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Anyone who came to East Capitol St on Halloween Eve, please give quick feedback on how the lights,street closures worked

 

fyi

----- Forwarded Message -----

From: Holtzman, Steve (SMD 6B05) <6b05@...>
To: Holtzman, Steve (SMD 6B05) <6b05@...>
Sent: Sunday, November 3, 2019, 12:23:06 AM EDT
Subject: Anyone who came to East Capitol St on Halloween Eve, please give quick feedback on how the lights,street closures worked

Hi All,

? Anyone who walked around 8th,9th and 10th & East Capitol St on Halloween....it would be really valuable to get your feedback while it's still fresh in your minds.?

? The city added 4 elements to the experience and it would be good to know whether they were helpful or not and whether we should push for them next year or change them in any way.

  1. Light towers at 9th and 10th St intersections
  2. Traffic control officers at intersections of 9th and 10th
  3. Extra police
  4. Closing of the 800,900 and 1000 blocks of East Capitol while keeping the north-south vehicular traffic open and moving along the cross streets.
Note, this last element, #4, was a proposal that we gave to DC homeland security as a less disruptive alternative suggestion to just closing all the blocks completely. Truth is, as I mentioned in a previous email, they said "No". However, they also said that the Police would have the authority to close blocks on site if they felt there was a public safety situation. I was surprised to see that the blocks were closed after all.

What happened is that a special events unit of the police was assigned to East Capitol for the evening. The officer in charge, shortly after his unit's arrival on the street, decided on his own judgment that closing the blocks was necessary. So, he did so.

So, what are thoughts about whether these elements worked or not? Any comments would be appreciated and will help us in reviewing what can/should be done next year.

Oh, and one piece of potentially good news for many. You may have noticed that the parked cars remained in place. I was there and had a conversation with the officer in charge. He said that, in this kind of situation, the presence of the parked cars was not a problem and he didn't think that moving them was a necessity. We'll bring this back to Mayor's Special Events Task Force and its members, who told us that they had a non-negotiable rule on moving all the cars, and see what they say.

best,

?Steve

Steve Holtzman, 6B05

ps As residents of East Capitol are well aware, the light towers on thursday had a bit of an issue. They were supposed to be turned off (with their noisy generators) at 10pm. They stayed on quite a bit longer. Last I heard was 1 am. I reached out to DDOT around 11 and at midnight but couldn't get anyone around. The next morning, the DDOT official in charge of the towers apologized and explained that his crews were pulled off suddenly to deal with weather related issues that night. It would have been ideal if they had just clicked a couple of "OFF" switches before they left. I pointed that out to them. Sorry for the inconvenience. Hopefully, if the light towers come back next year, everyone involved will keep all this in mind and make sure it doesn't happen again.

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