructed a CARE staff in the modern ways of computers.
Arriving in Takoma Park, Jim's dual skills in the classroom and with computers gained the interest of Phil Shapiro, the City library's irrepressible geek. Phil latched onto to him as a volunteer in the computer lab at the community center. Older residents who are uncertain or fully unfamiliar with computers get assigned to Jim. "I'm teaching them the fundamentals, and I'm also trying to inspire them to keep at it after they leave," he says.
At the same time, the work Jim and Kathy had done for the Corps was gaining the attention of the panel that selects the Lillian Carter nominees. "We don't know how it happened, but we're thrilled." They are invited to the annual ceremony in Atlanta on May 16. Jimmy Carter, who is 82 years old, will present the award.
Comings & Goings
- Columbia Union College, trying to dig out of a $7 million debt, is losing President Randal Wisbey and Vice President for Academic Administration Robert Young to other Adventist colleges. Mr. Wisbey's successor will have to decide whether to pursue his solution for the debt - recruiting more students, especially those who want to study politics and law on a campus five Metro stops from Capitol Hill - or consider again ideas he rejected, such as selling all or part of the college to its sister institution, Washington Adventist Hospital.
- After operating precariously without a lease the past few months the haircutters at Shampoo are assured of staying put in their familiar location at 7009 Carroll Avenue. A new long-term deal was worked out in March with John Urciolo, who recently bought the building. Customers of Shampoo, a fixture in Old Takoma the past 25 years, are keen on the place as much for the small-town chatter as for the perms and cuts.
- There will be a second take of the outdoor scene of people seated on benches tapping on their laptops that is envisioned for Old Takoma. Equipment installed last year at the Middle Eastern Cuisine to turn the area into a wireless haven was removed in March because it was interfering with the Internet connections at nearby shops. Next will be an attempt to see if the equipment can work at Summer Delights across the street.
No comments have been posted to this article.
Want to post a comment to this article? Click here.
|
