Neighbors from 245 11th-with a suggestion about the voting. There
are a lot of name suggestions. We could have a winner with just a
few votes because every suggestions gets one or two votes and one
gets three votes. I would suggest either a rank order voting or a
two stage voting so that what ever name is chosen reflects
something closer to a majority agreement.
Linda
On 3/4/21 11:18 AM, kenicholls13 wrote:
toggle quoted message
Show quoted text
Jumping into this a bit late and I want to make
sure this dialog includes our 11th St neighbors since the alley
is bounded by both streets.
Johanna, I completely understand your sentiment to honor Mr
Bellinger in some way, but is the alley name the best way to
do it?? ?Is there something else that we can do to commemorate
him?? Maybe a plaque on a lampost, or even a naming of the
intersection of C and 10th???
The alley naming is a practical and important issue that
supports our new neighbors Haley and Corey and I'd like to
move forward with the proposed timeline that Haley shared.?
Kyle
218 10th St
Hi
All,
?
Thank
you for all the feedback today. Below is information
in response to the issues
or questions you raised.
?
Timeline
?
We
have adapted the
timeline based on the level of interest and response
we have been receiving. Here¡¯s a rundown of the
timeline, with changes noted.
?
Pre-February
16th: Informal
discussions with the neighbors we¡¯ve managed to run
into.
February
16th: Emails about the
¡°name our alley¡± initiative sent to the 200 block of
10th and 11th
St group email lists.
February
20th: Physical letters
to everyone abutting the alley (who had not responded
to emails) requesting
support, feedback, and name suggestions.
February
24th: Because no more
name suggestions were coming in, we sent out a
reminder email, explained how
voting would work, and set March 7th
as a deadline for names. (March 7th was selected based
on the feedback we
previously received from several neighbors.) In
response to today¡¯s concerns about the speed
of the initiative, we are extending the naming
deadline to March 31st
to give everyone more time to reflect while also
maintaining momentum. After
that, everyone will have another month to debate
amongst the names
before the final voting deadline. We trust that this
extension will give
sufficient breathing room; however, if anyone believes
this is still not enough
time, please suggest other concrete dates. The current
list of names is available
here:
March
31st: Name suggestion
deadline.
April
10th (tentative):
Ballots are released.
May
9th (tentative):
Voting submission deadline.
May
10th (tentative):
Voting result released.
May
16th (tentative):
Petition is released for signing.
?
There
is no real
deadline for the signing process. Once the required
number of signatures is
reached (a majority of homeowners), we will notify
everyone and move forward
with our ANC Steve Holtzman. The rest of the process
will probably take at
least a year (just a gut feeling). Details here:
?
Our
Address
?
For
those curious
about our address, here¡¯s the full run down.
?
If
you look up our
property address on the DC zoning map, we are
Square/Suffix/Lot
0969??? 0042. Our address listed by the city is 210
10TH ST SE
WASHINGTON DC 20003. However, this is obviously
incorrect ¨C that is the address
of Laura¡¯s house Square/Suffix/Lot 0969??? 0801. On
our deed, we
are both 210 REAR 10TH ST SE WASHINGTON DC
20003 and 210 10TH ST SE REAR
WASHINGTON DC 20003. However, the first is an invalid
address
because ¡°210 REAR¡± cannot be a house number and ¡°REAR
10TH ST SE¡± isn¡¯t a
street. We have confirmed this with the USPS multiple
times. Therefore, we must address ourselves as 210
10TH ST SE REAR
WASHINGTON DC 20003. This implies that we are an
apartment attached to 210 10TH
ST SE, and thus mail is always delivered to
Laura. Not to mention
we don¡¯t show up on GPS, so any delivery or visitor
always gets
lost. Pretty
confusing right?
?
As
for what we have
done to try to fix this problem ¨C on multiple
occasions we have visited the
USPS distribution center located at 45 L St SW,
Washington, DC 20024, which is
the post office in charge of sending out the mail for
our address. We¡¯ve tried
explaining the situation to them, but they insist that
the mail is technically being delivered properly. We
have also submitted official cases with the USPS to
try to
get something to happen from higher up, but they were
dismissed. We even tried
to manually add ourselves to Google Maps as a business
to at least show up somewhere,
but the app just continued to route to the main
street.
However,
this is
not the main point.?Our address may have been
the catalyst that began
this journey with the community, but it has grown into
so much more. We have
enjoyed learning about the history of the alley
through our conversations with
all of you. It has made us feel part of the community
even considering the
current circumstances. We want to make sure that the
alley¡¯s chosen name is
reflective of its past, present, and future.
Inclusivity
?
Our
goal has been
and still is to involve and include everyone who cares
about the alley. We did
not mean to exclude anyone who is not directly
abutting the alley. Anyone
who has reached out to us, abutting or not, can
absolutely offer name
suggestions and join in on discussions. However, per
D.C. Law, only the
abutting properties are supposed to sign the final
petition with the chosen name.
?
D.C.
Law ¡ì 9¨C204.21. Designation of official
names of streets and alleys. (f)?
¡shall
submit to the Council letters or a
petition in support of the proposal that have been
signed by a majority of the
owners of property and households occupying property
that abuts the portion of
the alley or street proposed to be designated
with an official name.
?
Nevertheless,
we
will reach out to our ANC representative to see
whether it would be helpful to
also include the signatures of those who do not abut
the alley but wish to
support the effort.
?
Respectfully,
Haley
and Corey
?
Following up on Johanna¡¯s thoughtful
comments about a name that captures what ¡®we wish it
might be¡¯ I can¡¯t help but think of the many times as
parents we scurried to get our ball-playing or
bike-riding kids out of the way of a car passing
through a bit too fast. I wonder if a name like
¡°Children¡¯s Alley¡¯ - or ¡®Playground Alley¡¯ - or
something to that effect - would promote the sense of
safety, decorum and community ownership we wish for. ?
Jim
?
I like the idea of naming the
alley, but am opposed to naming it after Mr
Bellinger by himself. He and his wife,
Frontis, had twelve children. She is the
reason Mr Bellinger had the time to be so
neighborly, because she was taking care of
the?kids. If we are honoring him, she should
be honored equally. Frontis died in 2014.
If it is simply named "Bellinger Court"
(or Way, or Lane, etc.) that gets around the
requirement that the person must have been
dead two years.?
Best regards,
Peter Mott
250 Tenth
Haley,
Your address is 210 Rear 10th Street
SE. You do have an address.?
There are many struggles for living
in the city and even more struggles
living in a historic district. As a
block resident of almost 39 years, I too
am not comfortable with the pressure to
push this through so fast. Also,
frankly, it felt a little weird to me
that you let me know my approval was not
a factor because I live across the
street. Maybe you did not mean to
disenfranchise me but that doesn¡¯t
change how it felt to me. All of us had
a hand in advocating for the historic
paving with the river stones, so I am
invested in your alley. I even sent you
pictures of your home before you lived
here.
Have you really exhausted all the
other avenues such as talking to our
mail delivery person? Or the post
office? I don¡¯t believe that naming the
alley will fix your delivery issues. We
live on 10th Street with one door and
have delivery issues. 38 + years of it.
I¡¯m glad Joanna and Tina spoke up
because I was feeling rushed and
panicked that a new resident would try
to force something down our throats.
Nobody¡¯s trying to oppose you but you
might want to slow it down a bit.?
We¡¯re all going to see the sign when
we walk through the alley and we all
should feel good about it.
Rosina Teri Memolo
She/her/hers
Plinked out on an iPhone
?
I appreciate the significant
time and attention that Haley
& Corey have already put
into the project and am very
sorry to hear about the troubles
associated with owning a house
located in a nameless alley. I
fully support the effort moving
forward without delay.
Lauren
242
On
Wed, Mar 3, 2021 at 12:29 PM
Michael David-Fox < md672@...>
wrote:
I was acquainted with Mr.
Bellinger, who tried to help
people on the block so much
in small but meaningful
ways, well enough to suspect
he himself would never want
all this work to go to waste
on his account. I support
the sentiment that now that
it has been started it
should not be delayed. As a
historian, I think the
historical name is the most
compelling but that of
course is to be determined.
Michael, 236
Hello
All,
?
Please
do not delay renaming
the
alley. To explain why,
we¡¯d like to share a bit
of backstory about how
this
initiative got started.
?
Last
June, my husband and I
purchased the 210-REAR
alley house ¨C our first
home together. In most
ways, it¡¯s
been a dream to live and
own in the heart of
Capitol Hill. However,
in one way,
it¡¯s been a nightmare.
Our house doesn¡¯t have a
real address. This has
meant
that NO ONE can find our
house. Not friends,
family, visitors,
delivery people¡
no one. Our kind
neighbor Laura from
house 210 10th St has
been bringing
over our mail every day.
And not just for our
tenure ¨C she¡¯s had to do
so since
2015 when the carriage
house was converted to a
home -- crazy!!
All of these
moments when we¡¯ve had
to carry large packages
from Laura¡¯s front door,
run
out to the street to
wave down a parent, and
stand out in the rain as
a
delivery man runs laps
around the square have
made it feel like we¡¯ve
purchased
an afterthought instead
of a home.
?
That¡¯s
why we started
researching
the steps on how to name
the alley. As we spoke
to the neighbors around
us, we
learned there had
already been many
thoughts and wonders
about why the alley
hadn¡¯t been named yet,
as well as strong
considerations for what
names should
be if it were ever to
get done. Neighbors were
also voicing concerns
about the
increased level of
traffic coming through
the alley, and one
person even attempted
to reach out to DDOT for
some traffic control
signs. However, they
were essentially
turned down because
we¡¯re just an unnamed
alley. To us, it sounded
like there was
already a lot of
thought put into naming
the alley as well as
real,
practical benefits for
the community.
Therefore, we decided to
take up the
mantle to move the idea
forward.
?
There
are two reasons why the
alley never got a name
prior to now.
?
Firstly,
because of law ¡ì
9¨C204.03. Alleys. (a) An
alley that does not
provide the primary
access to a
residential or
commercial property
shall not be designated
with an official
name.
This
law meant that the first
time
the alley had an
opportunity to be named
was in 2015 when Jim
Connor converted
the carriage house and
moved in. The other
alley house 211-REAR was
being used
primarily as an office
space and would not have
been considered a
primary
residence.
?
Secondly,
because of the level of
effort it takes. Someone
had to realize it could
be done and then be
willing to
go through the process.
Thus far, it¡¯s taken a
lot of time, energy, and
emotion
for us to put this
initiative together.
Even though our
interactions may seem
like
an email now and then,
we¡¯re also writing
letters in the
background; trying to
reach out to homeowners
that have been
non-respondent; thinking
of ways to give
everyone a voice; all of
which take many hours of
hemming and hawing to
ensure we¡¯re
doing the best we can.
In
regards to honoring the
memories of those
recently passed, we
believe that family
names are permissible.
We can make a case that
¡°Bellinger Court¡± or ¡°Au
Alley¡± honor many great
people
who lived on the block,
not just one. If the
recommendation was
¡°Watson Bellinger
Sr Court¡± then perhaps
there would be a
concern. Of course, we
will take these
concerns to our ANC to
see if we can get more
clarification.
?
This
is a community decision.
The
reason we will be
sending out a petition
is because a majority of
homeowners have
reached out to us and
pledged to support the
naming. However, if we
don¡¯t get
the signatures, then we
understand that more
time may be needed for a
decision.
We encourage more people
to voice their thoughts
on these email threads
so that
we can have those
discussions.
?
For
everyone on the block,
this a
very exciting and
meaningful moment in
history. But to us, it¡¯s
so much more.
It¡¯s our home. And we
are happy to be able to
organize this initiative
for the
block.
?
Sincerely,
Haley
& Corey
210-REAR
I
agree with Johanna
that we should take
a bit more time to
consider and
discuss.
Tina
at 248
Hi all,
I would
like to
suggest that
we delay the
renaming of
the alley
mainly
because, as I
understand
from another
group renaming
an alley
elsewhere, any
person that is
being honored
must be
deceased for
more than 2
years:
Section 3
of D.C. Law
13-106
provided:
"Pursuant to
section 403a
the Street and
Alley Closing
and
Acquisition
Procedures Act
of 1982,
effective
April 9, 1997
(D.C. Law
11-236; D.C.
Code ¡ì 7-453.1
) ("Act'), and
notwithstanding the requirement set forth in section 405 of the Act
(D.C. Code ¡ì
7-455 ), that
no public
space shall be
named in honor
of any person
who has been
deceased less
than 2 years,
the alley
running east
to west
between the
100 block of
10th Street,
N.E., and the
100 block of
11th Street,
N.E., shall be
designated as
'Al Arrighi
Way', in honor
of Mr. Al
Arrighi's
contributions
to the quality
of life of the
Capitol Hill
neighborhood
in the
District of
Columbia."
If this is
true, then we
couldn't
consider many
names
suggested,
including Mr.
Bellinger. It
would be great
to delay the
discussion in
order to
consider our
kind neighbor.
I talked a bit
about him in
regards to our
block's first
history day
(he's the one
that arrived
in 1961): ?
Also, some
people on the
block may
remember what
a wonderful
neighbor he
was, like when
he would
suddenly say,
"I love you."
In
addition, the
naming of the
alley might
have a more
meta-discussion
and more
collective
discussion,
like maybe
there is a
good reason
the alley
hasn't had a
name?? What is
erased or
obscured by an
alley name?
should the
name capture
the spirit of
the alley? Or
do we want to
capture what
we wish that
an alley might
be or document
what it has
been?? Joy?
Friendship?
Neighborliness?
Social
justice? Real
estate
development?
Economic
activities??
A delay
would allow us
to consider
Mr. Bellinger
and others..
Johanna
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