April 2008 Archives

Coincidentally, only a week earlier the city's Emergency Preparedness Committee presented a report to the city. It is a good thing that the tornado did not tear up more of Takoma Park, because it is not ready for a large-scale disaster, according to the committee. They are still discussing how to communicate with residents if there should be one. Among the possible means are siren signals (though they city would have to buy new sirens, having sold the one the fire department had), and emergency radio receivers. The receivers are inexpensive, they said, and are standard household equipment in places such as Florida where hurricanes or tornadoes are frequent occurrences.

The crucial question (posed by councilmember Doug Barry) is, does this threaten the safety or well-being of any Takoma Park resident?

Er, . . . . no. came the answer (in essence) from Chief Ronald Ricucci

So, what’s the big deal about the TP Police Department losing its accreditation?

It was Topic Number One at the April 7 City Council meeting, The mayor brought it, and the chief, up first thing during the Council Comment segment. The chief told a long story about it. The short version is that due to the transition between chiefs, the transition between employees whose job it is to track accreditation issues, the addition of criteria by the accreditation agency, and the TPPD’s discovery of those additional criteria too late to fully meet them, they decided to opt out of accreditation this year.

Rummage through those giant brains of yours and pull out some brilliant ideas! A resident posed a problem to the city council at its March 24th meeting. A stay-at-home mom, she would like to drop by her friends' houses or Jequie Park* and NOT get a ticket for parking in a permit-only zone. These zones are primarily to keep out commuter parkers, she said, so wouldn't it make sense to allow city residents from other neighborhoods to park there for 2-3 hours?

She was following up on a letter to the council. In her letter she made a couple of suggestions: 1) the city make parking stickers available to city residents, and 2) that drivers leave an indicator on their dashboard showing what time they parked so that police could allow a 2-3 hour parking period.