Local TV Coverage of the Ivy City Bus Depot Lawsuit

By Liane Scott, on November 28th, 2012

The following is the latest television news coverage from the District’s local networks regarding the Bennett Vaughn vs Union Station Redevelopment Corporation lawsuit.

One of the District’s poorest neighborhoods is fighting City Hall’s proposal to the ground around historic Crummell School into a tour bus parking lot.

Judge Judith Macaluso came to see Ivy City with her own eyes. It’s one of the District’s poorest neighborhoods fighting City Hall’s turning the ground around historic Crummell School into a tour bus parking lot.

“They always did what they wanted to do to Ivy City and I hope they put a stop to it,” says Brenda Ingram-Best. The city already parks hundreds of school buses here, plus other city vehicles. Residents complain they’ll now have fumes from tour buses. “I have siblings who have respiratory problems,” says Stephen Scarborough. “I’m totally against the idea.” “My daughter is asthmatic. Literally yesterday she had dark circles under her eyes,” says Peta Gay Lewis.

Judge Macaluso would not answer questions. “It’s not a press conference,” she says. “This is just a viewing so I can understand the content in the courtroom.”

Activists have taken up the cause. “They went ahead and started construction,” says Parisa Norouzi. What if the city loses in court? “Let’s see what happens,” says Mayor Gray. “It’s pending at this stage. I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to comment on it until this has been settled.”

Judge Macaluso will hear the case again in her courtroom Thursday.

 

A DC Superior Court judge left the bench to take a tour of Ivy City as residents near the historic Crummell School are fighting the bus depot lot being built.

A D.C. Superior Court judge visited the northeast D.C. neighborhood where residents are fighting the building of a bus depot near the an historic school.

The Alexander Crummell School near Okie and Kendall streets, built in 1911 and abandoned in 1980, is on the register of historic places, but its expansive yard off New York Avenue is being paved over for the District to use as a tour bus parking lot beginning in March.

Neighbors — some who went to the school — want a job center and community place for the mostly poor and struggling Ivy City neighborhood. They’ve gone to court to block the parking project.

“We were to get the building ready for the neighborhood,” said 82-year-old Remetter Freeman, who graduated from the school in 1941 and helped get it on the historic register. “We wanted to put in job training, lots of things. For the kids, a library.”

“There’s a lot of people around here that are sick and have respiratory problems,” former student Jeannette Carter said. “Then there’re the little kids. They don’t have nowhere to play but in the street. And when I was going to school, we used to have fun right there in the evenings and stuff, all kinds of programs and things we had to do.”

D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith Macaluso took a walking tour of the area to see what neighbors are complaining about. The suit in part alleges the city failed to follow city laws and the heavy bus exhaust is unsafe.

“The city government hasn’t done anything by way of surveys, assessing the problem in the community,” lawyer Johnny Barnes said. “People have lived here forever, and they’ve just been dumping on them because they’re low income and they haven’t voted in the past.”

Neighbors and activists say there’s already too much industrial use in a neighborhood where about 1,200 people struggle to live every day.

 

DC Judge Oversees Temporary Bus Depot Lawsuit Visits Ivy City

WASHINGTON -A D.C. Superior Court judge left her courtroom on Monday to get a good look at an issue that has many D.C. residents upset.

Judge Judith Macaluso toured the Ivy City section of Northeast D.C. It involves a case concerning a temporary bus depot that is being built in Ivy City. Members of the community have filed a lawsuit asking Judge Macaluso put a stop to it.

Residents believe the pollution created by the buses parked in the bus lot will cause health problems for those living nearby.

The temporary lot will store as many as 65 buses, which are typically used to travel the New York-D.C. route. The lot will be used until bus storage is created once Union Station undergoes a multi-billion dollar renovation.

When the temporary lot is . . . → Read More: Local TV Coverage of the Ivy City Bus Depot Lawsuit

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Resolution Honoring the Life of Brian Anders

By Liane Scott, on October 2nd, 2012

On behalf of the many friends and colleagues of longtime DC homeless advocate Brian Anders, who passed away on August 28, 2012, Empower DC Co-Founder Parisa Norouzi requested that the city council pass a resolution honoring Brian’s life. Unlike so many other requests made by members of the progressive community, the council agreed. The resolution is being sponsored by Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham and was on the Consent Agenda of the council’s first legislative session (Wednesday September 19, 2012). Unfortunately, we still don’t know when it will be presented or when (or even if) community members will be permitted to speak about Brian in memoriam.

Interview of Brian Anders by Pete Tucker on the Closing of La Casa Shelter. [haiku url=”http://www.grassrootsmediaproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Brian_Anders_2010-10-04.mp3″ title=”Brian_Anders_2010-10-04″]

As a reminder why this resolution is so appropriate, I’ve cross-postied an an audio podcast of an interview of Brian Anders discussing the closing of La Casa Shelter produced by Pete Tucker for his website The Fight Back. Following that is an article about Brian by David Zirin, that was originally published in The Nation. Perhaps after reading the article and listening to the audio you’ll find the time to call or email your councilmember and remind them to put Brian’s resolution prominently on the council’s agenda. Click here for a link to the names and addresses of DC’s City Council. Also, mark your calendar for a celebration of Brian’s life, October 13, starting at 6:30PM at the Potter’s House. More on that later.

The Last Wish of Brian Anders Dave Zirin on September 4, 2012 – 10:23 AM ET

We are all taught from birth that the world is shaped exclusively by the wealthy and powerful. The brave souls, who put their bodies on the line and organize people to pressure the powerful, are erased from the historical record. Last week, we lost one of those brave souls, and he deserves to be remembered. A man died in Washington, DC, who did more to affect change than any of the empty suits that scurry about on Capitol Hill. His name was Brian Anders, and although he’d reject this description, he was very special.

Dynamic, charismatic and razor sharp, Brian could have done anything with his life but was compelled to be a fighter for social justice on the streets of DC for nearly thirty years. The bulk of his work was focused on fighting for the rights of the homeless and affordable housing by any means necessary. If there was a protest, a speakout, or an occupation, Brian Anders was there. Brian was also an African-American Vietnam War veteran who wrestled with his own PTSD for decades and always, particularly since 9/11, made every effort to connect imperial wars abroad with the war on the poor at home. He saw the connections and put his passion, his pain and his personal history at the service of getting others to see that connective tissue as well.

Brian always reminded me of Julian Bond’s line about Muhammad Ali: “He made dissent visible, audible, attractive and fearless.”

Brian Anders worked with everyone but was associated most closely with two remarkable institutions. In the 1980s, he was at the heart of organizing at the homeless shelter CCNV (the Center for Creative Non-Violence) and over the last decade sat on the board of the social justice organization Empower DC. Both entities, due in no small part to Brian, have distinguished themselves by the fact that they don’t fight on behalf of people but organize affected communities to fight for themselves.

As his friend Kirby ably described in her remembrance of Brian, CCNV became in the 1980s “a vibrant community of anti-war and social justice activists, who succeeded, through direct action, in forcing the federal government to hand over the massive building at 2nd and D St. NW, so that CCNV could turn it into a shelter and community center for people without housing.”

CCNV’s activism was at the heart of the passage of the 1987 McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, one of the precious few federal actions that has actually aided the homeless. He showed all the professional politicians what real politics could look like when removed from the lobbyists and big-money donors, and reclaimed by the people.

But Brian’s most lasting contribution was how he affected those closest to him.

Fellow Empower DC board member Farah Fosse said at a service/rally for Brian after his death, “He spoke truth to power, motivated people, worked tirelessly for justice, provided direct services . . . → Read More: Resolution Honoring the Life of Brian Anders

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